Book 2 – Text Updates 052

[Swodaems]

Once one of our gaming buddies rolled a natural 20 on his tumble check landing on a sloop that was attacking our frigate. The DM spent five minutes concocting a story about how epic the roll was, adding several Ghouls to the enemy party solely for the purpose of killing them in the mini narrative. It involved him firing a musket and two pistols into the crowd of ghouls before pulling a Jillian-vs.-Jenkins landing.

So I totally agree: mechanics-wise, it doesn't matter what blocks the shot, that's just narration. Falling rock or helmet or arrow, it's just a representation of rolling a miss. And everyone's overstating that last one - the arrows were more or less next to Artemis when they collided. She had barely released hers when the arrows broke each other. All things considered still highly improbable, but not the next-to-nothing middle-of-nowhere collision that it might seem like otherwise.


EDIT: also, is there any other reason to add emphasis?

I was in a game once where i threw a boomerang and missed, immediately afterward taking a sword blow that did a lot of damage and knocked me down. My opponent's arm came up to finish me and-- the GM rolled a 2. The GM said he didn't know how but the easy kill missed. I said maybe the boomerang had come back around and knocked the sword out of line. The GM said ok, we'll go with that.

The problem with all the speculation about Artemis/Sylvia getting a string of 1s or 20s is that up to this point is that up to this point, Erfworld has not been a gaming comic where characters run into situations faced by the typical gaming group. It has been a story set in a world with game-like physics where the problems characters face are caused by the world around them. Thus far, sheer luck has had less to do with the story than tactics or plot development. (Someone is bound to think of Jillian finding the Dwagons as an invalid counter example of luck factoring in. I call it invalid because the dwagons involved were actually very poorly placed for stealth. As I saw it, Parson decided to place them over the lake for defense, but either forgot to use his omnimap to check what could still hit them* or over relied on Wanda's suggestion spell as a means to prevent the enemy fliers from attacking.) (*I play turn based strategy games either on my computer, my DS, or my console, so I'm used to having my maps having an option to overlay the next turn range of selected enemy units.)

In short, my problem with the sheer luck explanation of Artemis' misses is the fact that it doesn't seem to fit the narrative that we have to this point. I think we're far more likely to get evidence of the interference of some party in those shots than we are to be left with the simple explanation of luck.

Also, since when does Erfworld work with an RNG as un precise as a 20 sided dice?

[Kreistor]

However, the discussion is getting bogged down on technicalities of whether parrying is possible or not, and not what purpose this would have served (or not) for the story.

How does it affect the story? That's fairly simple, obvious, and boring. The siege effort to bring down the tower is slowed, but not halted. This buys more time for Slately to snuff more Archons and promote Tremmenis. But all of this operates under writer fiat. If he wants Slately to achieve his goal, he didn't need to write this section, only declare that X number of dwagons survived their falls and the Atrium battle. He is only defining what he had previously left arbitrary.

Rob uses these text updates to explain the battle system to us. There is nothing wrong with trying to puzzle out the more obscure effects.

For instance, you seem to be looking for a higher purpose to explain these failures. The simple fact is that we don't know how the Bonus mechanic manifests itself.

Someone has pointed out the bonuses Sylvia had, and the few that Artemis had. While 2 levels lower, Sylvia had part of Wanda's bonus, full stack, and Arkentool at the very least. Artemis had only her own stack, Sylvia should have been more powerful.

We have three attacks to consider:
1) arrow deflected by rock.

I called this Deus Ex Machina, and I stand by it in normal novels, but this is a story about a game world. When someone misses, Gm's sometimes describe the event. Is Erfworld merely explaining a rolled miss by intercepting the shot wiht a rock> If so, then does the system include a debris mechanic, such as Concealment in the D&D 3.0/3.5 SRD? A straight up miss chance when the target is obscured r someting is randomly in the way?

2) arrow intercepted by arrow.

Again, this could be two misses simply explained by the world as interception. Or Captain Archer may have been intentionally shooting at the arrow and rolled exceptionally.

