Ryan North's To Be or Not To Be: The Adventures of Porkchop Weebottoms

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Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Yorick is just going to stroll right into the royal court, introduce himself to the King and Queen, and make a bunch of fart sounds at them.

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
You do that thing. The king and queen look unimpressed, but Kid Hamlet loves it. He cheers and claps and launches into a long soliloquy on how great it was. When he�s done, the king says �Well, I didn�t think that was super rad, but my kid loved it and your job is to entertain him, so good job! You�re hired...um, what did you say your name was again?�

�Yorick, sir� you say. �It�s either a corruption of the Scandinavian �Erick� or �Jorg�, but it might also be an anagram of the Greek �kurios�, which��

King Hamlet cuts you off. �Okay, cool, I�m not super into hearing more. I�m going to leave you alone with Kid Hamlet: if you can survive the day, I�ll pay you a bunch of gold and let you live in the castle. Deal?�

�Deal,� you say, stepping forward and to shake his outstretched hand. While you�re doing that you say, �Oh hey, can I have some food? I�m literally starving.�

�Sure!� says the king, and pulls an apple out from inside his robes, tossing it to you. �Kick rear end,� you say, swallowing the apple whole. Hey! How�d you do that? That was awesome! I want to be able to do that too.

In any case, you are no longer in immediate danger of dying! From starvation, I mean!

>>Talk to Kid Hamlet<<
>>Make more fart noises<<
>>Beg the king not to leave you alone with Kid Hamlet<<

Against all odds, Yorick has cleared the initial screening and been accepted as court jester! The future is looking bright! But can Yorick keep up the good work? Should he start adding some variety to his act? Or should he keep the momentum going on his current routine?

Wait, what did King Hamlet mean when he said Yorick had to survive the day?

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Apr 17, 2015

# ? Apr 11, 2015 00:15

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 14:05

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

KEEP FARTING

# ? Apr 11, 2015 00:36

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

*pppppphhhhhhttttt*

# ? Apr 11, 2015 00:38

Surprise Pizza: Mar 21, 2010

We're supposed to be "a fellow of infinite jest," so more farting seems appropriate.

# ? Apr 11, 2015 01:36

Seyser Koze: Dec 15, 2013; Mucho Mucho; Nap Ghost

# ? Apr 11, 2015 01:50

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Definitely more farting.

# ? Apr 11, 2015 01:51

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Having little to no knowledge as to how to actually put together a comedy routine to keep the attention of capricious nobles and their children, Yorick just sticks to what he knows to have worked so far. But is Kid Hamlet going to get bored of it too quickly?

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
Alone with Kid Hamlet, you make some more fart noises, and he continues to cheer. After about half an hour of this your lips are going a little numb, so you say �Listen, kid, what if I took a break for a whi��

Kid Hamlet interrupts you and explains that your relationship is based on toot noises, NOT on human conversation. He does not want to hear another morpheme from you for the rest of your days, and the only phoneme he wants to hear is �thppppth�. Kids say the craziest things, huh? And kid princes say the craziest things that instantly become law that is punishable by death!

So, you never say another word to Hamlet, but spend the rest of your life making toots both artificial and genuine, and making quite a comfortable living by doing so. Nicely done! In a time where most people have to personally kill a chicken if they want a chicken burger for lunch, you�re living pretty comfortably. You die of a heart attack five years later (effective medicine is not a thing yet, heads up) and get buried in a shallow grave. A couple of decades later, Hamlet digs up your body! He picks up your skull and finds it remarkable, and therefore remarks upon it:

�Alas, poor Yorick!� he says. �I heard him toot, Horatio; a fellow of infinite toots, of most excellent toots; he hath tooted on me a thousand times. Yet where be his toots now? His super toots? His ultra toots extreme? His flashes of gas, that were wont to clear the table of its occupants because of the stank??�

I�ll say this: of all the legacies it is possible to have, Yorick, this is certainly one of them.

THE END

Nope! Kid Hamlet never grows tired of his personal Fart Jester, who terrorizes Elsinore Castle for five years before dying of natural causes and getting buried in an unmarked grave. Congratulations, Yorick!

