Scheming Princess Quest

[Guile]

To get a bit more into the guts of the Magical Twin thing;

If you get a Blessing or a Curse? If by the auspices of fate you're Beautiful or Inspiring or have the personality of a brick? Your brother gets a half-measure of that. And vice versa for his; so if you give him Blood Knight, you're going to be a little more bloodthirsty and a little better with a sword.

If it's something he intentionally walked into, like Demonology? Then the Princess will have something of an opposite trait; she'll be ready with the holy water.

 

[redaeth]

If it's something he intentionally walked into, like Demonology? Then the Princess will have something of an opposite trait; she'll be ready with the holy water.

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So how does that go with buggered? Does that mean we're a lesbian? Since you don't exactly choose your orientation. Or is that one of the neutral options with no link?

 

[BFldyq]

So, with the Dark Secrets reverse:
Kitten Murder: We're compassionate and caring.
Playboy: We're a prude.
Old Gods: We have a strong faith in the New Church.
Demonology: We're utterly opposed to the forces of hell.
Buggery: We're straight, and a homophobe.

So, my vote:

Spoiler: Plan: Wow, we're a Mary Sue!

Dark Secret
[X] Direst Crulety: 0

Eventual Fate
[X] Kept Close: -10

Princess
[X] People's Princess: -20
[X] Charming: -20
[X] Beautiful: -20
[X] Mature: -20
[X] Inspiring: -20
[X] Impassioned: +10

Prince
[X] Dark Charisma: +20
[X] Handsome: +20
[X] Blood Knight: +20
[X] Magical Prodigy: +20

Points total: -20 Points, 20 Points remaining.

 

[redaeth]

So, with the Dark Secrets reverse:
Kitten Murder: We're compassionate and caring.
Playboy: We're a prude.
Old Gods: We have a strong faith in the New Church.
Demonology: We're utterly opposed to the forces of hell.
Buggery: We're straight, and a homophobe.

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The kitten murder and demonology are right. Playboy might mean we're simply strongly monogamous. Old Gods and Buggery however don't qualify, they are both things that happened to him, not that he chose. So we'd get them as well.

Which kinda makes me want to pick Buggery or Old Gods.

 

[Bobs Beard]

So how does that go with buggered? Does that mean we're a lesbian? Since you don't exactly choose your orientation. Or is that one of the neutral options with no link?

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How would homosexuality be the pale side of... homosexuality?

Obviously the flipside of that would be someone going super-orthodox on heterosexuality and being all traditional about pairings and junk.

 

[redaeth]

How would homosexuality be the pale side of... homosexuality?

Obviously the flipside of that would be someone going super-orthodox on heterosexuality and being all traditional about pairings and junk.

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Homosexuality isn't something you choose. Similarly for the mark. The mark isn't something he chooses, its inflicted on him. It only turns into a mirror if he chooses it. Which is why I'm asking about it.

Bolding the important part. Gotta be an intentional choice for it to be mirrored onto us.

If it's something he intentionally walked into, like Demonology? Then the Princess will have something of an opposite trait; she'll be ready with the holy water.

Click to shrink...

 

[BFldyq]

Unless he's bisexual, but is deliberately sticking with males.

 

[Guile]

I think I'll let what happens in the event of Buggered be a surprise. Gotta get my jollies somewhere.

 

[redaeth]

I think I'll let what happens in the event of Buggered be a surprise. Gotta get my jollies somewhere.

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Goddamn it. Now I want to actually switch to Buggered to find out. Fuck it. I'm switching.

 

[Adyen]

Buggered [-10]
Playboy [10]

This combination is the funniest thing ever. Thus...

Terrible Accident' [-10]

Mature [20]
Inspiring [20]
Plain [-10]

Dark Charisma [-20]
Handsome [-20]

20 points leftover in case there's still a phase 3?

And oh god we're the super-homophobic princess that is against same-sex relationships. And the prince wants to recreate the kingdom filled with yaoi and yuri.

 

[Jiven]

Prince's Secret –
[x] Mark of the (Old) Gods [10]

Your Eventual Fate –
[x] 'Terrible Accident' [-10]

Princess's Disposition
[x] Charming [20] – You can bring a smile to almost any face. You are never without friends.
[x] Beautiful [20] – You are the jewel of the kingdom. Your suitors are without number. Men weep at the thought of your eventual marriage, and when it comes, your bride price will be astronomical.
[x] Childish [-10] – You are cute and energetic, but not thought particularly reliable.

Prince's Disposition
[x] Dark Charisma [-20] – Your brother is gifted with words, and can sway people to his side almost without effort. Even those that see his true self might be brought around in time, and people do not wish to believe the worst in him.
[x] Handsome [-20] – Your brother has never had trouble inviting people into his circle or his bed.
[x] Blood Knight [-20] – Your brother has a great talent for the sword, and is a fan of honor duels. Those that slight him may find themselves trapped into public blood duels and cut down without mercy.

 

[Pipeman]

[X] Plan Darkened

As hilarious as the possibility of someone with an actually messed up deviancy getting upset at her brother's homosexuality is, I think I'll resist that mystery box.

