The Velocipede Squad

[quote=Nigel Overstreet]
It used to be if you were really worried about what would happen, you’d search the wiki or ask around the forums or just learn to live with sub-optimal rewards in favor of in-character choice.
Not getting precisely what I want and, sometimes, not knowing what I’m going to get, is one of the things I enjoy about the game.[/quote]

I don’t really mind either way, but I suppose it saves a lot of headache on the ustomer support front to be upfront with the consequences, especially fate-locked one. Just assume it is your character’s foresight or common sense.

While I can see people being surprised at the conclusion of the Velocipede Squad, I don’t think Failbetter will do more than change the warning if lots of people complain.

From a story perspective, there is no reason why you’d get any reasonable profits once you start steering the squad towards a straight and narrow path no matter how you do it.
edited by Byron Man on 12/23/2014

[quote=Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook]
At the same time, I did think the &quotreform from within&quot ending to that story was entirely appropriate - better than I would have expected, even. The choice at the heart of the story seems to be to be simple: does one approve of the Squad’s violent, corrupt methods? If yes, one stays with them and continues to profit. If not, one tries to stop them from using those methods.[/quote]

I don’t think it was ever that simple. Obviously their methods are bad. But they probably stop more crimes than commit and they are the most competent police unit the Neath has (not counting the guys who work directly under the Masters, but those stop only very certain types of crime). Also they did start with good intentions, they just became corrupt because of the environment. So the question is, do you leave them be to do their job, or do you interfere with them, knowing that it will cause more crime to go unpunished and that even if you replace the Inspector and some policeman, you can not replace the environment the squad works in.
I do agree that the ending is appropriate. But I don’t think the game prepares you enough for that sucker punch (there are other places where it will warn you that consequences will be severe and they are not, or at least you get a skill check to mitigate), the punch is quite heavy (losing that carousel hurts a lot and it is permanent, not even Mr Eaten does such things often), and when you pay money and get sucker punched it is understandable that the person will be angry.
edited by Fhoenix on 12/24/2014