We've made it to a happy ending! Well, sort of. We'll have to see later if there is a way that Yorick could depart this world leaving more behind than just a lingering fart smell that's inundated everything in the castle by the time he dies.

So long, Yorick! We'll be seeing you after we spend some more time with To Be or Not To Be. Last time we played, the late King Hamlet avenged his death by exploding King Claudius's body all over the Queen's bedchamber and face, then became a gory-explosion-ghost vigilante for all eternity. But was there a better way?

Option 1: The Ghost King enlists his living son to avenge his death, instead of sullying his hands and lovely four-poster bed with gore.
Option 2: The Ghost King doesn't eavesdrop on Claudius and Gertrude, missing his chance to discover that they've gotten married since his death.
Option 3: We start all over and play as ~~The Fart Prince of Denmark~~Prince Hamlet.
Option 4: We start all over and play as Ophelia.

Voting closes tomorrow at 9 PM CST.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Apr 17, 2015

# ? Apr 11, 2015 18:14

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Option 2. Let's thoroughly plumb all of the wrong decisions here.

# ? Apr 11, 2015 18:23

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Option 1

# ? Apr 11, 2015 18:23

Kangra: May 7, 2012

Option 2. Sit-com hilarity ensues.

I love the little Hamlet picture.

# ? Apr 12, 2015 00:24

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

Lil' Hamlet is pretty cute.

Option 2, let's get it out of the way, I guess.

# ? Apr 12, 2015 00:32

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Per the vote, we're going to rewind time to when Hamlet's dead dad was deciding whether to eavesdrop on Claudius and Gertrude's conversation.

quote:

That evening, you try to revenge yourself on Claudius by spooking him.

The problem is, he never looks in any of the mirrors you're haunting, he assumes wind is knocking over his pots, and he thinks the ghostly wailing from beyond the grave is probably just a sick dog outside who's having a pretty rough go of it lately.

This spooking him isn't going well, man. I don't know what to tell you. You'll have to get your revenge some other way! Maybe by... killing him?

Reflecting on the fact that he did kill you, you decide the only suitable revenge is to kill him as well because why not, you could totally take him, especially since you've already died once and lived to talk about it.

But who is best suited to do the killing? You could do it, but you DID have a son partly so you wouldn't have to do every single thing around here!

Unfortunately, the Ghost King of Denmark isn't nearly as good at spooking people as he is at blowing them up. Whether or not he actively snoops on Claudius and Gertrude, the Ghost King will still decide that things can only be solved with a good old-fashioned murder. On the surface, it looks like the same decision set we got when we made the decision to eavesdrop in our previous run. But if this CYOA was being done from the gamebook's printed form with reference numbers shown, at least one of the decisions here would lead to a different number than last time.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jun 5, 2015

# ? Apr 13, 2015 03:59

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Kill him yourself

# ? Apr 13, 2015 06:17

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Let's see how ghostsploding Claudius works out this time.

# ? Apr 13, 2015 06:33

Yvonmukluk: Oct 10, 2012; Everything is Sinister

Screw it, let's make Hamlet do it!

# ? Apr 13, 2015 12:21

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

Let's do it ourselves again then we can get Hamlet to do it

# ? Apr 13, 2015 20:06

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Hamlet Sr. is going to go and attend to this murder business himself, just as he did last time. Unfortunately, he's not a very creative guy and is going to murder King Claudius in exactly the same manner as before.

quote:

You wait until Claudius is sleeping (NEXT TO YOUR BELOVED GERTRUDE FOR SOME REASON, HAH HAH, THAT'S WEIRD) then wake him up by tapping him on the forehead a bit.

"Hey, it's me!" you whisper. "Your brother! The one you murdered!!"

"Aw crap," Claudius whispers back. "Ghosts are real?"

"Real pissed at you, anyway," you reply. "Listen, I'll cut to the chase: we are from a time where 'an eye for an eye' is considered a good thing to build a justice system around, so I am here to kill you."

"How?" Claudius asks, his eyes wide, terrified.

