- Location
- Oklahoma
Not really true anymore- Diplomacy is only one lower than Stwardship, and both are pretty high. The rest of Mathilde's stat spread is just ridiculous.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
Not really true anymore- Diplomacy is only one lower than Stwardship, and both are pretty high. The rest of Mathilde's stat spread is just ridiculous.
In the sense that they go somewhere other than their home to Journey, yes. Actual wandering is much rarer, because you can't really do it within the Karaz Ankor. If you just pick a direction from a Dwarfhold and start walking the odds are very very low of you ever hitting another Karak.
Impractical most often means 'not suited for hard work' and he didn't want to use that, so he instead used a word that just means 'not practical' in the sense he meant.
DL lore is that rediscovery vs invention is an eternal philosophical debate within the Runesmiths Guild. Mathilde's perspective on the matter is skewed because the two Runesmiths she knows are very much on the traditionalist side of things, which says that even the Ancestor Gods only discovered the Runes that already existed and to claim invention is to say you've outdone them, and not really prone to giving equal time to the opposition.
Aranfan
Team Plasma Grunt
It was also Anton's, but you couldn't tell from his track record. Or Mathilde 's.
We do not know what young Anton's other stats were. That 4 could have been a middle stat or even his highest one.
We all know Mathilde's real dump stat - common sense. Her response to being ambushed by a suddenly undead assassin was to run around in her underwear and accidentally knock someone out.
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SaltyWaffles
I am dissapoint, son
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Mathilde logic: get jumped by a lone zombie? Become a master swordswoman.
It is only when you dump the common sense stat that access to the uncommon sense stat is achieved and new paths open.
Not just become a master swordswoman but invent an entirely new magic sword style for her personal use.
- Location
- France
Mathilde's approach to Diplomacy remains influenced by her initial incompetence. Look at how she operates in Laurelorn: she doesn't try to befriend people, or to change their views directly. Instead she focuses on understanding what people want and where they currently stand (politically but also economically and culturally). Then she uses that as levers and incentives to maneuver people into positions that suit her goals better.
This is someone who learned good manners viz effort, but whose approach to Diplomacy remains deeply Learning-based.
There is one area in which we see her use more friendly approaches. With Dawi ! And that's also peak Mathilde, in its own way.
This is someone who learned good manners viz effort, but whose approach to Diplomacy remains deeply Learning-based.
There is one area in which we see her use more friendly approaches. With Dawi ! And that's also peak Mathilde, in its own way.
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- Location
- Actually pretty lost
I want Mathilde to learn all of the languages.
Kislevarin? Of course.
Estalian/Tilean? A two-for-one!
Anoqueyan? Yup.
Runic Khazalid? Hell yeah.
High Nehekharan? Absolutely.
Reverse-engineered Old One? I'd commit the time.
Norscan? Sure.
Dark Tongue? All of them.
Daemonic? ALL OF THEM.
I want Mathilde to get to a point where we decide to look into something, and she can turn to KAU and drop a +30 bonus on the action from raw books.
Kislevarin? Of course.
Estalian/Tilean? A two-for-one!
Anoqueyan? Yup.
Runic Khazalid? Hell yeah.
High Nehekharan? Absolutely.
Reverse-engineered Old One? I'd commit the time.
Norscan? Sure.
Dark Tongue? All of them.
Daemonic? ALL OF THEM.
I want Mathilde to get to a point where we decide to look into something, and she can turn to KAU and drop a +30 bonus on the action from raw books.
Need that Nipponese, Cathayan, Indan, magical skaven, arabian, probably others exist. Get +50 or more from the library.
- Location
- Oklahoma
I figure at some point there'd be diminishing returns due to overlapping information.
pucflek
Verified simpleton
- Location
- Czech Republic
I mean, at some point you have so many books that you can't possibly consult all of them on some manner in the half year you have for the action.
Dynamesmouse
Bzzzzzz
It's quite simple, we just hire more librarians.
We've got hive minded spiders. I suggest we find a way to expand that hive mind into people.
In this essay, I will explain how you can hypothetically combine the Amber Wind and the mutagenic Essence of Tzeentch in order to create the perfect librarian.
The problem with involving Tzeentchian magic is that you end up having to pay overdue fines for books you haven't even taken out yet.
- Location
- Actually pretty lost
I am almost dead certain that I've asked this before and been told that no, it'll never happen, but it was a very long time ago.
- Location
- somewhere over there.
