- Location
- South Africa
The calenders sugest that it isn't meant to be the future. Like has been mentioned, I've been assuming that the differences from the real world are due to wishes
Meguca Micro Empire Quest (PMMM)
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The calenders sugest that it isn't meant to be the future. Like has been mentioned, I've been assuming that the differences from the real world are due to wishes
There's an actual date given? I never saw one.
While that fuel cost does seem high, the thing about mopeds and other expensive vehicles is that we should probably also factor maintenance and replacement cost into the upkeep. Let's say a moped will last say 10 years before it needs to be replaced (usually longer, but we're including maintenance too); that means an annual amortized replacement cost of $120, or $10 a month. That, along with fuel and other parts/labor costs, adds up to our $50 a month quite nicely.
That said, IMO it'll be worth it. Sure, your average meguca could pedal faster than a moped, but it'd certainly be less tiring, not to mention draw less attention, to be on the moped than on bikes. We could probably get away with juicing our delivery business's profits a little, too.
Even longer-term, we should consider full-on motorcycles (say maybe $10,000 per bike and $100 per month upkeep, again accounting for fuel+maintenance+replacement costs) for the rural and nomadic regions. Those should help negate some of the range penalties associated with rural and nomadic hunting.
The nomadic region in particular interests me, as that strikes me as the region most cruel to meguca, and yet the one place that we can't really as of yet bring our organizational advantages to bear. Right now I'm imagining a pair of vets--a hunter and a clairvoyant--being paired up on a motorcycle, given 6 units of cubes as an emergency stash, a decent living stipend and two sets of armor to go with their cell phones, and sent on a month-long ranging expedition through the nomadic region. A pair like that be able to at the very least be able to draw a slight grief cube surplus, and even if they can't we'll have pre-supplied them with enough grief cubes to tide them over. Another possible benefit is that any nomad meguca they meet along the way can be potentially recruited fairly easily, since most nomads are probably living hand-to-mouth and haven't had a decent place to live or a solid source on their next meal/despair ration since they contracted, and being given a couple hundred bucks, a carton of grief cubes, and the promise of a warm bed and a shower should win 90% of them over.
I don't think there is, but the technology advance is indicative. Technologies used by teenage girls, such as cell phones, laptops, and tech seen in schools, have advanced significantly, but things used only by adults--cars, for example--remain about where they are today. That tells me that we're looking at an alternative modern day, where wishes made by some girls have advanced the tech available to them, while the fundamental tech level is similar to what we have now.
Besides, it makes sense. Especially in a nation like Japan, where academic achievement is so very important to young people, I'd expect a lot of Wishes to be something along the lines of "I wish I was smarter/my school could teach better/learning was easier"
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March 16 (the day Homura woke back up in the hospital) was on a Wednesday. That means the year was 2011, 2016, 2022, 2033, 2039, 2044, or 2050 (assuming we're not going too much further in the future). It's generally assumed to represent 2011 since that's the year it aired, but I can't find any other definitive measures of a year (which is undoubtedly deliberate).
A near-future year would not be out of place (2040-2050 range), but I usually go with wishes as the primary effect, due to the architectural differences as well.
This is intentional.
Probably. The way I envision it is they're continuously moving and working. Effectively they only manage to extract enough cubes by the fact that they aren't returning to a home base. Just staying moving and staying at a different place each night, means they can cover much more area. Plus they're going to be spending much more of their day hunting than your girls typically do.
Interesting speculation. It makes a certain amount of sense.
It doesn't mesh well with how limited I'm making wishes in this though. That's essentially an issue with game balance. With high power wishes game balance was impossible. As I witnessed in the Catty Nebulart PMMM quest, if you give high power wishes, players wish-engineer their way to infinite power in no time flat (in ten turns they'd conquered North Korea and openly installed their own puppet government and got it recognized by the UN). While an amusing game, it wasn't the style I wanted for mine. So for game balance I made the choice to make wishes much weaker (and called it a consequence of law of cycles reducing available power for Incubators).
