[quote=Infinity Simulacrum]
I’ve seen few if any Feducci supporters who seemed to actually believe that his idea of a society where you can literally gamble for your social status (as per the opportunity card snippet) would be in any way executable.[/quote]
And fewer still who think he’ll stand by it, or mean anything he says.
Why do people think Feducci is even remotely trustworthy and will do anything he says?
Will it give me access to the gifts of our candidates from last year?
My my my, we are full of silly questions today, my little cutlet. Now tell me, what kind of rube trusts anything that anyone says? The only reasonable metric for political decision-making is the respective deliciousness of the candidates’ hats.[/li][li]
[/li][li][quote=]Will it give me access to the gifts of our candidates from last year?[/quote][/li][li]Nope! Candidate-specific gifts are perma-rare, so it’s best to take them, unless you really prefer the profession-specific gift.[/li][li]
edited by Gul al-Ahlaam on 6/29/2017
One of us is full of silliness, yes, but I believe we disagree on which it is.
So I’m not the only one subtly reminded of the King in Yellow with Fixer, am I? I’m a Repairer of Reputations!
The King in Yellow?
The King in Yellow?[/quote]
It’s been a while since I’ve read it, but The King in Yellow is a short story series about a play by the same name that leads readers of its script into maddening revelations of a deity-like godking. In one of these stories, The Repairer of Reputations, a man named Mr Wilde uses a spycraft system of blackmail and influence to manipulate mass coverups to save the reputations of the famous and powerful from scandal.
edited by Sir Joseph Marlen on 6/29/2017
Fellow citizens, when deciding who to vote for, please consider which candidate has the potential to bring about not just change, but lasting change.
The new mayor will only be here for a year. After that a new mayor will rule London, free to reverse or build upon the previous mayor’s legacy as he/she sees fit. Based on the policies of the other candidates, how can anyone other than Rightful Mayor Feducci bring about lasting change for the better?
The Implacable Detective speaks of more power to police, and plots in secret for the prosecution of corrupt officials. How will she succeed in this, in a city where it’s a rather poor kept secret that Parliament is in the pocket of Our Benefactors, the Masters of the Bazaar? Even if the case isn’t immediately dismissed, it will certainly be drawn out beyond her term, where it will be almost assuredly quietly dropped. A sad fact of the world is there will always be crime, always be corrupt politicians. After the Campaigner is gone, the Bazaar will still be here, and so will the gangs. The smart crooks need only wait a year to return to their wicked ways.
The Dauntless Temperance Campaigner intends to open more poorhouses and abolish cheap pleasures like honey and alcohol. Sinning Jenny spent the majority of her term building poorhouses and setting up programs for the disenfranchised. To vote for a candidate promising essentially the exact same thing rephrased is to admit either that Sinning Jenny either accomplished nothing or couldn’t manage to do enough to tackle the issue, even with all the powers of the mayoral office. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in her ability to tack this issue, nor the urgency of tackling this issue.
Banning cheap vices won’t make the demand disappear, it will only drive it underground. Is it in the best interests of London to vote for a year where the only suppliers of alcohol are parts of the criminal underground? A criminal underground that will then be able to charge whatever it wants for what is currently popular and widely available? How will the Esteemed Masters Wines and Spices take this development? How likely are they to tolerate it.
Conscientious Londoners would better serve the community by practicing abstinence, something they can do freely now without detriment to those who enjoy these harmless pleasures. This policy will assuredly be quickly repealed in a year’s time, and there shall be much rejoicing.
And again, let us not forget our experiences of the past election cycle. The Dauntless Temperance Campaigner owes favors to the Revolutionaries. Anyone even vaguely familiar with organized crime can tell you that owing a disrepuatable bunch like that favors is tantamount to them owning you. By the end of the campaign the Jovial Contrarian’s campaign was all but taken over by the Calendar Council, with February herself openly walking the halls as his "assistant". Is these really the people we want to hold the reigns of power for a whole year?
There is but one man who has a real plan. One that is at once both so audacious and cunning that it will instantly have a lasting affect on the balance of power in Our Fair City forever: Feducci.
