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Article - The Moral of the Story


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Ok, I'll answer quote per quote to some points of you post.

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Originally written by Kelandon:

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Why it's in fact 80 years?
Because of the line cited above, specifically the fifth string in the dialog box from state 13 in the text file t13Libraries.txt -- only applicable in the BoA version, because the BoE version gives different dates. I think (although I haven't checked, so correct me if I'm wrong) that the others say only "about a century" or something along those lines.

Yes you are wrong, I gave you a quote and it's not even a dragon talk but a story comment so no lie. We could be both right and the scenario wrong.

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Vannia want to hide to the Empire any possible problems, particularly the future pollution problem
But why? The issue is that she doesn't have any motivation not to tell the Empire about possible problems, at least not any given in the games.

Wrong, I gave you plenty quotes that gave good reasons of this behavior.

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And the reason that her motivation is important is this: without additional motivations, Vannia appears to choose not to clean up the pollution because she is in favor of pollution. No major point of view in real life has been pro-pollution; they've been pro-business and willing to allow some pollution in order to get their business done, or something like that.

Yes and that exactely what I quote from the scenario, Vinnia wants more power.

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If they can hide possible long-term problems and win more money, someone will do it.
But you're assuming that they got something out of the cover-up, which VoDT never says.

Wrong, I gave you BoE quotes.

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The TiaraLi version isn't an hypothesis for a major part.
Except for the part that I questioned, which is that time was the biggest deciding factor in why the waste mechanisms weren't activated. All I said was that we don't know why the waste mechanisms weren't activated, which is, as above, critical to the moral of the scen.

I think it's wrong, check my explanation, just avoid a suicide and no time to build a better solution or a teleport portal.

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Furthermore, to keep working the capitalism mechanism, many of those sort of agreement need a worldwide treaty.
Now you're inserting your own views into the scenario. VoDT never mentions anything even remotely close to this. It's a related issue, but VoDT does not cover it at all.

Lol, I agree.

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About 4: I should've said, "I don't think that's the most important part of what we're discussing here, in that no one has mentioned it yet (other than you).

Wrong, see post I quoted.

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" It is an interesting narrative technique. It just doesn't have anything to do with what we're talking about.

Well perhaps but I think it's an important choice of the scenario that explains why the 100 years old history isn't so obvious.

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VoDT does not reflect the issue of radioactive waste at all.

Ok, I agree in part and disagree in part but I don't want to discuss about this poiint so you're right!
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Okay, at your request, I'll try once more.

 

About 2: they clearly had mastered teleportation and did have time to set up the portal. Who else do you think made the machinery that you activate to clear out the waste, if not the mages? No one has been there since them. Nothing had changed since they left. All you do is turn on the waste disposal system. They could've done this just as easily.

 

3: Yes, you're right. I found the quote: "For over a hundred years, I have stared at these miserable walls, eating worthless food and going out of my mind with boredom" (t8Storage Levdlg.txt, node 8, text2). So we have two conflicting dates, the one I cited above, and the one that the dragon gives here. I am inclined to believe the one above, because the dragon doesn't really have a reliable way of telling time, but it doesn't really matter.

 

4: The post you mention, by coreyh, only says that he likes the fact that the place was already abandoned. He doesn't say that the setting is important to the morality of the scen, which is what we're talking about. You're reaching, here.

 

5: I know that Vinnia was seeking power for herself. It was abundantly clear in the scenario. But how does leaving pollution behind in the school give her power? That's what I was saying. I was arguing that the scenario does not give motivations for her actions with regard to the pollution.

 

Point 5 is really the only important thing here, but I just answered the rest of them for completeness.

 

EDIT: Hmm, you're very quick to say I'm wrong about things. Careful with that word. And it WAS the dragon who gave the figure of eighty years, NOT the narrator. Go to the node in the script that I mentioned and check if you don't believe me. But again, it doesn't really matter.

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Ok, I don't have a lot to add than I already mentionned. But about point 5 as you want more explanation:

 

Vannia used the opportunity to discredit the two other mages. Is she succeed she will discard two concurents, so more power instead to share it with the two other mages.

