| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
My group is 5/6ths of the way through the negotiation aspect of book 1, while they've been doing a very good job with all the delegates, the Nirmathas/Molthrune issue is causing me issues trying to figure out what makes sense.
Specifically, they've gotten Molthune maxed out on influence (including 3 non-Nirmathas to agree to articles 2-4). Nirmathas has not been excluded from the treaty as a whole, or article 1 specifically. (And I think all the clauses/conditional only refer to article 1).
So my understanding is that Multhune would still not sign article 1, but would sign articles 2-4, at least as listed -- since the requirement is listed as 3 non-Nirmathas, not no Nirmathas and 3 at least three others). While I could plausibly understand Multhune looking the other way on Nirmathas being part of the mutual aid or being involved in the offensive efforts against Tar Baphon; I don't see why they would resist the non-aggression pack, but accept the mutual defense.
Ie I can imagine them not signing 1 & 3, while signing 2 & 4. But as written it sounds like no-1, yes-2,3,4 is a possible. Which gets us into the state that they've free to attack Nirmathas, but immediately trigger war with the rest (and are expected to fight themselves).
It didn't sound like you had to exclusively sign the articles in increasing order. Is the push to exclude Nirmathas meant to from the alliance as whole, not just in regards to Article 1? Is there some other interpretation on "No on one, yes on three?"
-----------------------------------------
And now some more general thoughts on this negotiation/influence mini game. Its definitely been complex, we've been at it for about 4 hours, with one more small council meeting to go. It hasn't dragged on though, and we're having fun. However, I think there's some aspects that I think are little awkward.
1) The number of influence rounds turns feels about right, but the batching into small councils I feel is a little problematic. We basically have to abstract away the going back and forth between factions that feels like the more natural approach to negotiation. People might not know to ask about other-faction's demands when they visit someone, and I don't think the intent is to make people waste a second small council with one faction just to seal a deal.
2) I think some opening statement, maybe its still non-public so its not part of the opening ceremony, of the Influence 0 position and key extra thing they want to negotiate. This helps the players form a mental picture of the landscape. And I think there would be an initial flurry of activity at an even like that, before settling down to the personal discussions.
3) I tend to feel that influence games work better when you can split the party and work on different NPCs in a given round. This tends to help keep players engaged since they can more easily find a NPC that matches their personality/interests/good skills. In this case it also would have helped with the flow of initially talking to everyone finding their demands, and then concentrating on places that feel like sticking points, and then the "will X accept Y" style conditionals emerge and evolve more naturally. However style of more free form (4 influence rounds per day, can swap freely between people (maybe still excluding Clavance until special evening slots), does have problems co-existing with some of the more scripted small council intros, that wouldn't feel as good when done solo or repeated on each character's first visit.
4) Now this idea might over complicate things, but I think possibly having 1-3 influence tracks for each delegate -- 1 for what articles they'll agree to, 1 for lessening their extra demands, 1 for what concessions they'll make to others. It would feel a little better when a players discussion/debate is more along the lines of accepting the higher markup from Druma, but instead the next tier has no change in that aspect.
I did this as a player and not a GM, so keep in mind that if my responses don't match the book, it's probably because my GM changed something. :)
Specifically, they've gotten Molthune maxed out on influence (including 3 non-Nirmathas to agree to articles 2-4). Nirmathas has not been excluded from the treaty as a whole, or article 1 specifically. (And I think all the clauses/conditional only refer to article 1).
So my understanding is that Multhune would still not sign article 1, but would sign articles 2-4, at least as listed -- since the requirement is listed as 3 non-Nirmathas, not no Nirmathas and 3 at least three others). While I could plausibly understand Multhune looking the other way on Nirmathas being part of the mutual aid or being involved in the offensive efforts against Tar Baphon; I don't see why they would resist the non-aggression pack, but accept the mutual defense.
That's what we had in our game, yes. They wouldn't sign article 1 if Nirmathas was included. Nothing we did would change that position (and we really tried).
The difference is that the Nonaggression Pact actually would force Molthune to stop trying to take back control of Nirmathas. That is something they aren't willing to do. The mutual aid pact is less problematic, see below.
Ie I can imagine them not signing 1 & 3, while signing 2 & 4. But as written it sounds like no-1, yes-2,3,4 is a possible. Which gets us into the state that they've free to attack Nirmathas, but immediately trigger war with the rest (and are expected to fight themselves).