A chain anyone can climb. A London where ranks and titles may change hands by the hour. It will make a mockery of all that the upper echelons hold dear, and that’s the brilliance of it. True change has always begun with the limiting of the elite’s power. The only thing that sets our so called "betters" and rulers apart from us are their claims of blood purity and titles they’ve carried and inherited for generations. Take that away, and there’s nothing that makes them more inherently special than any other man. Devaluing their prestige and social standing is the first step towards abolishing it utterly.
Might it seem absurd? Might it be an unprecedented course of action? Yes! But can the same be not said for nailing a theses to the doors of the church? Dear friends, let them try to challenge us, let them repeal our new order when our year is up. But the damage to their veneer of invulnerability will be everlasting. We will draw first blood. We will make the first crack in the dam holding back an age of freedom and equality!
Dear friends! Let us use this election to build a lasting legacy! Don’t vote for a candidate that will foster complacency among the poor, vote for the one that gives every man an honest chance to advance, should he have the spine to work for it! For a Fair London, I beseech you!
VOTE FEDUCCI!
[quote=Edward Warren]
Banning cheap vices won’t make the demand disappear, it will only drive it underground.[/quote]
No one has proposed a ban on cheap vices. You are not accurately portraying the Campaigners position.
Poorhouses are nasty things, and the DTC’s platform has nothing to do with such ghastly institutions. And the Jovial Contrarian is notoriously a windbag who’ll argue both sides of a conversation for the fun of it - no wonder his campaign was co-opted by people with actual ideas. The Dauntless Campaigner is made of stronger stuff (check in her purse for proof if you like, just mind you aren’t bit.)
Fair point about the Detective, though.
[quote=Edward Warren]The Dauntless Temperance Campaigner intends to open more poorhouses and abolish cheap pleasures like honey and alcohol. Sinning Jenny spent the majority of her term building poorhouses and setting up programs for the disenfranchised. To vote for a candidate promising essentially the exact same thing rephrased is to admit either that Sinning Jenny either accomplished nothing or couldn’t manage to do enough to tackle the issue, even with all the powers of the mayoral office. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in her ability to tack this issue, nor the urgency of tackling this issue. [/quote]As you’ve said yourself, the mayorship only lasts a year, and that the new mayor is free to reverse or build upon the achievements of the previous mayor. You seem to have forgotten this so quickly when it becomes inconvenient. The Dauntless Temperance Campaigner is building upon the programs established by Sinning Jenny, focusing on helping the poor and addicted, such as the Honey-Addled Detective and other such minds who have been brought down by gin and honey. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and these issues won’t go away in a year either. All we can do is keep on grinding at that grindstone. Things have already gotten better. Voting in Feducci risks throwing away all the progress we’ve made already.
[quote=Edward Warren]And again, let us not forget our experiences of the past election cycle. The Dauntless Temperance Campaigner owes favors to the Revolutionaries. Anyone even vaguely familiar with organized crime can tell you that owing a disrepuatable bunch like that favors is tantamount to them owning you. By the end of the campaign the Jovial Contrarian’s campaign was all but taken over by the Calendar Council, with February herself openly walking the halls as his "assistant". Is these really the people we want to hold the reigns of power for a whole year?[/quote]The Dauntless Temperance Campaigner is at the very least opposed to if not the enemy of the Calendar Council. These are anarchists trying to call on old connections that were burned when the Council ordered the death of March. Bear in mind that the late March is most likely John Cassell, a man dedicated to social reform, education, and helping the working class. That’s her revolutionary connection.
[quote=Edward Warren]Don’t vote for a candidate that will foster complacency among the poor, vote for the one that gives every man an honest chance to advance, should he have the spine to work for it![/quote]Were we not all once prisoners brought here with just the clothes on our back and a hope in our hearts? Without Feducci, we’ve advanced to the upper echelons of every fragment of society: we are academics, poets, governors, and explorers. We are scholars of the Correspondence. We hunt monsters in the peligin depths. We traverse Parabola and break the boundaries of what Is and Is Not. We were nothing, and look at what we’ve become? Our city as it stands is a testament to our ability to rise up and climb the chain without Feducci. He would give us what we already have and claim to be a visionary for it.