That's more a question of who breaks reality first in such a way that the enemy can't even exist. There can be temporary parity perhaps but nothing resembling game balance. You'd be in a Time War before I knew it.
I expect if I let people engineer wishes and left them impossibly strong we'd get to "Control of all matter" in like ten posts and work upwards from there.
- Location
- South Africa
Admittedly, I'm a fan of Medaka Box, so I may have skewed ideas of balance:lol
Though I'm not really advocating "wish engineering" (as you said, there's evidence in canon that it's a bad idea), so much as girls having a variety of wishes based on what they really want and learning to use that power effectively.
It can also be used as a check against us as you can "engineer wishes" and we can't (you can choose what the girls want. We get stuck with what you decide they want)
In any event, I've been happy with how this quest is being run anyway.
This is done regardless. I've basically put a cap on how much a wish can affect the world, but there's a lot you can do with it still. I'm basically plotting it like the Wish spell from D&D, rather than an unrestricted genie wish if that makes sense. You can wish someone was dead and they'll die, but wishing they were never born isn't within range.
It can bring back a parent who just died for instance. But not rewrite all of history as if Hitler was never born.
The general categories of wish magic are a result of common sorts of things to wish for and Incubators having some standard templates on how they resolve common wishes. Plus they are somewhat an abstraction of slightly different abilities (like stealth/illusion covering both "don't notice me" and light bending invisibility).
Your group represents a whole lot of different wishes.
Well keep in mind this is the accumulated effect of thousands of years of wishes, effectively tens of millions of girls Wishing. A slight bump in the tech level for teenage girl-related technology just makes sense, when you think about it that way.
@Kinematics @Elder Haman I just had a thought: should we start a set of social media accounts for the Serene? Obviously we can't break the masquerade, but talking up the girls' mundane lives, homework issues, running the businesses, etc might help to reinforce the group of LARPers image that we've chosen to present to the police, and under the hood promote the 1st level "secret" image of the Serene as a support group for possible SADS cases, banding together to survive. More importantly, we can use this social media platform as a way to help spread the influence of the RPG, once we finish the manual.
To start, maybe we set up a green and a vet (the green so we have someone who was recently mundane and remembers how it works) researching how normal people talk and behave on social media first, so we don't have a repeat of our LARPing disaster. After that we'll probably need to assign (effectively) a social media director to make sure we're keeping everything to the masquerade.
That does make sense.
They don't remember that.
"We would have won if only our equipment was less flimsy," Kyouko's
Also started going through plan to plot my update now that it seems settled. A bit surprised trying again on the elite training of Kaoru, could have put that on hold while you were squeezed on meguca/piled more omakes on it.
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Not saying they did. It is still a good idea, especially if we're going through with this RPG plan, to get ourselves established as a gamer group first, and a social media presence is one of many steps we need to take to properly keep to the masquerade like we're required to, while still working to effect the changes we want to.
Hey, that's right, we can do that, can't we? For some reason I was thinking we couldn't do that. @Kinematics, what do you think about delaying Elite training for a couple of months? We can shuffle meguca into social media research instead for now.
Yeah, my muse for omakes isn't running that high right now, and I want to have some written for her next attempt. Probably a good idea to put it off.
In that case... Well, I'm not too keen on the social media idea. It seems like an area that those who are interested in it would be doing anyway. Everyone has a cell phone, which means the general social playground is already at their fingertips.
If anything, perhaps revive the idea of the councilor. Useful as people come down from the stress over the police issue.
Will see if I can think of any other ideas.
Also, we still need some general fluff.
The thing is, we need to have a directed, unified, deliberate approach to social media if we're going to pull off a grassroots ad campaign for a fake RPG, without breaking the masquerade. That'll take time and directed effort, maybe more than the RPG itself will, and if we're going to do it at all we should probably get at least the initial steps done now, months ahead of time.
I didn't realize we could put it off.
