On Thread Etiquette:
I'm not going to weigh in on the logic of either side's arguments, but I will ask that everyone read over what they write and really consider if the words they used are polite and won't be inflammatory intentionally or not. You cant account for people's tolerances perfectly but at least try to say your piece without saying things that can be easily construed as overly dismissive of the other side of the argument, thank you.
Yup and that kind of wrangle was nigh unheard of. Rune Smith's aren't naturally or historical known for mass organization our acts of what most would consider normal guildmaster wrangling is weird by our profession standards.
Rune Smith's are REALLY independent most of the time.
Got a trait out of it to make it easier though. And it got the other rune smiths in the hold not directly opposed to it. Because the second time Snorri asked every rune smith to chip in? They did it. Mildly grumbling abounded, to be sure. But they still listened to the oldest of the hold when he told them to sit down, shut up and do the work for the hold.
Even the Runesmiths from other holds went with the flow after Snorri gave the order.
i wonder if snorri actually did adopt some elven orphans, would the war of vengeance make the other dwarves force snorri to kick them out or kill them? just hypothetically speaking.
Unlikely, I think, as these elves would be recognized as a different "clan" than the elves who started the war, so long as they didn't answer to the elven throne they should be fine
Got a trait out of it to make it easier though. And it got the other rune smiths in the hold not directly opposed to it. Because the second time Snorri asked every rune smith to chip in? They did it. Mildly grumbling abounded, to be sure. But they still listened to the oldest of the hold when he told them to sit down, shut up and do the work for the hold.
Even the Runesmiths from other holds went with the flow after Snorri gave the order.
My point is for most situations we don't need to ride heard of Rune Smiths, no major hold with their bullshit defenses have had someone wrangle their smiths like we did so we can legit let the defenses go on their own.
Rune of Prosthesis: Items inscribed with this rune can act as simple prosthesis. Mentally controlled, no tactile feedback and not as strong a stout Dawi muscle.
Almost finishing reading all the work. wonderful quest^^, my sleepy mind say to me that some combo of this rule with others can cause wonderful healing and maybe help with dwarfs that had grudges that they can't solve for not being mobile enough (even as angry dwarfs).
Plus so many ways to do shenanigans and be grumpy Santa^^. I personally like of hidden comportment and daemon wards in this thing.
Almost finishing reading all the work. wonderful quest^^, my sleepy mind say to me that some combo of this rule with others can cause wonderful healing and maybe help with dwarfs that had grudges that they can't solve for not being mobile enough (even as angry dwarfs).
When it comes to apprentices, the main factor IMO for next turn is whether Yorri is still here. If he is I'd rather spend as many actions pumping him for information as we can, though if he's still here the turn after that I'd be more ok with picking one up then.
When it comes to apprentices, the main factor IMO for next turn is whether Yorri is still here. If he is I'd rather spend as many actions pumping him for information as we can, though if he's still here the turn after that I'd be more ok with picking one up then.
Can we not just jump on more apprentices? I'd like to pump out some research projects first before getting back into it. At least allow our apprentices to reach a mastery level before picking up some more. We don't need a continual stream.
The Dwarves are just about to enter their golden age. The Ancestors may be disspearing in a turn or two, never to be seen again, but the lack of threats and relative peace will lead into massive expansion of territory, population, wealth and knowledge.
We are not going to run out of Runesmiths anytime in the next 2000 years.
Can we not just jump on more apprentices? I'd like to pump out some research projects first before getting back into it. At least allow our apprentices to reach a mastery level before picking up some more. We don't need a continual stream.
The Dwarves are just about to enter their golden age. The Ancestors may be disspearing in a turn or two, never to be seen again, but the lack of threats and relative peace will lead into massive expansion of territory, population, wealth and knowledge.
We are not going to run out of Runesmiths anytime in the next 2000 years.
Why shouldn't we have a continual stream? More importantly, why shouldn't we set a precedent that in times of relative peace it's the responsible thing to do for senior runesmiths to keep the pipeline moving and the number of runesmiths increasing. We're also not in the Golden Age yet. We're in a post-apocalyptic wasteland surrounded by horrific monsters, with most of the holds of the north lost, most of their population probably dead, and the military shredded. Runesmiths, going by the fate of every single other runelord, are likely to have suffered disproportionate, appalling casualties as well.
Just because in canon the dwarves didn't run out of them doesn't mean that in the here and now having more and better trained runesmiths isn't a good thing.
In times like this, speculative research isn't important. As you say, with a potential Golden Age ahead of us, there's plenty of time to do research. The focus now need to be on rebuilding and laying the foundations to actually build that Golden Age on, not just assume that it will someone just magically happen without having to invest any effort. What would happen if every runesmith now behaved like you want Snorri to do?
