Forge of Destiny(Xianxia Quest)

[Grosstoad]

. . . My point was we can't judge the worth before the results, and even after that, there might still be echoes of the effect far after the specific update happened.

You can judge immediate worth, but you can't judge possible worth.

Looting Hong Lin and Zhus was worth 80+ stones. How much worth was face, optics, reputation?

Ugh.

 

[TheLastOne]

. . . My point was we can't judge the worth before the results, and even after that, there might still be echoes of the effect far after the specific update happened.

You can judge immediate worth, but you can't judge possible worth.

Looting Hong Lin and Zhus was worth 80+ stones. How much worth was face, optics, reputation?

Ugh.

Click to shrink...

Sure... but every maintaining action drops the worth of what payoff we've gotten. And no, we can't know what we'll get in advance, but we can know that losing out of breakthroughs, art advancements, and other such things will really hurt us, until eventually we won't be able to pass the inner sect exam. Exploring the mountain with Su Ling and taking sect missions have a clearer payoff.

Like, if I could make things good with Jian, set him up so he and his team grow fast enough to remain useful till the sect exam, that would be worth an action or two... but he wasn't in that state last round, and it would take us an action to get back to where we were last round. Then it would take two or three more actions on top of it.

At which point we're approaching about maybe a third of our discretionary budget of actions we'll have before the inner sect test. We would need Meizhen level returns to justify that.

 

[Grosstoad]

+sighs+

Do you split the profit, loss, and debt among maintaining actions?

Is a conflict a profit or a loss?

How do you calculate the effect of dice and difficulty?

Again, I don't like it.

 

[TheLastOne]

+sighs+

Do you split the profit, loss, and debt among maintaining actions?

Is a conflict a profit or a loss?

How do you calculate the effect of dice and difficulty?

Again, I don't like it.

Click to shrink...

Yes?

If you win, a profit. We've made off like bandits in every conflict we've been in. That will probably change when we lose.

You look at what's comparable - you can get dice through drugs, so you use that as a yardstick. It's imperfect, but you can ususally get decent guesstimates.

I get that, but not liking it doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. Or even that it's necessarily hard.

 

[veekie]

Well, my simple views of the Han Jian Group social link at present:
-Putting assets of other social links on the table - No, we already got a lesson on this, the groups don't gel and Ling Qi does not begin to have the political context or connections to even try yet. So the Argent Vent and whatever dungeon Meizhen is sharing with us are off the table. Pushing to share these will automatically cost my vote.

-Putting our independent assets on the table - Conditional, I'm up for sharing our non-exclusive personal assets with our friends, such as the hot spring cultivation location, but not the exclusive ones like consumables for ourselves. We have enough Talent and some luck that they're not strictly competition for the Inner Sect, recall that the Jade Slip and Sable Light Pill was stated to give us a chance of winning an Elder's personal tutoring in the Inner Sect in it's own right. The tournament is nice to prepare for, but we don't need to gimp the progress of allies.

-Investing actions into just staying afloat - Conditional, spending actions does not equate to effectiveness. We can talk to Han Jian all day and night, but it's not going to resolve the political risks of associating with an associate of Bai Meizhen, or the envy within the group. If we're going to invest social actions just to keep the link alive, I'd rather spend those actions exploring for SOMETHING we can share to help change things. Telling them about the talisman is worthwhile though, so no short term objections.

-Taking risks to back them up - Totally, if they wind up fighting rivals, then we help them wreck shit even if it's risky.

-Getting screwed to back them up - Very conditional, there's taking a chance of disadvantage and then there's deliberately accepting a loss.

 

[Arkeus]

It' kind of impossible to decide the worth of many types of actions, though some of it at least are possible. Maintaining a good relationship with Han Jian for the long term probably doesn't mean getting a lot of secondary things from him... but probably does mean getting a lot of those from Gu Xiulan, as well as making it more easy to go on events or jobs with her and the wilderness group.

