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Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

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tricholysis said:
I can only call that a failure tentatively, because there is still time for Ling Qi to decide she wants to defer Cai to the end of the year, or for a surprise Gu Tai action to allow it to offer similarly immediate mechanical benefits to Cai. But at the moment, I do call it a failure, because players who treat the quest more like a game than a narrative will prefer Cai automatically, players who still want Ling Qi to suddenly lesbian out will prefer Cai automatically, players squeamish about marriage will prefer Cai automatically...etc. Not to say anything negative about any of those players, but that's a failure of design.


Well, pretty sure overlords don't have formal authority over Ling Qi's personal life except that they would be 'happy'/'unhappy' with her choice.
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Whether, or not any hypothetical request differ is added into any vote is up to the players, but I'd vote against it as I see no reason for it, and a few unlikely to occur reasons not to do so. In regards to your point on Gu Tai having a surprise immediate mechanical effect as Cai... you do realize that he is simply establishing a branch family of a Clan that are vassals of a Marquis in a province that is still struggling to recover, right? Like that would be break my suspension of disbelief as the offer involves Ling Qi 2+ year at the Sect to allow the Gu enough time to gather the resources/manpower needed for such an expansion to succeed.
Floom said:
Unless we outright leave the Empire (Which would actually be an interesting route to take, given how interesting the world is), we'll have to put up with someone. There is always a higher power, and cultivators are powerful. That's why the Empire gives them privileges and responsibilities to keep them in check.

Cultivator's that don't buy into the system are seen as inherently dangerous to the system as a whole, and are likely treated as such.

A very fitting society, given the genre.

But the Sect's seem to be an interesting development in an otherwise conservative society, and I am curious to see it's function and structure in greater detail.
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Outright leaving the Empire would involve Ling Qi not interacting with her friends for a considerable amount of time, which I'd find somewhat boring tbh. The Sects have been around for a very long time with the only difference being the level of support they were given in the last 400 years so I'm not seeing why they be viewed as a new development, but to each his own.
 
Do keep in mind that agreeing to being Cai Renxiang's vassal is agreeing to be Cai Shenhua's vassal so
rather while we somewhat know the personality of Cai Renxiang from rumors and even from her own daughter's interlude cai shenhua is not a good boss to have.
 
We're being Renxiang's retainer. A White has better things to do than boss around the retainers of her daughter. It's extremely unlikely we'll even see the woman for a good while.
 
CircleTheSkies said:
Probably not? I mean, Ling Qi would be a retainer - those don't necessarily need to establish their own families. In addition, cultivator lifespans apply - Shenhua herself took a *long* time to have her first child. Ling Qi not starting her family and getting an heir for 50 years or more wouldn't be a major problem. Remember, the big reason for a noble house to start a family is continuity - Ling Qi having a lifespan in the centuries would make doing so less urgent.



Her engagement was powered by her family though, not her family's liege. There's something of a different kind of tie of authority involved. Families arrange lots of marriages, and have done so throughout history; lieges have historically done far less of that. There's a certain amount of hinting at such-and-such's child being suitable for you (or one of your children), if I understand the many feudal cultures that have existing throughout history. But that's not the same as throwing around orders regarding marriages.

Mostly because doing so is pretty counter-productive. Families can get away with it because of strong personal ties, it being the domain of the family to do so, etc - and, in fact, very often families would call it off if the prospective happy couple were very much not in favor (since, after all, a couple that strongly dislikes one another are less likely to be loyal, less able to get things done, less likely to have kids and so forth).
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I'm really hoping we can take an action to actually do some research to figure out just how this society works, because constantly having to assume things is starting to get frustrating.

Alectai said:
We're being Renxiang's retainer. A White has better things to do than boss around the retainers of her daughter. It's extremely unlikely we'll even see the woman for a good while.
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Yet again, we don't know. Shenhua is very much an anomaly as far as nobles go, and we have only heavily biased accounts of her character.

