Guest
10/3/2016
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A note for writers: I think I've got a grasp on this. If you're writing for FL, 1) assume that your reader is the most appallingly bourgeois hypocrite that you can imagine, and 2) don't challenge them, they don't like that. Especially don't put them in situations that can't be resolved with a combination of conformism, propriety, and respect for property leading to a happy ending. Instead, ignore the themes and ideas that you meant to explore and put in a path in which nothing bad happens to anyone as long as the Right and Proper choice is made, and make sure that the character also receives loads of echoes and goodies, affirming that good old moral rectitude, material wealth, and happiness are one and the same.
If you like you can also put in a few choices for us anarchists and malcontents, but they should lead to a loss for the character, someone's horrible death, and widespread destruction. That will validate the first lot's moral certainty and make them very happy!
I was thinking of a riff on Sinclair Lewis' 'Babbit', but without all the satirical stuff. The Babbit analogue (we can call him 'the Self-Satisfied Realtor') will be shown to be correct from the beginning, No one questions any values, there's no crisis of identity, and everything ends up peachy. Yes, I know it's firmly set in America, but I think it can be transported to Victorian London without much trouble. FB, if you're interested, send me a message! Preferably not the angry one you're probably already thinking of.
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suinicide
Posts: 2409
10/3/2016
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I think it's not quite that. People want some form of happy ending in a story that may end up redefining their character. They want to feel like they would have chosen their ending, instead of being railroaded into it because the game says no you can't be happy.
But I don't think that should apply to this story. The daily options got worse over time. From attend a ritual to convert followers to desecrate murals to help us leave/prepare. And everyday you could watch a fight nearly break out between the followers. Even not taking into account the wife's plans getting worse over time, I felt it was clear you weren't preventing anything.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/profile/sunnytime
A gentleman seeking the liberation of knowledge, with a penchant for violence.
RIP suinicide, stuck in a well. Still has it under control.
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
10/3/2016
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C'mon now. I didn't say all that stuff. I'm just trying to explain why the mechanics didn't work for me. The writers can take it or leave it as they see fit, of course.
And I've never complained about there being immoral choices available. It's great that players who want to play morally gray characters or villains get a chance to do their stuff too. The game gives them tons of opportunities. I just want those of us who play as good guys to be able to stay in character too. Like I said, I'm fine with there not being super happy endings even for the most moral of choices. Sometimes, life is just like that.
And I'm fine with hard choices too. I just want said choices to be clear. And I've freely admitted that that last issue could be on me rather than the writers.
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Professor Strix
Posts: 616
10/3/2016
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Kukapetal wrote:
Right. Like I knew we were sabotaging both sides but it felt like we were sort of undermining the two leaders' authority to make their followers break ranks...instead of firing them up into an even worse frenzy. But again, I don't know if the writing was unclear or if I just didn't get it or made assumptions that had no real basis. All I know is that I was confused. Whether that's indicative of an actual problem with the writing or just limited to me and a few others I don't know.
I thought that at first, when the sabotaging was still more or less benign (keep them from spying on each other, things like this). Then, it became more alarming, but, to be honest, my character didn't want any of the sides to win. While she could understand, she would not approve of the Iconoclast's death wish, much less that she was basically talking others to go with her. And the Visionary just talked about things she has heard whispered here and there, and that didn't sit well with her. I'm pretty sure she would try to, as Kukapetal said, expose the leaders and make as many people defect as she could manage.
Despite all that, it's understandable that even the best intentions can end in bloodshed when fanatics are involved. I think that seeing a try at making peace end in a war is good for her character development, and actually helps her to get to the path I envisioned to her.
That said, I understand Kukapetal's unhappiness with the fact that you are never in full control of your character's personality in Fallen London. It often gives us messages like: you are either willing to commit robberies and treasons, or you can't become great - to become great, you must sacrifice your morals. Being good doesn't pay. Being good makes you mediocre. Good people are too pure to be great academics or to unravel the mysteries of Fallen London. Etc., etc.
I like the fact that FL don't make you be either good or evil - you can be grey, as most humans are. But I do find it irritating that, many instances in which the game gives you what seems to be a morally good choice (for instance, helping an elderly lady) and you think "hey, I guess I'll be good on this one, this person deserves it", the game often 'rewards' with you with a text that basically makes you a petty creature, want you or not. It's like they are saying "you can be everything in London, but don't dare to try to be a nice, honest and socially functioning human being, we don't like it here".
