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Total Members Voted: 21

[blueturtle1134]

oh god, of the first bet

...what?

Also, disregard everything I said in my last post. I'm... still deciding where to go next.

[blueturtle1134]

It would appear that you all like voting on things.


Wenton Celling is taking a stroll around the base when a man walks in through the front doors.

“Wenton Celling,” the man calls out, in a heavy Antarctican accent.

Celling turns towards him and regards him suspiciously. “Who might you be?”

“My name is Douem Pychim,” he says. “As you may have known, Erin Quill has been arrested on counts of treason against the Republic.”

Celling narrows his eyes. “What of it?”

Pychim moves closer to Celling. “I am told that he regarded you as a… protege of sorts. That he explained the use of many of his technologies to you and enlisted your aid in field-testing them several times. He even made you his ambassador of sorts in Brazil when he left for Antarctica.”

“Yes. So?”

Pychim tilts his head. “You are naturally under suspicion as a result of Erin’s recent actions. Of course, it could also be possible that you are totally innocent. However, Padelheb would prefer you as an ally, using your knowledge of Erin Quill and his works to certain ends.”

“Quit the political doublespeak. What’s your point?”

Pychim scowls. “I will remain here, as your unofficial liason on behalf of Padelheb, to make sure your actions align with his motivations. You’ll help him in certain ways to secure his hold on Antarctica and he’ll put all his support behind you.”

How do you respond?
A: Have the sucker thrown out of your fortress.
B: Arrest him. This is possible, as Brazil High Command is very much pro-Quill.
C: Reject all his claims and order him out of your sight.
D: Tell him you will consider it and allow him to remain.
E: Ignore him and tell him to leave.
F: Agree to the demands and allow him to remain.
G: Something else…


And again, homophonic names. Douem Pychim, strung together, sounds like Do Impeach Him. You may take that into consideration.

[Glass]

B, and make sure that he doesn't have anything that would allow him to communicate this fact, and determine who else is here on Padelheb's orders and determine whether or not they're safe to have here unarrested.

[blueturtle1134]

Mental effects

So two of the most useful traits of Erin Quill were that 1) he was sure of himself to the point of overconfidence and 2) everyone else around him trusted him and listened hard to what he was saying. This basically means that he could come up with the most outrageous plans unhindered by humility or by the demands of anyone else.

Wenton Celling does not have these.

To correctly portray the difficulties of being a commanding officer AND operating a country that has de facto seceded from its governing entity AND knowing your decisions have a good chance to ruin the world AND grappling with the existential crisis from relaizing that your entire world is a piece of fiction…

...I’m adding two more factors into the equation. Literally. Two numbers, changing with time and affecting your capabilities, called Sanity and Influence.


Sanity (SAN)

The ability of your character (Wenton Celling) to trust his own decisions. This includes confidence as well as stress and general mental health.

Sanity changes in two ways:

• Before each decision, Sanity naturally regenerates by 10% of its original value, rounding down to nearest percent. This means that keeping Sanity high will help in the long run. If you are at 50%, for example, you regenerate 5%.
  
• Most choices incur a sanity cost. This reflects the strain put upon your mental facilities of making an unorthodox or costly decision. This varies wildly from decision to decision (see below)

Spoiler: Sanity Details (click to show/hide)

This will be my decision guide for how much Sanity an action costs. All items stack. There may be variance, but these will be the guideposts.

-2 if you are unsure of the outcome
-3 if it involves the Fourth Wall
-3 if you have to leave some avenues of attack unguarded
-4 if civilians are put at risk
-5 if innocents are put at risk

You cannot undertake an action if it would drain more than 25% of your current sanity.

Sanity means that on occasion, you will have to take the easy way out.


Influence (INF)

Influence represents how highly Celling’s advice is regarded by other people. More specifically, his superiors and colleagues at Brazil HighCom.

Influence is changed in two ways.

• All actions have an influence cost representing how hard it is to convince others to listen up.
  
• All results of actions change an intermediate value named Fame, which then carries over to Influence. Fame is long-term and decaying.

Spoiler: Influence Details (click to show/hide)

For costs, these are the guidelines:

(these are change, so negative = more cost, less pay)

-5 if it annoys a public figure
-5 if others cannot comprehend the reason
-6 if it goes against existing policies
-10 if it annoys the public in general
+5 if it helps a public figure
+10 if it helps the people
+3 if you (in the thread) come up with a good defence that non-fourth-wall users can understand

(and oh yes, you can gain influence by an action if you suck up to authority enough)

As for fame:

Fame is an integer quantity. Every “turn” (read: question from me) fame moves 1 unit closer to 0, and the current fame is added to the current influence. This means that fame’s benefit is quadratic, as increasing it a bit makes it bigger and longer.