Because it's time spent babying that could be put to better use in research? The numbers of Runesmiths we teach will have so small an impact among Runesmith numbers as to be unnoticable. There are high hundreds to thousands of them, and they probably train more per century than we could if we live to be ten thousand.
Right now it's time to focus on establishing a good base. Snorri is kind of good, but he is by no means top tier. He needs to double down on making himself better so he can teach his future students better stuff.
Because it's time spent babying that could be put to better use in research? The numbers of Runesmiths we teach will have so small an impact among Runesmith numbers as to be unnoticable. There are high hundreds to thousands of them, and they probably train more per century than we could if we live to be ten thousand.
Right now it's time to focus on establishing a good base. Snorri is kind of good, but he is by no means top tier. He needs to double down on making himself better so he can teach his future students better stuff.
You say better use but is it? There's going to be a fuck tonne of orphans and children out there that have no one to teach them if Runesmiths like Snorri aren't willing to do so.
We're the last rune lord of the North at the moment, I can't imagine there are many master rune smiths around either, if Snorri isn't taking apprentices there will be potential rune smiths that will never get taught if we don't take them on.
Honestly, this talk about time spent in research smacks of meta-gaming and AP Penny Pinching, especially since it's a valid in-character interpretation that Snorri takes the raising of the next generation as important as his research. Infact, if apprentices are sub-optimal as you are suggesting, it is a ludicrous accusation to accuse advocates of taking more apprentices of meta-gaming, which has been done by quite a few people in this thread, very unfairly and rudely so in my opinion.
Either
a) Taking apprentices is mechanically suboptimal and therefore is taken because of narrative reasons and hence can never constitute meta-gaming
b) Taking apprentices is mechanically optimal and therefore constitutes meta-gaming
c) Taking apprentices does have an opportunity cost but is a long term investment that will yield personal returns both mechanically and narratively, and therefore is neither mechanically optimal nor suboptimal, in which case, this isn't power-gaming, but merely preference and priority. In which case, taking apprentices still cannot be meta-gaming, but rather is a contest over what kind of narratives people want to read.
Because it's time spent babying that could be put to better use in research? The numbers of Runesmiths we teach will have so small an impact among Runesmith numbers as to be unnoticable. There are high hundreds to thousands of them, and they probably train more per century than we could if we live to be ten thousand.
Right now it's time to focus on establishing a good base. Snorri is kind of good, but he is by no means top tier. He needs to double down on making himself better so he can teach his future students better stuff.
Snorri actually is the absolute top tier locally. There are no other runelords left in the north.
Also, why are you assuming that if the Last Runelord in the North, their Guildmaster and the High Priest of the Cult they're members of, sets the example that what runesmiths should be doing now is ignoring the world and what happens in it and burying themselves in research, that his juniors will reject his example and go all in on teaching, rather than following it?
Research is also much less likely to compound later than teaching apprentices is, as we're not doing any research at all that increases research or crafting productivity.
Are you guys not reading the story? As of the last chapter, there are at least two Runelords in the North, probably Three if that power armour isn't just mechanical. Additionally, the North isn't exactly an isolated and unreachable area. With a bit of rebuilding and clearing they will be fully recoonected with the rest. This will allow people to migrate as they will, making us not the only source of new Runesmiths in the area.
As the for metagaming arguements, I don't give a shit about the most 'optimal' approach. I just don't want a gaggle of snot nosed brats trailing behind the MC. It's an all too familar Questing trope, just spamming out recruits.
As the for metagaming arguements, I don't give a shit about the most 'optimal' approach. I just don't want a gaggle of snot nosed brats trailing behind the MC. It's an all too familar Questing trope, just spamming out recruits.
We were once a snot-nosed "brat" trailing behind Yorri too, just saying. Also, I find insinuating Snerra, Dolgi and Fjolla as snot nosed brats is very disrespectful, both to the three of them as characters, as well as to Soulcake's writing abilities and capabilities of humanizing his characters. At the end of the day, snot nosed brats only exist if the QM fails to make his characters compelling.
When you bring in the language of "time we could use for research", you are making the claim that the quest ought to solely be about research. Maybe it's narratively satisfying to you to have a quest solely based on research, but it also still begs the deeper question of why focusing the quest solely on research might make for a more satisfying narrative as opposed to the large variety of other hats a Runelord could entail. (I could have been less confrontation here, so I apologize for that).
The position that apprentices are a waste of time that takes away from research still begs the deeper question of why, narratively speaking, research is more satisfying and apprentices don't make for a rich narrative. So long as the satisfaction of research above all else is asserted, rather than explained, this debate cannot progress beyond the "agree to disagree" level.