I apologize for the double post.
 
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Look, she's a tyrannical monster--this is pretty clear. That being said, if she was actually going to micromanage Renxiang's life and purge or mindfuck anyone she comes into contact with, we'd have probably seen this by now, in the form of Gan Guangli if nobody else.

The fact that he still exists, and hasn't been crushed out of existence by the weight of a White's direct scrutiny, sort of suggests that she isn't going to micromanage Renxiang's life--that would defeat the purpose of putting her through all these trials by fire.
 
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Klaus said:
That real life nobles don't have the power to legally force people to get married? I don't think there's a country in the world where they could.
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And the behavior of real life nobles* is an indicator of the potential actions of fictional characters?

*What kind of nobles do you refer to? English nobles? Chinese Nobles? Persian nobles? Greek Nobles? Roman Nobles?
 
[X] Plan Our Friends Will Understand if We're Busy

I heavily dislike the conditionals but --

It's Time to Breakthrough ALREADY!!! There's nothing pressing cultivation-wise!!! Everything important Waiting for Breakthrough!!!

STOP DELAYING!!!!!!!!!!
 
Alectai said:
Look, she's a tyrannical monster--this is pretty clear. That being said, if she was actually going to micromanage Renxiang's life and purge or mindfuck anyone she comes into contact with, we'd have probably seen this by now, in the form of Gan Guangli if nobody else.
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And yet we must continue to qualify our statements with the word "probably" because we lack sufficient information to make confident statements.

I'm really starting to see the drawbacks of playing a character who is being thrown into a completely alien society.
 
CircleTheSkies said:
To be blunt, it sounds like you're complaining because an option you'd like to see explored further is not one most others do (the bolded), and think the support of Cai is entirely for out-of-character reasons (wanting more benefits, wanting Ling Qi to change orientations) and blame the quest/yrsillar for not promoting your preferred option. Note, incidentally that the "squeamish about marriage" bit is actually very in-character with Ling Qi. She's very much not interested in that side of things.

Myself, I started dubious of Cai Renxiang - heck, for rather out-of-character reasons (I didn't think it'd be interesting to follow, and didn't want Ling Qi to be "pinned down"), and went to somewhat in favor of her. Although I'd be most in favor of Ling Qi demurring until she sees the inner sect, to be honest (it's not like there'd be significant changes for either of the parties until towards the end of the second year anyway).

The thing is, Cai Renxiang is probably the most in-character choice for Ling Qi as she is currently. The Cai offer is being encouraged by the person Ling Qi trusts and likes the most (Bai Meizhen), it's made by someone who has been (at least as far as she's aware) honest and above-board with her. Renxiang offered payment for services, gifts for favors done, went along with ideas she had (that moonlit meadow, leasing the big cauldron) and gave her some very useful tutoring in bureaucracy so she could help her mother. She made the offer well in advance - "I'm interested in you, but you can have plenty of time to think about it."

Gu Tai... well, there's of course knowing him less. But also, as I mentioned, she's leery of marriage - and of how noble houses handle it. Rather than being near her family and (likely) at least some of her friends, she'll be in a alien and hostile environment.

The sect... Honestly, I was strongly in favor of this before, and still find it a fairly reasonable choice. The military service would be somewhat more rigid, but Ling Qi would likely continue to be able to do whatever she wants before and some time after. Eventually she'll be slotted in to a noble slot somewhere, but she'll have time on her own.

Imperial service... there's some interest in the equivalent of the Imperial Postal Service; go lots of fun places, deliver important messages, etc etc. But otherwise... not so interesting to me, and Ling Qi hasn't shown any interest at all in direct Imperial service.

