I hate every Praetorian

So I'm working my way through the arcs in Praetoria and I'm finding that every contact I've encountered is self-centred, two-faced, vicous, mean-spirited and generally not someone I'd want to share a pint with - and I love it!

I must also add the caveat that I've not completed every arc available nor visited every contact not read every line of every mission on those I have done, but that is my overwhelming impression - and it's interesting because the moral choices (or perhaps the lack of morality) in Praetoria leave me thinking that I should walk my own path, and cherry pick whatever it is I feel is right for that character.

Initially, as someone who is naturally fairly anti-authoritarian, I'd imagined leaning heavily towards the resistance but I find them to be mostly murdering terrorists who'll stop at nothing to get their own way - so no different to Cole or the Loyalist factions in many ways. The only difference is Cole has the power they want.

But most of my characters in Praetoria have naturally gravitated towards a Loyalist position simply because it seems slightly less wrong (or perhaps more right) than the Resistance and history teaches us that those who overthrow governments for their own ends often come to sticky ends and have to compromise their ideals to maintain power.

But there's perhaps an unintended consequence here: I am trying to create characters that have to walk a twisted and narrow path between right and wrong, trying to do what's right and still getting in the stink to do it and that makes it a far more interesting game than the "You're a hero, go do this cuz it's right" or vice versa for villains. It becomes a pendulum... can you walk the path without veering too far in any direction and maintain your morality?

There may "only" be twenty levels to explore to date but there's a good few hours of RP and exploration to be had and I'm loving every minute of it.

"You got to dig it to dig it, you dig?"
Thelonious Monk

Dimension-ist.

Some of the Loyalist arcs in the Responsibility line have really surprised me. I thought I'd be Resistance all the way with my characters, and yet I've chosen to be a Loyalist or switch sides a bunch of times. Meanwhile the Crusader arcs in the Resistance have been a complete turn off. Special mention goes to Hatchet. His arc is particularly ghoulish...and filled me some level of revulsion after I completed it.

If you're a heroic type character, there are contacts (not all of them) in both the Loyalist Responsibility and Resistance Warden lines. Loyalist Power and Resistance Crusader definitely appeal to more villainous types...actually I think the Crusader ones are far more villainous.

Something tells me I must get GR now.

I can't afford it. ^_^ I was pretty sure I made that obvious in a few threads.

As I travel through Praetoria what occurs to me is the sheer amount of work and thought that has gone into it and that makes me happy because it means my favourite game isn't going away anytime soon, I actually had to queue to get onto Defiant a couple of nights ago!

To be fair I think the contacts in GR are about the most human feeling ones I've encountered in the game. Blueside most of them are power-of-good-celebrating phrase shouting, apple pie and baseball worshipping goody-goodys. While red-side they're prety much all moustache twirling pantomime villains. Very few characters either side really displayed much in the way of human foibles in their dialogue.

In GR we still have some people like that but more of them that seem to have some form of mildly more believable human reaction to the general chaos they find themselves involved in. There are even some surprises, for me at least, such as that by the end of it I LIKED Anti-Matter.

In general the "good" path characters on each side tend to be unrelentingly good (With a couple of exceptions I won't list here), the "evil" path ones are closer to the moral grey. Well, other than the resistance ones, the Crusaders, those guys are just flying-mouse-excrement insane.

I have never wanted to murder a contact before I played Hatchet's arc.

...Well, I've never been able to bring myself to play Phipps. So that probably has something to do with it.


But Hatchet is just cruel. Cruel. Especially after finding out...

SPOILER



That the ghouls are Neuron's experiments, and that it's possible to restore their human intelligence. You hook bombs up to them! You make one murder his brother! It's -horrible-!



END SPOILER

Wardens are good though.

Warden is Idealistic (It's a hard fight, but we can make it one step at a time). Responsibility is Realistic (We can't win every fight... and sometimes the killer gets away. But we've got to try our hardest to keep this city safe)
Crusader is either psychotic (LET'S BURN THESE <expletive> DOWN!) or Extremist (I'd rather see this city burn than have the people lived enslaved for one more day.)
Power is Opportunistic (Did you get my good side?)

I've done Nova Crusader, Nova Warden, Imperial Responsibility, Imperial Warden, and parts of Nova Responsibly, Imperial Crusader, and Imperial Power.

"My Robot Butler: The Murderer" made me cringe when I realized that these civilians were dying because of what I did.

Hatchet was reviling.

I didn't have that much of a problem with Mr. G or Transmuter because I wasn't actually being evil. Using your position to gain power is immoral. But blowing up ghouls when you could be curing them? Horrific.

well on a quirky side, i loved ricochet, partially because she is entirely deranged and has the most bizzarre way of saying thing, even when you take into account the resistance code language. and of course, i think most people who meet her like tunnel rat, she kind of has an early buffy willow sense of manic silliness to her, mixed with over the top paranoia, i was sad to see her go.

Take the Magic: The Gathering 'What Color Are You?' Quiz.

This is about how I see the various factions and paths breaking down:

Resistance Warden - Vigilante. They do what they feel is the right thing, but they operate outside of the law.

Resistance Crusader - Villain. They're out for their own (revenge/power/whatever) and will break any and every law they feel like. Kill people without Blinking and eye, and kick some puppies too.


Loyalist Power - Rogue, I suppose. They're out for their own, just like the Crusaders, but they use (and abuse) the system to get it, where the Crusaders throw it to the winds.

Loyalist Responsibility - Hero. They do their best to provide justice, order and protection for the people within the limits of the law.

I find that morally Wardens appeal most to me, but I end up playing the early crusader arcs anyhow, because frankly I find the Warden line a bit,... Dry. After Warden would be Loyalist Responsibility. They do as much as they can, within the bounds of the law.

@Oathbound & @Oathbound Too

Nooot exactly. If the law was that police spontaneously clobber random passersby on the street, that'd be one thing, but the Responsibility line is genuinely interested in the well-being of the general populace.

Don't spurn the Loyalists until you're well-informed. (-: