Venture

I am from New Jersey.

*pummels Hickman mercilessly*

As for the "how hard is writing" argument, I've made all the same arguments as the "it's hard" camp at least since MA went in, and people keep scoffing in my general direction.

I wouldn't want to see them merged with Malta but I'd rather they were the Malta farm team -- pawns of Malta primarily used to find new talent -- than Yet Another Nemesis Plot.

Sure they are, by people called "editors".

The idea of Cosa Nostra using tommyguns at any level in the City 'verse is pretty silly. They'd be the early adopters using any tech or weapons they could get their hands on to do the job. They'd also have as many metas as possible working for them. Properly designed, Family spawns should always have a mob or two with random superpowers.

I already redesigned Malta for my own purposes in my arcs (#4643 "Blowback", #257991 "Splintered Shields"). I fiddled with the concept behind the Legacy Chain in "Chains of Blood" (#4829) but only added one mob; I expect that arc to be Jossed as soon as the Chain gets any official attention. Edit: I also put together some "improved" Family sub-factions in "Two Households Alike" (#126582).

I'd redesign all of the "street gang" factions to make it absolutely clear that every single member of them has superpowers. Bone Daddies or no the Skulls as portrayed wouldn't last sixty seconds against an NYPD SWAT unit. I'd redesign every faction to make it clear all of their members have superpowers or technology or magical gear to emulate them. Not only is it weak to portray the players as having trouble dealing with (e.g.) punks with baseball bats (never mind rent-a-cops or 5th century troops) but it doesn't even make sense from a world-building perspective. Societies won't put up with superhuman vigiliantes if the cops are capable of handling crooks, so the crooks have to be too tough for the cops.

I'd redo Crey from the ground up with a new storyline to take into account the events of the current arc (tossing out the ridiculous statement from Manticore that the Countess not only beat the rap but wasn't even charged), and I'd borrow the tech the Vogons used to destroy every possible version of Earth in the last Hitchhiker's book to eradicate all versions of Nemesis in every possible parallel earth. For that matter, I'd destroy the parallels too.

That would do for a start.

...in your opinion. Everyone else who's played it and commented seems to have gotten the point.

Of course.

And gotten shot. You are forgetting that the goodies were only half of the picture.

I see you've gone with "circular". You're arguing that it's wrong to give oppressed people extra food and comforts because the person making it possible is doing it for his own reasons. "Anything you do for the greater good is ultimately selfless" can't be contradicted in your view because anything that isn't done out of pure altruism can't be for the greater good. This makes your argument, in the words of one of my mentors, "logically unassailable and totally uninteresting".

This regarding whether or not the arc throws the Idiot Ball. I'm afraid you'll have to show your work.

Funny, everyone else who's commented seems to think I did. I think I'm going with the alternate hypothesis on this one.

And I would have let this entire post pass without comment (in fact, I missed it thanks to the double post), except for....

EXSQUEEZE ME?!? Who the hell do you think you are?

I wanted to see what you had to say without further prompting.

Whatchyoo talkin' about, Willis? Humor has been used to convey serious themes since, oh, the ancient Greeks? One of the oldest tropes in the book (whether or not it's true) is the idea of the court jester being able to criticize the king and get away with it.

It would be difficult to even try to list all the modern comedians who use humor to talk about real issues: Bill Maher, Dennis Miller, George Carlin, all of Monty Python...just off the top of my head. Likewise the mind boggles at the number of comedic books, movies or other works that have moral issues. Let's just go with The Life of Brian and call it a day.

So you would deny the people of Port Oakes a chance to celebrate their holiday just because you don't like the person who's making it possible? Even though you (as you stated here) don't believe his plan would work, or that even if it did, any fruits of this effort were years in the future? The arc even notes that there's plenty of time to deal with any of Ramiel's future evil plans, but you have a chance to do something good now.

Only if you insist on black and white morality. I had said in the other thread (which I see now I never bothered to follow up on) that the statements:

...were not realistic. This arc is (another) example of a plausible circumstance which contradicts them. In order to deny that what Ramiel is doing is a greater good, yet done for reasons of self-interest, the above must either be interpreted capriciously or in a circular fashion.

This I must take exception with. The arc does not throw the Idiot Ball. Ramiel tells you up front that his motives are self-serving. At no point is the player asked to do anything stupid.

Rather, you just don't like them because you have a view of morality that is utterly incompatable with actual social reality. Which is why I asked you to play it in the first place.

