… but doesn’t seem to continue it very far. Without going into spoilers for fate-locked content, is there anything to spoil on this storylet? I played it a couple of times, and it set a quality whose name I can’t remember at 2, then never appeared to do anything else… Is something supposed to happen?[li]
There ends up being a pretty permanent choice near the end from memory, so yes, there is something to spoil.
And how does one reach the end? Neither option seems to progress anything.
Are you involved in the Soul Trade? You need that to reach the end.
[li]
I was a little annoyed by that, actually, because I didn’t realize the permanent nature of the choice until it was too late.
One of the nice things about Fallen London in terms of game design is that your choices usually aren’t permanent, and that with sufficient effort, or sometimes by spending Fate, you can undo choices you’ve made and get yourself on a track more to your story-telling preferences. Except when you can’t, including the exceptions where you pay Fate and the Fate-locked content culminates in an irrevocable choice. Sometimes one not well-advertised. That always seemed… upside-down to me, paying in order to narrow choices instead of expand them.
The one that really stuck in my craw, philosophically, was the Painting one with the Repentant Forger. Yes, the consequences (which I shall not discuss, because it is Fate-locked) were pretty well telegraphed but only (as I recall, I could be wrong) from within the Fate-Locked content. This certainly didn’t ruin the game, and this certainly isn’t nerd-rage, but as I said it seemed very odd to pay to restrict my options.
The counterpoint to that was the exile from the Palace. My mental model for that was getting booted from the University, which you could recover from. Only with the Palace exile… not so much. (Unless there’s a Fate-locked way to do so that I haven’t unconvered.)
It’s a tricky gaming-narrative problem: In order to have a truly satisfying gaming narrative, choices need to have consequences, otherwise it’s just an extended treasure and puzzle hunt. It’s not an easy balance to maintain, and I think FBG generally does a good job of it, but sometimes the execution on individual elements falls a little flat for me.
Banished from the Court hasn’t been finalised yet - there’s still a storylet at Wolfstack Docks where some admirers covertly gift you absinthe while you wait for your ship to the far-flung colonies.
I’ve been waiting an awfully long time for that ship…
edited by Kermitron on 2/1/2014
For quite a while it was impossible to be readmitted to the University, so your mental model is not far off.
Since people are talking about choices, is there a way to change your allegiance between Cheery Man and Last Constable? That was awfully early in the game, I didn’t really know what I was doing and what my character was like at this point, and now it’s locking him out of a profession that would fit…
That makes me hopeful that there will eventually be the option for a triumphant return.
That makes me hopeful that there will eventually be the option for a triumphant return.[/quote]
We believe it was implied during the story that the banishment was more or less a formality–so that the court can claim to have been in total opposition to your views before allowing you to claim their role as the most brilliant artist in London.
If you are speaking of becoming an Enforcer, you can still access it via the Revolutionaries, I believe.
On the other hand, you can’t use the criminals’ card to become closest to them if you favored the Constable, which is doubly frustrating when one notes that the COnstables have no similar requirement as of the last time I drew that card.
I reaaaally hope that there is some suitable payoff for that allegiance choice at some point, because at the moment it does feel a bit like a choice where you’re getting punished for picking one side…
And no, there’s no way to reset it that I’m aware of either. Sorry.