Industrialization Quest
- Thread starter Rockeye
- Start date
- Original
- Location
- USA
I view intelligent and capable as important. I want someone that can follow what we are doing and aid us. As for someone we can get along with a wife that is fully on board with our plans is going to make things a lot easier than one that is more indifferent to us. It also provides less ability for others to try and pry secrets or do damage.
Considering a whole bunch of voters gave little more than a single line of explanation and left, not sure what more I can do to argue my position. The vote seems pretty set
What a bunch boring homebodies you all are
- Location
- Hell
Why would it be required for them to follow the exact formulae and minutiae of what we are doing? Our wife is hardly going to be our blacksmith or our chemist. If anything, would it not be easier to keep secrets if how we do things is kept on a need to know basis? Even then, Rockeye has stated that she would not exactly be stupid if we do not choose intelligent.
As for someone that is on board, having someone that is stated to be ambitious would just as willing to help us. We are planning to boost quantity of production, quality of materials, and provide martial goods at a large scale. I hardly think they would be indifferent to us.
It would be much better to be with someone that already has the resources, the ambition, and the social acumen to help Harold with his projects. More than intelligence, is the willingness to put in the effort to learn. More than someone we can be content with, is find someone incredible we can be happy with. We can prove our efforts are viable, Harold can make the effort and court her. She could be someone great that we can join to both be even greater.
Mostly agreeing on the obvious priorities:
[ ][Wife] Someone I can get along with.
We are going to be shaking things up a lot. A wife that's fully on board with our plans will be a big help, and one that will resist attempts by our enemies (and if we don't already have enemies we will inevitably make plenty) to make her work against us is pretty much required. The wife just has too much access to our resources and information.
(Edit)
I've been talked out of this one by a discussion with Sivantic farther down this page. If I'm reading her (well at least the avatar picture looks female) side correctly, it boils down to loyalty being easier to build up from mediocre to high than Diplomacy (and "someone attractive" is the closest available proxy for Diplomacy within the options the QM gave us) and the difference in benefits between mediocre loyalty and high loyalty being narrower than the corresponding gap for Diplomacy (even with merely mediocre loyalty, a noble in a diplomatic marriage in this society should remain dutiful unless she has a fairly significant grievance that pulls her loyalty well below neutral; the additional benefits from there of high loyalty only come up in a somewhat restricted set of situations).
Vote changed.
[x][Wife] Frankly, yes, someone attractive.
(/edit)
[x][Wife] Someone with resources and connections.
Indirect help for our ambitions. We have a lot of expenses to keep up with (and I'm of the opinion that the Shallya one was a bad idea, by the way; it looks like she's turning into "sacrifice" goddess instead of "helping people" goddess, just like Dreselin turned out to be "perfection" instead of "craftsmanship"; the gods here don't get consequentialist ethics, which is what a lot of our disagreements with them seem to be coming from; I don't think we actually have any goals in common with any of them; they are all temporary allies of convenience at most).
Right, back on topic. We have a lot of expenses to keep up with, and our R&D also consumes a lot of resources. We need more resources to keep the growth going.
[ ][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
Direct help for our ambitions. I rate this below "resources and connections" because our character is already pretty intelligent and capable. Direct help in the lab shouldn't be an issue unless something goes seriously wrong; someone who can follow what resources we need and understand at least vaguely what we hope to accomplish with it, and then provide those resources, is more valuable to us than one who can follow us into the nuts and bolts and circuit diagrams and suggest ways to work around problems (working around problems we run into is what we have the Codex Crystal for).
Plenty of other people have already voted in this direction, so I'm actually dropping it to focus more on "resources and connections."
[ ][Wife] Someone I can get along with.
We are going to be shaking things up a lot. A wife that's fully on board with our plans will be a big help, and one that will resist attempts by our enemies (and if we don't already have enemies we will inevitably make plenty) to make her work against us is pretty much required. The wife just has too much access to our resources and information.
(Edit)
I've been talked out of this one by a discussion with Sivantic farther down this page. If I'm reading her (well at least the avatar picture looks female) side correctly, it boils down to loyalty being easier to build up from mediocre to high than Diplomacy (and "someone attractive" is the closest available proxy for Diplomacy within the options the QM gave us) and the difference in benefits between mediocre loyalty and high loyalty being narrower than the corresponding gap for Diplomacy (even with merely mediocre loyalty, a noble in a diplomatic marriage in this society should remain dutiful unless she has a fairly significant grievance that pulls her loyalty well below neutral; the additional benefits from there of high loyalty only come up in a somewhat restricted set of situations).
I don't understand this particular piece of the logic (if we're being introduced by our cousin, then unless I'm misreading something the girl will be a stranger either way), but I do now see the point about the wife's attractiveness as being for a lot more than just our own benefit.
Vote changed.
[x][Wife] Frankly, yes, someone attractive.
(/edit)
[x][Wife] Someone with resources and connections.
