[quote=Anne Auclair]I think there is only one wimple. Two distinct versions of it exist only for game purposes, namely to avoid a second meeting.
edited by Anne Auclair on 8/22/2016[/quote]
But, firstly to my knowledge this sort of mechanic has never been used before and, secondly, there is a very easy conventional method to achieve this - just lock the Return Wimple branch if you have Encounter with the Mayor.
[quote=genesis][quote=Anne Auclair]I think there is only one wimple. Two distinct versions of it exist only for game purposes, namely to avoid a second meeting.
edited by Anne Auclair on 8/22/2016[/quote]
But, firstly to my knowledge this sort of mechanic has never been used before and, secondly, there is a very easy conventional method to achieve this - just lock the Return Wimple branch if you have Encounter with the Mayor.[/quote]
Warning: Dull mechanics ponderings ahead.
Giving the same Description to two different Things (that have two distinct names that only the game engine ever sees) is an IF dodge that will be used quite a bit, dressed up in different ways. Putting an equippable on one’s mantelpiece is a nifty chance to see it happen.
I think the reason it’s used here is that having an OriginalWimple and a SouvenirWimple gets round the need to actively mark the ‘Return Sinning Jenny’s Wimple’ storylet as Locked when it appears again, which might make players think there was a fancy way to get it to unlock, and let them meet Jenny and Return the Wimple…again. Since giving the Wimple back gives some nice handouts from Jenny/the Dogged Reporter, players would then try fruitlessly to achieve the unlock, in the hope of rooking this pair of amnesiacs over and over. I know our sort.
‘An Encounter with the Mayor Of London’ is the controlling Quality. My guess is that when this is finally set to 1, 2, or 3 (when you’ve handed over OriginalWimple, then been loyal to Jenny, or betrayed her, or blackmailed her, respectively), SouvenirWimple drops in Wrecker’s Cove, ready for the player to find it ‘again’.
When the player has SouvenirWimple rather than OriginalWimple, the ‘Return Sinning Jenny’s Wimple’ storylet just doesn’t appear in the ‘Fruits of the Zee Festival!’ storylet selection, and is replaced with ‘The Mayor is at the Feast!’
…even though following through ‘The Mayor is at the Feast!’ plays out just the same, and my alt-self just had a touching conversation with Jenny about her callow youth, and how she cast her wimple into the sea…while I was actually wearing the thing on my own head.
But having NPC’s notice what you’re wearing would be a raving nightmare to code for. And after all, no-one comments if you attend Court in your underthings and a pirate hat, which I’ve mentally rationalised as due to extreme British reserve.
[quote=Vexpont]
I think the reason it’s used here is that having an OriginalWimple and a SouvenirWimple gets round the need to actively mark the ‘Return Sinning Jenny’s Wimple’ storylet as Locked when it appears again, which might make players think there was a fancy way to get it to unlock, and let them meet Jenny and Return the Wimple…again. [/quote]
Storynexus can (and liberally does) let the developers mark a branch as invisible if its unlock requirements are not satisfied.
5th time’s the charm hopefully for getting Jenny’s Wimple a second time. The RNG has not been kind.
Mechanics aside, would it be out of character for Sinning Jenny and Miriam Plenty to plant multiple false wimples in Wreckers Cove for resourceful festival goers to find? They are show business types after all.
It’s possible, I suppose. I did once suspect a deacon of smuggling contraband in his cassock, concealed beneath a false bottom. Long story short, well, it turned out to be a genuine bottom.
I hit Nightmares 7, went back to Fallen London after TtH to visit the Nadir, ended up raising my Nightmares to 10 while there, got it lowered to 9 upon leaving, immediately equipped my two Nightmare-reducing items, had a swig of laudanum (I broke my addiction later), made a mad dash back to Mutton Island, then lowered my Nightmares to practically nothing by giving a Strange Catch to the Melancholy Curate.
I don’t know about you, but I am loving this.