 

Furthermore she used the oportunity to please to the Emperor. He doesn't care about future pollution that will happen when he will be dead. He just want to hear that the school is closed ASAP as he asked.

 

She hides the problem because not doing so was to admit that the school should not be closed or at least that its closing had to be delayed. This could have unpleased to the emperor and furthermore she would have lost an oportunity to discredit the two other mages.

 

If you answer me that it's not explained in the scenario, I give up.

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Quote:
Originally written by Vent:
It's not because this scenario is quoted in an article about morale that a coherence problem is a problem with its management of the morale.
If I'm reading you correctly, this is exactly the point I disagree with. If a moral doesn't make sense within the logic of the scenario, either the scenario should be altered so that the moral makes sense, or the moral shouldn't be shoehorned in there. Maybe there could be some reason for not pushing the button, but it isn't explained, and to try to contrive an explanation is to give the scenario far too much credit.

As for cleaning up the waste delaying the closure of the School, I don't see how it could have. The cleanup itself didn't seem to take long when the party did it, and as previously mentioned, the portal in and out was already there. In any case, the School was given a week to close, which should have been more than enough to go down there and push a button.
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Thuryl, it's not the moral that doesn't make sense on this point, it's the scenario.

 

Don't you see that point?

 

In fact you are giving too much credit to it by supposing there's in fact a morale explanation.

 

Can't you imagine another explanation? As a technical problem? Until the school isn't empty he can't do it. Then no time to do something at a point and later he is dead. I don't say it's the explanation but just that this aparent scenario incoherence has no link to moral.

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I was going to say something, but Thuryl is a far better human being than I am, and he said it better than I possibly could.

 

To tack on my own point:

 

So basically, Vent, you're saying that Vinnia didn't want to clean up the pollution because it would take more time and delay the closing of the school, which might displease the Emperor. I can say to this only what I said to TiaraLi: this kind of makes sense, but it is the story that you have thrust upon VoDT, rather than the story that VoDT has given you. If one of the notes from Vinnia said something like, "We must hurry. The school's closing must not be delayed" or something like that, then I'd say that your point is completely valid. As it is, it is only your explanation and not VoDT's.

 

So basically, what Thuryl said.

 

EDIT: And what he said right below me, too.

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Vent, you can come up with all the theories you want. It won't change the fact that the moral in VoDT is badly done (which was the initial point at the start of this thread). If VoDT was done better you wouldn't have to come up with those theories.

 

It's badly done because it's treated shallowly. Jeff did a much better treatment of the subject in Geneforge in my opinion, the zone with Corata in particular. There we understand that steps were taken to try to store the waste as effectively as possible before the island was abandoned, explanations are given about where the waste comes from, why it was dealt with in the way it was, and why nobody has subsequently dealt with it. We see it's effect in the surrounding zones, which were inexplicably barren (no longer inexplicable when we came across the source of the problem). We don't even get to deal with the problem - it's too complex for our apprentice character to do so. Geneforge relates much better to the real world experience of hazardous waste (whether chemical or radioactive) than the unrealistic and shallow treatment in VoDT.

 

I've seen you make lengthy posts explaining away every point that has been raised about VoDT in this thread. I've seen your point of view (repeatedly and at great length). The point several people in this thread have tried to make (and that you don't seem to understand) is that explanations should have been in the game. The fact that explanations weren't made in the game means that what could have been a great moral scenario failed to deliver it's moral effectively. I played Geneforge before I played BOE and I found VoDT was a big disappointment after the far better treatment the subject of pollution was given in GF. Put simply, VoDT lacked the depth and the detail to deal with the subject effectively.

 

EDIT: several typos. I hope this edit caught them all.

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Quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:
If one of the notes from Vinnia said something like, "We must hurry. The school's closing must not be delayed" or something like that, then I'd say that your point is completely valid.
So my point is completely valid thanks to agree with that. A note you can found:
Don't forget. Caretaker key left with Provost. Healing Scepter still with Apothecary. Be sure to recover. If only we were given more time. Vinnia will have my head if they're left. Be sure not to forget.

That note shows the urgency, if that doesn't refer to both school closing and Vannia, well I could nothing for you.

