Election 1898 Candidate Speculation

[quote=Anne Auclair]It is a very weird world in which the Bishop of Southwark is not conferred Badass status. Very weird.

Anyway, I’d like to again propose that our first three mayors all have a rematch together next year. First, all three would be equally balanced, each having gotten a pretty overwhelming showing. Second, they’re very different so they’d each represent very different alternatives. Third, all three no doubt heavily dislike one another by this point, so there would be a nice amount of conflict. And finally, having them return to the scene would help create some larger narratives to tie the elections together, as each candidate would not just be promising things, but also defending their past performance in office (and rubbishing the others). This would allow some retroactive fleshing out.[/quote]

I most certainly do not want to see this. Jenny beat the Contrarian by a fair margin the first year, with the Contrarian doing as well as he did only because the Bishop got very, very little support. Throwing Feducci in when Feducci’s winning percentage was lower than the Contrarian’s losing percentage does not seem like it would really make a huge difference.

Moreover, seeing as Sinning Jenny actually did something she promised (if you pay fate to access it…) while Feducci had a wedding and the Contrarian didn’t get any fate-locked story at all (we got a rubbery one instead), I assume that a lot of people who have been around since that first election would side with Jenny no matter who they voted for the first time. Really I see a mayoral rematch as going one way, straight to Jenny.

I’d be happy not to see any returning candidates. The Contrarian ran twice because that’s his defining characteristic - he’ll argue both sides of the same topic.

Jack of Smiles, a Sorrow Spider-Council, and Mr. Eaten.

Or a Talkative Rattus Faber, the Wry Functionary, and the Bazaar.

Or the Topsy King, a clothes colony, and the Rubbery Entrepreneur. Imagine the debates!

Or the Vake, the Cantigaster, and the Eater of Chains.

Any of those combinations should spice things up.
edited by Vorwoda Hawksby on 7/30/2019

Yes, and no. London does have a limited pool of proper nouns, and an even smaller pool of mayor-quality proper nouns. If we never repeat, we’ll run out of them fairly quickly, and then be on all repeats, all the time.

Fair point. Well, no returning candidates for a while yet, at least.

Princess is deviless, so need London devil after devil? But vampire Slowcake is interesting, if using past candidates.

I totally agree.

She’s much, much worse than a devil. (Which is, paradoxically, better. Only not for London.)

We could use a clayman presence at some point. I’ve seen Jasper and Frank suggested as potential candidates. Perhaps even the Pirate-Poet?

I agree with Diptych, on both counts. Anyway, we have seen all we are likely to see of our prior Mayors in an election context. I’d rather see new candidates.

A referendum will not be postponed indefinitely.

I totally agree.

She’s much, much worse than a devil. (Which is, paradoxically, better. Only not for London.)[/quote]
Just honey devil. Paper is paper. Bee is bee. Princess is deviless, like Maybe Daughter is human.
[li]

You only need three per year. Assuming FL lasts for another decade, you only need 30 more unique candidates. I am fairly certain there’s been easily more good suggestions than that in just these threads; and keep in mind that FBG is entirely free to take &quotnot mayor-quality&quot NPCs and add whatever’s needed to make them mayor-quality. Correct me if I’m wrong, but we knew relatively little of, say, the Contrarian before the first run, outside of his appearence at Polite Invitation parties (though I haven’t played many of the older revolutionary-themed ESes so I may be missing information).

See, he’s generally &quotgood&quot. Wrestling and shouting is in no way scandalous. He’s loud, but his goals are all &quotgoody-two-shoes&quot: be pious, follow proper church doctrine and avoid heretical deviations, oppose literal Hell and its inhabitants in every way. His confessions provide some vague backstory, but that’s a tiny part of his character that’s barely ever touched upon, and anyway it’s more sad than scandalous.
Jenny might be a nun, but a prostitute nun is a lot more scandalous and taboo, triple so if it’s a warrior nun at the same time, so of course everyone got really excited. She also doesn’t seem to have any fundamental problems with devils. She’s &quotgood&quot in the sense of wanting to help the poor, but this really was less of a character trait, or at least not presented as such: twist Feducci’s campaign promises a bit and you could have had him be almost similarly &quotgood&quot while keeping everything else about him and his character the same.

So I think candidates have to be both bad (or at least, scandalous) and badass. The Contrarian turned out to be a fluke because neither of his opponents were badass, they were both just bad. One can argue that he himself could be argued to be badass in his own way (plenty of people will admire a person who can debate someone into apoplectic shock, even if it’s not the same kind of badass) and he also had vague sinister revolutionary plans to draw in the &quotvote for the evil and cool guy&quot crowd. However, I think the opponents contributed to his victory just as much - the Princess was petulant and had no clear goal or platform (vague artistic/bohemian aspirations just don’t cut it - she came off as just wanting a new way to entertain herself more than anything concrete), and Slowcake was a nondescript, bumbling figure with zero charisma (which is entirely in-character, but that doesn’t help with getting elected). The Contrarian was the only candidate who had charisma and seemed like he actually cared about governing the city, in his own way.

[color=#0066ff]So just to confirm for my notes - what’s this say? - you’re hoping for a sentient pile of clothes vs the Bazaar in a two-thing race for mayorship. Ok, noted! :D[/color]

Could we… don’t say no right away… could we… dress the Bazaar in the sentient pile of clothes?

I think that depends on whether or not you can find a pile that big. At that point we probably need a new term; clothes-colony seems too demure.

I think that depends on whether or not you can find a pile that big. At that point we probably need a new term; clothes-colony seems too demure.[/quote]

Clothes-metropolis might work, perhaps.

I like it.

I am going to be the spoilsport, set fire to the clothes metropolis before it applies for mayorship and ask for a morally good candidate with any hope of winning. Jenny fit the bill. After her, all the glorious badasses who tend to dominate the election -Feducci, Vriginia and the Princess, had she been the Princess we knew- were monstrous and not even English for God’s sake! It would be lovely if us bleeding hearts magnanimous15 types had a winning choice again.
For example a Sinning Jenny vs Virginia election would be more interesting than Virginia vs Plenty vs Shoshana. Not advocating for them to rerun - just illustrating my point.
edited by Jolanda Swan on 8/1/2019

A morally good candidate with any hope of winning? Hmm. A race consisting of:

A Cheerful Goldfish, a Salt Weasel and the Warm-Hearted Widow (or a Complaisant Frost-Moth) would fill the bill. :)
edited by Vorwoda Hawksby on 8/1/2019

I said it last year, I’ll say it again: a Master with a fake mustache.