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Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest

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picklepikkl said:
...okay, I guess I could stop advocating for your preferred course of action if that would make you happier?

I have no attachment to tongs, I've just been including it in the "full court press on research" plan because there have been people champing at the bit for it for a long time and "right after the expedition" looks like the best time to do it. But if y'all have given up, then okay, I guess!
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Please don't. SSS is just overly pessimistic about everything.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
I don't think Anoqeyan would have any serious linguistic drift part of the point of it is that it has very hard definitions and the Elves have been literate as a whole for most of their history on Malus. Linguistic drift is going to be much slower is every one can read and write.
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Not really? The Elves had thousands of years to develop the language away from the Slann. In that time they pretty clearly built on the information they were taught by the Slann, and even forgot their existence entirely. Not to mention Anoqeyån isn't actually what the Elves were taught in IIRC. They were taught in the language of the Old Ones, and then developed their own language from that.
 
MiracleGrow said:
When y'all say fishing expeditions you mean literally going out to fish?
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They mean something along the lines of the following:

1. Want to get a burrito
2. Ask if anyone close to them has a burrito (no)
3. Ask if anyone close to them will get them a burrito (no)
4. ???
5. Magically have a burrito

If you want a burrito, and nobody has or will get you a burrito, you will either need to make a more detailed plan about how to get the burrito (with actual concrete steps to take) or learn to make a burrito yourself.

Setting out with a goal but no plan (a fishing expedition hoping something bites) is so unlikely to work as to be a trap option, and BoneyM doesn't go for trap options.
 
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The whole point about arcane languages is that they're incredibly precise about defining concepts.

They also resonates with the Winds, so you can literally tell if you're diverging as the resonance decreases.
 
Gavin Prince said:
They mean something along the lines of the following:

1. Want to get a burrito
2. Ask if anyone close to them has a burrito (no)
3. Ask if anyone close to them will get them a burrito (no)
4. ???
5. Magically have a burrito

If you want a burrito, and nobody has or will get you a burrito, you will either need to make a more detailed plan about how to get the burrito (with actual concrete steps to take) or learn to make a burrito yourself.

Setting out with a goal but no plan (a fishing expedition hoping something bites) is so unlikely to work as to be a trap option, and BoneyM doesn't go for trap options.
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Deep down I was hoping for a actual fishing trip. Math needs some more healthy hobbies. :V
 
SuperSonicSound said:
WE assumed we could have rune smiths on the expedition, now we know we can't. I would have pushed for this earlier if we knew we wouldn't get rune smiths on the expedition earlier.
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Right, so, you have a justification for asking at the last minute. That doesn't make 'you are asking at the last minute' fallacious.

SuperSonicSound said:
Also we know that they would be willing to teach us Arcane Khazalid but won't be willing teach us to smith a rune. They aren't remotely equivalent.
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They aren't remotely equivalent because we have asked both questions in the thread. Knowing in character is a very different thing, because Mathilde hasn't asked.

This violation of what the player knows vs what the character knows is what I am calling out as the power gaming move here.

Thomasfoolery said:
You might not want it to be so but it is, so making arguments along the lines of "She doesn't/can't know." is really not the case. So i'd appreciate it if you changed the language you used from being so definitive about things that are clearly at odds with the quest setting. As it's basically spreading misinformation at this point.
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I've gotten one example of Khalazid having an unusual property with regards to magical transcription, and the action is 'request to be taught the secret language of the runelords'. I think I'm pretty justified in calling that out as an implausible leap from clue to execution with the expectation of success.

I know Boney has said it is possible. I hate that the main way we seen to want to go about it is as mercenary and trivializing as possible.
 
Glau said:
I know Boney has said it is possible. I hate that the main way we seen to want to go about it is as mercenary and trivializing as possible.
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SuperSonicSound said:
Every one was super enthused for the coins to save even a smidgen of the history that the coins represented, well we're going on a expedition where knowing Arcane Khazalid is likely to make a huge difference in what runic lore we could potentially bring back and save.
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Ah yes, mercenary and trivialising.

Okay.
 
Glau said:
Right, so, you have a justification for asking at the last minute. That doesn't make 'you are asking at the last minute' fallacious.



They aren't remotely equivalent because we have asked both questions in the thread. Knowing in character is a very different thing, because Mathilde hasn't asked.

This violation of what the player knows vs what the character knows is what I am calling out as the power gaming move here.