- Pronouns
- They/It
I think to some extent it happens naturally, because when you consult Cathayan sources for their insight on local Empire issues you'll often get answers like "we're pretty sure dwarves are the short ones" and not much else, while for things like magic, it makes sense that divergent or fully separate traditions are going to give a lot of interesting context and almost everyone is going to have something to say on the topic
Not a problem when you use the same magic to embezzle from the future!
consequences
Not A Nice Person At All
- Location
- Jerkville
The diminishing returns issue comes when you seek information from a power that has no insights, perspective, or in some cases basic knowledge of the specific subject at hand that someone else doesn't already have, derived from the same cultural starting point.
If Cathay comes up with a lot of the same conclusions on something as the Empire despite a world of distance and a larger world of different cultural perspective, that confirmation is sometimes itself of more than slight utility.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
The secret of The Old Ones is that their language is made up of the most magically resonant words from dozens of different languages, all mashed together. Each book in their libraries, if one is capable of reading it, gives massive bonuses, up to a solid +100 bonus. Thus their true name is revealed: The Old Librarians.
Hmm, so after some thought (ie writing this post, coming to a different conclusion in the process, and starting all over) I think it's accurate her preparation is deeply information based, and that information can be from Learning or Intrigue like sources.
But the actual execution of negotiation is very quid-pro-quo, and founded on the fact that she gets shit done, so if you do a nice thing for her, she'll get shit done for you. And you might say, "Isn't that the basis of all negotation?" , which is correct, but most people aren't quite that basic in negotiating. Anton, for example, does his negotiation by convincing people they want to do the thing he wants them to do. Often because doing the thing he wants done is what a Cool Person would do. Wilhelmine on the other hand convinces people to do what she wants by convincing them it's what a (soon-to-be) rich person would do.
But Mathilde generally doesn't work an angle like that. She's gotten good at finding out who can give her what she wants, and to a lesser degree what she can give them to get them moving, but she rarely negotiates the price* (negotiate is taken broadly here, convincing someone something is in their best interest and they should do it of their own volition would count). For example, when starting the waystone project, she considered how to sell it, and she explicitly rejected trying to convince others of the possibilities promised in favor of the certain benefits.
So, if we want to interpret for her character, we might we say? Perhaps that young Mathilde just was no good at haggling and convincing others, and so boiled it down to the most basic to reduce that factor as much as possible: You give X, I give Y. And that worked for her well enough, and she mostly focused on getting better at finding the person with X to give, but with much less focus on reducing how much Y she had to offer, or increasing how much X she'd get. She'd be good at finding the one person with the always out of print third book in a four part series, but wouldn't always be great at getting them to part with it.
And it turned out to be pretty useful skill. She ends up in a high position straight out of the gate, where getting stuff done and fast is important, and she's not spending her own power and money**. By the time she's actually negotiating frequently, and in her own name, that hasn't changed. She doesn't haggle (because it would suck as a quest experience, but that's the Doylist reason), but at this point she's rich enough in capability to pay the price. And she also has enough important friends that people don't want to screw her too badly for fear of reprisal (and she generally has a decent idea of the worth of what she's getting and what she'd have to put in).
*Never in votes, which is what we see on screen. Taking a conclusion from that is a little difficult, because if she'd negotiated the price away it wouldn't show up, and also votes are just more interesting than not voting, while crafting arguments of negotiation is a lot more involved and is more of a thing for a different type of quest. So there's a selection bias, but it's still reflective. Other aspects of Mathilde's character are also driven by the demands of being a quest protagonist.
**I will note that Spymistress Mathilde does nearly no negotiation at high stakes***, and Loremaster Mathilde doesn't do too much either, but we can assume there's still some involved in the day-to-day.
***The biggest thing that comes to my mind is the watch takeover, and I would describe that less as a negotiation and more like a hostile takeover. Which is one source of the troubles with that whole thing.
dinomannitro6
all your gender is belong to us
- Location
- The Land Where The Sunflowers Bloom
to an extant the problem of diminishing returns is avoided by not all sources having bonuses for all topics. and if something is actually universal enough a subject for everybody to have it, there is almost certainly plenty of space in that topic for everybody to have unique insights on it
@Boney would it be viable/useful to include Egrimm on the "Try to see through Pall of Darkness with your improved magical senses" action? He has the same windsight as us, and I presume that he knows Eyes of Truth, which lets him see through darkness. Or is the action so personal that Egrimm wouldn't be of any assistance?