Guiding the Powerful Yet Incompetent, Tuesday, Second Period

[tellmehowstuffworks]

This week, the students would find themselves in a different castle, in a throne room, with the king lounging upon the throne. "Congratulations," Yennefer said from her customary spot behind him. "You have convinced your king not to casually and blatantly steal from a subject. However, he still thinks the castle needs some...freshening up. Redecorating. Perhaps even a whole new castle! Yes, that's the ticket. A monument to his magnificence that will stand for centuries to come. Of course there will have to be a major tax hike to pay for it.

"Of course, as the person who pays attention during meetings, you know that the people are already overtaxed, and furthermore there's a drought on and there are concerns about the harvest. Now. You are probably not going to be able to get the king to lower taxes to give the peasantry a break or anything noble like that. I'll just go ahead and tell you that right now. Your job is to convince him to dial back or delay his plans. Sometimes mitigation is all you can do."

She clicked a button on the remote and the king came to life, saying, "Oooh, and in the new castle we can have a hall of enchanted mirrors."

Comments

Re: Convince the King

[grayskollar]

This was not turning out to be a good class for Adora's peace of mind, but at least she knew logistics.

"Well, sure, I guess we can do that, we'll just have to engage an architect, wait for them to draw up plans, survey for a suitable spot, get the architect to amend the plans based on the final location, work out supply lines for the materials and workers, if all goes to plan we should be ready to break ground in two maybe three years."

Re: Convince the King

[tellmehowstuffworks]

"Eh?" the king asked. "That's a lot of steps. Can't someone else do all that?"

Re: Convince the King

[grayskollar]

"Of course, we'll get someone in," Adora, who had never actually heard the term malicious compliance, said. "I'll let you know when I've found that someone."

Adora wasn't a very good liar, but the king didn't seem very smart.

Re: Convince the King

[tellmehowstuffworks]

"You could also at this point throw in something about keeping him updated on the budget when you have a realistic idea of how much the project will cost," Yennefer suggested. "Of course that will take quite some time."