The dice giveth, and the dice taketh away...
I'm a High Fantasy Tax Collector, So What? A CKII Tax Collector Quest
- Thread starter hYGP
- Start date
- Original Fantasy
-
- Tags
- death ck2 quest all proceeds go to real spiders are we revolutionaries or reactionaries today criminal justice discussion makes the gm fuzzy don't count your boats before they sail granary management if i lose my meows get me likes to replace them justice spider knock knock it's the finance ministry meows for discussion while supplies last taxation taxes this is not an empire quest
Solarstream
It's all in the cards
- Location
- Zombie World
- Pronouns
- He/Him
i think we need one more?
You needed ten, right?
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
- Location
- Omniverse #1345
So 2020 is leaking into our quests now?
Well golly, I sure hope 10+ is the important value.
- Location
- New York
The rolls overall are on the lower side which is terrible considering how apparently important this turn is. The 10 roll on the fire roll is a sure failure by itself and a real kick against us. We will have to see if adding the major boon was enough to make all the difference or if it was a pointless waste, all the objects were lost and we failed the all important roll for the turn yet again.
Being the representative of the spirits ensuring fair bargains does strengthen our position greatly assuming people desire a fair bargain here. Having a major duke repent of their treasonous activities is a boon to the King and is arguably better than frightening or blackmailing them in line.
Being the representative of the spirits ensuring fair bargains does strengthen our position greatly assuming people desire a fair bargain here. Having a major duke repent of their treasonous activities is a boon to the King and is arguably better than frightening or blackmailing them in line.
Considering that if we didn't attempt the quench we'd still get a roll to see if items where destroyed, I'd assume that we'd still get that and probably at a lower DC too. Overall I think it's still better than attempting chase, as I doubt a 40 would pass that.
CASE: THE WEB OF TREASON: COLLAPSED
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Quench
DC: 70
Roll: 10 + 30 = 40
You offer innumerable prayers to any gods that are listening to give you just a little bit more time, a chance for you to recover something, anything.
The warehouse erupts in a blast of cold wind and extinguishes those hopes with the screaming sound of shattered timbers and the calamitous noise of the roof completely caving in. The last great spell the Wintercore Wand must've cast in its dying throes was strong enough to chill the tips of your hairs and extinguish the great blazes. All that you could see was the caved in roof of the warehouse and the ashes of pages still burning, and yet. That alone gives you the smallest sliver of hope.
For you and Tekla have kept a certain few prayers to shunned gods, prayers to a foreign observer - or more precisely, the principle of observation, enshrined in a discarded item some noble all those years ago dared believe was a mere trinket.
The principle is thus:
If a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?
From that perspective, would the observer not be able to determine whether it made a sound?
Thus you call forth your standing bargain, and the dancing smoke and shadows answers you with a thousand possible voices from all possible and yet no observable angle, for that is their power - to observe what is not observed and thus bring it into existence. Ironic, in a sense, that an adherent to Justice would effectively be bribing a judge of reality, and yet, you have great need.
And yet, the shadows murmur, weakness, for their ejection out of the Compact was long and hard and they are a weak divinity. For every bit of reality they alter in one direction, reality dictates that the rest must fall out of even their control - these iron laws are binding even to this divinity. The more probability is loaded, the more must be bestowed upon this divinity of shadowed possibility.
Voting will go with the Shiny vote.
Event Chain 1
The End of the Crusade
King Julius is dead.
He died of a cancer so advanced that supposedly on that fateful day he passed, the tumors were visible underneath the simple linen he wore into his last day of battle. Legend has it already that despite his gaunt form, a holy light surrounded every step he took, smashing a hole in the great bastion with nothing but raw divine might. As a final mercy, his final charge was so complete that he and his horse faded into mere motes of light - but at that point, the walls were breached, and all the gods and spirits of their homes were behind them.
On that day, there was nothing the Oskarian army could not achieve. They say that on that day, the sound of the guns was like the heralds of War itself, every soldier fought like a dragon in the flesh, and the righteous fury of ten thousand heroes shook the very Aurora itself.