 

[Ct613hulu]

[X] Plan Darkened

 

[Guile]

Interesting choices so far. I would not have expected Blood Knight and Magical Prodigy to be so popular for the Prince, since the first round of character creation was angling for the war princess.

 

[Cassiemouse]

Interesting choices so far. I would not have expected Blood Knight and Magical Prodigy to be so popular for the Prince, since the first round of character creation was angling for the war princess.

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Could you explain more of what you mean here?

 

[redaeth]

By choosing both Magical Prodigy and Blood Knight for the Prince it means he is going to be a real menace on the battlefield and choosing him to go against him there is basically suicide. And yet we picked a magic kingdom and an absentee guardian. Yet suddenly we're going for the social route. I think the biggest problem with this period of character creation is there is no clear cut warrior\mage\noble thing.

 

[Guile]

By choosing both Magical Prodigy and Blood Knight for the Prince it means he is going to be a real menace on the battlefield and choosing him to go against him there is basically suicide. And yet we picked a magic kingdom and an absentee guardian. Yet suddenly we're going for the social route. I think the biggest problem with this period of character creation is there is no clear cut warrior\mage\noble thing.

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Well, not suicide. But it does make trying to knock him off physically significantly harder. Assassinating the Prince of a mage kingdom was always going to be pretty tricky though.

There is no clear cut 'warrior/mage/noble' thing at this point because Blessings and Curses are mostly just benefits imparted by being part of a kickass line of wizard-kings. The skills that will make you what you are is kind of an ongoing process starting next update.

 

[Pipeman]

Edit: Wouldn't be adverse to dropping inspiring and handsome from the list, getting the same number of points, but leave him a combat specced prince pursuing a seduction strategy without the core skill for it, while giving us the maximum ability to push him there.

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Personally, I'd like to keep him handsome at the very least.

While him being handsome will certainly help him in his seduction efforts, the simple fact of the matter is that physical attractiveness is not equally beneficial to both genders in a society like this.
Considering that thanks to the bleedover effect he'll never be unattractive unless we decide to miss out on those benefits ourselves, giving him his own handsomeness boon is only going to be a single part of his seduction repertoire next to the bleedover effect of charming, being a strong warrior, being a powerful mage and being the goddamn crownprince and therefor will have the greatest effect when he's trying to seduce our young and impressionable friends primarily interested in his charming good looks, which is best dealt with by not telling our young and impressionable friends important shit.

In contrast getting that half boon of attractiveness on top of our own is what moves us from really good-looking to the most beautiful woman of [insert large region here], which is both more useful to a princess than it would be for prince to be known as the most beautiful man and boosts the likelyhood of any schemes focused on him developing an obsession on us, given that we'd have to compete with all of the other women he can choose from, which either way there are likely going to be a lot of.
A prince that has who the fuck knows how many lovers is going to be a lot more likely to enter foolish duels with our suitors out of jealousy, if we actually outclass his lovers in the looks department, and, given that even our own boon alone would result in suitors without number, doubling up on that by getting half of his could result in an endless stream of would be suitors whose families our blood knight brother can piss off by killing them over their interest in us.

Of course this is all oversimplifying matters a bit and this is only chargen, so who knows where we'll end up, but I think my basic reasoning should be clear.

 

[Drak4806]

The dark and terrible secret?
[X] Playboy [10]

Your fate in case of failure?
[X] Convent [0]

A blessing or a curse?
[X] Mature [20]
[X] Charming [20]

Prince's Disposition
[X] Blood Knight [-20]
[X] Handsome [-20]

The cruelty choice reminds me to much of Joffery.

 

[MHLord]

Prince's Secret –
[x] Mark of the (Old) Gods [10]
Your Eventual Fate –
[x] 'Terrible Accident' [-10]
Princess's Disposition
[x] Charming [20] – You can bring a smile to almost any face. You are never without friends.
[x] Beautiful [20] – You are the jewel of the kingdom. Your suitors are without number. Men weep at the thought of your eventual marriage, and when it comes, your bride price will be astronomical.
[x] Childish [-10] – You are cute and energetic, but not thought particularly reliable.
Prince's Disposition
[x] Dark Charisma [-20] – Your brother is gifted with words, and can sway people to his side almost without effort. Even those that see his true self might be brought around in time, and people do not wish to believe the worst in him.
[x] Handsome [-20] – Your brother has never had trouble inviting people into his circle or his bed.
[x] Blood Knight [-20] – Your brother has a great talent for the sword, and is a fan of honor duels. Those that slight him may find themselves trapped into public blood duels and cut down without mercy.

 

[Adyen]

The main problem I see here is that there are multiple voting choices here. The person who won the first round wants the character one way, but people who win the next rounds might want it another: thus the thing where we have clashing plans.

 

[Pipeman]

The main problem I see here is that there are multiple voting choices here. The person who won the first round wants the character one way, but people who win the next rounds might want it another: thus the thing where we have clashing plans.