I think it would be very much in character for Miriam Plenty to plant dozens of false but plausible-looking wimples in all kinds of places around Mutton Island. I’m not sure I see Jenny getting mixed up in that type of scam–it’s too crude and obvious for her.
I just want to say that getting the wimple twice and the Submerged Rector once is turning out to be a lot easier than getting that Scrimshander Carving Knife once. That’s what I get for having very high quirks, I suppose. I may have to see about tanking one of my quirks, since no matter what I do, I can’t seem to end up with Running Battle below 5.
I think it would be very much in character for Miriam Plenty to plant dozens of false but plausible-looking wimples in all kinds of places around Mutton Island. I’m not sure I see Jenny getting mixed up in that type of scam–it’s too crude and obvious for her.[/quote]
It would however create an opening for the sort of one-on-one, long term, intimate seduction scams that Jenny specializes in.
‘Oh, you brought me my wimple, how moving! Let’s go somewhere private where I can confide all sorts of secrets with you and ask for your help!’
Miriam gets a nice fresh fish, Jenny gets a mark.
edited by Anne Auclair on 8/23/2016
It’s possible, but, well, you can only go so far in assuming that any given character is doing everything they can to deceive you before it starts seeming plausible that cheese is made of spiders, that the Traitor Empress is actually three Rattus Faber in their dad’s coat, and that, really, what does “true” mean when discussing a work of fiction, and then Ambition: Enigma starts increasing. Sooner or later, I think we have to take the text at its word, so to speak.
In light of the contents of Mr Heart’s freezer and the weird dishes concocted at the end of the Hearts Blood season, cheese made from spiders is very plausible.
Well, you know what they say - mi casu marzu es su casu marzu.
I’ve seen QUITE A LOT of this ever since the election stuff. It’s getting slightly exhausting.
I love your posts, Sir Fred! :)
Thank you very much - you’re too kind! Naturally, everyone here’s quite welcome to speculate and theorise as much as they like - I have my yardstick for deciding what I believe, and you’ll have yours.
Well it’s like what they say, when you’re dealing with liars, conspirators and city-stealing alien space bats, paranoia is just common sense.
edited by Frederick Metzengerstein on 8/23/2016
I think it would be very much in character for Miriam Plenty to plant dozens of false but plausible-looking wimples in all kinds of places around Mutton Island. I’m not sure I see Jenny getting mixed up in that type of scam–it’s too crude and obvious for her.[/quote]
It would however create an opening for the sort of one-on-one, long term, intimate seduction scams that Jenny specializes in.
‘Oh, you brought me my wimple, how moving! Let’s go somewhere private where I can confide all sorts of secrets with you and ask for your help!’
Miriam gets a nice fresh fish, Jenny gets a mark.[/quote]
Re: Jenny, isn’t it more reasonable to skip the wimple and just confide? Everyone confides to us, the player.
Edit: Lamenting my failure to finish my fishing trip with 0 Running Battle for curiosity’s sake.
edited by Zoe DeGeest on 8/23/2016
Well, the wimple breaks the ice, establishes a degree of intimacy and gives Jenny an excuse to invite you to the lighthouse. There’s something of the theater about it all - she starts off confiding a harmless little secret to you, you act on her secret, she then confides larger secrets… The fishes would be somewhere between a test and Miss Plenty’s payment.
All that said, I don’t actually think there was any kind of plot or multiple wimples. The simplest explanations are often the best when dealing with human characters: Jenny honestly reminisced, Miss Plenty wants fish, you find the washed up wimple at Wreckers Cove after giving Miss Plenty a fish, Jenny seizes upon your find to improvise some drama, cranky Sister Lydia tosses it back, you find it again. Simple, straightforward.
But I wouldn’t put it past those two to do something like that :P
In all the theorising, I’d completely forgotten about Sister Lydia. That’s absolutely what happened. :D
edited by Dominitus on 8/23/2016