It's not that I want to always be a girl scout, or to always have happy hippie-ish ends, but when you can't be good, choosing an evil option for profit looses all emotional weight it could have. You either quit the game or stop caring, choosing just whatever is most profitable. While making profit to buy things is a draw for many people who plays FL, it's not what hooked me in in the first place. I like my choices to be hard, and they cease to be hard when you don't care anymore and just want profit.
Lastly, I don't think it's the writer's fault. I wouldn't have played as much content as I could until I reached the end of regular content if I didn't like the writing. I'm just saying that no one can deny that the game don't let you play with a lawful good character, unless you want to quit midgame and start a morally grey character. It might be a stylistic choice, it might be accidental, but it is something that happens.
--
The Inescapable Professor, London's Most Academic Detective. Open to consultation from Mondays to Fridays, above the Silver Binding bookshop, Veilgarden. Half the payment in advance, half after closing the case. No refunds.
"THIS SATURDAY, in MAHOGANY HALL, delight your eyes with the DARING FEATS of the DAPPER ESCAPIST. Gape at his CHARM and WIT and his CLEVER TRICKS OF ILLUSIONISM. No mirrors used."
---------
Social actions welcomed. Will take menaces if not currently grinding that one stat. Send them and cross your fingers.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Professor%20Strix
My alt loiters suspiciously if you want to:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Derek%20Davis
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Guest
10/3/2016
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Guys, when someone throws a grenade, don't line up in front of it 
Edit: It's not about making 'immoral' choices, it's about questioning the value system that decides what is 'moral' and 'immoral' and who is a 'good guy' and who isn't.
edited by Dubinee Finnat on 10/3/2016
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
10/3/2016
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I knew you were talking about me, there was no need for me to dodge said "grenade." And since you were talking about me, i figured I should address it.
I don't know why you're acting like this though. No one else has resorted to personal attacks when discussing this story.
EDIT: I will also say that I never meant to imply that playing as a good guy is the "proper" way to play the game or that everyone who doesn't do so deserves to be "punished" by the game. However, it is the way I like to play the game and I think there should at least be the option to play that way. I don't think wanting an option that lets me avoid being responsible for scores of dead people is such an unreasonable thing to ask.
edited by Kukapetal on 10/3/2016
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Professor Strix
Posts: 616
10/3/2016
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Dublinee Finat wrote:
It's not about making 'immoral' choices, it's about questioning the value system that decides what is 'moral' and 'immoral' and who is a 'good guy' and who isn't.
And about actually having choices. I mean, lets say that you are investigating a certain crime and you discovered the criminal. But, for reasons known only to you, you decide you don't want the criminal to get caught. Maybe you agree with his reasons, maybe you think the victim deserved it. It doesn't matter. In real life, a very simple and anctually the most common way to solve this problem is resigning from the case, even if it will cost a lot in terms of reputation. Doing what you believe in is not always easy, but it's your choice.
Then the game offer you the option of either turning him in to the cops or framing a completely innocent person to get him out of the hook. Where did your choice of giving up go?
I completely get that it's impossible to give players all possible choices in all possible situations, but the problem is not helped by the fact that, it doesn't matter what you choose, the character's attitude, according to the game text, is always the worst possible one. If you pick a "make your way through the crowd", your character will never simply walk briskly and deliver a few elbow hits to make it through, they will punch people and stomp them. If you pick a "ignore this guy" option, you don't simply ignore the person, you humilliate them with how cool your treatment is, and so on.
So yes, if you follow the just the game text without creating any head-canons, your character is always an entitled jerk, and most times you just get to choose how big of an entitled jerk they are. If you don't want to play an entitled jerk, tough luck (or just 'cheat' and discard certain bits of writing as non-canon, which is a nice compromise I've seen most players doing).
--
The Inescapable Professor, London's Most Academic Detective. Open to consultation from Mondays to Fridays, above the Silver Binding bookshop, Veilgarden. Half the payment in advance, half after closing the case. No refunds.
"THIS SATURDAY, in MAHOGANY HALL, delight your eyes with the DARING FEATS of the DAPPER ESCAPIST. Gape at his CHARM and WIT and his CLEVER TRICKS OF ILLUSIONISM. No mirrors used."
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Social actions welcomed. Will take menaces if not currently grinding that one stat. Send them and cross your fingers.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Professor%20Strix
My alt loiters suspiciously if you want to:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Derek%20Davis
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Eglantine-Fox
Posts: 872
10/3/2016
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Dubinee Finnat wrote:
Guys, when someone throws a grenade, don't line up in front of it
Edit: It's not about making 'immoral' choices, it's about questioning the value system that decides what is 'moral' and 'immoral' and who is a 'good guy' and who isn't.
edited by Dubinee Finnat on 10/3/2016
Let's not be intellectually dishonest here, hm?
