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Unexpected Glory (A CK2-style Quest)

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Plausitivity said:
Ugh!
Uhhg! I never! :o
Sounds like more adventure to me!
As much fun as "optimal" and "reasonable" are, we've a bard for a local lord. By saving the Emperor with an instrument.
I think we could get a bit fun with this :3
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Ehhh I wouldnt down play our option as the boring and rational one. Ours is just as good becuase our magic option opens up the whole God and religion questline, the martial is a pirate slaying old vet, noble politics can be fun too especially if he gives us the knowledge we need to serenade whose who with our music, and engineer dude practically kept at us when we asked him if he wants to BUILD stuff. And make improvements. Meaning hes quirky in his own way and prob has been annoyed by all the things hes seeing being built not up to code with empire standards
 
Mr.rodent said:
God and religion
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Usually players seem a bit weary of religious stuff in quests. I guess if you make the choices stacked in the cleric's favor, then people are bound to pick it D:

I'm fine with whatever wins, but just saying lol
 
Plausitivity said:
Usually players seem a bit weary of religious stuff in quests. I guess if you make the choices stacked in the cleric's favor, then people are bound to pick it D:

I'm fine with whatever wins, but just saying lol
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Considering the other plan chooses a priest as our STEWARD I think that argument is invalid... you know the person responsible for helping run the day to day stuff and paperwork...


Also the religion here shouldnt be based off the abrahamic one as its God is called generosity and they use divine magic for healing as well as arcane spells.

It makes more sense to choose them for magic advisor
 
Mr.rodent said:
Considering the other plan chooses a priest as our STEWARD I think that argument is invalid... you know the person responsible for helping run the day to day stuff and paperwork...


Also the religion here shouldnt be based off the abrahamic one as its God is called generosity and they use divine magic for healing as well as arcane spells.

It makes more sense to choose them for magic advisor
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I mean hey I wasn't the one who made that vote for Helan.
To be fair, he can heal people and has the same "high stewardship" as Donovan, so that argument is kinda moot in terms of competency.
And wouldn't some priests learn about managing finances, too? They've got to keep balances from tithes and whatnot.
 
Plausitivity said:
I mean hey I wasn't the one who made that vote for Helan.
To be fair, he can heal people and has the same "high stewardship" as Donovan, so that argument is kinda moot in terms of competency.
And wouldn't some priests learn about managing finances, too? They've got to keep balances from tithes and whatnot.
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It's not about competency it's about conflict of interest. While he seems like a swell guy with his humanitarian work , this also puts him in an awkward position since he would have to balance his duties to us, as well as with the church and his personal feelings towards the people.

What is we tell him to do an action that actively hurts the people (in the short term) such as destroying old houses to build up newer ones that are less a fire hazard. But this also destroys a few communities.

What if he wants to use his influence as steward to spread his religion ? Or proselytize

Atleast with the church member as a magical advisor it doesnt neccesarily put them into a position of conflict with us. Or neccesarily a position of authority over the realm.
 
Mr.rodent said:
It's not about competency it's about conflict of interest. While he seems like a swell guy with his humanitarian work , this also puts him in an awkward position since he would have to balance his duties to us, as well as with the church and his personal feelings towards the people.

What is we tell him to do an action that actively hurts the people (in the short term) such as destroying old houses to build up newer ones that are less a fire hazard. But this also destroys a few communities.

What if he wants to use his influence as steward to spread his religion ? Or proselytize

Atleast with the church member as a magical advisor it doesnt neccesarily put them into a position of conflict with us. Or neccesarily a position of authority over the realm.
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So... separate church and state? Coulda just said that :p
 
Gino said:
Your obviously superior one doesn't have any of the interesting options to make a more adventuresome story. No Ester, Sara, not even Zen.
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Unlike your plan, my plan does not make bad decisions for the sake of a more interesting narative. I'd say it is a perfect blend between having an interesting story and putting us in an advantageous position, which is very important, about as important as an interesting story. Remember, this is a mechanics driven quest, while the story is important, we shouldn't need to take suboptimal decisions to make a more interesting narative.
 
