On Flint and Choice [Spoilers]

Fallen London
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This post contains spoilers for Flint parts 1 & 2 and minor spoilers for Lost in Reflections.

This is probably going to end up coming off as a bit negative so I’d like to start off by saying that I enjoyed Flint. I enjoyed the fascinating and bizarre world it painted and the broad strokes of the story. I was, however, a little disappointed by it and the reason for that comes entirely down to the way it structures its choices.

There are 3 ways that branching choices engage us in interactive narrative. First, there’s the reward for making a correct or optimal choice. Maybe we needed to be paying attention. Maybe there was some puzzle to solve. But when presented with the list of choices we could tell that the one we made was the right one. The second is characterization. Our choices say something about us, or at least our characters. Are we kind, cruel, brave, practical? Our actions define us. They are the outward expression of our psyche and it is satisfying to be able to act that out in the story. And finally, there are consequences. Whether we saw it coming or not our current predicament (or lack thereof) is the culmination of our actions and it’s clear that different choices would have lead to different outcomes.

These categories are not binary; they are a spectrum. A choice can engage us in any number of ways all at once. Maybe we can reason out the optimal choice but are caught between it and sticking to our principles. Maybe a choice that characterizes us also leads to unforeseen consequences. Choices that are purely consequence based are actually the trickiest to do well because the choice by itself may not be engaging which means it only becomes interesting retroactively when the consequences are revealed and it is difficult to structure the consequences in such a way that they are interesting without feeling arbitrary or pointless.

Lost in Reflections has been my favorite exceptional story by far largely because of the choice it presents. Most of that story is fairly linear as it builds it’s world and sets up its scenario. Then, at the conclusion it presents you with a fascinating and difficult choice. It forces you to carefully consider what you’ve seen, determine where you’re morals point you, and then weigh those morals against the potential consequences of your choice. Whatever you chose you stand to gain or lose something and it says something about you as a character in this crazy world.

In contrast, Flint is front-loaded with a lot of branching choices but they are all ultimately fairly arbitrary. What kind of people would you like to bring with you feels like a choice I should be puzzling out but without knowing what I would be facing your shooting in the dark. It also said fairly little about my character and in the end you could just spend resources to fill in any gaps. Who is your deputy mostly seems to be a choice of who you want to get a bit of extra story with. The decision to save or leave the bishop’s sister is an interesting choice character wise but if you leave her to her fate keeping the Knapt versus getting the Word of Caution is basically just a coin toss. As far as I can tell each one just lets you bypass a challenge.

I enjoyed Flint. I enjoyed its world. But in terms of choices it mostly felt like I was traversing a series of story branches without any particular reason for taking one branch over another. The choices I made often lacked any context hinting at their consequences, they rarely felt like they said much of anything about who my character was, and ultimately I don’t feel like my story would have been dramatically different if I had taken a different path. I found myself almost wishing for a more linear path through the story.

That having been said, I only saw one set of story branches and I suspect that some people will have found the choices more meaningful for their characters than I did. And again, I did like Flint but it so well encapsulated this issue of choice engagement that I couldn’t help but write about it. I’m passionate about interactive narratives but they are still a relatively young medium, different people want different things from them, and we’re still figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Personally, I don’t mind experiences that are ultimately fairly linear as long as my character has the opportunity to define who they are and how they fit into the narrative. Outside of Fallen London, The Walking Dead Season 1 from Telltale is a great example of this. For me, Lee was a man desperately trying to hold onto his humanity in extreme conditions. For you he may have been very different even though the broad strokes of his story would have been fairly similar. Flint seemed to be the opposite. A narrative that branched without those branches saying much about the character at the center of the story and with no particularly strong reason for picking one branch over another.

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Though I don’t think it was as big an issue for me, I rather agree with this sentiment. In Part I, the only choice that felt at all significant to me was the final choice in the Light Factory. Sure, I could choose an extra goal in the Dish & Spoon, but that was clearly for extra profit in some form or another. My choice of assistants granted items which seemed potentially story-defining, but it turned out they could be acquired later for some ordinary items. My choice of deputy gave me some additional insight into her character, but it didn’t change the course of the story. It felt much like the requirements to become a PoSI: fulfill one of these quality requirements to proceed.

As mentioned above, the final choice of Part I was much less clear-cut. Which do you choose, one item to ease your journey or a life of uncertain value? Which best fits your character? Which choice will aid your expedition most vs how the other characters will view you? From a meta standpoint, what unique item would you like most? Coming to the story after slightly over a month’s delay I knew the general reactions of characters to your choice, but the exact consequences were still unclear. But as a completionist my choice was made when I learned the first two items could be obtained at the end of Part II, though after their use in the story. Two options would permanently lock me out of an item but the third had no permanent consequence.

