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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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redaeth said:
Eh sexuality is both complicated and fluid. Ling Qi is pretty young so she isn't exactly set in stone.
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For the absolute majority of people sexuality isnt fluid. People are born with a certain sexuality they cant change. You cant pray your sexuality away, you cant use electroshocks or torture and peer pressure doesnt work as well.

You can force a performance, like when homosexual nobility way forced to produce heirs no matter what, but you cant change a sexuality.

Sentiments like, "its just a phase" or "when you mature and grow as a person you will grow out of your heterosexuality" are stupid and patronizing at best and actively harmful at worst.

Please stop with statements like this. While at first it sounds permissive, inclusive and progressive it really, really isnt. It equates sexuality with a learned behaviour that can therefore be unlearned or changed. It is the exact same thinking the warden of a gay conversion camp has and should be equally dismissed as hateful and untrue when coming from a queer or lgbt person or ally.

Sorry when i come of as fairly strong in this matter but this is one of my major red flags and I needed to point it out. Im sure you didnt mean anything bad by this and are just a good person trying to be tolerant in a, sadly, horrible way.
 
Horium said:
I may sound like a bastard for saying this, as it clearly bothered Yrsillar, but I dislike the current change of many medicines to just unnamed pills with the mechanic description.

One of the things that makes this setting, and the quest in particular, so well-crafted and compelling, are all the little details that are flavorful and that really flesh the world out (details such as the names of even the low-end pills).

I will be the first to say that this is a really minor nitpick, and that this change is something that obviously spares Yrsillar time and effort, and lets him focus on more important aspects of the quest, but I still had to say that I dislike the change.

The quest loses a tiny bit of immersion for it.
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Erandil said:
I get your point but to be honest I am struggling to remember the last time any of those pills got mentioned by name (or anything but "she took the typical mix of drugs" and cultivated) inside the actual narrative. And I guess it is different for you but for me the market lists and the like aren't really part of the story itself so this change doesn't really change anything in my eyes.
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I agree that the pill names truly aren't important, but I also feel like not having names for them at all breaks immersion. It bothered me even when we had plans that talked about taking "both wood pills" or whatnot, and it bothers me now.

One solution that addresses both sides of the issue is standardised names. They aren't especially flavorful or interesting, but at least they are in character and don't break immersion.

So we call all the pills something along the template "[Scale] [Category] Tonic", where [Scale] represents the strength of the pill and [Category] represents what it affects. So you could have the plan include something like a Lesser Darkness Element Tonic (-15rss, +5 darkness dice) or an Intermediate Spiritual Cultivation Tonic (-35 RSS, +10 physical dice) or whatever. Not confusing or ambiguous, but also not a blank space that says {This is purely mechanics; fluff need not apply.}




As an alternative formulation, having things be nameless makes sense if we assume that instead of buying a combination of pills, we are just choosing a combination of effects that an apothecary mixes up on the spot. So we don't actually buy a +5 darkness dice pill and a +10 physical dice pill or whatever; we just put in an order for a single pill or pill-regimen which has the +5 darkness dice and +10 physical dice features. Since the features aren't finished products, they don't need their own name.
 
Timewinders said:
Ling Qi dedicated a song to her at the dance, and the spirit used some art to read Ling Qi's mind and found that she was confused about her feelings.
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Ling Qi has already internally expressed confusion about how she feels toward Meizhen while explicitly noting it wasn't the way Meizhen felt toward her. So this seems a fairly straightforward case of spirits who haven't bonded with cultivators only being human in appearance, and while Sixiang understands some of the social expectations based around ones' gender the concept of actually being stuck with one is clearly alien to Sixiang.
 
Erebeal said:
Wind/Water is still waaayyyy stronger for us due to gear + FSS.

Switching to wind/water gets us -3 qi and 2AP, and this will likely improve with better FSS. That's way better than +1 dice.

To say nothing of how we've got enough problems with trying to handle our dark/wind/water/wood element line up and how to focus that down without adding heaven in there as well. Moreover, frankly, I don't like heaven for Ling Qi. Being all lightning and super saiyan and throwing lasers around and shit is the kind of thing Ji Rong does. Screw that. That kind of thing is way overdone. We can be a dark mysterious young moon maiden. That's also cool.

So yeah. I'd favor just forgetting about this bonus entirely.
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Yeah I'm with you on this; we need to narrow down our path. I think Heaven could combine with Moon in interesting ways, but lots of things can and we have other good options.
I think our moon, music, Zhengui, and object spirit are all worth following through on; everything else has to earn its place on our path.
 
PrimalShadow said:
So we call all the pills something along the template "[Scale] [Category] Tonic", where [Scale] represents the strength of the pill and [Category] represents what it affects. So you could have the plan include something like a Lesser Darkness Element Tonic (-15rss, +5 darkness dice) or an Intermediate Spiritual Cultivation Tonic (-35 RSS, +10 physical dice) or whatever. Not confusing or ambiguous, but also not a blank space that says {This is purely mechanics; fluff need not apply.}
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The problem is that the different types of pill have different ranges, and they'll likely increase in the future. Trying to attach simple descriptors like "lesser" or "intermediate" isn't very flexible or scalable.

