Venture

Writing villains who do bad things doesn't make one a bad person. Neither does playing one, either as an actor or as a PC/NPC in a tabletop game. I've had to roleplay some very bad people as a GM. Stories need villains and sometimes those villains have to do things worse than steal forty cakes.

No, I don't. People choose what they want to be offended by.

Actually I treat their opinions in a condescending fashion.

No, actually, they don't. Some get their panties in a wad because I wasn't "nice" enough to them. Some take umbrage and blow up; some fire back. The ones really worth talking to ignore the delivery, focus on the content and respond accordingly, perhaps with a good-natured snark or three thrown in just to keep me honest.

Honestly, no. I don't control how people choose to respond to what I have to say.

Trolls are people who post things they don't personally believe just to provoke a reaction. I don't do that. I am a WYGIWYG application: What You Got Is What You Get. I speak my mind. If you can't handle that, too bad. Much like the rest of the world I am not here to spare your delicate sensibilities, which you are cordially invited to shove where the sun doesn't shine.

I will also point out, for the record, that I did not at any point insult anyone. The inciting incident consisted of me pointing out a ridiculous statement. If someone is so thin-skinned as to consider this a grievous offense that person needs to get off the net. We'll manage without them, trust me.

I didn't even look at the post count until later in the discussion. I don't really care one way or another. Arcanaville's gotten the same from me as I gave this scrub.

Go to maps.google.com and type in "Bermuda". This is the Internet, where most of the accumulated knowledge of mankind lives. I didn't know where Bermuda was until it came up in discussions here -- I thought it was down by Florida, actually. In any case, it only takes a moment to fact-check small details like this and if you can't be bothered to take that moment then you deserve to get called out on it when you screw up.

Actually that's kind of the problem with the net. As it was explained to me, decades ago (back when we had those BBS things instead of this newfangled 'intertubes' hibbity-jibbity...I go back to 300 baud ), people come out here who are used to being "the smart guy" in their own little cliques only to find out that everyone out here is "the smart guy". People on the net aren't going to treat you in that nice, comfortable deferential manner you're probably accustomed to. They're going to get in your face, call you out on your mistakes and challenge your opinions (which, let us note again, can be wrong) in ways you're probably not used to. All of that is a good thing, frankly. If you can't deal with someone being confrontational on the Internet then why should anyone believe you have the chops to deal with "crunch time" in the real world, situations that have gone pear-shaped?

Putting aside the inaccurate classification, please make up your mind. If I'm driving people away in droves I'm not exactly "powerless".

No.

You're new around here.

You didn't post anything no one had seen before. We've been over this material many, many times, each time many of us pointing out that the official lore on the Isles is *****. So what really happened is you jumped without looking into a minefield in the middle of a shooting war and were shocked, shocked! when you caught shrapnel and stopped a bullet.

Because you're defending it.

I know.

Or it's just poorly written. I mean, you could describe New Jersey as being "west of France" and technically you'd be correct. The Bermuda reference is most likely an artifact from earlier (long-since deleted) references to the Isles being in the Bermuda Triangle.

There are good ways to implement such tropes and bad ways. This would be a stupendously bad way.

Dude, do you know where Bermuda is? If the Rogue Isles are anywhere near the 50-mile line they are nowhere near Bermuda. And vice-versa. And if they're "a suburb of Paragon City" then the idea that they're not wholly under US jurisdiction is laughable.

RICO laws. Crey, Inc. would have been seized as soon as the Countess was arrested.

Of course, it's also supposedly canon that the arrest didn't stick, which in and of itself would have all my blue characters either turning vigilante or retiring.

And then, when the plot requires it, they get taken out by one mook. Things that work in non-interactive media don't necessarily work in games.

The point of the superhero genre is that the characters have superhuman powers. Nothing less and nothing more. They can't be ridiculously overpowered or there's no story and/or no game.

My what?

Seconded.

Take this with a huge grain of salt. It's extraneous material, it's told from a particular character's point of view and it doesn't jive with in-game material. Akarist's writings in-game claim the Oranbegans still venerated Tielekku. She also left behind her titular scroll with instructions on how to summon her if the Banished Pantheon returned, which doesn't seem like something she'd do for people she wanted to beat up. And when she does finally show up she doesn't go all "insolent mortals!" but more like "o hai u can haz ant-death god ritualz". Hequat's extremism appears to be limited to her.

That's not in dispute.

No, every time I use the market I look at uncommon salvage that used to cost 1-5K and now costs 50-100K or rares that used to cost one million now selling for three. I'm not seeing anyone's "largess" and much of the time get what I want through alternate means rather than pay outrageous prices.

No, but developers do get to dictate what players are allowed to do, and they should. Lots of people think lots of things are fun for them that are actually bad for the community and game as a whole. Farming has done nothing positive for the game in general and helped destroy MA in particular. Of course, if the devs actually wanted to shut down farming in MA it would be trivial to do so. It all just goes back to the "disappointing toy" vibe they seem to be giving off about MA.

Actually they come off as someone's first attempt at a custom MA faction. Their costumes are an explosion in a junk factory and their powers are a random assortment of the most recently-released "cool" powersets.

Three of my arcs are blocked because of this filter. A fourth is technically playable but damaged. It's been over a year and nothing has been done so I think it is fair to say that nothing will be done.

Tangible proof of corruption and violation of human rights in a totalitarian government's police service is found by putting on a badge and showing up for work. This is hammered home in-game in Cleo's arc, wherein you enter a police station to see the cops matter-of-factly beating the living daylights out of a suspect while you are investing three officers all of whom have something going on the side. One of the corrupt officers later tells you point-blank that Tyrant's regime is killing people on a daily basis to keep his little charade going. In case that's not enough for you we were also told this straight-up, Word of God, by the devs at the HeroCon (or whatever) live panel that introduced GR.

Criminal behavior is endemic in police states.. If you are involved in any capacity related to state security in a totaliatarian government you must at least be willfully blind to what is going on around you. The fact that your government is torturing and murdering its own people will not be some deep dark secert only known to the inner circles. It will be something your fellow officers joke about around the water cooler.

Nixon committed a litany of sins but running a police state was not one of them. In any case your question was already answered in the previously-quoted material so I suggest you add slots to Reading Comprehension.

Well, actually, it does, at least until it doesn't (i.e. after level 20; whether or not you leave the story assumes you've at least defected from the State.)


No, they can't. Power Loyalists use people for their own purposes at every step of the way.

You're giving them a pass on the mind control drugs in the water, then? Just to get the ball rolling.

If you refuse to blow up the Enriche plant, you defect to the State.

Sure, sometimes the Wardens stop individual Crusaders from going too far off the deep end, but they're still married to the Crusaders body and soul. Thus the Julius Caesar quote. The Wardens may pride themselves on having clean hands but they accept aid and resources from people they know can only provide such through "vile means".

There is no heroic side in Praetoria. If you are looking for heroes in a totalitarian state, you're going to need a shovel.

Whatever gets you through the night, baby, but anyone who actually believes something like this is deep enough in denial to have tea and scones with Stanley and Livingstone.

No, you are immediately shown how corrupt the system is.

Again, we were told straight-up that Tyrant is the bad guy and his government is evil. The idea that there was going to be some kind of moral ambivalence about it is some fantasy some of the players concocted.