I've gotten one example of Khalazid having an unusual property with regards to magical transcription, and the action is 'request to be taught the secret language of the runelords'. I think I'm pretty justified in calling that out as an implausible leap from clue to execution with the expectation of success.

I know Boney has said it is possible. I hate that the main way we seen to want to go about it is as mercenary and trivializing as possible.
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Look I get that you dislike 'power gaming', but I'm not sure why you feel so passionately about this. I'm not seeing some massive power boost from knowing the language of runes. Sure some bits around the edges may be useful and given traits like wind herder and the Waystone project they are likely worth it, but at the end of the day it is a cypher to a magical system Mathlde will not and cannot use personally.
 
Glau said:
I've gotten one example of Khalazid having an unusual property with regards to magical transcription, and the action is 'request to be taught the secret language of the runelords'. I think I'm pretty justified in calling that out as an implausible leap from clue to execution with the expectation of success.
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Well, the issue is you're not justified. As I've said, your calibrations for how the world should work and what Mathilde can do are out of tune with how the quest world actually does work here, and insisting otherwise just confuses the issue for people trying to read the thread and understand what's possible. So long as you adequately preface things as merely your opinion of how it should be rather than how things work in quest (as you've sort of done in this post, though you still refuse to acknowledge it's reasonably possible for Mathilde to have intuited this IC) it's not as big a deal, but some of your prior posts leaned much further into the "This can't be done" when it was flatly stated it could be done, spectrum of things
 
DragonParadox said:
Look I get that you dislike 'power gaming', but I'm not sure why you feel so passionately about this. I'm not seeing some massive power boost from knowing the language of runes. Sure some bits around the edges may be useful and given traits like wind herder and the Waystone project they are likely worth it, but at the end of the day it is a cypher to a magical system Mathlde will not and cannot use personally.
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Hey remember that time Kragg told us about how modern Dawi have fallen hugely, and that they've lost loads of lore.

Remember that time we chose to go on a expedition to a Dwarf hold that is presumed to have fallen two hundred years ago that had their own Dwarven rune smiths that had a minor schism and have their own runic knowledge that could potentially have been preserved in their vaults and the expectation we'd have rune smiths on the expedition to find or uncover this.

Yes, wanting to learn Arcane Khazalid is so totally mercenary of us in this context, and all about power gaming. Yep that's my motive. I want to some how make Mathilde more powerful.
 
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A big problem with trying to learn Arcane Khazilid prior to the expedition is that BoneyM has set it as requiring 2 to 3 actions to complete. That's basically all our remaining prep time if we want to be guaranteed to get it done before the expedition, and there's a not-inconsiderable chance there'll be other tasks we still want or need to do during that time. I'm not against learning it, and would in fact love to put some time in on it at some point, but I don't think we can afford to before the expedition leaves.
 
NSMS said:
A big problem with trying to learn Arcane Khazilid prior to the expedition is that BoneyM has set it as requiring 2 to 3 actions to complete. That's basically all our remaining prep time if we want to be guaranteed to get it done before the expedition, and there's a not-inconsiderable chance there'll be other tasks we still want or need to do during that time. I'm not against learning it, and would love to put some time in on it at some point, but I don't think we can afford to before the expedition leaves.
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I think even learning a small amount will be enough to get the jist of anything we find. We wont be able to understand it but it will help when it comes time to prioritise things we've found that need preserving, or maybe it wont and it's all a fools errand but the fact that we don't have any rune smiths on the expedition made the value of this expedition sink massively.

The most likely outcome is every one is dead and we'll be looting vaults of stuff to bring back, with out runesmiths and people that can read Arcane Khazalid the ability to recover things of actual import drops massively.
 
SuperSonicSound said:
Hey remember that time Kragg told us about how modern Dawi have fallen hugely, and that they've lost loads of lore.

Remember that time we chose to go on a expedition to a Dwarf hold that is presumed to have fallen two hundred years ago that had their own Dwarven rune smiths that had a minor schism and have their own runic knowledge that could potentially have been preserved in their vaults and the expectation we'd have rune smiths on the expedition to find or uncover this.
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I mean, if it was that big a deal then I feel like Thorek would have been able to break at least one apprentice loose to poke around.
 