3) arrow intercepted by helm

In this case, we have a significant event that precedes the interception: Sylvia intentionally blasts the corpse and ground in front of her. This implies that Sylvia is aware that this can save her life, otherwise she would attempt a different method of defense. This is the best evidence that flying debris is a known mechanic that can intercept projectiles.

Is there a higher purpose for Sylvia? Given that Rob stated she was kept alive only because of fan speculation and interest, that suggests that she does not have a critical role in Book 2. She may be given a more critical role, but I don't foresee this. She is a fan favorite, and that will give her Deus Ex Machina armor to a certain extent. She does, however, serve to provide a secondary story.

One thing that was learned from Star Trek: TNG was that the two-story model worked extremely well. Where most shows to that point concentrated on a single story in a single episode, ST:TNG intentionally used the Primary story + back-up story model. This helped with character development in a series with too many protagonists (which is why Denise Crosby left the show and was not replaced). All characters participated in the primary story, but one side story was included for character development to keep the actors happy. And the fans responded positive,ly, because even if the Main Story was not received well, the side story might be and the fans retained. TNG did experiment with three and four story models, but those gave too little attention to each and wound up not being an improvement on the two-story standard.

[Aside: while ST:TNG gets the credit for this, I personally claim another show did this first -- Scooby-Doo. Fred, Daphne, and Thelma split up and follow the main plot (clues) while Scooby and Shaggy go off on a second story for humour and shenanigans.One or the other gets into trouble, and the tension is maintained while the other group is addressed.]

Sylvia fills the job of the secondary story. While some of Rob's text updates have been thoroughly boring (anything involving Stanley for instance), the obvious interest in Sylvia's encounters with death demonstrates a potentially new direction for text updates. Where once we had only Sylvia, now we have Fud, Captain Archer, and Artemis (soon) that can all be followed and their characters developed.

[BLANDCorporatio]

This much is obvious and indisputable. The real question is, is there a parry arrow mechanic?

In my case, no, the real question is "what does it mean {that random debris seems to be conveniently placed}?".

How does it affect the story? That's fairly simple, obvious, and boring. The siege effort to bring down the tower is slowed, but not halted. This buys more time for Slately to snuff more Archons and promote Tremmenis. But all of this operates under writer fiat.

We're not talking about the same thing here, I think. "How it affects (our reaction to) the story" is framed in the "emphasize the Titanic good luck GK seems to be enjoying" way of seeing things.

For instance, you seem to be looking for a higher purpose to explain these failures. The simple fact is that we don't know how the Bonus mechanic manifests itself.

Indeed I look for a purpose here, but not for the bonus mechanic. Because I care about one, and stopped caring about the other ages ago, sometime after KW showed up. To explain, Erfworld is not a game system for which we have a complete, known set of rules. And eventually I understood why this is helping the story to get written, therefore stopped caring that much about bonus mechanics and the like.

The higher purpose I do look for is simply an explanation for a string of unlikely events. With the understanding that strings of unlikely events sometimes happen, but when they do, it becomes reasonable to ask whether something else is happening.

Is there a higher purpose for Sylvia?

Probably NOT. In some earlier post I conjectured that this string of good luck will eventually be explained, and that Sylvia's run of good fortune will turn out to be a mere side-effect of some other phenomenon helping the main characters. Instead of helping out my imaginative fail on what that phenomenon could be though, most others would rather speculate on bonus systems and mechanics.

However, I find your analysis on several layers of story in various shows interesting. Though I suppose there is a difference between overarching character development in TNG (what you might call an arc) and the shenanigans pulled by Scooby Doo and Shaggy. Or maybe I'm misreading you; TNG did have arcs, but you're referring to moments in the spotlight for tertiary characters like Barclay or whatever his name was.

Still, I'm a bit skeptical about TNG inventing the concept of either (myth-)arc, as I am about Scooby Doo inventing the secondary story. Surely older shows on TV would have had those?

[multilis]

We just had Jojo and Parson discussing fate, this luck may be a direct reply or foil to that discussion.

Perhaps also tied to end of book 1 where Parson said he was going to cheat his gamers conventional tactics till they found a creative way to win the game.