I have not yet completed Part II and am currently in Caution. Since I know that All Shall Be Well, changing my deputy to a newly-healed friend will alter the exact text I read but not the overall path and result of the story. Even if all might not be well, I’ve heard that risky decisions later hurt (a lot) but are mostly inconveniences without change to the story. In fact, risk seems to have one slight benefit available and only one path of decisions can actually cause permanent loss. And though without foreknowledge I would act differently, tales of the benefit mean I’ll act heartlessly against an ally for profit. From what I’ve heard this won’t even hit my carefully-raised Magnanimous almost-15.

Flint has been an amazing story so far, and when a certain Urchin comes asking I’ll attempt to rate it as six stars out of five. But the interactive part of the story feels much more like the storyteller asking me to fill in blanks MadLibs-style than a true choice.

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There are as many consequences for who you bring as a deputy as there would be if you were deciding who to bring along on a road trip in the real world: you have different conversations; you learn different things; because no journey is without risk, you expose a different friend to potential harm. That’s an awful lot of consequence for the course of a piece of literature, not least of which for the texture of experience.

It’s only “inconsequential” if you accept the Bazaar’s training of your psyche to consider recorded, numerical qualities as a “real consequence” and everything else as ephemeral. What is the stuff of life? Does it need to take up a slot on your character sheet? This is the central tension of Fallen London: one of many fragile love stories? Or a cog in the engine of commerce? You can always act heartlessly against an ally, as Optimatum says, to reap all the rewards – and heck, there are ways to get your Magnanimous back to 15 even if it dropped it by 20 CP. All qualities in Fallen London are as illusory as all pieces of story, remember: they’re phantasms of greed. (They are also the basis for every decision I make with my main, because I desire for that character to be thoroughly ground by the wheels of the Bazaar.)

Most interactive narratives – and this becomes more true as the quality of writing increases, not the opposite – rely far more on choices that change the texture of the experience or the expression of the player’s mentality than on consequences or “right/wrong” choices. The latter are somewhat pedestrian from a story point of view, if you think about it, and the former, if they rise to the level of “plot altering,” are fraught with structural problems. There’s a reason “big consequence choices” tend to happen at the end of many narratives, as in Reflections in July; they’re less problematic there, it’s an easy way out. (This diagram I made for a textbook chapter I wrote on the subject a few years ago helps explain why if that seems unclear: http://deadpixel.co/imgs/7_11.png) Fallen London has another characteristic technique, especially in Exceptional Stories: recording numerical qualities as a memento of choice, adding to the player’s hoard of stuff. The question for a reader, I think, is that given all of these branches, consequences, textures, and numbers exist within a sandbox or a Buddha’s palm created by the authors, which will feel the most significant as a choice? So many readers of interactive narrative assume that “changing the plot” is the point, even though the plot is no less part of a sandboxed possibility-architecture than any other aspect. It may help to consider why this is, why we crave plot-alterations. There could be a host of reasons; they may sum into a realization that the truest choice is in how you approach and care about a story as a sandbox, a tree, perhaps less for the cruder things it does to you than for the scrapey feel of rough bark and grains, the delineations and expanse, the way it let you play and be yourself amidst its structure. If you think it could rise to the quality of literature? Appreciate it at least a little like literature, is my advice to readers.

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Oh, the one thing I agree about is that the nature of some of the new qualities could have been communicated better. I kind of guessed that they were a kind of consumable expedition supply needed for various challenges and that you’d either be able to get more or could get by with either comforts or inclinations; but that was design intuition, and there wasn’t anything in the story that would have precluded explaining the nature of those qualities. You were, after all, preparing for an expedition.

The nature of the Word of Caution and the Knapt, on the other hand, had to be mysterious and leave the player character clueless. After all: the dark heart of the Elder Continent. Sorry, light heart.

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[quote=metasynthie]
It’s only &quotinconsequential&quot if you accept the Bazaar’s training of your psyche to consider recorded, numerical qualities as a &quotreal consequence&quot and everything else as ephemeral.
Most interactive narratives – and this becomes more true as the quality of writing increases, not the opposite – rely far more on choices that change the texture of the experience or the expression of the player’s mentality than on consequences or &quotright/wrong&quot choices. [/quote]

There are other examples of story (outside this game) where the meaning and context can change greatly without actually tracking your choice - I remember a story where a princess talked to her doppelganger from a mirror - the conversation is always the same, but the single line of reply you pick for the Princess can turn it either into a fond farewell to a friend, a horror story where she is replaced, or, er, some sort of masturbation (I will not elaborate on that).