So that's worth a bit. Also it IS possible that investing a minimum to get Han Jian be aware he can trust us to give back what he gave means he could ask us for stuff from to time. After all Li Suyin began our relationship from her side and a lot of benefits came from her desires, and the same for Bai Meizhen or Gu Xiulan. It's possible that when Han Jian needs help for a difficult be rewarding thing he will ask us, and that's good.

Also, @TheLastOne, unless @yrsillar was confusing we were told in week 13 that Li Suyin and Su Ling decided to live at the vent, not the cave.

 

[FixerUpper]

My understanding of Han Jian is such:

The thing you need to realize about Han Jian is that he generally supports the weak. He sees himself as a protector first and foremost (instinctive defensive tactics during the test, his comment about people he needs to protect to Heijin, getting heart and leg meridians before he got arm or spine meridians) and now Fan Yu has started tripping that flag due to being 'slowest growing of my friends' even though he despised (or seemed to despise) him before for being boorish and generally unpleasant and probably unwilling to help the weak. In a way, Han is probably Ji Rong's foil: the rich, but untalented noble who protects VS the poor, but super talented criminal who destroys. Obviously there will be more than that to them, but the general pattern holds.

I admit, I have some doubts about my interpretation (why can't Fan Yu so much as look at us? why is Gu Xiulan pulling away? obviously Bai Meizhen, but even then, it feels like Han Jian's group had a big disagreement about how to handle us, and Gu Xiulan did not win that one. is it possible that they've received instructions from their family after informing them about us through the mail?), but...

I think, in his mind, we have stopped needing him. Oh, sure, jealousy might play a role, but if he were to try to justify breaking off a relationship with us in his head, it'd be more along the lines of what we did to Li Suyin and Su Ling during the Thunderdome: welp, I've invested enough time in them, they should be able to stand up without me there to hold their hands. And it's true. We're there for the group training, but in the past few weeks a lot of intense stuff has happened and we didn't seek him out to consult him about any of it. We can stand on our own two feet, have the backing of a politically dubious family and are strong. In a world of limited action economy, where even Bai Meizhen is working herself to exhaustion, everyone needs to prioritize. Sure, it's convenient for him, politically, to make this decision, but there's more to it than just that.

Right now, we're straddling the edges of a new relationship with Han Jian's group, but we haven't made it explicit what we want that relationship to be. At our level of strength we cannot be 'just friends' anymore, not in our previous status as someone to be protected, but that's how we're treating him because that's all we know how to do. We don't know what to do to become a more... proactive friend.

I think we might have to blunder into becoming good friends again, but dratted if I know how with how people tend to vote.

 

[TheLastOne]

Also, @TheLastOne, unless @yrsillar was confusing we were told in week 13 that Li Suyin and Su Ling decided to live at the vent, not the cave.

Click to shrink...

Not really? We went from the caves to the vent as a group to train, but we had been doing that the whole time. They said or did nothing to suggest they were moving there. Instead they said -

Still, even with the reduced cultivation time, she found the Argent Qi soaking into her body growing more solid and complete, and felt her spiritual cultivation reach the same blocking point that her physical had. By the time the sun was falling, she felt like she would be ready to breakthrough… but first Meizhen and she needed to get a home again. She brought up the subject of walking her other friends back, but was rebuffed. It seemed the two of them intended to stay where they were for now.

Click to shrink...

With 'where they were' being the cave - she can't walk them back because they aren't heading back to the main sect grounds.

 

[Mr.rodent]

We really should talk to baI about letting su and li stay in our house. It's probably big enough, if not one of the houses near us could be bought off.

Having a faction area of territory would be nice plus with the rules in place it's much safer for them in the residence places then outside where they can be" legally "ambushed.

 

[mc2rpg]

We really should talk to baI about letting su and li stay in our house. It's probably big enough, if not one of the houses near us could be bought off.

Having a faction area of territory would be nice plus with the rules in place it's much safer for them in the residence places then outside where they can be" legally "ambushed.

Click to shrink...

