Some thoughts on the Dark Mirror arcs

I suggest that the author of the Dark Mirrors arcs gets a kick in his hiney.

I really like the Dark Mirror arcs, but there is one thing about them that I don't like. And the reason is the "you" part. "You realize you have a piece of paper", "you remember that thing" et cetera. The little yellow part at the bottom of each dialogue part that tell you what you do or think. And that is a great storytelling blunder.

If you ever play tabletop roleplaying games, you quickly learn the different lines that you can cross, can cross if you are allowed to, and can never cross. You can always tell a player what happens to him. You can sometimes tell things that he feels and how he reacts, for instance when the character is hurt. You can never* tell him what he thinks. As soon as you do that, you take his character away from him. It's no longer his.

In computer games, the identification between the player and the character is even more limited because the lack of tabletop roleplaying games' flexibility from a referee. That's why characters in RPGs often are mute, to provide you, the player, with a blank to fill in your character's response, or you are given a choice between certain reactions to emulate what you feel. You don't want to break the identification between the player and the character, because that kills immersion and thus kills the game.

Telling you, the player, what your character thinks means that the mission author just stole your character. If I recall correctly, the tips about Mission Architect even discourages from such behaviour. Still, that's what the author of the Dark Mirrors arcs just did. It looks to me as if the designers of the Dark Mirror arcs think like authors of books, not authors of computer games or even tabletop roleplaying games. There is a great story in the Dark Mirrors arcs, but it's told in a blatant and clumsy way.

I know that there are lots of people out there that don't read the mission text. It's a wall of text that you click away to get the red blammo on the map so you can rush there and smash things. I know that there are lots of people that read the mission text but does not care, because they just want a story.

But there are also lots of people that do care about having a good story told about their own characters, and on behalf of those I would like to revise the original suggestion: please rewrite the mission texts of the Dark Mirrors arcs in such a way that they don't steal my character.

Thank you.

* I know that there are quite a lot of co-op storytelling in the indie movement, but I'm a trad tabletop roleplayer and don't give a flying fsck about the conventions in co-op storytelling indie RPGs.

I'm not sure I can agree with you here.

While it's very true that I HATE having a story tell me what my character thinks or feels, I don't think this extends to telling me what I REMEMBER. Unless my character concept involves his inability to form short-term memory or his inability to access it on demand (which creates problems beyond just this instance), I don't see why this is a problem. It's the narrative telling you that something you've experienced or witnessed is suddenly important and relevant.

In a game without a third-party narrator, there really isn't a very good way to do this without actually introducing one, which in itself is a bigger problem, at least as far as I'm concerned. In another game with a different narrative, maybe, but not here. Unless you want to hand out earpieces from every contact so they can constantly go "Oh, yeah, that! Remember that?" you kind of have to. And, trust me, that option is actually WORSE. One of the biggest failures in City of Heroes storytelling is that your character comes off like a dumb mute without an ounce of initiative, a kind of mindless drone that just follows instructions. Having the stories write at least the most basic intelligence in the form of a character having the ability to remember what happened last mission and even get his own ideas... That's a step in the right direction, as far as I'm concerned.

Granted, we can always simply disregard what the mission briefing is telling us and tell our own stories in our head, and many people have advised me to do just that in the past. It's still a worst-case-scenario solution, however, as I'd rather that, if the game is going to tell a story, that THE GAME tells the story. If I'll be writing my own stories, I might as well just grind papers, which is NOT what I want to do with my time. There are stories there already, and I very much EXPECT them to write more proactive involvement for my character.

Basically, having the game simply never have your character do something on his own is the most generic you can get, so that the player can fill in the blanks with every minute detail. It's also about the most boring, uninteresting, uninvolving way to write a story, because there's basically NOTHING there. You're completely irrelevant, one nameless pawn that exists for the sole reason of hitting Next and nothing more. The story runs along on its own. You're just there to witness it. This doesn't help immersion. At all. This takes immersion behind the shed and beats it to death with a shovel. It's like NPCs constantly reminding me "You are a player. This character you are playing is a fictional construct of computer data. Your role is to click buttons."

A game needs to balance user freedom with writing for the user, but this isn't done by NEVER writing for the user at all. As a point of fact, I'd take Mass Effect over Dragon Age any day, and for one reason above all else - Commander Shepard speaks and gets called by name.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arcanaville Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.

<snark>
Because the first serious attempt to move the story telling forward is going to get it 'right' the first time?
</snark>

It is still a step forward, even acknowledging that I may be thinking something is better than telling me endlessly what everyone around me is always thinking. Which is one of my great gripes about many of the arcs I've played so many times. I recognize that it could be better, but I am so pleased at the 'progress over perfection' that I still grade it well.

And branching is coming, right? Isn't that seemingly a big part of the GR promise - good vs. evil choices? And, I consider the doppleganger arcs the practice. GR should improve, or my grading won't be on a curve anymore.

It shocks me that this would be your complaint...

As opposed to the carefully cloned robots or users of magic items. How about the Ensorcelled villains of the Isles who's only power lies in magical effects placed on them? Or guys and gals wearing powersuits. "Cloning" just doesn't work for these characters.

Sometimes you just have to accept the limitations of the medium and move on. Gloss over the gold text, or the fact that Overkillbot9000 is being cloned in vats rather than produced on assembly lines.

-Rachel-

I find it odd that you pick this particular series of missions, the only missions that ever gave you any choice or sense of freedom at all, to aim your complaint about hostile character take over. Every mission up to this point, save a few missions where you can choose to do nothing and have some sense of moral superiority about it, has been an entirely scripted event where you were along for the ride and merely doing whatever your contact told you to do with your only other option being to just abandon the mission and pretend they didn't exist.

To point at the only arc in the game trying to break this trend and accuse it of stealing your character feels a bit asinine, especially when it offers a level of game play innovation that is usually saved for Task/Strike Forces on top of everything else. So, no, I will not be joining you in any rear-end diplomacy.

Sometimes people don't question How Things Are until they first see something that hints that maybe they don't have to be.

I agree, it's all in the phrasing. "The room was tinged with the aura of fear." is less jarring than "You have a feeling of fear come over you."

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