Fate here may be showing off.

One crazy option is fate is like some sort of god/religion where it fights to help its believers, and shows off to boost its followers like Wanda and Silvia. Jojo is working for the enemy god, the predictomancer as relying on fate for predictions to come true would be a high priest of fate. (The titans/gods may not all be on same side)

[BLANDCorporatio]

Well, I always expected Charlie to be the Final Boss.

What if it turns out "Fate" is, and at the end Parson and Charlie need to shake hands and wage war on some gigantic creature eerily reminiscent of a famous webcomic writer?

[Kreistor]

In my case, no, the real question is "what does it mean {that random debris seems to be conveniently placed}?".

You could go back all the way to the first comics in book 1 and ask, "Why did one Side get an extra gem?"

We're not talking about the same thing here, I think. "How it affects (our reaction to) the story" is framed in the "emphasize the Titanic good luck GK seems to be enjoying" way of seeing things.

What good luck? The only "good luck" GK has ever had is Parson. GK would have been destroyed if not for Parson. All the forces in Jetstone would have been destroyed except for Parson. You're focusing entirely on a few small events, and ignoring the bigger picture that GK has the worst luck of any Side in the Big Picture scale.

And GK didn't get that "good luck" by accident: for some reason, some conspiracy chose Stanley and gave Parson to him. Again, it wasn't luck, but design of the inhabitants of Erfworld that saved Stanley.

Parson has stated clearly that Bonuses are the most important factor in the game. Stacking bonus on bonus wins, but not everyone seems to have learned that. Transylvito calls stacking Leadership bonuses on cheap units the "Transylvito Way", which suggests it's unique to them, or at least uncommon. Ossomer accused Ansom of linear thinking, using "siege heavy infantry", which showed no abuse of the Bonus mechanic until Parson started applying it, forcing Ansom to respond similarly.

I don't know why you're so focused on this. It happens in every story. I think Steven Brust put it best in one of the Taltos books: the hero always has what he needs to win. If he's on a cliff, then he finds a crevice he has the skill to climb, or finds a rope. Stories don't end with the hero stuck on a cliff with no way out, starving to death, or jumping to suicide. That luck may extract him from that situation doesn't mean there is a divine hand, only the author writing himself into a problem that he decided to get the character out of without his own skill.

You're correlating all of those bits of "good luck" and trying to turn it into the Titans enforcing their will to ensure a victory. But that Victory has almost failed twice, with only Parson stopping it. Why? Because the story is about Parson, and he isn't going to starve to death on a cliff.

Indeed I look for a purpose here, but not for the bonus mechanic. Because I care about one, and stopped caring about the other ages ago, sometime after KW showed up. To explain, Erfworld is not a game system for which we have a complete, known set of rules. And eventually I understood why this is helping the story to get written, therefore stopped caring that much about bonus mechanics and the like.

But by doing so, you can wind up attributing the "divine" for what was a mechanic. There is a story, and a game, and Rob is demonstrating both to us.

The higher purpose I do look for is simply an explanation for a string of unlikely events. With the understanding that strings of unlikely events sometimes happen, but when they do, it becomes reasonable to ask whether something else is happening.

What is happening is what the author needs to happen, in order to keep Parson off that cliff.

You can see divine manipulation in anything if you seek it, because someone always wins. Luck always has a place on the battlefield, and I shouldn't have to present examples of that truth. Everyone has luck and unluck, so if you look to the victor and his luck, you will always find the divine, because that's what you were looking for.

You don't need grandiose explanations based on randomness to see the Titan's hands it what is going on. You can state that Wanda was born to select Parson, and all of her life designed for that one event. That alone makes far more sense than bogging down in a few random events, no matter how unlikely. Sylvia is replaceable, as is everyone except Wanda, Stanley, and Parson, it this story is truly about creating Peace for Erfworld.

Probably NOT. In some earlier post I conjectured that this string of good luck will eventually be explained

Highly unlikely. Authors like some things to go unexplained, and I for one never expect Parson to meet the Titans.

TNG did have arcs, but you're referring to moments in the spotlight for tertiary characters like Barclay or whatever his name was.

