Warhammer Fantasy: Divided Loyalties - an Advisor's Quest
- Thread starter Boney
- Start date
- Fantasy Users' Choice!
-
- Tags
- warhammer warhammer fantasy fantasy be gay do crimes (gay) female protagonist pansexual protagonist ck2 quest divided loyalties mountain vietnam ranald is real this is a dwarf quest (dwarfs) this is maybe an elf quest this is not a vampire quest this is not an empire quest try it and find out open voting
Voted best in category in the Users' Choice awards.
- Location
- Chicago
- Pronouns
- She/They
We were going to have the golds build it for us. That really just kicks the whole arguement out from underneath you. We can have other wizards do this. So doing it with other wizards is likely to be better than having Mathilde try to solo it.
You are basically running 'cabinet of curios plus the interests of the nearby wizards' which seems more likely to get the same end to me- a mirror of the same things being done in the University of Altdorf and the Gold college. If you are already in Altdorf, those are much shorter trips.
I am pitching "if you want to work with people outside your college, come here."
Sure if we asked the whole of the Gold College to call on we could have found someone with windsight as fine. There is no guarantee that we can find one such in a branch college.
- Location
- Finland
I am running "natural philosophy and artifice", which while broad, is nowhere near as broad as "whatever i want".
Our backlog is, at most, a starting point, and the reason people will come is because we are going to actively recruit them, offer them funding, work space, potential access to the waystone project, and library and mourning, and eventually the K8P library.
and while waystone project and library of mourning are not permanent features, once a research branch becomes succesful, we can keep it moving from the power of its success because the focus is actually a comprehensible one.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Jeez, just think:
(This is part of why I think the people worrying about the collaborative college plan are overreacting. This isn't a huge deal. If it were a huge deal, it would not have been optional to specify the branch beyond the four big specialties of Research/Library/Education/Outpost.)
All the current controversy could have been avoided if we'd taken Boney's word about specifying the branch beyond the four big things being optional and just, like, not done it.
(This is part of why I think the people worrying about the collaborative college plan are overreacting. This isn't a huge deal. If it were a huge deal, it would not have been optional to specify the branch beyond the four big specialties of Research/Library/Education/Outpost.)
The Phoenixian
The Glacier Witch
- Location
- My own little world
Want to look into something that requires multiple traditions to unravel like Bok? Here's a place for it.
Want to call in a Runelord like Thorek to give their insight on some mystery like back when we did with AV? Here's a place for it.
Want to make some big multiwind project like the Eye of Gazul? Here's a place for it.
When and if we get Windherder up and running? There's that too and whatever it allows.
Maybe it's even just looking into something really basic. Like the windsoak mushrooms or working with low-level spells like the MAPP and Matrix.
Maybe even stuff like how we talked about how the Rite of Way could theoretically have similar designs in other colleges. (Grey road, Gold or Jade bridge, other colleges having their own solutions to the problems at play, etc.)
- Pronouns
- He/Him
1: We emphatically, word of god do NOT have volans grade mage sight. But with a single AP, we can teach somebody up to a good enough standard that it replaces their sight entirely (Johann).
2: "Humans are mystics" and yet they still cast standard spells and make standard enchantments, they are still taught. You have not explained how your proposed barrier applies here in the slightest.
3: "We don't know how much of the trait our paper and lectures taught, therefore it's not enough" is a logical fallacy. Nevermind that we can tell how much people are learning by the questions they ask, this being a rather standard part of running lectures. We have an array of trait-derived skills that we have taught, and you are the one proposing that somehow windherder, or parts of it necessary to contribute research to it, is not one of them.
In fact, let me go further. Do you have even a single example of a trait-derived skill that we have attempted to teach but failed? Even one? So far, the only thing in support of your idea that the college will be useless for advancing research into windherder is "I don't think traits can be taught".
Meanwhile, the college of collaboration charter is a narrowing of focus from sweet ride; we've gone from "multi-wind studies and a hodgepodge of natural sciences whose unstated (for some reason) thrust is collaboration with dwarves" to "collaboration between colleges and other magic disciplines". Despite this, many people are now claiming that this will make it less focused.
Quick question about that: Are any of you voting for it because you want to study geology? How about metallurgy? No? Then those are extraneous, focus-dwindling parts of the charter. As boney has said of many a topic, if you want to do something, vote to actually do it instead of dancing around it and saying doing other stuff is in fact doing the thing better. That list of natural philosophy topics was an overcomplicated, circituitous attempt at "collaborate with each other and dorfs".
[X] Plan: Cleaned Up College of Collaboration
-[X] Branch College
--[X] Headquarters: Karag Nar
--[X] Charter: Research: Studies involving collaboration between the Colleges of Magic, and between the Colleges and divine miracle-workers, with a particular focus on working with Runesmiths.