"Aw geez, so many ways," you say, counting them off on your fingers. "I could startle you and make you have a heart attack, but that takes time. I could throw a pot at your head until you die, but that lacks grace. Instead, check this out."

You move your ghost body so it's floating right above Claudius. He stares at you, his eyes wide. "I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Way too late for THAT," you reply. You lower yourself to him, face to face, and keep going. His face dominates your field of vision and then you're inside his skull, inside the pink of his brain, his blood darkly obscuring your sight. You sink slowly deeper and deeper into him, lining up your ghost body with his regular body, until you are just about occupying exactly the same space.

Then you make yourself corporeal.

What happens next happens so quickly and with such force that it's hard to describe, but "Claudius explodes everywhere" captures most of it. I mean, you're fine, but man this is disgusting. Literally disgusting. Gertrude wakes up, dripping in gore, screaming.

You, my friend, have achieved revenge.

Still corporeal, you roll over onto your back and apologize to Gertrude. You explain over her screams what happened, and say that you hope she'll be happy being married to a ghost.

Gertrude stops screaming. "Um, while you were gone I kinda... married Claudius," she admits. "But I never stopped loving you!"

Another exploded Claudius, another horrified Gertrude. This time, Hamlet Sr. is willing to think things through before passing judgment on his widow, though he seems to be of the notion that he's still married to her. Is he going to let this matter slide?

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jun 5, 2015

# ? Apr 14, 2015 23:59

ArchWizard: Mar 27, 2009; There's the Roy I know ~~and love~~.

If ghosts are real, maybe polyamory is real too. Let's be cool about this.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 00:03

Seyser Koze: Dec 15, 2013; Mucho Mucho; Nap Ghost

If we get mad, maybe we can explode her too this time.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 00:39

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

Stay Cool, everybody. Just Stay Cool.

# ? Apr 15, 2015 00:51

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Get mad

# ? Apr 15, 2015 02:03

Porush: Dec 26, 2012

We're cool with polyamory.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 00:08

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

It's a tough call for him to make, but the Ghost King eventually decides that just because Gertrude married his exploded brother doesn't mean he has to get overly upset. Rather than yelling at Gertrude or doing something else that he might wind up regretting for all eternity, he puts the matter to rest.

quote:

I must say, you are doing really well, King Hamlet! Not only have you revenged yourself in record time, you've also reconciled with your widow. Nicely done! You reveal yourself to the royal court the next morning, and nobody's happier to see you than your son, Hamlet Jr.

Your reappearance as a ghost does cause a minor constitutional crisis when someone points out you might not be able to reassume the throne, but a quick flip through the constitution reveals that there's nothing in the rules that say a ghost CAN'T be king! There's actually a section that explicitly says that should this happen, the ghost assuming the throne would be totally neato. I'm serious; that's what it says: "totally neato." You've got yourself a pretty cool nation, Hamlet Sr.!

You rule with your wife by your side for a really long time, and even get help solving national problems from the ghosts of history's greatest rulers, many of whom become close personal friends.

The Ghost King's willingness to tolerate his widow's little indiscretion is repaid by his nation's willingness to tolerate having a spectral horror from beyond the grave rule them for all eternity. Congratulations!

...Yes, I double-checked. Yes, that really is the ending illustration. I looked and it repeats in another ending where it's actually applicable. It's possible that we'll run into another misplaced illustration elsewhere that belongs here, but I haven't yet found one. Turns out that this particular gamebook is loving huge to the point that I'm still picking through all of it. One website sells a very nice poster depicting all of the game's events in flowchart form and it's positively mind-boggling. I'm considering working it into the LP to show our progress toward revealing everything.

The Haml-O-Meter still lists us as "Not To Be." We still haven't gotten very deep.

Anyways, now that King Hamlet has reached a happy ending of sorts, it's time to spend some more time with Yorick! Welcome back, Yorick! Please stop farting.

Last time we did a playthrough of Poor Yorick, Yorick was hired on as the court jester and so enthralled Kid Hamlet with his fart noises that he was put to work doing nothing but making fart noises for the rest of his life. It was a comfortable way to spend his life, but let's see if Yorick can get into a more sophisticated career that isn't eventually doomed to obsolescence by whoopee cushions or Space Station 13.

