- Location
- Australia
This is the first paper with Lady Magister accompanying our name, and what a paper it was.
Kinda makes me wanna have our first Matriarch/Supreme Matriarch paper be on 5th dynasty Nehekharan coins.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
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- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Kinda makes me wanna have our first Matriarch/Supreme Matriarch paper be on 5th dynasty Nehekharan coins.
- Location
- Brazil
[X] Plan Disregard WEBMAT, Acquire AP (Fatherless)
Yes, I missed it. I am full of wine and chocolate and phone posting at ten at night when I have to hold the phone up in just the right spot to get a signal. If you find the quality of my answers lacking, feel free to enjoy the alternative that is a complete lack of answers until I get back home.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
If I'm not interested in that storyline, why shouldn't I vote against using the Father?
It's not about factual correctness or incorrectness of the detail of whether Faith would require AP in future. If it is a valid line of argument that we should be making choices to destroy options forever to remove the risk of resources being devoted away from the Waystone project in future, then the fact that the Faith choice turns out to require resources doesn't change that. It just means that the argument now applies to Faith just as it did when you applied it to Science.
Consistency would then suggest that the same logic should be applied to Father related research. And we don't have to take it to the same degree that was argued in that choice, where it was argued it was worth irrevocably destroying the option to ever investigate because of the risk that people might in future chose to vote to divert resources away from the Waystone Project.
Here, we now have that happening. There is an intention to take resources away from the Waystone project and deploy them on Faith based investigation based on a highly speculative reasoning that we can somehow have our cake and eat it and that it really counts for both. We have a lot more reason to be confident that the Gambler on the Foundations will make a significant difference than hoping that the Father would allow us to instantly recruit the Hedgewise for free. Even if the Father works they may still want us to do something for them before they join and so be too late to contribute to the foundations.
So, by the logic of the prior, successful argument, that even the chance of resources being diverted from the Waystone project was unacceptable, we should not take the Father option here. Everyone surely must accept that there's a chance that the Father doesn't do anything here, and I reiterate, it was the mere chance of spending resources on something that wasn't the Waystone Project that required destroying an option for all time. We're not even talking about anything like that level of cost here.
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I feel like "this line of reasoning won before, therefore we should continue using it in order to not be hypocrites" is a logical fallacy.
Not to mention, I strongly doubt that every Faith voter agreed with that argument in the first place, and I would not attribute Faith winning the vote solely to that argument's existence.
I feel like you're assuming that everyone who votes for an option must agree with all the arguments made for that option, but that just isn't the case. I quite frequently disagree with arguments made in favor of options that I personally like.
EDIT: removed some opinionated adjectives that I think detract from my post's ability to contribute to the conversation
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- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
This is an incredibly specious argument. Derpmind isn't saying "we should divert resources from the Waystone project for this speculative line of research," she's saying "we should use the Father, rather than the Gambler, to improve the Waystone project this turn." Furthermore, many people, myself included, have argued that the Gambler is not a good use on Lay the Foundations because there are likely to be too many dice rolls on that action for +20 on two to make a significant difference. As such, if you think there's a really good chance Halétha is a Daughter and that there's a low chance Gambling the Foundations makes a difference, the logical Waystone-utility-maximizing thing to do is to use the Father!
I recognize that your subjective probability judgments on this are different, but the fact that people have different subjective probability judgments than you do does not make them intellectually inconsistent, it makes them different reasoners than you, and so I object strenuously to this attempt to demonstrate "logically" that her position is inconsistent. It's totally consistent within its own paradigm.
Trying to structure my intuitions here.
My base model is that there's at least a 40% chance of the Gambler affecting an action like Foundation. If there's a single 1d100 rolled, a 20% chance of converting a failure into a success and a 20% of converting a success into a critical. If there two or more rolls there's an at least 64% chance of it having some effect. And given that I don't think increasing the number of participants would have made the foundations less likely to be successful, I don't think that the argument that because there may be a roll per participant this makes the Gambker less effective is true. If anything, depending on whether the Gambler is applied before or after rolling, having more rolls may make it more likely to succeed as it's less likely to be wasted on an already successful roll.
With the Father option, the following all need to be true to impact on the Foundations.
The Gambler, by contrast is making that the we get the best result we can from the defined set of pieces that are in play. It depends on what happens next, rather than what happened in the past and we may learn about now.