Random Event Roll
Divine Gathering
Roll: 98
The Star of Oskaria
And the heavens saw this and saw that it was good.
A blazing comet descended, thrice again as large and bright as the next brightest star. It filled the heavens - by night every shard of the Aurora showed a fraction of its light, and in the day some swore they could see it off a few choice splinters. Had the Divine Gathering not sent out the word, it may have inspired a panic - but the Divine Gather had put out the word that this was the favor of heaven, smiling down upon Oskaria for their meritorious works in the Transulinian Crusade.
Indeed, if this was anything, this was the Star of Oskaria, and so long as it shined Oskaria could do nothing but flourish.
Event Chain 2
The Breakaway
But even with the joyous news of victory with the terrible news of King Julius' death, however, there is a third letter. Upon orders of the Minister of State, acting Regent of Oskaria, you are hereby removed from your case, stripped of your royal sanction, and furthermore should prepare to reintegrate the Finance Ministry with the normal functions of government. This happened so fast you suspect that whoever was behind this whole conspiracy had been waiting for the instant King Julius died to begin moving. To uncover the truth is a matter of national survival, and yet - you have no official sanction to do so. In fact, you no longer have official sanction to do anything.
The Crusade is over. The Finance Ministry is finished. The King is dead, and the Sejm will not decide on his successor soon. Possibly at all, the calamitous part of your mind whispers.
Your position is all too vulnerable, and the horizon is alight with dragonfire.
Achievement Get: The Ministry Funds Itself: +1 Major Boon.
You may spend 1 Shiny.
Tier-1 Traits.
[] [Shiny] Well Organized
+1 Stewardship.
[] [Shiny] Well Spoken
+1 Diplomacy
[] [Shiny] Well Trained
+1 Martial
[] [Shiny] Inspired
+1 Learning
[] [Shiny] Unremarkable
+1 Intrigue
[] [Shiny] Faithful
+1 Piety
Tier-2 Upgrades (Costs 2 Shinies):
[] [Shiny] Excellent Recall
+2 Stewardship, +2 Diplomacy.
[] [Shiny] Faith-Burnished
+2 Piety, +2 Martial
[] [Shiny] Secret Explorer
+2 Intrigue, +2 Learning
[] [Shiny] Enhanced Cooperation
Cooperation gives +4 for Cooperating rather than +3.
Tier-3 Upgrades (Costs 3 Shinies):
[] [Shiny] Genius
+2 to all stats.
[] [Shiny] Eidetic Memory
+3 Stewardship, +3 Intrigue, +3 Diplomacy, +3 Learning.
[] [Shiny] Miracle Worker
+3 Martial, +3 Stewardship, +3 Diplomacy, +3 Piety
[] [Shiny] Visionary
+3 Martial, +3 Intrigue, +3 Learning, +3 Piety.
[] [Shiny] Two As One
Cooperation gives +5 instead of +3.
Costs 1 Shiny:
[] [Shiny] Reroll
Reroll any roll, including Random Event Rolls. Once.
Special Action: Preserving items from the warehouse:
Costs 1 Shiny:
[] [Shiny] Gnarled Rod
[] [Shiny] Enchanting Vestments
[] [Shiny] Tools of the Trade
[] [Shiny] Tekla's Masterwork Compass Array
[] [Shiny] Interlocked Abacus Array
Costs 2 Shinies:
[] [Shiny] The Divine Eye
[] [Shiny] Tax Cut
[] [Shiny] Directional Compass Array
Special Offer: The Shadowed Observer can make you one final offer, a chance to rob the future to pay the present.
[] [Offer] +1 Shiny
[] [Offer] No.
DC: 70
Roll: 10 + 30 = 40
You offer innumerable prayers to any gods that are listening to give you just a little bit more time, a chance for you to recover something, anything.
