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Taylor Hebert and Her Rather Sad Life [Worm/The Gamer/D&D3.5]

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From a simple and practical standpoint, it makes the most sense to vote
[X] Yes Wards
But I think we do need to address Piggot's behavior if she continues to act this aggressively.
 
DragonParadox said:
Taylor goes villain:

Conquest quest on SV

Independent Taylor:

Nexus quest

Quests where she joins the Wards:

  1. Alchemical Solutions (Exalted crossover)
  2. Taylor Hebert adventurer (D&D crossover)
  3. A different sort of Hero (Dungeon the Dragoning crossover)

These are all long-running quests. If I were to pick out the ones that died after a few posts it would be far far more skewered
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1. 3 examples of each don't indicate the actual breakdown, because there are hundreds of such quests.
2. If we do accept your 3 examples of each, we would be looking at an exact 50-50 split
but your claim was "vast majority" in favor of joining wards.
my claim was that there are "many" vs "more". Aka a slightly over 50% split
DragonParadox said:
If I were to pick out the ones that died after a few posts it would be far far more skewered
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That is a point I explicitly made, explicitly saying that the exact percentage of all the quests is a bad metric. (while still disagreeing about the exact split of all said quests).
Are you saying that when you said "the vast majority of worm quests" you meant "the vast majority of worm quests that didn't die after a few posts"?
 
If the no vote wins does it mean she can't ever join the Wards? Cause for me, it comes down to there's no way I would want to work under a boss like Piggot.
 
sandmanwake said:
If the no vote wins does it mean she can't ever join the Wards? Cause for me, it comes down to there's no way I would want to work under a boss like Piggot.
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We are explicitly making a metavote about how we want the quest to go with QM explicitly telling us we are retconning away the piggot nastiness. also, the wards program is temporary anyways (for under 18s).
 
mrttao said:
1. 3 examples of each don't indicate the actual breakdown, because there are hundreds of such quests.
2. If we do accept your 3 examples of each, we would be looking at an exact 50-50 split
but your claim was "vast majority" in favor of joining wards.
my claim was that there are "many" vs "more". Aka a slightly over 50% split

That is a point I explicitly made, explicitly saying that the exact percentage of all the quests is a bad metric. (while still disagreeing about the exact split of all said quests).
Are you saying that when you said "the vast majority of worm quests" you meant "the vast majority of worm quests that didn't die after a few posts"?
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Well there is not really much point in discussing quests that die after a few posts now is there? No one remembers them.
 
Everyone voting No Wards, without giving at least a token reason why, your vote counts for 1 instead of 1.5 if you at least give a small line for justification's or argument's sake.
 
Forgothrax said:
Two words: Tinkertech budget. In 2 levels we hit the requirements for Craft Magical Arms/Armor.
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As was pointed out, we have absolutely no need for PRTs money. We can heal and create magical items and do all sorts of stuff. All of which we could sell for very large amounts of money. This would also mean that the stuff we create is OURS, and PRT can't forbid us from using any of it by saying "too dangerous/against PR/against regulations". Which we know they do (Kid Wins weapon).

And at this point we simply arent big enough of a fish in the pool yet to warrant major considerations. We are not going to become famous and politically powerfull in the wards. Maybe eventually, once we get into high levels. But as I said earlier, theres nothing stopping us from joining PRT at that point, when we are already independently famous.

Now if you want to join the wards to interact with the other wards/mess with Armsmasters head via magic items/etc, then thats obviously fine. Or if you have read several independent Taylor quests/stories and want wards for that reason (another perfectly valid reason).

However from a purely in-story POV, I see no practical point or benefits from joining that could not be easily replaced with valid alternatives, and we could also avoid all the downsides.


sandmanwake said:
If the no vote wins does it mean she can't ever join the Wards? Cause for me, it comes down to there's no way I would want to work under a boss like Piggot.
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Presumably nothing would stop us from joining the wards later, when we are powerfull and famous enough that Piggot can't mistreat us without risking her job. Or even negotiating entry into the protectorate in full due to special circumstances or somesuch.

Heck, do we get teleport at some point? We could even try to negotiate entry into the Guild later on. They deal with lots of dangerous S-class threats right (all that juicy xp...)?
 
[X] No Wards

She's already rejecting our proposal by assuming a hard non-negotiable bargaining position. I thought we were supposed to have a stronger bargaining position here because of what Shadow Stalker did. If she wants to lay her foot down on this matter, so can Taylor ... by walking out the door.
 
[X] No Wards

mrttao said:
We are explicitly making a metavote about how we want the quest to go with QM explicitly telling us we are retconning away the piggot nastiness. also, the wards program is temporary anyways (for under 18s).
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Doubt the quest will last as long as it takes for her to go over 18 and she'd also be giving up a lot of freedom and would have to unmask to the PRT. You can't take not having a secret identity back.