I'd suggest something that directly refers to the number of dice, since that's what we're working with. Something like "part" or "grain" or something. e.g. "5-part Darkness Pill". Basically anything that can be generated off some simple rules.
 
PrimalShadow said:
As an alternative formulation, having things be nameless makes sense if we assume that instead of buying a combination of pills, we are just choosing a combination of effects that an apothecary mixes up on the spot. So we don't actually buy a +5 darkness dice pill and a +10 physical dice pill or whatever; we just put in an order for a single pill or pill-regimen which has the +5 darkness dice and +10 physical dice features. Since the features aren't finished products, they don't need their own name.
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This is how I thought it was formatted when we buy elemental drugs from the inner sect. I mean, the inner sect production students likely have better things to do then to make piles of elemental drugs for their cohorts to buy. They have already demonstrated to the sect that their production capabilities are better than the average joe and should be nurtured and expanded.

What this means is that they likely produce exceptional drugs on commission, or for things that they know that people will want, and fill any Sect quota with healing salves and qi boosters to keep the medicine hall filled to the brim as well as keeping the fighters on the border in tip-top shape.

What I would take this to mean is that the inner sect market isn't filled with mass production cultivation drugs. There is just not enough of an immediate return for a production student to do that when they could be spending their time make a personalized drug for themselves or a rich noble. So the "drugs" we are getting are stuff that a production student can probably whip out from the leftover materials that the stronger drugs come from. Save the waste materials from expensive and valuable drugs and then make that stuff into elemental cultivation boosting pills for the people who commission them. Takes a couple of days, make a tidy profit.

However, because of that these aren't actually recipes for drugs and aren't really named. Just common waste materials made beneficial for someone.
 
yrsillar said:
Probably going to make bountiful earth not work in combat time.
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That would mean that our combat time qi pills are actually weaker than they were at yellow, since we used to have a 20 point pill we could take in combat, and the Dragon pills are only 15.

This is pretty much what I had expected and the fighting meta-game still works. People should remember, you can only take one 40 point pill per day and they cost a mint. We were told that fights were going to get longer at higher levels, and given how slowly qi cultivates, compared to how quickly our arts become more deadly, enhanced sustain in the form of pills and regen techniques is the natural answer. I think people are overreacting, especially considering how large base qi pools are going to get in third realm. Something like this was necessary.

If it needs nerfing, dropping it to 30 qi, 10 more than the previous largest pill, might work. Raising the price to make them less cost effective is also an option. Currently it has almost the same rss/qi ratio as the Dragon pills.
 
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Kian said:
For the absolute majority of people sexuality isnt fluid. People are born with a certain sexuality they cant change. You cant pray your sexuality away, you cant use electroshocks or torture and peer pressure doesnt work as well.
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Yes, there are people who have a completely static sexuality and who will never change, but there are also people have changed later in their life or who have entered into fulfilling relationships at odds to their sexuality. That isn't even bringing up the rest of the complicated mess that people can be.

You are also reading way too much in my post with the rest of that rant. I never even came close to implying that one could force someone to change who they are attracted to.
 
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So, looking at what we can expect from the next update (or the next couple updates).

We have the EPC cultivation and checking up on Su Ling and the Ma Twins, which should be fun! Can't wait to see how they have improved and what they have been up to lately. After that we have to more minors, Han Jian discussion (like... can we start training together again, or has that ship sailed when we got to green?) and the Meizhen discussion.

Other than that, all the things covered in the plan have been done, 4 out of the 5 majors and 2 our of the 5 minors. Pretty good!

Some things that are not part of the plan that I think we can expect to deal with are: Letter from Mother, and discussion and decision regarding Cai's offer. The Cai offer might be a minor that takes place next week though. I think there was also some noise regarding learning more about what a Domain is/does and maybe we can talk Meizhen about what flying swords are all about/how to get one. It's some exciting updates!
 
redaeth said:
Yes, there are people who have a completely static sexuality and who will never change, but there are also people have changed later in their life or who have entered into fulfilling relationships at odds to their sexuality. That isn't even bringing up the rest of the complicated mess that people can be.

You are also reading way too much in my post with the rest of that rant. I never even came close to implying that one could force someone to change who they are attracted to.
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Your statement here is considerably at odds with your previous one. Your previous statement says that sexuality in general is fluid, not that some people have a fluid sexuality and it makes no mention at all of a nonsexual romantic relationship with Meizhen. Maybe you misspoke, but I think that a reading that any person's, and specifically Ling Qi's, sexuality is mutable is a more reasonable interpretation of your previous statement than what you're saying now.

Saying "complicated mess" with regard to sexualities that aren't familiar to you is honestly pretty bigoted.
 
Erebeal said:
The problem is that the different types of pill have different ranges, and they'll likely increase in the future. Trying to attach simple descriptors like "lesser" or "intermediate" isn't very flexible or scalable.
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For what is explicitly generic pills? I don't see why not. +5 is Lesser, +10 is intermediate, +15 is Greater, +20 is Superior, and anything past that honestly shouldn't be on the "generic" list right now.
 
