Devious Followers (8 June 2019)

[Reesewow]

24 minutes ago, Lozeak said:

I'm working on a new mod right now.

Basically, I had a really good idea or rather an idea I want in skyrim that ties gameplay to other content!!!

Simple Slavery Lite?  Sign me up!  Sounds like a really cool idea - I like Simple Slavery but often its outcomes are pretty long in duration.  This sounds like a more reasonable version that you may trigger a lot more often.

 

Gave me some other ideas for the "gamble" rewards that could be fun and useful:

 

• An re-usable item like the cursed loot boxes that can give random amounts of money - could be useful for that Devious Follower.  Using it locks you into picking an action, and each use after that takes away a choice.  Once you have only one choice, the box gives nothing.
• A refilling super-potion that fully heals health/magicka/stamina - but again, using it locks you into an action, and repeated usage drains your choices and it won't refill if you only have one choice.

[Lupine00]

8 hours ago, Starphyre said:

yeah

 

I didn't think so. And this bug is gamebreaking to me

Many mods can block fast travel:

 

Popular candidates:

• Frostfall
• Deviously Cursed Loot
• SLUTS / Redux
• Sexlab Survival

+ carriage/boat overhauls

[Lupine00]

7 hours ago, Lozeak said:

Mini Update: No real progress on Devious Follower. Outside I'm actually playing it!!!!!

Willpower needs tweaking more. Will work on it (Tho I think messing with my MCM settings will help!)

I have Willpower turned onto its strictest settings, and it's still somewhat toothless. But I wrote a huge PM about willpower in the past so...

 

7 hours ago, Lozeak said:

I'm working on a new mod right now.

Basically, I had a really good idea or rather an idea I want in skyrim that ties gameplay to other content!!!

Yes. This IS a really good idea.

I like it a lot.

 

Maybe the exact implementation isn't my preference.

Rather than decreasing choices, I'd like an increasing number of things you have to deal with, or bias towards nastier ones.

Possibly have 1000 debt per failure on top of the other outcomes.

It seems a little too kind if you get a weak outcome in the list, while being sold is a bit harsh...

I've never had a trip through SS to or from DF that worked out without breaking my game one way or another, forcing a reload.

But I'll wait and see how it balances out. If it gets done, which I hope it does. Maybe I can disable that particular outcome anyway?

[Darkwing241]

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I have Willpower turned onto its strictest settings, and it's still somewhat toothless. But I wrote a huge PM about willpower in the past so...

 

Yes. This IS a really good idea.

I like it a lot.

 

Maybe the exact implementation isn't my preference.

Rather than decreasing choices, I'd like an increasing number of things you have to deal with, or bias towards nastier ones.

Possibly have 1000 debt per failure on top of the other outcomes.

It seems a little too kind if you get a weak outcome in the list, while being sold is a bit harsh...

I've never had a trip through SS to or from DF that worked out without breaking my game one way or another, forcing a reload.

But I'll wait and see how it balances out. If it gets done, which I hope it does. Maybe I can disable that particular outcome anyway?

The tiered design of the DF deals would work well. The smaller "tier 1" tasks would be like the first/second stage of a follower deal, then you could also have "tier 2" tasks that the more extreme stuff.  Then just have the "tier 2" tasks count as 2 or more tier 1 tasks.

 

So perform "4 tasks" could be completed with 4 "tier 1" tasks or 2 "tier 2" tasks.

[Starphyre]

17 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Many mods can block fast travel:

 

Popular candidates:

• Frostfall
• Deviously Cursed Loot
• SLUTS / Redux
• Sexlab Survival

+ carriage/boat overhauls

And except for DCL/DF/LAL (And DCL's LAL addition) and their requirements (Sexlab, sexlab aroused et al) all my other mods are cosmetic or animations. 

 

And, except for DCL 8.3, and LAL, all my other mods are present (DCL 8.2) in a testbed game I was running to check which content I might want to play with, which has no fast travel issue. (yes, I have a devious follower in the testbed, but haven't triggered any of the mods actions. I've only had to pay her once before moving on to my 'main' playthrough, so I still consider DF a possible cause)

 

So yeah, the issue is either in DF, DCL 8.3, or the Chloe quest (first noticed while doing it. Persists after finishing it), or some bizarre unique to my game interaction of the 3. I've asked the question both here, and DCL. And since the issue does NOT appear in my papyrus log, I'm going to have to wing my attempts to fix it. 