If they want to be somewhere they can't be legally ambushed they can find themselves a home on their own. Forcing Bai to deal with Su Ling sounds like a pretty shitty thing to do to Bai, and it probably says quite a bit about their relationship to us and Bai that we don't actually want to commit to. I wouldn't want to ask Bai to buy our friends a house either, that just seems like such a waste.

If we want them to live nearby we should grab the two of them, find someone that lives near us, and ambush them with Su Ling and Li Suyin. The girls can beat one of our neighbors and tell them to move out or it will keep happening. That is a more practical way of dealing with it for a bunch of poor kids. If the two of them agree to try that then we will know they actually want to live nearby.

 

[angelofwhim]

None of our 3? social groups mesh quite yet.

....mostly cause of Su Ling.

Bai most like cannot stand her hunter ways

Fan Yu is prejudice to halfbreeds and Gu will be like Bai, very distainful of her rough ways.

Bai meshing with Han Jian is going to be very brittle due to strained politics.

I think its better just to let things play out.

......

Wish we could bring the vent duo with us to whatever Bai is taking us. They might have senses and factoids that can help with the puzzles? Would probably boost Bai's impression of them if they do well.

 

[FixerUpper]

We really should talk to baI about letting su and li stay in our house. It's probably big enough, if not one of the houses near us could be bought off.

Having a faction area of territory would be nice plus with the rules in place it's much safer for them in the residence places then outside where they can be" legally "ambushed.

Click to shrink...

Let's not. It's clear that they have their own thing (apparently they have an ongoing relationship with a production student) and us making this sort of overture can be a) insulting, b) lead to unexpected ramifications, a lot of them being a freeze on other relationships they have cultivated. Li Suyin clearly wants the strength to be independent, and I don't think strangling it by offering our house is going to help.

If they need it, sure, if they want it, definitely, but otherwise... let them be. This isn't an offer that will make them stronger, just safer and that's the sort of thing I can see Ling Qi offering as happening immediately after they got hurt, but after a few weeks it comes off as weird, and unless they're suffering beyond their ability to tolerate, I think it won't be accepted.

 

[TheLastOne]

I think we might have to blunder into becoming good friends again, but dratted if I know how with how people tend to vote.

Click to shrink...

Honestly, we've already wasted action on this group. Our action on week fourteen were that we got Xiulan to agree to give Suyin a chance. That will have made our benefits from that social action smaller - it's probably why we took some Xiulan social link damage this turn. We spent some of the benefit of the social action prepping to get the groups together again... but as a number of voters have stated, they'll oppose any attempt to being the groups together...

And if we want to keep Han Jian, we have to. Suyin and Ling are super valuable friends - and Ling is an interesting seeming character I want to find more about once we've got the time. But we've spent two or actions on 'being Suyin's friend', getting her confidence back up after she gets knocked down or hurt. Maintenance costs. We've spent social maintenance actions on Xiulan - they were beneficial in various ways, but they also were maintenance actions. While she hasn't asked for many of them, we need to be ready to spend them Meizhen - we need to keep the option open. So we can afford two - Suyin and Meizhen, we can't open ourselves up to four, adding Xiulan and Jian. And the last couple updates have made it clear we have to spend actions on both of them to stay in good with that group.

Two is fine, especially when one of them is the usually undemanding Meizhen (though I wouldn't be surprised if her costs go up in the future do to the politics it gets us involved with). Three is doable, but we'll know we're paying it. Four is unacceptable.

We either simplify it by making our friends support each other so we don't have to do as much, or we do it by letting some of them drift apart. I favored the first... but I think we've already burnt that bridge, and so it's time to accept that not every character stays part of our story.

 

[Lone Wolf 666]

and she found herself momentarily wishing her friend were male.

Click to shrink...

*Shipping INTENSIFY!*

Well. This quest is Xianxia that I actually want to read. Without the excess death, slaughter, revenge, swearing on whoever clans/master/sect etc name is.

 

[Grosstoad]

Yes?