Ah, minmaxing! That's all well and good now and then on a campaign, especially if you want to mess with your group. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I want to see everything and get that 100%.

But still, while good mechanics are an essential foundation for any game, the narrative trumps all for me. I like to see all that fancy cause and effect, to pick up and unwind all the threads of mystery.

And most importantly, I always go for the unorthodox and innovative paths, to find new outside the box solutions rather then follow along with conventions of the setting.

I'm perfectly willing to take a suboptimal starting position in order to pick up the more interesting plot hooks.
 
Gino said:
Ah, minmaxing! That's all well and good now and then on a campaign, especially if you want to mess with your group. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I want to see everything and get that 100%.

But still, while good mechanics are an essential foundation for any game, the narrative trumps all for me. I like to see all that fancy cause and effect, to pick up and unwind all the threads of mystery.

And most importantly, I always go for the unorthodox and innovative paths, to find new outside the box solutions rather then follow along with conventions of the setting.

I'm perfectly willing to take a suboptimal starting position in order to pick up the more interesting plot hooks.
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I wouldnt call your picks "sub optimatal" just as i wouldnt call our picks "uninteresting" as that's debatable and I'm sure whoever we pick qm can write well plots for.

Our picks have the pirate guy in common for martial.

For intrigue I find either the noble guy or thief more interesting then random sketchy ninja girl who claims shes a noble in hiding.

For one we know literraly nothing about her and just becuase she has the mystery option doesnt make her more interesting.

Noble dude just lost his dad , and for some reason saw the bard commoner and went "he can make a good candidate for king" for someone whose a noble to have that mindset is very interesting and I'd like to explore why he thinks that.

For stewardship, donovan the guy who was the third and final choice to put down the rebellions and succeeded where the others couldnt AND is a friend of our friend is more interesting then humanitarian priest who may or may not have conflict of interest.

Learning I dont mind sera I'd be fine with her, but we already have a naval captain /hero . It seems redundant to pick the angry local Fisher girl when you have an engineer from the motherland who is dying to uplift this land and make it better.

Lastly i can agree at the very least elf girl is more interesting then priest dude here, but her plot went from coming to see us about a prophecy to just being found in the woods. It's far less interesting now, and priest dude can do both DEVINE and arcane magic . And has neccesary lore
 
@Nevill , @Plausitivity , @LordEdric and @giodan , the plans that you guys are voting for have no chance of winning at this point. However, your votes can still matter. I ask of all of you and of anyone else who wishes to involve themselves in this quest to please vote for Plan Nobles, Locals and Divinity, as I still think it is a better plan than the current plan in lead. We can still do this people! We can still ensure that a better plans overtakes the leading plan!

Reasons as to why you should be voting for Plan Nobles, Locals and Divinity:
ThatGuyWithIdeas said:
Some of you may ask why do I believe that the plan I've posted has the best set of advisors. Well...

1. Alvarez is the preferred martial advisor because his speciality in naval forces meshes very well with the location we've chosen as our holding (which is a port by the way), and because we're going to need a good navy to protect our trade ships once we start making trade with the Empire.
2. Regarding Intrigue, I consider that Willem is the optimal choice here. Esther is untrustworthy, and the last thing we need is a very good Intrigue advisor of questionable loyalty value. Willem and Ilos are a bit more trustworthy than Esther, but Ilos is a thief that has a bounty on his head. We already have a Diplomacy malus with nobles, so taking Ilos means that we're going to spend a good time trying to placate nobles and convince them to support us, whereas Willem is a noble and has synergy with Diplomacy actions, which is going to help us in placating locals, convincing nobles to support us much faster than if we would had went for Ilos as our Intrigue advisor, and other important diplomacy actions.
3. For Stewardship, I will admit that Helan and Donovan are both very good choices, but in the end I went with Donovan as he's the one who managed to secure a tenuous peace in the region, meaning that he could provide us with better ideas regarding how to pacify the Port Helm Region population. Aristo would have been the perfect Stewardship candidate, but I highly suspect that "Failing Health" means that he won't last the 10 years that are needed for advisorship and him dying is like going to have us in mad dash to search for a replacement that isn't guaranteed to be as good as him, or, if we're really unlucky, we might get a replacement that might be worse in Stewardship than even Helan or Donovan.
4. As for Learning, I went for Cadmon. Sara might be a genius, but we're going to have to spend a good amount of time placating her and getting her to come around to the fact that the Empire isn't all that bad and her naval focus is of no real use to us if we go for Alvarez as our Martial advisor. Cadmon's synergy with Martial actions benefits both the Army and the Navy and allows us to compensate for our character's incredibly weak Martial stat.
5. Finally, the Sorcery advisor. Zenthalas goes right out because, just like Esther, we cannot account for her loyalty to us, which is not a good thing. Abren would be a good candidate, but Side Projects means that he might decide to work on his own research during a time when we need something related to Sorcery done fast, which is going to either delay something that is important to us, or anger Abren as we forcibly take him off whatever Side Project he was working for in order to get whatever priority we wanted in Sorcery done as soon as possible. That leaves us with Cerryl. He's trustworthy, given that he's a priest and he seems to have nothing that is going to possibly cause us to have to focus on something of his design during a time where we need something done now. I do suspect that he might have some caveats, but I'm willing to take the risk for him (and it is possible that he might truly come with no strings attached, given that Leliana is also an advisor that is Extraordinary in her stat (aka Diplomacy) and does not seem to have any negative caveats regarding having her as an advisor).