--[X] Colleges (all)
-[X] Karak Eight Peaks: To the degree it safely and sustainably can, let K8P gather, preserve, and disseminate knowledge to all goodly folk. Let the tool of this boon be a library and all the books that might be gathered to it, watched over by those of any race who would swear and be accepted as librarians.
-[X] Karak Kadrin Engineers Guild: A gyrocarriage
...While this, is straight to the actual point and more focused and effective as a result. By the standards Boney has repeatedly laid out and affirmed, it is a cleaner and more attractive charter. It's directly applicable to the majority of our backlog, we have an entirely new field of magic to explore with it and no indication what-so-ever that we are incapable of passing it on, it's not something the colleges in Altdorf are equipped to do, and it is an extension of the arc of Mathilde's greatest marks on the world.
Or you could just toss that in favor of geology I guess. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Last edited:
- Location
- Finland
Not specifying means a broader focus, but freedom to actually acti within that broad focus.
Specifying the focus means we are to focus on that thing, and i would assume going outside the focus is not going to be looked kindly.
So i think that badly formulated focus could be worse than no specified focus.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
That's kind of the point, though. To create an institution that'll carry forward the collaborative spirit Mathilde has personally cultivated and make it an organizational thing that can last even after Mathile herself is no longer involved.
- Location
- Finland
Thing is though that lot of us don't think it can, it's too unfocused and to reliant on a Mathilde like figure to keep it going.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
That applies to what you're voting for more than to Collaboration, dude. Ours puts the actual goal in the charter - RRASR just throws together a bunch of junk that we hope will add up to "collaborate with dwarves" and lets it go.
I also don't see any reason why the Collaboration college would remain dependant on mathilde. We've already passed on our values of working between colleges and with the dwarves to our ducklings, and some of them are flat-out making a life-long career of it. We have instilled a norm of respect for and collaboration with wizards into an entire karak. What part of this reads as irreproduceable? On what basis can it be presumed that there will never be anyone to pass the torch to?
If you want to do something, just vote to do it. I do not think that the thing you want to do is "geology".
Last edited:
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
I disagree with it being too unfocused, but maybe I'm wrong.
Lets say you wanted to narrow the focus, to help it survive - what would your recommended narrowing be?
We've seen that outsider votes can catch up, so if the focus is too wide please suggest what extra limitation you feel would help.
- Location
- Finland
Yes, the goal of "collaborate", with no further elaboration on what.
We already have a perfectly good focus of natural philosophy and artifice.
I see little value in adding "but you must have two different people from different colleges/species working on the project" as an extra complication as especially valuable.
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
What I want, first and foremost, is to have institutional bonds between the various Colleges, and between the Colleges and the Karaz Ankor.
People were unhappy with how Plan Redshirt diluted the research focus to accomplish that - which, fair enough, it did.
But now many of those same people are complaining about Cleaned Up College of Collaboration, which accomplished my collaboration goal while having a more narrow and thus more focussed research thrust.
This strikes me as disingenuous - surely the same arguments that applied to picking RRSR over Plan Redshirt - that a more narrow and well defined focus would allow for better recruitment and provide better research - also apply to picking CoC over RRSR? Why aren't the people who were talking about how Waystone research is their top priority jumping for joy at this change?
So far nobody has actually successfully argued that Cleaned Up College of Collaboration doesn't apply to our backlog - at worst, it won't apply to some minor investigations of artifacts, while definitely applying to several long standing major research chains and our next big upcoming project. So I really don't understand this sudden pivot against the plan.
People were unhappy with how Plan Redshirt diluted the research focus to accomplish that - which, fair enough, it did.
But now many of those same people are complaining about Cleaned Up College of Collaboration, which accomplished my collaboration goal while having a more narrow and thus more focussed research thrust.
This strikes me as disingenuous - surely the same arguments that applied to picking RRSR over Plan Redshirt - that a more narrow and well defined focus would allow for better recruitment and provide better research - also apply to picking CoC over RRSR? Why aren't the people who were talking about how Waystone research is their top priority jumping for joy at this change?
So far nobody has actually successfully argued that Cleaned Up College of Collaboration doesn't apply to our backlog - at worst, it won't apply to some minor investigations of artifacts, while definitely applying to several long standing major research chains and our next big upcoming project. So I really don't understand this sudden pivot against the plan.
Large Scale enchanting as it's inherently more stable when done with multiple winds (towers, bridges, alters etc etc) would be an example.
things that doesn't need a mathy to work. Just a very skilled wizard to head it.
- Location
- Outside the Box
- Pronouns
- She/Her
From our last turn before the Expedition, (and our most recent Artifact list) here's a list of research actions that a research college branch may be able to assist with:
Doesn't look so big now, does it? Some of these would have follow-up research actions, and some of them wouldn't. But if we did one per turn using a half-action, we could get through the high priority/very interesting actions relatively quickly. Especially if we have an entire research organization with multiple wizards/assistants helping instead of two Gold wizards who we often had to assign to non-research projects instead.