If you win, a profit. We've made off like bandits in every conflict we've been in. That will probably change when we lose.

You look at what's comparable - you can get dice through drugs, so you use that as a yardstick. It's imperfect, but you can ususally get decent guesstimates.

I get that, but not liking it doesn't mean it isn't legitimate. Or even that it's necessarily hard.

Click to shrink...

+rubs face+

You can guesstimate value, after the action. Said guesstimate fluctuates after each update. And we can only guesstimate effects that has numerical and mechanical values.

I dislike the inaccuracies, the hassle, and on top of those, trying to put economical value on top of or in exchange of emotinal value.

It puts a poor precedent to say that, oh, helping noble A is worth more than helping merchant B. Let's not even invest on helping peasant C, uou can do better with 20 pills.

And I very much dislike that kind of advantage-based decision-making/vote-swaying.

I follow stories and quests because of the narratives. Decision making purely because of values is... Hard to swallow.

I understand about gaining advantage, but to always do so is... Ugh.

 

[TheLastOne]

+rubs face+

You can guesstimate value, after the action. Said guesstimate fluctuates after each update. And we can only guesstimate effects that has numerical and mechanical values.

I dislike the inaccuracies, the hassle, and on top of those, trying to put economical value on top of or in exchange of emotinal value.

It puts a poor precedent to say that, oh, helping noble A is worth more than helping merchant B. Let's not even invest on helping peasant C, uou can do better with 20 pills.

And I very much dislike that kind of advantage-based decision-making/vote-swaying.

I follow stories and quests because of the narratives. Decision making purely because of values is... Hard to swallow.

I understand about gaining advantage, but to always do so is... Ugh.

Click to shrink...

This is an unusally stable, social encuraging Xianxia world, but Xianxia is inherently mean. It very much says 'you are worth this', and the only way you can buck the system is by embracing it, because by embracing it you can say 'no, I'm worth more then that. I'll prove it by seizing it.' And the moment you stop, the moment you smell the roses or sit back and relax you lose momentum, you stop being able to say 'I'm worth more then that.'

You become property.

Our only hope is to grow, grow strong and fast like a weed. There are eight combat advancement slots for the inner sect, and when we take one, we'll probably ruin someone else's life. Most of them will be taken by nobles, and for all the bennies and extras they're given, there is no tolerance for failure in the nobility of this world.

Should we not go for the slot, knowing that we're deciding to ruin someones life, to ruin their relationship with their family? That some rising star will stop rising and instead have to settle and accept being someone else's flunky because we took that opportunity for ourselves?

The sect we are in was literally letting us wreck house and home till nothing was left, it only stopped because the most powerful family here at the moment likes being civilized. But I wouldn't be surprised if an event that happens before the Inner Sect Quest is that Lady Cai gets taken out by someone, maybe Ji Rong, and things get unpleasant for those not strong enough to enforce civility.




So yes, we can afford a handful of actions to remember that we're a person, but our focus has to be on becoming an overwhelmingly strong person.

 

[Grosstoad]

This is an unusally stable, social encuraging Xianxia world, but Xianxia is inherently mean. It very much says 'you are worth this', and the only way you can buck the system is by embracing it, because by embracing it you can say 'no, I'm worth more then that. I'll prove it by seizing it.' And the moment you stop, the moment you smell the roses or sit back and relax you lose momentum, you stop being able to say 'I'm worth more then that.'

You become property.

Our only hope is to grow, grow strong and fast like a weed. There are eight combat advancement slots for the inner sect, and when we take one, we'll probably ruin someone else's life. Most of them will be taken by nobles, and for all the bennies and extras they're given, there is no tolerance for failure in the nobility of this world.

Should we not go for the slot, knowing that we're deciding to ruin someones life, to ruin their relationship with their family? That some rising star will stop rising and instead have to settle and accept being someone else's flunky because we took that opportunity for ourselves?

