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A few in game questions


Adrian
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For reference The Quest for the Tipsy Fairy mentions that Acting Regent Valeria Kratz, Professor Badcrumble's predecessor, is famous for trying to "bring back" corporal punishment. If it's still practised than it'd have to at least be an exception, rather than a rule.

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4 hours ago, Metis said:

For reference The Quest for the Tipsy Fairy mentions that Acting Regent Valeria Kratz, Professor Badcrumble's predecessor, is famous for trying to "bring back" corporal punishment. If it's still practised than it'd have to at least be an exception, rather than a rule.

@Legate of Mineta: One way to reconcile this with the continued practise of corporal punishment would be to say that she wanted more corporal punishment with harsher devices. After all, there is a reference to another Avila Regent who wanted to bring back manacles, I think - or was it flogging?

Related to that, is it possible for students to be exempted from some punishment types? Zoe, I think, is too sickly to endure harsh physical penalties.

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18 hours ago, Rhialto said:

@Legate of Mineta: One way to reconcile this with the continued practise of corporal punishment would be to say that she wanted more corporal punishment with harsher devices. After all, there is a reference to another Avila Regent who wanted to bring back manacles, I think - or was it flogging?

Related to that, is it possible for students to be exempted from some punishment types? Zoe, I think, is too sickly to endure harsh physical penalties.

22 hours ago, Schwarzbart said:

Isn't "The New Girl" adventure  (Not Even a Mouse) give you a lot of punishment by Von Rupprecht if you use the wrong default exit at step 4?

However if the quest says she's trying to bring it back, and it's worded exactly this way, then it's a contradiction. How does Von Rupprecht punish you if you choose the wrong exit at the adventure? If it's not corporal punishment, then it's possible Legate and the Team either forgot what they originally wrote or they are retconning it.

Personally I much more prefer no physical punishment school, so I'm going to go with the former and pretend I never heard/saw Legate say this. ;) 

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Quote from The Quest for the Tipsy Fairy:

Quote

Acting Regent Kratz ran College Avila for a while before Regent Badcrumble swooped in to turn the place around. You only know her name because she's still famous for having tried to bring back corporal punishment as a way to prove to the alumni that sending their daughters to Avila would be good for their "moral development."

And quote from The New Girl:

Quote

Once the confession is made, the Legate leaves you with Professor von Rupprecht, whispering, "Be strong!" as he goes.

The next thing you know, you're strapped to a heavy wooden chair on top a circular stage. Hooded figures in crimson tightly draw the lengths of leather through the buckles and snap the brass latches in place. One of them forces open your mouth and stuffs in a dull-tasting eraser. You try to spit it out but a large hand shoves your jaw upward and sinks your teeth in deep. Now it's impossible to claw the eraser out of your mouth with both hands clamped to the chair.

“Mmmrg mmrg mfff!”

“Now, now,” von Rupprecht says, “This is all quite necessary. The enchantments in a wand such as the one you lost track of eventually bear something of the mark of their user. We plan to use that mark to track the thing down. Of course, the tracking process requires the wizard in question to undergo... well, a bit of stress.” He turns and shows a rare smile to one of his red-robed assistants. “Begin.”

The world starts to turn, slowly at first, then gaining momentum and speed the more it turns. Voices grunt somewhere in the shadows surrounding the stage. Your head becomes glued to the side of the chair by the force of the spinning stage, and you're pretty sure you're screaming but you can't really hear yourself.  Then you reach a point where you just can't breathe well enough to scream, and it feels distinctly like the air means to pull off parts of your face - and then, finally, you black out.

When you wake up, you find yourself dumped on the floor of your dorm room.  Beside you is your wand, and a note that reads, "Minus five Merit for losing your wand.  Minus another five for the disgraceful condition of your room.  I have enchanted one particularly wretched shirt to bite you if ever you wear it twice without a wash in between.  SvR."

Wonderful.

I feel like I should add that Tacito Viadana, in one of his REs, is able to divine the location of the PC's missing keepsake rock. I also should mention that Tacito doesn't even attend Astrology classes. So at no point is that...process even remotely necessary, unless VR is thoroughly hopeless when it comes to all matters of divination. Also, that enchanted shirt is an actual item you get and can wear. +1 Stress, +1 Danger Sense and +1 relationship with VR.

So long story short old von Rupprecht just borrowed a few pages from Kratz' book, it seems.

