My one disappointment was that there didn’t seem to be any girls present in the general club membership

Having realized that FL is a place where one might have to make some rather horrible decisions to survive or even do good in the long term my character is a bit of a morally complex individual and had no qualms letting a man who was going to kill his family meet the end he had been running from.
edited by Rudiger on 4/3/2016

It's also disheartening to hear that others haven't found the story quite so enjoyable, especially KukaPetal's experience of the story. (Unless that was meant to be an April Fools thing that I simply failed to recognise because of time zone differences?)

'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?'

It's not hate. It's being forced to play in a way that forces both myself and the adopted daughter to act like clueless fools. It was a very good set-up for a story, but frustrating play-through.

Not an April Fool's joke, just me MAKING a fool of myself by forgetting that it's a bad idea to post when I'm upset.

And I just wanted too clarify that, other than making my character assist in a horrific murder (which, admittedly, is a pretty big issue from an RPing standpoint), I had no other issues with the writing and thought the story was well done. I've just had terrible luck with RPing lately, but that isn't going to be a problem for anyone who isn't me

Hats off to the writers for actually making me care enough to GET upset.

nightday wrote:

(post-story discussion)

[spoiler]My interpretation is the current king doesn't want to get eaten, so came up with this idea that there would be a sovereign just long enough to "count" and then they'd get eaten in his place. The rule is "every seven years we must sacrifice our sovereign", not "a person gets eaten after being sovereign for seven years."[/spoiler]

In the meantime we'll be working around the triggering conditions in future content, to try and prevent it recurring.

Robin Mask wrote:

Morality is relative, though . . .

No, it is not. Morality is absolute. You act morally because it is right-it is not some trade-off based on who you like more or will make happier.

Robin Mask wrote:

Example, hurting someone can be said to be wrong, yes, but how do we define 'hurt'? The story of Comtessa (sp?) was so powerful as it was so ambiguous . . . if we ignore a lot of the variables; killing her would 'hurt' her lover, but letting her live would 'hurt' her . . . I think "Fallen London" is built more around this moral ambiguity than anything else. It's not so easy to say 'evil is evil'.

The only moral choice in that situation is doing what the Comtessa would want you to do. The ambiguity in that situation comes from not being sure what it is she wants and having to guess. However, if you purposely disregard what you think would be her own wishes about what happens to her own life in order to make her lover happy then yes, that would be evil. It is wrong to take the Comtessa's choice about her own fate out of her hands to make someone else happy. The Comtessa is not a thing to use, she is a person.

Robin Mask wrote:

Like, I'm a bit too tired to find in game examples except that one, but some potential real life examples. If killing one person would mean saving thousands, would that be evil? If X has a surplus of food that he won't let starving Y have, is Y still wrong for stealing to survive? If you hide the truth from someone so they don't get hurt, are you still acting unethically by taking from them their right to choose?

When the choice comes down to someone dying regardless of what you do, then yes, the moral thing would be to minimize the casualties.

Stealing to survive is still stealing, although it is a forgivable sin. You should do what you can to repay your debt when you are able to, however.

Withholding information someone has a right to know is wrong because it is not your place to decide for them. You are robbing them of their ability to make an informed choice.



Robin Mask wrote:

In the game, sometimes we might kill to prevent others being killed. We might hurt others to protect another. In one story, a character kidnaps another in order to survive themselves . . . in another you have a complex choice of letting a person suffer to prevent a greater tragedy, or ease their suffering and allow a greater tragedy to occur . . . then there's what 'benefits' society, particular factions, future potential cities, your loved ones, etc. It doesn't have to be a material benefit, but sometimes a moral benefit.

Killing to save others or defend yourself is not immoral. Placing another in danger to save your own butt is indeed immoral. Choosing between letting one person suffer or letting two cities full of people suffer is a similar choice to the "killing one person to save thousands" choice above and therefore the moral choice is to ease the greatest suffering by preventing the greater tragedy.

Killing someone to benefit society is evil, and if society "needs" such a thing, it's a sign of a sick society not worth preserving.