Unlike direct influence, fame is not based on individuals, but on the other people of the military.

Fame is going to be much smaller, owing toward its greater, long-term potential. Guidelines:

-1 for losing people
-2 for letting civilians get killed
+2 for achieving long-term goals of the military or public (this includes capturing rebels)

Influence forces you to consider what normal people think.


We start off with:

Sanity: 100%
Influence: 100%
Fame: 0

And now I can rewrite the previous decision with the values.

A: Have the sucker thrown out of your fortress. (SAN -2, INF -1)
B: Arrest him. This is possible, as Brazil High Command is very much pro-Quill. (SAN -4, INF -1|6)
C: Reject all his claims and order him out of your sight. (SAN -1, INF -0|1)
D: Tell him you will consider it and allow him to remain. (SAN -0|1, INF +0|2)
E: Ignore him and tell him to leave. (SAN -1, INF +0)
F: Agree to the demands and allow him to remain. (SAN -2|4, INF -5|+5)
G: Something else…

An aside - the n|m means “random number between n and m”


Since I think we’ll be focusing on Brazil for a while, and I have more time, I’m going to overcomplicate it a bit.[/list]

[Glass]

...
*ahem*

While imprisoning this dude may reduce our empire-wide influence, considering that most of Brazil is pro-Quill and anti-Padelheb, actions against him and his agents would likely be good for our local influence.

[blueturtle1134]

...
*ahem*

While imprisoning this dude may reduce our empire-wide influence, considering that most of Brazil is pro-Quill and anti-Padelheb, actions against him and his agents would likely be good for our local influence.

Yup, and he'll go slather anti-Celling propaganda krap all over the city. Plus, your own men might doubt the wisdom of jailing someone that is still technically an ally. We've seceded in all ways expect officially.

[blueturtle1134]

...though you bring up a good point. I'll remove the "public figure" penalty.

Against likely every rule of sane GMing I have put, in abbr tags, my reasons for each and every penalty. I think these are good reasons. Please do not argue.

[Paxiecrunchle]

E, but also let him know this: We do not recognize Erin Quill as a traitor, we do not recogonize pandelheps coup as legitimate authority, WE are not rebels we are ONE OF THE FEW true bastion of legitimate authority left here, tell that to that snake pandelheb, and inform him that if he wants to avoid civil war that littlefucker would be wise to stay out of our court. Also if He does anything to quill like lop of his head that we shall turn quill into a martyr and a cause to rally behind.
 LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!

[Paxiecrunchle]

Also why does agreeing to help him either help him(the lackey), either help or hinder our influence at random?

[blueturtle1134]

Also why does agreeing to help him either help him(the lackey), either help or hinder our influence at random?

Maybe the men will go, "Oh! We're on good terms with the South now!"

Maybe they'll go, "You succumbed to the desires of the traditionalist weaklings!"

It would have been a hard plus, but Padelheb's standing in Brazil is variable.

[blueturtle1134]

Also, tiebreak would be nice.

[Glass]

E, but also let him know this: We do not recognize Erin Quill as a traitor, we do not recogonize pandelheps coup as legitimate authority, WE are not rebels we are ONE OF THE FEW true bastion of legitimate authority left here, tell that to that snake pandelheb, and inform him that if he wants to avoid civil war that littlefucker would be wise to stay out of our court. Also if He does anything to quill like lop of his head that we shall turn quill into a martyr and a cause to rally behind.
 LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!

+1

[blueturtle1134]

E, but also let him know this: We do not recognize Erin Quill as a traitor, we do not recogonize pandelheps coup as legitimate authority, WE are not rebels we are ONE OF THE FEW true bastion of legitimate authority left here, tell that to that snake pandelheb, and inform him that if he wants to avoid civil war that littlefucker would be wise to stay out of our court. Also if He does anything to quill like lop of his head that we shall turn quill into a martyr and a cause to rally behind.
 LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!

+1

That would count as C, not E. Don't try to get out of losing 0.5 INF this way. E would be just making an excuse or feigning incompetence/ignorance.

[Glass]

C still works.

[Paxiecrunchle]

E, but also let him know this: We do not recognize Erin Quill as a traitor, we do not recogonize pandelheps coup as legitimate authority, WE are not rebels we are ONE OF THE FEW true bastion of legitimate authority left here, tell that to that snake pandelheb, and inform him that if he wants to avoid civil war that littlefucker would be wise to stay out of our court. Also if He does anything to quill like lop of his head that we shall turn quill into a martyr and a cause to rally behind.
 LONG LIVE THE REPUBLIC!

+1

That would count as C, not E. Don't try to get out of losing 0.5 INF this way. E would be just making an excuse or feigning incompetence/ignorance.

Why on earth is there no way to gain influence this way? What about those personnel that share our sentiments?