[li]Ive only just found the spare actions to do the stag story so I was surprised at the remarkably coincidental similarities it had to yesterday’s Agents of Shield episode. I don’t want to go spoilery but enjoyed the coincidence, and wondered if anyone else had noticed it.
[li]All in all not a terrible exceptional story, but as many have said the opportunity card finale felt underwhelming.
[quote=Anne Auclair][quote=Anne Auclair]sighs The error’s back. My Aunt is the one who has been crowned, but the journal records the Protégé.
edited by Anne Auclair on 4/13/2016[/quote]
Sent a bug report. Figure I might as well finish the story line as I already have a toe in. So far I’m enjoying it. What larks, what larks.[/quote]
[color=#e53e00]Could anyone else getting this problem send in a support ticket: support@failbettergames.com - I’m going to try to pin down what’s happening, and more information would be immensely useful.
I’d particularly like to know if it’s always changing to ‘your protege’, or whether it shows either of the other two options incorrectly. Whether it happens to the he/her/his/etc too. And whether people playing as ‘your protege’ have any problems.
Thank you. [/color]
[quote=babelfishwars][color=#e53e00]Could anyone else getting this problem send in a support ticket: support@failbettergames.com - I’m going to try to pin down what’s happening, and more information would be immensely useful. [/color][/quote]So many links to echoes coming your way! It would be daughter (correct), aunt, OR protege; I neglected to check pronouns, but they’ll be in the echoes.
I’m echoing all my interactions too, so I’ll send you a complete list of errors once I’ve finished the story.
For anyone who has played through it with the aunt or daughter, does it make a difference who you pick to accompany you? I purchased the aunt storyline in hopes of having her with me, but haven’t drawn aunt cards in nearly a week. Now I’m thinking of playing through with the non fate locked guy. Would I be missing out on anything good?
edited by Harlocke on 4/16/2016
[quote=Harlocke]For anyone who has played through it with the aunt or daughter, does it make a difference who you pick to accompany you? I purchased the aunt storyline in hopes of having her with me, but haven’t drawn aunt cards in nearly a week. Now I’m thinking of playing through with the non fate locked guy. Would I be missing out on anything good?
edited by Harlocke on 4/16/2016[/quote]
From what I can tell just on what the content was like, and other posts here, there’s not much customized to the specific person you bring. I was a little disappointed by this, to be honest – I wanted more adopted daughter content.
The main long-term effect is basically, from what I can tell/guess, is that there is some chance of whomever you bring dying permanently, but you are given the option to play through in what is effectively "safety mode," where such a chance is off the table. The chance is fairly obvious when presented, and mirrors the same question in Flint.
[quote=Trodgmey ][quote=Harlocke]For anyone who has played through it with the aunt or daughter, does it make a difference who you pick to accompany you? I purchased the aunt storyline in hopes of having her with me, but haven’t drawn aunt cards in nearly a week. Now I’m thinking of playing through with the non fate locked guy. Would I be missing out on anything good?
edited by Harlocke on 4/16/2016[/quote]
From what I can tell just on what the content was like, and other posts here, there’s not much customized to the specific person you bring. I was a little disappointed by this, to be honest – I wanted more adopted daughter content.
The main long-term effect is basically, from what I can tell/guess, is that there is some chance of whomever you bring dying permanently, but you are given the option to play through in what is effectively "safety mode," where such a chance is off the table. The chance is fairly obvious when presented, and mirrors the same question in Flint.[/quote]
Huh. Is there a good reason to risk them? From the way you describe it, maybe it would be smarter to use the new guy.
The thrill of risking permanent consequences for failure is a good reason for some. If that’s not you, you can just pick the ‘safety mode’.
Though I gather that the consequences of the final choice don’t make as much sense if you’re on ‘safety mode’, so that’s also potentially a reason to go for the risky version.
I quite enjoyed this Exceptional Story.
