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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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Derpmind said:
We've used the Gambler to little or no visible effect many times before, and often we get an effect rather different to what we expected or wanted. We have, essentially, misused or outright failed to use the Gamber multiple times now. But we keep treating it like a universal, fits-all-sizes buff when we've so often been shown in-story and told OOC that it really, really isn't.

...I feel like there was a lot of discussion and ideas leading up to this turn that's suddenly evaporated into thin air. I swear I must be misremembering things because so much stuff that I remember was talked about as really important suddenly isn't being even mentioned by anyone at all. And I just do not have the effort in me to try to re-argue a half dozen points against everyone.
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So how limited is the Gambler then? I thought why not do a retrospective on its use and see if it really is that limited and we are being silly in applying the luck bonus too much

Turn 19 - 2479 - The Rebirth of Karak Eight Peaks - Explicit Utility
[Signs of Battle: Intrigue, Breakpoints 60/80: 26+19+4(Library: Skaven)+20(Ranald's Blessing)=69.]
[Anything else?: Intrigue, Breakpoints 60/80: 34+19+4(Library: Skaven)+20(Ranald's Blessing)=77.]

Turn 20 - 2479.5 - A Strange Ally - Explicit Utility
[Looting spree: Intrigue, 40+19+20(Ranald's Gift)=79.]
[Sabotage? Intrigue, 40+19+20(Ranald's Gift)=79.]

Turn 21 - 2480 - Old Friends - Explicit Utility
[Preliminary Observations: Learning, 18+26+20(Tower)+20(Ranald's Coin)+4(Library: Daemons)=88.]
Note: This could have been very bad without the coin

Turn 22 - 2480.5 - Foes Near, Foes Far - Night Prowler Turn N/A

Turn 23 - 2481 - Did You Really Have To Ask? - Explicit Utility
[A Reconsideration of Suitability: 37+37(College Rep)+10(Great Deed)+20(Ranald's Blessing)=104.]
[Learning Smoke and Mirrors: Learning, Req 100, 65+26+20(Ranald's Blessing)=111.]

Turn 24 - 2481.5 - Here Comes The Sun - Deceiver Turn N/A

Turn 25 - 2482 - Polyglottony - No Utility Observed
Note: No rolls seems to have been made on the interactions with living things and given what those turned out to be, it makes sense that no hidden roll was required

Turn 26 - 2482.5 - From Revanche to Revamp - Deceiver N/A

Turn 27 - 2483 - Paving with Good Intentions - Implicit Utility
[Rolling...]
Note diplomacy rolls such as here where we rolled to see how good the perpetual apprentices we could hire are tend to be hidden so we can only guess how much good the coin did

Turn 28 - 2483.5 - What Could Be A Very Large Problem - Implicit Utility
Note: The incomplete herdstone was called out IC as a lucky find, but obviously we did not get to see the rolls of the Amber Order in finding the thing

Turn 29 - 2484 - They Go to the Land of the Ice and Snow - Study of the Coin N/A

Turn 30 - 2484.5 - To the Midnight Sun, where the Eight Winds Flow - Implicit Utility
[Rolling...]
Note: Once more we are dealing with the fact that diplo rolls are obscured, but we did get a pretty good deal from the Ice Witches, so there is a reasonable expectation it did something. Then again, and the reason I do not have a simple works/does not work dichotomy since we cannot see the rolls or the break points. Maybe we rolled high enough that the coin was not needed, maybe Ranald does not have the power to influence the decisions of the servants of the Widow so even if there was a roll the Coin may not have applied.

Turn 31 - 2485 - We'll Ride Steam-Wagons Through Ruined Lands - Explicit Utility
[Learning Melkoth's Mystifying Miasma: Learning, 91+28+5(Library: Ulgu)+20(Coin)+20(Room of Dawn and Dusk)+???(Melkoth's tutoring)=???.]

Turn 32 - 2485.5 - We'll Fight the Hordes, and Sing and Cry - Explicit Utility
[Identifying targets: Learning, 34+28+5(Library: Ulgu)+20(Coin)=87.]
[Implementing identifier: 94+28+5(Library: Ulgu)+20(Coin)=147.]

Turn 33 - 2486 - Karag Dum, We Are Coming - Protector Turn N/A

Turn 34 - 2486.5 - The Closing of a Chapter - No Observed Utility
Note: This one is marginal, the Light College Shenanigans may or may not have been impacted. In any case we see no indication that any luck is involved in things because we do not see behind the curtain. All in all since the point of this post is to argue for Gambler use I steel-manned the opposing position so I am leaving 'no utility' judgements to uncertain situations

Turn 35 - 2487 - Laurelorn - Implicit Utility
Note: This time we were told explicitly OOC that the options we had for Thorek were in part due to the coin

Turn 36 - 2487.5 - Making Old Friends - Implicit Utility
Note: This time we have Panarnoth 'just happening' to show up at K8P and hand us a relatively easy job for the aid of he Jade College, I think this looks enough like a lucky break that we can assume Ranald had something to do with it

Turn 37 - 2488 - Trading Favours - Night Prowler Turn N/A

Turn 38 - 2488.5 - Built Upon a Shadow - Father Turn N/A

Turn 39 - 2489 - The Waystone Project - Implicit Utility
Note: Confirmed by the GM to have applied to what loot we got somehow

Turn 40 - 2489.5 - Start Slow... - Partly Explicit Utility
Casting Attempt: 67+20 (Gambler). Success!

