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Date: Sat, 14 Sep 2002 11:30:58 -0400
From: John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com>
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Subject: Re: [CONTENT] Puzzle fairness
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Joao Mendes wrote:
> John Colagioia <JColagioia@csi.com> wrote in
> news:3D7A1E03.5060706@csi.com:
[...]
>>One major thought that I don't think has been mentioned to this
>>point.  How is requiring that I find a solution compatible with
>>*your* ethical values any different than requiring that the solution
>>involve breaking some particular ethic?
> This, of course, is the same point and is a very valid one. I don't have an
> answer for it. But I'd rather the PC, in that particular instance, were
> allowed to try other courses of action, even if only to meet with utter
> doom, as long as everything were neatly clued, of course. (I hope that's
> not asking too much... :)

Yeah, I think we're agreed, here.  In the ideal case, anything is
possible, but few things are worth the resulting trouble (arrest,
death, etc.).

>>I mean, one thing that shouts, "this is a game," to me very loudly is
>>a response to an action like, "you would never do that!"  Err...
>>Obviously, I would.
> Would you, really? When was the last time you did? ;>

My life, alas, is rarely as exciting as even the most mundane IF
game, so I rarely find myself in situations where I'd have to.  I
have walked into untended shops where I was supposed to meet people,
however, when nobody was showing up.

I got yelled at when the clerk eventually wandered in, but that was
about the extent of my horrors.

>>Mostly, though, I think the solution to such things is to disallow
>>actions by not putting the PC in that situation:  If you hand me a
>>gun in a game, I'm eventually going to get frustrated or bored enough
>>that I'll try shooting everything and everyone.  Telling me, "that's
>>naughty," is just going to frustrate me enough to quit, in all
>>probability.
> Does that mean that if I make a game where you play a cop, you're liable to
> start shooting random store clerks?

If the game doesn't land me at the *real* problem in the game, I
might.  I'll expect the game to end, frankly, but at least I'll be
doing something other than walking around waiting to trip over the
plot...

>>[spoilers]
>>
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>
>
> And more spoliers added, for people with large screens...
>
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>
>>I actually suspect that the lapse in ethics (which progresses through
>>the entire game, you'll notice) is indicative that the PC was being
>>affected by the Verlac curse, as well.  After all, without the PC,
>>there's all sorts of spots where Michael's progression into a "true
>>Verlac" would've been stunted.
>>(He wouldn't have gotten into the house, since he was "trapped" in
>>his reading, probably couldn't have gotten to the basement altar, and
>>very likely would never have located the doctor, among other things,
>>had the PC not been snooping throughout the town.)
> This is a very good point. However, IMHO, the lack of ethics doesn't
> progress. It starts at a very high level and proceeds more or less from
> there.

Really?  The circumstances change, slightly, but I'm not so sure I
agree.

> The only other infraction is stealing Michael's faculty card, and I
> sort of ended up with it in my hands without really thinking about it,

That's odd.  I felt very guilty about looking through his pants and
wallet--moreso, in fact, than I felt for climbing through the open
window to get out of the rain.

> as
> oposed to the trespassing, which had to be a very conscious decision on my
> part. Everything else the PC does is either perfectly normal or acceptable
> in the face of saving the world. (I only swiped the lantern from the bar
> much later than I could have...)

Basically, I count the entry (which was as much to get out of the
rain as anything else), rummaging through the wallet, breaking into
the church, and--possibly, depending on the town--going through
official records.  Arguably, you also tresspass in the factory and
a handful of other places, regardless of how much more motivated you
are at that point, and how many keys you've amassed...

[...]
>>Again, I'm not so sure about that.  Let's take the original example
>>in "Anchorhead."  You're stuck in a miserable New England storm (I
>>actually love walking in those, but I'm probably in the minority) in
>>a strange town where everyone apparently hates you on sight.  You
> 'Everyone' here means a bunch of sorry dudes in a lousy pub.

I did get some things scrambled (like the Asylum guard), but there's
also the creepy librarian.

>>have no car, and of your only two known sources of help, one
>>mysteriously can't care less about your problems, and the other is
>>missing.
> Not 'mysteriously'. I have actually told my wife to go take care of stuff
> while I do some other thing, and if she needs my help, I'll finish that
> other thing before I go help her. It is not a very big stretch of the
> imagination to say, look, wait till I'm done reading this, then we'll go
> down there together and I'll see what I can do about it.

I'd call it "mysterious" that, in the middle of a nasty storm, he's
sitting in a quiet room reading a book (that he's offended if I look
at), sending me back out if I even try talking to him.

And, of course, the "we'll do it together" never comes.  It's clear
that Michael thinks it's your problem, alone.

[...]
>>I suspect that the rules would
>>quickly go out the window, because we're actually on the verge of
>>worrying about survival
> See, I never even noticed that until well into day 2.
>
>>(judging by Michael's condition on the walk
>>home, I suspect there was some more wandering the streets before the
>>game started)
> ?!?

Once you have the key, walk around aimlessly for a while.  Michael is
barely any help on the road (which is why I found this), but more
importantly, he starts coughing pretty badly, after a while.  Since I
didn't know exactly where the game was going, I wasn't sure he was
intended to survive the trip.

>>It'd have pissed me off much more to learn that I was *supposed* to
>>take apart the lantern in the bar with Michael's Swiss Army Knife
>>(which he'd give me, once I asked for it), and find the ancient key
>>hidden within that acts as a skeleton key for all the shops of
>>Anchorhead's downtown area.  Oh, right, and I'd have to buy the
>>lantern from the barkeep, of course, using money I got by selling
>>seashells I found down by the lighthouse to one of the students on
>>campus...
> Yuck! Actually, take away the New England setting and put the game
> somewhere in Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms (fantasy role-playing settings
> for those who don't know), and that'd be quite alright. (Well, replace the
> swiss army knife with a dagger of slashing +2, or something...)

No, I'd never buy it, unless it was fairly heavy on the comedy (I got
the Babel Fish, for example).