Well, there’s also the Cheesemonger and the Heiress too, where their ending state are wiped at the end of the story. Or the Patroness. But in a game where both little things and big things are tracked and communicated to the players, sometimes not tracking decisions can change the texture too, if you count quality changes as part of the writing. I mean, I stand by my choice and never sells orphans, but people learn to recognize patterns and adjust their expectations accordingly.

(Btw it is totally possible that you can still track the Patroness’s status - if you have the Knapt AND either Woman in Yellow / Word of Caution, then she’s definitely dead. Stealth tracker?)

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Small correction: I have both Knapt and Word of Caution, but Patroness is very much alive and happy - you could persuade her to give you the Word in the end (don’t know about Knapt).
edited by Valiant on 12/1/2015

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Forgive the off topic, but what might that peculiar story be?

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I’m afraid I can’t offer much to the discussion, as someone significantly less versed in literary topics. I would however, like to add that An Individual’s post struck a chord with me. I was thinking pretty much everything stated in the original post, but would not have been able to express it in so erudite and eloquent fashion.

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If anyone was TLDR on the first post (can’t blame you there) this is makes for a brilliant 2 sentence summary.
edited by An Individual on 12/1/2015

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I agree with some parts of this, but honestly, I’m not sure whether I want “true choice” in Fallen London or really in anything - it’s more interesting to see what’s not possible to change, and it’s kind of pleasing to know that everyone else going through the story is going through in a similar but not quite the same way - I’m not going to miss anything vital due to the choices I made. I think the fact that Flint was limited in some ways is a positive, and says a lot about the story: the expedition to the Elder Continent is going to be the same no matter who goes on it. You’re not a powerful and important person there, you’re tiny compared to a literal living mountain, and you’re choices don’t matter because you don’t matter. And as a mechanic, it is comforting to know that I’m not missing out on story, or that my choices will have unexpected consequences. MadLibs is after all a very fun game.

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This sentiment has come up a couple times so I figure I should give a clarification. I’m actually in favor of more linear experiences. Large branches in stories generate an enormous amount of extra work and small branches can add up. And in the case of Fallen London I agree with the above sentiment that I generally want to see as much of the content as possible as I would rather not miss out on any lore.

The complaint I’m making isn’t so much about the choices in Flint not impacting the story so much as the fact that many of the choices in Flint were a bit boring to make. Quite a few of them (the big ones anyway) came off as just &quotchoose a thing&quot and I didn’t feel there was an interesting reason to choose one thing over another thing.

As another example of a choice that I really liked let’s look at this one from &quotThe Gift&quot.

[spoiler]In the gift there is a part where you are looking in a mirror observing the royal family. They’re having an interesting conversation, but it’s pretty clear that what you’re seeing isn’t what’s really happening. You have the option to remain still and eavesdrop on their conversation or to turn around and find out what’s going on at the cost of revealing yourself. The later warns that this is a bad idea.

I thought this was fantastic. Your curiosity is pulled in both directions. Remaining still feels sneaky. Turning around feels daring. If you stay still you get to hear their conversation. I turned around and had to drag myself back from the Mirror Marches in order to complete the story. The immediate impact on the story is low and it doesn’t change anything in the long run, but the act of making the choice and experiencing the result was extremely engaging.[/spoiler]

Coming back to Flint, I liked the choice to save or abandon the bishop’s sister not because it would impact the story down the line, but because in the moment it was an interesting decision to make. You have to choose between giving up the tools meant to help you in the expedition and saving the life of a person who has already betrayed you. Can you really leave her to her fate? What will the consequences of not having these tools be down the line? What will the bishop think of your choice?

However, if you chose to leave her the choice between The Knapt and the Word of Caution is a boring one. They’re both tools you need and that’s about all you really know about them. Picking the one over the other doesn’t really say anything about you. Regardless of what happens down the road in the moment there isn’t much to do but pick one and move on.

For me, both parts of Flint had a scattering of the second kind of choice. The path branched in small or large ways but the choice of which path to take was kind of a boring one. This didn’t destroy my enjoyment of the story. I still enjoyed it immensely. But it was one of those nagging things that bugged me about its design.

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[quote=An Individual] You have to choose between giving up the tools meant to help you in the expedition and saving the life of a person who has already betrayed you. Can you really leave her to her fate? What will the consequences of not having these tools be down the line? What will the bishop think of your choice?
[/quote]
I am unclear on how the Sister has betrayed you.

[li]

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[quote=An Individual]
However, if you chose to leave her the choice between The Knapt and the Word of Caution is a boring one. They’re both tools you need and that’s about all you really know about them. Picking the one over the other doesn’t really say anything about you. Regardless of what happens down the road in the moment there isn’t much to do but pick one and move on.

