What life would you choose?

Snapplepan

My picks, from worst to best!

Dominion:
Super depressing and boring. Nope.

Healer:
Kind of lame compared to the others, to be honest. Beeing smart for once sounds like a nice change tho.

Nakama:
Going through the last life sounds really, really depressing. Also kind of lame. Nope.

Fisher King:
Now here's an interesting one. Fewer limits than it seems like, you have so much time being all immortal and stuff, you can definitely become an amazing artists and make sentient golems that look exactly like humans, so you won't be alone either. Not going outside for too long...? Doesn't bother me much in this case.

Hunter:
This one is so high up simply because I play too many RPGs. And who here doesn't? This is basically 100% kill monsters so you can kill more monsters AND you're immortal if you're good at it. Whiiich I probably wouldn't be because I'm small and scared of my own shadow. Next.

The Road Eternal:
This one just sounds amazing. There's no real limitations other than keeping on moving, you can take anything you want with you and do anything you want on the way. I just like the thought of being immortal in general. Also being able to walk again sounds cool.

Escape:
Definitely my favourite. As someone who has very, very vivid dreams and frequent nightmares, few things intrigue me as much as dreams. I hold my own dream journal and have had multiple semi-lucid dreams, too. 
Also the fact that you're pretty much an immortal dream-god with the power to change everyone elses dreams and everything around you is kinda neat.

Kazu

Out of curiosity, are people assuming the Road Eternal makes you immortal? The way I read it, you won't age, but you can still die if you get a sword through your heart, or etc.

Snapplepan

Wounds heal very quickly, including lost bodyparts. You're immortal if you watch the f out and don't make enemies.

Tibitha

Weirdly Eternal Road doesn't appeal to me at all.
I'd go Nakame or Healer.

Tibs would go Hunter, no question

Amanu

Kazu said:

Out of curiosity, are people assuming the Road Eternal makes you immortal? The way I read it, you won't age, but you can still die if you get a sword through your heart, or etc.

Most of them are long lived for whatever reason. Think they just like the idea of a long lived vacation as compared to being a King Fisher stuck in a house or being a President for life.

Orzaansyn

I'd be a Healer.

Szeth

Orzaansyn said:

I'd be a Healer.

I don't buy it.

Tillie

Tillie would readily choose the Road Eternal - though Escape she also finds appealing, probably due to her mercurial nature and the dreamy attitude she gets when she's alone.

All of these, personally, sound really terrifying to me in some way. If I had to pick, for myself I'd pick the Fisher King. Currently, my husband and I have terrible roommates...so if we could live in a magical house away from them and everything else in the world, it'd be totally cool.

Tael

I'm surprised that anyone would ever choose anything other than the Road Eternal - unconditional eternal life alone is already pretty ridiculous, but having pretty much every pedestrian inconvenience out of the way makes it downright ridiculous. Even if you don't like traveling, it seems like the obvious choice. Sure, you face the "you'll outlive everyone you love" thing, but you get to spend just as much time with those people as you would have if you weren't immortal, and then you get to keep going.

Hunter seems nice and exciting, except that the "eternal life" there is sort of a sham since it implies that the difficulty ramps up until you die.

Healer sounds like a disaster - if you don't know you're going to be judged, the temptation to make use of what is essentially mind control would be very dangerous - and on top of that, a person with abilities like that would be in demand 24/7 to touch people/things and heal them. And I would feel guilty about every moment I didn't spend curing cancer and all that.

Escape sounds fun for about a week. Serious fridge horror beyond that.

Nakama sounds pretty lovely too. There's certainly a sort of melancholy there, but overall it sounds like a nice option and it's the only one where you actually spend more time with loved ones than you normally would. Lacking eternal life though, and with the serious drawback of each life having fewer loved ones, I still don't think it's a very great option when held up next to the Road Eternal.

Fisher King means being locked into the same place. Not bad, but not much compared to the Road Eternal. You get a cool house I guess?

Dominion sounds like the only real contender when set next to the Road Eternal. It depends on what friends being "rare and difficult to hold onto" means, since it sounds like you would also be good at things that are difficult.

TL;DR: The Road Eternal is OP.

Tael would go for Dominion without a second's hesitation. He's never had much in the way of truly close in-character friends, so the drawback would hardly bother him.

Naverre

I'd probably pick the Road Eternal.

Tahquil

I watch to much Doctor Who to pick road eternal.

