Harlocke
Posts: 506
1/5/2017
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I enjoyed the story a lot. I'm a little surprised that entering hell doesn't add a new quality to your character though. It seems the kind of thing that might be relevant in a future story. For example, if there's ever an exceptional story involving the Bishop of Southwark, and he's railing against the evils of hell, it could have unlocked an option like saying "I've been there! It wasn't half bad."
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I welcome social actions, and can visit your salon as an author.
http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Harlocke
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+3
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Helga von Lichtenstein
Posts: 7
1/5/2017
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I enjoyed the story but I found it difficult to piece things together. I feel like I missed quite a bit of investigating as when it was time to point out the murderer the conclusions and reasoning my character (automatically) stated were surprising due to containing information I was unaware of. I had started writing notes (because I like mysteries though I am not too good) and ended up feeling that I had missed crucial bits of information at the end.
Also, could someone share what happens when one turns in the different characters? The actual murderer's echo would be most interesting.
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Profile: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/HelgaSPACESYMBOLvonSPACESYMBOLLichtenstein
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Reshemin
Posts: 226
1/6/2017
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Helga von Lichtenstein wrote:
Also, could someone share what happens when one turns in the different characters? The actual murderer's echo would be most interesting. Got that one here.
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dov
Posts: 2580
1/9/2017
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I enjoyed this story quite a bit. It was indeed very linear, but that doesn't mean it's not a good story. I liked the style of the story and the Agatha Christie feel of it.
I would have liked some more time at the stop to explore some more (especially once I realized there are multiple results from talking with the same people).
I also appreciated the choice of having our character find out the real killer (because even if our character is smart, there's no guarantee that the *player* will figure it out). I agree with others who wrote here that it would have been really cool to have a "all shall be well?" choice that would allow taking the risk of solving the mystery ourselves, while accepting consequences for getting it wrong.
And I absolutely *love* the hints at a larger conspiracy when reviewing the case in our study. Suddenly it's not all fun and games - there are some serious implications to all of this and we've only started to scratch the surface.
Updated subjective ranking of all Exceptional Stories so far:
[spoiler]Excellent:
Lost in Reflections
Cut with Moonlight
The Frequently Deceased
The Waltz that Moved the World
Flint
The Twelve-Fifteen From Moloch Street
The Persona Engine
Where You and I Must Go
Good:
The Pentecost Predicament
The Calendar Code
The Art of Murder
The Chimney Pot Wars
The Final Curtain
Our Lady of Pyres
Five Minutes to Midday
Discernment
The Haunting at the Marsh House
Meh:
The Last Dog Society
The Seven-Day Reign
The Court of Cats
[/spoiler]
--
 Want a sip of Hesperidean Cider? Send me a request in-game. Here's an_ocelot's guide how.
(Most social actions are welcome. Please no requests to Loiter Suspiciously and no investigations of the Affluent Photographer)
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+2
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James Sinclair
Posts: 253
1/11/2017
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I finished this story a couple of days ago, and really enjoyed it -- easily one of the best Exceptional Stories so far, and I've finished them all. I particularly liked the diverse cast of characters, not just the passengers but the Hell-train crew as well. For added ambiance, I had a looping youtube video of train sounds playing the background while I played through this story.
I didn't mind that the investigation was a bit railroaded (if you'll pardon the pun) -- the StoryNexus format of Fallen London is not, in my opinion, very well-suited to the sort of deductive investigations that some players on this thread seem to want (i.e. The Rubbery Murders, which frustrated many). And as others have noted, it's not entirely fitting in with the spirit of the game to have a player unable to solve a mystery when their character is a highly Watchful individual.
The best part was, like in Flint, getting to visit new areas outside of London. Descending into the gorge in Helnys and then going on a tour of Hell were great! Where is that blasted Affluent Photographer when you need her to take some pictures, anyway? Regardless, I do hope we'll be seeing more Infernal politics and machinations (not to mention machines) in the future...
