scrape_r_rational/data/cache/7v2ee0.md

[MK] The Great CYOA Munchkinry Contest

Post:

note: this is a contest, so do not read spoilered comments until you're read, at the very least, the third section of this post.

For those not in the know, a CYOA (Choose Your own Adventure) is an image where either you make one of several choices (i.e., the pill CYOA of "And I Show You How Deep the Rabbit Hole Goes fame) or where you're given some "points" to spend on either setting up or having an adventure-- buying companions, abilities, enemies, setting details, whatever. (i.e., Worm CYOA).

Your task is to meta-munchkin CYOA's, but not in the way you'd hope. More on that later.

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1.) Select a point buy CYOA that either happens in the real world, or has options centered around affecting the real world. (So if the isekai is about sending a hero to another dimension, it's disqualified.) /r/makeyourchoice has plenty, but there are others elsewhere. Be forewarned that if you just trawl the internet for CYOAs, you're pretty much guaranteed to find NSFW ones. You may use a CYOA that is effectively (albeit not explicitly) a point-buy CYOA, like 1997 CYOA, where you're expected to pick multiple options from a pool of options, which could be modelled as spending two points where items cost a point apiece.

• As a semi-exception to this rule, however, if a CYOA about going to another dimension has options that allow you to make the other dimension just like the real world, but with [x] you can treat that CYOA as directly modifying the real world. I.e., if you choose a CYOA set in an urban fantasy environment that's earth but with magic and a fantasy kitchen sink, on implementation, people and animals will be chosen at random to gain magic powers and to turn into elves/vampires/dwarves/werewolves. Expect massive, instant destabilization of the world order. But maybe that's your thing?. Magocracy would be an example. People would be randomly chosen to gain the relevant magical powers.
• Similarly, if your CYOA is a portal fantasy that explicitly includes rules for going back and forth between the "real world" and the fantasy world, that's also OK, providing you pick options guaranteeing permanent contact between the worlds. Magical Realm is an example, although picking Gateways[1] or [2], or Portals (with a control system guaranteed to keep making portals) would be mandatory.
• Also, you're barred from using meta-CYOAs and low-effort CYOAs (no choosing parody CYOAs that instantly break reality, please), as well as any meta-options in otherwise non-meta CYOAs. If you really want to, you could make your own CYOA designed to win this contest, but it must be high-effort (if you're going to put that much effort into it, you deserve to win.)

2.) Comment with the name of the CYOA and a like to it, plus a title for your plan. (This title can be whatever you want)

3.) In spoiler tags, add your choices for the CYOA, including point costs and your personal implementation. As a twist, though, you are only to post the choices that directly affect everyone rather than just you. You must post, for example "Immortality - Everyone [15 points]" or "Catgirls - 5% of population [5 points] catgirls don't have behavioral changes, just aesthetic ones.". You are not to post "Kickass Flamethrower - [1 point]all chrome and shit". This includes any drawbacks you choose, whether personal or setting-wise. You do, however, need to post the tallies for personal benefits and drawbacks, in the line of "spent 36 points on personal upgrades. Gained 12 points from personal drawbacks." Make sure to keep track of your personal options, though.

4.) Post what you intend to do with your newfound (personal) power, and what your intentions for our new, significantly more interesting world are. If you want to, lie like a rug. For example, you can say you have "bestow immortality" when really you spent the points on "mind control", or claim you'll reverse global warming when really you want to make greenland the new bahamas.

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The twist to this comes from the fact that this is a contest. During one of the next three discussion threads over the next week (probably friday off-topic), I'm going to link each of the comments and a strawpoll with the titles of the comments, and ask the readers of /r/rational what CYOA plan they would most prefer to live in.

So while you can pick a CYOA that gives you kickass superhero powers, people aren't likely to vote for you (unless they're into that philosopher-king bit). Alternatively, while you can choose to be purely altruistic and choose options that make things fun for everyone, maybe that's not maximizing your personal fun. I know I wouldn't pass up the chance to have superpowers. On the third hand, you can choose "altruistic" options, but secretly intend to twist them to your own ends.