My base model is that there's at least a 40% chance of the Gambler affecting an action like Foundation. If there's a single 1d100 rolled, a 20% chance of converting a failure into a success and a 20% of converting a success into a critical. If there two or more rolls there's an at least 64% chance of it having some effect. And given that I don't think increasing the number of participants would have made the foundations less likely to be successful, I don't think that the argument that because there may be a roll per participant this makes the Gambker less effective is true. If anything, depending on whether the Gambler is applied before or after rolling, having more rolls may make it more likely to succeed as it's less likely to be wasted on an already successful roll.
With the Father option, the following all need to be true to impact on the Foundations.
- Halathea is one of Ranald's daughters.
- The Hedgewise ever knew something relevant about the Waystones
- The Hedgewise preserved that knowledge
- This particularly faction of the Hedgewise preserved that knowledge
- The particular member of the Hedgewise we speak to knows it or knows someone else they know knows it
- Another tradition represented on the Prioject doesn't also know it
- That the Father face of the Coin means that they'll hand over their knowledge without an upfront favour.
- Edit: the unique knowledge they can share is significant enough to make an impact on the foundations
- They are able to explain the knowledge in their paradigm in a way other participants can understand
The Gambler, by contrast is making that the we get the best result we can from the defined set of pieces that are in play. It depends on what happens next, rather than what happened in the past and we may learn about now.
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One more: The knowledge will have more of an impact now than it would one turn after Foundation, without that the Father is just net neutral not an actual win.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Plan Disregard WEBMAT, Acquire AP (Fatherless)
Good point, it has to be significant enough to meaningfully improve the foundations.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Does this mean you would support using the Father to recruit the Hedgewise after Foundations are laid if there is not a critical-importance Waystone roll to Gamble on, you just object to doing so now?
Yes, I would vote for it next turn.
- Location
- Netherlands
- Pronouns
- She/Her
While I still favor the Father plan myself, I just want to mention I think this is a useful and productive angle from which to approach the discussion.
Also, thanks for introducing me to the concept of Knightian Uncertainty, I hadn't heard of it before but looking at its Wikipedia article it seems like a quite useful concept to work with that I will remember for the future.
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Personally I've no objections to use the Father on the Hedgewise per se, it's just I'd rather do that when there's not a critically important thing to do instead, like the foundations. But next turn I'd be happy to vote for a plan with the Father (if the other parts of it are interesting to me, of course).
Thinking some more about a model of the Waystone foundations action for how it interacts with the Gambler. I could be wrong, but bear with me.
Now, making a simplifying assumption that it's based on 1d100 rolls rather than also or instead including 1d6 rolls to determine what each factions brings to the table*, the way I see it working is that it'll be something like each participant rolls a 1d100 to decide how well they can explain their paradigm's model of Waystones in a way the others can understand.
The more successes/criticise there are for participants explaining, the higher quality the explanations are. Now, we have lots of participants, and even if there's something like d6 rolls to determine how much each tradition brings, I think there'll be lots of rolls, and probably quite difficult rolls.
As a result, if the bonus is applied before rolling, I think that there's a 48% chance that it would result in one extra success or critical to the the quality of the foundation and a 16% chance of two extra successes. If bonuses are applied after rolling then I think it's very, very likely that we'll get two extra successes (although I can't calculate that in my head).
By contrast, even assuming all the facts about the Hedgewise I mentioned in my prior vote are true, then it can at most give one extra time success to the foundation, and even that's not a certainty as there's still a chance they'd roll badly on the theorised roll to explain their paradigm.
Hence why I think the Gambler is a better bet. Even if the Father was guaranteed to work and the Hedgewise were guaranteed to bring useful information, which they're not, the Gambler maximising the chances the current participants can add something may well still have a higher expected return than adding one more tradition rolling to contribute something.
* depending on how in-depth Boney wants to be, I could easily see there being an initial 1d6 roll to determine the facts about the world of how much the traditions know, followed by a 1d100 for how well they explain it, with different 1d6 results meaning something different for the various traditions, so a 6 for say, the Light College corresponds to a 3 for the Grey Lords in terms of some form of foundation 'points', and then each representative then using their Learning modifier when explaining it, with, say, varying degrees of success setting what proportion of those points are shared and a critical sparking an epiphany from combining knowledge cross-paradigm adding extra points, but that's all speculation.
Now, making a simplifying assumption that it's based on 1d100 rolls rather than also or instead including 1d6 rolls to determine what each factions brings to the table*, the way I see it working is that it'll be something like each participant rolls a 1d100 to decide how well they can explain their paradigm's model of Waystones in a way the others can understand.
The more successes/criticise there are for participants explaining, the higher quality the explanations are. Now, we have lots of participants, and even if there's something like d6 rolls to determine how much each tradition brings, I think there'll be lots of rolls, and probably quite difficult rolls.