IIRC, Article 2 applies to attacks from the Whispering Tyrant. ie: if the Whispering Tyrant attacks, the others will rally to the aid of the defender. In our game, it didn't apply to other attacks. So Molthune attacking Nirmathas (or vice versa) doesn't trigger Article 2.
And in a realpolitick kind of way... Molthune sending in forces to "help Nirmathas under article 2" is a way to get forces into places they can't normally go, and Nirmathas probably doesn't want that (and vice versa). Even if its above board, it's a great way to gather intelligence.
But if one of the other nations is attacked by the Whispering Tyrant, they can both join that defense. So there's no issue signing article 2 but not signing article 1 because they're not really in conflict.
It didn't sound like you had to exclusively sign the articles in increasing order. Is the push to exclude Nirmathas meant to from the alliance as whole, not just in regards to Article 1? Is there some other interpretation on "No on one, yes on three?"
The way it was explained to me, Molthune doesn't consider Nirmathas a separate entity at all and would generally prefer they're excluded entirely. They also seem to realize they don't have the cards to actually fully exclude them, but article 1 is a red line Molthune will not budge on.
My GM also explained to us up front that this would be difficult and we shouldn't expect to get everyone to agree to everything, which I feel was a good idea because it acted to counter the natural player "if we don't 100% this we did something wrong" feeling.
1) The number of influence rounds turns feels about right, but the batching into small councils I feel is a little problematic. We basically have to abstract away the going back and forth between factions that feels like the more natural approach to negotiation. People might not know to ask about other-faction's demands when they visit someone, and I don't think the intent is to make people waste a second small council with one faction just to seal a deal.
We just had messengers available to us we could send back and forth between meetings to ascertain opinions and make offers between the formal councils. That worked pretty well, since there was no way for us to know everything right away and we could deal with it as we went along.
2) I think some opening statement, maybe its still non-public so its not part of the opening ceremony, of the Influence 0 position and key extra thing they want to negotiate. This helps the players form a mental picture of the landscape. And I think there would be an initial flurry of activity at an even like that, before settling down to the personal discussions.
We did have opening statements from everyone, so I guess my GM added them. It definitely helped since for players who don't already know the area, it was a chance to pick up hints about who dislikes who and such.
3) I tend to feel that influence games work better when you can split the party and work on different NPCs in a given round. This tends to help keep players engaged since they can more easily find a NPC that matches their personality/interests/good skills. In this case it also would have helped with the flow of initially talking to everyone finding their demands, and then concentrating on places that feel like sticking points, and then the "will X accept Y" style conditionals emerge and evolve more naturally. However style of more free form (4 influence rounds per day, can swap freely between people (maybe still excluding Clavance until special evening slots), does have problems co-existing with some of the more scripted small council intros, that wouldn't feel as good when done solo or repeated on each character's first visit.
I've done both and I think both have their place, but this worked well here. One of the things players do when they can influence multiple targets at once is they split up and everyone goes toward the one they have the best skills for. That makes sense from a "maximize your influence" point of view, but it doesn't really encourage creativity.
Forcing everyone to deal with a single NPC puts people in a position where they won't always have an optimal option and will either need to get creative, or Discover and let someone else have the spotlight. It also means the GM can set a scene since you get an extended interaction with a single person which you can't really do when constantly flipping between multiple people.
4) Now this idea might over complicate things, but I think possibly having 1-3 influence tracks for each delegate -- 1 for what articles they'll agree to, 1 for lessening their extra demands, 1 for what concessions they'll make to others. It would feel a little better when a players discussion/debate is more along the lines of accepting the higher markup from Druma, but instead the next tier has no change in that aspect.
Definitely a cool idea for a 3pp type of expansion on it! The core influence system doesn't really handle that and adding it into the AP would likely cost a lot of pages, so I get why they didn't do it. But someone making that as extra content and making it available would probably see some use. (Kind of like Abomination Vaults Expanded, which gives extra ideas for that AP.)
Ahh thanks, I had forgotten that Article 3 (Mutual Defense) was only scoped to matters of the Whispering Tyrant. That solves that underlying probolem.
You can also reconnect with delegates during the various evening events. So if you already got to a good place with Clavence (for example), you can quickly sound him out on a new issue if you've previously earned enough points with him, and get a quick answer.