To be honest, if after her term of service (or even during the ostensible 'period') Cai Renxiang would probably not be unhappy if Ling Qi continues to actively be a part of the Argent Sect. After all, the Sect is a locus of local power - Ling Qi having influence there is an avenue to influence the Sect in turn (a common tie between the Ducal House and the Sect, adding to Renxiang herself learning there and so forth). And if it helps Ling Qi grow stronger? Well, again, as long as Ling Qi is on her side, that's all for the better.
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What you bolded is a phrase attached to 'I can only call that a failure tentatively' because the outcome isn't set in stone because technically there is time for those things to happen. I don't say that because I want to blame anyone for them not happening, only to hedge the judgement about yrsillar's design. I don't expect them to happen—I've lamented previously about the seeming incontrovertible advantage of being first.

What it comes down to is that any character will gain following among the thread if given storytime. You say Cai is currently most in-character if Ling Qi made the choice right now, because of course—players/Ling Qi have invested the most into Cai. But e.g. Su Ling had a similar reaction among some people as Gu Tai until she got actions. There was a base of supporters and a base of unsupporters who voted against her (because they felt the supporters just wanted to push the fluffy tail meme). And eventually she got actions and characterisation, and wow, look, now she shows up in varied minor/major action options almost every week.

Any option that gets minors will become more popular.

Yes, Ling Qi is squeamish about marriage. There are still players who refuse anything to do with it categorically even though it's an eventuality no matter what Ling Qi does. Teenagers are squeamish about adulthood and they just wanna play vidya or drink with their friends, or whatever. They still have to write college applications, and the ones who think about it before senior year have much better admission records than the ones that do it only because they've hit the point that they 'have to' do it.

e-The point of the exact example isn't choice/nonchoice so much as preparedness and maturity. I'd rather Ling Qi face the thing she doesn't like and then reject it than that she let the deadline pass by. The person who makes the conscious decision not to marry or go to college gets more respect from me than the person who just couldn't bring themselves to think about growing up before hitting age 40.
 
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Floom said:
This claim:
I am asking for evidence to support this claim.
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Well, Arranged marriage - Wikipedia and Chinese marriage - Wikipedia might do for a (casual) start.

Note that it's always mentioned as the parents (or other relatives) that arrange the marriages.

And if historical marriages in feudal cultures aren't eligible to be used to take a guess here, then what is?

Reader of all said:
Do keep in mind that agreeing to being Cai Renxiang's vassal is agreeing to be Cai Shenhua's vassal so
rather while we somewhat know the personality of Cai Renxiang from rumors and even from her own daughter's interlude cai shenhua is not a good boss to have.
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Gan Guangli is quite oppressed by Shenhua, I agree. And lives in fear of when she'll call on him to eradicate her enemies and sire her daughter's children.

And, surprisingly, authority in a feudal system is not completely transitive. That is, while your liege's liege might be of higher rank than you, and you're supposed to respect that, your service is not actually to them. And, in practice, your liege is something of a middle-man. Of course, this varies from culture to culture, but usually when your boss' boss wants something accomplished, they'll simply tell your boss they want it done, and leave it up to them to figure out the how. "That retainer of yours, she'll make a fine match for Gan Guangli. Go ahead and get them married post-haste" is not going to be something Shenhua says.
 
Floom said:
And yet we must continue to qualify our statements with the word "probably" because we lack sufficient information to make confident statements.

I'm really starting to see the drawbacks of playing a character who is being thrown into a completely alien society.
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Okay, if you're going to pull stuff out of your ass, then I can do the same.

"It's dangerous to go to the Golden Fields, because they have to bribe people to settle on their frontier, doesn't this sort of suggest that it's nowhere near as livable as they're claiming it to be?"

Going "Oh, it's pretty unlikely that it's bad, but if the chance isn't zero of running into the dangers, then we have to refuse." Is a very bad perspective to have if you plan to do anything at all. Because nothing is guaranteed, least of all safety.

Like, if Shenhua's going to micromanage us if we sign on with Renxiang, in complete defiance of the whole "I'm going to let my heiress sink or swim on her own" thing that she's doing, then she's probably going to fuck us over regardless of what we do, because "If you're not under my thumb you're a potential problem in the future, and must be quashed proactively lest you influence my heir in some fashion."

