I was afraid I'd get this response. Before anyone takes this and runs with it as WoQM, give me a couple of minutes to create a proper explanation.
Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
I was afraid I'd get this response. Before anyone takes this and runs with it as WoQM, give me a couple of minutes to create a proper explanation.
The problem is that egrimm could answer to the question "would you be up for spying on your former boss for your new boss?" with "absolutely not, why are you trying to drag me into this?" or he might be like "let's gooo!" and if boney premeditated everything like that we would never have consequences. So you get the option in the turn vote for anything.
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
It would be in many ways a kinder and simpler world if every person in it were willing and able to honestly answer any request, simply say "no" if they felt uncomfortable or disinclined towards doing what was asked of them, and then think no worse of the asker.
We do not live in that world.
A QM who's quasi-simulationist when it comes to personalities is certainly right not to let players pretend they live in that world.
[salutes]
It is not about premeditating, this is asking for basic communication. If we do not have that in Web-Mat... Mathilde is kind of a bad boss.
If you frame the possibility space as a binary 'Egrimm is okay with this or Egrimm is not okay with this', then simply asking Egrimm whether or not he is okay with this seems like a perfectly logical thing to do with no attached risk. But the possibility space is wider, ranging from "I am super thrilled with this and Mathilde is my new BFF for letting me get indirect vengeance" to "I can see why this needs to be done" to "I'd rather not, thanks for asking" to "that she'd even consider dragging me back into the hellish political shitstorm I'd just managed to claw my way out of makes me think I can't fully trust her". Asking the question is a way of gathering information that is subject to the observer effect, because by asking the question you change the situation you are seeking insight into, so Mathilde won't do it automatically and off-screen.
That is entirely fair and if you as the GM want to leave it at that I am sympathetic to the limitations of the medium and will not bring it up beyond this post.
But as a player it still feels awkward not to have the mechanism to ask the question at all, it feels like we do not have the leverage that Mathilde could have and worse at least to me, it feels like it makes Mathilde a worse boss to not have the question be part of the decision making. With the way I see her character, and her understanding of Hrstman as a man who was treated badly by his last boss I think asking is the reasonable and in character thing to do despite the risks
Again I do not mean to put you on the spot and if you just want to leave this here I am fine with it, I just did not want my contribution to this whole thing to be mostly my rather glib initial post.
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It feels awkward because it's an awkward situation. You're his new boss and you're about to indirectly throw down with his old boss, who is also his former Master and the leader of his Order. You don't know exactly how Egrimm feels about the situation. Egrimm probably doesn't know exactly how Egrimm feels about the situation. This is not a situation where you have all the information available to you. And outright asking Egrimm would not defuse the awkwardness, it would front-load it, and it would do so unnecessarily if it turns out the thread would rather not bring Egrimm in.
- Location
- Leeds
Alright everyone, we need to figure out every member of the set of Egrimms possible opinions, so that we have all the necessary follow up questions to 'are you okay?'. We also need to figure out every possible response to those questions, because if the true opinion is 'Deceive Mathilde for the glory of chaos' he is unlikely to confirm that honestly.
Even if he is confused it feels like the moral thing to give him the agency in the matter, but I recognize that this is a personal opinion and on thinking about it I can see the argument for this not being necessarily Mathilde's choice so yeah consider me satisfied with this whole thing and sorry for dragging it out.
Mopman43
Mountain-Hermit of Nitpeak
- Location
- Vermont
[X] Plan Pickle's Political Protector Proposal
I really don't see the point in bringing Johann to investigate Alric.
Yes, yes, he has pretty good diplo and intrigue, but he's also a blatantly wizardy-wizard with a golden body from the neck down, a blindfold covering gold eyes, and a non-human arm, he's not going to be able to question shopkeepers or whatever, he'll freak them out.
Like, if it's the idea that we need his diplo so bad, he's only 2 point higher than Mathilde, I think she can handle questioning people.
At least Egrimm can contribute something unique to him. I agree that it could be a risk of pushing buttons, but it could also be incredibly cathartic for him. I'm keen to roll the dice on that one.
(I do not acknowledge "he could be a Cultist" as a reasonable risk)
I really don't see the point in bringing Johann to investigate Alric.
Yes, yes, he has pretty good diplo and intrigue, but he's also a blatantly wizardy-wizard with a golden body from the neck down, a blindfold covering gold eyes, and a non-human arm, he's not going to be able to question shopkeepers or whatever, he'll freak them out.
Like, if it's the idea that we need his diplo so bad, he's only 2 point higher than Mathilde, I think she can handle questioning people.
At least Egrimm can contribute something unique to him. I agree that it could be a risk of pushing buttons, but it could also be incredibly cathartic for him. I'm keen to roll the dice on that one.
(I do not acknowledge "he could be a Cultist" as a reasonable risk)
- Location
- Mid-Atlantic
If investigating his old boss is an attractive choice to Egrimm, then giving Egrimm the option becomes a matter of giving him agency.
If investigating his old boss is not attractive for Egrimm, then 'giving Egrimm the option' becomes a matter of his new boss trying to pressure him into getting entangled in political games against a person he'd rather not go against. Refusing a 'request' from your boss is never easy.
...
To pick an admittedly weird example... think about asking someone on a date.
If they are interested, or at least not disinterested, in exploring the possibility of a romantic relationship, then giving them a conspicuous, direct opportunity to say "yes, I would like to pursue this" by asking them on a date? Good idea.
But if they are genuinely not interested, or if the circumstances would make them feel pressured to accept even if one says "no pressure..." Well, then 'giving them that opportunity' becomes a very unwelcome and even creepy activity.