Finally, this is a contest, as inspired by /u/LieGroupE8 's contest post. But I will be a little more lenient than "if you peek you're disqualified." Instead, if you peek into someone's comment prior to finishing your own comment, you're no longer allowed to use their CYOA to make a plan. Otherwise, using the same CYOA is perfectly legal. I'll be posting a deliberately bad example comment a little after I make this post.

Comments:

• u/GaBeRockKing:

  Below is an intentionally shitty plan meant to display how to make an entry into this context.
  
  ____
  
  **Godlike Power**
  
  CYOA: [Magical Realm CYOA](https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Magical_Realm_CYOA)
  
  [Global Choices (this spoiler intentionally broken):]#s "Demiplanes: Area Increase 2 [3 points], Planar Features: Gateways 1 [1 Points] (I'm going to place one gate in my home, and the rest in Belgium.), Population: Population Increase 2 [4 points].")
  
  [Personal Choices Tally (this spoiler intentionally broken):]#s "Personal Benefits tally: 92 points. Personal Drawbacks tally: 0 points.")
  
  Plan: Step 1: Become a god Step 2: invade Belgium Step 3: ??? Step 4: Profit.
  

  • u/ToaKraka:

    (I assume that this is the meta thread.)
    
    More examples of CYOA images can be found on 4chan ([SFW](https://boards.4chan.org/tg/cyoa) and [NSFW](https://boards.4chan.org/trash/cyoa)) and on r/makeyourchoice.
    
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    > For those not in the know, a CYOA (Choose Your own Adventure) is an image where either you make one of several choices[…] or where you're given some "points" to spend on either setting up or having an adventure-- buying companions, abilities, enemies, setting details, whatever.
    
    I feel the need to point out, in order to reduce confusion, that the new-fangled CYOA *images* have very little in common with the old-fashioned CYOA *books* (descriptions: [AllTheTropes](https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure), [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choose_Your_Own_Adventure)) with which people probably are more familiar.
    

• u/vakusdrake:

  Well I feel the need to point out the "obvious" (as in obvious once you've made literally hundreds of munchkined CYOA builds) exploit build for the linked magic realm CYOA. I've made a build for this CYOA before but deliberately ignored the singularity level tech option because it makes everything else secondary, here I won't.
  
  As a meta point I'd like to say that while you can have a winner from a entertainment standpoint, from a munchkin standpoint there's liable to be many ties. Since many CYOA's can be exploited into both kicking off a singularity and getting a source of infinite energy/matter such that posthuman civilization can not only avoid heat death but continue expanding forever with no material restriction. So once you've got that level of godlike power then it's not clear there will ever be any other exploits you could hope to do which would unequivocally beat that.
  
  **Singularity Route**
  
  CYOA: Magical Realm CYOA
  
  * [Demiplanes:](#s " Jupiter Sized (This maximizes the area I can use to generate material and energy to be used outside realm)") 
  
  * [Planar Features:](#s " Portals, Division, Transient, Protection 2. (This a allows me to rapidly transition my plane from its initial state to its final state wherein nobody except the gods actually lives there and it's used entirely for a source of unlimited energy/material to anywhere. The protection can ensure that the gods have to spend no real energy to create any possible things in this realm, since after it's created once you get an unlimited amount of it for free)")
  
  * [Technology:](#s " Singularity")
  
  * [Environment:](#s "  Cosmic Adjustment (This lets me shape an entire other universe adjacent to my magic realm, which will be set up to be extremely useful to expand into due to having different physics if I can get away with that)")
  
  * [Adventure](#s " Pantheon, Theme (This gives me an extremely cheap way to basically get absolute control over my realm by creating gods of arbitrary power who share my goals)")
  
  * [Ascendance (I don't consider this a personal choice since I won't be making personal use of it)](#s "  Guidance 2 (giving this to my pantheon of gods they will be able to use it to quickly reach a level of power where they can create new magic realms or where their power isn't even limited to the area of the magical realm")
  
  [Plan:](#s "  With this build basically my magic realm gets instantly transformed overnight upon creation by my pantheon of gods. They then export enough energy and matter that posthuman civilization can expand at lightspeed filling up all the space as it expands from the portals. If things like negative mass/energy can be exported from the magic realm then expansion may not even be limited to lightspeed in our universe. Plus after some time (though brief on a cosmic timescales), the pantheon will likely be able to start just constantly creating new magic realms or extending their influence outside this magic realm")
  

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