I was trying to guess the Assistant's agenda and what betrayal they had planned against me and possibly perpetrated against my former lover. I was a little disappointed that it was all relatively benign.

Pnakotic wrote:

Scienceandponies wrote:

So, what happens if you do convince everyone to leave? And is there any appreciable difference between the leave option that requires all the decision flags and the one that doesn't require any? Can I talk someone back into staying if I convince them to leave?

In the end I think it's more a matter of probing their own feelings, as is the wish of the Antiquarian. Despite being tempted to just leave everyone to rebuild that nifty temple, I talked to everyone and all except the Courteous Assistant (who was just unreasonably piqued over my briefly binding a portion of her essence to a simulacrum) decided to leave with me.

[spoiler]In addition to having very high Persuasive, I also worked up to rank 10 in Friendship of the Company. Not sure if that was used for the final choices, but if it wasn't I have no idea what other purpose it served in this story![/spoiler]

Anyway, here's the echos for anyone curious: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/J.%20Ward%20Dunn?fromEchoId=12189154
edited by Pnakotic on 7/28/2017

Thanks for the echo. It seems there's no appreciable difference. I decided to just leave without trying to convince anyone and the result was exactly the same, sans the very first sentence about not leaving alone. Now I'm just curious as to what that OTHER flag filled option was all about. I would think the regular leave option would be sufficient if you failed to convince everyone. Not sure what the point is of having another option for specifically failing to convince each person. Unless I misunderstood what those flags meant.

What to choose first from Midnight Hallways:
Explore the Ground Floor
Explore the Upper Floor
Explore the grounds?
If you wish you can PM me, please.

Optimatum wrote:

There isn't any real reason for sabotage that I can think of, unless your character was particularly angry at the trickery. You might want to talk the guests out of staying because the Antiquarian wanted them to only stay if they really wanted to, I guess? And you might want to convince the Antiquarian for the same reason.

Scienceandponies wrote:

Or am I missing why convincing everyone to leave would be a clearly superior option instead of just kind of a dick move?

Along with just being pissed at this motley crew tricking you, some people don't like anything to do with Parabola due to how dangerous it's been for many cities and groups. With that and the base fear of "new crazy magic shenanigans! scary!", talk of a new sun may frighten players wary of replacement suns (I mean, the Dawn Machine wasn't exactly a good start for that concept). Other than those reasons that are stretching logic to rationalize it, yeah, it pretty much feels like a dick move for the sake of being a dick. Part of me wishes that they'd have given better reasoning for messing with the daughter's plans, even if they weren't great or concrete reasons, but I also like the idea of the options being "being evil for evil's sake VS being a decent person with no self-sacrifice required" in a game where those kind of options aren't always a constant.

You could make a better argument for convincing the members of the party to leave, but to me it just seemed like needlessly convincing people what they wanted wasn't in their best interest when they were already happy with the outcome. I think it was partly a tie-in to the fictional king's / the daughters' willingness to give up their lives to follow their dreams and desires, though I don't have much reason to think their aspirations are any less valuable as their usual lives. Still, though, it was a nice tie-in.

Small update: the Ubiquitous Ushabti item is now in the Curiosity section for me. It seems that the item issue for this story has been addressed.