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James Sinclair
Curator of the Sanguine Ribbon Society 🗡
 A fully-fledged rêveur of The Night Circus.
Wines is red
Spices is yellow
But old Jack-of-Smiles
Is a murderous fellow
☠
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NotaWalrus
Posts: 221
1/11/2017
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The option to descend with 3+ sabotage shouldn't be hidden. My character agonized over descending or sabotaging because I thought the options would be mutually exclusive. I chose descending and left the train unsabotagued, which left a very bad taste in my mouth and made me enjoy the story much, much less.
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http://fallenlondon.com/Profile/NotaWalrus
Ignacious, the Fluid Professor, he will accept most social invitations, including boxed cats and affluent photographers (but only betrayals), though he is absent-minded and might take more time than entirely necessary. He apologizes.
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
1/15/2017
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I held off playing this until Sacksmas was mostly over, hence why my review is a little late. I really enjoyed this story. The writing was very good, the mechanics were fun, and it told me everything I ever needed to know about Moloch Street Station and why people actually take the train to Hell (it was as I suspected, Hell wanting a certain number of physical bodies as well as souls). I liked all the characters and even felt sympathy for the Conductor, who was very polite and professional and oh so dignified at the end…
Generally I liked the story for the same reasons everyone else liked it. So I think I’ll devote most of my review to the question of whether the sabotage/descend mechanic somehow “cheated” players.
In the past the criticism has been made that playing an absolutely awful person generally gets you a greater profit than playing someone who generally the decent thing. I don’t know how true this is, but to the extent that it is true it could be detrimental to role playing as people are somewhat penalized for playing their characters as they imagine them.
But this in turn gets us also the conundrum that you’re not really doing the decent thing within the story if there’s potentially no cost. If good and evil profit you equally then you’re just taking a different, more palatable path to profit. If you do a good deed for the reward, you’re not really doing a good deed for its own sake, so it’s not really a good deed now, is it? And if wickedness doesn’t pay more than good then the only reason for the player to commit wicked acts is their character’s ideology or sadism. This would also be detrimental to role playing.
There’s also the question of how to make Exceptional Stories a bit more challenging given that they involve characters of all different skill levels and so skill checks are necessarily low and pretty much a joke for higher characters, while puzzles that fully advertise themselves can generally be figured out.
I suspect that the hidden content that only revealed itself once the player had committed themselves concerning the fate of the passengers was an attempt to address these issues. And I think this was very successful.
The setup made players choose what was more important to them and/or their characters: selfishly experiencing a revelation or saving the passengers from damnation. There was also the third option of helping repair or sabotaging the train and getting the hell out of there, skipping the revelation entirely. The third option was thus the safe option, choosing to avoid something that might go badly.
As it happened, those who choose to save the passengers also got to experience the revelation and the revelation increased your nightmares a bit but didn’t do anything else to you. But the situation could easily have been reversed, with players who sacrificed the passengers getting a valuable item or something. Or, alternatively, instead of a revelation something really horrible might have happened to you had you lingered too long, just like what happened in the Lifeburg story. The atmosphere at the gorge got increasingly foreboding the longer you tarried, I was half afraid lingering there was going to backfire big time. To be honest, I was more afraid of hanging around the gorge than I was of entering Hell, and Hell had one of FB’s trademark warning labels!
Clearly some people don’t like being taken unawares and felt cheated, but there was really no other way to introduce this mechanic as doing so would spoil the story. Now it has been clearly established that there can be unexpected benefits or detriments to your choices and that going forward not every choice will be completely upfront in its consequences or finality, so we know what to expect. This introduces a nice element of chance into future stories. In playing your characters you don’t quite know what you’ll get, so you roll the dice and hope your decision is better than it seems. Or you can play it safe and focus on minimizing risks (in this case helping repair the train and getting the hell out of there). Whatever you feel is best for your character.
Those who aren’t interested in playing their characters and solely want the most content or greatest profit can always wait for people to post hints, reminisces and reviews on the forums and such. So in the long run everyone wins.
