An Exceptional Story: The Art of Murder

Fallen London
41

I thoroughly enjoyed this Exceptional Story. I feel that this was one where the actions could accurately describe how my character would behave. So for roleplaying purposes, well done. She got to be judgmental and dismissive, as well as stalk a quarry at her own pace.

I’m not sure I understand the qualms with the Red Temptation stat. I saw them as confusing which made sense, as it would represent my character’s unexpected descent into bloodlust.

I do agree with the concerns of length though. Usually an Exceptional Story lasts 2-3 days but I managed to burn through this one in about 40 actions.
edited by Blaine Davidson on 1/1/2016

42

I was very interested in the “Red Temptations” quality when it showed up, but I feel it didn’t get much attention. Perhaps I missed something because I was trying not to raise it too much, but it only modifies you rewards at the end, right? It might have to do with the story being shorter than usual.

43

To me, this has been perhaps the best Exceptional Story so far, excluding Flint. But Flint is in its own category, I’d say. Perhaps it has been a bit shorter than usual, although I’m not sure. Most Exceptionals seem to consist of a prelude, in various places in London, and then the actual action, usually in a story-specific place, and once you get there, the story resolves quickly, to the tune of 10-20ish actions. This seems to fit this story as well. Maybe we were all spoiled by Flint regarding length.

But, what I wanted to say was that I don’t think this actual story would have been improved by extra length. I was quite taken by the atmosphere, and the dramatic pacing was exquisite. I was tempted to buy an extra candle to be able to continue, and could only resist by switching to my alt and starting the story there as well. And then I got to the end, and actually exclaimed after reading through my options, because I was emotionally torn at what to do. Then I made my choice, and was relieved to find that it was indeed fitting to my character, and enjoyed the hint of ‘there may be another story behind this’. And then I felt that this has been a really good story, and one that made an emotional impact.

And what else would there be to do after reaching the quarry? I mean, there could have some extra lore, a page or two worth of conversation, other consequences if choosing a certain ending, but they would have been difficult to balance between the ending choices (no one likes to be left out of lore), and they would have killed the mood. This was a macabre story with dark humour, thrill and a quick pace, where investigation slowly gathers speed, and once you step into the thick of it, there’s no stopping until you reach the end. The way it is, you are confronted with your choice while still panting from the pursuit, and must decide there and then what to do. It’s a climax, and either way, afterwards you climb back into the London su…, fog, end of the episode, roll credits. To keep the dramatic impact, you cannot let this emotional high point flatten out.

The mechanics, though not 100% clear, seemed to fit the story nicely, especially the conversation topic changes during the chase. The Red Temptations seemed clear enough in the sense that &quotwhen my character makes choices that go with the theme, they get some kind of influence&quot, but it still seemed more like a menace than something to actively pursue. Then again, Sam likes to play it on the more ‘normal’ side of the fence, and is more ethical than not, so that was alright too. Not knowing how the maze/pursuit works mechanic-wise didn’t really bother me, in fact I believe it heightened the experience. But I can understand why people would be bothered: it often bothers me with one-shot content that I cannot read all of the options by selecting them one by one, or even more when I don’t know if I can go through them, or if I choose one, I’ll move past never to return. With normal content one can wiki, and know if this is the case, or even read (some of) the other choices, but with Fate content this is tricky. That’s why it was such a nice move in the beginning that one could continue with the investigations even when they no longer made an impact, just to be able to see all options. And while we’re there, my only actual complaint (joining others) is that having to repeat one investigation step to progress seemed to make no sense story-wise, and put me a bit out of pace. I don’t see the reason for it mechanic-wise either, what with the explicit opportunity to repeat options.

All in all, terrific story, great dramaturgy, loved the humour and the expanding lore of the Cousins. Let this be the poorest Exceptional Story of 2016 :)

44

I quite liked this story!

Great Stuff

The setting, flavorful text and story. Like many others, I quite liked the idea of a secret society celebrating something so unusually grotesque.
The mechanics of the hunt coupled with the description was quite effective in raising the tension.

The Misses

Why do you tempt me with such a brief glimpse into such a tantalising world? I feel that an opportunity has been missed to introduce readers to the workings of the society, the motivations of some of the participants, the rewards promised to the champion, the inner workings etc, all which could have been introduced during the all too brief investigative stage. It also stands to reason that a cautious investigator would want to find out all he/she can before treading into such a dangerous group.

The ending was all too abrupt. Granted the path I chose (the exquisite death) precluded further monologues from the antagonist, but it would have been nice to have a sense of closure.

45

Loved it! The setup was darkly hilarious, the writing top notch, the judging mechanics fun and the twist as to the judges’ role in the contest very creative and dramatic. Though I roleplay as a compassionate character, he is also quite violent and easily carried away and there was enough of a &quotvoluntary&quot aspect to the contest (at least before the twist) that he wasn’t too morally conflicted and was able to simply enjoy the mayhem.

