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Blood and Sand: A Wandering Inn Quest (Isekai/LitRPG)

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mithril-blade said:
[X] Teach the Alchemist

The funny thing is that Guilds should, in essence, function like unions.

So we have the opportunity to make an union of an union? Heh.
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Historically that's not how guilds functioned. It was a group of independent master artisans who would band together to protect their interests against the people who hired them but they also tended to ruthlessly exploit their apprentices & still competed and had power plays & competed for contracts amongst each other.

Unions are very different from that because all the workers have the same interests basically all the time.
 
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Well, this is the type of votes where I want all of them but the city council would be the best bet, both in regards to safety and to get nicer contracts, as the city council is both rich and well connected so succeeding here would be a boon to both us and our master.

The adventurers are well known but they're low level and low on funds while the alchemist is rich but presumably doesn't have much in the way of a social circle if he didn't hire an [accountant] or someone with accounting skills like a [secretary].

Plus, the conflict with the druids promise a good look at the world through an interesting aspect of it as well as doing a job for someone more important, which gives off more xp.

[x] Teach the Druids
 
[X] Teach the Druids

Based off of what I know about the setting I'm about 90% sure the druids are right and the magic is harming them & im about 50% sure that the city council isn't gonna care, but I think the Druid's will be a better long-term contact for us than the other options (they can help with our inevitable attempts are guerilla warfare).
 
[X] Teach the Druids

Could really use a threadmark for this chapter though. I wouldn't have noticed the update if not for checking to see the vote count.
 
[X] Teach the Alchemist

I don't want to be involved in the ruthless politics of city government before we get a better lay of the land. I certainly don't want to anger the Guild by discrediting their argument or anger the Bronze and Silver Adventurers looking to vent their frustrations about reduced pay.
 
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Threnodist said:
Historically that's not how guilds functioned. It was a group of independent master artisans who would band together to protect their interests against the people who hired them but they also tended to ruthlessly exploit their apprentices & still competed and had power plays & competed for contracts amongst each other.

Unions are very different from that because all the workers have the same interests basically all the time.
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Oh that's simply not true and you know it. Corruption in unions basically erodes the incentive for the people in charge of them to do what's right for everyone instead of doing what's right for them.

Nothing says that the people in a Guild have to be masters of their craft, though they usually were, just like nothing says that placement in an union is dictated by seniority instead of merit even though it usually is.

When guilds are working correctly, they protect the members of their guild in much the same way that Unions do. Point in fact, The Newspaper Guild functions more like the latter then the former for example.
 
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mithril-blade said:
Oh that's simply not true and you know it. Corruption in unions basically erodes the incentive for the people in charge of them to do what's right for everyone instead of doing what's right for them.

Nothing says that the people in a Guild have to be masters of their craft, though they usually were, just like nothing says that placement in an union is dictated by seniority instead of merit even though it usually is.

When guilds are working correctly, they protect the members of their guild in much the same way that Unions do. Point in fact, The Newspaper Guild functions more like the latter then the former for example.
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I don't really want to get into this argument, b/c it's not relevant to the thread

but the point is Guilds are not Unions. Independent artisans (which Adventurers are b/c their worth is at least partially tied to their gear and they take contracts instead of having regular work from one employer) are different from workers and their organizations are different.

If we or our character go in acting like these adventurers are like workers or that a guild is like a union we are going to be unpleasantly surprised.

That's all.
 
Lunati said:
Nice update, but threadmark?
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DaOneInDaCorner said:
Could really use a threadmark for this chapter though. I wouldn't have noticed the update if not for checking to see the vote count.
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jjffjhjf said:
@NewRole umm it looks like you forgot to threadmark the last update.
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Woops. Fixed! I appreciate everyone turning out and voting/discussing even after I forgot the threadmark.

Silverking said:
Looks like we are fully benefitting from "Daughter's First Puppy" status.
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Technically, you're Daughter's Second Puppy, as Sophie is the first. Though the Sheik was much more hands-on in teaching her how to train Sophie.

mithril-blade said:
The funny thing is that Guilds should, in essence, function like unions.

So we have the opportunity to make an union of an union? Heh.
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There's been a lot of discussion of unions, but my observation on Guilds in Innworld is that they're... more like plot devices than actual entities.

Historically, one of the main functions of guilds was to license businesses. If you wanted to set up shop as a blacksmith, you had to get approval from the blacksmith's guild, meet their criteria for quality, and if you violated enough rules they'd kick you out and you'd lose your livelihood. They were more akin to regulatory agencies than unions or trade associations. City governments liked this arrangement because it meant they didn't have to pay to check that every baker in the city was using wheat and not sawdust; the Baker's Guild would take care of all the bureaucracy for them.

That's... not really an issue in Innworld. Guilds (at most) will certify someone at a certain level of competence (Street Runner/City Runner/Courier for Runners, Bronze/Silver/Gold for Adventurers), but most of that service is obviated by the existence of levels. You don't need the bureaucracy of people who really understands baking to investigate bakers; you can just have a [Baker] swear on a truth stone that he is a [Baker] and he's not violating any laws or doing anything that would be unsafe to his customers.

