Is it time to move on from Recluse and Statesman? (non-doom post)

"I'm Evil" is not a motivation. "I'm selfish" is. "I'm a terrible person and I might as well go with it because being good is hard" is. "I'm a bad person but being good is for suckers" is. "I'm lazy," "I'm a coward," "I want shiny".... actually most of it comes down to "I'm selfish."

Clean up boomtown.

Such comments might be better put in down in this thread here.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.

Yeah, I really like a lot things with the visual design of LR and the nuances of Arachnos as an organization but they could be handled better. One thing I'll say is that I while Arachnos seems a little overused redside and underused blueside, I don't think Lord Recluse is. There's better ways he could be written but I don't think he directly is used too much.

My Arcs
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Mission Architect Handyman

I have a Magician character that is currently carrying around the Malleus Mundi because she'd far rather use its power for herself, rather than turn it over to Scirocco to do whatever stupid plot he has.

I'd really like for the game to have that as a choice I can make in the game mechanics, instead of having to go around them to do it (I'm still sitting on the "Return to Contact" portion of that mission).

Hopefully a strike force for Redsiders that involves invading Preatoria. Hey rogue Heroes can jump in on that too! Here's hoping!

That makes a certain amount of sense. Since Ghost Widow's spirit is tied to Arachnos, she would be the one who wants to keep the organization going.

The one thing that bugs me is that the "tech" patron is the stupidest one. Technology is arguably the best origin for a "supergenius" villain, and we get a stereotypical Brute as a patron for them. Dr. Aeon would make a much better Tech patron, maybe with Black Scorpion as his unwitting lackey.

They do care, somewhat. Any individual shmoe is expendable of course, but Arachnos isn't stupid enough to not let us go around murdering civilians just because we feel like it. They are oppressed, intimidated, undereducated, force-fed propaganda and generally treated like crap, but Arachnos does realize that the common people are necessary to keep the Rogue Isles running.

The Malleus Mundi is too powerful to allow a player character to have. You can literally remake the world with it. There is no mechanical way to account for such a powerful item in a player's hands without irrevocably changing the status quo and leading to a flood of "but my character would use it for [insert your character's perfect world here], why don't I have that option?"

Now if they left the arc with a "you have the Malleus Mundi but you haven't figured out how to use it yet...to be continued" ending, it would be possible, although it would then lead to a flood of complaints about an unsatisfying ending.

That's what Scirocco believes. It doesn't have to be true, though. Maybe it just gives a power boost - lets you tap the power of the Mu (or the Leviathan, or the souls of the dead, or the technology of Arachnos) without needing a Patron's say-so.

We don't know that it can rewrite the world, because Scirocco never finishes his ritual. Maybe his research was just wrong.

I'm going to disagree with the basic premise. It reflects upon a couple of problems I've always had with analysis of heroic fiction of all stripes, though comics are simply the most obvious.

The fiction that good is simple, evil is complex and the "real world" is rendered in shades of gray.

I tend to find that the opposite has more heft to it. Evil is, in fact, extraordinarily simple: It is simply selfishness writ large. I do what I do for my own ends, damn the world. The reason that villains often seem complex is that their rationalizations are often complex; as are most peoples' reasons for choosing to be selfish when they know they shouldn't.

Good, on the other hand, is complicated. It's why the world has many scoundrels and few saints, instead of the other way around. It's about choosing to pay a price to do something that you don't directly benefit from. When writers ignore this fact, the heroes are two-dimensional. When good writers explain it well, the heroes come alive.

Shades of gray are often writers' attempts to construct the plot in such a way as to preclude the heroes from making a clearly "good" choice so that they can create drama through conflicted morals. Will a good man steal to save his family is such a story. But IMO a better story is the lengths a good man will go to avoid stealing and still feed his family.

The very best Superman story I ever read was Elliot S! Maggin's novel Miracle Monday. Basic idea: A demon tries to tempt Superman into choosing the lesser of two evils by wrecking both Metropolis and his life as Clark Kent. All Superman has to do to stop it is to kill the innocent woman the demon possessed; one life for millions against his personal morality, the classic greater good choice. Superman chooses instead to sacrifice everything in his life to avoid choosing either evil. And Maggin makes it make sense. Epic.

EDIT -- Props to Eva for beating me to the "evil is selfish" premise.

... I love you... Specifically I love how you put that.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow City of Heroes is a game about freedom of expression and variety of experiences far more so than it is about representing any one theme, topic or genre.