Same with killing someone to benefit your organization

Same with killing someone to benefit your loved ones

I fail to see how doing something immoral will give you a moral benefit



Robin Mask wrote:

Anyway, my point is that morality is complex and relative, so sometimes the intention behind an 'evil' deed matters considerably, and - in a game such as this - nothing is black and white. It's possible for some people to hate the Stags, dislike the Stags, or find them immoral, but still be 'immoral' themselves without any hypocrisy . . . after all, what's wrong to one person is right to another.

Again, morality is neither relative nor complex. This is just something people tell themselves to justify doing what they want instead of what is right.

As for intentions mattering...well, I hope you'll remember what the road to Hell is paved with

Gilphon wrote:

Nobody's saying 'I always knew they were evil'; they're saying 'I always thought they were assholes'. It's more about them being unpleasant than about moral fibre. And, well, there's a difference between doing bad things because it benefits you and doing bad things because it amuses you.

Morally, there is no difference. You do an evil thing, you do an evil thing, regardless of the reason why. Hurting someone so you can have money or cool stuff is just as evil as hurting someone to watch them suffer...or even hurting someone because you think they deserve it or because you're trying to help someone else. People aren't things to use, regardless of what you're using them for.

And I'll clarify again that there's nothing wrong with playing an evil character or siding with evil groups in the game...but if you do you've kind of lost the right to sneer at annoying fratboys who play pranks, even mean ones. They're still choirboys compared to you and your pals :P

I'm going to be harsh, as I'm exhausted, and say:

"Most of your rebuttal, my good friend, is poppycock".

I present to you this quote from the first thing Google threw at me: "Morals are the principles on which one’s judgments of right and wrong are based. Ethics are principles of right conduct. So the two nouns are closely related and are often interchangeable. The main difference is that morals are more abstract, subjective, and often personal or religion-based, while ethics are more practical, conceived as shared principles promoting fairness in social and business interactions. "

To offer you an example based on what you said; you said that killing to save others or yourself is not immoral, but I very much and utterly disagree . . . mainly as I like to play devil's advocate. Many religions say that it is wrong to kill, period. There are many that even go so far as to say that you should allow a physical death, as your killing a person would damn your soul; example, if you kill the killer, you both go to hell, whereas letting him live would mean you go to heaven and they to hell. Meanwhile, there are others that think killing is perfectly moral in far more circumstances; it is 'moral' to use capital punishment to kill a killer, or 'moral' to assist in a suicide (see Switzerland for a RL example of such a thing).

Morality is relative.

Morality is the individual's concept of right or wrong, so what is moral to one is immoral to another.

These stories test the basis for morality and make us question it, and ourselves and own choices; in Comtessa, you say morality would be to do what she wanted, as it's wrong to take away a person's right to choose. What if she was mentally incapable of making a choice (due to mental illness, age, etc.)? What if her choice would have inadvertently affected others, thus infringing upon their rights? What if a lot of darned things, which often exist in any scenario - in any in-game or RL choice - that factor in to make things various shades of grey.

Now I leave to the cosy depths of my bed.

Farewell, dear Neath'er.

(edited quote colour to make visible)

Fair enough. I did mix up morals and ethics and I appreciate you pointing it out.

Edit: Sorry, I don't know how to change the quote color
edited by Kukapetal on 4/11/2016

Dubinee Finnat wrote:

'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?'

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.

The quotation mark breaking recording of titles to journal should prove less problematic now, too.

Without quoting all of Robin Mask's arguments, Trodgmey's character is a retiring, resigned, but still resolutely committed to maintaining his own morality in Fallen London. This is basically an amplification of one particular part of my personality, and has made for a very satisfying way to play through Fallen London.

I've basically given up several portions of the game at this point, like the Labyrinth of Tigers, because I used the content-resets to go back, thinking I'd like to play through some of the earlier parts again, but now have to go and kill someone for Mr. Inch in order to progress. Refusing to do that, there's an entire run of storylets that I can't get to. Still won't do it -- it's more important to play Trodgmey the character than it is to get access to content. Even knowing that death isn't permanent, he won't do it.

The better FL storylets allow for this, albeit with sacrificed content or opportunities. That's fine. However, the Stags are exactly the kind of group in FL that Trodgmey is repulsed by. This isn't an argument about a correct morality, this is playing the morality that I've assigned to my character. Based on conversations here, there's a decent number of other FL players who play in a similar way.

At least I feel vindicated in my prior view that the Stags are a bunch of assholes. Now I know that they're a bunch of assholes and I'll do my best to avoid them in the future.

