Bane Spider Ruben is awesome!

I play melee, so I don't care either way. Well, melee and Masterminds, but I'm sure the Yellow Ink Men will feel really good about themselves for continuously trying to put my Battle Drones to sleep.

The hero-side arcs really don't hold as much weight for me at this point, though. Heroes, for the most part, have been done right. Sure, the SSA1s are HORRIBLE about being a hero, but they're an abberation. For the most part, heroes in this game do what heroes in general do, and the arcs leave plenty of room to fit in our own motivations. Why WOULD I want to save Paragon City from being infected with Devouring Earth virus? I don't know, why would I? The game never presumes to tell me, it just lets me choose whether I want to take the story or not, and I decide why I'm actually doing it. Maybe it's the right thing to do? Maybe I just hate monsters? Maybe I want to steal the chemical for my own experiments? Maybe I didn't even stop it, I just pretended to. Who knows? The game doesn't tell me, so I'm free to decide for myself.

The villain-side stories have, historically, not been anywhere near as open to motivation. We're always told WHY we're doing things, and it's usually so we can serve someone else's agenda. That's part of the reason why Ruben is so awesome - in his arc, I'm not serving anyone. Arachnos is helping, yes, but I'm not their servant because I'm free to talk back and free to screw Arachnos over in the end. Hell, Ruben doesn't even allude to paying me, he just sort of says it's a good idea, but I'm free to agree and run the arc, or disagree and walk away. Same with Hammond, as well. No allusion to being hired as a thug, no promises of indeterminate "power." Here's a guy, he sucks, I can use him, let's do it. Why? I don't know. Kicks? Money? Malice? The game doesn't say, so I can fill in the blanks. For Praxis, it was because she needed Bat'Zul temporarily free to offer the fiend a place in the timeline she's orchestrating, which includes him being sealed within the mountain until the right time comes.

For years, villain writing has struggled to figure out exactly what it is that villains want to do and what motivates them, blissfully unaware that those questions have no answers. There's no one thing they want, no one thing that motivates them, so the simplest solution is to just not bring this up at all. Tell villains what the story expects them to do, then let villains decide why, and indeed IF, they want to do it. Both Hammond and Ruben come very close to this, and that's what makes both of them awesome. Because the game doesn't give me the excuse of "the contact says that's what you should do," it puts me in the position of having to figure out why, then, I am doing it. And I've spent more than a few sleepless nights figuring this out.

And I love it!

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.

I was playing my new Dominator, and it was a nightmare. For some reason, most spawns consisted of four minions rather than three, and in most of those spawns, three or more of those minions were Yellow Ink Men. With their darn holds.

No fun.

I couldn't agree more. I loathe when the game assumes that my only motivation is money. I don't steal super powerful magical artifacts in a scheme to take over the world. No, apparently I steal them so I can sell them off to someone more ambitious than me. I haaaate that, because A) that's a really lame motivation for comic-book villainy, and B) I'm not actually getting paid, anyway.

The best villain story arcs are the ones that layout a situation and let me worry about my motivation for doing it.

If they like not being paid in non-existing currencies so much, they can go play rogues. I hear those guys are even more not-money grubbing than villains.

The villain experience has no overall aim even now. Even when Operation: Destiny was still a "thing," it wasn't really a goal because - slight spoilers here - it doesn't accomplish anything. The whole point for it, from Recluse's point of view, was to use the player villain as a patsy, take over the world and then KILL the player villain. That's really not a goal to speak of, and beyond that, there really isn't one. "Money" is not a goal, it's a means to a goal. What that goal might be is never mentioned.

The thing with roleplaying games is that it's just bad form to try to force motivation on your players. If that means letting them go without an aim, so be it, but NOT forcing motivation lets the more creative ones pick their own. Look at heroes - they never, ever have an overall goal forced on them. Not even doing the right thing or upholding the law. I guess heroes are sort of expected to just be heroes for no reason so it's easier to not give them one, but this really CAN and SHOULD apply to villains.

Let me put it this way - I chose to be a villain for a reason. Do I really need ANOTHER reason?

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.

Um... Did you actually read what I posted? Because I'm not "complaining" these don't fit. OF COURSE they don't fit, I get that. But both Ruben and Hammond are still a LOT more applicable to Praxis than Golden Roller or Willy Wheeler or Shelley Percy.

And no, I don't believe a goal is even necessary. It might be workable, but it isn't necessary. It helps nothing at all, because "for the money" and "for the resources" is simple enough to infer even when it's not said outright. Oh, hey, look, there's a bank in Paragon City that I can rob. I wonder why I'm doing it? Oh, hey, there's an Arachnos operative that needs help. I wonder why I'd help him. If "money" is your motivation, then you really don't need this said to you because it's pretty much implied in everything villains do.

