Venture

Back when Babylon 5 was in its original run, its maker was on Usenet corresponding with the fans on a daily basis. Once, while discussing something that had gone wrong, he interrupted himself to say (paraphrasing from memory) "I'm telling you guys this stuff not to make excuses, just to educate you into how these shows are made. Something I learned back in my theater days is that the audience only sees the play that's in front of them. They don't know that you're hung over from the pre-opening night party, or that your costume is torn in back so you can't turn around, or that someone forgot to put out a prop so now your next line doesn't make any sense. They just see the play, and that's the way it should be."

I don't have to deal with unpublished background material, or anything that ended up on the cutting room floor, or any of these absurd after-the-fact rationalizations or apologetics. I only have to address the story as it was given to us. What we've been given is a god-moding Villain Sue on the one hand and a bunch of people with a massive case of Plot Induced Stupidity on the other. If you have to write a second story to explain the problems with the first one, the first one failed. Likewise if the story was not sufficiently entertaining to keep the audience from noticing the sketchy bits.

Oh, and just as an addendum, revealing that Wade had scores of contingency plans would only make it worse.

In the accidental beta leak of what appeared to be a SSA 2 mission, there was a scene in which, if you allowed Penny and the King to talk without attacking, she manages to talk him into accepting her new role as a hero. Of course, that's just a small part of a (presumably) much larger picture.

Not for that, but for your abysmal use of whitespace.

It's not even part of "his plan", it's not part of the storyline that everyone is complaining about and you know it, which is why this entire avenue of approach is disingenuous at best.

This statement is factually correct but contextually meaningless, making it nothing more than cut-rate sophistry.

Edit: just to reiterate, the question isn't whether or not you can spin the details. You always can; go go gadget Quine-Duhem Thesis. The point is that you need to. On its face the story is abject garbage. Post hoc justifications are irrelevant.

Evidently, because he knew they were a bunch of incompetent boobs who wouldn't just shoot him on sight.

Now you're just being silly.

MMOs are not so far removed from tabletop RPGs as to invalidate comparisons between the two.

Your "reckoning" is a transparent apologetic. Oz is correct: Wade has not made a single misstep the whole way. Absolutely everything has gone according to his plan, even things he had no control over whatsoever. I keep coming back to this, but then the essay in question is in my stack of The Seven Books That Contain Everything You Really Need to Know:

That's how the whole SSA comes off.

Had I tried something like this for any group I GMed for, including the 10-year-olds I was introducing to the hobby, they'd have eaten Wade for lunch unless I invoked a level of railroading roughly equivalent to building a mag-lev supersonic bullet train running through my living room.

I don't think Sister Psyche and Aurora were training Penny for combat or superhero work. Who trained her for that is pretty obvious: "Rusty".

I agree that they weren't clear about Penny's age, that the misconceptions were not cleared up properly, etc. But I call's 'em as I see's 'em, and this one isn't a canon error or a retcon. It's an obscurity fault.

Now if you really want to get bent out of shape, try figuring out how old Vanessa DeVore must have been when Mr. Yin nailed her.

Untrue. The bit about Penny being college-age came out at or before the release of the RWZ. It was only discussed on the forums so I'm sure a lot of people missed it, but it was there.

There is a very fine line between a Xanatos Gambit and a Villain Sue, and Darren Wade has super-leaped across it.

Not only is this objection completely unfair, but thanks to MA I can point to no small number of arcs I've reviewed that are far better than anything we've gotten lately. (Assuming they still work, that is.)

I didn't say they couldn't or wouldn't do it. My opinion of this writing team is so low they would have to work very hard to disappoint me. I'm just pointing out that the theories about Psyche suddenly Getting Better are coming from the first stage of grief: denial. There's nothing in the material to justify it.

He sprung the trap when he killed Alexis.

The devs might get a bye with that, if the rest of the storyline didn't also have Wade outperforming David Xanatos on his best day.

We've been all over that in other threads. The only reason a "non-entity" like Wade would ostentatiously provoke a confrontation with one of the world's most powerful supers is because he at least thinks he has a sure-fire way of coming out on top. Given that, it's pretty stupid to treat said confrontation like a coffee and cake run -- or even to give him that confrontation in the first place. Wade would have been utterly screwed if Statesman had been smart enough to realize it was a setup and sent someone else -- like, say, the PC -- in his place.

This plot element comes from the Top Cow comics -- where it should have stayed.

I can't think of a single one in-game. Out of the game her bio says she's "the most gifted psychic in Paragon City, and possibly the entire planet" and "the tremendous scope of her mental powers is far beyond that of any hero, past or present" but that's directly contradicted by Agent G at the end of the Faultline arc. He names both the Clockwork King and Penny as being more powerful.

Yeah, not buying it.

In order for this to be the case, there needs to be one and only one possible move for the heroes to make at this juncture, and that doesn't seem to be the case.

I wouldn't call either character a Mary Sue, and for that matter Sister Psyche was never portrayed as being "best telepath EVAH". Hell, right from the git-go we were told Penny Yin was more powerful.

bring me the bore worms!!!

It's not a question of whether or not you can handwave it. You always can. It's a question of whether or not you need to.

Another unressurectable death is definitely a problem, unless Psyche makes a miraculous recovery in the next arc. It's way too soon to go back to that Well.