Praetoria's morality...

Good lord, who knew bad could feel so good

One can only dream. Even TechBot doesn't seem able to ignore that woman's influence.

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I'd left of doing the Crusader missions indefinitely (and having done them now, for good reason), but running through them now has shown me ONE good thing: Vagabond. You know, the old grizzled military guy in camo pants and a huge beard? Yeah, he's a jerk and just as malicious as the rest of the Crusaders, but seeing him actually let me put into words what really bothers me so much about how morality in Praetoria is presented.

You know what's the most different about Vagabond? He isn't wearing a Resistance uniform. Oh, sure, Scott and the Trainers don't, but they don't really do much. But here is a contact for the Resistance - and a crusader, no less - who does things, gives missions, has goals... And yet doesn't feel like he's rubbing a resistance badge in my face the entire time. Vagabond, at least to me, feels like just some old bum who crashes with the Resistance, taps their resources for his own purposes and makes sure to help them out here and there, but he doesn't feel like he IS the resistance.

Every Resistance and every Loyalist contact out there feel like out-and-out propaganda for either side. It's always their faction that's to thank or to blame for everything that happens, it's always their faction's goals that they're fighting for, they always agree with their faction's ideology... It's faction-on-faction warfare, where people on both sides feel like they're completely brainwashed to see themselves as the resistance in the same way soccer fans will talk about how "we" beat "you" when describing the results of a match.

And while that may be appropriate for the single-minded goons that Praetoria seems to be made up of (seriously, talk about lacking character depth), it's not appropriate for my characters, because my characters are written and designed as able to think in more than binary choices. And I'm never given a third option. I'm never allowed to question my superiors. I'm never allowed to argue with my contacts, I'm never allowed to make a stand. Even if none of that matters in the long run, even if they're just meaningless fluff options, I still want to have them. Not letting Jack Hammer have his Fixadine because I don't like junkies, and instead giving it to the good doctor to work on his vaccine is what I mean. It doesn't matter to the game, but it matters TO ME.

And yet when I snag the whole Fixadine stash, what are my options? Let the Resistance have it and subjugate the Destroyers or hand it over to the Loyalists so I can suck up to them. How about "I don't like junkies, so I'll set bombs and blow this stash up so that NO-ONE can have it?" Not an option. Why? Because this endears me to neither the Resistance nor the Loyalists, and we all know that all Moral choices have to endear me to one those factions. Or, hell, why not be a dick and sell the Fixadine to the Suydicate and let THEM control the Destroyers? Make some money, get put in as the CEO of a random corporation. Why not? Well, because it doesn't suit either the Resistance or the Loyalists, and we know that's all that matters.

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Call me crazy, but I have to say this: While the STORY of Praetoria is pretty well-written, none of the characters that take part in it have any depth to them. All of the characters we meet are two-dimensional stereotypes wholly and solely defined by their faction identity and never with any identity of their own. Cole is perhaps the only one who seems to have some semblance of depth, with the feel that he actually does want to be a good guy, but doesn't feel like he can afford it, but everyone else is just a basic single-sentence write-up. And I'm ashamed it took me this long to figure it out.

When we speak about depth, look at Crimson. He's generally a down-to-earth, all-business spy who doesn't seem to value human life or the law of the land, who is not above framing or even killing bad people, and who intentionally let Melvin be tortured and lose his life to Malta just to test him and Indigo. But on the other hand, he himself describes himself as "an old spy with too much blood on his hands," and from everything he says it's clear that he genuinely cares about Indigo. And even when it comes down to the wire, he'll still do the right thing instead of taking the law in his own hands and going out for revenge.

Or how about Pia Marino? Despite being a Seer of the Fortunata - one of the blandest, easiest, most uninteresting ways to write characters ever known to men (and the Seers of Praetoria are no different) - she still has so much character to them. On the one hand a professional with not just a reputation to guard, but years of training behind her, who nevertheless falls for an obvious conspiracy based on the vein hope of reuniting with her brother. She has very real desires that she tries to suppress, but ultimately fails, and when it's all over, Pia is left even more conflicted than before, but with a new-found resolve... Even if in melancholy... For her job.

About the only one with this level of depth in Praetoria is Investigator Kang, and only because he shows up in something like three other arcs after his own.

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.

That's why they're part of the faction - if they disagreed with either of them, they'd be with the Syndicate or the Destroyers

Seers are for the purpose of finding people with questionable thoughts, like...the players, Resistance and IIRC, they help Mother Mayhem find people w/ psychic powers.