Why shouldn't we have a continual stream? More importantly, why shouldn't we set a precedent that in times of relative peace it's the responsible thing to do for senior runesmiths to keep the pipeline moving and the number of runesmiths increasing. We're also not in the Golden Age yet. We're in a post-apocalyptic wasteland surrounded by horrific monsters, with most of the holds of the north lost, most of their population probably dead, and the military shredded. Runesmiths, going by the fate of every single other runelord, are likely to have suffered disproportionate, appalling casualties as well.
Just because in canon the dwarves didn't run out of them doesn't mean that in the here and now having more and better trained runesmiths isn't a good thing.
In times like this, speculative research isn't important. As you say, with a potential Golden Age ahead of us, there's plenty of time to do research. The focus now need to be on rebuilding and laying the foundations to actually build that Golden Age on, not just assume that it will someone just magically happen without having to invest any effort. What would happen if every runesmith now behaved like you want Snorri to do?
This argument is tiring me. Bullshit we're setting a precedent. We're not so important that every runesmith is looking at us and copying our moves. We're not the centre of the world, or even of the North. That's not even how this works. At best we can influence the ones in our hold, who have a chance of actually being aware of us and our actions. Has Snorri been shown to keep track of, say, Thungni? Of any other Runelord? No. Precedent setting is for Ancestor Gods and express dictates, not Snorri.
We're not getting more runesmiths in the here and now. We're getting more in, like, a century, probably more if we expect them to be particularly effective. At a rate of one or two every blagh. Apprentices are a long-term commitment with a significantly delayed payoff.
Researching better ways of utilising our resources and honing our craft to make ourselves more useful is totally divested from laying the foundations for a recovery. Right. More runes are a direct correlation to recovery, but better runes are a total waste of time and don't constitute an investment of effort. Stop exaggerating, because at the very least you're exaggerating heavily. And quit the "what if everyone acted this way" moral tugging shit. The point of a broad community is having many different approaches and philosophies running at once, allowing the community to cover all bases instead of being unprepared for some threat or another that unintentionally or knowingly exploits a weakness of that approach. That is, reducing something to "what if everyone acted like you" is fucking pointless, because you could point at practically any given example and it would be a net detriment for everyone to follow it. Not to mention it'd never happen, so it's doubly pointless to speculate about.
You say better use but is it? There's going to be a fuck tonne of orphans and children out there that have no one to teach them if Runesmiths like Snorri aren't willing to do so.
We're the last rune lord of the North at the moment, I can't imagine there are many master rune smiths around either, if Snorri isn't taking apprentices there will be potential rune smiths that will never get taught if we don't take them on.
it is a ludicrous accusation to accuse advocates of taking more apprentices of meta-gaming, which has been done by quite a few people in this thread, very unfairly and rudely so in my opinion.
How do you accuse someone of metagaming while calling accusations of metagaming rude and unfair in the same post? I can't recall personally seeing any metagaming accusations, but I don't have an infallible memory, nor have I combed the thread, so I'll stay out of the other side of this post. But, like, come on now. You can't have this both ways. Either condemn people for being rude by accusing others of metagaming or accuse others of metagaming yourself.
Additionally, what you're talking about is powergaming. Metagaming is acting with meta information you possess that the characters don't in mind. Say, automatically putting your full support behind the sickly elven child because his name is Teclis and his brother's name is Tyrion. Just thought I'd spell that out, so there aren't any mixups from incorrect terminology.
Snorri actually is the absolute top tier locally. There are no other runelords left in the north.
Also, why are you assuming that if the Last Runelord in the North, their Guildmaster and the High Priest of the Cult they're members of, sets the example that what runesmiths should be doing now is ignoring the world and what happens in it and burying themselves in research, that his juniors will reject his example and go all in on teaching, rather than following it?
Research is also much less likely to compound later than teaching apprentices is, as we're not doing any research at all that increases research or crafting productivity.
Yorri says hi. As do the master runesmiths who simply didn't get a slot as Runelord. But that's besides the point. He says we're not top tier in general. Reducing that to top-tier locally is misleading and either misguided or in bad faith.
Because the only time people have followed our example is when we've taught them directly. Every other instance of organisation was a directed effort to facilitate shaky cooperation, not an example we set. We aren't the centre of affairs or attention.
Research can allow us to create better products, and quality over quantity is very much the way of runesmithing in broad strokes. Besides, research unlocks research which unlocks more research, which compounds in quality and potentially other things. Consider working out how to stably produce Adamant. Adamant let us get contact with... I don't remember which secret guild it was. The Brotherhood of Dron? Or was that the other one? Either way, it got us an in there, along with helping us get those two Master Runes of Grimnir by impressing the dwarf himself.