The sect we are in was literally letting us wreck house and home till nothing was left, it only stopped because the most powerful family here at the moment likes being civilized. But I wouldn't be surprised if an event that happens before the Inner Sect Quest is that Lady Cai gets taken out by someone, maybe Ji Rong, and things get unpleasant for those not strong enough to enforce civility.




So yes, we can afford a handful of actions to remember that we're a person, but our focus has to be on becoming an overwhelmingly strong person.

Click to shrink...

. . .

+looks at Ji Rong+

I believe Elder Su also put it forward that a powerful hermit benefits noone.

This is a military school, and people are encouraged to become officers, not just become a weapon.

The teaching is harsh, but as often as not, elders are still watching to keep students from actually dying in the lessons they do administer.

This is xianxia, yes, but one with emotions and attachments. Wind qi breathes easier on wild and free cultivators, lake qi settles deeply on a joyful cultivator, an a charitable cultivator feels his earth qi dwells firmly on his arts.

Push forward, yes, but don't bloody forget to smell the bloody damned roses. Make certain to compare them with jasmine and lilac, and discuss the differences with a nature cultivator, to boot.

I am going to stop posting for a second because I am hella pissed off.

 

[XavierIII]

On the whole value thing, I find social actions around 4 times more fun to read than training actions. Since the quest is a work of fiction, our votes should always be to make it more entertaining, instead of trying to make our character safer.

 

[TheLastOne]

On the whole value thing, I find social actions around 4 times more fun to read than training actions. Since the quest is a work of fiction, our votes should always be to make it more entertaining, instead of trying to make our character safer.

Click to shrink...

I don't find 'failing' fun to read about, at least once it becomes a regular occurrence. Risk is fine, disappointment is needed for success to matter, and everyone loses sometimes. But lets not self-sabotage. We've gotten this far by making 80% of what we do training. It's a winning plan and we shouldn't stop it now.

 

[Grigori]

Well, Han Jian obviously. Other than that, Huang Da is main family at least. Not sure if he's the heir. Kang Zihao is also the son of the current Imperial Guard Captain. Might have siblings, but he's main family.

Not strangely, but we know nothing about Xuan Zhi and Bai Meizhen's standing in their respective clans. Think that covers basically all of the relevant 2nd realm of note.

Click to shrink...

But do we know that Han Jian is the heir of the clan? Couldn't he just be the son of a famous general produced by the clan that maybe has ties to other clans? It could be an Ino-Shika-Cho situation and shouldn't necessarily mean he's the heir, though I could just be missing where it was stated.

Also, the Kang appear to just be a favoured family rather than a noble clan. At the meeting while Cai Renxiang referred to Xuan and Han as sir and Liling as Princess, Kang Zihao was simply called by his full name. Even Ling Qi was called Miss Ling though I suppose this could just be a slight aimed at him rather than a suggestion of his family's standing. Should also note that after our rescue Cai only referred to Meizhen by her full name without title while Meizhen referred to her as Lady Cai.

 

[Arkeus]

With 'where they were' being the cave - she can't walk them back because they aren't heading back to the main sect grounds.

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That's a possible interpretation, but as they were at the vent at the time I'm reading 'where they were' as "at the vent", not 'where they were earlier this morning'. @yrsillar?

But do we know that Han Jian is the heir of the clan? Couldn't he just be the son of a famous general produced by the clan that maybe has ties to other clans? It could be an Ino-Shika-Cho situation and shouldn't necessarily mean he's the heir, though I could just be missing where it was stated.

Also, the Kang appear to just be a favoured family rather than a noble clan. At the meeting while Cai Renxiang referred to Xuan and Han as sir and Liling as Princess, Kang Zihao was simply called by his full name. Even Ling Qi was called Miss Ling though I suppose this could just be a slight aimed at him rather than a suggestion of his family's standing. Should also note that after our rescue Cai only referred to Meizhen by her full name without title while Meizhen referred to her as Lady Cai.

Click to shrink...

I think what you are saying indicate that Xuan and Han are possibly heirs, while Meizhen and Kang aren't. so no lady/sir to them, to be honest.