P. S.: If you really think humorous arcs can't have morality, don't play "Why We Fight" (#253990). Or, maybe you should.

Actually I was interested in your take on the morality issues vis-a-vis the earlier discussion in the Aeon's Challenge thread. I think this is the only thing you didn't comment on.

And yet, later on:

So, to swipe and mangle a line from a distant (and sadly departed) cousin, "you got it...you got it...you ain't got it." How ridiculous can it be if someone not only did it in real life, but (evidently) successfully? Of course, Ramiel's plan isn't "1. pass out Christmas goodies, 2. ???, 3. Victory!" but being seen as a friend of the people is part of the big picture. He says as much in the arc.

You could say this about any story. "If the main action was just to throw a ring in a volcano...." Obviously it's not that simple.

More a question of what kind of villain.

That's a matter of perception.

That's another matter of perception. You are basically complaining that the story didn't go the way it would have if you had written it, which is because you didn't.

He is. He's using you to do a superficially good deed to gain credibility with the disaffected population of the Isles, or at least Port Oakes (and that's probably nearly everyone) as part of a long-term plan to set himself up as the overlord.

Why is it not important? Father Jack and his off-stage helpers were willing to risk their lives for it.

The overthrown Council base, as noted above, was just a gag, a reference to events in the current state in the game. Murano is said to be the main Longbow intelligence agent in Oakes, so it's her job to know who the players are in what passes for La Resistance.

Sooner or later you have to stop just watching the guy and actually get involved with him to see what he's up to. Everything Longbow had on Ramiel said he was fighting the bad guys and helping the good guys. It was time to take a chance.

Because if he didn't, as soon as the supplies were jacked Arachnos troops would hit the streets to take them back and curb-stomp anyone trying to use them. With a major invasion supposedly inbound Ramiel knew Recluse would move his forces to protect things he thought were important, which does not include the plebs. Ramiel was gambling (correctly) that Recluse wouldn't do anything about the Christmas celebration once the ruse was exposed on the grounds that it would only call attention to the fact that he'd just been faked out of his socks.

Evidently Scirocco has a different perspective on the holiday. At least when I'm writing him.

They were smuggled in using channels Ramiel knew would get them captured, so they'd be moved to the impound yard where he could arrange to steal them back. Your objection is precisely why such subterfuge was necessary.

They were scheduled to be destroyed, which was delayed as the arc showed. In reality, I'd expect they were being kept for the same reason anyone in an impound yard in a corrupt government keeps things: so the workers could cherry-pick the stuff they want for themselves and destroy the rest.

You are told Ramiel is putting together a support network; Jack is a member of it. It's not Jack's story so there's no need to go deeply into his motivations.

He's a subversive element and suspected of being in league with insurgents and/or Longbow. His Clue even says the troops overheard him talking about the shipments.

How long, approximately, did that take? Like most events in most stories, things happen at the speed of plot. Ramiel had just gotten the distress call before you arrived and you were only a few minutes away from where Jack was pinned down. The Arachnos troops were delayed by Murano.

He went out and beat up a few patrols; unfortunately he got followed back.

They smashed the wireless broadband equipment but hadn't had a chance to cut (or even find) the lines spliced into the Arachnos network? This doesn't seem like something that requires a cut scene from Basil Exposition.

Does this really matter? You'd might as well ask how he knew it even existed.

The song is "I Believe in Father Christmas" by Greg Lake, not U2. It is quoted and cited in the souvenir which shouldn't have made it too hard to find, especially since it has a Wiki page. It is either a protest of the commercialization of the holiday or about the loss of childhood innocence, depending on which of its authors you listen to. To me it said that what you get out of the holiday is what you put in. Thus the arc offers several perspectives on the holiday. To Recluse it is a threat; its celebration raises spirits he'd rather crush. For Ramiel it is panem et circenses; something to placate the masses with. Scirocco and (presumably) Father Jack see it for its religious significance. Implicitly, the people of Port Oakes who will benefit from Ramiel's actions see it as a symbol of hope.

As for other cultural references:

Father Jack is a reference to The Closer; he is an activist priest Brenda has to deal with in the second and fifth seasons. His last name was never given (AFAIK), so I used the last name of the actor who played him, Mark Rolston. (ObTrivia: he also played serial killer Karl Edward Mueller in Babylon 5's first-season episode "The Quality of Mercy").