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22 hours ago, Metis said:

Quote from The Quest for the Tipsy Fairy:

And quote from The New Girl:

I feel like I should add that Tacito Viadana, in one of his REs, is able to divine the location of the PC's missing keepsake rock. I also should mention that Tacito doesn't even attend Astrology classes. So at no point is that...process even remotely necessary, unless VR is thoroughly hopeless when it comes to all matters of divination. Also, that enchanted shirt is an actual item you get and can wear. +1 Stress, +1 Danger Sense and +1 relationship with VR.

So long story short old von Rupprecht just borrowed a few pages from Kratz' book, it seems.

He's not punishing you at all though for that, he's simply using the method to be stressed so they can find your wand. I mean, one could say he enjoyed doing it but it wasn't the punishment for losing it, that was the Demerits and (technically) the shirt. And it doesn't involve any kind of beating, one could argue it isn't really what one'd imagine under corporeal punishment? Although it's definitively not something you'd want to do, esp. not repeatedly, that would be torture.

Is the keepsake rock the pet rock familiar or a normal rock? If it's the latter, then saying it's his keepsake rock would make it obvious why they're good at it - it's got plenty of marks on it from the PC if they've had it for years, compared to the new wand.

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I forgot to mention, the stage with VR also drops your Vitality by 2, in addition to the -10 Merit and the shirt. Considering that Astrology, by all accounts, should have been a viable solution I'm included to fold it into corporeal punishment, at least in practice. Maybe not on paper, but...

Normal rock, though one that the PC can describe in ridiculous detail. Nevertheless I highly doubt that the difference between the rock and the wand is enough to go from making it possible for a first year that's nor formally studying Astrology to making it not possible for a Professor. Even if VR never studied Astrology in his life presumably a professor would have better means of studying new stuff available to him than a first year Academagia student would.

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22 hours ago, Metis said:

I forgot to mention, the stage with VR also drops your Vitality by 2, in addition to the -10 Merit and the shirt. Considering that Astrology, by all accounts, should have been a viable solution I'm included to fold it into corporeal punishment, at least in practice. Maybe not on paper, but...

Normal rock, though one that the PC can describe in ridiculous detail. Nevertheless I highly doubt that the difference between the rock and the wand is enough to go from making it possible for a first year that's nor formally studying Astrology to making it not possible for a Professor. Even if VR never studied Astrology in his life presumably a professor would have better means of studying new stuff available to him than a first year Academagia student would.

Interesting, the -Vitality is notable. Although I thought it'd give you more -Stress than Vitality since SvR did say it was meant to induce stress temporarily.

Personally I thought that having had the rock for a long time would've put a stronger impression on it, and thus make it easier to track, but the Team could perhaps answer that question for you, since both quests are from the base game right?

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On 6/30/2019 at 7:39 PM, Metis said:

Pretty sure you're just correct, honestly. I mean I couldn't give you an ingame quote or anything, but I'm pretty sure that tracking things through Astrology is easier if the item in question is "more yours", if that makes sense.

Thanks! That's how I meant it actually from the start, when I was mentioning having more marks on it than on the wand (since SvR refers to it as a mark).

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2 hours ago, Rhialto said:

May I propose a suggested resolution?

The best one would be the Team admitting they forgot what they had written earlier and either outright retconning what they wrote previously or detracting their latest statement and going back to the no corporeal punishments they had before (I'd prefer the latter, but we'll see!). :)  Since the line, "You only know her name because she's still famous for having tried to bring back corporal punishment..." is very clear and it's hard to imagine how can you both have corporeal punishments and at the same time  someone who is famous for having tried - the keyword being tried, not succeded - at bringing them back, which means they are still banned/not allowed. But yeah, let's see what the Team says! 

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@Legate of Mineta: My resolution of this conundrum would be that corporal punishment is controlled by the colleges - but has been controversial because of the high status of many students. Therefore, many college regents (in whose hands the ultimate authority for corporal punishment lies) do not like to use it and do not like explicitly setting out policies for when it can be used. Many may even oppose it on moral grounds as an ineffective teaching and discipline method. Furthermore, some colleges, I imagine, have different traditions (and alumni) that shape when corporal punishment may be used. The Avila regent whose actions were quoted, therefore, was defying a strong tradition among Avila regents and alumni of not using corporal punishment. Presumably, she wanted to not merely permit it but codify its (frequent) use against Avila students. Does this explanation work?

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