It's possible that Han Jian is just the heir to his father and not the whole Han clan, but it's also pretty clear Han Fang is a lesser cousing that doesn't have a spirit beast and that Han Jian said he got Heijin from his "grandmother", indicating that at least his grandmother is main branch.

It's very possible that his father is the heir, though, not him.

On the whole value thing, I find social actions around 4 times more fun to read than training actions. Since the quest is a work of fiction, our votes should always be to make it more entertaining, instead of trying to make our character safer.

Click to shrink...

It's not just making our character safer, it's making Ling Qi relevant. People won't have social actions with us anymore if we aren't, either.

If we don't get in the top 8 it's goodbye to Meizhen and Li Suyin and Su Ling and Han Jian's group (unless all of them also fail), and so on and so forth. Ling Qi ceases mattering.

 

[Humbaba]

There's always a balance to Social vs Training actions. I've been arguing that a lot of our current social actions are likely to make our training better but that doesn't mean I want to ignore training.

That said I think Social links are really going to start coming into their own in the next few weeks. Especially if we take into account the non-mechanical benifits and are willing to go outside the prewritten options.

One thing I'm eager to try for example is splitting a hard gathering mission or hunting mission with Su Ling. Her helping us find the objective while we bodyguard and learn from her. It might get us a smaller cut of the rewards but say 4 sect points is still 20 stones, is likely to get us closer to Su Ling and will improve our own abilities for the future. It's also better for our current build as we're a better supporter than direct combatant, so we're more likely to complete it successfully.

Li Suyin can obviously provide a degree of free healing if we get injured.

 

[mrttao]

I think we should do some non social training with Li Suyin before she reaches yellow. Now that we know what the breakthrough entails. it would probably be healthier for her to be in her normal mindset instead of a temporary "must fight" mindset

 

[1986ctcel]

Basically, that.

As for blandness... Eh. I am not really feeling it too badly, we already invested non-trivial amount of time into them and Suin got face-slammed into character development besides; it is going to be a pity to just throw it away for nothing.

Matter of taste and all that, but I enjoyed the route where this quest have been going, and I am violently opposed to throwing away elements which made it enjoyable for me.

(But, once again, to keep Han Jian's group SL we'll have to deal with Fan Yu and fat chance of anything positive happening on that from without a real fat and sweet olive branch. As it stands, without actual effort, only Suin is sustainable.)

Click to shrink...

I don't believe that Fan Yu will be a problem anymore, he certainly won't be antagonistic against us. We have outstripped him in growth and are now a cultivation stage ahead of him. In fact, although he is a jerk I personally feel a little pity about his position. I don't think that he will be a problem.

As for any gift to have us accepted on the team, sharing knowledge about the tokens will be a decent start. After that we just spend time with the group and do things as a group, we bring food we cook to the meetings, we share hardship and difficulties, we take mission quests together in order to get the best results, and in general, we start acting like we are a part of the group.

Right now, Ling Qi is in an awkward position in terms of her relation to the group. Ling Qi is feeling that she is the 5 wheel and that she is not really part of the group. In order to solve that there are two routes in my mind, either we stop training with them and just start hanging out with Gu Xiulan and leave the social link to die a quiet death, or we start actually participating as part of the group rather than another person to help train with.

Click to shrink...

Fan Yu still hasn't broken through yet right? Ask Meizhen if she'd be willing to let us share some of that special tea of hers with Ass Yu (plus Suyin and Su Ling) and see if that helps.

1. We have only been made aware that "train with han jian" doesn't count as socializing. Even though we spend many hours together and presumably talk.

2. We have backed off a bit from 1 on 1 alone time with him explicitly to focus on building our Gu relationship because she was getting really aggressively jealous of our relationship with him. This was not neglecting him, it was trying to solve a problem that prevented us to socialize with him. Because Gu is his direct subordinate and he has a love triangle going on.

