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Loose ideas.
05-23-2010, 09:49 AM
Because not everything involves a crossover.
Quit it with the rules lawyering.
So, stories about people getting items or entities or whatever that grant wishes, and either accidentally wishing for something totally stupid (happens in Disney Fairies of all places), or being something that satisfies the letter of what the wish, but is totally horrible... a dime a dozen. It's boring.
So. Enough with the rules lawyering. Let's have a malevolent genie who doesn't want to grant any wishes that the protagonist will like. But it has limited options. It can choose to grant a wish or not grant a wish... but a wish that is granted has to do not just what was *asked*, but what was wanted, and if the wish is rejected, it's not used up. And just to keep the pressure on, there's one wish the genie has no choice but to grant - to destroy itself.
So, how little can the genie get away with providing before the wish-maker gets fed up and decides the world doesn't need it? Or (if it's someone like Flonne) drives it insane? Of course, the person making the wishes can still screw up and get something bad, but it has to be what they actually wanted when they made the wish.
It's fine to have a good genie and an evil wisher too. Or anything else really, as long as the two are antagonistic. Inanimate wish-granters are theoretically fine, but offer less opportunity for mutual aggravation.
-Morgan.
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The obvious thing for the Genie to do is to give the impression that she's going to twist the wording of wishes, even though she can't. Even if she has to tell the truth, there's no reason she can't use a sarcastic tone of voice while doing so.
The second idea is not to reveal herself, but wait for an inadvertant wish.
The third is to get the wisher drunk.
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Second (and probably a fair amount of third) are non-viable under "do what I want" - the person making the wish has to actually want to make a wish.
How much of the rules can and can't be hidden... I hadn't really thought about that. One thing that was a solid part of the idea was that the user would always know from the beginning that they could safely use a wish to eliminate the genie.
But since the idea is for the wish-granting force to be the one having a hard time for a change...
-Morgan.
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A completely different loose idea, which Epsilon came up with today and I'm embellishing...
There is no coincidence. There is only ninja.
Ninja are sneaky. Why would they fight each other in the open?
So... We've got a protagonist who's saved from some horrid trap by someone he's never met before. That someone turns out to be a ninja whose clan is at war with another ninja clan, and Our Protagonist ("O.P.") almost took the hit that was intended for the ninja. Ninja are honorable, which is why the ninja saved O.P.
It turns out that this war has been going on for years, and O.P.'s parents are "collateral damage" casualties in the conflict. ("The car crash that killed your father? Caused by ninja. Your favorite coffee shop closing? Caused by ninja, because it was owned by another ninja clan. Rumors about the Illuminati? Spread by all ninja clans to cover our own actions.") This gives O.P. a reason to join the fight... but he isn't allowed to go public with it.
What's next?
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
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The M.I.B.? Ninja. 
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Quick question. Aren't Ninja specifically not supposted to be honorable? I had thought that was a samurai thing.
I prefer the idea that, at least in the area the story is taking place, the ninja have come up with an alternative to directish warfare. They instead have "who can screw up these people's lives the most" contests. Each clan would select a few people, and then, over the course of years, see who could ruin their subjects' lives the worst, without actually killing them. In this scenario, revealing the existance of the ninja is a calculated move designed to drive OP to madness via extreme paranoia. What do you think?
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Stand between the Silver Crystal and the Golden Sea.
"Youngsters these days just have no appreciation for the magnificence of the legendary cucumber." --Krityan Elder, Tales of Vesperia.
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Morganni Wrote:It's fine to have a good genie and an evil wisher too. Or anything else really, as long as the two are antagonistic. Inanimate wish-granters are theoretically fine, but offer less opportunity for mutual aggravation. I think if the genie has to give the wisher the spirit as well as the letter of the wish and you still want the wisher to end up with something that might not neccesaily be the best option is "I wish for my heart's desire" or similar wording. So the genie can give the person what they WANT but not what they need, neccessarily.
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Epsilon
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Ninja are supposed to be *sneaky*. Honorable... that strikes me as a lot more subject to variation.
Epsilon Wrote:I think if the genie has to give the wisher the spirit as well as the letter of the wish and you still want the wisher to end up with something that might not neccesaily be the best option is "I wish for my heart's desire" or similar wording. So the genie can give the person what they WANT but not what they need, neccessarily.
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Epsilon
It's not so much the result that counts as the struggle to get there. And the result not always being obvious.
I can imagine someone wishing that, and the genie tells them that it's impossible, since they don't know what their heart's desire is.
-Morgan.
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Jorlem Wrote:Quick question. Aren't Ninja specifically not supposted to be honorable? I had thought that was a samurai thing. Ninja have their own honor code - different from a samurai. Whereas Bushido has its parallels in Chivalry, a ninja's sense of honor is more like that of a thief and a business man.
Kills are quick and clean, unless otherwise stated so in your contract. You honor the terms of your contract to the best of your ability. And you do not break with the wishes your clan-head. To do so is to besmirch the good order, discipline, and in cases of inter-clan relations (rare!), the honor of your clan.
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