Not quite. In one story, the main problem may be a teleporter malfunction spawning aliens, but Doctor Crusher may be working on a cure, or having a relationship with a visitor, or be trying to figure out what a message from her son means. Barclay was a problem for Deanna, but was usually a main plot element rather than a secondary, though I think he filled that role at least once.

Still, I'm a bit skeptical about TNG inventing the concept of either (myth-)arc, as I am about Scooby Doo inventing the secondary story. Surely older shows on TV would have had those?

ST:TNG is acknowledged as the show that did it on purpose first, and grew to understood the formula. I'm certain other shows would do it periodically prior to then, but ST had a reason for doing it, and proved it worked very well on the long term. After ST:TNG, many shows use that formula.

By comparison, how many shows go with the Hill Street Blues formula of a half dozen cops working a half-dozen cases? Now consider the CSI series: isn't there always a main mystery, and a side story about one of the CSI's personal lives? That's the ST:TNG formula again. NCIS, you have the main mystery, and some interpersonal tease running throughout the story.

Of course, there are other formulas. Prime Time Hospital dramas tend to use the soap opera style of a dozen small plots dotting the moments in between medical emergencies. (Daytime skipped the medical emergencies.) But what about House? It is classic two-story, with the main plot and whatever game House is playing on someone, or being played on House, or between the team members for House's amusement. Pure character development.

Well, I always expected Charlie to be the Final Boss.

Howard Hughes makes a terrible final Boss.

[BakaGrappler]

Is there a higher purpose for Sylvia?

Probably NOT. In some earlier post I conjectured that this string of good luck will eventually be explained, and that Sylvia's run of good fortune will turn out to be a mere side-effect of some other phenomenon helping the main characters. Instead of helping out my imaginative fail on what that phenomenon could be though, most others would rather speculate on bonus systems and mechanics.

If there is no higher purpose for Sylvia, then it is possible that there is a higher purpose for Artemis. The arrow from Captain Archer was meant to find her after all.

We are all honestly spinning thread in a dark room. We can't tell what is happening until Rob tells us, so we actually have very few "Probably" and "Probably not" options here. We just don't know.

And for everyone who is saying Artemis' arrow interferences were critical misses, I personally do not share that idea. If a character misses their attack, would Erfworld normally go to the extent of destroying a tower, bending probability to have two fatal attacks strike one another in mid air, and exploding other units to have their body parts deflect attacks? I say nay.

Let us use Occam's Razor for this situation, not for explaining Artemis' misses, but missed attacks in general in Erfworld. Would the world's system treat misses as convoluted outside parameter influenced occurrences that required rocks literally jumping up from the ground to turn aside sword blows, or would the sword simply whiff through the air or be turned away by a patch of armor? I think the act of missing on an attack is just that, your attack does not inflict damage. Artemis' attacks though, they were ALL deflected by incredible and unlikely outside forces that negated mortal blows on the warlord that was leading a Erf-Changing charge against the monarch of the Jetstone Side.

We are meant to understand the ridiculous nature of this combat round, just as Artemis realizes what is happening is so horribly wrong when she takes an arrow in the face. (Hopefully not in the Key-Lime Pie area, it would be a shame for her to have an eye patch when she is Decrypted.)

[BLANDCorporatio]

In my case, no, the real question is "what does it mean {that random debris seems to be conveniently placed}?".

You could go back all the way to the first comics in book 1 and ask, "Why did one Side get an extra gem?"
{snip}

What good luck? The only "good luck" GK has ever had is Parson. GK would have been destroyed if not for Parson. All the forces in Jetstone would have been destroyed except for Parson. You're focusing entirely on a few small events, and ignoring the bigger picture that GK has the worst luck of any Side in the Big Picture scale.

{snip}

I don't know why you're so focused on this. It happens in every story.

There are 3 incidents of improbable shot suppression. Highly improbable shot suppression. Like I said, a coin landing heads 100 consecutive times can happen, but if you see that kind of thing you suspect the coin isn't fair.