 

I'll probably start by running my testbed game for a while since it was upgraded to 8.3 but upon doing so I immediately started what I was hoping to consider a main playthrough. If the fast travel bug doesn't happen, I'll take some DF deals with the testbed char and see if that causes the issue. If both of these are no, I'll probably have to dump playing the chloe quest.

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, Starphyre said:

Chloe quest (first noticed while doing it. Persists after finishing it)

Sounds a lot like DCL is to blame. Kimy keeps changing things around quest lockout, event lockout, etc. for game starts, low levels, Chloe quest etc. so it's far from impossible that your game thinks some DCL quest is running and has blocked fast travel for that reason.

 

Quick experiment. Try DCL "FREE ME!!!" button. If that fixes it, it was DCL. If it doesn't DCL is innocent and you can consider other causes.

[HexBolt8]

5 hours ago, Zagzaguel said:

Altough this mod offers a lot of features it feels really empty at times

It can -- if you're able to keep up with your debt.  I like the gold control feature because it changes daily and imposes financial limits even if I'm debt-free.  I like your thought about follower idle dialog, so the follower feels more "there".  But it must be varied and non repetitive or it'll quickly become annoying, and building & fine-tuning that much chatter is time-consuming, so it's not surprising that people tend to focus on features more than talk.  If this is a keen interest of yours, you might talk to Lozeak about helping with this, writing and testing the chatter yourself then delivering it to be merged.  Mod authors are often grateful for help, and it looks like Lozeak's time is spread thin now. 

 

I liked some of your suggestions for use of a belt (if it's for relatively short periods, since being belted for a week gets old) as a consequence for refusing a follower's request for sex, or as a punishment for some infraction with the aim of lowering the character's willpower.  It does mean that the follower would have to correctly unbelt and rebelt you for whoring out or other forced sex activities.   A few other things that you asked about:

 

Hobble skirts.  Just guessing, but the mod probably avoids them because they're slow.  I wouldn't mind it so much in town, but outside travel would be tedious. 

 

Why is it always inns?  Because they're already scattered across the map and they can be reliably detected (I remember that the mod had difficulty detecting stables).  Merchants work too, though that's an update to their dialog, a little more intrusive.  I'd avoid the "left it at home" scenario.  It sounds like you play with many homes, but I never have more than 1 active home, and rarely move more than once, so returning home could be a long trek.  I don't use fast travel, which possibly you use, so our experiences there would be quite different.  A mod has to support a broad range of play styles, which limits its options. 

 

On merchants, "paying with your body" options feel way too easy to me and leads to the player having too much gold (and not getting into debt trouble, and not experiencing more DF features).  Why would a merchant hand over anything valuable in exchange for sex, when your follower likes to whore you out for cheap?  This would be more fun: 

 

The merchant says he'll let you have the item if you have sex with him.  Afterwards, he demands full payment.  You see, it's the last in stock and he's not parting with it easily, he only agreed to *sell* it to you in exchange for sex -- I guess you should have been more careful with what you agreed to.  Your follower is laughing, and has probably pulled this same trick with the merchant on other so-called adventurers.  

[DarmanSejuk]

I know this is a stupid thing to ask but to be sure should I set devious followers before or after Deviously cursed loot on the load order?

[HexBolt8]

2 hours ago, Zagzaguel said:

Im terrible at using strong language, so even if I knew how to create those dialouges and make them work IG its unlikely that I will find a lot decent lines.

I don't think strong language would actually be helpful.  Maybe in small doses, otherwise it loses its effect.  Being called a fucking worthless maggot just makes you angry with the follower, but being teased and reminded of the position you're in is effective.  You had some good suggestions:

 

"Hey, doesn't that necklace look pretty?  A shame you can't buy it as you can't even afford talking."

"Isn't it hard to walk in those boots all the time?  Not like I'm not enjoying seeing you struggle."

 

Not pushing you to do anything you don't want, just saying don't be so dismissive of your ideas, they were pretty good.

 

This mod has a good bit of content, it's just not easy to see it all, not quickly.  And that's probably good.  Spreading out events keeps them from becoming repetitive.  I agree with you on the point about variety, that events (from this or any mod) will stay more fresh and interesting if they can play out a little differently, even if just in minor ways.  It's not easy to add this kind of content though.  It's why there are so few mods that do. 