The warehouse erupts in a blast of cold wind and extinguishes those hopes with the screaming sound of shattered timbers and the calamitous noise of the roof completely caving in. The last great spell the Wintercore Wand must've cast in its dying throes was strong enough to chill the tips of your hairs and extinguish the great blazes. All that you could see was the caved in roof of the warehouse and the ashes of pages still burning, and yet. That alone gives you the smallest sliver of hope.
For you and Tekla have kept a certain few prayers to shunned gods, prayers to a foreign observer - or more precisely, the principle of observation, enshrined in a discarded item some noble all those years ago dared believe was a mere trinket.
The principle is thus:
If a tree falls in the forest with no one around to hear it, does it make a sound?
From that perspective, would the observer not be able to determine whether it made a sound?
Thus you call forth your standing bargain, and the dancing smoke and shadows answers you with a thousand possible voices from all possible and yet no observable angle, for that is their power - to observe what is not observed and thus bring it into existence. Ironic, in a sense, that an adherent to Justice would effectively be bribing a judge of reality, and yet, you have great need.
And yet, the shadows murmur, weakness, for their ejection out of the Compact was long and hard and they are a weak divinity. For every bit of reality they alter in one direction, reality dictates that the rest must fall out of even their control - these iron laws are binding even to this divinity. The more probability is loaded, the more must be bestowed upon this divinity of shadowed possibility.
Voting will go with the Shiny vote.
Event Chain 1
The End of the Crusade
King Julius is dead.
He died of a cancer so advanced that supposedly on that fateful day he passed, the tumors were visible underneath the simple linen he wore into his last day of battle. Legend has it already that despite his gaunt form, a holy light surrounded every step he took, smashing a hole in the great bastion with nothing but raw divine might. As a final mercy, his final charge was so complete that he and his horse faded into mere motes of light - but at that point, the walls were breached, and all the gods and spirits of their homes were behind them.
On that day, there was nothing the Oskarian army could not achieve. They say that on that day, the sound of the guns was like the heralds of War itself, every soldier fought like a dragon in the flesh, and the righteous fury of ten thousand heroes shook the very Aurora itself.
Random Event Roll
Divine Gathering
Roll: 98
The Star of Oskaria
And the heavens saw this and saw that it was good.
A blazing comet descended, thrice again as large and bright as the next brightest star. It filled the heavens - by night every shard of the Aurora showed a fraction of its light, and in the day some swore they could see it off a few choice splinters. Had the Divine Gathering not sent out the word, it may have inspired a panic - but the Divine Gather had put out the word that this was the favor of heaven, smiling down upon Oskaria for their meritorious works in the Transulinian Crusade.
Indeed, if this was anything, this was the Star of Oskaria, and so long as it shined Oskaria could do nothing but flourish.
Event Chain 2
The Breakaway
But even with the joyous news of victory with the terrible news of King Julius' death, however, there is a third letter. Upon orders of the Minister of State, acting Regent of Oskaria, you are hereby removed from your case, stripped of your royal sanction, and furthermore should prepare to reintegrate the Finance Ministry with the normal functions of government. This happened so fast you suspect that whoever was behind this whole conspiracy had been waiting for the instant King Julius died to begin moving. To uncover the truth is a matter of national survival, and yet - you have no official sanction to do so. In fact, you no longer have official sanction to do anything.
The Crusade is over. The Finance Ministry is finished. The King is dead, and the Sejm will not decide on his successor soon. Possibly at all, the calamitous part of your mind whispers.
Your position is all too vulnerable, and the horizon is alight with dragonfire.
CASE:
THE WEB OF TREASON
COLLAPSED
THE WEB OF TREASON
COLLAPSED
Achievement Get: The Ministry Funds Itself: +1 Major Boon.
You may spend 1 Shiny.
Tier-1 Traits.
[] [Shiny] Well Organized
+1 Stewardship.
[] [Shiny] Well Spoken
+1 Diplomacy
[] [Shiny] Well Trained
+1 Martial
[] [Shiny] Inspired
+1 Learning
[] [Shiny] Unremarkable
+1 Intrigue
[] [Shiny] Faithful
+1 Piety
Tier-2 Upgrades (Costs 2 Shinies):
[] [Shiny] Excellent Recall
+2 Stewardship, +2 Diplomacy.