As a result, if the bonus is applied before rolling, I think that there's a 48% chance that it would result in one extra success or critical to the the quality of the foundation and a 16% chance of two extra successes. If bonuses are applied after rolling then I think it's very, very likely that we'll get two extra successes (although I can't calculate that in my head).
By contrast, even assuming all the facts about the Hedgewise I mentioned in my prior vote are true, then it can at most give one extra time success to the foundation, and even that's not a certainty as there's still a chance they'd roll badly on the theorised roll to explain their paradigm.
Hence why I think the Gambler is a better bet. Even if the Father was guaranteed to work and the Hedgewise were guaranteed to bring useful information, which they're not, the Gambler maximising the chances the current participants can add something may well still have a higher expected return than adding one more tradition rolling to contribute something.
* depending on how in-depth Boney wants to be, I could easily see there being an initial 1d6 roll to determine the facts about the world of how much the traditions know, followed by a 1d100 for how well they explain it, with different 1d6 results meaning something different for the various traditions, so a 6 for say, the Light College corresponds to a 3 for the Grey Lords in terms of some form of foundation 'points', and then each representative then using their Learning modifier when explaining it, with, say, varying degrees of success setting what proportion of those points are shared and a critical sparking an epiphany from combining knowledge cross-paradigm adding extra points, but that's all speculation.
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- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
May I ask why people believe the Lay the Foundations action is so important? Whatever foundational theory (or theories) we end up with is likely to be wrong, and we'll get closer to the truth with follow-up actions. Of which there are likely to be many. I fully expect an entire pile of actions will be unfolding in the turns after this, many of which will be very dangerous and risky, and only a handful of which we're likely to use the Coin on at all. (We can't use the Coin on every Waystone-related action, only some of them.) What makes the Lay the Foundations action so critically important?
In my mind, it's going to be about comparing notes and establishing where everyone's starting from, so that we can go on and figure things out afterwards. No actual investigation or theory-testing is going to be taking place.
In my mind, it's going to be about comparing notes and establishing where everyone's starting from, so that we can go on and figure things out afterwards. No actual investigation or theory-testing is going to be taking place.
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See, I don't think Foundations are of such critical importance that we need to spend the coin on it. We literally have a room full of experts discussing their knowledge and experiences to see where things overlap, so we can then distil it into a working hypothesis. It is the testing of that hypothesis that is critical, because we're meddling in strange and dangerous magics.
Also, I believe another function of the foundations action is to determine how the project is organised and how it is funded and supplied. Necessary, but not critical.
Overall, I feel it makes more sense to use the coin to bring in more collaborators, than to try to gain a bonus on those collaborators working together.
Edit: dang, stopped to do a spell check and Derpmind makes an almost identical post to me and posts it first.
Also, I believe another function of the foundations action is to determine how the project is organised and how it is funded and supplied. Necessary, but not critical.
Overall, I feel it makes more sense to use the coin to bring in more collaborators, than to try to gain a bonus on those collaborators working together.
Edit: dang, stopped to do a spell check and Derpmind makes an almost identical post to me and posts it first.
Codex
Fantasy Addict
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I hope you had a good time. You deserve it.
I think the laying foundations action is critical, just like laying the foundations for a building are, and that if we get it wrong we'll then be building on sand and can significantly compromise the structure we then try to build on top of it.
Many people coming into this have inconsistent and possibly incompatible magical paradigms. We know that humans find working cross-paradigm incredibly hard, to the degree that even members of the same magical tradition find it incredibly hard to transfer knowledge and share spells. We want to pool knowledge between wildly different traditions. In many ways we're probably trying to invent a new language and intellectual framework, possibly even some form of more generally applicable meta-paradigm, like the one Teclis gave the Colleges but even broader, that subsequent discussions will operate within. We're going to need people to be inspired, to happen to see something in the street before coming into the meeting room that inspires them to use a metaphor that they usually wouldn't that another participant can then use as the bridge to connect it to their own way of thinking. We also have a lot of prideful and very high status individuals in what will be a very stressful environment where their core intellectual principles and way of understanding the world and how their own power (in some cases divinely inspired power) works is likely to be subject to challenge and may be found wanting. A lot of luck will be needed just to keep everyone constructive and working together rather than taking insult.
If it's incomplete, or worse, wrong, that could severely handicap what we can achieve later on. We're laying the intellectual foundations here, unless we tear it all down and start again, everything we do subsequently will be dependent on how good a job we do right now.
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