[Reesewow]

4 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

"Isn't it hard to walk in those boots all the time?  Not like I'm not enjoying seeing you struggle."

 

1 hour ago, Zagzaguel said:

Well.. but even if my vocabulary is enough to create a few decent lines theres still the issue with idk how to do it

If you guys haven't tried it, would *highly* recommend Sexist Guards as a companion to Devious Followers. 

 

 

It essentially fills in a huge portion of dialogues you might want from your companions, and detects a pretty impressive array of devious devices, especially while dungeon crawling.  Depending on if your follower is a housecarl or not, they will also make comments about the horrible things that may happen to you if they don't get a fair share of the loot.

 

I want to say that boots comment is 100% a comment in Sexist Guards already. 

 

[HexBolt8]

14 minutes ago, Reesewow said:

If you guys haven't tried it, would *highly* recommend Sexist Guards as a companion to Devious Followers. 

Yep, have it, use it.  I ended up dialing back the frequency a good bit so comments don't get too old.  It still makes me laugh sometimes when a follower says something outrageous. 

[Lozeak]

42 minutes ago, Reesewow said:

 

If you guys haven't tried it, would *highly* recommend Sexist Guards as a companion to Devious Followers. 

 

 

It essentially fills in a huge portion of dialogues you might want from your companions, and detects a pretty impressive array of devious devices, especially while dungeon crawling.  Depending on if your follower is a housecarl or not, they will also make comments about the horrible things that may happen to you if they don't get a fair share of the loot.

 

I want to say that boots comment is 100% a comment in Sexist Guards already. 

 

 

Sooo, yea tinkering with that mod was the thing I did before, I started with Devious follower. It gave me the idea of triggering content with Idle dialogues which started everything.

 

====

 

2.03 was bugged cause err VORTEX updated and it has a system that changes the date on esp so when you select use newer file it uses the old verison so I lost all the esp work I did. I don't know if I missed anything but I have redone what I did when I worked out what happened, I think.

 

[Viperidae]

Hello, i had a couple of questions, sorry if they were already asked.

First is: how does the option to remove a follower from the framework completely work? every time i try it says that i have to clear the debt with my follower, even if i have no debt, and even the option to clear debt and dismiss follower doesn't work, only time it didn't give me an error message, it didn't really work either, all dialogue options were still there and debt was still added regularly. Really don't want a follower who in my current playthrough i consider a close friend hogging me for money or enslaving me :D.

Another thing i was wondering is if it ever will be possible to have separate settings for each follower, so that i don't have to go to the mcm every time i want a harsher or milder follower.

 

[Viperidae]

Tie in on previous question: if i don't select the [Click me!] option in the dialogues with the follower, is the follower effectively excluded form the framework?

[Lupine00]

8 hours ago, Reesewow said:

It essentially fills in a huge portion of dialogues you might want from your companions, and detects a pretty impressive array of devious devices, especially while dungeon crawling.  Depending on if your follower is a housecarl or not, they will also make comments about the horrible things that may happen to you if they don't get a fair share of the loot.

I liked the idea of it, but not the execution. It quickly started to grate on me, as the NPCs rattled out the same inappropriate-for-the-situation comments over and over again.

 

Yes. It was good at first, and then it got old.

 

It lacks awareness of when it should speak about things. It really does. And the more time you spend with it, the more apparent it becomes.

But if you want to be constantly told to brew them an ale, then you may enjoy it for more than a handful of sessions.

 

 

On the topic of coarse dialog, I removed quite a bit of that from DF, so you can blame me as much as Lozeak for its tone.

 

I find the more extreme the dialog, the quicker you tire of it when it's repeated and repeated.

I also removed quite a few regional/urban American phrases that seemed out of place in a fantasy setting.

 

At the time I asked if anyone wanted a more explicit or anachronistic version, but the interest was scant to none.

[Viperidae]

1 hour ago, Zagzaguel said:

I believe the mod is designed around never changing your follower in first place

I doubt that having multiple profiles is planned for the future 

Well, that's a shame, i do enjoy changing around followers, one alone bores me after a while.

 

1 hour ago, Zagzaguel said:

The Click me! thing only pops up once with your first follower and never again after that

 If you want to exclude followers from the framework you use the debug menu to do so, Theres an option to disable NPCs from this mod

Yeah, i noticed that in game, thanks anyway. Surprisingly, this time the option to disable an npc from the mod worked correctly. No idea why it wasn't working before, so that's solved too.