The second half was enjoyable too, although my poor character is always terribly pained by encounters with these particular creatures. He is very protective of them, yet here he is having to chase after one who is quite obviously villainous. Very engaging from an RP standpoint, and I liked the choices we were given at the end. In the end, my character made a choice that I feel was the wrong one, but was nonetheless consistent with his character. He tries to be good, but he is weak, and sometimes that weakness wins out. At least there is a chance that his quarry might sit down and think about what she did :P

And, of course, nothing will ever change the fact that, no matter how many of these creatures my character spares or rescues, the one he loved is gone forever. That knife will never stop twisting.

All in all, fun first half and a nail-biting second half that was meaningful from an RP standpoint. Nice work.

There is, however, one thing that I felt could have improved this story:

Split it in half and flesh each half out more.

Here’s why:

[spoiler]

I thought the first half, with the murder contest, was creative and engaging enough to stand on its own. It was fun, it was funny, it was interesting and the twist with the judges being the test subjects for the murder techniques was creative and put our character in enough danger to keep the story from just being silly fluff. I REALLY wanted to play the contest to the end. I wanted to see what other contestants came up with, I wanted to see what they were going to try to kill ME with, and how I was going to get out of this mess, and how the contest would proceed once all the judges were eliminated. I wanted to see how this whole thing worked and perhaps how I could influence it and in the end figure out what to do about it (shut it down? look the other way? let it continue as long as a few rules were enforced? gleefully join in the bloodbath?). In short, I felt like there could have been a whole story with just this setup alone and was a bit disappointed it got hijacked by the Snuffer plot.

But I liked the Snuffer plot. and I feel like there could have been a whole story with just this plot as well. It would have been easy enough to simply have the Snuffer hijack another gathering in a different story, and then maybe flesh out the hunt more…making it take place all over the city with different challenges to grind seeking or on the hunt and lots of lore for a reward…or keep what lore we got and, like someone else said, put it BEFORE Flint as a prequel of sorts. And leave the whole part with the art of murder contest as a separate story to be played before or after the Flint-related series of stories (or perhaps in between them as a breather). I think this might have gotten the most mileage out of both (very worthy) concepts.[/spoiler]

In the end though, this was a fun story and I definitely enjoyed playing it. Once again, excellent job!
edited by Kukapetal on 1/1/2016

46

I treated temptation as a menace, BIG mistake… shrugs I think I missed out on most of what this content was offering.

47

Don’t get me wrong! I really loved this story, and the whole art-is-murder thing has always been an interest of mine! (I have one character dedicated to this ‘quirk’, in fact). But as many others have said, this felt a little bit rushed and I thought that a lot more loose ends could have been tied up (like the character near the ending), especially compared to Flint (although I acknowledge that Flint was meant to be an epic, special two-parter, and it was, whereas this probably isn’t meant to be of the same scale, and that’s fine).

Still, I’m not about to dismiss this because of Flint. But tying up some loose ends, whether in the next Exceptional Story or elsewhere, might be very interesting for some of us! I would also have liked to have spoken to the Snuffer at the ending about several things; as mentioned, the conversation topic changes were tantalisingly misleading.
edited by Sestina Valdis on 1/1/2016

48

I think it depends on what your character is like. Mine certainly considered it a menace but if you’re more bloodthirsty, then it would be beneficial.

49

The one thing I really like is that it actually made Snuffer menacing without forcing the players to be at their mercy - usually, we just get to see the end result of a Snuffer stealing face and it is all sanitary like the Bishop who is all clean and hopeful sob sotry. Here, the difficulty of tolerating or accepting Snuffers become apparent when they ramps up the brutality of it by ripping the face of people in the same room as yours.

Probably would’ve been better if we get to spend more time with the contest, though, and at least let us mingle a bit before.

50

My character opted to kill the Snuffer at the end because there was no better option. Not killing her would have let her go free to murder others (assuming that the summoning ritual did not work), and my character did not want to be responsible for more slaughter. So she killed the creature, quickly and elegantly, on the grounds that this would at least minimize the number of deaths. Frankly, though, she would have preferred to turn the creature over to the constables or the Master’s neddy men. She’s a Bringer of Death and a Master Thief, but she has a strong preference for order, just the same. Plus she’s been in a committed relationship with the Devout Intriguer for years, so killing another Snuffer was…awkward.

51

Could anyone please PM me the text for choosing &quotMake a covert enquiry&quot in An Abrupt Beginning which requires being recognised by the Order Vespertine? I am just curious about the lore. Thanks.
edited by Lomias on 1/1/2016

52

Link

53

First, I did really enjoy the writing and the idea of this story. I loved that it further touched on some of the wider lore, and the atmosphere was great.