No one has broken the code yet on the named villains and you're the first to even try, so here it is: they are all named for actors who have portrayed Ebenezer Scrooge, or an Expy thereof. George C. Scott and Jim Carrey each played Scrooge in their respective adaptations of A Christmas Carol. Bill Murray played the Expy Frank Cross in Scrooged, and Susan Lucci played Elizabeth "Ebby" Scrooge in Ebby. I had thought Operative Lucci would serve as the Rosetta Stone here, with her quest for the "distinguished service medal" mirroring Lucci's well-known difficulties in getting an Emmy.

Neither Scirocco nor Father Jack appears in "Splintered Shields". Of course, everyone should play it anyway.

So, in short, thanks for the review and I'm sorry you didn't like it.

More than one arc. If you can't make it fit in the space provided, start editing.

This view of good and evil isn't likely to bear up under many real-world conditions.


Consider a medical researcher trying to find a cure for, say, cancer. He decides to go the "mad science" route and uses techniques that will kill thousands of subjects. He's not doing it to heal the countless millions who would otherwise die without his cure. He's not even doing it for the money his research could earn him. He's doing it for the fame, even if it's infamy: "they can hate me until the end of time, but they'll have to remember me to do it".

Curing cancer is a greater good, but it's really hard to put a spin on our hypothetical researcher's motives to make them anything but selfish. Nor is it really possible to describe the totality of what he's doing as any kind of "good", even though people have gotten away with similar actions in the real world (members of WWII Japan's "Unit 731", which performed atrocities in the form of research on humans for bioweapons, were able to trade their findings for amnesty from war crimes prosecution). I think this example firmly challenges the notion that "anything done for the greater good is ultimately selfless".

Now, just to throw in a plug for my own stuff , while "The Christmas We Get" (#356477) wasn't written for the challenge (I had another arc in mind but RL got in the way; I might get back to it), it does have the kind of moral issue that was requested. I'd say it's more a case of "doing good for the greater evil", but I'd certainly be interested in your take on it, in light of your position....

I'll take "meh" for $100 too, Alex.

No, this is "bad writing" we're talking about. :P

I considered writing a serious Nemesis arc. It would have ended with the last Clue being a brass bolt and a hand-written note reading "Well played" as the only indication Nemesis was involved. I had someone hit me in the head repeatedly until I felt better.

This Clue barely fits into the space provided as it is.

That's a conclusion you draw based on where the information they're gathering is going, not a note on the computer that says "we iz 5th nao lol". I just threw it in as a small semi-humorous bit of fluff to take note of the current state of affairs in the game. I could make it more clear by breaking up the information across multiple objectives but it doesn't seem important enough to make the player jump through more hoops. Likewise I can't talk about why they're interested in Ramiel, but that really should be obvious: it's a listening post, they're interested in everything. They'd naturally want to keep tabs on and check out a new player.

I suppose I could hijack the mission-end Clue (which I don't think I used in act II) but that seems gratuitous.

The mission was originally going to be completely non-combat (see above). This mission and the one after are only in to pace things out a bit and to provide an opportunity to give the player some more information. I might want to use Murano and Ramiel in more arcs so I made them the strength I thought they should "really" be rather than create weaker versions for this arc. Also, it's kind of dissonant if they faceplant...which Ramiel has done in some tests, even as an EB....

As for the invisibility, I want her to have Ninjitsu, she has to have Hide and the devs insist on having combatant hostages run their toggles. Nothing I can do about it.

The Wiki entry, paragraph five....

It's also how he was referred to in The Sandman, for what that's worth. I didn't know that he was one of the Grigori (and thus fallen) until I read the Wiki entry, though. Given his previous identity that made the name too good not to use.

I deliberately left her as Entire Encounter; there's only the two spawn groups on the map (Lucci, Ramiel's captors) and you should have to clear the place out again and account for all the troops, making sure no one got out to report back.

That's not a typo. Hoi polloi means "the many". Attaching a second definite article is incorrect, though common, usage. (Wiki goes on about this at some length, too.)

The message given when you click the computer says that Jack's people are clear to steal the trucks with the supplies. There was a note to that effect in the briefing originally but it looks like I accidentally cut it. I'll see if there's room to put it back.

Eh, the note has no real chance of getting back to Recluse and could have been written by anyone. In any case, I think Recluse is already aware that his lieutenants are not entirely loyal.

Glad you liked it. Thanks again for the review!