[] [Shiny] Faith-Burnished
+2 Piety, +2 Martial
[] [Shiny] Secret Explorer
+2 Intrigue, +2 Learning
[] [Shiny] Enhanced Cooperation
Cooperation gives +4 for Cooperating rather than +3.
Tier-3 Upgrades (Costs 3 Shinies):
[] [Shiny] Genius
+2 to all stats.
[] [Shiny] Eidetic Memory
+3 Stewardship, +3 Intrigue, +3 Diplomacy, +3 Learning.
[] [Shiny] Miracle Worker
+3 Martial, +3 Stewardship, +3 Diplomacy, +3 Piety
[] [Shiny] Visionary
+3 Martial, +3 Intrigue, +3 Learning, +3 Piety.
[] [Shiny] Two As One
Cooperation gives +5 instead of +3.
Costs 1 Shiny:
[] [Shiny] Reroll
Reroll any roll, including Random Event Rolls. Once.
Special Action: Preserving items from the warehouse:
Costs 1 Shiny:
[] [Shiny] Gnarled Rod
[] [Shiny] Enchanting Vestments
[] [Shiny] Tools of the Trade
[] [Shiny] Tekla's Masterwork Compass Array
[] [Shiny] Interlocked Abacus Array
Costs 2 Shinies:
[] [Shiny] The Divine Eye
[] [Shiny] Tax Cut
[] [Shiny] Directional Compass Array
Special Offer: The Shadowed Observer can make you one final offer, a chance to rob the future to pay the present.
[] [Offer] +1 Shiny
[] [Offer] No.
- Location
- USA
...I'm gonna need to take some time away from the thread. Taking away everything because of a bad roll is cruel.
INTERREGNUM MONTH 1 RUMOR MILL
- Location
- Somewhere over the rainbow
Hey, hey, did you hear?
A bunch of nobles up and left Cille right in the middle of the whole Shi Anh thing, and I hear they're all meeting in Lake Vlona - what's that all about?
I heard there was this big fight - look, actually, you can see a bunch of them choosing to stay here or go somewhere else!
Think it's some sort of a fight?
Could be. Could be that someone's finally plowed a field they shouldn't have, heh heh. Who knows what they're thinking? All we get to do is bend over and take it.
Stay away from the docks and especially the sailor's whorehouses. There's supposed to be some sort of disease - I heard it was a bunch of those bastard Alanyivans that brought it here, actually - that spreads whenever someone spreads their legs. They say at first it's just a small little bump, but eventually after a few weeks it spreads all over your body, including inside - until you die. Nobody knows what to do about it over there, and bleeding doesn't seem to work on it.
It's a nasty piece of work. Stay safe, bud.
Word of advice - stay the hell away from whatever's going on up North. I heard from a friend that some serious shit was going down up there in Merridge - I heard that the Alanyivan fleet's up there firing into the city! The damn grubby merchants are keeping it all hush hush because it's bad for their business or whatever bullshit, but trust me on this - my friend's never lied to me before.
Oh, you have you heard about what's happening with Brumyiva? I hear from a reputable source that they're sending a jumped-up peasant woman to the peace conference. Terribly insulting, don't you think?
Oh? This jade? It's the real Vykkaltarian grade, not whatever...falsehoods the westerners are trying to sell you. Yes, they've put out quite the output ever since the Crusades began - it's good to see our sister peoples being so warm and welcoming.
Hm? Something big happening in Etrella? Do tell.
Ooh, yes, that big a wedding would cause quite the stir, wouldn't it. Forgive my amateurish forays into the military arts, but that would put the current Etrellan coalition on the back foot, wouldn't it? How inconvenient for them, especially while some of their armies were busy watching us win the Crusade, ohohoh.
A bunch of nobles up and left Cille right in the middle of the whole Shi Anh thing, and I hear they're all meeting in Lake Vlona - what's that all about?
I heard there was this big fight - look, actually, you can see a bunch of them choosing to stay here or go somewhere else!