Also, I do have omake's planned, I've just been buried under work. I was at work until 8:30 last night, and then had to come in early this morning. After hours I was able to post in the Embers quest because I had a lot of start and stop and wait actions (troubleshooting the network - joy!) but all my meguca notes where at home, and then I was just too tired to post any thing.
Looks like I might get off at the regular time today. Maybe I can get another omake done tonight, although I was planning more for Friday.
Kaoru training scratched from mine. Even with omakes pending, it's a bit late in the vote cycle to bring them in.
That leaves 1 elite and 1 vet free to apply to something else. Do we have anything else that we'd really like to get done? Possibly even something we specifically want Kaoru to do?
Of the common options, the most likely seems to be either opening more diplomacy communication channels, or progressing to the Safe Passage stage with area 9.
Research doesn't really seem appropriate.
Could dedicate the full elite to hunting to free up 1.5 vets. Resetting what I have in diplomacy, that results in 4 unallocated vets. I still want 2-3 vets in diplomacy. I'd like to bring back the councilor position idea. While the social media idea is interesting, I'm not really sold on it.
So, councilor, yes/no?
Of the 3-4 in diplomacy (depending on councilor, or any other option), do we want to try for Safe Passage with area 9? That would be 2 meguca. Otherwise, opening channels with 1/2/10/13 (light recruiting in 2/10, possibly spending cubes)?
Set A
1 councilor
1 open communications with area 1
2 safe passage with area 9
Set B
1 councilor
1 open communications with area 1
1 open communications with area 13
1 light recruiting area 10
Set C
1 councilor
1 open communications with area 1
1 open communications with area 13
2x0.5 light recruiting areas 2/10 (2 cubes)
Set D
1 open communications with area 1
1 open communications with area 13
1 light recruiting area 2
1 light recruiting area 10
As the councilor would help with grief spirals and such, and we're getting of a size to need it, I'm going to tentatively exclude D.
While I would like to push for more open channels with area 9, I'd also like to see how things work out with just normal communications first. Plus there's no immediate rush to expand in that direction. Possibly go for that next turn when we can combine it with the Aid action, the manual.
So that leaves it a question of whether to spend the cubes to hit both suburban areas this turn. As much as I'd like to get in contact with both, the current cube crunch has me reluctant to go for that when there's no urgent need.
So I'm going to go with Set B for the moment. If anyone has other ideas of what they might want to use a meguca for, let me know.
Edit: Also, for the moment I'll put Kaoru on the diplomacy mission to open relations with area 13. It seems the most difficult of the options, so it would seem best to put the responsibility on the one who'd been given personalized training by the current leaders.
That leaves 1 elite and 1 vet free to apply to something else. Do we have anything else that we'd really like to get done? Possibly even something we specifically want Kaoru to do?
Of the common options, the most likely seems to be either opening more diplomacy communication channels, or progressing to the Safe Passage stage with area 9.
Research doesn't really seem appropriate.
Could dedicate the full elite to hunting to free up 1.5 vets. Resetting what I have in diplomacy, that results in 4 unallocated vets. I still want 2-3 vets in diplomacy. I'd like to bring back the councilor position idea. While the social media idea is interesting, I'm not really sold on it.
So, councilor, yes/no?
Of the 3-4 in diplomacy (depending on councilor, or any other option), do we want to try for Safe Passage with area 9? That would be 2 meguca. Otherwise, opening channels with 1/2/10/13 (light recruiting in 2/10, possibly spending cubes)?
Set A
1 councilor
1 open communications with area 1
2 safe passage with area 9
Set B
1 councilor
1 open communications with area 1
1 open communications with area 13
1 light recruiting area 10
Set C
1 councilor
1 open communications with area 1
1 open communications with area 13
2x0.5 light recruiting areas 2/10 (2 cubes)
Set D
1 open communications with area 1
1 open communications with area 13
1 light recruiting area 2
1 light recruiting area 10
As the councilor would help with grief spirals and such, and we're getting of a size to need it, I'm going to tentatively exclude D.
While I would like to push for more open channels with area 9, I'd also like to see how things work out with just normal communications first. Plus there's no immediate rush to expand in that direction. Possibly go for that next turn when we can combine it with the Aid action, the manual.