The reasons as to why I do not like the leading plan are the following:

1. Taking Alvarez as our Martial advisor and Sara as our Learning advisor. That combination makes us overspecialized in naval matters to the detriment of ground combat, which is not a good thing. The plan should either replace Alvarez with one of the other Martial advisors or replace Sara with Cadmon.
2. Taking Esther as our Intrigue advisor. As I've said earlier, we can not trust her, so we really shouldn't take her as an Intrigue advisor.
3. Taking Zenthalas as our Sorcery advisor. She has the same problem as Esther, aka we can't verify that she is someone who's going to be loyal to us, and loyalty is the most important trait for all of our advisors.
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Mr.rodent said:
I wouldnt call your picks "sub optimatal" just as i wouldnt call our picks "uninteresting" as that's debatable and I'm sure whoever we pick qm can write well plots for.

Our picks have the pirate guy in common for martial.

For intrigue I find either the noble guy or thief more interesting then random sketchy ninja girl who claims shes a noble in hiding.

For one we know literraly nothing about her and just becuase she has the mystery option doesnt make her more interesting.

Noble dude just lost his dad , and for some reason saw the bard commoner and went "he can make a good candidate for king" for someone whose a noble to have that mindset is very interesting and I'd like to explore why he thinks that.

For stewardship, donovan the guy who was the third and final choice to put down the rebellions and succeeded where the others couldnt AND is a friend of our friend is more interesting then humanitarian priest who may or may not have conflict of interest.

Learning I dont mind sera I'd be fine with her, but we already have a naval captain /hero . It seems redundant to pick the angry local Fisher girl when you have an engineer from the motherland who is dying to uplift this land and make it better.

Lastly i can agree at the very least elf girl is more interesting then priest dude here, but her plot went from coming to see us about a prophecy to just being found in the woods. It's far less interesting now, and priest dude can do both DEVINE and arcane magic . And has neccesary lore
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ThatGuyWithIdeas said:
@Nevill , @Plausitivity , @LordEdric and @giodan , the plans that you guys are voting for have no chance of winning at this point. However, your votes can still matter.
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You know, I would rhyme about this to retort, but I'm feeling a tad insulted that you would imply our votes don't matter right now.
So excuse me if I seem a little humorless to you.

Also, you forgot to address this issue:
Gino said:
Ah, minmaxing! That's all well and good now and then on a campaign, especially if you want to mess with your group. Admittedly, I'm a bit of a perfectionist, I want to see everything and get that 100%.

But still, while good mechanics are an essential foundation for any game, the narrative trumps all for me. I like to see all that fancy cause and effect, to pick up and unwind all the threads of mystery.

And most importantly, I always go for the unorthodox and innovative paths, to find new outside the box solutions rather then follow along with conventions of the setting.