For me, both parts of Flint had a scattering of the second kind of choice. The path branched in small or large ways but the choice of which path to take was kind of a boring one. This didn’t destroy my enjoyment of the story. I still enjoyed it immensely. But it was one of those nagging things that bugged me about its design.[/quote]
Now, what would make this interesting, is if they had meaning in some way.

[making up interesting, and symbolical, uses for these items. if this is canon, i am oblivious to this, so not spoilers:]

If you knew the knapt was a dagger that would ensure anything killed with it would never be able to harm you again, and the word of caution would warn you of hidden dangers, ones you wouldn’t be aware of otherwise, and both were clearly foreshadowed, it’d be meaningful:

Which do you value most- a guilty life, a murder weapon that keeps foes from harming you again, or a warning of threats impossible to locate through other means?

Even if they turned out to be equally useful later, it’d make a meaningful choice now, right?
edited by Grenem on 12/2/2015

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This decision was a bit more meaningful than that as the Bishop tells you, if I remember correctly, to trade anything to obtain the Word. If you return with the Word, he respects your decision more than the other options: &quotYou fulfilled my request, with honour and with wisdom&quot
His response was enough reward for me to feel that the choice mattered.

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In general I am satisfied with the story. It had new locations, new lore. I wasn’t bothered with the lack of good choices. You go on an expedition, you return. There does not have to be a complicated moral dilemma every time.

But I agree that the choices we did have felt weightless and sometimes unnecessary.
For example I was given an option to betray Patroness. That was really out of the blue. Why would I do that? I actually wanted to ask in more detail about why she is tracking the Thief. Maybe it was a good idea to stop her. But since I wasn’t sure what she was doing there wasn’t a good reason to go that far. Maybe for the knife? But I never understood why I needed it in the first place. It does not open up anything useful and the stats are meh. I have much better knives! So… yeah. My character is not a good person exactly, but even he felt there was no reason to draw blood.
Or the choice at the end. The bishop is so grateful, he will answer a question. But only one. Whyyyyy? I gave him the thing he wanted the most. It was a long and hard expedition and 50 echo is laughable amount of money for my character. He would do it for free out of sheer curiosity, but at least answer all the questions. He has Elemental Secrets and Surmises, and does not care about them, they just sit in inventory and don’t do anything. The dirt on the Mountain and the Thief? That’s excellent rewards. But only the player gets all of it and only if he cheats by reading other player’s journals.

The character can’t do anything with the info he gets, because the game does not register him acquiring it. You get a generic Fat Secret item. It does not bring you closer to becoming Immortal King of the Mountain (if that is your Destiny. Not that is my Destiny). I get that you should not gate future Destiny content by a paywall and people would be annoyed if you did that. But the result is that yeah, the expedition does not have any weight. You uncovered a major secret and the game will forever ignore the information that you possess.

It’s not stellar game design. Though I get how it follows from the engine we have.
It’s still a fine story.
edited by Fhoenix on 12/2/2015

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I haven’t finished the Thief-of-Faces question ending, but asking about the Mountain sets the quality at 2,000 and asking about the Bishop’s past sets it to 3,000.

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That’s nice to know. Thank you. It still feels that the question you ask in the end won’t matter in the long run and I still don’t get why we even had to choose what to ask. But thank you.

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Hi all,

I’d appreciate some help with this story for those who have already completed it. I’m usually fine with just experiencing a story and role playing, but some things I’ve seen discussed here concern me.

I’ve only progressed in the first part of Flint up to the point where I’m asked what type of companions I’d like to take with me.

I’d very much appreciate a PM (since it’s spoilery) with answers to the below:

  1. At what point in the story am I guaranteed to unlock Flint’s 2nd part? I’m fine with taking my time with these stories, but I don’t want to lock myself out of it by the end of the month.

  2. My character is extremely adverse to irrevocable penalties (I know - weird for a Seeker :-)). For example, until there’s a way in the future to get accepted again into Court after banishment, I knowingly miss out on the Foreign Office and Port Carnelian. So I’d appreciate some explanations of possible severe outcomes from this story (e.g. a loss of Companion or Acquaintance ranks as severe for me) and how to avoid them.

  3. Any particularly unique items I should be on the lookout for and plan accordingly?

  4. I understand that some of the story takes place across the Zee. Is this done via unique storylets or via our own ships? Is this acting like normal voyages away from London (i.e. clearing all Casing/Fascinating/Running Battle/Dramatic Tension/K&C forms/etc.) or similar to the festival at Mutton Island which was available to all players (Even without ships), and so had a unique transport mechanism which preserved such qualities?

I don’t mind any level of spoilers (I’ll enjoy the text itself when I play though it, don’t worry).

Thanks a lot in advance!

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PM sent.

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Thanks, Fhoenix! This helps a lot!