3. Exactly one month ago we had these options:

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Irrelevant, 1 and 2 are just OOC reasons that don't actually reflect our characters IC neglect. As for 3 uhhhhh what the heck do you think "[] Talk to Han Jian see if he has any advice for the coming troubles" is? Plus the cooperative training and vent sharing options.

I forgot Han Jian was an only child TBH. That's... ok, well, apparently Cai Renxiang doesn't have a sibling either, but generally, you have heir and spare. And if you have only the heir, wouldn't you choose to send him to a closer Sect rather than one further away? And if you only had the heir, why would HJ have been lazy / spoiled in the past? Specifically, why would this general allow that? (Mother died in childbirth? Had a sibling who died young? Did he used to be the spare?)

Click to shrink...

But do we know that Han Jian is the heir of the clan? Couldn't he just be the son of a famous general produced by the clan that maybe has ties to other clans? It could be an Ino-Shika-Cho situation and shouldn't necessarily mean he's the heir, though I could just be missing where it was stated.

Also, the Kang appear to just be a favoured family rather than a noble clan. At the meeting while Cai Renxiang referred to Xuan and Han as sir and Liling as Princess, Kang Zihao was simply called by his full name. Even Ling Qi was called Miss Ling though I suppose this could just be a slight aimed at him rather than a suggestion of his family's standing. Should also note that after our rescue Cai only referred to Meizhen by her full name without title while Meizhen referred to her as Lady Cai.

Click to shrink...

I think what you are saying indicate that Xuan and Han are possibly heirs, while Meizhen and Kang aren't. so no lady/sir to them, to be honest.

It's possible that Han Jian is just the heir to his father and not the whole Han clan, but it's also pretty clear Han Fang is a lesser cousing that doesn't have a spirit beast and that Han Jian said he got Heijin from his "grandmother", indicating that at least his grandmother is main branch.

It's very possible that his father is the heir, though, not him.

Click to shrink...

Ahem

[] High Noble

• You are a scion of one of the great houses of the inner provinces… if one who is not particularly high on the line of inheritance, and not the most diligent of your siblings either.

• Advantages: High starting resources, connections and social ability. Higher starting cultivation.

• Disadvantages: Average innate talent, weaker physical ability. Attitude issues

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Unless of course the High Noble character is Xiulan instead of Jian given she does have an attitude problem and does have many older sisters.

 

[Arkeus]

There's always a balance to Social vs Training actions. I've been arguing that a lot of our current social actions are likely to make our training better but that doesn't mean I want to ignore training.

That said I think Social links are really going to start coming into their own in the next few weeks. Especially if we take into account the non-mechanical benifits and are willing to go outside the prewritten options.

Click to shrink...

I think social links are great. I am, however, of a slightly different mind on what I expect of them. I suspect one of the big departure between yourself and @FixerUpper from myself is simply that I don't want all our social links to be close friendships. I don't mind simply being friends and good ally with some of them. I don't consider it "settling for", either, just that there are only so many things you can juggles and when you come down to it it's normal to have some friends closer than others.

This isn't Persona where you can max out every single friendship and not worry about ever talking to them again, after all. Being a very close friend means being very close, and, well, I actually don't want Ling Qi to be that close to too many people. Current list is Meizhen/Suyin/Xiulan for our close friendships. We can get some more as time goes on, but each of those "close ones" are very heavy investments.

Normal friendships, though? Han Jian, Su Ling, Han Fang, Gan Guangli, Xuan, Cai Renxiang are all in the plans.

Who knows, too, it's very possible some normal friendships can be upgraded and close ones downgraded, but... I really don't think we should aim for all of them to be close ones. It's not something good.

Unless of course the High Noble character is Xiulan instead of Jian given she does have an attitude problem and does have many older sisters.

Click to shrink...

The 'other chargen' aren't exacts. Pretty sure Li Suyin is a middle ground between artisan and scholar, for example. Her resources are too low for the scholar background.

Likewise, we know Han Jian is an only child, and he isn't a High Noble, unless High Noble begins much lower than I assumes it does.