NSMS said:
A big problem with trying to learn Arcane Khazilid prior to the expedition is that BoneyM has set it as requiring 2 to 3 actions to complete. That's basically all our remaining prep time if we want to be guaranteed to get it done before the expedition, and there's a not-inconsiderable chance there'll be other tasks we still want or need to do during that time. I'm not against learning it, and would in fact love to put some time in on it at some point, but I don't think we can afford to before the expedition leaves.
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The mercenary aspect is the *buying* at the last minute, but if it is a 2-3 AP action, then that addresses most of my concern about it being trivial.

I want this secret language of the runesmiths to be cool, and clever, and the payoff to some drama and tension. One AP does not get that, and as you may have guessed I'm in the 3 (with chance of failure) camp.
 
Briefvoice said:
I mean, if it was that big a deal then I feel like Thorek would have been able to break at least one apprentice loose to poke around.
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I don't think this logic holds out. We rolled badly on the recruitment roll and so he priorities defensive commitments to the Karaz Ankor and smithing over other possibilities like recovering lore, that doesn't mean that Karak Dum has no Runic lore of import to recover.

That's why it's more important some one, any one learns arcane Khazalid to be able to help with that potential task. I'd even spend the favour to get the training for some one else if that's in the cards.
 
Glau said:
The mercenary aspect is the *buying* at the last minute, but if it is a 2-3 AP action, then that addresses most of my concern about it being trivial.

I want this secret language of the runesmiths to be cool, and clever, and the payoff to some drama and tension. One AP does not get that, and as you may have guessed I'm in the 3 (with chance of failure) camp.
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There was drama and tension, it was called 'the battle for Karag Eight Peaks' which allowed us at the table to talk to runesmiths and 'catching the Wisdom's Asp before it killed us' which gave us resource runesmiths would actually be willing to teach their language for. Trying to force more tension and drama into things so it feels fairer by some metric does not seem like it adds much.
 
Glau said:
The mercenary aspect is the *buying* at the last minute, but if it is a 2-3 AP action, then that addresses most of my concern about it being trivial.

I want this secret language of the runesmiths to be cool, and clever, and the payoff to some drama and tension. One AP does not get that, and as you may have guessed I'm in the 3 (with chance of failure) camp.
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I can't literally go back in time to argue for doing it earlier so this objection is utterly ridiculous. Until we learned no rune smiths would join us there was no reason to push for Mathilde learning Arcane Khazalid to be able to assist with recovering runic lore in Dum if the place is knocked over.

Buying it at the last minute and that therefore that some how makes mercenary is a ridiculous circular assertion. What makes something Mercenary is the motives behind it. What could be a more noble reason to learn Arcane Khazalid than to assist with the recovery of precious rune lore for the Karaz-Ankor?
 
DragonParadox said:
There was drama and tension, it was called 'the battle for Karag Eight Peaks' which allowed us at the table to talk to runesmiths and 'catching the Wisdom's Asp before it killed us' which gave us resource runesmiths would actually be willing to teach their language for. Trying to force more tension and drama into things so it feels fairer by some metric does not seem like it adds much.
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I mean, in terms of maximum emotional impact, I can understand a feeling of 'not having worked for it'. Getting the Dragon Flask took an insane amount of favor, which we accumulated by doing a lot of things the colleges liked, but because we bought it outright even a potion that gives us an exploding laser face was pretty boring.
 
DragonParadox said:
There was drama and tension, it was called 'the battle for Karag Eight Peaks' which allowed us at the table to talk to runesmiths and 'catching the Wisdom's Asp before it killed us' which gave us resource runesmiths would actually be willing to teach their language for. Trying to force more tension and drama into things so it feels fairer by some metric does not seem like it adds much.
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It continues the story. Cashing out that favor-pot without furthering characters, relationships, politics, worldbuilding- pick one is what one AP (plus whatever about of dwarf favor is needed) gets us in basic word count. I want more from being granted the keys to the secrets of the ancients.



SuperSonicSound said:
What makes something Mercenary is the motives behind it.
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I think this is the core of our disagreement? I think the execution of a thing, rather than the motives behind it, is what makes it mercenary.
 
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chocolote12 said:
I mean, in terms of maximum emotional impact, I can understand a feeling of 'not having worked for it'. Getting the Dragon Flask took an insane amount of favor, which we accumulated by doing a lot of things the colleges liked, but because we bought it outright even a potion that gives us an exploding laser face was pretty boring.
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We just need to blow up something cool.
 
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