Talk of the Town

How does one start this storylet? I heard it can be found at your lodgings, but it doesn’t appear there for me. Are there any prerequisites other than PoSI?

It’s a card now. I think it’s still specific to your lodgings, so try pulling cards there to see if you can get it. Good luck! :)

Why does everything useful have to be an opportunity card? What’s wrong with a good, old-fashioned storylet?

People in K&C were abusing it for easy and quick hiding, so got turned into a card instead.

… You murderous bastards! I’m not even K&C, and you guys are still causing me grief!

Let me guess: The Pickpocket’s Promenade is now an opp. card as well, right?

EDIT: Nope, it isn’t. Failbetter, please make the Polite Invitation a proper Lodgings storylet. This is just ridiculous.
edited by OPG on 5/1/2013

Not likely to happen.

[quote=Alexis Kennedy][color=#009900]Thanks for pointing this out, Owen. I’d meant to make the Party invitation an opportunity card anyway, and this is an extra reason to do so. I’ve introduced certain other changes as well.[/color]

>Without access to our attack cards, how does one go about doing this

[color=#009900]You’ve seen the ‘knife’ part of the game; you’ve yet to see the candles.[/color] :)
edited by Alexis on 4/17/2013[/quote]

This angers me. I demand the right to join the parties of high society when I choose! shakes fist

Although, to counter the ‘hiding from K&C’ issue, I do think it would be interesting if there was a special K&C oop. card that would let you fight someone while using up time at the party.

EDIT: Nevermind, there is already an interesting option for K&C participants. I still think that there should be a method of entering the storylet in your lodgings, perhaps that option would require paying a bunch of Incendiary Gossip or somesuch up front, whereas the opp. card would be free.
edited by OPG on 5/1/2013

Okay, I’ve been drawing cards in my lodgings for about two days, and I haven’t gotten the Polite Invitation card. At this point, I’m going to call shenanigans and request that it be a fixed storylet.

This seems like a strange choice, effectively severing a small but interesting bit of content in such a way that most people won’t see it any more. If you want the main reward, you need to run through it multiple times - 5+ from what I recall, probably more like 8-9 if you’re a relatively new POSI or don’t know what gives the most Talk of the Town. Considering the hassle of drawing cards only in your lodgings is pretty significant, I wouldn’t bother beyond once, and even that just for the flavor.

It’d probably be better if you could draw it anywhere. It might already be like that, but nobody has corrected me so I’m not sure.

Yeah, but TotT is a good way to get Favors in High Places and Bazaar Permits, much in the same way Lethal Prominence and the Pickpocket’s Promenade are.[li]

Personal Recommendations, not Bazaar Permits.

It’s a way to get Favours in High Places and Personal Recommendations, but I wouldn’t consider it a particularly good one. (In the same way, the War of Assassins is really only a good source for Whirring Contraptions, but that’s a separate discussion.)

If you need either of those items, you’re better off using the Sidestreets for the Recommendation or conversion for Favours unless you need that item and only that item (and don’t care about any excess items) and want it as quickly as possible.

If you need a Favour in High Places, for example, the most efficient way (in the long run) to go about this is to play 4 cycles of the Iron Box to gain 28 Stolen Kisses, then convert them to 5 Favours, which costs a total of 57 actions (or 11.4 actions per Favour). Conversely, using Talk of the Town is likely to cost more than 30 actions for a single Favour.

In the long run, you’re better off using conversion, since you get 5x Favours in less than twice the time of using TotT for one. In the short run, if you only need one Favour, but you want it right now, the Elegant Party gets you there quicker.

Depending on how this change was implemented, this rationale is either drastically reduced or completely eliminated. If one Polite Invitation card lets you stay in the party as long as you want, then, if you’re lucky and your &quotI need it now!&quot situation comes up at just the point you have that card in your hand, it’s essentially the status quo ante. If, however, you need a new card for each cycle through the party, then Talk of the Town becomes both the least efficient and the slowest way of getting these items.

… all of which is a shame. I think the writing for this vignette is superb; I’ve played through it multiple times just to try all of the various options. I just wish the rewards were within the neighborhood of being commensurate with the time and effort required.

(Of course, this is all based on my having last played this about six months ago, so if the rewards or actions needed for the rewards were changed when it became an opportunity card, my analysis might be incorrect.)

Personal Recommendations are easier to buy at the Bazaar Sidestreets, and Favours in High Places can be gained through Item Conversions, so it’s not as valuable as it used to be.

Yeah, Tesuji and Aximillio hit the point I was trying to get across… the rewards weren’t ever great, but now they’re just ridiculously inefficient. Which is a shame since it was probably my favorite Sidestreet item grind in terms of writing quality.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone gotten the Party Invitation card? I’ve drawn exclusively in lodgings for the last few days as well (I’m at Talk of the Town 10 and this thread reminded me I wanted to &quotcash out&quot, plus I’m curious about the &quotchanges&quot mentioned in Kennedy’s post), but it has yet to come up.

I drew the card over a week ago. It cost additional actions to gain access as a participant of K&C (4 actions instead of 1) and unfortunately it was bugged at the time, giving me no Time Remaining with which to enjoy the party. I reported the bug, but have not drawn it since (but I haven’t been home from the Flit for quite a while …)

I draw the card all the time. Have it in my hand as we speak, even. If I could give it to you I would, but unfortunately I can only wish you better luck in your draws.

Yep. Sounds about right. Guess I get to schlep back and forth to Lodgings a while longer. Thanks for the replies though, at least the card’s in the deck.

Huh. The main reason I’m kinda miffed is because my stats are massively skewed. Persuasive/Watchful are both over 100, whereas Dangerous/Shadowy are under 50. As a result, things like the Box Affair and grinding Stolen Correspondence and whatnot are halfway out of the question.

Guess you should work on getting those stats up so your options aren’t so limited. The game expects you to have 100 in each stat by the time you’re a POSI, and you really can’t be too upset if changes cause your stat imbalance to be that much more inconvenient. You brought it upon yourself. Harsh, but true.