Castles of Steel - Lesbians Good, Imperialism Bad

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Lieutenant Arisukawa Haruna

Balance Stats
❁ • ❁ Work / Life ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Warrior / Princess ❁ • ❁
❁ • ❁ Radical / Respectable ❁ • ❁

Tactical Stats
Gunnery 0, Navigation +2, Command +2, Technology -4, Personal -2, Strategy +3

Stress: 3​


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PLEASE READ THE QUEST RULES BELOW

You collectively vote on the actions of Arisukawa Haruna, the first woman to serve openly in the Imperial Akitsukuni Navy.

This quest is set in a universe which is much like our own circa 1910, but with different politics, cultural norms, and ideas about gender and sexuality, as well as some unusual and advanced technology in places.

We are using this quest to explore themes like breaking the glass ceiling, divergent outlooks on gender and sexuality, colonialism and imperialism, and the place of royalty.

Content Warning
This quest goes some dark places.

There is violence, often explicit, often unfair, often against undeserving targets.

There are not always good options forward. The protagonist is not necessarily a good person.

There is implied content and discussion of sexual harassment and assault.

This is a world where people are often racist, sexist, queerphobic bigots. Sometimes, even the PC and the people they are friends with.

Voting Rules

We will tell you if write-in votes are allowed. If we do not say that write-ins are allowed, they are not. This is to prevent people from unrealistically hedging their bets.

You may proposal other options in a non-vote format, subject to approval, on non write-in votes.

We will tell you when a vote allows approved voting. If we don't say the answer is no, pick an option. We like making people commit.

Discussions makes the GM feel fuzzy.

Game Rules
When we ask you for a roll, roll 3d6. You are aiming to roll equal or under the value of your stat. If you succeed, Haruna gets through the situation with no real difficulties. If you roll above the target value, Haruna will still succeed, but this success will cost her something or add a complication.

Whenever Haruna loses something or faces hardship from a botched roll, she takes Stress. The more Stress Haruna has, the more the job and the circumstances she's in will get to her, and it'll be reflected in the narrative. Haruna must be kept under 10 Stress: if she reaches 10 Stress, she will suffer a breakdown and the results will not be great for her.

Haruna loses stress by taking time for herself, by making meaningful progress on her dreams, and by kissing tall, beautiful women.

Meta Rules
Author commentary is in italics so you know it's not story stuff.

Please don't complain about the system or the fact we have to roll dice. We've heard it before, we've heard it a thousand times across multiple quests. We're not going to change it, and it wears at our fucking souls.

Just going "oh noooo" or "Fish RNGesus Why!" is fun and fine. Complaining at length because you didn't get what you want less so.

If you have a question, tag both @open_sketchbook and @Artificial Girl. If you only tag one of us, you will be ignored. Seriously, we both write this quest.

And yes this is an alt-history type setting with openly gay and trans people, ahistoric medicine, and weird politics. Just... deal, please?

This quest employs a special system called Snippet Votes. Please read this post for more information.
 
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I suppose I'd like to avoid the options that seem cruel or arbitrary. I'm not really sure why people think being feared is necessarily a good thing.

[X] Plan Battle Ready
seems good since it keeps the focus on keeping the guns in working order, since that's what our actual job is.
 
I'll just throw in a harsher version, that doesn't include any violence or abuse that beyond that seen in a modern first world military.

[X] Plan Battle Ready - Harsher
-[X] PT them. PT them until they fucking die: Have Kwon put them through rigorous PT every day until they wish they'd never been born. Make them too sore to talk shit ever again. (2d6)
-[X] Inspections. Forever: Inspect them again tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. Until they finally wise up and get their act together. (1d6)
-[X] Weekend pass? REVOKED!: You sure hope no one had liberty coming up because they sure as hell don't any longer. (1d6)
 
Karlito said:
I suppose I'd like to avoid the options that seem cruel or arbitrary. I'm not really sure why people think being feared is necessarily a good thing.

