I think I know what bothers me about Tip writing

I'd like to, but whether the game says "you" or "I," it's still writing your internal monologue for you.

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.

Sort of, a second person narrator doesn't have to be omniscient, it could actually be wrong about your emotions where as the first person narration is you and so can't be wrong.

That's just it, though - unless a narrative is attributed to a particular character established in the story, or at the very least it is established that this narrative is coming from within the story itself, then one has to assume it is the author speaking, and the author is never wrong. That's the sad part of writing - being the the writer gives you a responsibility, both towards your own characters and story, and towards the people who may peruse it.

Now, granted, I haven't run, err... "Old" RPGs, so I may be missing an unwritten rule about what one is right and what one is wrong to ignore, but as far as I'm concerned, anything "the author" tells me has to be considered and respected and I need fairly good reason to simply disregard it. Usually, that reason comes down to "Who could have possibly thought this was a good idea?" but I try not to re-write the entirety of the in-game fiction to my ends.

There's a "why" in there somewhere.

Why would I initially say that I dislike the game's representation of my character's internal monologue, yet keep insisting said representation has to be respected anyway? Well, put it like this - I like the story in City of Heroes. Well, some of it, mostly the older stuff. But I like "the story." In order for me to like the story, I need to be able to respect it and take it seriously, and that includes trying to make sense of the narrative "as is" without swapping in my own. And, yes, that includes the little tid-bits that Tip missions feed us.

After all, is the point of Tip missions not to chart the path of our morality? That's what they're for to begin with. So if I were to up and say "The morality of these missions does not apply to me!" then I may as well be given a free morality point for every paper mission I do for all it matters.

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Let me try and sum this all up in one sentence: The solution to bad writing should not be to ignore writing altogether, but to request and see the introduction of better writing, especially when there's room for improvement.

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.