What would joining the PRT give her that she wouldn't be able to do on her own? Hang out with the Wards? She can do that on her own. Tinkertech budget? She can find legal ways of getting her own budget and won't have to split any income she earns from her tech with the PRT.

So not joining has the benefits of more freedom, having her identity stay a secret, not having to work for a bureaucracy which is corrupt, has bigots in charge, and probably has spies in it.

I can't really think of any benefits to joining especially ones which would outweigh the disadvantages.
 
asgard said:
She's already rejecting our proposal by assuming a hard non-negotiable bargaining position.
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I am not going to do a point by point argument about how wrong this is to avoid a rehash of the arguments that made QM drop this quest in the first place
Instead let me point out that this has been retconned
Tekomandor said:
We retcon back to the end of the battle at the boat graveyard,
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Your argument is based literally on things that never happened nor will happen as per retcon
 
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Tekomandor said:
Okay, so here's how discussion will influence the vote. If you have some reasoning - even just a sentence - your vote counts for 1.5 times.
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I missed this the first time around because it was in spoilers and was in a hurry to go do something else. So, if you voted and didn't give an explanation, might want to add a sentence into your vote to explain your reasons why you voted as you did.
 
TotallyNotEvil said:
I'm tempted o change my vote just based on the nicknames people are coming up for Vicky. Excessive Force Barbie?
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You prefer Sailor Violence instead?

sandmanwake said:
If the no vote wins does it mean she can't ever join the Wards? Cause for me, it comes down to there's no way I would want to work under a boss like Piggot.
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Piell said:
Not interested in having to deal with Piggot
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asgard said:
She's already rejecting our proposal by assuming a hard non-negotiable bargaining position. I thought we were supposed to have a stronger bargaining position here because of what Shadow Stalker did. If she wants to lay her foot down on this matter, so can Taylor ... by walking out the door.
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Guys, @Tekomandor has specifically retconned away 3.1 (you mind removing it from the threadmarks? It might prevent misunderstandings).

This is good, because frankly it was massively OOC for Piggot, who really isn't as stupid as fanon implies. She's also not much of a bigot as fanon implies, or maybe to be more accurate as Taylor thinks she is: the big defining character traits for her are that 1) she isn't very good with kids and knows it, which is how Armsmaster managed to power-play the Wards away from her direct command even though that's supposed to be her job, and 2) she regards all capes as damaged human beings who need to be in therapy, not being relied on to defend the city against super-powered threats, which is true! The only real hard evidence we have for Piggot's "cape bigotry" other than Taylor's very biased opinion is her refusal to be healed of her Nibhog injuries, which could just as or more easily be survivor's guilt.

So leave 3.1's Piggot out of your calculations. If anything, the fiasco that resulted from that will prompt @Tekomandor to make Piggot more competent than the normal depiction, if only to clear the air from what happened. See CrashLegacy14's Tale of Transmigration for a really good depiction of Piggot, that I think would do well to be repeated here regardless of the up-down vote on the Wards.
 
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TheEyes said:
2) she regards all capes as damaged human beings who need to be in therapy, not being relied on to defend the city against super-powered threats, which is true!
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Is this part actually true? I thought she was opposed to therapy, and Weld had to fight her to get the wards therapy post-Leviathan? Or is that fanon?

The only real hard evidence we have for Piggot's "cape bigotry" other than Taylor's very biased opinion is her refusal to be healed of her Nibhog injuries, which could just as or more easily be survivor's guilt.
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Eh, she might not be as bad and Tekomander might write her as a better person in the future, but ultimately I still don't see a reason to submit to her authority. The negatives and loss of control outweigh the benefits, considering we can achieve the benefits on our own, and avoid the negatives entirely.

Heck, we could presumably offer collaboration/assistance in case of emergency, offer healing if Panacea is unavailable and offer to sell PRT magic items we create. And so on. I doubt PRT would object to this kind of association (especially once Taylor starts getting stronger), and it would basically give ward interaction anyway.

For now though, I for one would prefer it if Taylor remained in control of her own destiny (so to speak). And thats true even IF Piggot was written as reasonable.
 
Ok, I'm recalling more about this quest had now. This was the one where she busted SS as a criminal and the PRT knows what SS did. That the Wards had someone like that as part of the team should count as a negative from quest Taylor's point of view, but isn't the vote for joining or not at this point premature? I'm still in the no joining camp, but the vote to join or not should really come after she finds out more about the PRT/Protectorates/Wards since 3.1 is now reconned.

We have no idea what her possible co-workers and bosses are like in this quest, so voting yes means we're stuck with them and that she'd have to unmask to them.
 
[X] Yes Wards

Because it gives some structure to work from. There are way too many quest where the viewpoint character strikes out on their own for no justifiable reason, usually leading to going around in circles without a short-term goal. Also I think Taylor wants to be part of the city's heroes. Even with the drawbacks the Wards offer her the chance to be praised as a hero and smooths over her immediate problems (as much as looking like a half-celestial can be a problem).
 
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