Turn 41 - 2490 - Inflection Point - Implicit Utility
Note: not where we wanted it, but we did get that CF faster than we otherwise would have

So what does that leave us with?
  • 7 Turns when the Gambler explicitly showed up in the rolls
  • 7 Turns where is it reasonable to assume the Gambler did something, even if it was not precisely what we wanted
  • 2 Turns where we might have entirely wasted the coin bonus
That does not seem to me a frivolous use of the Gambler, in fact the times when it has shown up in text tie with the times when it has not and of the time its use has been implicit we mostly get big hints as to where it tipped the scales
 
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Jyn Ryvia said:
yes, that is true.

That's the path we chose.

We could have been a bridge builder instead, but we picked wizard.

Other wizards don't even have a coin, and I've seen this argument even when the coin is involved.
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Wizards die to battle magic miscasts and reckless magical experimentation all the time. I don't want Mathilde to be a normal wizard. I want her to be an exceptional wizard. And that unfortunately means a lot of compromising with saftey standards and enchanted defensive robes and a sword for thwacking things and - etc. etc. I agree, it's a total pain! And sometimes people take it too far and that can be annoying. But it's gotten Mathilde this far, and it'll take her even further. Mathilde just has to not die, which is rather hard and a lot of extra work. But I think it's worth it.
 
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[X] Plan Roadmap to Success

I don't really like putting Eike on Enchanting, or on so many actions at the same time (more than 3; I prefer less).
 
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Glau said:
I like her learning intrigue with the hochlander.

And I probably will make my own plan, but it's discouraging to see the level of unamity against my positions.
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Personally, I'd be stoked for her to learn intrigue with the Hochlander next turn, I just really want to get the ball rolling on the Fog Road.
 
[x] Plan Red Rider Rushes Forward

[x] Plan Redshirt v3.14159265 w/Riders and Busy Eike

[x] Plan Redshirt v3.14159265 w/Riders
 
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For those of you posting plans to Windherd a Cataclysm-lite spell - yes, I know it's probably down to Battle Magic from reducing the number of targets - can I convince you to instead Windherd a Seviroscope with Egrimm for Kragg? It's something we actually want, rather than a cool-but-impractical enchantment Mathilde won't use, it's perfectly suited to Windherding with the Wind of Light, and it'd really help Kragg out.
 
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I will vote for anything without the speculum. It's cataclysm magic we don't know: that's not something to do now.

[X] Plan Roadmap to Success
[x] Plan Red Rider Rushes Forward
 
[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes

Shard said:
Isn't Enchanting kind of pretty dangerous to do when you're a very young Wizard, which Eike is?
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You have to earn your Character Creation shinies through Tragic Consequences somehow haha. The nega-verse Eike quest has a lot of debt for picking options like Lady Magister Master and Mark Of Ulgu right off the bat :V
 
One last attempt to argue for the Whispering. Darkness because it's clearly an unpopular idea.

The Whispering Darkness is an apparition that does two things—it envelopes it's target, and then drags then away.

The normal version is a cloud of black magic that drags its victims into the shadows whilst shrieking in a thousand voices.

The Jade version is a living plant that drags people underground.

An Ulgu version? A miniaturised, portable, target seeking Pit of Shades. A screaming, swirling, vortex of liminality that tracks down a specific foe and tries to pull them through an atomic crack in reality.

It is peak Ulgu.
 
Shard said:
Wasn't there that time when Ranald warned us not to look at him, which we later figured would have been a (mentally) very bad idea?
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Yeah, but that is not an application of the coin in my oppinion, that is us using the coin in a non-standard way and being told not to, there was no luck manipulation, just him communicating with us which is not itself luck based.
 
[X] Plan Red Rider Rushes Forward
[X] Plan Redshirt v3.14159265 w/Riders and Busy Eike

Glau said:
Ugh. Every single plan is going to have both liminal realms and Eike enchanting, huh?
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Well, here's something:
[X] Plan Girlscouts with Eike
-[X] JOHANN: Hunt an Apparition (Rider in Red)
-[X] MAX: Study an artefact (Lustrian Rubbings)
-[X] EGRIMM: Windherder Enchanting (Van Horstmann's Speculum)
--[X] COIN (Gambler)
-[X] Waystones: Foundations (Thorek, Hatalath, Sarvoi, Niedzwenka, Egrimm, Elrisse, Tochter, Zlata, Max)
-[X] Tributary: International (Kislev) (Zlata, Niedzwenka, Aksel, Cadaeth, Tochter)
-[X] Receive training: (Scouting, with the Dwarven Rangers)
-[X] EIC: Negotiate and plan a magical route through the Schadensumpf to allow for easier trade with the Eonir without compromising their defences
-[X] KAU: Begin copying the full corpus of a Partner Library (Grand University of Nuln)
-[X] SERENITY: Observations on the Windfall north of the Dark Lands (Egrimm as primary author)
-[X] Eike Actions: Lustrian Rubbings, Paper-writing, Scouting
-[X] Eike Study: Politicking