To advance in society, a person needs capital, a way to invest and grow that investment. Feducci’s policies do nothing to give us that capital. Away with the rules and restrictions? Let the workers toil for pennies on the hour with no protection from injury and death, why don’t you? Let the rich do as they please because, well, the rules and restrictions are gone. Let the drunkards and the addicts waste their lives away, enslaved to these substances, why don’t you? Feducci’s society has no place for these people, and he gives no way of reintegrating them into the workforce and the economy.
No, Feducci is no candidate for the every man. He’s the one who gives false hope and leaves us with nothing more than what we already had.
What are being gambled are titles and fortunes not social status. You might reasonably argue that such commodification of titles is destructive of their ability to confer social status - and I’d agree with you, but I’d also say that that is precisely the point.
edited by Doolittle on 6/29/2017
edited by Doolittle on 6/29/2017
It would be hilarious if Feducci’s Mayoral Influence Card was completely RNG based. Like, 50% chance you get a favor, 50% chance you get a Menace or some other bad thing. It would perfectly fit his program.
Maybe the odds would be even worse.
edited by Anne Auclair on 6/29/2017
Feducci’s campaign seems tailored to appeal to the aspirational middle class - who stand to profit most if government regulations are relaxed, and who hope to gain access to power and prestige that wealth alone cannot bring - and to those particularly optimistic souls among the working class for whom any increase in station is worth gambling for, however long the odds.
The Campaigner’s platform seems to appeal most to the working poor and underclass who would directly benefit from her reforms, and those members of the middle and upper classes whose income does not come directly from those businesses likely to be affected and who can thus afford to be public-spirited.
The Detective’s goals seem to have swept up both those who support expanded police powers in general, and those rationalists among the scientific and technical class who favour a large-scale top-down restructuring of society.
Curious times, to be sure. Any contender has the potential to shake things up for good or for ill.
[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]Feducci’s campaign seems tailored to appeal to the aspirational middle class - who stand to profit most if government regulations are relaxed, and who hope to gain access to power and prestige that wealth alone cannot bring - and to those particularly optimistic souls among the working class for whom any increase in station is worth gambling for, however long the odds.
The Campaigner’s platform seems to appeal most to the working poor and underclass who would directly benefit from her reforms, and those members of the middle and upper classes whose income does not come directly from those businesses likely to be affected and who can thus afford to be public-spirited.
The Detective’s goals seem to have swept up both those who support expanded police powers in general, and those rationalists among the scientific and technical class who favour a large-scale top-down restructuring of society.[/quote]
Nice break down. How about:
I’m sorry if this was answered here before (I just registered to ask this question), but what is the difference between my influence over the election and my election level? Do both count towards the points that I add to my favorite candidate?
The total "points" that you contribute to your candidate are:
election career level + election influence level + Notability
Possibly, when Debates are introduced next week, there will be even more to it.
I was really enjoying the election, but I think I’ve had enough for now. It has started to feel a bit like Failbetter’s trademark grindfest. As I’m not too bothered who wins, I’m considering going back to what I was doing (especially as those fixer menace reductions are very, very useful right now). It wouldn’t be so bad if the flash lays and investigations actually dug up new interesting dirt each time, but unless I missed something, once you’ve done one of each for all three of them you’ve found out all there is to find out. As a player I’m bored, and as a character why would I do all this stuff over and over just to gain the same info?
Is there any reason for me to carry on, if I’m not particularly invested in any candidate? I assume the end result of your Election Career and Election Influence scores is simply votes in the election, there are no personal rewards? If so I think I might knock it on the head for a spell, as it as lost its allure.
I understand that new things will happen next week, so I’ll probably rejoin the fray then, though.
[quote=Plynkes]unless I missed something, once you’ve done one of each for all three of them you’ve found out all there is to find out. … If so I think I might knock it on the head for a spell, as it as lost its allure.
I understand that new things will happen next week, so I’ll probably rejoin the fray then, though.[/quote]
That’s fair. But there is one other source of info on the candidates - their respective cards. So, you can always just play as usual, while keeping an eye out for those, until the second week!
edited by Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook on 6/29/2017
Ah yes, forgot about them. Don’t think I’ve seen quite everything they have to offer yet. Thanks.