Difference between revisions of "SolarBureaucracy/GregLink"

Revision as of 01:53, 10 December 2005

Charms I'm no longer a fan of are at GregLink/OldBureaucracyCharms

Assuming the Place of the Creation-Prince

Cost: 1m/die
Duration: Instant
Type: Supplemental
Minimum Bureaucracy: 2
Minimum Essence: 1
Prerequisites: None

With an insight not granted simply by business acumen, but by Essence, the Solar Bureaucrat is a powerful force to be reckoned with. When performing a bureaucracy-related task, the Solar can assume his mantle of leadership more clearly, and more carefully, purchasing additional dice of bureaucracy for a cost of 1m per die.

Financier's Masterful Eye

Cost: 3m
Duration: One evaluation
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 2
Minimum Essence: 2
Prerequisites: Assuming the Place of the Creation-Prince

While all businessmen have opinions, few opinions carry the weight of the Solar Exalted. The opinions formed by such men are not just based on experience or training, but on the raw flows of creation itself. When evaluating a business or business plan, the Solar can choose not to rely on simply his own skill, but on the thrum of the universe itself. This charm may be activated anytime the Solar is called upon to verify the promise of a given bureaucratic plan, such as a troop organization, business model, or even food allocation program. The Solar first obtains all information he can about the plan, through things such as business plans, troop listings, and firsthand experience. He then rolls a standard Attribute+Bureaucracy roll (with the relevant attribute determined by the Storyteller based on the situation), at a difficulty determined by the amount of accurate information the Solar had available. A difficulty 1 task is one where the Solar has firsthand information, such as talking with the head of a particular guild caravan, or has met many of the troops and officers in a given army. A difficulty 5 task is one where little to no accurate information is available, such as "Deploying the 7th legion to defend the South, and leaving the 5th legion to defend the North", when one has only heard rumors of the effectiveness of either army, and of the situations developing at the opposing poles. With a single success, the Solar can determine whether this given model would be considered 'above average' or 'below average'. Each additional success scored gives additional information about the likely quality of the plan or business, dividing into another two categories per success. For example, if 3 successes are rolled, the plan would fall into one of 8 categories, such as "top 1/8 possible, second 1/8, ..." down to "7/8 of all ideas are better than this one". This is especially useful when evaluating where to invest one's time and resources, as one can clearly sift the well-run organizations from those doomed to fail.

Attention Begets Efficiency Attitude

Cost: Variable
Duration: Until released
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 4
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisites: Assuming the Place of the Creation-Prince, Deft Official's Way

While some Meleeists consider a 'committed' charm to be one that lasts for a scene, the true bureaucrat recognizes that sometimes things can take much longer. While a Craftsman will spend years, honing his craft so that he no longer needs assistants, the wise bureaucrat knows that by improving one's assistants, he stands to gain much more. By focusing essence into his task as administrator and overseer, any operation the Solar directly oversees can receive benefit, as long as the Solar continues to commit his thought, time, and essence to the task. This charm can be activated in regards to any task requiring more than one scene of effort, and affects any aspects of the task that the Solar or his underlings are responsible for. When activated, the Solar may choose to commit up to his (Int+Bureaucracy) in motes of essence, and for each such mote invested, the task at hand is quantitatively improved by (Essence) percent, in some measurable fashion. Construction projects take less time, investments have a higher rate of return, and the organization finds that it hasn't spent its entire budget at the end of the year. The percent bonus gained can be divided up among any number of metrics, allowing a 20% bonus to result in a project being completed 10% faster than expected, and 10% under budget, for example. Once the motes are committed to this charm, the number of motes can be increased to the limit without penalty. If, for some reason, the character should not be able to pay this commitment, the effect fades nearly immediately. More problematically, it cannot be activated again for the same task for at least one lunar month.

Embracing the Capitalistic Spirit

Cost: 4m, 1WP
Duration: Until released
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisites: Attention Begets Efficiency Attitude, Financier's Masterful Eye

Reaching the culmination of bureaucratic advantage, the Solar has learned many skills. He can evaluate investments, buy and sell them at optimal prices, and perform all this administration far more efficiently than his competitors. By internalizing these lessons, the character has managed to extract the true spirit of capitalism, where his choices and decisions can allow him to become truly wealthy, and a magnate of investment. This charm, activated as a character evaluates various investment options, ensures that he will end up with a truly superlative portfolio, isolated from market vagaries, and taking advantage of all possible options. While the essence cost of this charm remains committed, the character's portfolio is guaranteed to never lose value, defined as at least the market average rate of return, or the inflation rate, whichever is higher. In addition, the investment will grow at a rate (Int+Bureaucracy)*(Essence) % higher than the average market rate of return, or the rate at which it would have grown normally, whichever is higher. If the motes committed to this charm are withdrawn, the investment immediately becomes under the influence of standard market vagaries, and will lose or gain value as any normal portfolio would. To re-activate this charm would require selling the previous portfolio and re-selecting a new choice of investments. Note that this charm does not allow the character to specify which investments he will choose, and as such, cannot be used on a company of choice to ensure that it will have high earnings.