Which is why asking someone out is actually kind of a big deal and there's all kinds of anxiety associated with it. And why it can make a pre-existing relationship dynamic between two people become, for lack of a better term, weird. And why we have conventions that there are entire categories of people you probably shouldn't ask out because of problems with the power dynamic or something.
And you can't bypass all of that by saying "no, I don't mean it like that, I totally respect their choices and want to give them agency."
It still has the potential to make things awkward as all hell, if nothing else.
If investigating his old boss is not attractive for Egrimm, then 'giving Egrimm the option' becomes a matter of his new boss trying to pressure him into getting entangled in political games against a person he'd rather not go against. Refusing a 'request' from your boss is never easy.
...
To pick an admittedly weird example... think about asking someone on a date.
If they are interested, or at least not disinterested, in exploring the possibility of a romantic relationship, then giving them a conspicuous, direct opportunity to say "yes, I would like to pursue this" by asking them on a date? Good idea.
But if they are genuinely not interested, or if the circumstances would make them feel pressured to accept even if one says "no pressure..." Well, then 'giving them that opportunity' becomes a very unwelcome and even creepy activity.
Which is why asking someone out is actually kind of a big deal and there's all kinds of anxiety associated with it. And why it can make a pre-existing relationship dynamic between two people become, for lack of a better term, weird. And why we have conventions that there are entire categories of people you probably shouldn't ask out because of problems with the power dynamic or something.
And you can't bypass all of that by saying "no, I don't mean it like that, I totally respect their choices and want to give them agency."
It still has the potential to make things awkward as all hell, if nothing else.
Let's also not forget the wrench that Egrimm might not tell the truth. We are his boss and even with a good rapport there is still a lot of pressure to tell your boss what they want to hear even if you disagree/don't want to do it. Plus we are a grey wizard. It would not be unreasonable to assume that we are not just asking as his boss but as a grey magister and the question is a test. Both Mathilde and Egrimm have conflicting loyalties and interests that make this question difficult in the best case scenario.
He also has a good enough read on timing and positioning to repeatedly infiltrate a Skaven warren in the middle of civil war despite being a large chunk of metal, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of doubt here.
As for Egrimm round 2, consider that even a fully established Lady Magister that is openly on Mira's side prefers to hedge her bets in case Alric pulls off the upset. Even if our perfectly content mystery box contains BFF Egrimm with an axe to grind against his former boss rather than Darth Horstmann, he would still be aware that we're opening him to the possibility that Alric makes it back on top and later finds out that Egrimm was involved in an investigation against him.
- Location
- Utrecht
I don't think Engrimm would assume that Mathilde would lie... she's never actually lied to Engrimm. Only given incomplete information and framed it in a way that he might not come to the right conclusion
I have gone on about this for long enough and I am getting tired of repeating myself, so for both of our sakes this will be my last reply to you on this subject. But for the last time: infiltrating a skaven warren has nothing to do with what we are about to ask him to do. Literally nothing. Less than nothing.
Johann isn't going to be killing witnesses whenever he is detected, which he did when he was infiltrating the skaven. Johann isn't going to go around sneaking into Alric's private room, because Alric's private room isn't a millitary camp in the middle of a civil war, and infiltarting it requires completely different skills. And in any case infiltrating a skaven warren has nothing to do with questioning people which is what most people claim Johann is going to do.
'Timing and positioning' are good combat skills, and are a decent argument for bringing him to the forest mission. If we happen to find a Chaos cult or something is behind the murders Johann is going to be a great help in taking them done. But he is just not going to help with the investigation, and the explanations for why he will actually be useful in this thing he has never done once in his life make zero sense.
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Burned_Cookie
Very tired girl.
- Location
- Plato´s cave.
- Pronouns
- She/Her/It/Its
[X] Plan Pickle's Political Protector Proposal
This is clearly the way to go. No chance of massive backfire (apart from the unavoidable ones) and general progress, combined with some chance of massive successes.
We need the protector rep boost right now, and are planning to dig around shady corners with potentially very threatening problems to solve, so that works.
This is clearly the way to go. No chance of massive backfire (apart from the unavoidable ones) and general progress, combined with some chance of massive successes.
We need the protector rep boost right now, and are planning to dig around shady corners with potentially very threatening problems to solve, so that works.
Cassiemouse
Market Atheist
[X] Plan Pickle's Political Protector Proposal
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His.
[X] Plan Starting up debt free
Approval voting this plan. I feel that we really should get get the house of Frost into the project before laying the foundation, doing otherwise seems like a major slight given how crucial they are to this opportunity existing in the first place.
Approval voting this plan. I feel that we really should get get the house of Frost into the project before laying the foundation, doing otherwise seems like a major slight given how crucial they are to this opportunity existing in the first place.
If you want to appoval vote, you need to vote for all plans you approve of in one post. New post with a vote overwrites your previous vote completely.
In your case it should look like this:
[><] Plan: Jyn+debt free
[><] Plan Starting up debt free
K von Carstein
Likes to go for a walk
- Location
- Belgium
- Pronouns
- He
Why? It's not like our reputation is in shambles or anything.
You can do something Protector-y in some sort of disguise and the credit will go to the alter ego you presented as. This can't be used to frame someone else with the Protector, though.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
I'm not sure why we would want to bring Engrimm in on the hunt for Alaric. Why run the risk of angering him by dragging him into the politics he has told us he wants to avoid?
I'm confident our master spy grey wizard can handle the investigation alone, so we don't need Engrimm. Surely any insights he could lend don't outweigh the potential blowback? Mathilde has this, I think.
Engrimm can be helpful elsewhere, such as the wood.
I'm confident our master spy grey wizard can handle the investigation alone, so we don't need Engrimm. Surely any insights he could lend don't outweigh the potential blowback? Mathilde has this, I think.
Engrimm can be helpful elsewhere, such as the wood.