- Location
- New Brunswick, NJ
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
Maybe? I think it would have to be a really badly formulated focus, though. But this is why I hate write-in decisions in quests: having a maximum amount of player freedom doesn't translate to a maximum amount of fun. I'd much rather just pick stuff off a curated list of options than try to invent it all from scratch. The last big write-in vote* was the Gold College purchase, which I'm sure veterans can agree was a very enjoyable few days in the thread.
Basically, I don't think Boney is trying to give us rope by which to hang ourselves. This is a rewards vote, where we are spending the accumulated goodwill we got for awesome prizes. I think the concern that some have floated of "what if we screw up the wording and don't get an awesome prize but instead a useless AP sink that we are committed to keeping" is completely baseless and kind of insulting besides. Boney is not an asshole genie.
*Well, there was the "come up with explanations for what's going on at Karag Dum" vote, but that didn't commit us to a course of action, it was just "come up with ideas that Mathilde will toss around."
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- He/Him
uhh?
I don't know if you've thinking about this right now, but branch college charters are things that are meant to last for centuries and longer. A sharply limited scope that we can see the end of right now is not one of those things.
Are we to also reduce the colleges of magic to a collection of "study this wind, and no further elaboration on what"? Or perhaps we could call Bell Labs "the study of electronics, and no further elaboration on what". Because I'm not really seeing the difference there, and the thing that makes a charter unappealing is "we could do this better somewhere else" or "this is too ecclectic to get people together for". Making a joint research lab is neither.
The immediate focus is something that we would decide, and advertise, as the lab's head. The charter is not merely for what we want to use it for right now, but for what the lab shall be for the long haul.
And said charter is directly better at both of them than your favored plan.
Last edited:
I am not really arguing that.
I'm arguing that as is, it won't survive passed Mathy's death as the skills/traits/connections needed to lead it are to up to chance for there to consistently have someone to lead it.
on the other side, the other option needs the leader to be a skilled enchanter or be studying a novel natural from of magic objects. Not only are there a few enchanters around the colleges, but Max and is magic smithing and maybe in a few years the Bright duckling and her magic engineering could take over.
hell, Pan and the mushrooms could keep it going for awhile if needed.
- Location
- Finland
We've had repeated pointed out how half or more of our backlog is not a collaborative effort.
And people arguing that the charter allows for anything we want, makes it ridiculously broad to a point of absurdity.
Charter: Research (multi-wind studies (including waystones), geological, metallurgical, and ecological studies, enchanting and artifice)
Multi wind studies encourages inter college cooperation, waystones have dwarves and elves baked in.
Succesful cooperative research will encourage more, just adding a "must be cooperative" merely adds an extra hurdle for anyone in need of funding and makes it more likely the branch fails.
I just don't see there being some deep wellspring of untapped desire for cooperation between colleges.
If a magister has an idea for a project that needs help, they can do so, they might be unable to do it inside the college, but they can buy or rent space elsewhere.
And i doubt that runemisths or priests have much desire for working with wizards either. Though some probably exist, but not to a point where i feel research branch dedicated for that alone is sustainable, or necessary.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Then don't leave it up to chance. Using the college to do windherder studies implies that we're going to be at minimum gradually teaching people to do what we do. Even if we remain the best at it, you don't need someone to be better than mathilde when she dies for them to pick up the torch - at the moment we have the base skills to start research, but by then we'll be standing head and shoulders above where we are now.
Is it really such a stretch that we can bring a few people up to our current level of necessary skills, given that?
- Location
- Manchester, UK
- Pronouns
- He/They
So you'd rather a version that doesn't include collaborations that aren't enchantments, and doesn't include the use of windherding?
I can see that as a reasonable option. Want to propose a vote for it? I won't support it, but others might.
"Come here and work on inter/extra-collegiate collaborative projects that couldn't be done elsewhere." Far more tempting than "come here and work on one of these six arbitrary themes most of which you'd be better off doing elsewhere."
Except no-one is willing to actually put up a vote with that as the pair of foci. Instead you're hoping that BoneyM will ignore the "multi-wind" part of the RSR plan, and will glue together the other five disparate chunks into only two chunks.
Of course "natural philosophy" aka "everything other than magic" with no further elaboration on what would be just as broad as "inter/extra-collegiate collaborations".
- Location
- The Surface Of A Hostile Planet
I don't intend for Mathilde to die any time soon, and that means that there's plenty of time for all the Wizards who volunteer to go to a collaborative research institute and do a bunch of collaboration with other wizards and runesmiths to pick up those traits, skills, and connections.
If we want those connections to persist past Mathilde's death, this is exactly the means to do so.