Threads Of Destiny(Eastern Fantasy, Sequel to Forge of Destiny)
- Thread starter yrsillar
- Start date
- Original Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Spain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
- Location
- foraging for beans
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
Oooh, a mystery box. I do love me some gatcha, even if it's consequences instead of rewards.
Oooh, a mystery box. I do love me some gatcha, even if it's consequences instead of rewards.
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[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
I really dont like how this vote is presented and considering yrs taking the dc on a d100 mechanic and running with it I for every choice that has a chance of failing, meaning training actions are pointless because they dont actually influence outcomes (the dice does) I will probably go back to lurking.
Voting has never felt so pointless, we have no idea what LQ's reputation with any of the factions presented is, we dont know what raising or lowering rep will do, we dont know the difference between " Negative relations " and " Reduced Reputation"...
The Cai and their vassals getting caught with their pants down and everybody getting away with it (or sanctions never appearing in updates) is becoming a reccuring problem we cant do anything to mitigate, LQ gained an intrigue rank half a year ago and she still gets entrapped by this sort of stuff all the time without a hint showing up, at this point I am sure that raising our rep does nothing and our ennemies will always have more spies to snare us, more influence to be untouchable and be so hidden that retaliation at our level is impossible.
The only way the sabotage plotline could have worked for me is if the choice was between mitigating the damage with the river spirit immidiately or LQ starting to investigate this instant to catch whoever messed with her sister's debut.
I really dont like how this vote is presented and considering yrs taking the dc on a d100 mechanic and running with it I for every choice that has a chance of failing, meaning training actions are pointless because they dont actually influence outcomes (the dice does) I will probably go back to lurking.
Voting has never felt so pointless, we have no idea what LQ's reputation with any of the factions presented is, we dont know what raising or lowering rep will do, we dont know the difference between " Negative relations " and " Reduced Reputation"...
The Cai and their vassals getting caught with their pants down and everybody getting away with it (or sanctions never appearing in updates) is becoming a reccuring problem we cant do anything to mitigate, LQ gained an intrigue rank half a year ago and she still gets entrapped by this sort of stuff all the time without a hint showing up, at this point I am sure that raising our rep does nothing and our ennemies will always have more spies to snare us, more influence to be untouchable and be so hidden that retaliation at our level is impossible.
The only way the sabotage plotline could have worked for me is if the choice was between mitigating the damage with the river spirit immidiately or LQ starting to investigate this instant to catch whoever messed with her sister's debut.
kfrar
Aspiring Encyclopedia
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
See, while it's easy to say option 2 is a gamble, I think it's important to keep in mind what we're gambling with. Obviously there's the fact that we lose both Clergy and Noble Rep when we took the path that both heavily requires Noble Rep and has the fewest opportunities to grind Noble Rep, which would, on its own, run counter to our goal of building rep. But on top of that, this concert is a test case for Hanyi the Winter Whisperer, and if we lose reputation with the nobles as well as the clergy due to a flub in the concert, they may decide the test has failed. This, in turn, would make it more difficult to leverage Hanyi to grind out Noble Rep in the future, as her services would be in less demand, which would make it harder to get facetime with the Nobles we'd want to suck up to going forwards.
When, again, we're on the path that most needs it and gets the least of it.
That'd be a pretty poor outcome.
On the other hand, if we pick 3, we will lose some Clergy Rep, but we will have also have succeeded in all of our publicly stated goals for the concert, letting Hanyi build her reputation as musician and spirit appeaser, leaving the door open for further winter appeasement concerts in the future, and leaving us an opportunity to earn back the Clergy Rep by following up on our sabotaged communications, by providing better service in the future, or even by bribing them with goods or discounted-to-free services. The point is that if we actually ease this place's winter, Hanyi's services will remain in demand, and so we'll keep getting opportunities to interact with the nobles and clergy whether they like it or not - and that means we'll have actual chances to fix any damage done.
As for the ??? consequences in option 3, I have two main theories on what they could be.
The pessimistic side of me thinks that the saboteur is both aware of our general strategy with spirit appeasement - walking up to the problem spirit in question and telling them to stop being a problem - and is invested enough in fucking us over to have followed up on the mail tampering. In this world, they predicted that we would go after the stream ourselves and somehow messed with said stream in order to sabotage our personal attention.
This possibility strikes me as not impossible, but rather more doom&gloomy than warranted.
The optimist in me thinks that by choosing the use our Power to shield one of our spirits after they said they couldn't deal with the problem ourselves, we'll manage to untangle another part of our Heart Demon by learning how better to integrate the needs of our family with our personal responsibilities, and that between this, our Power rank-up this turn, our study of the Power+Community PLR project, and our upcoming work with Zhengui, we'll fully rid ourselves of the blasted thing.