So I (and quite a few others) think said incidents of shot suppression are blunt ways to make a point. What point exactly, I don't know yet. That's why I, and others, may speculate. Stories sometimes hinge entirely on luck and not character skill, yes of course. Often however, they don't, and that luck has more of a cause than just chance. We, human beings, have the implicit expectation of purpose and structure in a narrative. Stories are one of the few places where we can look for faces in the clouds, with the understanding that some of those faces are actually there. Unlike the real world, which at the basic levels does not concern itself with purpose and such.

Oh, why did one side get an extra Gem? No reason. Why is one side in the Mountains? No reason. That kind of thing just happens and no one bats an eyelid. Geology is like that. Doesn't need an explanation. 3 arrows missing their aimed-at target? I don't know where you're from, but in my world that is strange. And needs an explanation.

[MarbitChow]

So I (and quite a few others) think said incidents of shot suppression are blunt ways to make a point. What point exactly, I don't know yet. That's why I, and others, may speculate.

Personally, I see it as another data point that validates my pet theory: that 'stats' in Erfworld are actively enforced by the environment, and that they're not just reflections of a unit's innate abilities. In this case, Sylvia's bonuses (stack, Decrypted w/ Wanda, etc.) placed her out of the reach of being wounded by Artemis for most shots, but Artemis' innate skill with a bow (especially due to hundreds of turns of training) made it highly unlikely that her shot would just miss outright. Since Sylvia was mounted, and thus couldn't really dodge effectively, the environment had to enforce the stat disparity by any means at hand.

[Kreistor]

Oh, why did one side get an extra Gem? No reason. Why is one side in the Mountains? No reason. That kind of thing just happens and no one bats an eyelid. Geology is like that. Doesn't need an explanation. 3 arrows missing their aimed-at target? I don't know where you're from, but in my world that is strange. And needs an explanation.

May I remind you of one more miss? Artemis, after all, nailed Ansom in the eye during a trick shot.

You're looking in the wrong direction. I suspect this is more a matter of Artemis' unluck than Gk's luck.

[BLANDCorporatio]

Fair enough, could be that Jetstone is somehow fated to lose Spacerock.

Not saying Jetstone is fated to die. Yet.

Personally, I see it as another data point that validates my pet theory: that 'stats' in Erfworld are actively enforced by the environment, and that they're not just reflections of a unit's innate abilities.

There was another nifty theory, but I forgot who forwarded it (effataigus?), which was that units' expectations of events are actually the crucial bit.

'twas more of a joke idea, since in-comic support for it is scarce. Unlike your theory, which seems quite common sense. That's how GMed tabletop campaigns are run, I gather.

[SMD]

I think, after some reflection on this, that we witnessed something profound.

My first thought was railroad. Then I thought about the previous page. Fate- you can't escape it in Erf. The tile Ossomer was so familiar with, deflecting the shot that would have killed Sylvia.

Artemis was born with the gift to be the best....yet she found Fate had other plans for her. Obscurity, boredom, uselessness.

She may be one of Erf's only native attempted determinists, other than the Tools.

We saw how ErfFate likes this in this update. Go with the flow, or be made to. Wanda alludes to this previously- we could have mistaken her for being deluded or insane...but here we see Fate spanking the person who dares to fight it. Maybe it's not all in Wanda's head, hmm? Serve the will of the Titans, or be made to.

Jojo offers Parson a way out of the chains, but we know he won't take it. Funny, since we saw in the end of book 1 how Parson declared himself a "player." I wonder if he'll fare better than the NPC who just got smited with a wink from above.

[pSycHOtic chICkeN]

I think Rob is just trolling his fans here a bit. "Look what I had to do to keep Sylvia alive." It's like the GM rolling dice behind the screen, and cheating on the rolls. "Nope, your crit missed." And yeah, Artemis is definitely calling Rob out on it.

Great Update!

