Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)

[] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

Agreed. Let's try and get some common ground with them first before we start trying to be competitive. Enough friendliness to make a future competition an actually friendly competition rather than just pride filled one upmanship like I fear it would be if we went for it now.

[] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

more because of the (possible) subtle message: we are in cooperation with you, not competition

My instincts say competitive. We don't know these people or their abilities; jumping into a big game hunt sounds like asking for trouble. Flying solo also lets us keep our cards close to the chest since no one is busting out arts.

On the other hand, hunting big game is how we hung out with the Golden Fields crew, and that went pretty well. Plus we're still built as a crowed buffer.

Dunno.

[X] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

Ling Qi collects prickly young ladies and I can't not vote for that option.

It's me friends I'm the SV poster

[X] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

Seems more interesting to read about. And I think Ling Qi is probably better at looking impressive than sounding impressive, anyway.

[X] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

Mostly because Alingge is cool, and Wu Jing isn't tbh
[X] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

[X] A competitive hunt. No one will be using arts of course, as it would be unsporting. More opportunity to build bonds, but competition may breed resentment…

I'm not particularly thrilled by the prospect of hunting an explicitly intelligent beast, as a group, for sport. Solo? Sure. For material gain not split a dozen ways and more? Yes. But not for the noble's game. Highly skeptical Ling Qi will find it an enjoyable conclusion to a hunt if the beast starts pleading or cursing the hunting party, and the reactions, or rather lack thereof, of her peers won't exactly ease her into comfortable companionship with them.

Plus, the whole point in being here is to do the social thing, and going for the more difficult quarry is only a pay-off if we have the skills to impress. I'm not convinced that Ling Qi does have those, in the context of a hunt. Archery, Spirit Ken, Perceptiveness, and Athletics are rank C, Stealth is rank B, but Survival is rank D and Beast Handling and War are rank E. Her tracking is just passable, and her riding and group tactics (if War is going to apply, which could go either way) are very unimpressive. She's got good fundamentals, but misses out on key skills for high-pressure hunting.

[X] A competitive hunt. No one will be using arts of course, as it would be unsporting. More opportunity to build bonds, but competition may breed resentment…

Let me introduce you to my pal Su Ling...

My intial attraction was to cooperative, but I'm actually a bit more wary of that now. On rereading Luo Zhong is a formation stage cultivator aka solidly Green 6 to Ling Qi's stage 2/3 mix. His two friends are mentioned as still standing out despite being significantly weaker than him, so it is somewhat likley they are stronger than us with the rest of the hunters being around our level.

This means that finding a beast that could be a meaningful challenge to the whole group is therefore much harder, which means:

• There is a fair chance it will take us some time to find something, or even possibly find nothing, during which time we ave to be on our guard, which could build reseentment.
• a fairly significant risk that everyone but the highest level people do very little. Which could be interpreted as Ling Qi (and the others) hogging all the glory. If someone came along for a fun hunt and some socialising they might resent being forced into a support role. A successful hunt might mitigate this, especially if everyone does get a serious role to play but a few things going wrong could easily turn this against us.

Competitive hunt does run the risk that it involves more social, but it also gives everyone a chance to show off individually. Even if they can't compete with someone several stages above them they can show off just how good they are for their current level. The ability to show off relative achievements can be a great way to relax people. Plus it was noted that Luo Zhong was giving us a chance to put our side of the story across, which this seem more sutied to than overwhelming people with another display of martial power. People already know Ling Qi is very good at that.

This is also the option that gives them a bit more chance to see Ling Qi when she is not wound up for combat or going full Imperious maiden in an effort to emulate her teachers. There is also the possiblity that Ling Qi may actually lose here, which honestly wouldn't be that bad as long as she puts in a middling performance. Having something relatively harmless for people to hold over Ling Qi would provide an outlet for some of the resentment, so long as she can't actually be said to be bad at it. It can make her seem human, without being a dangerous weakness and provide an opening for us to start building a rapport with. Like how a lot of friendships can have people ribbing neach other over who's better at this game or that.

Plus we'll never get better if we don't try and this is as relatively low stakes social as we're likley to get.

[X] A competitive hunt. No one will be using arts of course, as it would be unsporting. More opportunity to build bonds, but competition may breed resentment…

yrsillar said:

She was a noblewoman, she was unruffled by petty rumors and jibes, she did not have the jitters over joining a gathering of peers more intimate than Cai's impersonal parties.

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I do like how LQ defaults to this mode of behaviour when in social situations like these. Modelling herself after a combination of 'Ideal Generic Noble #3' as influenced by Meizhen and Xiulan.

yrsillar said:

There were only about a dozen disciples present, most of which were only at the early stages of the third realm. A few were at the second stage, but of the other disciples present

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And because they're weaker than her, they benefit from a massive stealth boost against LQ. She will not remember their names or faces

yrsillar said:

One stood at the edges of the group, fussing over the half dozen odd other spirit beasts present, a mixture of stags and horses of varying breeds. She stood out from the other disciples by her scandalous garb. She wore a white sleeveless and backless garment and dark grey pants, and a thick cloak of white fur hung from her neck, covering her shoulders and back. She had short brown hair and skin of a similar tone to Ling Qi. Two red tattoos, shaped like fangs marked her cheeks.

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*Cough Cough*

yrsillar said:

Ling Qi blinked, but restrained the urge to break eye contact. "I do not know if I would use the word humiliated," Ling Qi demurred.

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If that doesn't count as..

yrsillar said:

"Mocked her aspirations and crushed her without taking a blow in return," the girl sniffed. "If this is not humiliation, I fear your definition."

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...beaten to it by the chapter

yrsillar said:

"This is unfortunate," Alingge said with a frown. "I had wished to see a legendary beast in person."

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Alingge would defs compliment Zhengui. Zhengui remains critically weak to compliments.

I'm faintly pleased with how this is going. Luo seems genuine with doing a meet and greet with his clique of nobles. Even if it's blatently apparent he's doing it to insinuate himself with CRX that's kinda what our job will be: be the flute toting moon party herald for our liege to throw at ES conservatives to help diplo them. Doing babbys first schmoozfest here seems to be a soft landing as these guys seem relatively straight forward. Plus I kinda want to see how Princess Mononoke responds when some hill tribe culture suddenly becomes resurgent and we just awkwardly whistle and look in different directions when it's brought by up.

[X] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

[X] A competitive hunt. No one will be using arts of course, as it would be unsporting. More opportunity to build bonds, but competition may breed resentment…

We are not here to be impressive, we are here to network with other important Emerald Seas nobles.

[X] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

[] A competitive hunt. No one will be using arts of course, as it would be unsporting. More opportunity to build bonds, but competition may breed resentment…
[] A cooperative hunt against a more cunning beast. Increased difficulty means less chance to play the social game, but impressive skills may bring admiration...

If you measure the rep gain on a scale of 1 to 10, here's how I see the options break down in rough terms:
#1: gain 5, reduced by 2 on critfail
#2: gain 4, increased by 2 on crit

They're pretty equitable, more a question of whether we want to gamble high or gamble low. It's very important to remember that both the first option's fail state and the second option's extra success are only possibilities, neither being guarantees.

Edit: adding a bit more, I don't think the first option's fail state is net-negative. It seems pretty unlikely that she'd manage to piss off everyone. The people she annoys, in the case of failure, would mesh into the average and lower her social progress, but I don't think it would completely wipe it out.