So that leaves it a question of whether to spend the cubes to hit both suburban areas this turn. As much as I'd like to get in contact with both, the current cube crunch has me reluctant to go for that when there's no urgent need.
So I'm going to go with Set B for the moment. If anyone has other ideas of what they might want to use a meguca for, let me know.
Edit: Also, for the moment I'll put Kaoru on the diplomacy mission to open relations with area 13. It seems the most difficult of the options, so it would seem best to put the responsibility on the one who'd been given personalized training by the current leaders.
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Someone to help deal with the girls' troubles — either conflicts between girls, or personal issues — to help resolve disputes so that we don't have another blow-up like what damaged the house, as well as help mitigate issues that are likely to lead to grief spiraling.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
Doesn't that commit the girl to that job? Having her only sometimes be councilor would be terrible for building the trust that sort of position requires. And I'm not sure we'll be able to spare her next turn.
Yes, it would pretty much be a full, ongoing commitment. However I think we'll be OK on meguca.
We should be able to drop 2-3 meguca from hunting next turn (even with accounting for the 3.5 elites this turn), and that will be the stable amount of hunters we'll need from then on. Also, the manual project will probably not need further dedication after this month. Even if we dump the two spare hunters into research (the serious research will need 4 meguca per turn), that will still allow for a couple in diplomacy and have two or three meguca free, even after adding the councilor.
So we won't have a huge margin to work with, but we'll have enough that it should be workable.
The main question would be: does it seem useful enough in terms of morale and grief spiral prevention to commit to it? If you looked at it strictly as numbers, it might not be worth the equivalent of the 4 cubes per turn that a hunter would provide, as 4 cubes would be a pretty heavy amount of spiralling. On the other hand it's not a direct replacement for a hunter, as the hunter quota is already filled. Perhaps, is it worth the equivalent of a diplomacy action each turn?
Even if we don't strictly need it right now, I'd be inclined to have someone start building that trust for the longer-term benefits.
If you think it's a bad move now, and/or have something you'd rather commit to this turn, just say so, though.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
See, the thing is that it can take even a trained professional years to work through the issues our girls are likely to have, and at 50ish people we'll need a lot more than just one person to service our needs.
Being the psychologist for our organization I think is probably wish-talent, formal training, or bust. Unless we get someone with wish powers in that direction, until we send some of our girls through college/university for this, I don't see how an untrained girl is going to help much more than having a good circle of friends who have been through the same shit.
Maybe dedicate the extra megucahours to focusing on social links?
Being the psychologist for our organization I think is probably wish-talent, formal training, or bust. Unless we get someone with wish powers in that direction, until we send some of our girls through college/university for this, I don't see how an untrained girl is going to help much more than having a good circle of friends who have been through the same shit.
Maybe dedicate the extra megucahours to focusing on social links?
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Hmm. Understandable.
You mean a general morale action, like sports day? Continuing to improve relations with the neighbors, visiting families, hanging out more with the people we know (from school or through various jobs), that sort of thing? I could see that...
Diomedea
A piece of the continent
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- The interblag
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- She/Her
I agree that without professional training, attempts at playing a "counselor" would likely go poorly. There is too much of a tendency to want to dispense advice (which is not what a counselor does). That would likely breed resentment towards whoever got stuck with the job. For most people, simply having friends they can talk to is enough to deal with most issues.
OK, pulled out the counselor, and added the following under Morale:
Social Links [1 Vet] - Relax schedules some, and encourage people to spend more time with neighbors, friends and family.
Social Links [1 Vet] - Relax schedules some, and encourage people to spend more time with neighbors, friends and family.
If we have spare megucas should do morale building actions like Sports day.
Morale is a big thing for grief spirals.
Sorry all. Have the omake outlined, but I'm just too tired to actually get it written tonight.
Morale is a big thing for grief spirals.
Sorry all. Have the omake outlined, but I'm just too tired to actually get it written tonight.