Kyna, is that and all quotes I did, just a dream? You are speaking about facts but I saw nothing in your post.

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Originally written by Thuryl:
The moral should make sense within the context of the scenario. If the scenario's plot doesn't make sense, then the moral is inevitably incoherent as well.
laugh Nice joke.
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So my point is completely valid thanks to agree with that.
If you weren't such a jerk about it, then it might be easier for people to discuss with you.

EDIT: And while I'm at it, having thought about it a bit more, I retract that statement. I was wrong, because of something that Thuryl pointed out: the waste disposal took very little time (quickfire spreads pretty darn fast) when the party did it, so time being the primary issue still doesn't make sense.
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Vent, I also spoke of opinion. Perhaps I made a mistake in using the word 'fact'. It didn't mean you could ignore the rest of my post, which was clearly addressed to you.

 

Let me restate without using the word fact:

 

Opinion 1: GF treated the moral of pollution much better in my opinion. This means that Jeff has demonstrated that he is capable of much better than VoDT.

 

Opinion 2: It shouldn't take several pages in a thread with one person explaining how VoDT was done well and that the explanations are in the game. Most of us are reasonably intelligent and should be able to see and recall those explanations for ourselves if the story had been handled well. Since we don't (at least not without pages and pages of posts from you) either (a) we're stupid (which we're not); or (B) VoDT is flawed.

 

Opinion 3: Quite frankly, I still don't see some of the justifications you talk about, and I think you are sometimes grasping at straws and that you are stubbornly refusing to admit that other people have a valid point of view about VoDT.

 

Opinion 4: Why did GF do pollution much better in my opinion? On the issue of pollution GF was detailed, it had depth, it was clear, VoDT was none of these things. GF had no obscurity about the issue which VoDT had. Go play Geneforge and see for yourself how Jeff can do a decent treatment of pollution (and several other complex moral issues in the same game).

 

Opinion 5: I don't think I've seen you seriously rebut the point that explanations should have been in the game. I've seen you say you don't want anyone to point it out again which is not the same as stating why you disagree with it. While there are some situations where ambiguity works well (as Geneforge also shows in exploring other issues) this is not one of those situations. I restate my opinion - explanations should have been in game, and should have been clear enough to be understood by the average player. Please explain to me why you appear to disagree with this point.

 

Note that in none of these do I resort to minute examples of 'this character did ... that character said'. That sort of detailed discussion has sidetracked this thread from the main issues it was discussing, and I'd like to take this discussion back to more general level.

 

---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---===---

 

Ponders some ... it just occurred to me (after writing all the above). On an entirely unrelated note ... maybe some of the disputes in this thread are really about language ... when you play the game I assume you translate in your head to your native tongue. Or maybe you make notes with the translations. You seem to see stuff in VoDT that some of us who are native English speakers miss - perhaps the process of translation sticks this stuff in your mind. Maybe for those of us who don't translate, it doesn't stick in our minds when we're playing because it doesn't appear significant at the time. If that's the case then this lack of significance in English is a flaw in VoDT. I'm all for subtle clues, but not clues that are so subtle that intelligent people (such as Thuryl and Kelandon) would miss them.

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Jobs plus playing more VoDT BoE before detail it retrain me from coming here, that wasn't that bad! laugh

 

Kelando reactions became too much personnal , at this point it's useless to debate of anything with him, he just hate me, ok no debate and I'll survive. :p

 

Kyna, your post and late coming in the debate are typical clan attitude that don't worth any answer because 99% it's useless stuff that are mainly uninteresting clan reactions. Think a bout that a little.

 

I'll answer anyway to your last post because afterall beside saying people can't be wrong because they are clever, it has some interesting subsdiary points.

 

-------------------------------------------------

Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.

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Wow, Vent. I have no idea what you just said to Kyna (typical "clan" attitude?), but it sounded purposelessly insulting.

 

And I just figured I'd let you know: I will no longer read nor respond to your posts, neither here nor on the Lyceum. It'll save the both of us (and everyone else) a lot of hassle.

