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What is your Headcannon for when two masters who are unlikely to face off, end up fighting on your board?


Mycellanious

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Most of the time I have no trouble imagining why certain masters fight other masters. Mei Feng fighting Nekima makes perfect sense for example, because Nekima wants to stop the production of the railways. But then there are certain master match-ups that I couldnt possible imagine fighting to the death (or even just fighting in general). Lorewise, I can't imagine Molly and Kirai willingly fighting, or what initially inspired this post, Mei Feng fighting Misaki. A clash between Misaki and Mei Feng would probably result in Mei's removal from the Ten Thunders, yet after the game I played both master's relationship to each other and the world at large remained unchanged. Like, it had to be a big enough reason to fight (to the death for my Rail Workers), but ultimately most games we play aren't going to affect the storyline significantly. 

What do you think, am I being needlessly obtuse? Does anyone else care about this fluff stuff? What is best unlikely match-up, and what possible reason could they have for clashing that would not ultimately change either's relationship with the other? 

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Upon meeting Misaki during the requested tete a tete Mei Feng has to realize she has been fooled by Arcanists/Guild/NVB/??? and the women herself, including her entourage are merely magical enhanced doppelgangers; here to lure her into some kind of trap.

---

Just as Misaki gets to feel Mei Fengs metal claws piercing her skin she awakes, bathed in sweat. This remarkly realistic dream has to have some hidden meaning. Maybe she should have a talk with rail Leader after all. In the distance nightmare giggles faintly...

 

 

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The matches vs. Brewmaster were the hardest for me to justify. In the end I decided that the Tri-Chi were just that good at sleight-of-hand that drinks would be in hand and quaffed before the tallfolk realized it. (Exception: McMourning chugging from his own formaldehyde flasks, willingly.)

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The easy part is when one side is either Guild or Ten Thunders; those two faction's masters are all on the same page (except Lucius [Society dual masters still to be determined]), so getting in a fight with any other faction is easily explained:

The Arcanists are holding a location we need to enact a plan in the future: send Asami in there to flush them out as we can't blow Mei's cover with them.  There are some Ressers gaining influence in a populated area; have Nellie get word in that burrough that they are not to be trusted.

The real problem is the individual masters with their individual plots.

 

ADDENDUM: no the arcanists are not on the same side... they're a colletive of backstabbing rogue elements under the same umbrella. 

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3 hours ago, Mycellanious said:

what initially inspired this post, Mei Feng fighting Misaki. A clash between Misaki and Mei Feng would probably result in Mei's removal from the Ten Thunders, yet after the game I played both master's relationship to each other and the world at large remained unchanged. Like, it had to be a big enough reason to fight (to the death for my Rail Workers), but ultimately most games we play aren't going to affect the storyline significantly. 

On the one hand, it's called "the non-canon adventures of the characters".  The game you just played through has the same standing as any work of fan fiction.  Your fan fiction won't go anywhere if all you do is write disconnected single chapter stories.

On the other hand, how much of the M2E stories have you read?  The background makes it pretty clear that a violent confrontation in which the two masters tried to kill each other over a disagreement can be described as a renegotiation of agreements.

Whatever the individual's motivations, the Ten Thunders operate in the style of the yakuza.  Mei Feng and Misaki got into an engagement, and Misaki lost.  So Misaki probably withdrew with some line like, "It seems fate favors you today, so I will give you this indulgence."  Does that change anything in the long run?  Not if Mei Feng is still subject to the blackmail and other control that the Ten Thunders have over her.

Because remember that Mei Feng has a brother, and that's one of things that keeps Mei Feng in line.  And if Mei Feng ever did more than just "renegotiate" her arrangement with the Ten Thunders, she'd have to deal with "What do the Ten Thunders have over each member of her crew?"

The positive stories about Mei Feng show her working with the rail workers as "her people" and complaining that the Ten Thunders directives are often unreasonable.  That has undoubtedly caused internal fighting before.

So, in your game Mei Feng and Misaki got into a fight and a few unfortunate people ended up getting killed while they reestablished the boundaries of what Misaki can make Mei Feng do.  It'd take a lot more than one isolated fight to get Misaki out of the Ten Thunders.

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9 hours ago, solkan said:

So, in your game Mei Feng and Misaki got into a fight and a few unfortunate people ended up getting killed while they reestablished the boundaries of what Misaki can make Mei Feng do.  It'd take a lot more than one isolated fight to get Misaki out of the Ten Thunders.

And as most of Misaki's crew are wearing mask, they can be replaced easily... Take a bulky Goon with a tetsubo, put him a mask and in a facny armor he will make a very convincing Ototo while the real one heals... or rots... or maybe that Ototo you killed was never the real Ototo!

 

But I won't stress much with that; if you want that 2 friendly crew clash in the lore, there are always convincing ways to do it: some practice (killed aren't killed, but knocked out), hidden agendas, stablish new bundaries as solkan said (for example some Archanist master wants to rush an attack to Guild that may give away some important Arcanist asset; other Arcanist master may convince them not to do it; or they just make a quick run to ruin their equipment so they cannot attack), a charade to fool that other third party that is spying them, too much alcohol XD.

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I feel like the important point needs to brought up that for as much as the game now says "story driven skirmish game", unless you're sitting down to play a game in a branching campaign system that you and your friends wrote up, there's no way for the game to have any lasting consequences.

As a wargame, for what are essentially one-off "What if?" encounters between crews, there are statements that models are "killed" and when that happens resources in the game get generated.  If Malifaux was listed as a "historical wargame set in an alternate Earth", it would be harder to miss that fact, but it's still the same outcome.

If you look over at the M2E campaign system, that has the expected "No, really, when you get 'killed' in the game, you're incapacitated and check for lasting injury later" because otherwise the named characters won't last long enough for people to finish campaigns with them.

And that's without getting to "The Judge is dead!  Long live The Judge!" as you mourn the passing of M1E & M2E The Judge and welcome M3E The Judge to the game; or wanting to field a half dozen Peacekeepers from the warehouse full of Peacekeepers instead of just one in a crew.  "These patrols of three guardsmen just aren't enough!  Send me a whole squad, immediately!"  :) 

 

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A lot of factions have inter-faction rivalries. Don't think of it as Lady J trying to kill Sonnia. Think of it that Lady J and Sonnia have competing goals one that will either stop the Rezzers or Arcanists, but can't stop both.

Same with Ten Thunders. Not everyone's objectives are aligned. Sure they'll grab beers with one another the day afterwards, but they will be upset that their mission failed for another's to succeed.

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