As an example, I consider the US stock market, which has a historical rate of return of 12% annually. With this charm, a character would find that his portfolio would do quite well, earning (12+ (Int+Bureaucracy)*Essence) % annually, or roughly 72% annually for a reasonable character that would have this charm. This, while high, isn't outrageous by any standard, as it simply means the character chooses the right Cisco's, Yahoo's, and such to ensure that he makes a ton of fat cash. As another example, I consider the Russian or Mexican investment markets, which, a few years ago, were experiencing an inflation rate in the 1000's of percent, as the ruble (and peso) collapsed. In this situation, the character would earn (that 1000's of percent)+60%, ensuring that while the value of the monetary unit collapses, the real value of his investment doesn't.

Capital-Acquiring Methodology

Cost: 6m
Duration: One Week + Variable
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 5
Minimum Essence: 3
Prerequisites: Attention Begets Efficiency Attitude, Irresistable Salesman Spirit

As every good businessman knows, it takes money to make money. In many situations, especially early on in the Solar's career, the kind of money needed can often be difficult to come by. With this charm, the character alleviates this problem quite nicely, allowing essence flows and intuition to guide them to appropriate sources of capital. When activated during an active search for capital (requiring some level of access to an appropriate economic system), this charm ensures that the character will find investors (such as banks, venture capitalists, and interested citizens) willing to invest on fair and appropriate terms. In the first week of use, the character will find investors willing to invest roughly the per-capita average salary of the region (In the US, this was roughly 22,000$ during 2002), at the going market rate (historically 10-20% annual) minus the character's Charisma in percent. If the charm is maintained longer, each week, the character will find additional sources of capital (Essence) times larger than the week before. This charm can only be maintained for a number of weeks equal to the character's (bureaucracy rating - 1) before the character is effectively out of his league. Note that this charm only provides sources of capital, not the means to pay it back. Young and aspiring bureaucrats are reminded that creditors are often unhappy with those who simply take the money and run, and as such, it is often beneficial to not seek the largest sum possible. As an example to interested yet mathematically uninclined readers, in the first week, one would find access to about 22,000$. In subsequent weeks, this would increase to 66,000$, 198,000$ , and finally 594,000$.

Heavenly Administrator's Bearing

Cost: 8m
Duration: One Scene
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisites: Attention Begets Efficiency Method, Speed the Wheels 

Even in Yu-Shan, the Solars are known as Princes of the Earth. Rulers without peer, and leaders among men, the Solars naturally exude an aura of power and superiority that others subconciously understand. With time and training, a Solar bureaucrats can become capable of exploiting this heavenly mandate to rule to insert themselves into the chain of command in any bureaucracy. By acting with confidence, certain in the knowledge that their desires will be carried out, the Solar can simply act as if his word is law, and all should follow. Underlings are overpowerd by the Exalt's aura of unshakable confidence and absolute authority and automatically assume he not only has the right to be there, but the right to make decisions. Through use of this charm the Solar may issue a command to an organization or government and expect it to be carried out as, he obviously possesses the requisite status and authority to do so. The task must be something that is supported by the organization's structure, so while he might order a quartermaster to supply him and his men with the highest quality goods he has, he could not equally order the janitor to kill a man. While the character is not required to explicitly identify himself, he is not permitted to hide his identity either. For example, if there is paperwork that needs to be signed, then he must sign as himself, as it is by his authority that the actions are taken. After this charm ends, the obviousness that the Solar had the authority to do what he did will linger, preventing an automatic withdrawal of the commands, and will not be discovered as out of place without the use of charms. Other Solar Exalts, due to their similarly high standing in the heirarchy of heaven, may ignore the effects of this charm, as may other Celesital Exalts of higher Essence than the bureaucract. This charm can be placed in a combo, despite it's non-instant duration.

Supremely Efficient Brigade

Cost: 7m, 1WP
Duration: One day
Type: Simple
Minimum Bureaucracy: 5
Minimum Essence: 4
Prerequisites: Attention Begets Efficiency Attitude, Financier's Masterful Eye, Speed the Wheels

When working on large projects such as Manse construction, it is rare to find a Twilight actually in charge of the workers. Instead, an Eclipse-Caste master Bureaucrat is called in, his techniques and skills in administration far more suited to the task than those of the architect. Bureaucrats who frequent such large projects often learn this charm, as a means of improving efficiency and reducing construction time. This charm, affecting any project, task, or goal that will take at least one day to complete, and involving at least 5 other workers subordinate to the bureaucrat, ensures that materials will be ordered on time (and arrive on time), that morale will remain high, and that work will be completed in the generally most efficient way possible. Affecting any number of subordinates, these subordinates will each accomplish (Essence) times as much work as one in their station normally would. As an example, this allows small highly skilled construction crews to carefully perform the detailed work normally shoddily performed by hundreds of less skilled peasants, and allows those hundreds of peasants to perform the work of thousands, ensuring rapid job completion. All the while, the support staff, such as clerical workers and cooks, can keep up with this frantic pace equally well, preventing total workplace collapse.

Comments, Questions, and Snide remarks

Cleaned up a bit, and have passed the 'first round' of evaluation. Now into the second round, anything else that should be modified, or are these good to go? -- GregLink

Sweet. I want. Well, not the money ones, but all the other ones. - IanPrice, with nothing left to give but props.