I personally don't have a problem with the arrows hitting debris. I just look at the collisions in game terms, but with a DM/GM who knows how the build excitement. Take 3.5 DND for instance: When you shoot into a battle or cover the target gets different percentages of cover (tons of various factors/rules as well). If the player rolls a 18 but needs a 19 (out of 20) to hit the arrow is considered to have hit something in the way. In the situation as presented, hitting falling debris (since they are fighting under a crumbling tower), makes complete sense. In fact, during play I would tell players "you have a shot at the commander, but you have 60% of your arrow hitting debris, other units, etc..." Coverage rules apply to DND, many board games, heck even FPS shooter games have missions where stuff is falling around you and obscuring your shots.

What I've heard from players in the past is that they would rather hear about how their arrow/spell/throw was obstructed by some random bird flying by and getting in the way than "missed again". Yes, it does loose its effectiveness if overused, but really helps build excitement and memorable moments when done correctly.

Arrows hitting other arrows? In real life that is a near impossible, but some games have special feats you can take that allow stunts like this. I don't see problem with it when you have characters flying around shooting fireballs out of their finger tips, surviving falls from great heights, or magical weapons that allow for advantages we can't comprehend.

Great update! I was slowly starting to loose interest in Erfworld over the last couple months but updates like this (the last few really) keep me coming back.

There is another possible angle. If we use the 20 sided die example, Artemis has enough bonuses to always hit (except rolling natural one of course). So if you set up a target all Artemis' arrows hit the the bullseye even at long range. We can check this from her background story. In the atrium Sylvia gets a significant warlord bonus from herself. Sylvia has her natural defense which may also be enhanced for the same reasons that Artemis popped with a missile hit bonus. We also have the Wanda bonus because Sylvia is decrypted and then also the pliers bonus. The chief warlord from Jetstone is incapacitated while the GK chief warlord may have just appeared. So, Artemis has the skillz to long-shot a moving eagle and select which eye the arrow goes through (assuming eagle has no defense bonus) but Artemis misses Sylvia on the far side of the atrium. Why, because the negative bonuses (hindrances?) are greater than all her hit bonuses. If you got a -19 to hit bonus then all rolls on the 20-sided die fail (except natural twenty of course).

Rob had to describe several dead-nuts shots that miss anyway. The story was told quite well. Is it plausible? No. But neither is a plier bonus, nor a decryptomancer bonus, and there is no way anyone can reliably hit a moving eagle at long range with an arrow. If you fire a lot of arrows into a flock you may occasionally get hits. Erfworld was not intended to be a field guide to sniping in stupid world. It is just good fiction.

[Menas]

Jojo offers Parson a way out of the chains, but we know he won't take it. Funny, since we saw in the end of book 1 how Parson declared himself a "player." I wonder if he'll fare better than the NPC who just got smited with a wink from above.

I think if Parson felt confident that Jojo's spell would do what it was advertised to do without harming him in the process, that he'd cast it (or have it cast on him) in a heartbeat.

As far as Parson vs. Fate, I think we've got a Judge Dredd vs the law scenario going on there.

Fate: 'You can't do that. You'd be breaking the law. My law.'
Parson: 'I can't break the law, because.... I AM THE LAW!!!'

[The.Healing.Mage]

She didn't leap to command against a danger, she toyed with it like it wasn't a problem, facing an enemy warlord of higher level than she, she nonchallantly stayed with the siege instead of delegating that to Archer and leading the stack against Artemis.

It's not her turn, so she has no move. Her only option is to hangout and wait for Artemis to come to her.

And since archery occurs apart from combat, Archer was the *only* effective unit in her stack while Atermis was out of the hex. Having him lead the siege would have been pointless.

If I understand it correctly, each city is a single Hex. Each city is divided into a number of Zones. The defenders hold the city as long as they hold the Garrison Zone, which is subdivided into Tower Zone, Courtyard Zone, and Dungeons Zone. Besides the Garrison, the other major zones can be any of the following (or others we haven't heard about, presumably including Docks*): Airspace, Outer Walls, and Tunnels.