Helga von Lichtenstein wrote:
I enjoyed the story but I found it difficult to piece things together. I feel like I missed quite a bit of investigating as when it was time to point out the murderer the conclusions and reasoning my character (automatically) stated were surprising due to containing information I was unaware of. I had started writing notes (because I like mysteries though I am not too good) and ended up feeling that I had missed crucial bits of information at the end.
Same here. I wonder if this was very much intentional and they were going the whole “Murder by Death” route, where the cheap detective book trick of the detective semi-concealing information from the reader is exaggerated to the point that the detectives reach conclusions that the viewer could not possibly have come to. Anyway, an actual player determined murder mystery would either be so easy that everyone would solve it or so difficult that most of us wouldn’t, so I think having our characters handle it was better.
My one criticism is that entering Hell didn’t increase Hellfarer at all. That seems to have been a genuine oversight.
edited by Anne Auclair on 1/16/2017
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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+5
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Frederick Metzengerstein
Posts: 69
1/15/2017
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NotaWalrus wrote:
The option to descend with 3+ sabotage shouldn't be hidden. My character agonized over descending or sabotaging because I thought the options would be mutually exclusive.
My character made his peace with this decision (he chose as yours did) but it annoyed me that others got to experience the revelation after taking the safe option. I thought I made a mistake, rather than a choice.
Anyway, I don't mind too much. As far as my character knew, it was either meet a really special unique entity, or save some people he didn't have any loyalty to who he just met.
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
1/15/2017
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Frederick Metzengerstein wrote:
NotaWalrus wrote:
The option to descend with 3+ sabotage shouldn't be hidden. My character agonized over descending or sabotaging because I thought the options would be mutually exclusive.
My character made his peace with this decision (he chose as yours did) but it annoyed me that others got to experience the revelation after taking the safe option. I thought I made a mistake, rather than a choice.
That wasn't actually the safe option. The safe option was to not descend into the gorge at all, regardless of what you decided about the passengers.
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Little Fran
Posts: 15
1/20/2017
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Having just played through the story, I must admit, I'm feeling exceptionally confused, and somewhat dumb. I mean, I do love me a good murder mystery, but this one? I feel like I've managed to miss a large chunk of the story somehow, even though I tried to explore all my options every step of the way, and I read and reread everything along with constantly taking notes. So I come here in search of help. Lots of questions incoming!
[spoiler]Okay, I assume all passengers aboard our train were soulless? What happened to the Hawker's soul then? Did the Earl take it, to condemn her to Hell, so she would serve him there? What happened to the priest's soul? Did the Earl take it as well? The Dignitary's soul - did he take that, too?
Next, what about his wife? Why was she on the same train - did she arrange it to get closer to the Earl so she could kill him? Why was the priest on the same train? If you send him to Hell in the end, he will say "my orders were to investigate not to kill" - investigate what, Hell? The Earl? The Lily?
Why did the Dignitary ask the Hawker to break the train's window? Just to muddle things up? What was the significance of the Earl's watch, why was he clutching it in his hand? (I get that its time was adjusted to reflect the hours of Hell. So in fact he died at 1 pm, not 2 pm. Was that all there was to it?)
Why, in the end, all the passengers, bar two, were allowed to leave? Shouldn't they have been taken to Hell as well? (I played this story on an alt who was a jolly little asshole and wouldn't mind. And yes, the train was late, but it was never brought up - and the Emissary didn't even try to claim anyone else except the Lily and the murderer. Why?)
Okay, and last but certainly not least, why did the Dignitary even kill the Earl? I understand it had something to do with the Earl's contract, but what? Or was it, in fact, a revenge for something that caused her disgrace in Port Carnelian?
Oh dear. Do I feel stupid.
Also - the very-very last now - "I shouldn't worry about the old man. Just see to the levers." What? Who? What?[/spoiler]
Wow, that turned out longer than I expected. I do apologize for the wall of text, but thank you for reading! Any answers are much appreciated.