I laid out my interest in polishing off our (2/3) in Scouting before the Naggarythe trip here. In short:

  • +1 Base Intrigue is the equivalent of buying books in every intrigue-related topic, which we'd certainly go for.
  • Scouting is likely to be an extremely useful skill in hunting down Druchii, and best to get it before we set out than on the job.
  • We are simply not going to have enough time to do this next turn, and several people are planning to set out for Naggarythe the turn after. It's now or not.
  • We need to do an intrigue action with Eike at some point to find out her score and missing skill, and this one works nicely

Eike also needs to pad her abysmal diplomacy score up, and Politicking is the one skill that she's already started on.
 
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Thomasfoolery said:
Prime 2.0 said:
but it seems more lame than Boney would put up with for those things to not stack,
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This seems like very flawed reasoning to me. Boney has always been very clear it's on the voters to judge the respective value of actions.
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...Which is why the vast majority of the sentence, the parts you cut off, is spent on judging its in-universe likelihood of stacking.
Prime 2.0 said:
but it seems more lame than Boney would put up with for those things to not stack, and being that it's an apparition rather than a spell it can do the business while we're doing something else at the same time on top.
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Could you please not cherry pick?
DragonParadox said:
'It seems lame' does not seem like a good counter to the argument. The GM is under no obligation to make our choices 'not lame' anymore than he is to make them 'not dangerous'. Making value judgements on things like that is on us. Hell the only reason we even have the option to bind apparitions at all is because of a write in that was hoping for some kind of magical AI we could plug into spells. That fell though therefore from that perspective the whole field of study is 'lame'. All in all I do not think we should lean on the GM like this, it is a great way to be dissapointed with no one but ourselves to blame
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Then why are you choosing not to engage with the rest of my value judgement where I specify the in universe reason for believing the effects will stack? It being lame is an aside, not the main point, and I specify that main point in the same sentence.

It is incredibly unlikely that a non ulgu apparition will use the same mechanisms of action as our ulgu spells so they should stack on those spells rather than be redundant with them. Separately, I discuss how the utility of red riders as a trump card to get ourselves out of trouble is dubious when they share mathilde's primary weakness.

That it being "lame" was worth mentioning at all was to provide a reason to be optimistic that the risk that new reasons are created to say it won't work might be low, separate from there being existing ones I haven't considered. It was window dressing, 17 words and not even a single sentence out of the nearly 400 I wrote.

Seriously, what just happened here?
 
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[X] Plan Roadmap to Success
[X] Plan Roadmap to Success + Ranald Liminal

[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes
[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes with Seviroscope
 
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DragonParadox said:
So how limited is the Gambler then? I thought why not do a retrospective on its use and see if it really is that limited and we are being silly in applying the luck bonus too much
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I've always wanted to do an analysis on the Gambler, including going back and looking at the earlier Ranald's Blessing, but I never had the time for it... I don't think these are all equal. Sometimes we get good luck in ways that aren't as impactful as others, or that arguably we could have done just fine without. But it would take me a lot of effort I just don't have today to go through everything and try to make that kind of analysis. Still, than you for this, it's very useful.
 
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Prime 2.0 said:
Could you please not cherry pick?
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I don't view it as cherry picking. You're clearly advancing the argument that the relative lameness of an action would influence whether it was offered. That was the core objection I had to your post. So that was what I focused on.

Arguing about the likelihood or utility of stacking effects is a different argument and subject which to my mind is a lot less important the the "meta level" of how voting works.
 
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[X] Plan Roadmap to Success

Mostly because I think that introducing her to our henchman for some firsthand experience in spycraft is more interesting. The Hochlander is also just a good contact to have , especially if she's going to be running around on her own more as she gets ready for her journey.

[X] Plan Bring Running Shoes with Seviroscope
 
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Deathbybunnies said:
For those of you posting plans to Windherd a Cataclysm-lite spell - yes, I know it's probably down to Battle Magic from reducing the number of targets - can I convince you to instead Windherd a Seviroscope with Egrimm for Kragg? It's something we actually want, rather than a cool-but-impractical enchantment Mathilde won't use, it's perfectly suited to Windherding with the Wind of Light, and it'd really help Kragg out.
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Has Boney confirmed or "TI & FO"ed over whether Ulgu+Hysh with the spell-lists available to Egrimm and Mathilde would be sufficient for a Seviroscope?
 
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