Can someone tell me if entering the king's gallary ends the story?

Estelle Knoht wrote:

dov wrote:

...get rid of my aunt (in any shape, way, or form)?

Three things:

A) You are a few years too late from THE method to get rid of your aunt - hand her over to Mr Sacks (retired).
B) Chances are, if you haven't paid Fate for it, another Aunt will resurface.
C) If you have paid Fate for it, they probably will get rid of your Aunt permanently. On the flip side, you can always change your Aunt's profession, and she gives you an advantage at Carnelian Coast
D) Save your anger for the Struggling Artist, who actually deserves it

These are four things, not three :-)

C) How does one change the aunt's profession? I don't recall such an option on the card (but I certainly could have missed it).
D) Strangely, the Artist never bothered me *that* much. He's annoying, but the kind of annoying I apparently can just ignore.

Thanks!

an_ocelot wrote:

Ouch, Kukapetal. That sucks, I'm sorry.

[spoiler]Well, he didn't get dragged off right in front of me, my protege just put the crown on his head and we left him there and listened to his screams as we were leaving. I just can't picture my character doing something like that, even if the jerk deserved it. What kind of ending did you get?[/spoiler]

Anyway, pretty sure the Young Stags are irredeemable. My character washed his hands of them. Then he canceled his exceptional friend status, gave away his remaining fate to friends and checked himself into the nuthouse. Now he spends his days watching it rain coffee cups. May he finally find peace in insanity...
edited by Kukapetal on 4/1/2016

wow...it's been hard for me to figure out what to say because i honestly don't know how I feel about the story. On the one hand it was well done, well written, fun to play, etc. Everyone who worked on it did a fine job and there's very little fault I can find with anything.

But from an RPing standpoint......that really really sucked. I don't think I've ever loved an exceptional story so much going in and hated it so much by the end. Even the ending of the Last Dog Society didn't make my character as miserable as this ending did.

You see, he was a Young Stag and loved it. The Neath has pretty much wrung all the joy out of his life but one of the few things that still made him happy was goofing around with his friends playing idiotic pranks and just having a good time. And the whole "Once a Stag, always a Stag" saying made him happy because everyone he's ever cared about in the Neath has used, betrayed or abandoned him...so knowing there was a place he would always belong was a comfort to him. True, that Patriarch guy seemed to be up to no good, but my character was certain he could stop whatever nefarious deed he had planned and then everyone could go back to throwing custard and running around without pants and dangling Chuffy upside down over balconies and important stuff like that.

[spoiler]Now his beloved club has been revealed to be rotten to the core and apparently churns out vile horrible people by the score. True, his immediate circle of friends doesn't seem that bad yet, but if the sheer amount of monsters present at that feast was any indication, they'll certainly end up that way.

So now he has to quit the club because how can he ever have any fun with those horrible people ever again? Which means he's lost one of the few places he felt he belonged...as well as his precious Clarence.

He's also got some nice mental trauma from the Patriarch's horrible fate...this spot was the only place I had a beef with the actual writing, because my character would never stand idly by and let a man, even a bad one, be carried screaming off to be butchered. Never in a million years. He would have at least TRIED to save him. So I felt like the writing forced me to act out of character at the end, but that was the only spot. And he did manage to save his horrid little protege. Who promptly returned the favor by...abandoning him.

You guys are merciless :P I don't think I've ever RPed a character who has been so utterly destroyed by a game the way Fallen London has destroyed this poor fellow. Usually, when bad things happen to my character in a game, I at least get a sense of having accomplished some good, or gotten some sort of satisfaction out of my sacrifice. Not here. This is just...unrelenting horror and misery. [/spoiler]

I know it sounds like I'm being critical, but I'm actually not. Like I said, the writing is top-notch and I have nothing but respect and appreciation for the game and the people behind it but.....wow. When I started I had no idea my character would be taken down so viciously and completely by this world. While I'm disappointed...I'm also deeply impressed. The writers definitely have my (admittedly somewhat grudging) respect :P

I think the time may have come to check this character into the Royal Beth permanently and then either start over with an amoral character or try my luck with another game.
edited by Kukapetal on 4/1/2016
edited by Kukapetal on 4/1/2016