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I interpreted 'typical clan attitude' as meaning the opinions I stated in my post are similar to those of other posters in this thread. Maybe Vent sees us (posters on these boards) as a 'clan' or tribal grouping. (Completely off-topic side note: In my anthropology tute this week we briefly discussed cybercultures, so I can see where Vent is coming from on this clan thing)

 

I think the 'uninteresting clan reactions' is referring to the fact that many of us have said VoDT is only so-so in the way it handles it's moral - many of the 'clan' reacted this way, and this reaction is apparently uninteresting to Vent. Vent may find our reaction uninteresting, but if he's planning on putting any moral themes into his scenarios, he'll have to take into consideration the 'uninteresting reactions' of the Spiderweb community.

 

I'd say Vent's post means that Vent sees me in the same 'clan' or 'tribe' as Thuryl, Kelandon and The Creator. So ... I've been given a compliment smile

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A clan reaction is what you understand it to be: a member of a group tuning into an argument to defend and support other members of the same group.

 

But 'uninteresting clan reaction' does not mean that he is not interested in your opinions. It just means that he sees Kyna's post more as a 'clan reaction' than as an individual opinion.

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I forgot about this interesting discussion for the past few days, and based on the past half dozen posts, it seems that this discussion has forgotten itself, as well.

 

So if we can move beyond accusations and insults -- bidirectional arrogance, clannish behavior, and the relative temperment of the others posting, I'd like to share a thought on the subject.

 

It seems to me that both sides of this debate seem to be making essentially the same point but they're concluding two different things about it.

 

Let's assume the example of VoDT.. Because this scenario seems to be the focus on disagreement. There may be other scenarios which people disagree on, but there are also probably scenarios that one side or the other agree are good because they satisfy both sides in one way or another.

 

The people who are saying VODT is a bad scenario are suggesting that it is indeed because the issue is not handled in a serious and logical fashion that it becomes another tedious mindless moral to file next to 'don't set your sisters cat on fire' and that the scenario has no real business talking about morality if it can't be bothered to treat it seriously.

 

But on the other hand, the side that argues that VODT is a perfectly fine scenario is basically arguing that because the issue is NOT being tackled with a great deal of seriousness, it can't be considered preachy. This side is suggesting that the scenario is not really suggesting you file the lesson away next to any rules about burning animals, but rather that you should just take the scenario at face value and play.

 

But what I essentially see here is a pattern that is true in all forms of creative expression. There are snobs and slobs (and remember what I called your other before you get angry with what I called you, if you see the truth of it in them, see it in yourself as well).

 

Creative snobs believe that there is more value in art than entertainment, and creative slobs believe that there is more value in entertainment than art.

 

In this: snobs believe that if a story touches morality, it should explore it fully and eloquently, and the slobs don't really care how intelligently it is explored, as long as the story is enjoyable.

 

To someone on the snob side, the fact that they don't explore a moral issue completely means that they're obviously missing a lot of very good points.. And to them, this makes it seem preachy. They see the moral but they don't understand why it's there.

 

To someone on the slob side, the fact that the moral issue is not fully explored is not especially pertinent. The only way to offend a slob with preachiness is by bashing them over the head with it.

 

And I have to say, I favor the slob side of things. Not because I don't think the other side has the right to their opinion, nor even because I don't enjoy the higher forms of creativity, but simply because the snobs almost by definition always seem to complain the most about the things the other side enjoys.

 

And I'm not trying to be critical of all criticism. I'm not saying that there's no such thing as a crappy scenario.. and I'm not even saying that a scenario that is well put together is immune from any criticism. It may be boring, cliche, TRULY overbearing in its moralisms, or the author may have truly not accomplished what they set out to accomplish.

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EDIT: Okay, rewrite.

 

Qualnor, that is not what I think at all. I'm not saying (and I don't think anyone here has said) that all scenarios should have something deep and meaningful to say, even at the expense of them being fun. I'm saying (and I think the point of the Creator's article is) that IF the scenario makes the pretense of having something deep and meaningful to say -- which I'm not sure that VoDT does, but it could be interpreted that way -- then it should deal with the subject well.

 

That, I don't think, is a controversial statement. Its application to VoDT is a bit questionable, but I think it's questionable for different reasons than anyone else has brought up so far.