Nakama honestly sounds like I'm living the second to last life already and it's not as lonely as you think (bar the dog dying prematurely). In the last life when you remember on all the ones that have gone before I think I'm going to be pretty happy I've had all that time with really close friends even if they slowly drop off and I would have been able to spend eleven lifetimes treasuring the 'one for me'. Guess I just look at things form a different point of veiw.

Kazu

Tael said:

I'm surprised that anyone would ever choose anything other than the Road Eternal - unconditional eternal life alone is already pretty ridiculous, but having pretty much every pedestrian inconvenience out of the way makes it downright ridiculous. Even if you don't like traveling, it seems like the obvious choice. Sure, you face the "you'll outlive everyone you love" thing, but you get to spend just as much time with those people as you would have if you weren't immortal, and then you get to keep going.

Hunter seems nice and exciting, except that the "eternal life" there is sort of a sham since it implies that the difficulty ramps up until you die.

Healer sounds like a disaster - if you don't know you're going to be judged, the temptation to make use of what is essentially mind control would be very dangerous - and on top of that, a person with abilities like that would be in demand 24/7 to touch people/things and heal them. And I would feel guilty about every moment I didn't spend curing cancer and all that.

Escape sounds fun for about a week. Serious fridge horror beyond that.

Nakama sounds pretty lovely too. There's certainly a sort of melancholy there, but overall it sounds like a nice option and it's the only one where you actually spend more time with loved ones than you normally would. Lacking eternal life though, and with the serious drawback of each life having fewer loved ones, I still don't think it's a very great option when held up next to the Road Eternal.

Fisher King means being locked into the same place. Not bad, but not much compared to the Road Eternal. You get a cool house I guess?

Dominion sounds like the only real contender when set next to the Road Eternal. It depends on what friends being "rare and difficult to hold onto" means, since it sounds like you would also be good at things that are difficult.

TL;DR: The Road Eternal is OP.

Tael would go for Dominion without a second's hesitation. He's never had much in the way of truly close in-character friends, so the drawback would hardly bother him.

I strongly disagree that Road Eternal is the obvious choice. Honestly, it's pretty lackluster when you compare it to fisher king. I mean look at the comparisons.

Fisher king also has an eternal life, but it has the respawn aspect as well. Eventually, you are going to die as the Road Eternal. You will either have some sort of accident that exceeds your regenerative capabilities (falling off a cliff and impaling your heart on a tree branch) or someone will straight up kill you for what's in your pockets. Honestly, jumping dimensions you could run into some scenario where you are imprisioned, and then your regenerative abilities are moot. With the fisher king, you will always respawn and nobody can enter your house other than those you invite in. You essentially can't be killed.

As far as pedestrian inconveniences go, fisher king takes care of them arguably better. You will have access to any food you want, an army of servants via golem, and any form of entertainment that's possible. You also have the ability to generate utility rooms, so I could see this tying in with some other studies such as magecraft or simply providing a clothing room. You could easily decide you want to entertain yourself with a jousting tournament and turn around to find horses and all in a section of your home.

Road eternal also doesn't do a very good job at describing how long you are able to stay in a long place? It simply says, "a long time", but that's relatively subjective. A long time to an avid traveler could be a week or two in the same place. Regardless, the fact remains that you will have to leave your loved ones for extended periods of time to maintain your level of regeneration. On the flip side, I see no reason that the fisher king home can't mimic high-end landscaping. It says that it can be built to your specifications and use any form of technology present. You could easily create an indoor hot spring or a secluded tropical oasis with those guidelines.

You can also mimic some of the others as the fisher king. Nothing is stopping you from sending out an army of golems to conquer the countryside and establish your rule in making decisions. You will have lived for much longer than most others, and perhaps acquired insight and learning that further establishes you as a clear candidate for rule. Your rule would certainly be more stable, since people wouldn't have to worry that your successor would be significantly different.

I also wonder if your home is capable of copying magic as well, since you could make a legit argument that some things would fall under utility. Honestly, you could also make the argument that magic is just technology that the average person doesn't understand. If this exists in the same multiverse as the others, you could copy the magical abilities of a healer into a designated utility room for healing sick people.