 

EDIT: apparently not instead, when i try to remove the npc from the mod, the dialogue options go away for about 2 minutes before returning, and trying again to remove them always gives the message that you are already indebted, even tho the debt is 0, and even after clearing it again with both options. In case it matters it is a mod follower, but i had this problem with Lydia a while back too. END EDIT

 

I did notice, however, a bug with custom followers, specifically those with different dialogues about carrying stuff and leaving service from vanilla, although it might be a necessity given how the mod works.

Basically, the lines from vanilla appear, and work like they should form the mod (blocking me from dismissing them if they have debt), but also the custom ones from the follower remain, and also work, allowing me to dismiss the follower even with debt. Upon doing so, however, the vanilla options remain, as if the follower was still in my service even tho it is not following me anymore. I don't know if debt keeps getting added though.

Regardless, the majority of the mod seems to work even with those followers, if there are any problems they would probably come out only when dismissing them or trading items.

[Lupine00]

@Zagzaguel wrote a long list of ideas and issues.

While there are differences in detail, a lot of what he says is similar to things I've said in the past.

 

The point on gold control is true ... it does protect you from some bad things ... but that's by design, I think. To encourage you to opt into it.

Once you're in, you cannot get rid of the follower without getting out.

Once you're in, you can't raise big chunks of money to buy houses, even if you have the cash, without getting out.

And once you're in, some bad events with follower lives can leave you cashless, with a grumpy follower who wants rest.

It has enough drawbacks, I believe.

 

I understand his way of dealing with things one after another, I think, but I find it hard to distil a clear direction from it in the end.

I also think that more time spent playing DF lets you see other sides of it. It doesn't always play out the same way, every game.

Plus, there are options you can change to make it behave quite differently. You can leave regular payments low, but raise device removal costs. You can do the reverse. You can use chaos mode. You can set a high per-level cost, so you level yourself into ever increasing debt (or the reverse). You can make DCL fire often, or rarely (which modifies how DF will play). You can play with lots of things that cripple your ability to sell, or not (which modifies how DF will play). You can change prices in the game, and many other things that all modify how DF will play.

 

It's not a mod that only shows one face. There are many different faces to DF.

 

 

A lot of the discussion about devices belongs better in the DD development forum, as the arguments about how intrusive devices should be go back and forth there quite a lot; I think the points above should be heard there, even if I don't agree with them entirely. The issue is worth further inspection, regardless.

 

As for what works best in DF... I find the events rare enough. If you don't go over half-debt threshold, you might not see much of them.

OTOH, sometimes the events happen in a way that doesn't quite make sense (in an inn with insufficient patrons).

Sometimes they are ruined by the device comments system from DCL.

If DCL gets in there and adds a full bondage set to you while you're trying to do one of the sex event quests, you can end up in full-chastity, and then it's all a mess.

 

I wish DCL had a way for other mods to tell it to lay off sometimes - so you don't have to disable those things manually (which I always forget).

Probably not much point asking Kimy to provide a way, as she doesn't like putting time in to support other mods very much ... but you never know.

 

I'm quite prepared to trade those events for a way to get out of devices in dungeons, which DF provides, at a price. Paying for device removal is the most common way for me to get into serious debt I think. Then I have to take deals and end up back in bondage, which is ... odd ... but in most cases I can still play.

 

I would love more variety in the events. They are one of the core content items of DF, and more variety in them would be great, but DF as structured doesn't really have a system to deliver modular events. I think that would have to come first. Pet Project does have a system. DCL's slavery framework (which has never been used much by Kimy since she put it in) is another example of a possible path. I don't mean use those mods, they're just design examples.

 

I would love more commentary from the follower, as long as it wasn't too intrusive. Subtle nudges or digs would be nice. Comments that are device appropriate would be nice too. Occasional, rare, actions on those comments would keep you on edge.

 

I would also love to see more stuff that justifies the player going along with the follower so easily. It's one thing for the follower to screw with you while you're asleep. It's easy to see how you'll agree to pay to have devices removed, when you're stuck and desperate. It's harder to explain how you can just be OK with them adding arbitrary amounts of debt for just about anything they feel like.

 

Some of this is implicit in the deal... Already, in places, the follower says things like: "A deal is a deal. If you don't wear the pretty jewellery I gave you, I'll have to keep adding debt." 