However, I have to agree with others and say I felt it seemed very short. I purchased exceptional friendship specifically to play it, and I was really disappointed to realise I had already finished it in (I’m estimating) less than 4 candles, because I feel there was more that could have been done with both the characters (and the associated lore) and the entire &quotmurder as art&quot story. What was there was so very cool, I would happily have wandered around finding out more about everything, but it all zoomed past like it was on skates.

I (like others) treated the temptation as a menace, which appears to have been a mistake, as I think it led to me missing some of the story? though I’m unsure how exactly it would have changed my ending, I managed to gain quite a bit of temptation despite not aiming for it, and chose the related ending, but others have mentioned things that I never saw, so?

I also found progress terribly unclear in places, leading to lost actions while I tried to figure out which storylets to repeat in order to advance. I know it was only one in the end, but it was unfortunate. (Repeating storylets in general is kind of irritating in an exceptional story. It doesn’t flow very well, and takes away from the narrative, which is fine in the larger game where grinding is necessary, but I get the impression from previous exceptional stories that these are meant to be more about the story, less about &quotfill the progress bar to advance&quot sort of thing)

I finished the story feeling like I must have missed a big chunk of it somewhere, like I’d read the first few pages of a very interesting and well written book. :(

Tl:dr: Dinner was excellent, but the portions were LB-sized. :p
edited by Inky Petrel on 1/1/2016

54

[quote=Passionario]
Link[/quote]
The text is well-written. Thank you very much!

Finally finished the story, here is my opinion.

The story is very interesting, but rather fragmented. First I know there was a group of crazy people murdering citizens in the pursuit of art, which turns out to be Bohemians. Then all of a sudden I became one of the judges of this crazy competition coz that’s the only way to investigate. Wait what? Couldn’t I just be an audience? Why was Bohemians involved in this cruel activity? Besides, I just don’t understand why writers and poets suddenly turns out to be nasty murderers, I thought they only kill people in their fictions or fantasies! Finally, a Snuffer showed up from nowhere and the massacre began. Hey, if I were reading a book, I felt like I missed a whole chapter! I don’t really see the connections between these three different parts of the story.

However, I do enjoy playing it, especially when the judges were killed.:)
edited by Lomias on 1/2/2016

55

I must join in the chorus of people unhappy that there is no clue that you need to repeat one of the three clue-gathering options near the beginning. If someone hadn’t warned me, I’d have wasted quuite a few actions flailing around Veilgarden trying to see how I need to unlock the next step.

Bad design, sorry.

56

I’m stuck too. Opening move and now nothing. I’ve only been playing a few months and this is only my 2nd exceptional story. So at the risk of looking stupid, how do I move the story on?

57

I enjoyed the story a lot. I feel a bit sorry for whoever wrote it because I assume the comment are based on the fact that &quotyou’re the story that came after the flit&quot. The story that was two month worth of content, 3 different location only in the second month, 312.5 echo reward. It’s like being the band that play after Michael Jackson.

Now personally, I really enjoyed it, I took this story as an opportunity to play my character, it took an aspect of fallen london, murder, and turned it into an entertainment, I’m kicking myself over the fact I didn’t record every entry into my journal, especially about the second contender.

Maybe a suggestion about exceptional story from this point on in order to reduce the ammount of discontent could be to standardize reward &quotvalue&quot from exceptional story to avoid people being dissatisfied?

Also 1 element of dawn looks way cooler as a reward than 62500 glim. Though it’s a personal opinion but that might influence how people receive rewards.

Now as far as mechanic goes : yes probably 3 clue should have been enough (less confusion). I personally had no problem with the chase because after all, it’s the number, experienced players probably know by now how many progress they need to complete things :p
edited by Esurnir on 1/1/2016

58

Suzume, have you gone into the House of Chimes to ask someone about that odd sign? If no, that’s your next step.

If yes, you must now gather four clues from among your Lodgings, Veilgarden, and Spite.

59

I’m pretty sure one of the considerations for size of rewards is how long the story is – so this story is on the short side and has a smaller reward of 60-80 echoes, right?

I liked the rushed, “what the heck just happened” feel of this story – Bohemians swept up in a trend, a Snuffer with a very different twist on finding faith than our last Snuffer, a chase through a choice-labyrinth, unsure of how caught up in the whole thing we’ve become ourselves – but even if you wish it had been more of a dive than a skim, it does make sense that a 40-action story has a lot less reward than Flint (which must have been what, at least 120, even with a short boat trip?)

60

[color=#009900]Thanks for the feedback, all! As ever, we’re listening.[/color]
[color=#009900]
[/color]
[color=#009900]I do want to add a datum, though - Art of Murder, measured in number of branches, is a middle-of-the-road size for an EF story. It’s bigger than Marsh-House, Court of Cats and Last Dog, and shorter than Lost in Reflections, Cut with Moonlight and Discernment. It only feels smaller than usual because Flint was so preposterously big.[/color]