Think it's some sort of a fight?
Could be. Could be that someone's finally plowed a field they shouldn't have, heh heh. Who knows what they're thinking? All we get to do is bend over and take it.
Stay away from the docks and especially the sailor's whorehouses. There's supposed to be some sort of disease - I heard it was a bunch of those bastard Alanyivans that brought it here, actually - that spreads whenever someone spreads their legs. They say at first it's just a small little bump, but eventually after a few weeks it spreads all over your body, including inside - until you die. Nobody knows what to do about it over there, and bleeding doesn't seem to work on it.
It's a nasty piece of work. Stay safe, bud.
Word of advice - stay the hell away from whatever's going on up North. I heard from a friend that some serious shit was going down up there in Merridge - I heard that the Alanyivan fleet's up there firing into the city! The damn grubby merchants are keeping it all hush hush because it's bad for their business or whatever bullshit, but trust me on this - my friend's never lied to me before.
Oh, you have you heard about what's happening with Brumyiva? I hear from a reputable source that they're sending a jumped-up peasant woman to the peace conference. Terribly insulting, don't you think?
Oh? This jade? It's the real Vykkaltarian grade, not whatever...falsehoods the westerners are trying to sell you. Yes, they've put out quite the output ever since the Crusades began - it's good to see our sister peoples being so warm and welcoming.
Hm? Something big happening in Etrella? Do tell.
Ooh, yes, that big a wedding would cause quite the stir, wouldn't it. Forgive my amateurish forays into the military arts, but that would put the current Etrellan coalition on the back foot, wouldn't it? How inconvenient for them, especially while some of their armies were busy watching us win the Crusade, ohohoh.
10ebbor10
DON'T PANIC
- Location
- Present
It's kinda a perpetual issue I had with this quest.
Player action doesn't really seem to matter that much. What choices we have all point in the same direction.
Instead, random events rule the plot, and the PC's just meander along.
Sirrocco
Pedantic
Yeah... I'm out.
I was loving the tax spider stuff. The constantly crankign the intensity so that now we're struggling against EVEN MORE DRAMA was not ideal. The "you rolled poorly, so everything sucks" stuff was not favorite. The bit where a few bad rolls say that we lost basically everything (our gear, the mission, and our freaking mandate), with nothing we could have done to stop it?
I'm out.
I was loving the tax spider stuff. The constantly crankign the intensity so that now we're struggling against EVEN MORE DRAMA was not ideal. The "you rolled poorly, so everything sucks" stuff was not favorite. The bit where a few bad rolls say that we lost basically everything (our gear, the mission, and our freaking mandate), with nothing we could have done to stop it?
I'm out.
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- Location
- USA
Yeah. I was okay with how little agency things tend to feel with our choices because at least those weren't totally at the mercy of the dice.
But now it seems the random events have taken over. What we do doesn't matter. It's just random dice and apparently we can loose everything to a bad roll.
I'm gonna sleep on it, but I'm probably gonna be out too.
I was here for fun taxman stuff. I was fine dealing with the other stuff, but the fun has definitely been getting sucked out of the quest when we stopped doing taxman stuff.
...I'm just gonna stop there before I go on a rant.
***
I always tell myself to take a break, but it's hard to take a step back from something you used to enjoy. I hope no one takes offense if I don't respond if you quote me
- Location
- Attached to a wall
- Pronouns
- She/Her
[X] [Shiny] Interlocked Abacus Array
I'm still in, having a quest where externalties require significant consideration does add up to make an interesting play experience, I usually am not the biggest fan of snowballing type CK2 quests.
I'm still in, having a quest where externalties require significant consideration does add up to make an interesting play experience, I usually am not the biggest fan of snowballing type CK2 quests.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
There's "not snowballing" and then there's "you lose everything all at once in the same update."
Sort of like how it's usually bad gameplay when the PCs can't die, but it's usually also bad gameplay when you go full Gygaxian Tomb of Horrors and just walking down a corridor turns into "flat 30% chance of dying, get ready to roll up some new characters everyone!"
