[LP CYOA] 傳

[Baltika9]

treave, how well do Fu Xia and Lady Suien know Xiaofang? His habits and preferences?

 

[Nevill]

Should we pair Cao'er with Lady Suien?

Cao'er for the corpse and ground investigation, Chi Qilin for city rumors (she did just that at Qingcheng, and it worked out perfectly), Jing for questioning Du Yao's daugher and servants (again, he did that at Qingcheng) - Fu Xia should join questioning the staff.

I don't quite know whom to assign to Xiaofang and questioning Jiang Zheng himself, though. Maybe Jing should look for the eunuch instead of talking to people?

 

[treave]

The two have nothing much to say about Xiaofang. Suien doesn't seem interested in the personal life of her colleagues, but she does tell you he's good at charming other men with his helpless look. Fu Xia says he knows nothing, but also adds that Xiaofang sometimes does work for the eunuchs too, though he's sure it is minor stuff that doesn't harm the constables. The chief would know more, presumably.

 

[Baltika9]

Nevill, I think Suien and Jimg would make a good pair for the Commissioner. Suien isn't placing him on a pedestal so personal feelings won't get in the way of hef questions, while Jing is there for his interpersonal skills.

As for Xiaofang, I'm thinking Qilin for her street smarts, Cao'er for the broken PER and Yifang or Jing for extra muscle, because Youxia is a rough place.
Also, I don't want to leave Lingshu without any supervision during our stay here due to her repressed nyphomania. Keep Yifang with her at all times.

 

[treave]

Hm, do you get relationship points for the harem depending on who you go with?

 

[Baltika9]

Who knows.

 

[kazgar]

Hm, do you get relationship points for the harem depending on who you go with?

Good try though, I think the number of options has Baltika focused on the job at hand.

 

[treave]

 

[Nevill]

Nevill, I think Suien and Jimg would make a good pair for the Commissioner. Suien isn't placing him on a pedestal so personal feelings won't get in the way of hef questions, while Jing is there for his interpersonal skills.

Suien has an exceptional perception, not unlike Cao'er, but she also has an experience to back it up. I don't expect to get much out of questioning Zheng, though. It is highly unlikely for him to be the perpetrator, all things considered.

 

[Tribute]

This is a pretty terrifying array of options. Why is Jing being trusted with deciding all of this?

 

[Kipeci]

treave What does 'their own thing' mean? Do they gravitate towards the option that they prefer personally, or nothing at all?

By character:

A 3,7 - Jing seems to get on with basically all the servants he's come across rather well, they very well may have noticed something... or if they're in on something, Jing's great charisma and speech skill can get something out of them. It goes without saying that he's the ideal candidate to rescue any cute maidens eunuchs, of course.

B 4,6 - Qilin's just so useful it's hard to decide where to put her. She has hands down the best speech skill, probably some measure of contacts in the area and enough eventual clout that people are going to want to be on her good side. She'll probably be able to get any information out of the guards if need be and hit the town for some useful hints, if anyone can draw them out it's her.

C 1,5 - These options involve examining the corpse, Cao'er's forte, and noticing things, which she's also great at. The rest of the options involve more investigating or talking, the former of which seems probably okay at but the latter of which... eh.

D 8 - See below

E 8 - It's really for the best not to have the two of them poking around this city or a disturbance is going to happen. I also think that their preoccupation with justice will complicate things if they try to talk with the servants and so on, having them interview Jiang Zheng is about a safe as option as we can get for them aside from investigating the mansion (they're not really known for their skills in that so I'd rather that they don't accidentally destroy evidence or something) and we might even get something out of it, if nothing else than a straight version of his side of the events.

F 1,5 - We don't want her talking to people. I'll put her down for 1,5 so that she can supplement Cao'er with investigative knowledge.

G 2,3 - Another rather useful character for his gregariousness, I put him down for 2,3 so that he can play good cop/bad cop with Jing as well as talking to the daughter, since that base needs to be covered. Finishing up the talk with the servants with Jing will allow him to divert more time to find Xiaofang.

---

I can only guess that this means that treave hates our harmonious voting, but at least preferential votes are barred. The more options we have the stupider the choices that we make, so let's brace ourselves for the inevitable butthurt.

 

[Tribute]

I wonder if treave set up this update like this purely so we'd actually argue about and discuss this one.

