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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


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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[X] Plan Break Down And Dry Up
-[X] Haruna is conscious that she's drinking too much, and tries to stop.
-[X] Pass it off to Ishinari. He can handle it.
-[X] You should probably apologize. Again. To both of them. And make an effort to be friendlier to Nashimoto. You shouldn't let on that you know he's afraid of you, but maybe being friendly and spending time with the two of them will help make things less awkward. (+1 Stress)
-[X] Give him a commendation for his initiative in fighting the fire and recommend him for extra training off the boat. You know, after he's married his girlfriend so he can take her along. You'll need to send those letters about the legal stuff, though. (+1 Stress)
-[X] You need some downtime. (-1 stress)
 
What are you guys willing to lose in this breakdown? Aiko? An arm? Haruna's career? Her friendship with the Empress? It's going to be a hefty price, one way or another. Just be sure you're willing to pay it.
The way I see it we keep getting +1 Stress from just doing our damn job and we don't get enough opportunities to work the stress off. We're going to break at some point, might as well do it on our terms and try to get some stat buffs out of it.
 
So make a plan! See if anyone will vote for it.

Ok then!

[X] Plan Self-Improvement
-[X] Haruna is conscious that she's drinking too much, and tries to stop.
-[X] Pass it off to Ishinari. He can handle it.
-[X] You should probably apologize. Again. To both of them. And make an effort to be friendlier to Nashimoto. You shouldn't let on that you know he's afraid of you, but maybe being friendly and spending time with the two of them will help make things less awkward. (+1 Stress)
-[X] Commend him, but keep him here. You need as many good sailors as you can keep.
-[X] Keep up intense exercises and training. Hit the books. (+1 Stress, +1 to a stat)
 
[X] Plan Self-Improvement

Bugger. I didn't see that the breakdown plan didn't go for the stat point
 
[X] Plan Self-Improvement

Let's go for it. The breakdown is still concerning but I am willing to admit my prior post was over the top.

@open_sketch @Artificial Girl in tabletop play of these rules how frequently do players actually incur breakdowns like this?
 
5-9.5: Break it down now
Breakdowns:

All of these will have consequences social, physical, or otherwise. Voting for these will close sometime tomorrow, when we write the update proper.


[ ] Before it gets better, it usually gets worse: You try to manage your tautly wound nerves the only way you know how out here, by drinking as much alcohol as you can reasonably get your hands on. What follows is a multiple week bender that only stops when you've made your way through the whole supply of cognac in the officer's club and most of the local booze and find yourself wondering if you can make it to the next supply ship by breaking into the store of medicinal alcohol.​
[ ] Only the lonely: You miss having someone next to you in the morning. You miss intimacy. You just miss feeling like someone wants you. So you visit the local (illegal, unregulated) brothel for some… relief. There's nothing emotional about it, right? Right???
[ ] I don't get no respect: The men don't trust you. Nobody in this Navy trusts you. The captain made the clear enough. And why would they? You're invading their little boys club, spoiling their fun, showing them how it's done. They're pigheaded, ignorant, arrogant men. They're all the same.​
[ ] We will have ORDER: Your sailors did the best they could. But they could have done better. But that's just as much your fault as theirs. Maybe you've been too lax on them. Maybe you've been too willing to indulge their small oversights and little lapses in discipline and good practice. So you just have to show them that you're not some jumped up little girl. You are an officer of Her Imperial Majesty's Navy and by the Spirits you are going to whip them into better shape, even if it kills them.​
[ ] Going to HR: You don't have to take this kind of shit from anyone anymore. You're a bonafide war heroine. You decide to file a report about the extremely public verbal abuse you received from Commander Shinsato, forgetting momentarily how stacked the deck is against you, how this will be seen as nothing less than weakness, that there are still men high above you who want nothing more than for you to fail. If you think you've seen the worst posts in this Navy, you're wrong.​
EDIT: WAIT. As @open_sketch says below, there will be a three-hour voting moratorium. Voting opens at 6pm PST/9pm EST/2am GMT
 
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[X] I don't get no respect: The men don't trust you. Nobody in this Navy trusts you. The captain made the clear enough. And why would they? You're invading their little boys club, spoiling their fun, showing them how it's done. They're pigheaded, ignorant, arrogant men. They're all the same.
 
I feel like Going to HR is probably the most professionally devastating one, and the least personally devastating. Anyone we're friends with/etc will agree that we were right to do so, even if practically speaking it was foolish.

Meanwhile, the first two options are of course personally devastating, but I don't think either would have *major* effects on our career, in that we're in the exact sort of ship where people can get away with visiting brothels and being alcoholics.

Meanwhile, the others are sorta, like, the 'in between' on the personal/professional damage axis.
 
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