Option 1: Talk to Kid Hamlet instead of continuing to make fart noises at him
Option 2: Beg the king not to leave you alone with Kid Hamlet instead of continuing to make fart noises at Kid Hamlet
Option 3: Recount a charming jape during your job interview instead of going right to the fart jokes
Option 4: Make a pass at the queen during your job interview instead of going right to the fart jokes
Option 5: Something else?

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jun 5, 2015

# ? Apr 16, 2015 05:56

GenderSelectScreen: Mar 7, 2010; I DON'T KNOW EITHER DON'T ASK ME; College Slice

Option 1

# ? Apr 16, 2015 06:05

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Hitlers Gay Secret posted:

Option 1

Same.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 06:05

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

One

That was a pretty interesting ending

# ? Apr 16, 2015 06:07

klafbang: Nov 18, 2009; Clapping Larry

quote:

a quick flip through the constitution reveals that there's nothing in the rules that say a ghost CAN'T be king! There's actually a section that explicitly says that should this happen, the ghost assuming the throne would be totally neato. I'm serious; that's what it says: "totally neato." You've got yourself a pretty cool nation, Hamlet Sr.!

I've actually read the Danish constitution, and it pretty much doesn't say that. Like, at all; it's actually quite explicit about the heir being a man or a woman (�2). It's ruining my immersion.

I must say I quite enjoy this LP. The writing of the game is prone to be annoying but in small doses as imposed by the format, it's really quite amusing altogether, and there's quite a bit of content even though we went with a "wrong" path.

Oooh, and option 4 - this can only end in happiness.

# ? Apr 16, 2015 19:33

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Ol' Yorick is going to try talking to Kid Hamlet instead of breaking his mind with excessive fart noises.

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
�Hey kid, I�m glad you liked my toot noises,� you say when you�re left alone with him. �What else do you like?�

�PLENTLY,� says Hamlet in that squeaky voice little kids have that�s adorable for at least�a little while? �I like gibes, gambols, songs, AND flashes of merriment.�

�I can do those,� you say, making a mental note to look up what gibes and gambols are. They sound like body parts, maybe. Maybe they�re special parts on, like, the inside of a fish?

�I also like riding you like a horse and will require that you carry me on your back at least 1,000 times.�

�Um, okay,� you say, offering what you hope is a confident smile.

�Per year,� says Hamlet.

>>Say �Right.� and get down on all fours<<
>>Say �Hah! Nice try, kid. I�m not that poor!� and leave the room<<

On second thought, maybe becoming the Fart Jester of Elsinore was actually the more dignified option. Is Yorick really going to put up with this abuse?

On a side note, I've made some edits to previous updates. To Be or Not To Be has an art gallery listing all illustrations that we've seen, and for each image there's an infocard with a short blurb about that particular image's creator. All such infocards are now viewable by clicking the respective images in this thread.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Apr 18, 2015

# ? Apr 16, 2015 23:55

ultrafilter: Aug 23, 2007; It's okay if you have any questions.

Yes.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 00:09

Seyser Koze: Dec 15, 2013; Mucho Mucho; Nap Ghost

Yes.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 00:42

Ignatius M. Meen: May 26, 2011; Hello yes I heard there was a lovely trainwreck here and...

Let's be a horsey.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 05:25

Kgummy: Aug 14, 2009

klafbang posted:

I've actually read the Danish constitution, and it pretty much doesn't say that. Like, at all; it's actually quite explicit about the heir being a man or a woman (�2). It's ruining my immersion.

I think this took place a bit before 1953.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 05:40

Cowboy Otis: Feb 23, 2015

Ignatius M. Meen posted:

Let's be a horsey.

That, or more fart noises.

# ? Apr 17, 2015 15:58

Glazius: Jul 22, 2007; Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.; Clapping Larry

How many megapoints do we even need to go up that scale? It's almost like megapoints mean nothing.

# ? Apr 18, 2015 00:51

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

Yorick is totally going to bear this kid on his back a thousand times.

quote:

_{>>Go back<<}
Kid Hamlet jumps onto your back (ouch!) and slaps you on the back of the head. �Yip yip!� he shouts.