If people are discussing their issues with something, and someone else bursts in with a parody of people having issues with that very same specific thing, that person really cannot claim it was a 'grenade' that others have chosen to be hit by. That person really cannot claim that it was just a general joke. Not without a certain amount of intellectual dishonesty.
Person 1: You know, I think that sandwich shop down the road should probably stop putting prawns in its peanut-butter sandwiches without telling us. I just bought one, and it was a very nasty surprise when I ate it.
Person 2: Yeah, all I wanted was a plain old peanut-butter sandwich.
Person 3: We probably should have seen the bits of prawn sticking out, maybe, but not all of us did see those.
Person 4: I say, I say, imagine a Campaign against Prawns, full of humourless haters of seafood, marching into sandwich shops and shouting at the staff. How dare that staff have seafood on the menu, right? Let's burn down all the fishing trawlers! ...What are you looking at me like that, for? It's your fault for choosing to be offended!
--
Eglantine Fox, the charming and androgynous Correspondent, teetering between hobbies of seduction and self-destruction.
Siobhan O'Malley, Irish patriot (or 'bl__dy Fenian' if you're impolite).
Isidore Day, an up-and-coming London gentleman. All allegations of wrongdoing are categorically denied.
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Guest
10/3/2016
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Kukapetal wrote:
I knew you were talking about me,
I wasn't. I'm sorry that you thought so.
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Guest
10/3/2016
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Eglantine-Fox wrote:
Dubinee Finnat wrote:
Guys, when someone throws a grenade, don't line up in front of it
Edit: It's not about making 'immoral' choices, it's about questioning the value system that decides what is 'moral' and 'immoral' and who is a 'good guy' and who isn't.
edited by Dubinee Finnat on 10/3/2016
Let's not be intellectually dishonest here, hm?
If people are discussing their issues with something, and someone else bursts in with a parody of people having issues with that very same specific thing, that person really cannot claim it was a 'grenade' that others have chosen to be hit by. That person really cannot claim that it was just a general joke.
Oh it wasn't just a joke. I'm quite serious about my contempt for bourgeois values. It just wasn't directed at anyone in particular.
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
10/3/2016
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Dubinee Finnat wrote:
Kukapetal wrote:
I knew you were talking about me,
I wasn't. I'm sorry that you thought so.
Yes you were. I was the one complaining about not being able to make moral choices. You were clearly criticizing and parodying the points I brought up. Have the courage to stand behind what you say instead of backpedaling when you are challenged on it.
I mean this in the gentlest, most discussion-encouraging way possible, lest the mods think I'm getting feisty
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Catherine Raymond
Posts: 2518
10/3/2016
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Professor Strix wrote:
<snipping heavily>
***
I like the fact that FL don't make you be either good or evil - you can be grey, as most humans are. But I do find it irritating that, many instances in which the game gives you what seems to be a morally good choice (for instance, helping an elderly lady) and you think "hey, I guess I'll be good on this one, this person deserves it", the game often 'rewards' with you with a text that basically makes you a petty creature, want you or not. It's like they are saying "you can be everything in London, but don't dare to try to be a nice, honest and socially functioning human being, we don't like it here".
It's not that I want to always be a girl scout, or to always have happy hippie-ish ends, but when you can't be good, choosing an evil option for profit looses all emotional weight it could have. You either quit the game or stop caring, choosing just whatever is most profitable. While making profit to buy things is a draw for many people who plays FL, it's not what hooked me in in the first place. I like my choices to be hard, and they cease to be hard when you don't care anymore and just want profit.
Lastly, I don't think it's the writer's fault. I wouldn't have played as much content as I could until I reached the end of regular content if I didn't like the writing. I'm just saying that no one can deny that the game don't let you play with a lawful good character, unless you want to quit midgame and start a morally grey character. It might be a stylistic choice, it might be accidental, but it is something that happens.
I think there's some truth to the charge that the kinds of moral choices that most of us make, by preference, in our daily lives (e.g., not to kill, steal, defraudpeople) makes for a rather constrained set of choices in Fallen London. No one can deny that one of the four basic stats -- Shadowy -- is based on how effective you are at fraud, casual violence and other forms of criminal conduct.
On the other hand, options certainly exist in FL to do what most of us consider to be the "right thing." For example, you can choose to tell the Bluejacket the truth about his son in "Where You and I Must Go." You can pass on a little girl's letter to her beloved former governess in "The Frequently Deceased." And the choice a player makes in one of the earliest FL stories--that of the Contessa--is wrenching precisely because it's based upon what the player, functioning as we all do on limited information, thinks is right.