Here are the canon rules for attacking in a city:
1) Each Garrison Zone can only be attacked from the garrison or an adjacent zone.
2) The Airspace is adjacent to the Tower.
3) The Tunnels are adjacent to the Dungeon.
4) The Outer Walls are adjacent to the Courtyard.
5) The Adjacent Hexes are adjacent to the Outer Walls to all units.
6) The Adjacent Hexes are adjacent to the Airspace for flying units (and units mounted on flying units and units with the flying special or on an item with the flying special ... etc.).
7) The Entrance to the Tunnels is adjacent to the Tunnels, and in a different Hex from the City Hex.
8) (Conjecture) The Docks are adjacent to adjacent Water Hexes.
9) Units can move around the City Hex at will via zones under friendly control, moving according to rules 1-4. A "move" is always treated as attacking into space. Sometimes that space is even empty. (See rules 10-12 for limits on movement in a City Hex.)
10) Moving within a Hex is a free action on one's own turn.
11) Units moving in their own City Hex is always a free action.
12) Units in a City Hex they do not control may not move between Zones off-turn.


Lady Lazarus may of course move within the Courtyard. After all, the airdropped forces did already, have already restacked, Sylvia called the Hobgobwin Heavy Knight to her, and then had him seek out Captain Archer, and Wanda took a force into the Dungeon Zone. (That's legal because both Courtyard and Dungeons are within the Garrison.) The thing that wasn't normally legal and needed an exploit was the attacking force moving from the Airspace to the Courtyard, which does cross zones.

*The presence of ships, confirmed during the summer updates, and the presence of water hexes in Book 1 would imply that someone has docks somewhere.

[oslecamo2_temp]

What good luck? The only "good luck" GK has ever had is Parson. GK would have been destroyed if not for Parson. All the forces in Jetstone would have been destroyed except for Parson. You're focusing entirely on a few small events, and ignoring the bigger picture that GK has the worst luck of any Side in the Big Picture scale.

Ok, let's see:
-GK geting an attuned tool wielder. That's jackpot right there.
-Wanda surviving very dangerous falls twice by now.
-Wanda miracously recovering from Jillian breaking out of mind control to provide suport.
-Ansom sparing Wanda.
-Charlie deciding to reveal his hand of archons and then just leting them sit there, despite knowing hamster had still Aces up his sleeve, and heck, Charlie could've just asked Hamster what was the probabilty of him profiting if he didn't capture Hamster right away! But Mr-Chessmaster aparently had a sudden brain trauma, quite lucky for GK.
-The volcano nuke working beyond all expectations despite having been a desesperate move put up togheter in the last second.
-Hamster being able to travel to the magic kingdom despite being a warlord and everybody telling him he would die if he tried.
-Mountain revealing new gem deposit that Sizemore somehow never hadn't detected before.
-GK's enemies keep trusting Jillian with the most important tasks, despite she having let Wanda escape alive several times by now.
-Jetstone nominating mr.diplomat for Chief Warlord. His biggest achievments so far have been giving the enemy all the time they wanted to recover, exposing his army to air bombardment, butchering his own leadership, ignoring all his advisors, puting himself in the danger zones and then mercifully knocking himself out just a few hours after geting his job. By far the worst performing chief warlord we've ever found in the whole story. Trem's so bad that GK's kicking Jetstone's ass whitout even need of Hamster suport.

Now compare with Haggar, who was suposed to have profited greatly from all this affair, and at the end of the day lost their prince and a good chunk of troops because Charlie decided to use them as puppets. Compare with Unaroyal, completely wiped out because the enemy now had two attuned tool wielders instead of just one (double jackpot!) and they had no way of figuring out how to counter it before it was too late.

And GK didn't get that "good luck" by accident: for some reason, some conspiracy chose Stanley and gave Parson to him. Again, it wasn't luck, but design of the inhabitants of Erfworld that saved Stanley.

It was also design of those very same inhabitants that put him in trouble in the first place, since it was Wanda who fed him up with illusions of grandeur in case you forgot. Only fair Wanda fixed the problem she herself started.

Parson has stated clearly that Bonuses are the most important factor in the game. Stacking bonus on bonus wins, but not everyone seems to have learned that. Transylvito calls stacking Leadership bonuses on cheap units the "Transylvito Way", which suggests it's unique to them, or at least uncommon. Ossomer accused Ansom of linear thinking, using "siege heavy infantry", which showed no abuse of the Bonus mechanic until Parson started applying it, forcing Ansom to respond similarly.