 

I don't think VoDT has anything to say about pollution. I don't think Jeff wrote it with the intent of making a statement on pollution. I think that's why the scenario treats the issue the way that it does. Thus, I don't think the Creator's points in this article apply.

 

However, if we were to assume that the scenario was attempting to treat the issue of pollution, then we could examine what VoDT has to say about the issue. Assuming that, which I've been doing (with some reservations) all along, then VoDT treats the issue in a rather poor fashion. The most critical issue in pollution is: what are we willing to lose, environmentally speaking, in order to gain some outcome, usually with regards to business or profits of some kind? That is to say, the reasons that we pollute are of tremendous importance to the issue -- and of greater importance than any other aspect of the issue, I'd think.

 

Now, VoDT has virtually no discussion of this. Aside from the one message to which Vent rightly referred, suggesting that the mages didn't have enough time to activate the waste removal system -- which still isn't particularly coherent with the rest of the story for the reasons that Thuryl and I gave -- VoDT does not discuss the reasons that we pollute.

 

As Kyna rightly pointed out, if the explanation of the reason for the pollution is not in the game, or if it is so breezed over -- one hint buried in one message that was, if I remember correctly, in a drawer somewhere? -- that one need almost invent the explanation, then the game has in effect not dealt with this aspect of the issue at all.

 

Since it does not deal with the single most critical aspect of the issue, it cannot possibly be said to have treated the issue with any sort of depth, thus violating the spirit of the Creator's article.

 

I value scenarios for their entertainment value at least as much as, if not more so than, their artistic value -- but I don't know to what extent it is possible to separate the two in the case of a scenario that proposes to deal with a serious issue. I don't really think that VoDT attempted to deal with the issue of pollution, but if we assume that it did, then I think it dealt with the issue badly.

 

EDIT 2: Moreover, I don't think anyone has said that the scenario is better for not dealing with the issue seriously. That would be rather absurd. Some people have tried to argue that VoDT *does* treat the issue with a certain degree of seriousness, and others have argued that it doesn't. At least, that's how I've understood the discussions.

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Well let me say again, what I wrote was assuming that people felt VoDT was a good example of what is being discussed. I'm not claiming that the original posters points were invalid -- they were valid -- but I dispute VoDT as an example.

 

I stick by what I said with regard to anyone who believes VoDT was 'preachy' because it dealt with magical pollution and a dead villianess who had been responsible for said pollution.

 

And truthfully few people fall cleanly into one category or another. We are not caricatures playing out our part in an avernum scenario, and one simple classification does not suit us.

 

But we do have influences. And some people are more concerned with what they believe 'quality' is than they are about how much fun it is. And some people are so concerned about 'fun' that they forget quality entirely and in the process either make their scenarios lose their fun because they lack spirit or perhaps become pornography if they take things too far along that track.

 

Most people take influence from both sides of things, but some people take too much from one or the other, and I have to believe that anyone who takes VoDT seriously has forgotten about the 'fun' side.

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Speaking as a designer, it's my firm belief that entertainment IS art. For a scenario to be fun, it has to be well made. It can't be good art if it's not also entertaining. The two are irrevocably intertwined.

 

In VoDT, Jeff made a decision that pollution would be the 'baddie'. I guess that he thought that since it's something everybody KNOWS is a bad thing, he didn't need to treat it with a lot of depth (as compared to A Small Rebellion). The 'message' of the scenario is pretty simple. "If you pollute, bad stuff happens."

 

I don't know that Jeff really intended it to have a 'moral'... but he did touch on an important issue without giving it the respect it deserved. Basically, I'm saying that Jeff's mistake wasn't so much that he presented a shallow view of the pollution issue, but that he included it at all.

 

I don't think that every scenario needs a moral - only one of my six does. The article is simply an attempt to provide guidance for those who wish to do so. VoDT wasn't the best example, but I used it because it was one that everyone would know.

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I mean no offense by it, but the belief that art and entertainment are the same thing is a common view among artists. And though I enjoy art and have a creative streak myself, it is not a view I share.