The fact that we're supposed to build positive relations with this event is the strongest argument for 3 I can think of.
See, while it's easy to say option 2 is a gamble, I think it's important to keep in mind what we're gambling with. Obviously there's the fact that we lose both Clergy and Noble Rep when we took the path that both heavily requires Noble Rep and has the fewest opportunities to grind Noble Rep, which would, on its own, run counter to our goal of building rep. But on top of that, this concert is a test case for Hanyi the Winter Whisperer, and if we lose reputation with the nobles as well as the clergy due to a flub in the concert, they may decide the test has failed. This, in turn, would make it more difficult to leverage Hanyi to grind out Noble Rep in the future, as her services would be in less demand, which would make it harder to get facetime with the Nobles we'd want to suck up to going forwards.
When, again, we're on the path that most needs it and gets the least of it.
That'd be a pretty poor outcome.
On the other hand, if we pick 3, we will lose some Clergy Rep, but we will have also have succeeded in all of our publicly stated goals for the concert, letting Hanyi build her reputation as musician and spirit appeaser, leaving the door open for further winter appeasement concerts in the future, and leaving us an opportunity to earn back the Clergy Rep by following up on our sabotaged communications, by providing better service in the future, or even by bribing them with goods or discounted-to-free services. The point is that if we actually ease this place's winter, Hanyi's services will remain in demand, and so we'll keep getting opportunities to interact with the nobles and clergy whether they like it or not - and that means we'll have actual chances to fix any damage done.
As for the ??? consequences in option 3, I have two main theories on what they could be.
The pessimistic side of me thinks that the saboteur is both aware of our general strategy with spirit appeasement - walking up to the problem spirit in question and telling them to stop being a problem - and is invested enough in fucking us over to have followed up on the mail tampering. In this world, they predicted that we would go after the stream ourselves and somehow messed with said stream in order to sabotage our personal attention.
This possibility strikes me as not impossible, but rather more doom&gloomy than warranted.
The optimist in me thinks that by choosing the use our Power to shield one of our spirits after they said they couldn't deal with the problem ourselves, we'll manage to untangle another part of our Heart Demon by learning how better to integrate the needs of our family with our personal responsibilities, and that between this, our Power rank-up this turn, our study of the Power+Community PLR project, and our upcoming work with Zhengui, we'll fully rid ourselves of the blasted thing.
FluffyCloudSheep
Soft and Comfy
- Location
- Up in the Air
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
If the clergy is part of the sabotage they already hate us.
If the clergy is part of the sabotage they already hate us.
I mentioned it before, but it was in a giant post with other stuff. I'm pretty sure the ??? consequences refer to Chao Yanlin's warning/threat.
She said there'd be consequences if we moved forwards with having Hanyi perform her current 9 out of 10 routine. Option 3 is the only one where the 9 out of 10 routine is performed, and it is the only option where we face the ??? consequences. Solid correlation, in my view.
Further, since the 3rd option doesn't involve pissing off the nobles, it's probably not a problem with the spirit. This makes me think it's some kind of social/political consequence that Chao Yanlin imposes because she's mad she and her people were forced to go along with an incomplete spiritual rite. Top candidates for consequences are her complaining to her family, the viscount Chao clan, or her reporting our "negligent recklessness" to the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs or something. Could be other options, can't think of them with the info we have on hand.
She said there'd be consequences if we moved forwards with having Hanyi perform her current 9 out of 10 routine. Option 3 is the only one where the 9 out of 10 routine is performed, and it is the only option where we face the ??? consequences. Solid correlation, in my view.
Further, since the 3rd option doesn't involve pissing off the nobles, it's probably not a problem with the spirit. This makes me think it's some kind of social/political consequence that Chao Yanlin imposes because she's mad she and her people were forced to go along with an incomplete spiritual rite. Top candidates for consequences are her complaining to her family, the viscount Chao clan, or her reporting our "negligent recklessness" to the Ministry of Spiritual Affairs or something. Could be other options, can't think of them with the info we have on hand.
good intentions? Option 2 is about encouraging Hanyi to do the last minute adjustment she just said that she cant do.
60% of the time this works, Hanyi succeeds and everyone is happy.
40% of the times, Hanyi steps on stage and fails and all 'everyone' will see is the failure and it will be all that matters. That is why all the gains have 'on success' conditionals and why our relations with the nobles would drop upon failure.
It is true that a success with Option 2 is better than a success with Option 3, but Option 3 is vastly better than failing with Option 2. And a 40% chance at failure is pretty scary, since we dont have modifiers. it is just a simple 1d100 roll.