I... dunno, Huh's writing was good enough that up to this point I was following it for the quality of the writing, but unless Huh has a really exciting plan for how the next story arc can go forward from here, losing all the Cool Shit and losing the job and having the bad guys win because... dunno, we weren't in the right place to stop them, I guess?... all at the same time is just too much.
Random Member
Gardener of Human Happiness
- Location
- Behind You
Man, people are so worked up over property.
[X] [Shiny] The Divine Eye
[X] [Offer] +1 Shiny
[X] [Shiny] The Divine Eye
[X] [Offer] +1 Shiny
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It's mostly just that we're simultaneously losing the property and the job title so that we become footloose adventurers and also the kingdom is falling apart and the traitor conspiracy we were hunting for appears to have effectively succeeded by default.
If it was just all the other stuff going south at once, we'd at least have enough Cool Shit to be in a position to be powerhouses and do well for ourselves while trying to find a new role and a new path to follow. As it is, our capacity to do this is greatly weakened.
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
@huhYeahGoodPoint Do we automatically lose every item if we don't take them in the Shiny Vote. I was under the impression that if we failed to quench the fire, their survival would be rolled for like if we had chosen the other option.
So why have we only gotten a Major Boon from this? I thought we were supposed to get Shinies from achieving hard achievements and we get Boons from easy achievements or achievements we have already gotten. Because if this has changed, I am at a loss on how to get more Shinies since that was our only method.
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- Location
- United Kingdom
I'm sorry, has no one here ever watched a film or played a video game? Bad stuff is always going to happen to the protagonist which usually ends up with rising up against the odds and winning - I hate how doom and gloom people get on here, it serves no purpose but to demoralise other people and potentially the QM too
- Location
- Southampton, Great Britain
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Rather needless insulting to the intelligence of other people.
It lets players let their displeasure be known and the QM know of the displeasure of their players. Being unhappy about how things have turned out or getting fustrated with aspects of the gameplay are perfectly reasonable and frankly, it is a good thing to let the QM get feedback on what it isn't working out for the players.
If a QM gets demoralised from getting constructive criticism, then the problem is with the QM and not the critics.
This sort of things "RER decide everything and player agency is moot" is exacly what I complained before. I was already barely present, but I'm out too.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
The problem is that in a movie or a video game, you have your cutscene and then, importantly, agency passes back to the protagonist promptly and you have some reasonable assurance that the game can still proceed towards a happy ending.
Plus, games and stories don't usually arbitrarily delete ALL the character's options at once. If you lose your inventory, you still have the support of your allies once you figure out how to get out of the immediate predicament that caused you to lose your inventory. If you lose your authority, you still have weapons and tools. And so on.
It's the combination of losing all the Cool Shit that gives Agueda a really marked edge, and losing all the political authority that makes just straight-up murdering him relatively illegal, and failing the mission, that makes it all feel overwhelming.
At least it feels that way without a sense of where things go from here.
...
To give an example of how this can go well, consider the game Deus Ex. About 1/4th or so of the way into the game, the protagonist turns against his former employer, UNATCO. He burns his bridges, fights a desperate battle against a UNATCO counterattack, and eventually surrenders or is knocked unconscious. He wakes up in a jail cell, deprived of all his weapons and tools, with no relevant allies and no idea what to do next. Depending on circumstances, one of his former allies may show up to gloat.
Bluntly, J. C. Denton is even more screwed in that moment than Agueda and Friends are now.
The thing is, almost immediately the protagonist is contacted in his jail cell by a mysterious radio voice (he has WiFi access in his head), and an escape attempt begins. It takes some time for the protagonist to figure out what's going on, but the mysterious voice basically organizes what is needed to allow the protagonist to escape imprisonment, recover his weapons and tools, and fight his way out to join with new allies elsewhere.
...
It works great, but it works because it's planned, and because the player only has to sit around wondering "WTF is this the end" for a few minutes at most before the action resumes, and the game designer effectively signals to the player "no, this is not the end, there's Cool Shit left to do."
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