Indirect help for our ambitions. We have a lot of expenses to keep up with (and I'm of the opinion that the Shallya one was a bad idea, by the way; it looks like she's turning into "sacrifice" goddess instead of "helping people" goddess, just like Dreselin turned out to be "perfection" instead of "craftsmanship"; the gods here don't get consequentialist ethics, which is what a lot of our disagreements with them seem to be coming from; I don't think we actually have any goals in common with any of them; they are all temporary allies of convenience at most).
Right, back on topic. We have a lot of expenses to keep up with, and our R&D also consumes a lot of resources. We need more resources to keep the growth going.
[ ][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
Direct help for our ambitions. I rate this below "resources and connections" because our character is already pretty intelligent and capable. Direct help in the lab shouldn't be an issue unless something goes seriously wrong; someone who can follow what resources we need and understand at least vaguely what we hope to accomplish with it, and then provide those resources, is more valuable to us than one who can follow us into the nuts and bolts and circuit diagrams and suggest ways to work around problems (working around problems we run into is what we have the Codex Crystal for).
Plenty of other people have already voted in this direction, so I'm actually dropping it to focus more on "resources and connections."
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- Location
- Hell
Well...that seems to imply we are about earn enemies right now, and I am not sure that is quite true? We just got back and so far we have not made too many changes to the Bismarck lands or really antagonized any of our neighbors yet. Rockeye has already said that someone with connections would bring someone who would bring resources and ambitions. Considering that many industrial projects are about making more stuff faster, I hardly think she would not be on board.
May I suggest looking for someone attractive? Appearance do help sway people, especially the nobility who could be convinced to do us favors, grease the wheels of kingdom, and potentially invest in our projects.
- Location
- Cambridge, UK
[X][Wife] Someone with resources and connections.
[X][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
We are marrying out of duty, so may as well marry with that duty in mind. If they are bright, then we are likely to get on anyway.
[X][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
We are marrying out of duty, so may as well marry with that duty in mind. If they are bright, then we are likely to get on anyway.
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- Location
- Simi Valley, CA, United States
[X][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
[X][Wife] Someone I can get along with.
[X][Wife] Someone I can get along with.
- Location
- Earth
- Pronouns
- Anything/Masculine
[X] Someone I can get along with
[X] (Write In) Someone mentally strong, capable of facing stress with a sound mind.
Well, I guess I voted way too late but I wanted to add that last one specifically. First, I wanted to add a unique vote just for the hell of it, but I also feels as if we might come into contact with very stressful situations in the future that will affect our wife.
An intelligence of a person isn't all that useful if they can't deal with stress or emotional situations with a sound mind.
[X] (Write In) Someone mentally strong, capable of facing stress with a sound mind.
Well, I guess I voted way too late but I wanted to add that last one specifically. First, I wanted to add a unique vote just for the hell of it, but I also feels as if we might come into contact with very stressful situations in the future that will affect our wife.
An intelligence of a person isn't all that useful if they can't deal with stress or emotional situations with a sound mind.
- Location
- Hell
Would not someone ambitious also fulfill that role? If you want to fight to the top, you have to be willing to work for it. Pretty sure she would not choose someone who could not handle stress very well.
Not "about to," "already have."
1. Lord Governor Burke (I might be misremembering the name): He or one of his subordinates had us fined a lot more than he was actually entitled to: a few chapters back, our character's mother arranged to have the payments cut from 10-15-20 to 10-10-10. We also got into a physical altercation with a (presumably) different agent of his that one time, and acquired the Vengeful trait in the aftermath. Not sure if this Lord Governor himself is our enemy, but someone in this command structure hates us and has personally targeted us for hostile action more than once.
2. Bad second impression on the Goddess of Crafting (Dreselin, I think?), partly because she is in fact the Goddess of perfection, so our own goals don't actually align with hers.
3. We're still a military failure, and not everyone was impressed with our bravery against the zombies (harrowing as it was to actually be there). Not sure how many actual enemies we still have from this, but we are an Acceptable Target for mockery and worse.
4. Multiple bad experiences with that God of Firefighters. Not sure how many enemies we have here, but I thought I remembered the Goddess of Perfection blackmailing them into not helping us one of the times we tried to get someone over to inspect our water mill.
And that's just the people we know about off the top of my head.
Looking at things from this angle, it looks like one of our high priorities is "a high Intrigue score," but I have no idea how to phrase that in character (none of the five options provided by the QM look especially promising, with "resources and connections" as the best of a bad lot and "intelligent and capable" as the runner up, although I thought that one tilted more toward Learning).
Someone attractive:
Maybe, but your line of argument seems to be placing it as a lower priority than "resources and connections." Besides, if we need to acquire a loyal and capable diplomat there are other ways to get one.
It is possible to build up a high Diplomacy rating with merely average looks; it just takes more work (we've already improved our character's Martial and Prowess once or twice each over the course of the quest, and I think Learning as well). Our cousin has already displayed the ability to "dial" her attractiveness up and down with body language, and as long as our wife isn't too bad to start with that sort of training for her could be worth looking into.
There's also the argument about splitting the searcher's focus. There's a saying that "perfect is the enemy of good enough"; what are the top priorities here, and what do we think we can afford to let slide?