Regarding what was mentioned above: @yrsillar could you clarify what you mean with ' Reduced Clergy Reputation'? Is this just another wording for negative reputation or does this mean we gain less reputation compared to the baseline. (basically: is this still +Reputation or is it -Reputation?)
- Location
- E
[X] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)
Option 1 is most palatable to me. The success rate is pretty high, the action itself is fairly sensible and the drawback is minor. Hanyi will have other performances where she can show off and annoyed Hanyi is just normal Hanyi 50% of the time lol. She's mature enough now that, if we explained to her we were being sabotaged by a third party, she'd understand.
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
I don't hate this but I don't like it either. Obvious high risk, high reward option. I'm a gambler at heart though, so here we go.
[] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
I'm not too keen on option 3 atm. We don't have the appropriate context for the ten spirits and their relationship to each other, along with the surrounding area. This might be a delicate spirit ecosystem that LQ is about to bulldoze through. I've no doubt LQ can deal with a single spirit but there's a lot of externalities to consider and I don't want to walk into that blind. ??? is scary... but also strangely tempting.
Option 1 is most palatable to me. The success rate is pretty high, the action itself is fairly sensible and the drawback is minor. Hanyi will have other performances where she can show off and annoyed Hanyi is just normal Hanyi 50% of the time lol. She's mature enough now that, if we explained to her we were being sabotaged by a third party, she'd understand.
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
I don't hate this but I don't like it either. Obvious high risk, high reward option. I'm a gambler at heart though, so here we go.
[] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
I'm not too keen on option 3 atm. We don't have the appropriate context for the ten spirits and their relationship to each other, along with the surrounding area. This might be a delicate spirit ecosystem that LQ is about to bulldoze through. I've no doubt LQ can deal with a single spirit but there's a lot of externalities to consider and I don't want to walk into that blind. ??? is scary... but also strangely tempting.
- Pronouns
- He
We should give this stream the same song as the last stream and keep doing it until all the streams realize they've been given the same song and riot
This is an extremely dubious rephrasing:
1)
-Hanyi - Her show is stolen, its the thing prepared for her which she had practiced months for. And its no longer hers. She's once again the side character.
-Nobles - Stepping up to fix things when they go awry is to be expected...if it works.
-Clergy - Stepping up to fix things when they go awry is to be lauded...if it works.
2)
-Hanyi - She told Ling Qi she doesn't think she can crash memorize a new section in a few minutes. Please trust her judgment of her own abilities. Hanyi is not someone who tends to underrate her own performance, she has a high opinion of herself and in her already high judgement, she's not up to it. Don't push your friends and family into risks they aren't comfortable with.
-Nobles - If it works, then its to be expected. If it fails, Hanyi's hype must be overblown.
-Clergy -- If Hanyi really is that good, then fine. If not we're indulging our spirit at the expense of livelihoods.
3)
-Hanyi - Her show will go on as planned. Ling Qi will find a way to cover for the problems behind the scenes.
-Nobles - If theres no problem, then theres no problem.
-Clergy - This isn't how things are done properly.
Keep in mind what Power means as a concept being progressed:
Choice #3 here is Ling Qi using Power to create a new option where there was none. If she was weak, her only options would have been to take over, make Hanyi adjust, or take the consequences. She would have to play the games of whoever mucked up the communications.
But she is strong, and that means if one of the spirits need to be wrangled, she can use her own ability to do it. With Songseeker Ceremony she can possibly even quell it without overt violence beyond dodging them for a while.
Snow
Doka
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[x] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
The first option is kind of bad for Hanyi, so I'd greatly prefer not to do it. The second option, I think, isn't worth the risk since the consequences for failure are pretty bad, and the chance of failure is pretty high here. The third option is not ideal, but the negatives seem to me like they're small enough to eventually recover from, or at least manage.
The first option is kind of bad for Hanyi, so I'd greatly prefer not to do it. The second option, I think, isn't worth the risk since the consequences for failure are pretty bad, and the chance of failure is pretty high here. The third option is not ideal, but the negatives seem to me like they're small enough to eventually recover from, or at least manage.
If we look at it purely from a relations perspective dealing with the Stream ourselves is always a -1 with the Clergy,encouraging Hanyi is an average -0.4 for the Nobility and +0.2 for the Clergy, meanwhile doing the piece ourselves is an average -0.2 for the Nobility and +0.6 for the Clergy, the only one that's a net positive. Bear in mind that we're going to need the Clergy on our side if we're going to exorcise Black Lotus Pass so I don't agree with those that say they don't matter in the short term, and getting the Nobility to like us would go a long way to getting theirs and the Diao's support in resolving this land dispute favorably.