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Ms Lyra - Revolutionaries and snakes
The Rhymer - A scandalous and magnificent asshole
Hooded Figure - Too mysterious for this signature
Isabelle Moreau - A lady on a mission
Little Fran - A sacrificial lamb
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
1/20/2017
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Little Fran wrote:
Okay, I assume all passengers aboard our train were soulless?
Not necessarily. I thought the implication was that people can sell their souls to the Devils without having it abstracted. This is partly why there is a regular traffic of humans going to Hell via Moloch Street Station - some of these people sold their souls but didn't want them abstracted. So in exchange for keeping their souls in their bodies they had to agree to personally deliver themselves to Hell at such and such date. This strikes me as a rather worse deal than simply giving them your soul, but at least you get a lovely train ride out of it with lots and lots of brandy.
Also, the payments for these embodied souls seem a bit bigger on the Devils' part, suggesting they really like having humans accompanying their souls to Hell. Which suggests that abstraction is sort of a compromise with the fact that most humans don't willingly damn themselves body and soul to Hell.
Also, I don't think the Hawker sold her soul. I think she was just being dragged along by her employer and the only infernal contract she had was with her boss. No doubt it contained a literally damning clause in very fine print that said she had to accompany him to Hell :P
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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phryne
Posts: 1351
1/21/2017
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Okay, this was absolutely delightful, just like last month's! Unless the Gate Prophet turns out to be a disappointment, this will be my favourite Season by far!
Also, it was the perfect story for Eva, just a few days after becoming a Scarlet Saint - going for a visit to Hell, but saving all the souls on the train! 
I'm glad for the writer, James Chew, too, since his first ES (Lady of Pyres) didn't push my buttons at all.
My stats changed this way: D 114->120, W 125->120, P 123->127, S 102->106.
Three went up, one went down - can't complain! I'd be interested to know whether there was a formula to it, or were the jumps completely random?
dov wrote:
Updated subjective ranking of all Exceptional Stories so far: OK, let me have a go at this:
[spoiler]5/5
Lost in Reflections
Flint
Frequently Deceased
Chimney Pot Wars
Calendar Code
Where You & I Must Go
Persona Engine
12:15 from Moloch Street
4/5
Haunting at the Marsh-House
Court of Cats
Cut with Moonlight
Waltz that Moved the World
Final Curtain
3/5
Last Dog Society
Art of Murder
Seven-Day Reign
Five Minutes to Midday
2/5
Pentecost Predicament
Our Lady of Pyres
1/5
Discernment[/spoiler]
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Accounts: Bag a Legend • Light Fingers • Heart's Desire • Nemesis • no ambition
Exceptional Stories, sorted by Season and by writer ― Favours & Renown Guide
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ochrasy
Posts: 169
1/24/2017
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my stats went up about 1 level each upon entering hell, except for dangerous (which is above 200, although the text had a typo: it said that the quality couldn't be raised above 209, instead of 200)
while I did not notice you can get different texts for talking to the characters (is this at henlys? because I did play one of the options twice, and it was the same text), I manage to descent and sabotage the train, and seeing how many people didn't make me happy I got lucky in my choices.
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Ochrasy. Monster-Hunter. Dangerous and Watchful, favors the Constables.
Robitaille. Persuasive and Shadowy, fond of the Devils.
Herr Horst. Seeker of Revenge.
Open to all social actions on all accounts. Preferably, send any MW-providing actions to Ochrasy.
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dov
Posts: 2580
1/24/2017
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ochrasy wrote:
my stats went up about 1 level each upon entering hell, except for dangerous (which is above 200, although the text had a typo: it said that the quality couldn't be raised above 209, instead of 200)
Not a typo (I believe). Just the weirdness of Hell. It uses some formula based on your base stat and also on any existing stat bonuses to come up with a new stat level.
For your Dangerous (based both on the base level and bonuses) it probably came up with 210, hence the message that it can't set it to be higher than 209.