There is violence, pettiness, nastiness in FL as there is in human existence. If there were not, many of us would not like the game so well because it would not feel real. In fact, we are having this conversation precisely because FL *does* feel real, and it is disturbing to realize that in some ways we tend, after a while, to take Fallen London's skewed moral choices for granted. If those choices alarm you, the player, you always have the option to quit playing the game, or to only play storylines where the actions permitted by the game are moral ones, according to your own morality or that of your game character. Or you can play the game with all of the immorality that is implicit and explicit in its stories, aware how those choices are not choices you would want to make if FL were real and you were living among all the mushrooms, tomb-colonists, and rats. Played on that level, FL throws what most of us would consider to be self-evident moral choices into sharp relief, which can be very enlightening.
But there are always choices, even if the choices put on offer in a particular ES are not ones we like.
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Cathy Raymond
http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/cathyr19355
Catherine Raymond aka Mrs. Rykar Malkus http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/Catherine%20Raymond (Gone NORTH)
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
10/3/2016
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Has anyone else noticed that the first chapter of the Bluejacket's story involved Ice and the second part involved Fire?
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.
What will the third chapter bring?
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
10/3/2016
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Old School RPG magic mechanics say Lightning :P
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Guest
10/3/2016
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Professor Strix wrote:
Dublinee Finat wrote:
It's not about making 'immoral' choices, it's about questioning the value system that decides what is 'moral' and 'immoral' and who is a 'good guy' and who isn't.
And about actually having choices. I mean, lets say that you are investigating a certain crime and you discovered the criminal. But, for reasons known only to you, you decide you don't want the criminal to get caught. Maybe you agree with his reasons, maybe you think the victim deserved it. It doesn't matter. In real life, a very simple and anctually the most common way to solve this problem is resigning from the case, even if it will cost a lot in terms of reputation. Doing what you believe in is not always easy, but it's your choice.
Then the game offer you the option of either turning him in to the cops or framing a completely innocent person to get him out of the hook. Where did your choice of giving up go?
I completely get that it's impossible to give players all possible choices in all possible situations, but the problem is not helped by the fact that, it doesn't matter what you choose, the character's attitude, according to the game text, is always the worst possible one. If you pick a "make your way through the crowd", your character will never simply walk briskly and deliver a few elbow hits to make it through, they will punch people and stomp them. If you pick a "ignore this guy" option, you don't simply ignore the person, you humilliate them with how cool your treatment is, and so on.
I get what you're saying, but you're missing the point.
Let me give you an example from John Fowles 'The Magus' (not my own, the late Rick Roderick used it in a lecture):
Three resistance fighters are found by the Nazis in a small village in occupied Greece. They round up all 1000 of the villagers and give the mayor a choice: either he clubs the resistance fighters to death himself, or they execute the entire village. It's an awful choice, but the mayor chooses to club them to death and save his village. He raises the club, and the soldier whispers his last word: 'freedom'. The mayor drops the club and the Nazis kill everyone in the village AND the three resistance fighters.
If this were a FL exceptional story, you would be dissatisfied. By the logic above, there ought to be a third choice. Maybe the mayor stalls for time until Sgt. Slaughter and the Hero Brigade parachute in with a triumphant shout of, 'Kill the Ratzis!' and everyone is saved, hurrah! But John Fowles isn't telling that story just for the hell of it. It is intended to illustrate a point about ethics, values, and freedom. If you change that, you lose the whole point of telling the story in the first place.
The writers of our FL stories aren't likely to win the Nobel Prize or be taught in unis anytime soon, but believe it or not they do take their work seriously. It's not just spinning yarns for the hell of it and a quick cheque, they have passions and ideas and they want to communicate them through their work. Their stories have a point -- maybe not a profound or world-changing one, but a point. Maybe give them the benefit of the doubt and try to see what they're getting at, instead of assuming that they just forgot to put in the option for Squarejaw MacHero to save the day for all the decent, law-abiding folks?
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
10/3/2016
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Kukapetal wrote:
Old School RPG magic mechanics say Lightning :P
Or possibly wind.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Professor Strix
Posts: 616
10/3/2016
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Actually, I won't be disatisfied. It's not about having a happy ending, it's about not killing/stealing/saying lies that will destroy people if you choose not to.
If all stories in FL were like this conundrum you posted, I would be happy. A story that I like a lot because it does let you choose your moral look to it is the Comtessa story, and it doesn't have a happy ending.