Hanyi doesn't think she can do it herself and the cost of failure in making her far outweighs the gains of success. Dealing with the spirit ourselves isn't very diplomatic, the worst by a large margin in fact, and while supporting our family is what Power is for I'm not sure that the consequences are harmless. The saboteur wanted the river spirit angry and even if we placate it it might be too late to prevent the second sabotage if there is one. All things considered a small snarl doesn't sound that big a deal for Hanyi, we did the best to salvage a bad situation.
[X] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)
Hanyi doesn't think she can do it herself and the cost of failure in making her far outweighs the gains of success. Dealing with the spirit ourselves isn't very diplomatic, the worst by a large margin in fact, and while supporting our family is what Power is for I'm not sure that the consequences are harmless. The saboteur wanted the river spirit angry and even if we placate it it might be too late to prevent the second sabotage if there is one. All things considered a small snarl doesn't sound that big a deal for Hanyi, we did the best to salvage a bad situation.
[X] Learn the missing piece yourself and take part in the performance (80% Success. Improved relationship with Clergy on success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Reduced benefits for Hanyi's reputation. Annoyed Hanyi)
- Location
- Finland
I'm not sure what math you are using here.
1 and 2 are either pure negtives, or positives, the average increase over however many rolls does not matter because we only get one.
And small snarl can be huge when the singer is already seen as subhuman by lot of the audience.
1 and 2 are either pure negtives, or positives, the average increase over however many rolls does not matter because we only get one.
And small snarl can be huge when the singer is already seen as subhuman by lot of the audience.
EternalObserver
eYe Gaze baCk
- Location
- The Void
Even if we only roll once that roll still has an average, and that's useful for understanding the various odds. A lot of people seem to think that the 60% option is the riskier one while on average it's in the middle. The average +0.4 relations option hurts Hanyi's reputation, the -0.2 sees her grow on success and the -1 sees Consequences and Ling Qi get +Power. This just what's presented in the vote and not taking other narrative considerations into account, but helps me at least in comparing them. Is -1.4 relations and ??? Consequences worth it for a Power and preserving Hanyi's reputation? What's not included in this calculation?
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- Location
- scrabbling
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
Bit of a coinflip...
Bit of a coinflip...
This is very optimistic. The Heart Demon comes from the tangle between LQ's respect for her family and her personal pursuit of power. I would read the third option of using power to paper up the insufficiencies/failings of her family as more likely to worsen the Heart Demon, not make it better.
- Location
- Finland
And if we were flipping a lot of times, that might matter, we don't, we get one roll.
3 does not get us -1.4 rep, it gets us -1, and all options might get us -1, with another -1 added to it.
3 is safe because we know the downsides, and the upsides. Except for the ???, but i doubt it would be wildly out of alignment with the rest.
And for keeping Hanyi happy and not ruining her change as a singer, fucking yes it is.
DangerKitty
shoddy writter
- Location
- lala land
[X] Let Hanyi perform with the current choreography. Make sure this Stream doesn't cause trouble personally. (100% Success, +1 Power Success, ??? consequences. Reduced Clergy Reputation.)
- Location
- the internet
Wait a second, option #3 sounds like we're bullying the spirit into compliance. What did the spirit do to deserve bullying? Are we charming it with our music/Spirit Speaking skills or are we just intimidating it into behaving? Until I know, I'm voting for option #2 even if it's a risk.
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
[X] Encourage Hanyi to take up the missing part and help her with the prep (60% success. Improved relationship with clergy on success. Growth for Hanyi on Success. Negative relations with clergy and Nobles on Failure. Happier Hanyi on success.)
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kfrar
Aspiring Encyclopedia
Hanyi doesn't want us to join the show (she's annoyed if we do) and explicitly does not believe trying to handle things herself is a good idea. Letting Hanyi proceed with the act she's trained for while dealing with the complication ourself allows her to handle the show herself without forcing her to do the thing she said she couldn't do, which is good for her, and ensures that the concert doesn't fail, which is good for both her and us.
How, precisely, would using our power to help our family in a way that specifically caters to both their and our wants and needs be actively harmful for our quest to balance our personal pursuit of power against our family's autonomy? Our family will always run into issues, just as we will, and trying to resolve the Heart Demon by believing our spirits can or will surpass all of their insufficiencies or failings such that they would never benefit from our personal intervention again is very optimistic.
We've spent plenty of narrative focus on allowing our spirits to grow without intervening on their behalf, but if we're never going to intervene on their behalf, even when doing so lines up with their own desires, what are we gathering all of this power for? Ling Qi has observed herself that there's more to the Demon than just the relative power levels and capabilities of herself and her spirits, and I believe coming up with a better grasp of when she should flex her power on her family's behalf would be a logical next step in the Demon's resolution.