JJBA OCT #8 R1M19 Jojolity Deliberations

JUDGE SWITZ

LLC:

I have much more interesting things to say on the JoJolity side of things for LLC. I was very fond of how the idea of gambling and high-rolling especially were included in this strat. I was genuinely very immersed in Kenny’s ideal of gambling, that risk-and-reward based strategy where every action might lead to a massive payout. The framing of individual moves’ value via their potential payout gives an excellent insight into how Kenny views the world: its very interesting character writing that takes the usual formula of the JoJo “every move I make is calculated and planned” strategy and retrofits it for Kenny’s mindset. It wasn’t enough to make every technique centered on the idea of odds: the *thrill* of gambling is at the centerpiece of Kenny’s mechanical narrative. His plays are driven by the idea of reaching a payout, of finally high-rolling, driving him to stay as constantly active as he is and to manipulate the odds in his favor (another important facet of gambling). This feels exactly like how Kenny would play out a fight, chasing the idea of a win at any hour.

The thing that pushes this JoJolity up to a **9** from an 8 to me, however, is that Understanding the JoJolity Explains the Strategy. By exploring the JoJolity thesis first and foremost and framing the strat around it, the tactics are not explained by the nebulous persuasive concept of the tournament (why the player/team believes they win) but by Kenny’s own perspective (why *Kenny* believes he wins). This, to me, is the example of how to get a high score in JoJolity: wherein the thesis of the JoJolity is simultaneously the core thesis of the strategy, to where the line between how the strat embodies the JoJolity and how it embodies its winning plays become the same. Kenny’s overall goals make sense without the context of the JoJolity fine enough, but they become much more clear and understandable the moment you understand who Kenny is and what he wants. Excellent work.

BBP:

The strat provides two central ideas for its JoJolity that different parts of the strat play to. The first is the concept of a superstar as a presence rather than an overwhelming force, turning the match into a performance with a rise and a climax. The second connects back to the King and the statues, and states that Farah wants to treat the King and the statue as an audience, and play to their emotions. Both ideas are interesting on their own, and together represent two axes of a very interesting JoJolity. The first of the two gets more focus than the second, and I think its represented well enough: Farah focuses on defense and misdirection, marking her presence not through grandstanding but through subtle hints, and making her proper debut only apparent in the climax of the strat. I think the strategy had potential for an 8, were the focus on both sides placed more evenly and the mechanics of the strat relating to the JoJolity more emphasized. However, I think as is, I’ll have to give a **7**. What’s done here is solid, and I think the broad mechanical narrative of the strategy is sound; I would have just liked to see more detail.

JUDGE CLEVERRUSE

LLC

The framing of the entire strat is well done here, as mentioned briefly in my quality section I like it all being framed like Kenny is at a casino which reflects well on him as a character. That being said most of that connection stops at a surface level, there are a few sections of the mechanical side of things that do give off a ‘professional gambler’ vibe, but for the majority the relation stops at the tech being named after various gambling terms. The modular approach early relying on the ‘coin-flip’ of Heat’s aggro works here, as does the Pull Call Invert relying on Heat interacting with his bluff, but the majority of everything else requires a bit of stretching to fit this definition. I would have loved to see bigger, riskier gambits being a part of the core kit or even more of Kenny setting ‘traps’ and making ‘bluffs’ while doing so. Seven.

BBP

BBP has a very well done setup to their jojolity early on: Farah finding inspiration in the series of statues for the various elements of her strategy is a very good narrative approach, but I think it goes largely forgotten after the early sections. There’s the odd call-out to how a star of Farah’s magnitude should act (giving just enough of a glimpse to entice, alluding to her illusions) but I think it could have been very easily explored further than this given such a great setup. The finale does play well into it, daring the opponents to be her audience as she puts on a hell of a swamp rock show, but the middle sections do leave a bit to be desired in marrying the mechanics and her talents as a superstar. Not a bad showing by any means, but just a little more consideration could have easily scored very high here. Seven.

JUDGE DSO

I’ll start off once again with LLC, and I’ll try to keep this section relatively brief. I think your strat was very flavorful in terms of selling the gambler mindset. Tech names, the payout odds next to different attacks, and even the bingo card were all fun ways to approach the objective here, but they are also fairly thin in terms of direct integration into the strat, which is where most of your focus should be. In terms of how the strat integrates the idea of “embodying a high roller,” I think you do a decent job, if not spectacular. Kenny’s strat in general is built around the idea of throwing out tons of projectiles or attacks, where if one gets lucky and lands then Kenny gets a big payout, or even if they miss, Kenny still gets some information (narrowing down Farah’s location) and allowing him to accumulate smaller wins over time, all of which strikes me as the approach of a guy who’s good enough at gambling to have strategies to always come out on top. I also appreciated that you hedged your bets every now and then, like in the beginning by having separate plans for what to do if you lose the coin flip and draw Heat’s aggro from the start. Admittedly, I do think your backup plans are a bit thin here, but I appreciated that you took the time to emphasize having them at all. All in all, I think I’m fairly happy with what you guys put on display here, even if it didn’t wow me. I’ll give you a **7**.

Moving on to BBP, I think my thoughts on your JoJolity can be summarized as a very promising central idea but lacking in execution. Early on, you establish this narrative idea of the four statues at the center of the map, with Farah deciding to base her actions around the four emotions the statues are displaying. I was initially excited by this, but was pretty underwhelmed by how it ultimately turned out. As I read the “Mournful Defense” section, I never got the impression that Farah was incorporating the emotion of being mournful into her plans. As I read the “Tranquil Illusion” section, I never got the impression that Farah was incorporating the emotion of being tranquil into her plans. I suppose you could argue that her combat section somewhat addressed the emotion of being “furious” just by taking an active role in combat and attacking Kenny, but I still felt like it didn’t fully deliver on the core premise. I have similar complaints with Stoic Execution, as well. I’ll reiterate that the idea of Farah incorporating the statues’ emotions into her art and thus her approach to combat would be a very cool way to approach the JoJolity of “embody a superstar,” and if you had done more work towards incorporating those themes into your plans, I could easily see myself giving this strategy a higher score. The somewhat disappointing central premise aside, you guys do have some ideas here that I enjoyed. The strategy as a whole is built around Farah hiding in stealth, slowly accumulating her resources over time and building to a large crescendo where she reveals herself and throws everything she has at Kenny. I think that’s a good enough attempt at the objective of “being a flashy superstar” to justify me giving you guys a **6**.