Ellodin

everybody who hates healer needs jesus

Tezcatlipoca

I chose Fisher king. I would live by the ocean in a Mediterranean climate, perhaps greece or a tropical island. I would convert the rooms into monuments to various different cultures like Egyptian antiquity room, sumerian room, athenian room, etc. I would use the grounds as a university with myself as headmaster for children of the realm to be educated. I would rent out the services of my golem in exchange for luxury items I could not bring or create myself. I would have an arboretum, a cinema, a pool, a path leading to my private beach on the water, a zoo, a nightclub for parties on the weekends, a gymnasium, indoor hydroponics farm, and fireworks every night. I would seek apprentices to train with my knowledge which would include the sciences, philosphy, and spiritual teaching. I would hope my unique way of living would attract interesting characters for lavish dinners in the banquet hall and I would invite the wanderer for a fortnight or twos rest every six months so he could tell me of his travels and adventures. I would assist the king if I found him to be honorable and just. I started by imagining what would my life look like now if I was given this choice 2000 years ago and projecting forward. The others seem too miserable to me over time, though I would be tempted by the Naka ma path if after a cycle of 13 the cycles began once again.

Trilliana

For me, Healer, definitely. I wasn't really drawn to any of the other lives, and Healer seems to suit me best.

Tharvis

Escape, the thought of helping people that need helped, and then simply fading away when they don't need me anymore is.. strangely appealing.

Krypton

Reading people's answers, it feels like nobody here is in love. None of the situations provide for a way to spend eternity with the person you love, so they're all pretty damn depressing to me.

Okay recourse might be "Escape" since you can live with a dream-created version of your love for eternity. "Fisher King" would be perfect if one day time travel and eternal youth became "technologies that exist" so that you could retrieve your love and have them live with you forever.

Nim

Krypton said:

Reading people's answers, it feels like nobody here is in love. None of the situations provide for a way to spend eternity with the person you love, so they're all pretty damn depressing to me.

Okay recourse might be "Escape" since you can live with a dream-created version of your love for eternity. "Fisher King" would be perfect if one day time travel and eternal youth became "technologies that exist" so that you could retrieve your love and have them live with you forever.

Or people have fallen in and then out of love, and realize that it, like all other parts of humanity, are transient and fleeting.

Humans just aren't designed to live forever, so there'd be a ridiculous amount of coping whether you ever fall in love or not, with all of the immortal options. That being said, Nakama is your best bet if you're looking for love, since you get it twelve fold to start, and you're more or less guaranteed thirteen happy lives.

Just, if this were something I chose consciously, I'd never want reality to warp something like happiness or friendship into being for my selfish desires. The others are states of being and tools for me to employ, but Nakama strikes me as strange on some deep level that I'd never pick it, even if it's probably the happiest one out of all of them, given that you experience true, character-shaking heartbreak only once in thirteen otherwise mostly happy lives, instead of perhaps countless times with any other option. Even the final life could be a happy one if you let it, since you'll still have your faithful pet and your success at all things ordinary would probably include making ordinary friends or falling in ordinary love.

With the other options, I might be sad and depressed from time to time (perhaps even a lot of the time), but it'll be my sadness and depression. I might be terrible at making friends, but the ones I do make will be my friends.

Amanu

@Penwize is a Hunter who has the possibility of being a Fisher King. He's already got the island.

Sarapis

Well I, for one, thought the options too limited. I choose the Thug Life.









Sarashizzle out.

Amanu

Or @Sarapis is really working with @Valnurana and Achaea is just a realm of Escape.

Nim

Amanu said:

Or @Sarapis is really working with @Valnurana and Achaea is just a realm of Escape.

It is called Dreams of Divine Lands. Theory confirmed.

Xinna

I would choose Nakama, personally.

Xinna (IC) would choose Hunter generally, but Dominion apparently when called upon to do so (RIP happy Hunter life).

Mishgul

Is there a screenreader friendly version of this

Tezcatlipoca

@Kazu and @Mishgul to answer both of your questions I originally got this from a a reddit choose your own adventure game thread so you might be able to find different versions of it there. In most of the versions I have seen the wanderer is immortal, but not invincible.  Also what of you were captured by an evil king and tortured for eternity?!?

Iocun

The trick is to pick Nakama and choose "human" as your pet species, so you have a human friend left up to the very end!

Tezcatlipoca

@Iocun ! YOU'VE RETURNED TO GRANT ME YOUR GUI!

Iocun

Sure, consider it granted. Granting is fun and easy. I do it every now and then.

Quisse

I'd also choose Nakama. Having a true love by my side (and my cat!) makes pretty much anything else that comes bearable.

Tezcatlipoca

Kazu said:

Kingfisher for me. It seems to really only be limited by the technology of the time and the design of the user. I basically would get to live forever with absolutely zero chance of dying so long as I stayed in the house.

Also in the future I am betting someone will own their own planet as a "house"