What I feel is that many stories in FL feel like the chief of the village only had the choices of killing the resistance or killing the nazis, never the choice of giving up fighting entirely and letting him be sacrificed for what he thinks is right (which actually happened in real life).
--
The Inescapable Professor, London's Most Academic Detective. Open to consultation from Mondays to Fridays, above the Silver Binding bookshop, Veilgarden. Half the payment in advance, half after closing the case. No refunds.
"THIS SATURDAY, in MAHOGANY HALL, delight your eyes with the DARING FEATS of the DAPPER ESCAPIST. Gape at his CHARM and WIT and his CLEVER TRICKS OF ILLUSIONISM. No mirrors used."
---------
Social actions welcomed. Will take menaces if not currently grinding that one stat. Send them and cross your fingers.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Professor%20Strix
My alt loiters suspiciously if you want to:
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Derek%20Davis
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Kukapetal
Posts: 1449
10/3/2016
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See, that's not the issue I was having. The choice the mayor was forced into was clearly a horrible choice, but, depending on your values, one choice is more moral than the others. I'm fine with the game putting you into a bad situation and forcing you to make the best of it. But that wasn't what was happening here.
In this story's situation, all three choices were bad things you were actively doing. You were actively choosing to hurt one group, hurt another group, or hurt both. Instead of being the poor mayor, forced to try to make the best of a horrible situation someone else put him in, you're put into the role of the Nazis, and your choices are "kill the resistance members," "kill the villagers AND the resistance members," or "make the mayor decide." All three options are evil things you are actively deciding to do.
Meanwhile, some of us are saying "wait a minute, how did I become a Nazi? I never played as a Nazi before. My character wouldn't be okay with doing any of these things."
But there's nothing you can so because the game just assumes you're a Nazi and you can only make Nazi choices.
This is the issue I had. Not the fact that there wasn't an option to save everyone with the power of Love or some such silliness :P
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
10/3/2016
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I think a lot of the criticisms centering on moral choice are misplaced here. Like, if the character were in total control of the situation and all the profitable options (or all the options period) were morally objectionable, then there would be a good basis for complaint. But the player is not in total control of the situation - the player actually has very little control of the situation. They instead have only a small degree of influence, given to them by the Bluejacket's commission, the wife's presence, and the ambitions of the two cult leaders. It's a story about being caught up in events beyond your control. In fact trying to do the good samaritan thing in this story, bringing the Iconoclast back to London where she'll receive treatment, probably gets you a better reward as it pleases the Bluejacket and a pleased Bluejacket will presumably be more generous.
edited by Anne Auclair on 10/3/2016
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Guest
10/3/2016
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Professor Strix wrote:
Actually, I won't be disatisfied. It's not about having a happy ending, it's about not killing/stealing/saying lies that will destroy people if you choose not to.
If all stories in FL were like this conundrum you posted, I would be happy. A story that I like a lot because it does let you choose your moral look to it is the Comtessa story, and it doesn't have a happy ending.
What I feel is that many stories in FL feel like the chief of the village only had the choices of killing the resistance or killing the nazis, never the choice of giving up fighting entirely and letting him be sacrificed for what he thinks is right (which actually happened in real life).
Yes, but if Fowles had chosen to do it like that, he would have been making a point there too. It's hard to say what it would have been without a context (and it would have been a very different book), but there would have been a point to it. It isn't about happy endings or sad endings, it's about endings that are pointless, or worse, that make the point that conformity to traditional bourgeois values always triumphs over adversity. I don't think anyone is arguing for 'happy endings', but I do think a few people are asking for 'a good, decent, bourgeois ending'. They want to be reassured of their received values, not challenged. See below:
Kukapetal wrote:
Yes you were. I was the one complaining about not being able to make moral choices. You were clearly criticizing and parodying the points I brought up. Have the courage to stand behind what you say instead of backpedaling when you are challenged on it.
I read through the whole thread and I found many people taking what I think is a reactionary view. I've also been reading the comments for other stories in the past few months and it's always there. I didn't bring this up out of the blue just to vex you, it's been building up. I triple-pinky swear that it wasn't aimed at you in particular, but if I go, 'Down with bourgeois hypocrisy!' and you go, 'Hey! That's me you're talking about!' then you make it about you. If the bait doesn't apply to you, don't take it!
That being said, when you ask to be able to make 'moral' choices and be a 'good guy', I'd want to know how you decided what is moral and what makes you 'good'. To me it sounds as if you're asking for traditional values to be reaffirmed. By 'traditional values' I mean bourgeois values: respect for property, diplomacy, social order, rationalism, respectability, complacency, decency, and so on. I don't think it's a writer's job to do that, and a writer who does isn't very good.
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