The Adventurer's and Runner's Guilds in particular function more like Uber/Lyft than a trade association. They're a coordinated hub that assigns tasks to independent contractors and extracts fees/dues as part of the transaction.

None of these things are like unions.
 
NewRole said:
Historically, one of the main functions of guilds was to license businesses. If you wanted to set up shop as a blacksmith, you had to get approval from the blacksmith's guild, meet their criteria for quality, and if you violated enough rules they'd kick you out and you'd lose your livelihood. They were more akin to regulatory agencies than unions or trade associations. City governments liked this arrangement because it meant they didn't have to pay to check that every baker in the city was using wheat and not sawdust; the Baker's Guild would take care of all the bureaucracy for them.

That's... not really an issue in Innworld. Guilds (at most) will certify someone at a certain level of competence (Street Runner/City Runner/Courier for Runners, Bronze/Silver/Gold for Adventurers), but most of that service is obviated by the existence of levels. You don't need the bureaucracy of people who really understands baking to investigate bakers; you can just have a [Baker] swear on a truth stone that he is a [Baker] and he's not violating any laws or doing anything that would be unsafe to his customers.

The Adventurer's and Runner's Guilds in particular function more like Uber/Lyft than a trade association. They're a coordinated hub that assigns tasks to independent contractors and extracts fees/dues as part of the transaction.

None of these things are like unions
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Point of information: doesn't the Runner Guild do some kind of seal authentication for high-level packages? It's been a few months since I read TWI so I'm having trouble remembering all the complexities there but I thought that was one reason it was important to have a trusted neutral party.

Other than that, I think the only other real use for them is that they are an efficient middle-man for the clients and the adventurers. I'm pretty sure the magical [Message] system is at the very least labor intensive so this way adventuring parties don't HAVE to have a mage in order to get higher-level contracts and higher-level clients don't HAVE to send as many messages.
 
Threnodist said:
Point of information: doesn't the Runner Guild do some kind of seal authentication for high-level packages? It's been a few months since I read TWI so I'm having trouble remembering all the complexities there but I thought that was one reason it was important to have a trusted neutral party.
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Runners don't get paid until they return with a seal from the recipient, yes. This is really just a primitive form of escrow, and is another mark in the "the Runner's Guild is basically just Uber" column.
 
I'm confused as to why people want to branch out to alchemy and adventuring. Way I see it, our best way to become free again is to teach others, especially the government and the slavers, how free people are more productive than slaves, if given the chance.

Granted, we could try to branch out and teach others about other topics than economics as well, but I don't see how that could benefit us in becoming free, or even in staying free and keeping our life for when we are without our masters protection.

While an in with the government allows us to affect actual change to the way things are done and an in with the druids may help us with an eventual escape if things don't go the way we want them to.

[X] Teach the Druids
 
ManyOne said:
Way I see it, our best way to become free again is to teach others, especially the government and the slavers, how free people are more productive than slaves,
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From the POV of slavers, it isn't. They became rich by selling people and their entire economy is based on it, so for them it works. Slavers live a good and luxurious life and are very powerful, I think they don't really care about much else.

Why would they listen to some low-level slave who tell them to fundamentally change how their society works? I don't think we can hope to abolish slavery, at least not by using rationality on the slavers. Imo, the only way is war or en masse rebellion.
 
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K von Carstein said:
From the POV of slavers, it isn't. They became rich by selling people and their entire economy is based on it, so for them it works. Slavers live a good and luxurious life and are very powerful, I think they don't really care about much else.

Why would they listen to some low-level slave who tell them to fundamentally change how their society works? I don't think we can hope to abolish slavery, at least not by using rationality on the slavers. Imo, the only way is war or en masse rebellion.
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By convincing them bit by bit. Our master is beyond cruelty, and beyond caring for the individual. EDIT: What he does care about, is the bottom line. By showing him that slaves work better with incentives, rather the carrot than the stick we can start to improve the situation for the slaves.

Convince him, as an experiment, to set an achievable goal for some slaves with the reward of a small but permanent improvement to their circumstances as a start. Maybe better sleeping conditions or something like that.

People generally work better as long as they see a way to improve their situation. There will be less revolts and rebellion against the system as well.

I am sure an ecomomist by trade can find ways to improve a slave economy by clever use of incentives, give the chance. And as a teacher we can guide our protegé and make it seem as if it's her idea all along. She has proven to be malleable enough for that.

We can introduce this piece by piece. Eventually allow slaves to gain their freedom with extraordinary feats. For a gladiator that would be becoming champion or somesuch. We can see how we can spin this so that we may get our freedom as well.
 
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    • Scheduled vote count started by NewRole on Aug 8, 2022 at 8:30 AM, finished with 44 posts and 31 votes.
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