 

[treave]

Doing their own thing means they do what they want. If you leave Lingshu alone, she might start patrolling the city. Her adventures could turn up some leads for you. Or trouble. Cao'er would just stay in the inn and read.

That sort of thing.

Edit: Nah, I'm fine with harmonious voting, but too much of it means the choices aren't difficult enough. I've always planned to do this arc in such a manner though, having you manage an investigation.

You'll get testimonies in the next update, though the reliability and thoroughness might differ depending on who obtained them.

 

[Baltika9]

With Qilin's preternatural street smarts, I think it's best if we had her out in town looking for Xiaofang and also the rumors. Just have some backup with her, like Yifang and Lingshu. She can also keep them out of trouble if need be.

 

[Kipeci]

With Qilin's preternatural street smarts, I think it's best if we had her out in town looking for Xiaofang and also the rumors. Just have some backup with her, like Yifang and Lingshu. She can also keep them out of trouble if need be.

Nah, only Jing can pursue the pretty maiden. Qilin's skills on the street are good, but I think they should be directed more towards the murder than Xiaofang, and I think she'd have an easier time of it if she weren't having to babysit those two instead of having them take on the city in the name of justice while she's trying to get in contact with some pretty sketchy folks. Yifang and Lingshu should really, really be restricted to questioning people, preferably the least sketchy ones like the constable. I get the feeling they're going to cause a headache for us otherwise.

 

[Nevill]

All right, so this part of kazgar's list I agree with:

Cao'er and Suein - clue gathering and body inspection. There is no use in having them near people:
C1,5
F1,5

This is what I disagree about - Qilin's talents are wasted on questioning Zheng. She should be assigned with talking - rumor gathering, talking to staff, and maybe searching for Xiaofang
B6,8
B3,6 or B6,7

This is a good job for Jing - searching for Xiaofang and talking to the chief. I think we should talk with him privately. No need to assign several people here.
A7,8

Song Lingshu and Yifang are not good investigators by themselves. The points of talking to the servants and the lieutenants is to find undercover plots or some other skullduggery going on, and establishing motives. I doubt most of these matters even cross their minds. Besides, do we want two of the spontaneous do-gooders to ask about Du Yao's activities? They'll just try to arrest everyone five minutes into the questioning.
D3,4
E3,4
Unknown

Fu Xia should handle the lieutenants and maybe Du Yao's daughter.
G2,6
G2,4

 

[Nevill]

Kipeci's list is very good indeed. Minor nitpicks, though.

G 2,3 - Fu Xia said that he is better with talking to the people in the pugilistic community. Does this mean that he is better assigned with talking to the lieutenants that with the servants?

Are we sure we only want Jing to search for Xiaofang? The city is too big for one person. I have a feeling Qilin could help here, and maybe our do-gooders as well, if we keep them under our supervision.

There is also this to consider - is Xiaofang missing on his own accord, or is he captured and kept somewhere? Is he hiding from us? In that case, searching for him with many people who are not very stealthy is going to have an opposite result.

All I know is that out of all people here Jing has the best chances of finding him, so A7 should figure on the list.

 

[Grimgravy]

A24
B36
C15
D68
E28
F15
G47

 

[Baltika9]

Well, since we're all compiling lists:
A. 3,4
Jing always did have good relations with manservants, while him and Fu Xia can play good cop-bad cop on the bodyguards and lieutenants.
B. 6,7
Qilin is the best at skullduggery and street smarts, so that's where we ought to keep her. No rumors or hidden agendas will escape her eyes on the streets.
C. 1,5
Cao'er and Suien will make a good think tank, true enough.
D. 6,8
E. 6,8
Yifang and Song can give Qilin the muscle while she's chasing down leads on the streets, Youxia is a dangerous place after all, and she will also keep them out of trouble. After that, they can question Commissioner Gordon on the whole thing.
F. 1,5
G. 2,4
Fu Xia is a naturally gregarious and cultured guy, just the thing for Miss Du.

 

[Tigranes]

Ugh. Too many choices. treave, why, why?!

In lieu of specific information, am thinking that high priority options are 1, 2, 8. E.g. depending on who we go with we could learn something from the Chief, or at least stop them from keeping us out of the loop; the corpse is likely to contain some pertinent information; the daughter could be an interesting contact to get a reading on, and no, I don't mean for the harem.