There are genuine reasons to not want to sign on with Renxiang--one good one for instance is that she's likely going to be a central figure in the upcoming Troubles, and being one step removed from her means that we're also going to be a major player in the Troubles, which is going to be a problem. But "Because Shenhua might muscle past her and poach us and remove our free will" isn't one of them. Because the very fact that people exist in this province who aren't her brainwashed slaves sort of disproves this.
 
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tricholysis said:
What you bolded is a phrase attached to 'I can only call that a failure tentatively' because the outcome isn't set in stone because technically there is time for those things to happen. I don't say that because I want to blame anyone for them not happening, only to hedge the judgement about yrsillar's design. I don't expect them to happen—I've lamented previously about the seeming incontrovertible advantage of being first.

What it comes down to is that any character will gain following among the thread if given storytime. You say Cai is currently most in-character if Ling Qi made the choice right now, because of course—players/Ling Qi have invested the most into Cai. But e.g. Su Ling had a similar reaction among some people as Gu Tai until she got actions. There was a base of supporters and a base of unsupporters who voted against her (because they felt the supporters just wanted to push the fluffy tail meme). And eventually she got actions and characterisation, and wow, look, now she shows up in varied minor/major action options almost every week.

Yes, Ling Qi is squeamish about marriage. There are still players who refuse anything to do with it categorically even though it's an eventuality no matter what Ling Qi does. Teenagers are squeamish about adulthood and they just wanna play vidya or drink with their friends, or whatever. They still have to write college applications, and the ones who think about it before senior year have much better admission records than the ones that do it only because they've hit the point that they 'have to' do it.
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I hate to say it, but equivocating Marriage with College Applications is not a convincing argument for supporting a Marriage offer.

Alectai said:
Okay, if you're going to pull stuff out of your ass, then I can do the same.

"It's dangerous to go to the Golden Fields, because they have to bribe people to settle on their frontier, doesn't this sort of suggest that it's nowhere near as livable as they're claiming it to be?"

Going "Oh, it's pretty unlikely that it's bad, but if the chance isn't zero of running into the dangers, then we have to refuse." Is a very bad perspective to have if you plan to do anything at all. Because nothing is guaranteed, least of all safety.
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Exactly what did I "pull out of my ass"?

And yes, nothing is guaranteed. But that does not mean I cannot be unsatisfied with things as they are, or have a desire to learn more.
 
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Klaus said:
The only one of the trick arrows that I would really call a debuff is the net arrow. A 12 success escape attempt is pretty difficult, and we just saw that they deal regular damage in addition to triggering the net. I'm not sure what Immobilized does, mechanically, but it's probably useful. It may not necessarily stack though. I'm a bit concerned it may be like acid flasks or other consumables in other RPGs that are useful in the early game but just don't have higher level equivalents.
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The disruptor arrow removes a buff spell (up to 3 dots, which covers everything we have so far) without a save. It's not directly inflicting a bad status but against anybody who likes to start combat by buffing up (which is most people we've seen) it's pretty valuable.

Unlike D&D we have a flexible crafting system that we know goes all the way up to the top tier in power levels. Like, Elder Jiao could probably whip up a soul-destroying arrow or whatever and Xuan Shi could drop five different immobilizing formations on arrows if he were so inclined. Staying within our circle, we should at a minimum be able to work with Suyin to make a spiderweb net arrow with a tougher escape check. At the high end we could merge it with the pale manual to make a bone arrow that morphs into a spider zombie and starts gnawing on our target once it hits.
 
Thor's Twin said:
Well, as to the first point, Any plan that doesn't have a full 6 action breakthrough plan using both of these pills is using the pills in an inefficient manner. People are using them for 4 or 3 actions rather than the full 6. However, since those plans aren't picking up steam, then it falls into how inefficient you want to be. I believe saving the "Blood of Father Sky" and using it for a triple physical breakthrough next week is more beneficial than using it right now. It is quite possible to persuade me otherwise however.