 

That is fine, and it helps, but it's the dialogue for the deal agreement itself that lacks the crucial words sometimes...

Instead of lines like: "I want you to carry a plug in your ass."

It should be "If you don't carry a plug in your ass, you agree to pay the penalty price."

 

Then you will feel more like you agreed to those penalties up front.

For some deal proposal lines, this already happens, sort of.

 

Deal non-compliance penalties could be applied on a cooldown the player can set in the MCM.

I think this would make a big difference to how you can control the mod.

If you could set a Deal Penalty Cooldown Period in game-minutes in the MCM, all the way up to a limit of 360, then you could, if you wanted, go six hours without complying with the deal, after an initial penalty, before you would be fined again.

 

That gives the player the option to ignore deals, somewhat affordably, to the extent they choose to allow themselves to do it, so they can play their game how they want. If you want a harsh follower with no slack, leave the cooldown at default.

 

I can live without that stuff though, if it means we get other interesting mechanics. Lozeak has some interesting ideas in the pipe. I want to see those too.

 

 

However, the frequency of events is not a problem - there is already a cooldown timer to limit this.

I can't help thinking that Zag set this to a lower value than default. He could always raise it instead.

 

Maybe there is scope though, to make events less random, and more reliably different each time.

I've played games where I got nothing but the pony game three times in a row, and others where I only got the straightjacket, repeatedly.

I had to struggle hard to make the Jarl game show up at all.

 

Willpower requirements can lead to narrowing the events you can see.

 

There was event content in Whiterun Brothel Revamped that got killed off ... I wish it could show up in DF  

There were several challenges in that which would work great in DF.

The sloot ninjas were also a very DF friendly feature, if only your DF could help you with sloot attacks.

 

Maybe just borrow a little inspiration...

[Cieris]

Is there a way to narrow down which devices are added for stage 3 modular deals (i.e. texture and colour)? Editing LDC doesn't seem to have an effect.

[person786]

Is there a way to ensure DF only starts when sold into it via Simple Slavery, rather than automatically starting each time you pick up a hireling/follower?

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, person786 said:

Is there a way to ensure DF only starts when sold into it via Simple Slavery, rather than automatically starting each time you pick up a hireling/follower?

No. A pity there's no such feature.

 

However, it would be a small change to add it, assuming mercenaries were still potentially devious.

Simply by blocking the "Hope you don't cheat me" dialogue for most followers, they would be excluded.

 

However, there's a workaround without any change.

Simply use the exclusion feature in the debug menu for any follower you intend to recruit.

[Lupine00]

22 hours ago, Zagzaguel said:

Often time it feels like you only ever see everything this mod has to offer when you make this mod impossible to beat. I think its great that the mod gives you this option (to set the settings high enough to make it literally impossible) but if I get the idea of this mod right it should trick you and make you fall into a rabbit hole, but so far I feel like most of the time you have to jump into it yourself. I guess this is mostly because of the simplicity of this mod. As I said it feels empty at times as all features are locked behind you failing at paying your debt

This has been a problem since the start.

 

I played around with some dynamic debt mechanics back when I had a fairly unique version of DF.

It ended up feeling just as "cheated into debt" if it reliably pulled surprises on you, or automatically jacked up the daily fee until it caused a problem.

 

In that case it felt like it was inevitable, which was dull. I didn't manage to create a sensation of walking a fine line, or being on edge.

 

I went for a different approach: adding mods that could cripple my cash making ability for days at a stretch, plus limiting cash making generally.

Triggering those problems was then something other mods did, and not DF, and I had some control over whether I took risks or played safe.

It felt better, but it's by no means perfect.

[Lupine00]

Using a mod that can put the PC out of action for days at a stretch is one way to add debt in DF.

The problem is that if you have cash and a small debt to start with, you can just sack the follower, take a rest, then hire a new follower.

 

Some kind of system where the follower decides to "look after you" if you are sick, pregnant, infected with a parasite, etc. might mitigate this problem.

 

In this case, the follower would refuse to be paid out while you have problems, but instead would insist on staying by your side.

During this period, daily expenses would be suspended, but at the end there would be a random fee, that might be small, or might be huge.

 

Instead of detecting this with lots of code for each cause, it's triggered if there are significant negative stat modifiers on the PC when waking from sleep, particularly health or speed.

You would end it yourself, with a dialog.