--
Want a sip of Hesperidean Cider? Send me a request in-game. Here's an_ocelot's guide how.
(Most social actions are welcome. Please no requests to Loiter Suspiciously and no investigations of the Affluent Photographer)
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+1
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ochrasy
Posts: 169
1/24/2017
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dov wrote:
ochrasy wrote:
my stats went up about 1 level each upon entering hell, except for dangerous (which is above 200, although the text had a typo: it said that the quality couldn't be raised above 209, instead of 200)
Not a typo (I believe). Just the weirdness of Hell. It uses some formula based on your base stat and also on any existing stat bonuses to come up with a new stat level.
For your Dangerous (based both on the base level and bonuses) it probably came up with 210, hence the message that it can't set it to be higher than 209.
I see. well, Hell has to be weird, I guess.
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Ochrasy. Monster-Hunter. Dangerous and Watchful, favors the Constables.
Robitaille. Persuasive and Shadowy, fond of the Devils.
Herr Horst. Seeker of Revenge.
Open to all social actions on all accounts. Preferably, send any MW-providing actions to Ochrasy.
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Little Fran
Posts: 15
1/25/2017
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All my stats went down ~4 levels (I was at 110 or so at each). But oh well, can't really compain, the game did warn me beforehand.
[spoiler]Anne Auclair wrote:
Little Fran wrote:
Okay, I assume all passengers aboard our train were soulless?
Not necessarily. I thought the implication was that people can sell their souls to the Devils without having it abstracted. This is partly why there is a regular traffic of humans going to Hell via Moloch Street Station - some of these people sold their souls but didn't want them abstracted. So in exchange for keeping their souls in their bodies they had to agree to personally deliver themselves to Hell at such and such date. This strikes me as a rather worse deal than simply giving them your soul, but at least you get a lovely train ride out of it with lots and lots of brandy.
Also, the payments for these embodied souls seem a bit bigger on the Devils' part, suggesting they really like having humans accompanying their souls to Hell. Which suggests that abstraction is sort of a compromise with the fact that most humans don't willingly damn themselves body and soul to Hell.
Also, I don't think the Hawker sold her soul. I think she was just being dragged along by her employer and the only infernal contract she had was with her boss. No doubt it contained a literally damning clause in very fine print that said she had to accompany him to Hell :P
Oh! I haven't thought of that. Soul trade without abstraction is a neat idea![/spoiler]
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Ms Lyra - Revolutionaries and snakes
The Rhymer - A scandalous and magnificent asshole
Hooded Figure - Too mysterious for this signature
Isabelle Moreau - A lady on a mission
Little Fran - A sacrificial lamb
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
1/28/2017
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btw, did anyone happen to copy the music while the train was stranded? Because I'd like to read those again and I neglected to copy them...
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Plynkes
Posts: 631
2/5/2017
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Was it actually revealed what the murderer's motive was? Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, because I missed it if it was. Without knowing that, I'm left feeling a little unsatisfied about the murder mystery part of the affair.
Edit: I did very much enjoy experiencing this story, though. One of my favourites so far.
edited by Plynkes on 2/5/2017
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"Then tell Wind and Fire where to stop, but don't tell me."
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Anne Auclair
Posts: 2215
2/8/2017
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Plynkes wrote:
Was it actually revealed what the murderer's motive was? Perhaps I wasn't paying attention, because I missed it if it was. Without knowing that, I'm left feeling a little unsatisfied about the murder mystery part of the affair.
Edit: I did very much enjoy experiencing this story, though. One of my favourites so far.
edited by Plynkes on 2/5/2017
[spoiler]Her motive seems to have been a combination of spite, vengeance, and "nothing left to lose" desperation. She was counting on the Devils giving her the Saturnine Earl's "reward," as Infernal tradition dictated.[/spoiler]
edited by Anne Auclair on 2/8/2017
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http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Anne%20Auclair
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Absintheuse
Posts: 348
3/15/2017
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This Exceptional Story is now available to purchase for Fate!
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