I'm perfectly willing to take a suboptimal starting position in order to pick up the more interesting plot hooks.
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Mr.rodent said:
I wouldnt call your picks "sub optimatal" just as i wouldnt call our picks "uninteresting" as that's debatable and I'm sure whoever we pick qm can write well plots for.
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If @StormyAngel actually gave us choices by making it so that people like the thief has visible downsides (has a bounty, might piss off nobles if we take him in, is not an actual bard), while people like the lord have no visible downsides (is noble, not a thief nor random girl, is interested in helping us) then of course people would go with the better choice. I even remember someone mention that the thief is "nerfed" now, so apparently in terms of characterization and usefulness, might as well pick from the other two options?
Same for the cleric, the power of God AND he gets to have high learned magical knowledge? He's basically minmaxed as hell. Who cares that he's religious at this point if he just prays a little, right?

My plan was a combination of useful advisors for the parts we lacked (naval guy for military, Donovan for keeping the city under control, and Cadmon to have better military action synergy) and some more interesting/fun choices for the others (the thief because he pretended to be a bard. Maybe he's not an actual bard, but he must know a tune or two! The other is the sorceress who is the rarest and coolest option, simply put).

But obviously, unless I vote for your plan, my vote won't matter. This whole campaigning tone is a little grating on my mind, and I was actually considering choosing [] Plan Integration, but I'm not that much of a dick to spite people like that.

So how about you ease up on the "calling people out" and "election campaign" tone of voice, because I think your arguments are fine?

And no, I won't change my vote because I'm just seeing two plans that literally have 60% of my interests at most. Choosing one would mean I only support it that much, and then, what's the point?

Here I thought quests were supposed to be about fun and adventure.
I'll take my "no chance of winning", if you don't mind that my vote doesn't matter anyways.
 
I didn't know whether I wanted to respond to this or not, but I'll do since I was tagged.

Although I jokingly referred to bardic rap battles as the deciding factor, there are, in fact, certain reasons I chose the characters I have. To hear that they aren't good enough is pretty grating. In particular Ilos being a thief with a bounty put on him is the kind of circumstance that makes the character more interesting to me, and having a drawback so apparent makes me think that the benefits I wanted him for are well worth it.

I realise there are no ill thoughts behind your argumentation, but I can't help resenting the implication that anyone who doesn't vote your way is someone who doesn't wish to "involve themselves in this quest". You probably didn't mean to come across that way, but, well...

To answer the implied question, I see no reason to change one plan I am not particularly fond of for another.
 
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Heres some clip art while we wait for vote to close.









[ /SPOILER]
 
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Also I'll agree with the above statements. While you can try to convince people of your argument with WHY you believe a option is superior or the best choice mass tagging and practically begging while symoultainously insulting the people who voted for the other options is a major nono.

When I asked plaus to change his vote I did it in q playful sarcastic way. The campaigning style of vote will make this quest more negative and lead to conflict. The whole point of this vote is to vote for what you like and if questors want the other vote to win so be it
 
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I thought Leliana would be older.

She was our mentor before we parted ways with Dominic (or so was my impression), and that was seven years ago.

Of course, she may hide it better than others. :V
 
Nevill said:
I thought Leliana would be older.

She was our mentor before we parted ways with Dominic (or so was my impression), and that was seven years ago.

Of course, she may hide it better than others. :V
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Surprise: she was an elf all along!
 
Nevill said:
I thought Leliana would be older.

She was our mentor before we parted ways with Dominic (or so was my impression), and that was seven years ago.

Of course, she may hide it better than others. :V
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Makeup is a hell of a tool. But your right I'll try to look for something older.

Then again our PC is only 20. She could have been 16-20 when we met and is ONLY in her mid 30s right now
 
Alright, The Vote is Closed. Plan Integration is the winner.

Thank you everybody, for contributing your thoughts and participation. I realize this hasn't been the easiest vote, and I only exacerbated the issue by redoing it. If you can find it in your hearts to forgive me my awkward stumbles, I would appreciate it.

The new post will be coming out sometime tomorrow, and sometime between now and then I'm going to update you all with setting content information regarding your Eastern Province neighbors that you may find useful for decision making in the rounds to come.
 
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