[X] Plan Battle Ready
seems good since it keeps the focus on keeping the guns in working order, since that's what our actual job is.
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I want them to fear us because I am not convinced respect will be enough to fully keep them in line, especially as it relates to the treatment of Min-Seo. We don't just want them to treat us like one of the guys.
We want them to fear our wrath if they step out of line, even if some of what we ask goes against what is considered business as usual out here.

[X] Plan Battle Ready - Harsher
 
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Alectai said:
I will point out that the sweet spot isin the "Respected and feared" position.

Basically, you want to crack the whip hard enough that they fear it, but not so hard that they hate you.

Respect is handy, but respect alone doesn't necessarily build discipline. It's better than being hated though.

Basically, this is a windy graph of "Shit/OK/Perilous/Fantastic/OH GOD" outcomes.

I will note though that we have no idea what happens at 19, I suspect it won't be anything good, but it might be an oversight?
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I must disagree with this interpretation. The tier beneath "respected but feared" features resentement. The tier above festures outright mutiny. It would seem unlikely that an action that sits in between resentement and outright mutiny does not involve us being hated.
I think it's far more likely that the correct interpretation is "everyone is too afraid to openly show disrespect or dislike".

Respected but feared, I think, is well exemplified by that one asshole captain we had earlier in the quest. You know, the one who wanted to gun down Joseon workers.
 
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This is a bunch of gun-pits a ways behind the front lines, correct? With all Navy personnel, no army boys?
 
Great update. I love the mechanic for disciplining the troops.

Huh, apropos of nothing, a good game could probably be made out of playing as the empress. The trick would be getting mechanics to reflect her little hard power and huge amounts of soft power. Despite all the respect she's shown, I think she's one big failure away from becoming a figurehead, which would make for interesting choices.
 
ancusohm said:
Great update. I love the mechanic for disciplining the troops.

Huh, apropos of nothing, a good game could probably be made out of playing as the empress. The trick would be getting mechanics to reflect her little hard power and huge amounts of soft power. Despite all the respect she's shown, I think she's one big failure away from becoming a figurehead, which would make for interesting choices.
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Influence dice and Authority dice, with the latter in incredibly limited supply, but the only way to do major actions, while influence was things like nepotism, ceremonial influence, meetings, etc, etc.

I mean, that's how I'd do it?

And spending Authority on something that fails can be disastrous, and lead to losing yearly/etc Authority forever.
 
10ebbor10 said:
I must disagree with this interpretation. The tier beneath "respected but feared" features resentement. The tier above festures outright mutiny. It would seem unlikely that an action that sits in between resentement and outright mutiny does not involve us being hated.
I think it's far more likely that the correct interpretation is "everyone is too afraid to openly show disrespect or dislike".

Respected but feared, I think, is well exemplified by that one asshole captain we had earlier in the quest. You know, the one who wanted to gun down Joseon workers.
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Hmm, not as I read it. "Obey orders but resentful of it" is what you're describing there. They do it because they fear the consequences, not because they like you, and the thing about Fear is that it falls apart in the absence of regular reinforcement, just as Respect alone doesn't drive people to take risks on your command.

Respect is good, but if it's not paired with a healthy fear of what you'll do to them if they go too far--then even if they like you, they might not do a good job. "Respect but not feared" is where you get those bro-type superiors who everyone likes, but nobody really seriously listens to. It's why the statement is that it's best to be Respected (People know that you know your business, and won't stand against you) and Feared (People don't want to fuck with you because they know they can't carry the consequences). But that above all else, you mustn't let yourself become Hated, which is what the 20+ result seems to suggest.

And yeah, that seems to be the spread here. "Neither Respected nor Feared/Respected/Feared/Respected and Feared/Hated"
 
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Alectai said:
Hmm, not as I read it. "Obey orders but resentful of it" is what you're describing there. They do it because they fear the consequences, not because they like you, and the thing about Fear is that it falls apart in the absence of regular reinforcement, just as Respect alone doesn't drive people to take risks on your command.

