glauc

Originally Posted By: How I fish in mine? I'm also not clear on what's so terrible about it. If you don't dislike Redbeard, you can stand by him loyally and the ending is fine with that. I found the story frustrating because there were lots of good reasons to question Avadon but no one ever mentioned them. The game itself was fun but the anti-Avadon arguments all missed the point -- I was pigeonholed into a loyalist-by-default simply because the pro-Avadon arguments were less irrelevant than the anti-Avadon ones. That's really unsatisfying. The other Hands' complaints were ridiculously petty. If anything, as Redbeard points out at the end, his ignoring them is evidence that Avadon isn't corrupt. Their pettiness did lead to some nice moments (the chance to call out Jenell for her hypocrisy during Trail of the Drake, Miranda calling them all "inept" at the end) but they were wasted as an anti-Avadon argument. The Tawon Empire's arguments weren't compelling either. Their only concrete offer was money, which is hardly in short supply in a game where learning new spells is free -- I never sold loot and bought all the lockpicks and group heal/group speed/resurection scrolls I could find and was still swimming in gold. Their attempt at a vague personal freedoms ethical argument would carry more weight if they weren't asking me to frame innocent people -- Avadon's command to rampage through Carsta'Arl's castle was excessive but at least he was guilty of something. Their claim that Redbeard was a corrupt tyrant was false (see consistently putting the Pact before Hands' personal vendettas). Their claim that his lack of attention had created problems was true, but they never explained how sparking a civil war could be an improvement for the average Lynaean. No one discussed whether Avadon's ends (preventing civil war) might not justify its means (constant targeted assassinations). No one other than the Codex and Redbeard addressed civil war at all, which was bizarre given that preventing it was Avadon's stated purpose. No one got into the ethics of reading minds or how absolute power corrupts or how it's probably not a good idea for one strongman-for-life to rule Avadon -- the Wayfarer and Miranda merely suggested I replace Redbeard, showing either that they missed the point (if I were effective I would be as bad as him) or that they thought I was an idiot (I could only be better than him from Tawon's perspective if I were an ineffective puppet). I enjoyed the more structured encounters that the new closed map allowed but the tradeoff in freedom to explore doesn't really feel worth it unless the story we're guided through is solid. And it wasn't. I'm not asking for a "right" path and I know a lot of stuff needs to be left open for the sequels but I don't think it's unreasonable to want the characters to touch on the real issues and give me one mildly logical reason to turn traitor.