As for the second part... I'm afraid that you aren't joking, which scares me a little bit. @Alectai's first plan had at least a 21% chance of doing nothing but getting sect points, it split the breakthrough actions into green and bronze, and instead of cultivating arts or doing anything else with the other actions it focused on restoring the lost spiritual or physical successes.
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yeah, sorry. I initially reacted like that, and then thought about it and edited it out - but not before you saw it apparently.

And I don't think you were reading it right though. The point of Alectai's plan is to get our vital minors done this week so we can do full breakthrough next week. That's why he's being careful to try to make sure we get back to Peak/Peak. Note that because of how things get affected by the unknown breakthrough successes, the cultivation actions are conditional - if we don't need to recover we train arts instead.
 
[X] Plan Blockade, Barriers, Breakthrough

Mainly because I want to hit Green this turn and this seems like the best plan to pull that off. Besides maybe Breakthrough; Start, but that one feels like cheating to me, what with attaching multiple minors to a major.

@Yeangst: Is closed door cultivation a thing, or just how you're describing the turn? Does it have special benefits from forsaking all else, or is it just representing your super-focused plan? Are you getting that extra major by trading in minors? Sorry, haven't looked at plan building in a while and trying to figure out what you made.
 
Floom said:
I hate to say it, but equivocating Marriage with College Applications is not a convincing argument for supporting a Marriage offer.
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The point of the exact example isn't choice/nonchoice so much as preparedness and maturity. I'd rather Ling Qi face the thing she doesn't like and then reject it than that she let the deadline pass by. The person who makes the conscious decision not to marry or go to college gets more respect from me than the person who just couldn't bring themselves to think about growing up before hitting age 40.
 
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Erebeal said:
yeah, sorry. I initially reacted like that, and then thought about it and edited it out - but not before you saw it apparently.

And I don't think you were reading it right though. The point of Alectai's plan is to get our vital minors done this week so we can do full breakthrough next week. That's why he's being careful to try to make sure we get back to Peak/Peak. Note that because of how things get affected by the unknown breakthrough successes, the cultivation actions are conditional - if we don't need to recover we train arts instead.
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Pretty much.

I want to get Fu Xiang's favor out of the way because we have our Larceny tools now, and before we're hitched to somebody's wagon so as to minimize potential backlash (And doing so immediately after Renshu gets stabbed again means that we're not the only possible suspect for it). I want to do the Zeqing meeting because it's the first time she's asking us to come to her instead of just being available once in a while. I want to spend time with Zhengui because he's adorable and we've gone a month already without hugging or tortoisesnek buddy, spending time with Meizhen is good at clearing the air, and I want to finish the Renxiang minor action line before we breakthrough.

Breaking through with a clear conscience seems to me to be the best way of doing it.
 
Wiggin42 said:
Mainly because I want to hit Green this turn and this seems like the best plan to pull that off. Besides maybe Breakthrough; Start, but that one feels like cheating to me, what with attaching multiple minors to a major.

@Yeangst: Is closed door cultivation a thing, or just how you're describing the turn? Does it have special benefits from forsaking all else, or is it just representing your super-focused plan? Are you getting that extra major by trading in minors? Sorry, haven't looked at plan building in a while and trying to figure out what you made.
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Yeah, closed-door sacrifices 2 minors for another major.

Narratively it's also one of the big things people do when they're trying to breakthrough like this.

If you want to maximise the odds of getting green, you want Yeangst's plan. Blockade Barriers breakthrough gives us 45% odds of green. Going all in like Yeangst does gives us ~76% odds of green.
 
That being said, going all in also means that we sacrifice all of our minors. Because we can't attach minors to Breakthrough actions, and the subtraction comes from our 'Free' minors.