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Silvereagle21
Soaring through the Sky
- Location
- United States
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
[X][Wife] Someone with resources and connections.
[X][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
[X][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
- Location
- Hell
And I was talking about enemies that are aiming for Harold and Lord Governor Burke did it because he was under the impression that we were not supposed to survive the punishment. I highly doubt he had any personal problems with him. The gods were due to bad dice rolls and so far have not been too overt in their dislike. Either way, having someone with resources, and more importantly the social chops to undo any sort of faux-pas we may have committed will be valuable to turning potential enemies to potential allies. People are more likely to listen to people they find attractive, to agree with them, and think they are good people. It is biased, but it is an extremely common bias.
As to someone attractive, well it is more difficult to argue for someone beautiful without being ignored for being superficial.
While it is possible to build up high diplomacy, having a high base is much more preferable. Attractiveness, to be blunt, is mostly about training. You think idols, actors, and singers naturally have perfect hair and sculpted bodies? That takes both study and effort, both into finding out what is attractive, fashionable, desirable, and how to apply it onto oneself. One may look better than others fresh out of bed, but to be truly beautiful needs experience.
Also, having a higher base means that they have to deal with less of the...costly sides of beauty(Hello lead-based makeup, arsenic powder, and nightshade eyedrops
) that were popular in this time period, not including any sort of magical treatments that probably also have their own side effects.Splitting too much is bad, I agree. Which is why I have only been arguing for resources and attractiveness and against someone we can get along with or known for their intelligence. If she is going to be the future matriarch of the Bismarck lands, I think it is more important that she have more of a head for Stewardship and can bring in resources, than it is for her to be a scientist. If we had only one trustworthy partner, I rather it be someone that can keep the books in check and watch over the household, than someone that can work in a lab. I believe it is better to ensure nothing goes astray there, than it is to get a bonus to research.
I also see having someone attractive more important than someone we can immediately get along with. Quite frankly Harold is the heir of the estate and he should be marrying someone for political reasons. It is literally one of the things we promised for being able to come back
More than someone nice, we need someone capable and that can assist us where we put little attention in. Most nobility marry for political reasons and the arranged marriages do work out when the two parties are willing.
Personally, the option of "someone I get along with" feels too much like being forced to go on a date with your just friend by your dad. It just feels like being fed already chewed food. I rather find if like them or not on my own, thanks.
[X][Wife] Someone intelligent and capable.
[X][Wife] Someone I can get along with.
[X][Wife] Someone I can get along with.
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
Man, my brain is pretty whammied.
I might just skip the rest of the social vote and stop making it a usual thing because it's much easier to write things for the actual projects you take on, as they have clear goals and I can roll dice to get an idea of how things go.
Like, at this point it's either social interludes and MAYBE an update some time this month, or no social interludes and maybe an update some time this week. So unless there's close to unanimous opposal, I'm... Probably going to just drop the social stuff and move on, yeah.
what'cha think?
I might just skip the rest of the social vote and stop making it a usual thing because it's much easier to write things for the actual projects you take on, as they have clear goals and I can roll dice to get an idea of how things go.
Like, at this point it's either social interludes and MAYBE an update some time this month, or no social interludes and maybe an update some time this week. So unless there's close to unanimous opposal, I'm... Probably going to just drop the social stuff and move on, yeah.
what'cha think?
- Location
- Lost to the Depths of the Deep Web
Honestly if it means less work for you & less headaches I'm all for it
- Location
- Iowa, United States
- Pronouns
- Him, His, He
Same here, I agree with Terra. Do what's best for you. It'll be nice to get a chapter either way.
IIRC part of the reason we switched to having social turns in the first place was because the original system that was heavily oriented towards action writeups was starting to burn you out and you wanted to switch things up. If things have tilted the other way and now it's the new system with social actions that's gumming things up I see no reason not to switch things up yet again.
Admittedly, you may want to try a third system or something like a blend between the two to keep from potentially suffering the same sort of burnout on actions you did originally - but just swapping back and forth between including social writeups vs focusing more on action writeups would probably work too.
Admittedly, you may want to try a third system or something like a blend between the two to keep from potentially suffering the same sort of burnout on actions you did originally - but just swapping back and forth between including social writeups vs focusing more on action writeups would probably work too.
I'm only worried about having to use up or normal actions for noble social obligations, Instead of social actions. Besides that I dont have any issue with just mechanical turns (projects and research) (I infact prefer that)
Rockeye
Plausible Engineer
- Location
- Midwestern U.S.
I think this is something insightful.
I always find myself wanting to switch up the system after a while. That may be my biggest flaw as a writer. How many times have I changed things in this story? A lot? And whenever I have the Good Quest Idea Bug bite me, it usually comes with a shiny new system attached to a shiny new setting, and the system is almost more important than the setting.
Like, latest one was a pseudo-post apocalyptic survival adventure where Weight was going to be more of a constraint than money since you're carrying your stuff everywhere. But I dropped that idea as I have far too many already no matter how shiny it was to me.