I'm still confused a bit about the lore, do sorrow spiders control their hosts?

I feel that the whole "This is a very bad idea. Do not do this" warning is becoming a bit overused. When it is used for options that are only bad from a narrative standpoint, it lessens the effect for truly bad choices which will permanently damage your character (i.e. Seeking).

Optimatum wrote:

How many "This is a very bad idea" warnings are there in Fallen London? I can only recall three off the top of my head: SMEN-related choices (in general), drinking from the Wound in Flint, and this. SMEN is obviously incredibly harmful both narratively and mechanically. Drinking is harmful mechanically, but rather mundane narratively. This is only notably harmful in narrative.

The issue, of course, is expectations. This choice is narratively unpleasant, and many players may be understandably disturbed by the content. But those of us with the context of other warnings expect something more graphically horrifying or mechanically risky. I think this needs something closer to the warning on the optional Jack of Smiles case content: this choice is not for everyone, but your character will remain mechanically intact.

Sadly it's hard to just say "eye horror ahead, steer carefully" without lessening the emotional impact.

yeah the trade off between expectation and suspense is difficult to manage. I think there's a few more 'this is a very bad idea' warnings in exceptional stories that function more the way this one did, maybe the rat catcher back in may?

• The slow reveal spiders. I should have figured it out much sooner than I did.
• The game remembering the character's past interaction with a Spider Council.
• Includes challenged which aren't 100% straightforward for capped characters.
• Unique item (the Eyeball) + very rare item (The Ratty Reliquary). Too bad that these are only for helping the Council.

• The chase scene was way too long and repetitive.
• Hidden qualities to track progress don't convey a sense of progress. Why should I catch a bat 3 times before I can call someone to fix my wall? The same for all other cases, in all parts of the story.
• As noted by others, the premise makes no sense given an advanced characters 4-5 cards lodgings. I know that the point is that the story is supposed to be a flashback to earlier times but this isn't communicated well.
• I didn't like challenged being fixed at 60%. By all means, give us non-straightforward challenges, but let us try to make an impact on our odds using our equipped gear. Just include a few challenges based on a very high stat level, and craft it so that you can progress whether you win or lose (to no block newer characters), but with slightly different impacts/rewards.
• No divergence at all to the story's progression. At a minimum, the story could have given us a choice of what to fix first at our lodgings.
• The game gives you an incentive to either consistently get close to the Council or to consistently keep your distance. But the end result only really rewards getting close to them. If you consistently distance yourself, you can an additional option which is functionally the same as another existing option (which is actually even more anti-Council), with no special, unique, or even rare reward.

• Lost in Reflections
• Cut with Moonlight
• Hojotoho!
• The Frequently Deceased
• The Waltz that Moved the World
• Steeped in Honey
• Flint
• All Things Must End
• Written In The Glim
• The Century Exhibition
• The Twelve-Fifteen From Moloch Street
• The Persona Engine
• Where You and I Must Go
• The Sinking Synod
• The Attendants

• The Murgatroyd Formula
• Lamentation Lock
• The Web of the Motherlings
• The Pentecost Predicament
• The Calendar Code
• The Rat-Catcher
• The Art of Murder
• The Chimney Pot Wars
• The Final Curtain
• The Bones of London
• The Heart, the Devil and the Zee

• Our Lady of Pyres
• Required Repairs
• The Clay Man's Arm
• Five Minutes to Midday
• Discernment
• The Haunting at the Marsh House
• The Pursuit of Moths
• Factory of Favours

• Trial and Error
• The Last Dog Society
• The Seven-Day Reign
• The Court of Cats

• The Stone Guest
  

Nudraxon wrote:

I feel that the whole "This is a very bad idea. Do not do this" warning is becoming a bit overused. When it is used for options that are only bad from a narrative standpoint, it lessens the effect for truly bad choices which will permanently damage your character (i.e. Seeking).

I personally think consequences almost solely matter from a narrative standpoint. You pay material costs all the time, most people will go to the menace areas all the time, and it's easy to regrind almost anything (that isn't worth more than a few hundred echoes) or get back out of any menace area. Is gambling for a yacht a Bad Idea? It has severe and expensive material consequences, unless you get very lucky. In that sense, the entirety of Seeking can be viewed as just a storyline to "buy" the Knock, just as long as you turn around (not turning around might well be the one mechanical Bad Idea, and is certainly the only one I can think of). It's an expensive Knock - much, much more so than, say, the aforementioned Yacht - but that doesn't make it bad, just expensive.
So really, the only reason Seeking is considered "bad" is due to the narrative setting (and the option to literally render your character unplayable - but that's a clear choice, so from a purely mechanical standpoint doesn't matter when considering the rest of the storyline). Imagine if Seeking was framed as an epic and lengthy quest to obtain, I don't know, a Condensed Crystal of Mountain-Light from the Garden that grants you as much life as the Presbyter himself and mechanically is a +4 BDR item - would it still be considered a bad idea? All the menaces and item loss could be framed as a consequnce of the dangers of going after an extremely rare and highly guarded artefact. It could retain all of its character-draining potential (mechanically), with the exact same reward (mechanically), but without the narrative backing, it would be hailed as an epic quest for a rare prize rather than a Bad Idea.

One way I might consider something a Bad Idea mechanically is if it takes away a unique item you can't get back (or have to spend an inordinate amount of effort getting back - I wouldn't want to lose a Cider or a Knock, of course). And yet even then, every three months a storylet appears that takes away three completely unique items that are only re-obtainable through Fate, with the reward almost always being an ordinary tier 6 item (and some lore), and almost everybody waits for these storylets with impatience - because of the narrative framing playing it up as a Good Idea and a natural thing you're expected to play through.
edited by Dudebro Pyro on 8/1/2018

TheManicMan wrote:

Does anyone have an Echo for the choice to become one of the Elect? It seems like the most interesting ending, but seeing &quotThis is a very bad idea. Do not do this.&quot is somewhat off-putting.

Here you go. It's mostly a bad idea narratively; mechanically it just gives you a slight amount of Wounds.

Does anyone have an Echo for the choice to become one of the Elect? It seems like the most interesting ending, but seeing "This is a very bad idea. Do not do this." is somewhat off-putting.

Echo of you burning out the Spider Council: http://fallenlondon.storynexus.com/Profile/Kharagal%20Mierqid?fromEchoId=14500602

The reward is (fittingly) a Searing Enigma.