There is a possible compromise for super effective combat time qi regain: have it come with a drawback.

For example: you can regain 40 qi, but you lose 40 qi successes. Or you go into success debt: the next 40 successes towards qi do not count. Then it becomes a matter of balancing trade-offs.

I believe this is reasonable to the setting, but I suspect that they would be strongly discouraged in the Sect itself because it hinders growth in exchange for an unnecessary, even misleading boost in power. Red and yellow cultivators can't make effective enough pills of this sort for this to be worthwhile as cheaper and safer pills are already available.

However, on the battlefield, where it is a matter of life and death, these sorts of pills become much more common even if their use is officially discouraged.
 
Kai Merah said:
Oh shit. I totally forgot about that. Brace for the salt wars!
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Well, we already broke through so there will be less salt and less pent-up aggression and anger then if we had gone into the vote before a bronze breakthrough.

That being said, I'm fully expecting the aftermath of the vote to... not be pretty. Hopefully it won't be too bad?
 
Mr.rodent said:
I don't know how I'd feel about

"And suddenly ling qi realised she may indeed like the V" ....
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Eh plenty of people come to the realization that they might like both or at least be able tolerate 'stuff' they aren't attracted to in order to be with the PERSON that they are attracted to/love.

Single Target sexuality is a trope for a reason.
 
George said:
Saying "complicated mess" with regard to sexualities that aren't familiar to you is honestly pretty bigoted.
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I think you're reading a lot into their posts that isn't there. "Complicated mess" in that context does not imply anything negative, nor does redaeth say anything to suggest they are talking about sexualities that are unfamiliar to them. I am quite familiar with my own confluence of gender/sexual/romantic identities and would, in fact, agree that "complicated mess" is a pretty accurate summary if I'm not in a position where I want to give a lecture on queer theory or dig more than five letters deep in the alphabet soup.


Also, hi! I think this is my first time posting in the quest? I caught up just recently and have been too caught up in the complexities of the drug names and how the market works to get into the voting, so I'm all for the redesign.
 
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George said:
Your statement here is considerably at odds with your previous one. Your previous statement says that sexuality in general is fluid,
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I am not an expert on sexuality, and using absolutes on human behaviour is just foolhardy. All I can say is that I have known someone who had changed during their life.

George said:
Saying "complicated mess" with regard to sexualities that aren't familiar to you is honestly pretty bigoted.
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I said complicated mess, because getting into things like the kinsley scale, demi-sexuality, aromanticism and everything else is very much a complicated mess that can fill several textbooks worth of material. It has nothing to do with with bigotry and everything to do with brevity.
 
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Regarding a change in sexuality- I suppose it is possible. Ling Qi is becoming more and more moon aligned, and moon spirits seemed to be defined by fluidity. And it's a setting where people can breed with sentient daggers.

But I don't think it'll be in play any time soon, assuming we even want it to be and Meizhen hasn't moved on by then. In the sense of seeking other romantic interests- hopefully they stay friends for the rest of their lives.

Now I think Ling Qi should be able to get into the top 8 fairly securely, as long as we stay reasonably focused on cultivation and training. Right now, I think we're behind Meizhen, Sun Liling, Chu Song, and Cai, maybe tied with Xuan Shi, who's going for the production track, and probably slightly ahead of Gan, Han Jian, and Han Fang. If there's anyone else on that level, we'd have heard of him or her by now, I assume. With 3-4 actions devoted per week, and Zeqing tutoring every week (which I believe let's us cultivate two music arts with one action?), we should be able to maintain our lead.

The wild card is Ji Rong. We have no idea how well the 'training from hell' is going, but I expect that we'll have to strain ourselves to stay ahead of him.
 
Thor's Twin said:
That being said, I'm fully expecting the aftermath of the vote to... not be pretty. Hopefully it won't be too bad?
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Where's that "Oh wait you're serious" gif...

In all seriousness, I'm still torn up about this vote. The player base seems torn apart by this vote. We've had a slew of sock puppets for the precursor to this vote. I'm half expecting the thread to get locked before this gets resolved. I am so hyped!

Sidenote: If Ling Qi sticks with the Moon as her main patron, any discussion on gender or sexual identity is premature at best. Since the Moon is all about change, it's entirely possible that Ling Qi will shift through both in the future, and if Sixiang is a typical example then that just might be normal.
 
Thor's Twin said:
As a general rule, I far prefer optimism rather than pessimism or cynicism. I prefer to think the best of things, prepare to accomplish the best, and then deal with the worse should it come. So far it's been working pretty well!
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Well there won't be any salt from as I'll be content either way so long as nobody decides to sock puppet the vote.

Still I've come to the conclusion that the Sect route seems more fitting due to the domain we picked for Ling Qi, access to spirits who can tutor her beyond the subsequent year, and most of all the characters simply feel like they'll become more of a family than those on the Cai route. There are other reasons, but those are the most important ones imo.
 
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