And the council meeting is already monopolizing our one slot.

Like, we already have Zeqing and Meizhen as just about mandatory given how time sensitive the former is, and how important the latter is after that recent event. That doesn't leave us with any room for wiggling.
 
Alectai said:
Okay, if you're going to pull stuff out of your ass, then I can do the same.

"It's dangerous to go to the Golden Fields, because they have to bribe people to settle on their frontier, doesn't this sort of suggest that it's nowhere near as livable as they're claiming it to be?"

Going "Oh, it's pretty unlikely that it's bad, but if the chance isn't zero of running into the dangers, then we have to refuse." Is a very bad perspective to have if you plan to do anything at all. Because nothing is guaranteed, least of all safety.

Like, if Shenhua's going to micromanage us if we sign on with Renxiang, in complete defiance of the whole "I'm going to let my heiress sink or swim on her own" thing that she's doing, then she's probably going to fuck us over regardless of what we do, because "If you're not under my thumb you're a potential problem in the future, and must be quashed proactively lest you influence my heir in some fashion."

There are genuine reasons to not want to sign on with Renxiang--one good one for instance is that she's likely going to be a central figure in the upcoming Troubles, and being one step removed from her means that we're also going to be a major player in the Troubles, which is going to be a problem. But "Because Shenhua might muscle past her and poach us and remove our free will" isn't one of them. Because the very fact that people exist in this province who aren't her brainwashed slaves sort of disproves this.
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Very well then. I don't believe either of us are willing to be convinced, so we can just leave things here.
 
Anyway, adjusted my plan to make the Bronze breakthrough attempt conditional on a failure of the Green breakthrough attempt, and otherwise another Green attempt.
 
tricholysis said:
The point of the exact example isn't choice/nonchoice so much as preparedness and maturity. I'd rather Ling Qi face the thing she doesn't like and then reject it than that she let the deadline pass by. The person who makes the conscious decision not to marry or go to college gets more respect from me than the person who just couldn't bring themselves to think about growing up before hitting age 40.
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So you're only advocating for finding out more, with no plans on actually accepting a marriage offer?
 
Klaus said:
That real life nobles don't have the power to legally force people to get married? I don't think there's a country in the world where they could.
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I'm gonna go ahead and point out something.

In a fuckton of ancient china setting novels, there are a LOT of arranged marriages. Mostly, the absolute nature of an Emperors decree means this person is wise and virtuous and will be the ideal spouse to this person, and that's that. Any critique of this decision is beyond the public opinion on pain of being anti-royalty/treasonous to think that the Emperor could be wrong. Rejection of this is probably worse than death.

This gets settled down to further to noble familes which mull over prospects and alliances and wealth and titles to assign marriages. Of course both clans have to mutually agree to make a wedding happen between the families. However, for servants and the like, this gets way less about benefits and more about punishment sometimes, where you might send a servant who didn't follow the house rules into marriage with another servant as punishment, etc. Marry them off and force them away. (servants are oftentimes more like slaves) These cases are insular mostly, but technically its possible for many men of wealth and means to pressgang someone of lesser means into "marriage" aka. make them into your concubine. When you commit a crime against a family as a servant, you don't hope for your life, you hope they don't kill your entire family as well.

Basically if you're under a family in these cases, they have power over you. It's possible to fight an assigned marriage, but social hits and potential backlash from the family in this cases cause a lot of problems which can make life worse than death. Unless you get society on your side with a sob story about how you're actually filial/virtuous, but there are circumstances which is why you HAD to go against your family.

So if the other party isn't completely unsuitable in some way, you're expected to fulfill your duty to your family.

This gets further complicated by the misogynistic attitude towards women and their roles in these settings, which is tempered by cultivation in this case, which relies a bit on individual power level and their own capability moreso than potential outsiders. However, I bet that it's not all incorrect, so forced marriages are guaranteed to happen, though of course making both parties agree to a marriage is ideal.
 
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