[spoiler]The Young Stags have never been my favourite of the Neath’s organisations, but this depiction of them as Skull and Bones crossed with Freemasons crossed with Summerisle in the Wicker Man crossed with Saturnalian status reversals seemed perfect to me.
I thought the Story did an excellent job of creating and building tension between the threat that something was very wrong (I chose my daughter to be Seven-Day King and I also chose the option that meant she could die, which I definitely did not want) and the buffoonery of the revellers. I made the choices I felt were most in character but I also constantly second-guessed myself because I had no idea when the danger would come.
The Story reached a pitch of unbearable forebodingness on the day of the Feast. For one horrible moment I thought my character would arrive only to find his daughter broiling in the cauldron!
Then there’s a great flurry of chaos, as there often is. BTW, I feel that this Story’s ‘grinding’ portions (the bit of detective work at the start, the chase scene through the forgotten quarter) were exactly the great length. Long enough to mark a change in pace, not too long that they disrupted the overall tempo of the story. I think that this has not always been achieved before. So bravo.
Then the denouement. Very nice, the type of stumbling crash and silence that I like both orchestras and stories to end with. I was fortunate enough to save my daughter, she got a bit of character development (in my mind) by cold-bloodedly leaving the patriarch to be devoured by the Young Stags. As far as I know, this is the first time she’s murdered.[/spoiler]
Anyway, great work, really enjoyed. Although I saw my character described his daughter as his aunt. English isn’t his first language but still :)
edited by Frederick Metzengerstein on 4/17/2016
[quote=Gilphon]The thrill of risking permanent consequences for failure is a good reason for some. If that’s not you, you can just pick the ‘safety mode’.
Though I gather that the consequences of the final choice don’t make as much sense if you’re on ‘safety mode’, so that’s also potentially a reason to go for the risky version.[/quote]
Well, I may end up going with random dude regardless of what I want. Aunt card RNG has been very stringy in the past few days. I doubt I can play it with her even if I want to.
Okay, I finished the story and here is my review. Quick note, I picked the story branch staring my character’s Aunt and this review is only really applicable to that branch.
[spoiler]First, my character is a member of the Young Stags Club. Before this story I wasn’t all that into the Young Stags as they just seemed like a glorified frat house. I only chose them because their energy and disreputable activities seemed a better fit for my character than the stuffy, oh so respectable Parthenaeum. While I did idly wonder if the +2 to Dreaded signaled there was something more to them than pranks, I didn’t really give the club much thought.
Well, we got a glimpse behind the curtain and I love the hidden world of the Stags. I love their secret rituals, their dark covenant with Kingseater’s Castle, their nefarious political influence, and the mythological state these various aspects combine to bring about in the Forgotten Quarter. The Stags seem very Neathy now and I feel really good about my choice of clubs.
I thought the writing was clever and enjoyable. “Take life lightly,” “‘Parade of Midnights?’ That sounds brilliant - Make them do that,” “I shan’t trouble you with the details,” and “tradition only takes you so far” each got a little laugh. The Placid Patriarch was a perfectly suave and loathsome villain. One can easily see how he’s been able to so master his little domain for fourteen years, turning a temporary office into a permanent power base. The Stags as a whole were also given a nice collective portrait. The Aunt was her usual outrageous self (“I want Chuffy to have to scrape it of the ceiling” – lol).
My one disappointment was that there didn’t seem to be any girls present in the general club membership, which was…strange. And somewhat disappointing. The Stags occasionally recruit and even crown girls, so why did there only seem to be lads around to make mischief with? This was something of an oversight, I think. There’s the Patriarch, Clarence, good ole Chuffy, but no Stagettes, if you will. It would have been nice to meet another lady Stag and see a feminine interpretation of Stag’s antics and it was just weird not to, you know? Perhaps we could see some female Stags as minor characters or extras in a future Exceptional Story to make up for this.