 

[Kipeci]

G 2,3 - Fu Xia said that he is better with talking to the people in the pugilistic community. Does this mean that he is better assigned with talking to the lieutenants that with servants?

Quite possibly. But I think Qilin would be better, and she's already on that case in my list. He's a reasonably charismatic man, the main reason I have him with the servants is to speed up the chat so that Xu Jing can devote more time to look for Xiaofang.

Are we sure we only want Jing to search for Xiaofang? The city is too big for one person. I have a feeling Qilin could help here, and maybe our do-gooders as well, if we keep them under our supervision.

Yeah, it's all about division of resources and I think Qilin's better off for questioning the guards and looking for hints on the actual murder rather than searching for Xiaofang, who might turn out to be on Eunuch business or something anyway. The do-gooders I think are more likely to cause an incident rather than turn up anything useful, anyone paired with them will have to corral them somehow. You can make an argument for having them help to question the servants or the guards too, I guess, in addition to 8.

Besides, since Fu Xia will be helping out with the servants Jing will have a pretty reasonable finish time with the servants to allow for more time spent searching for Xiaofang. With his Luck 1, he's bound to come across at least something interesting or some sort of trouble, even if it's not precisely Xiaofang... and to be honest, a lot of our party kinda serves to hold Jing back from opportunities for stealthing around and so on.

There is also this to consider - is Xiaofang missing on his own accord, or is he captured and kept somewhere? Is he hiding from us? In that case, searching for him with many people who are not very stealthy is going to have an opposite result.

Exactly. Even if he is being held captive, having intrusive justice folks with us might spook his captors.

All I know is that out of all people here Jing has the best chances of finding him, so A7 should figure on the list.

Definitely, but I think Jing should also talk to someone else instead of option 8. We'll just ruin his day yet more by showing up when we can get the straight story from our justice girls, and Jing's charisma is I think better suited to asking the servants, guards, or daughter about what's been going on.

 

[Baltika9]

Qilin is a master of the streets and skulduggery, having her interrogate the guards and lieutenants seems like a waste, honestly. Unlike the Jing-Fu Xia duo that can pull a good cop-bad cop routine on those guys that were hardened by years of working in this shithole, Qilin has nothing on them.

Let her stick to her best area: streets.

 

[Kipeci]

Qilin is a master of the streets and skulduggery, having her interrogate the guards and lieutenants seems like a waste, honestly. Unlike the Jing-Fu Xia duo that can pull a good cop-bad cop routine on those guys that were hardened by years of working in this shithole, Qilin has nothing on them.

Let her stick to her best area: streets.

She also has the single best speech skill among us all and presumably the charisma to back it up. She's useful on the streets, sure, but she's also the most useful person for the interrogations, so let her look into talking to some of the people while Jing covers the less important business of searching for Xiaofang.

 

[Baltika9]

Xiaofang is pretty damn important by himself.
And just because Qilin has the highest speech/CHA combo, doesn'tean she is the best at every single aspect of that skill. Like Jing's 7 INT that's geared more towards fighting and trickery instead of Kunning Plans and common sense, I think Qilin's soft and seductive approach will be a bad fit for Du Yao's veteran guards and lieutenants that spent their whole lives in Vice City and saw pretty girls all the time.
And I jyst think Jing's and Fu Xia's cop team would be a better fit for that situation: we're the fearsome killer and he's our leash.

 

[Smashing Axe]

First pass:

A7,8
B6,8
C1,5
D3,4
E3,4
F1,5
G2,6

edit: reasoning:

Finding source of murder is most important, sending best scholar and best medical person is useful (C+F1) But also the most likely source of clues is the manor, so best scholar and most perceptive is also useful (C+F5)

We'd be best going solo to find Xiaofang as sneak/movement skills in the city are pretty good. We should also interview Jiang as we're not linked to constables, but should be someone else there, Qilin's a good choice cos she's more worldly than most of the others involved.

Yifang and Song are given the tasks to do the general evidence gathering, getting the bulk of people to talk, they're friendly, yet thorough enough.

The other Constable should wander the city using his decective skills, but may have it hard to make people talk, which is why Qilin joins him, and finally Fu also talks to the daughter mainly just to cover that task. (and may have a good bullshit detector but i'm uncertain)

I'll support this, it seems well rounded. My only concern is that Songfeng and Yifang may be too willing to believe in the innocence of the staff. May alter what I vote for in that regard.