Now that I agree with. The arrows missing may be simply a reflection of Sylvia geting Warlord Archer bonus and Croakmancer Wanda bonus and artifact bonus while Artemis just lost her own CWL bonus. In particular because Artemis tought Wanda had retreated to the magic kingdom.

[multilis]

-Wanda surviving very dangerous falls twice by now.
-Wanda miracously recovering from Jillian breaking out of mind control to provide suport.

Dangerous falls: Each time wanda incapacitated so not great luck. Jack surviving not incapacitated good luck.

In book 1, Ansom not incapacitated or dead from falling... only perhaps 1/3 chance... is that good luck or bad? Wanda would have had pliers and they may have been able to hold outer wall if only Ansom wasn't lucky. But even if no Ansom, there still would have been Charlies archons... they were only defeated by the volcano.

Wanda recovering from mind damage... same thing happened to Jack with Jill, may actually be a normal game mechanic related to "love"/strong emotions.

...

What if Wanda died? Can anyone else attune? (Parson or Jack for example?) Possible that any non royal can attune to a tool as a balance to royals having better stats.

[oslecamo2_temp]

Wanda recovering from mind damage... same thing happened to Jack with Jill, may actually be a normal game mechanic related to "love"/strong emotions.

Jack recovered much sooner than that when Hamster called him by his name. He was well enough to spot the Transylvito ambush and everything long before meeting Jillian again.

[The.Healing.Mage]

-Wanda miracously recovering from Jillian breaking out of mind control to provide suport.
-Ansom sparing Wanda.

Now these two are actually fairly believable. (I'll let others chime on the other examples, but for some reason I'm defending Wanda. It feels weird for me to take her side; I don't even like her as a character!) There's considerable evidence that Wanda's Suggestion spell is much more subtle and less powerful than a Trimancer link. Since the link isn't a brute-power sort of affair like the Trimancer link, Wanda presumably had far more defense against it. It's also implied that she intentionally took the backlash (to spare Jillian), which may have helped. When Maggie let the backlash hit the others in the Trimancer link, they weren't prepared for it. Further, Trimancer links are considered so finicky that it takes several of the most powerful Thinkamancers to pry them apart, whereas Duomancer links can be separated by the Thinkamancer involved.

And Ansom spared Wanda because Dirtmancer Sizemore showed up with a stack of very powerful golem units. Just as high-level warlords bestow a colossal bonus on units in their stack, Sizemore (a relatively high-level Dirtmancer) would have given these units a powerful bonus. As in the Battle of The Pass, warlord bonuses can turn even the pipsqueak Bats into the equivalent of some of the strongest infantry. It didn't appear worth killing Wanda to risk death while there were important things to do, like winning the war. (Which, in all other circumstances, breaching the walls should have been.)

[multilis]

Wanda recovering from mind damage... same thing happened to Jack with Jill, may actually be a normal game mechanic related to "love"/strong emotions.

Jack recovered much sooner than that when Hamster called him by his name. He was well enough to spot the Transylvito ambush and everything long before meeting Jillian again.

I disagree, he couldn't cast a proper veil before seeing Jill, and the special effect when he saw Jill suggests he suddenly got sanity back. (Insane he still had some damaged abillities and observations)

Immediately after that he was suddenly able to save Stanley in very skilled fashion. If he had started sane in that battle Stanley may have won rather than fled, Jack has been shown to be very dangerous in battle in Book 2.

...

Parson cost GK 350K shmuckers. His bracelet alone may be worth 500K. That sword he through into fire, may be worth another small fortune... Luckomany charms... That suggests some other force has subsidized parson... same force may be playing more Luckomancy now.

Croakamancy, Predictamancy, Thinkomancy, Carnymancy all are part of Fate magic. That puts Wanda, Marie (predictomancer), Charlie, Maggie and Great Thinkers, and Jojo all as "servants" of Fate... and Jetstone also has Dollomancer and Healomancer that are "servants" of Fate.