I really enjoyed the Reign of Terror and Reign of Nonsense mechanics. In addition to determining the type of reign, reward and chase you received, it also let you determine what sort of Stag activities your character preferred to engage in and hence which side of the club’s Bizarre/Dreaded scale you experience more. So, depending on your actions, you experienced the Stags either as a fun and jolly association of pranksters (the bizarre side of the group) or as a fearsome, violent mystery cult (the dreaded side). So although you ultimately go against the Placid Patriarch, before the battle you have the choice of embracing the fun and games side of the Stags or unknowingly partaking in their hidden dark side.
I also enjoyed the Seven Day Reign’s pacing and length. I picked the safe option so I didn’t experience as much escalating tension as other players, but I was still quite entertained by the story’s hijinks. Like, what will the Stags get up to in Vielgarden?! Oh, let’s see how they do in the fighting pits! What dilemma will I assist the sovereign with next? What will happen at the Feast? How will I get my error prone Aunt out of this one? It never felt slow and made for an extremely fun story.
The journal bug was a letdown, but only a small and understandable one. I know the writers are experimenting with new and interesting story types and game mechanics and when you experiment sometimes things just don’t work perfectly.
So, all in all, one of my favorite stories. Good, but flawed by the absence of female Stags.[/spoiler]
[quote=James Sinclair][quote=Dubinee Finnat]
‘Must I Jeeves? It’s positively vile.’
‘I believe it is traditional, sir.’
‘Right ho, mustn’t let the side down, eh?. What’s the name of that chappie in the story, got turned into a stag, eaten by his hounds?’
‘Actaeon, sir.’
‘That’s the one. Poor Bingo, though. Pass the mustard, would you?’
[/quote]
Having watched the complete Jeeves and Wooster TV series a while back, this made me laugh so hard! I can almost hear the voices of Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry having this exact conversation.
Although, knowing Jeeves, I imagine he’d probably take care of the Patriarch one way or another, with Bertie blissfully ignorant as usual.[/quote]
It probably says something about this story that I thought this was an actual quote from the ending that hadn’t been blacked out with spoiler tags and was really disappointed when it didn’t happen :P
This was my issue with both the Stags and Parthenaeum, they didn’t particularly seem to have much female presence. And neither of them particularly met my character’s desires, at least not nearly as much as, say, the Dilmun Club or the Temple Club.
To anyone who has finished the story, do you think it’s better to play it with the aunt or the protege? I finally unlocked the aunt, but I’m not sure which would be a better choice, if it even matters.
I’d advise going with the aunt- the difference isn’t huge, but I think the story is a bit stronger if you have that personal connection to the character.
Neither the Stags and the Parthenaeum keep you from joining the Dilnum and Temple club.
I personally perfer the Parthenaeum because it’s the best napping spot in all of London.
Well, there are others there, but they don’t matter.
It’s a very good story with the Aunt. It doesn’t seem to be as good a story with the protege, at least if the reviews are anything to go by.
[quote=Shadowcthuhlu]Neither the Stags and the Parthenaeum keep you from joining the Dilnum and Temple club.
I personally perfer the Parthenaeum because it’s the best napping spot in all of London.
Well, there are others there, but they don’t matter.[/quote]
I made my character join the Parthenaeum just for that very reason : taking a nap here is sooo comfortable. And since my character is a bit excentric, it’s totally normal for him to join such a group just to get a nice place to sleep.
I was wondering the same thing. Perhaps they are giving a reset for people who had serious issues with the journal bug and/or they need another week to finish the next ES. Hopefully we’ll get an answer soon.
[quote=Robin Mask]An ‘Exceptional story’ has just appeared called "The Ragged King" . . . it says it’s only around until May 5th, but feels like it’s exactly the same as last month’s story? Plus, if it were this month’s story, surely it’d be around longer than a week? I’m pretty confused by this . . . is it just the same story as before, but with a week’s extension, until they post the next exceptional story?
edited by RobinMask on 4/28/2016[/quote]
[color=#e53e00] Panic not - all will be revealed shortly. (Limited number of hands, very difficult to do exactly simultaneous things.) The new EF isn’t up yet. Soon! [/color]