JJBA OCT #8 R1M20 Jojolity Deliberations

JUDGE CLEVERRUSE

P16

The player team states their thesis here quite early on and does very well in the follow though. Mira is painted effectively as the main lead throughout, both serving as point-forward on any combat interaction and being the one to delegate the minions. Her serving as a guiding beacon for both this and her own team is even put literally in the match with her flaming sword being the first in and last out of every encounter. There’s some reflection on how the vampirism doesn’t define her in the character moments and serves the overall aim to describe what she chooses as her own true nature very well. Violet isn’t quite as well defined, though that may be the more passive role she chooses for herself to be defined as. Her servants do most of the lifting, as befits a god of creation such as her, and even when pushed into action will prefer to hold back and let her Plant do the work. The jealousy she holds for the more commanding presence of Mira is a great angle to play in the narrative, and with just one or two more direct mechanical tie-ins I could have seen a perfect score here. As is, still an incredibly strong Nine.

FS

I was excited going into this strat with the jojolity in mind. After all, what the hell IS DeSelby? The answer, fittingly enough, is still an enigma, but the exploration shown into how he views himself and him trying to define it through relation to known myth is compelling and a joy to read. His realization that he’s not just the shadow but also the light that casts it plays fantastically with the mechanics of the strat as well as the character being this self-aggrandizing introspective putz genius. He approaches the arena with the confidence and authority that a being thinking themselves related to myth would, and it's all done with a sense of self-aware humor that comes through beautifully. Ten.

JUDGE MARIO

For Jojolity, both teams were asked to unveil their true natures. This could mean any number of things to any number of people, and every single character on the table here has some element of mystery or duality to them that leads one to ask what their true nature even is. And to say that the teams did a fantastic job of showing their natures… that would be a disservice to just how well they did.

For the players, their natures are shown to stand in spite of how they appear. Mira may seem to be a bloodthirsty monster, but she is a leader. A leader who lights the way for their crew, who trusts them to get the job done and who is willing to put her own life on the line to keep them safe. Violet may seem to be a bratty child bossing others around, but she is a godlike tactician, skillfully commanding her pawns while nary lifting a finger herself. She too trusts her pawns to follow her orders, not necessarily out of deep care but out of confidence in her own skill in creating them. And the mechanics follow this to a T, with Mira literally and figuratively lighting the way while Violet lets the others handle the work on her behalf, confident they will succeed under her direction.

This alone is done well enough to earn you guys an easy 9... but I’m not giving you a 9. Because even though you could have stopped there, there’s one more piece of the puzzle with a nature to unveil…

Jim Ballen.

You didn’t need to unveil Jim Ballen’s true nature. You could have left him as a mindless servant to Violet and called it a day. But you did anyway. Jim Ballen believes in his creator. He believes in dance. And he believes that through them, anything can be achieved. He dances his way to victory, the rhythm of his soul pushing him past any obstacle that De Selby could put in his way. Violet & Mira know this to be true, even entrusting Jim with the final blow. Because Jim is no mindless servant - he’s a person, a part of the team, just as much as Mira and Violet are. That’s his true nature.

To me, it’s details like this that push a strategy above and beyond. **10**.

Moving on to De Selby, I’m thoroughly impressed with you as well. De Selby is an utter enigma, an unknowable entity that cloaks himself in darkness and mystery. So what does he do when asked to unveil his true nature? He furthers the mystery, shrouding the map in darkness and making the players see the world in his way. The fires rage across the landscape, their light spreading yet more shadow as he thinks to the multitudes he contains. And yet, he is calm - there is no flashy end, no dramatic finisher just as there is no clear answer given to what De Selby is. Just the all-consuming darkness, eating away at everything around him.

What is De Selby? Perhaps, despite all his infinite knowledge, even De Selby himself doesn’t know.

Whatever he is, this strategy is a near-flawless peek at his essence all the same. **10.**

JUDGE SWITZ

P16:

Phantom 16 interprets their JoJolity in a few interesting ways. Right off the bat, “true natures” is defined in relation to how one perceives their own humanity: Mira’s intent being to reject the thesis that she is inhuman due to her monstrous status, whereas Violet is told to reject the thesis that she is, in fact, human. Mira plays this very straight, directly battling her vampiric nature by standing for the light and outright utilizing it to battle the darkness, whereas Violet, in her attempt to demonstrate her cruelty, oftentimes fails to live up to that thesis she holds for herself; in a sense, Violet’s true nature, that of someone who is defined largely by her own ego and praise, shows through more strongly in the mechanics. However, the opening narrative leaves two more axes that the strat explores in its mechanics: Mira as a “leader” and a “captain”, and Violet as a “creator” and a “goddess.” This one has a much more clear definition with regards to the mechanics: Mira taking point as both the vanguard of the fight and as the one giving orders paints her as exactly what her title would identify her as, whereas Violet’s policy never to meddle, to “create” rather than to “lead,” is quaintly expressed by her largely doing nothing throughout the strategy, leaving most of her mechanical benefits to her creations barring her own protection. And lastly, we come to Jim Ballen, an interesting addition to an already solid JoJolity. Jim Ballen and his agency is given significant focus in the strategy as a complement to both Mira & Violet’s narrative: he, ultimately, just wants to dance. And he does. Perhaps the most true to his nature out of everyone here, a fact understood both by the mechanics of the strat, that allow him to shine on his own merits alongside his companion Flippy, and the players themselves, who for different reasons, understand and trust him. In a way, this is a strat about Jim Ballen, and people like him, those who above everything else are true to themselves. Mira embodies it, Violet struggles to emulate it, and its purity is reason enough for Jim to land the final blow. It’s work like this that allows a JoJolity to ascend to a **10**.

FS:

De Selby makes several attempts to posit his “true nature” throughout the strat. The primary running thesis paints De Selby as a deity of the night: a being that is *above* the mortal plane, capable of creating and destroying through night and darkness. The mechanical integration is a high point of this strategy, where the Black Air is treated as a force of nature that consumes all, and shadow as a counterpart to the destructive force of flame. De Selby’s strat goes a long way to amplify his presence and make him appear almost godlike, as if the players stepped into his domain and he has deigned to smite them. Of course, this isn’t the ultimate conclusion of the strat’s narrative: De Selby is, ultimately, not simply a god with a definition, a background. De Selby is an abstract concept that has nothing to prove. The destruction caused by the strat is indiscriminate and uncaring, the ultimate embodiment of night. De Selby is forced to conclude that perhaps they have no true nature, being only De Selby: a powerful conclusion to the strat’s mechanics that similarly have no end, no finality. Another **10**.