This assumes every single loyalist has the knowledge of the player themselves and knows everything. This, from an in character perspective, is not true.

The crusaders are also not "bad cops". They are straight up villains. Just because they have a noble cause does not make blowing up innocents and torturing civillians heroic. I have psychotic murdering villains that don't go as far as your average crusader.

On the flipside, most of the loyalist stuff (all I've done, atleast) doesn't even come close to the evil of the crusaders.

I can't remember who did this summing up, but it sounds just about right to me:

Loyalist Power: Rogue
Loyalist Responsibility: Hero
Resistance Warden: Vigilante
Resistance Crusader: Villain

Only thing I would change is that Responsibility and Warden's status as hero/vigilante is almost interchangeable, depending on your point of view.

The thing is you really don't get a choice with these. You either pick the Resistance choice (which, since loyalist=evil, must mean resistance choice=always good) or you pick the evil (loyalist choice).

So blowing up a city block=good if we accept resistance always=good.

And you can play "Good Terrorist" but you're equally the villain.

Right... Because Cole built each sonic pylon himself and does all the maintenance himself, too, just to make sure that no one else learns the secrets of how they work.

No but his administration do.

The same men and women that the Resistance will make sure to line up against the walls and shoot come the revolution.

I don't remember seeing that part of their post-Tyrant plans - was it a Crusader story arc?

Correct.

That's the thing about Praetoria, there's so many shades of gray that neither side is always good or evil. There are Loyalists that genuinely want to protect people, who believe that Emperor Cole is a good guy, and there are Resistance members who are so dedicated to freeing Praetoria from Cole that they're willing to kill hundreds of innocent people to get the job done. The game is built so that no matter which side you choose, there's a good and an evil side to both.

You can't play 1-20 without learning the truth about him and his horrific dictatorship.

Sure you can. Street sweep to lv 4, and play repeatable missions to lv 20.

Considering the resistance has no trouble wantonly detonating nukes, I don't find it a hard sell that in the revolution to take down a super powered mad man, one of those pylons MIGHT go out. I do hope some resistance members have trained themselves in the repair of advanced specialized machinery they would never use.

Wouldn't surprise me as numerous crusaders have outright contempt for humanity, or just want to make others suffer, or are not above executing innocents because they knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who once knew Coles grandpa.

There'll be an army of Primal Earth Incarnates to protect Praetoria - which might be very useful if Tyrant decides to call in his big tentacled Incarnate friend if things start turning against him

Well, let's hope the insane terrorists succeed. But if they don't, well, wiping out all of humanity was okay, I guess.

I really think that if the resistance became in power, they'd do things much like Cole. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. We already have crusaders doing executions on innocents like Cole does. And many of them basically believe in doing whatever it takes for their cause, no matter the casualties (like Cole).

And no, I don't think Primal Earth is going to step in and govern Praetoria afterwards. I don't think the people would support these strangers from a dimension where everyone views them as evil, coming in and saying "This is how it'll be done now. Deal with it."

The thing, though, is I'm not asking for Mass Effect or Alpha Protocol here. I don't need to see my choices have a direct effect on the world or be presented with exactly the choice I have in mind. "About right" will do. The problem is that the game doesn't even bother to pretend it's giving us a broad spectrum of choices. It's like the game asks you "Will you save the kitty from the tree?" and gives you three answers:

A. Yes, it's the right thing to do.
B. Yes, but only if you pay me.
C. Yes, because I want to spite that guy over there who says I shouldn't.

How about "No, I won't, it can bloody well jump down on its own!"

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That's really not the point, though, or not the main point, anyway. The main point that bothers me here is that we're always followers, the entire game through, and especially in Praetoria. It's always Vagabond's plan, Wardog's plan, Interrogator Kang's investigation, Dr. Steffard's task... It's always about faction identity.

About the only place this isn't as much the case is the Loyalists Power arc, but even that loses traction about half-way through and still throws us into the service of Praetor Sinclair or Marcus Cole or whever else that may be. And even when I swap over to City of Villains, the first thing I see is non other than Viridian, offering me to work under Arachnos, apparently in an attempt to explain why Arachnos mediporters will work on us.

And this doesn't have to be this way. It's not about technical limitations or the limitations of the genre. It's about a conscious decision to write all of your characters as somebody's lack because you don't know how to write a story where they aren't.

There are stories in the game (new stories, I mean) where we don't act like lackeys, but they are so few and far in-between it's like the developers don't want to put them in.

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.

Yeah, the Power arc really goes downhill after Tami Baker.