Posted

@Ruronihs - sorry, Kanaka got dragged away

@Blue Sylph - I am enjoying the RP a lot. If you have shrine-related characters, please let me know about them so I don't make a mistake.

No biggie Stern. At least now Kanaka will be looking for him, and that gives him an opportunity to test just how keen her sight is.

The first major decision to make... oh dear. This should be interesting.

Pick the suspicious party without a banner first! You're bound to offend people eventually; might as well get it out of the way now. lol.

Hmm, I'm looking for a solution that isn't constrained to picking 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. I mean this is an open-ended problem. Come on people! I want some creativity!

Ehehe don't despair too much about it yet, jiwon! All the pieces are not yet in their place, so whatever choice is made right now won't have all the information available.

Skylar, my character is already in the reception room.

It's gonna be slow posting for me during the week.

If and when Kanaka is excused, she will notice Junkojuro's flame trail and follow them.

Ah jiwon, a point I must raise given your last post.

I know that Ryuunosuke is more of a scholar than he is a warrior, so he'd be rather well read and intelligent... however, to be able to decipher on first looks a cypher, inspect a new economic model for accounting and instinctively understand how it works and its advantages seems like more than a bit of a stretch. That clearly higher than even genius status and that's not how I read the character at first. I think he'd only be able to understand that it is a cypher and then need to ask what it is about.

I do agree, and that's why I only made him a very simple, surface understanding of double entry accounting. That there are 2 entries per transaction. I didn't give him an insight into assets, liabilities, and equity, scrubbing, forecasting, and a whole bunch of more complex accounting concepts that stem from double entry book keeping. Also, the cipher part... I just said he noticed patterns such as characters being repeated. So that he can identify that the transactions are being entered twice. So, he esstentially only did two things. One is see that the cipher repeats per line. Two is see that the double entry makes it twice as had to make an error.

But I will go ahead and make the changes as soon as possible if you really think that it is abnormal.

Alternatively, Hana left it plain in his face unciphered to see if he could even tell the difference between single-entry and double-entry accounting.

Not that the journal entries themselves relay the mechanics behind the calculations, which she did not write down for a summary ledger. Ergo leading to it at first look ciphered, when it really just works on a different system entirely.

Whichever way this goes, I'm open to interpretation.

Honestly, Skylar, which way would you prefer? You are the resident expert on this topic.

This scenario reminds me of certain scenes in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Whenever Cao Cao is given a dilemma or puzzle, he thinks about it, says he know the answer, but then asks one of his advisers what they thought it was. It always ends with Cao Cao saying something along the lines of "Those are exactly my thoughts." As funny is it seems, it's actually a great tactic for an ambitious ruler. It allows him to appear intelligent, even if he doesn't know the answer, yet still seek council from his advisers. The only downside is that if it's overplayed people begin to just think you're an ass, lol.

Haha, Cao Cao's a genius. This technique also let him gauge his officers' hubris. He killed a few who were complete smart-asses.

Heyitsjiwon said
Honestly, Skylar, which way would you prefer? You are the resident expert on this topic.

In that case:

I'd say he'd be able to tell there is SOMETHING majorly different about how Hana compiled her part of the ledger. While the cover summary page of the Mitsumine holdings and Tenzen's writing are what he's used to, Hana's sections are a mix of single and double-entry accounting which she purposefully slipped in to gauge how her lord would react. But the fact he's paying attention to what is written in the first place has Hana coming to like the guy.

At first glance, he'd think the double-entry accounting is just a brand new cipher she made up. But its enough to arouse some curiosity in why Tenzen sent her when she is so able in numbers by conventional standards. Perhaps enough to warrant keeping the lady around to wrangle some answers out of later as to what she's really writing.

Stern Algorithm said
Haha, Cao Cao's a genius. This technique also let him gauge his officers' hubris. He killed a few who were complete smart-asses.

A few? It seems like he puts an officer to death every chapter. Still, he probably would have seen a unified China himself were it not for Zhuge Liang.

Honestly, it just strikes me as odd that he was able to tell both what was traded and how much it was worth given that the notebook is ciphered. I know nothing about accounting or bookkeeping, so I'm not going to pick at details, but that at least was noticeable.

The thing is that it is a bit too much. He inferred the whole fundamental principle of a revolutionary for the time system of accounting made by one of the experts of the field, how it works instantly realized its utility and why it is beneficial and all from a cursory look at an unexplained example written in a code made to make the whole thing unintelligible.

I raise this point for two reasons, first that this implies that Ryuunosuke is not only smart, not only smarter than most in the whole country but a veritable genius to crack Hana's code and from a few character be able to deduce what lies before his eyes and understand its benefits. And secondly, I feel like Ryuunosuke's insight steals value from Hana's accomplishment. This is something she has worked for near her entire life as a dedicated economist, and Ryuu, who is a general scholar with no mentioned specialty in economics or management, was able to get the insight as to how it all works from a cursory glance. Even if he recognizes the worth of her discovery, by saying 'why didn't I think it first?' he is undervaluing her accomplishments and the expertise she may bring to the table for him.

Now please, don't take this the wrong way. This is no serious matter nor do I intend to sound preachy or to chastise, however, if I bother a player of mine with a comment of this nature and ask them to change something, I wish them to understand WHY I'm asking it of them.

RedSavant said
Honestly, it just strikes me as odd that he was able to tell both what was traded and how much it was worth given that the notebook is ciphered. I know nothing about accounting or bookkeeping, so I'm not going to pick at details, but that at least was noticeable.

Nah, thats the point of a summary ledger, to clearly definite what is traded and how much.

The trick is how its organized and calculated. Theres a major difference between single-entry and double-entry accounting, and lets leave it at that. Medieval bookkeeping was a horrendous affair.

EDIT: But to make things simple, lets just have our lord just read the (surprisingly easy to understand) cover summary to the ledger booklet and return to talking with Hana shall we? And why she is really here.

I am not taking it the wrong way. I understand why you brought it up, but I was just trying to say that double entry accounting in its simplest form is very simple and easy to understand. However, there are calculations and analysis that could be done with double entry book keeping that really do make it incredible. I was under the assumption that Hana was trying to develop the analysis part and had a great knowledge on the things that can be done with double entries, which made her the expert. I only intended Ryuu to notice the obvious about the system that a basic knowledge of math would provide. And yes, he said "why didn't I think of the system" cause it is at first very easy and simple in a cursory glance. What is spectacular about the system is that it enables you to analyze the numbers like never before and Ryuu would have no idea about it. Only Hana would. Although, I do admit that the cipher part was a bit too much. Cause I did make some assumptions about the cipher that really cannot be made.

I'm sorry if I came off as sounding angry or if I offended anyone or anything like that, but I was just trying to explain how I saw the topic. Either way, I already editted my IC post with Skylar's guidelines.