We were once a snot-nosed "brat" trailing behind Yorri too, just saying. Also, I find generalizing Snerra, Dolgi and Fjolla is very disrespectful, both to the three of them as characters, as well as to Soulcake's writing abilities and capabilities of humanizing his characters. At the end of the day, snot nosed brats only exist if the QM fails to make his characters compelling.
When you bring in the language of "time we could use for research", you are advocating that we completely min-max research. Maybe it's narratively satisfying to you to have a quest solely based on research, but it also smacks significantly of power-gaming, whenever "all in on research" arguments are deployed on the basis of time, as opposed to the deeper narrative question of why focusing the quest solely on research might make for a more satisfying narrative.
Please don't appeal to "oh no you insulted the QM and are thus wrong". It's barely an argument.
See, it may smack of power-gaming to you, but he's saying it's not intended with that in mind. He actively doesn't give a shit. You're just attributing motives to him that you dislike so you can condemn them.
For the record, as far as I'm aware most people who are against taking on an apprentice right now aren't against taking on an apprentice after some turns. They just also want to get the most use out of/interaction with Yorri that they can. I, personally, am interested in seeing him further in the quest. He's been an oft-mentioned but never-seen presence and I want to see how he measures up to Snorri's memories of him. Even if they are acting with maximum mechanical benefit in mind, why the hell not? That's how they enjoy questing. They're not wrong for having a different questing philosophy.
They just also want to get the most use out of/interaction with Yorri that they can. I, personally, am interested in seeing him further in the quest. He's been an oft-mentioned but never-seen presence and I want to see how he measures up to Snorri's memories of him.
Well, I have no disagreements with that necessarily, nor am I necessarily advocating for taking an apprentice now. Of course interacting with Yorri is almost certainly going to be fascinating in itself, but it does further the point that interacting with characters is interesting in itself, for it is characters that make stories. Infact, I personally hope he stays for quite sometime, because in many ways, Snorri has still much to learn from his former master. Infact, Snorri traveling and exploring with Yorri for a time is something I'd find to be an interesting read - not just the Research prods (though they add a tantalizingly richer element to research), but even the act of Snorri and Yorri exploring together.
What I dislike are the arguments that we must not take apprentices because they interfere with our research, because they beg the question of why research ought to be the sole focus of the narrative to begin with. It is a perfectly valid preference to want to read about Snorri locking himself away in his workshop and spending a century engaged in research, but that doesn't make the preference of reading about Snorri interacting with students former or current, or working for his home any less valid either.
Infact, my position is that reading about characters, especially about a variety of characters enriches the narrative as Snorri plays off with other people he encounters.
Are you guys not reading the story? As of the last chapter, there are at least two Runelords in the North, probably Three if that power armour isn't just mechanical. Additionally, the North isn't exactly an isolated and unreachable area. With a bit of rebuilding and clearing they will be fully recoonected with the rest. This will allow people to migrate as they will, making us not the only source of new Runesmiths in the area.
As the for metagaming arguements, I don't give a shit about the most 'optimal' approach. I just don't want a gaggle of snot nosed brats trailing behind the MC. It's an all too familar Questing trope, just spamming out recruits.
I expect there were a lot of waylaid refugee trains. Demons don't exactly care about "but this is behind the lines". Frankly, I'm amazed we received nearly as many refugees as we did. But that is fair. It's not exactly proportionate. I'll stand at it not being nearly as uneven as you posit, but I did overstep the mark in turn. Cheers for picking me up on it. I don't want to get entrenched in objectively incorrect opinions.
In any case, we're still a new hold and we can only expand so fast while under desperate siege. Especially given how many refugees have been hurling themselves into the fight as well, I doubt the imbalance really is that large, or that there wasn't a similar one in earlier times. Even a distantly-related clan managed six potentials in a year. Supposedly that's above average, and the dice bear out that it's a tad above average, an 18 on a d30. But that's by no means a stupendous roll, and we're on the far lower end of the scale. That's per year. I doubt anything near enough are qualified to teach each year, let alone the fact that an apprentice takes about eighty years, or one-hundred and twenty for two. Very rarely less, but sometimes more.
Nitpick, but that's from the character sheet, not the story. Also, he's referring to Yorri, who probably outdoes us in most ways. He's not a runelord, but we're a runelord and he was our master, so I believe it's fair to say he's worth considering.
it's not really spoilers it's been on the character sheet since the last update i think, not sure about that but i do know that it was mentioned in the thread before now.