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Given that the person who created the last round's plan is one of the people that has the GM scratching his head slightly at the somewhat inconsistent direction, I'm pretty sure it's either a case not thinking things through in the first part of chargen, changing their minds midway or going for a not immediately obvious angle.

Personally, while I'm somewhat disappointed that the last rounds choices weren't opitmized for a socially focused princess, I don't see that as a reason not to rectify things now, considering that I still see that as the most viable route to the throne, whereas I never considered the military princess route to be a particularly strong route in a nation whose military strength was largely focused in its mage houses.

 

[Bobs Beard]

I kinda feel that we should do the vote as one massive block at the end of all the different creation voting prompts, but hey, that's me.

 

[Darkened]

Given that the person who created the last round's plan is one of the people that has the GM scratching his head slightly at the somewhat inconsistent direction, I'm pretty sure it's either a case not thinking things through in the first part of chargen, changing their minds midway or going for a not immediately obvious angle.

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No viable military perks means we can't really build toward that. Liberal gives us more freedome, and overbearing turns out to have been a bigger cost than anticipated for the points. That said, we're still making good use of lesser title and tutors, so the only potential waste is liberal, which I still expect to benefit us in the long run even if it hurts us a bit in tandem with overbearing in the immediate future.

 

[Pipeman]

No viable military perks means we can't really build toward that. Liberal gives us more freedome, and overbearing turns out to have been a bigger cost than anticipated for the points. That said, we're still making good use of lesser title and tutors, so the only potential waste is liberal, which I still expect to benefit us in the long run even if it hurts us a bit in tandem with overbearing in the immediate future.

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The GM just said that these are just the traits you start out with and that most of the character's skillset will be determined by the actual game.
And though I don't really like the idea myself, there are in fact several traits that'd help towards a military route and being naturally talented at the fighting itself is not actually required to get good at it.

For example, you could just go:

Power At Any Cost [20] - Maximises the likelyhood that the secret leads to open battle, where the warrior princess' skillset can fully come into play.
'Terrible Accident' [-10] - More points and again increases the likelyhood of an open confrontation.
People's Princess [20] - Popular support is important to make our accusations stick and to get a bunch of enraged non-nobles to help put those demonic bastards down.
Mature [20] - Being taken seriously is as important for the same reasons, though more directed at other powerful players.
Inspiring [20] - And so is being a rallying point, not to mention that being a warrior rpincess isn't all about wading into battle personally.
Impassioned [-10] - Need the points and quite frankly the bleedover may in fact hurt the guy making secret deals with demons more than the forthright and righteous warrior princess.
Handsome [-20] - Need the points and this is not as useful for a man as the others options while the bleedover is nice.

Optional and a bit risky:
Bloodknight for the bleedover bonus and to make him some more enemies and in the hope that we'll have enough of a number advantage to still put him and whatever demonic powers he gets down in the final confrontation.
Would most likely use those points to buy another bonus (either attractiveness to increase the appeal to the masses and make us an even better figurehead in the fight against everything demonic or to Charming for more stronger personal connections).

Alltogether, you'd get a bonus to almost everything you need to trigger the climactic battle against our brother with a reasonable amount of forces on our side at all which means you can spend more time pumping up the actual combat stats during the game itself.

 

[Xicree]

Thing is... my vote is based around the idea that I want both sides to be strong. The brother and the sister both while not being equals they would have enough clout between them to really wreck things if it came to open conflict.

To that end my vote has been about building them both up as high as i could. Because from there military solutions and political solutions which are offensive in nature start to look less promising. To look like if they would cause enough termoil that it would break the kingdom in the process.


Which then leaves the Seduction angle much more viable as a way to save the kingdom from the massive and powerful civil war which would fallow in the wake of them duking it out.

 

[inverted_helix]

Which then leaves the Seduction angle much more viable as a way to save the kingdom from the massive and powerful civil war which would fallow in the wake of them duking it out.

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I know what blasphemy what I'm about to say is: but this isn't the NSFW quest section. I don't think we're supposed to do any seducing.

 

[Adyen]

I know what blasphemy what I'm about to say is: but this isn't the NSFW quest section. I don't think we're supposed to do any seducing.

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Clearly, that means my vote is the best because we're going to be preventing him from his icky homosexual relationships and ANY sexual relationships so that we can keep this SFW. *joke*

 

[Darkened]

We're also starting out at 10. While I expect most of the early quest to be gathering resources, building up basic alliances and not much real conflict, pinging everything on a seduction strategy at age 10 is really kinda icky on some level.

Granted, he's our twin brother and we'd already know he's a playboy at 10 with the vote I have.

 

[Guile]

I know what blasphemy what I'm about to say is: but this isn't the NSFW quest section. I don't think we're supposed to do any seducing.

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Seduction is a thing that can happen, although acquiring a reputation for that would politically destroy you.

I think I said this before, but maybe it was on IRC: the princess can acquire a lover, or string along companions that are madly in love with her, or whatever. It just won't be explicit, and there's pretty decent chances of serious side effects.