Respect is good, but if it's not paired with a healthy fear of what you'll do to them if they go too far--then even if they like you, they might not do a good job. "Respect but not feared" is where you get those bro-type superiors who everyone likes, but nobody really seriously listens to. It's why the statement is that it's best to be Respected (People know that you know your business, and won't stand against you) and Feared (People don't want to fuck with you because they know they can't carry the consequences). But that above all else, you mustn't let yourself become Hated, which is what the 20+ result seems to suggest.

And yeah, that seems to be the spread here. "Neither Respected nor Feared/Respected/Feared/Respected and Feared/Hated"
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I don't actually know if that really fits? Can we just ask the QM, because that's not how I read the vote at all. I read the 6-7 result as ultimately the best, but difficult to get because if you lowballed it to try to get it, you might just wind up hitting "nobody cares at all." Which is the second worst outcome. But if you shore up your dice-pool too much to avoid that, not only are you less likely to get 6-7, and you might get 20+, which is a disaster.

So that's how I interpreted it.

Edit: But since Artificial Girl liked the post, apparently I'm wrong? Which makes it odd, if there's no downside or reason to have a dice pool lower than 3d6?
 
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The Laurent said:
I don't actually know if that really fits? Can we just ask the QM, because that's not how I read the vote at all. I read the 6-7 result as ultimately the best, but difficult to get because if you lowballed it to try to get it, you might just wind up hitting "nobody cares at all." Which is the second worst outcome. But if you shore up your dice-pool too much to avoid that, not only are you less likely to get 6-7, and you might get 20+, which is a disaster.

So that's how I interpreted it.

Edit: But since Artificial Girl liked the post, apparently I'm wrong? Which makes it odd, if there's no downside or reason to have a dice pool lower than 3d6?
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Nah, you're not wrong. An outcome where you are respected and treated properly because you're respected is probably the ideal outcome, but hard to achieve in this situation.
 
[X] Plan Battle Ready
I want extra die on there but I'm too scared of getting the Mutiny.
 
The Laurent said:
Hmm, what if you had it as 3d6, but with an exploding 6? That'd increase the odds somewhat, but probably not nearly as much as a 4d6?
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The exploding die tends not to help us too much because if it explodes, then we've already got 6 and so it never protects us from rolling too low but it can make us roll too high. Mostly it just takes some of the probability in 'obeyed but resented' and shifts it over to 'feared but respected' and mutiny at about a 50/50 ratio.
 
I'm going to be up-front and say that in a situation where we have a group of armed men with zero consideration for women that we have to live (and sleep) in the general vicinity of, I think revoking their liberty passes is likely to vastly increase the risk of them trying to rape Haruna, Min-Seo, or both in the event that our roll doesn't hit the either of the sweet spots where they start to actually respect Haruna.

Which, yes, means that if we don't revoke their passes and roll poorly they probably take out their frustration on the prostitutes they undoubtedly visit when on leave instead. But I don't think there's any way to prevent that and also reduce the risk of horrible consequences for Haruna and/or Min-Seo without changing Akitsukuni culture, military culture, and the effects both of these things have on young men steeped in them and never taught otherwise (not to mention the impact their individual personalities have on this, of course).

If or when Haruna figures this out, I expect it to cause her to have another uncomfortable bit of reflection much like the one during her hot springs visit with Aiko.
 
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@open_sketchbook what would making them clean the guns with a toothbrush be on that scale?

Edit: also an option to expand the gun pits, make a couple fake ones nearby, dig some spare foxholes and fortify the position.
 
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For the best fake guns we'd want to see about rigging up some way to produce puffs of smoke so that it looks like they're actually being fired.
 
If we're following any standard of mass indoctrination, we have to break them down into nothing.

And then, when they are piles of aching meat and pitiful bone. Then we can make them love us.
 
@Artificial Girl i don't really understand where Haruna is sleeping does she have her own room or do all the command staff share a nicer bunk room.

[ ]haruna gets called for a meeting at the command center
I want this because we really haven't had any proper interaction with the brass


[x[ Plan battle ready
 
[X] Plan Battle Ready

[Snippet] Arisukawa has a long chat over tea with Min-seo (name?) and discusses her life and Akitsukuni occupancy of Joseon.

Figure this can expand on our chat with Aiko about imperialism.
 
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