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.

In a game that doesn't actually have or use money, a goal to earn money isn't just vague. It's downright silly. Sure, I can knock over a bank because that's what low level villains do. But if I steal the dagger of Ereshkigal, I really don't need the game to tell me that I'm going to sell it.

Mission structure isn't based on the goal, and it shouldn't be. It's based on the story the missions tell. WHY we do these missions does not need to be stated. When I say that "money" is implied, I mean that if that's your goal, you can assume that's what you're getting in every mission without it having to be said. Thing of it like any other game - you finish a mission, you're rewarded with money and experience. That's how these games go. It doesn't have to be stated.

And that's why both Ruben and Hammond are so cool - they're not ABOUT the money. Sure, I robbed a bank in the Ruben arc, but I had to do SOMETHING to take advantage of the situation, so why not? It doesn't really bother me because the arc isn't about the bank. It's an arc about taking advantage of patsies, and I can fill in what I hoped to gain from it on my own. I see the bank as a necessary evil in this case because it's an actual mission in the game that needed SOME physical representation.

There is, however, no need for Mr. Boccor to keep talking about how I'm costing him money in fees for hiring me. He's not hiring me, I have my own agenda for working with him and I don't value money. It adds nothing to the experience but a cheap gag.

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.

What's funny is, we're actually all agreeing. Yes, a vague objective/motivation would give a lot of freedom to the player. However, money isn't a vague objective. It's an incredible specific objective, that all but eliminates character freedom. It forces you to playing a greedy character who is only motivated by money. You don't have to play Sam's goddess to find this very limiting.

To give a little bit more context, it's not just Praxis that has a problem with this. Let me give you a VERY brief summary of off-the-top-of-my-head villains of mine for whom money doesn't work:

*William and Isabella Worthington are filthy rich and immortal. They don't need money for anything.

*Zik owns his own evil organisation with his own funding and his own cadre of lieutenants. He doesn't need money.

*Tyler and his Genesis Unit want to destroy all humans and care nothing for money. They have their own bases and factories run on their own resources.

*Lighteater is an automaton from the beginning of time who fancies himself the ultimate being. All he needs, he gets from teleporting into the hearts of black holes. He does not need resources of any kind.

I get that that makes them sort of an ill fit for most of CoV, but that's because most of CoV assumes I want money. And, yeah, money is not a generic motivation, it's a very specific one. Some missions I can spin as my characters having alternate interests in, such as those involving Bat'Zul or large-scale signature characters. Those, however, involving no-name enemies and no-interest plots (like the Shadowy Figure) just comes off like busywork when "pay" is all there is to look forward to.

What I'm saying is that the original CoV content makes the mistake of painting stories as benefiting the contact with the player only getting "money" as a hired thug. The newer CoV story arcs, however, have the much better idea of painting stories as the player benefiting himself with the contact just coming along for the ride, or even getting ripped off. It just helps this a LOT when the actual motivation isn't given.

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.

Not all goals go through money. You don't summon an eldritch god with money. You don't evolve into a higher being with money. You don't need money when you already HAVE money.

Furthermore, "it's a problem because you make it a problem" is a logical fallacy, and a dishonest one, at that. It's not a problem TO YOU, but you can't argue that it's not a problem per se, because then that argument is applicable to anything and everything. Being punched in the face can be argued to be a problem only if you make it a problem because a face isn't crucial to survival. It's only a problem if you care about having a pretty face.

"Money" is not a generic goal.

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.

Of the 30+ active villains I have on virtue, I don't think it works for any of them. And even if there is one or two who might just be greedy buggers, why squabble over petty cash when I can knock over a bank any time I like?

When the difference between hero and villain dialogue boils down to adding the sentence "...I will pay you" as motivation, it's just lazy (or worse, ignorant) writing. No, I'm not going to rescue your cat from a tree just because you wave a 20 in my face. That's what Hero Corps is for.

(I might, however, set fire to you, your cat, and the tree, just for asking )

Money can be exchanged for goods and services.

Well, you might if it was an eldritch god of greed. Or the money could be used for purchasing items and components needed in a summoning ritual, making arrangements and that sort of thing.

Depends how you're doing it. Science and technology needs funding if you're going that route, or you might need the money to pay for other concerns while you work on ascension, and again there's paying for ritual items if you chose to go that way.

Money isn't a binary thing. It's not a case of money/no money. Therefore, if you have money, you can always have more money. Same if you don't have money. In fact, the more money you have the more money you can get. What you do with that money is up to whoever has it. You might use it to get even more money, or just buy a lifetime supply of Chicago-style hotdogs.

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More Than a Game
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