The handsome townhouse should be a 4 card lodging.

Fallen London
1

[quote=Wicker]Hello. This is really bothering me. I don’t know if this complaint is common, or if it has been addressed, I didn’t find anything when I searched the forum.

I don’t see why it shouldn’t be harder to get, and made a 4 card lodging. To me, the other 3 are quite a bit exclusionary. One is aligned with the bazaar, one is aligned with hell itself, and the other isn’t even a house, it’s just a hotel room. I think being willing to live in a hotel is a pretty specific type of character, the same goes for the bazaar and especially hell.

You don’t actually have the option to live independently, in a nice house, on a nice street, not if you ever want to have more than 3 cards. I think it even qualifies as respectable lodgings, so why is this only 3 cards?

All the 4 card lodgings have an upgrade version, the simple answer here is to make the 5 card version a mansion.

I think many people would love to not be penalized for wanting their own house, not a hotel room, or something faction oriented. To simply have a grand residence, with nice rich neighbors. Like I said, it should be a bit harder to get of course. It would probably end up being be the most common choice for people, they’d choose one of the other 3 if they want something that specific. If you think it would outshine the others, then you’re just proving people would really like this:(

Please, give me your thoughts on the townhouse, and the 4 card lodgings.
edited by Wicker on 4/28/2016[/quote]
Could you expand a bit on this? Is your concern strictly RP?

If so I can kind of see what you mean about wanting a place of your own, although I’d actually assumed that this was on purpose. When entering Fallen London, you’re at loose ends. Beholden to none. Free to make your way in the world.

But, as a character gets more involved in the Neath, this changes. Even if your character owes no favors, favors are owed. Strings attached to a marrionette are also attached to the performer. This is a fact of power. A townhouse is not as prestigious as the 4 or 5 card lodgings. It is not as entangled. Thus it does not offer the same benefits.

Power vacuums are not conducive to stability. Instability is not acceptable to the Masters. They might prefer you work for the revolutionaries then be at loose ends.

And that brings us full circle. Becoming a Power in the Neath requires allies (faithful or not), and anyone outside of such considerations would find their options limited.

This doesn’t mean a player couldn’t continue playing, but it means that remaining independent would be less profitable and harder. Like having only a 3 card hand perhaps?

PS: This only occurred to me after posting, but, in a way, Remote addresses are the perfect support and contradiction to the above. They’re advantage is that they are less entangled that anything else and that makes them (debatably) the most useful lodgings in the game. But the cost is both: the difficulty in acquisition, and not being able to get beyond 3 cards.
edited by MrBurnside on 4/28/2016

2

I don’t really understand your argument.

Obviously, the Townhouse exists and you can choose it as you’re lodgings. If this is your RP choice (because you don’t like Hell, the Bazaar, and don’t like hotels), then it’s open to you.

So the RP choice is there. Why do you feel it “should” provide a 4 card hand?

I’d understand if your arguments would have been that you’d personally like the Townhouse to have better stats. That’s understandable if this is you preferred lodgings. However, there’s much difference between personal preference and how the game “should” be crafted.

For example, people who prefer the Bazaar might feel that their side of the Affair of the Box should be as profitable as for the Revolutionaries. Shepard’s might feel they should have an option as profitable as for Spirifer, etc.

The game is all about choices and consequences. You are free to pick the Townhouse. The world of Fallen London sees this as a legitimate, yet less prestigious, choice.

3

I’m actually kind of inclined to agree with OP. Certainly in London in the period in which the game is set there would have been private houses to rival any fine hotel. Can’t say I see the fact that the Handsome Townhouse is a 3-card lodging to be a massive deficiency in the game, but making it 4-card, or upgradeable to 4-card, would make some sense.

As an aside to an earlier poster’s comment: it is perfectly possible to pick an unentangled profession that is just as profitable as the ones that are more clearly aligned to a faction - in that sense, at least, it is not necessary to pick a side to advance.

4

The hotel is, of course, not just a luxury hotel. And the reason you can have a room there is not because you are important but because you have managed to curry favour with the Manager, who is not just a manager of a hotel.

(P.S. MrBurnside, apologies - I meant to thumbs up your post butaccidentally thumbed it down…)

5

It’s absolutely true that the hotel isn’t a part of any Faction, but it’s not true that it’s just a luxurious hotel. I don’t think the Merry Gentleman even always asks for payment (of non-player-characters I mean). The Royal Beth is extremely tied to capital-P Powers in the Neath. Massive spoiler.

You’re right here as well, the Handsome Townhouse could be tied into Society. It isn’t yet, but it could be. If I was mistook the purpose of your post than I apologize.

Well, if you want them to cost only one fortune and not two fortunes, then they do. And if you get the 5 card upgrades (at Sackmas or otherwise) then this is made doubly clear. As to their being tied to Hell and the Bazaar, they had always seemed to have more clout then most of the other factions.

The Revolutionaries would probably be in the top three as well. I’m not sure to what degree Society can influence things, but certainly more then Urchins or Rubbery.
edited by MrBurnside on 4/28/2016
edited by MrBurnside on 4/28/2016

6

I’d disagree as the Townhouse already has a purpose unlike any other lodging. If it also became a 4 card lodging that’s too much vested power particularly for the lower price: it’s 80 echoes vs 625 for the 4 card lodgings. For that price difference, I would expect to see some actual game benefit thrown in!

7

I get the RP idea that it ought to be a four-card lodging. But Parelle’s point about costs is one I find quite compelling.

Were it my choice, I’d set it to upgrade to four cards, at a cost roughly around 500 echoes in stuffs.

8

All of you shut up, we should make the attic room a 5-card Lodgings first because anyone who is anyone in this city all are in debt to the Soft-Hearted Widow and everyone with potential lives there.

9

Seems to me it wouldn’t be unreasonable to make the Townhouse upgradable into a 4-card lodging. Like, maybe once you get an orphanage or salon, an option appears to make your orphanage or salon -special- in some way.

10

Maybe if there was an upgrade for the town house to make it 4 card?

But at the price of not being able to run anything OUT of it?

Course, I’d love a 4 card remote adress too, so…

11

It would fit if ypu could have two. One which you can turn into a saloon/orphanage and one into a higher level house. Weirdly, evwn though Rysiek HAS one, he lives above a bookstore… fit more with his char. Anyways, I support the idea![li]