I guess that means go? You gallop around the room on your hands and knees, which is super painful because the floor is literally made of rock, but get a brief reprieve when you hear a cough. You turn around and see King Hamlet, leaning against a doorframe and smiling.

�Everything�s going great in here then, huh?� he says.

�Yep!� you say confidently. �This is exactly where I wanted my career to bring me!�

�Super,� says the king, and leaves. Kid Hamlet jumps down from your back and stands in front of you. He looks very serious. It�s kind of adorable.

�I want you to give me a nickname,� he says, �and if you choose a bad one, then I�m going to ask daddy to kill you, and he�ll do it because he loves me.�

You blink.

�Now!� he says.

>>Nickname him �The Hammer�<<
>>Nickname him �Li�l Hamster�<<
>>Nickname him �Porkchop Weebottoms�<<

Never accept a job as court jester for somebody who's rumored to suffer from chronic unhappiness. Yorick might very well be paying for that mistake in a moment.

Glazius posted:

How many megapoints do we even need to go up that scale? It's almost like megapoints mean nothing.

We'll get there. It does take awhile before we start finding our way up the Haml-O-Meter but it eventually happens.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Apr 25, 2015

# ? Apr 18, 2015 17:36

FredMSloniker: Jan 2, 2008; Why, yes, I do like Kirby games.

Pittsburgh Lambic posted:

We'll get there. It does take awhile before we start finding our way up the Haml-O-Meter but it eventually happens.

Does that mean it's a cumulative thing, not a measure of how good or bad a specific ending is?

# ? Apr 18, 2015 18:02

lurksion: Mar 21, 2013

Let's see where Porkchop Weebottoms gets us. Probably not very far.

# ? Apr 18, 2015 18:17

Arglebargle III: Feb 21, 2006

Wow I do not understand nerds getting angry at comedy CYOA books. If anything the way the OP has chosen to handle game-overs is making the book boring since we're just mechanically save-scumming to explore every path that doesn't lead to a dead-end. That sort of presentation is going to lead to the LP dead end! For this thread! Of course an adventure-is-chosen-by-you book loses its charm when you just read every outcome.

# ? Apr 18, 2015 18:29

Pittsburgh Lambic: Feb 16, 2011

FredMSloniker posted:

Does that mean it's a cumulative thing, not a measure of how good or bad a specific ending is?

The Haml-O-Meter has a couple of non-obvious mechanics, but there's a vague, somewhat underwhelming method to its madness.

Arglebargle III posted:

Wow I do not understand nerds getting angry at comedy CYOA books. If anything the way the OP has chosen to handle game-overs is making the book boring since we're just mechanically save-scumming to explore every path that doesn't lead to a dead-end. That sort of presentation is going to lead to the LP dead end! For this thread! Of course an adventure-is-chosen-by-you book loses its charm when you just read every outcome.

I'm more or less okay with save-scumming the last decision on each page of Poor Yorick, due to certain quirks about its structure that are going to become very clear in a couple of updates. As for To Be or Not To Be, good point there as well, but without wanting to get too spoiler-y as to the reasons, I'm not 100% sure it would work to restart the gamebook every time we hit an ending. For now, I'm okay with the save-scumming inasmuch as it progresses the current story path we've on, but that story path is soon coming to an ultimate close, at which point I'll make some changes.

I'm working on some other stuff for the thread too, and will be cleaning up previous posts further in the coming days. That said, I know that this LP could be better, and I'm more than open to suggestions as to what I can do to improve it.

Pittsburgh Lambic fucked around with this message at 20:36 on Apr 18, 2015

# ? Apr 18, 2015 20:34

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# ? Apr 27, 2024 14:05

Stallion Cabana: Feb 14, 2012; 1; Get into Grad School

2; Become better at playing Tabletop, both as a player and as a GM/ST/W/E

~~3; Get rid of this goddamn avatar.~~

WEEBOTTOMS

# ? Apr 18, 2015 21:18

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Ryan North's To Be or Not To Be: The Adventures of Porkchop Weebottoms

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