Once triggered, you wouldn't be able to end it for at least two days, and the chance of a huge debt at the end would always be a possibility, but it wouldn't depend much on time.

 

This would allow the PC to get through a pregnancy or DiD trauma in an immersive way, and have a chance not to accrue huge debt for the follower doing nothing.

[Reesewow]

33 minutes ago, Zagzaguel said:

As I said, its not about the frequency but about the diversity

Im not annoyed by how often it happens, Im annoyed by that the same thing always happens.. or nothin at all.. if you keep debt low.. ye..

I never even heard of the other events youre writing about, perhaps Im just unlucky.. altough I dont know if that makes my critique "wrong"

I think the main issue about the events (by which I assume we are talking the "games") is that they take a lot of effort to create but have a relatively short lifespan.  They are more like Easter eggs as most of them have pretty specific requirements - once you know the requirements it is pretty trivial to predict if you will get one or not.

 

So a question would be - do people want the games to be the larger fleshed out scenes as they are now, but only a few variations (since they take a lot of effort to make, where that effort could be used to work on the underlying mod/deals/slavery mode ect)?  Or do they want random tiny events that don't have much to them and can happen without many conditions?

 

For myself, I have other mods that add the randomness factor to DF - those other mods are my main triggers for willpower loss, gold loss, device adding (so I may end up paying my follower to remove them) ect.  Those mods also feed off of the fact DF puts my character in a vulnerable position once I'm behind, which in turn triggers more events.  I don't consider the games much more than an occasional fun scene, so I have the cooldown for them set to about 4 in-game days. 

 

Personally I like the larger scenes and would like to see more of them added as Lozeak finds the inspiration/opportunity, rather than have them be simple throw-away events but have sufficient variety of them.  Of course, both would also be great - just not something I'd expect.

 

 

Of course - the amount needed to be "varied" is very subjective, just see the comments about Sexist Guards - that mod has hundreds of lines of dialogue linked to conditions and an MCM menu to disable blocks of comments - plus sliders for player comment themes, and it is *still* considered not varied enough by some users.  I don't even fault anyone for that, it is the same issue that spawns "arrow in the knee" and "sworn to carry your burdens" memes in the base game.

[HexBolt8]

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Some kind of system where the follower decides to "look after you" if you are sick, pregnant, infected with a parasite, etc. might mitigate this problem.

 

In this case, the follower would refuse to be paid out while you have problems, but instead would insist on staying by your side.

During this period, daily expenses would be suspended, but at the end there would be a random fee, that might be small, or might be huge.

 

Instead of detecting this with lots of code for each cause, it's triggered if there are significant negative stat modifiers on the PC when waking from sleep, particularly health or speed.

You would end it yourself, with a dialog.

Once triggered, you wouldn't be able to end it for at least two days, and the chance of a huge debt at the end would always be a possibility, but it wouldn't depend much on time.

 

Nice idea!  It not only addresses a problem, but causes the follower to behave in a more natural way, and the generic trigger would work for a large number of potential ailments.

 

1 hour ago, Reesewow said:

So a question would be - do people want the games to be the larger fleshed out scenes as they are now, but only a few variations (since they take a lot of effort to make, where that effort could be used to work on the underlying mod/deals/slavery mode ect)?  Or do they want random tiny events that don't have much to them and can happen without many conditions?

 

The "games" are fun -- I like them -- but they take a lot of effort to conceive, develop, and remove bugs.  I'm in favor of adding random small events.  "See that guy over there?  I want you to offer yourself to him." 

 

Random events need not necessarily be brief, just simple.  For instance, a while back I believe it was Lupine00 who mentioned the idea that a follower might decide to loot a randomly selected dungeon.  You have a set period of days to loot the boss chest there or face a penalty (with possibly a reward for success).  Fairly simple in design, it would drive your decisions for several days.  Some players might find that disruptive, so it could be toggled.  It's not "devious" but it is another way for the follower to control your goals, while letting you decide the details.  A variation might be "I have business at [randomly selected palace, store, or inn], you have x days to get us there", though that feels weak without something to actually do upon arrival (unless there's a new "game", though that kicks up the development effort). 

[HexBolt8]

6 hours ago, Cieris said:

Is there a way to narrow down which devices are added for stage 3 modular deals (i.e. texture and colour)? Editing LDC doesn't seem to have an effect.

You can usually use any device of the same type to satisfy your follower.  Just give yourself the one you want and equip it.