 

You give the example of 'A Small Rebellion' as something treated with a great deal of depth, but I cannot say I agree with you overmuch. Although it was technically a choice, I felt no desire to choose to side with the empire, and could not imagine myself doing so unless I was exceptionally bored.

 

Indeed, I was so quickly disintereted in the empire side of things that the plot of the game didn't make sense in parts because it assumed I had done things which I had not prior to deciding to join the rebels.

 

Was there a choice? You could say so, but it was a choice between good and evil, not various shades of grey.

 

But I don't want to turn this into a debate about that scenario as well, let's turn our attention to another scenario, say the third one, the time limited Zharazi Run one.

 

There were different ways of getting where you were going in this one, and I didn't do everything there was to do, so I can't say for sure, but I never saw how the villains in this one were treated with any great deal of depth.

 

Indeed, if you properly won the scenario you never met your enemy the entire time (at least by the paths I followed).

 

Now maybe you will say that this means it lacks art and depth, fine, I disagree, but fine. But are you going to turn around and tell me that Jeff was trying to tell us that people who look different are evil and that racial differences will ultimately end in war?

 

I don't know about you, but I'm reluctant to call Jeff a racist because his lizardpeople lacked proper moral dimension.

 

And that's the equivalent of what you're suggesting here, that Jeff is trying to (or worse you accuse him of being stupid, and not realizing what he's doing) preach the evils of pollution simply because magical pollution played an insidious role in one of his games.

 

When you put it in the context of preaching racial war it sounds silly. But though it may sound less silly, it is no less silly than the suggestion that VoDT is preaching treehugging hippery.

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The choice was between good and evil? Did you even notice all the dialogue about the Hill Runners indiscriminately murdering travelling merchants for supplies, and killing the families of Empire collaborators to spread fear? In my opinion, ASR gives you a choice between two very flawed options, and that's precisely why the choice is such a good one.

 

(For the record, I sided with the Empire.)

 

As for Za-Khazi, that didn't really try to touch on moral issues. It's fine to not try; the problem is in trying and failing. Sure, the enemy were Sliths, because warlike bands of Sliths are a convenient enemy that already exists in the Avernum setting, but the scenario would have worked just as well if they were a rival nation of humans. VoDT, on the other hand, would require a major overhaul of its plot to be about anything except pollution.

 

To be honest, though, I think we're mostly criticising VoDT on the grounds that it didn't make sense more than on the grounds that it was preachy. Either way, it's a good cautionary example of something. And morals, if one wishes to put them in, have to make sense within the context of the scenario as well.

 

(Incidentally, though, going through ZKR with a slith in your party leads several people to pontificate about how there are plenty of good sliths around, which, unfortunately, is still a damn sight more moral exploration than VoDT ever bothered to do.)

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Yeah, Thuryl said it as far as ASR is concerned. I ended up siding with the Hill Runners, but I felt pretty uncomfortable doing so.

 

Like Thuryl, I don't think that ZKR tried to have a moral, although I'm not sure that VoDT really does either. But that's a different question, one that we haven't really discussed yet, whether VoDT attempts to moralize or not. If we assume that it does, a problem with VoDT is that the moral doesn't make sense.

 

I think it's safer to say that VoDT tries to moralize than that ZKR does, because ZKR doesn't really have anything to do with the relationship between sliths and humans, whereas VoDT does have something to do with pollution throughout the whole story.

 

Really, the sliths are completely unnecessary to ZKR (which is probably part of the reason that people dislike it, as the Lyceum\'s CSR will attest). If I remember the scen correctly, you don't see the sliths at any point in the scenario.

 

Darn. I go to all this effort to write a well thought-out post, and then I read it over, and I realize that all I really want to say that is relevant to the discussion at hand is that I agree with Thuryl. Sometimes I should just keep my mouth shut. :rolleyes:

 

EDIT: Cut out some of the rambling.

 

EDIT 2: And really, the article didn't call VoDT terrible in its heavy-handedness. It says, "Now, VoDT is hardly the worst offender in these cases." It's not really all that excessive with the preachiness; it just probably could've been improved if the characters' motivations had been developed more thoroughly and the morality explored a bit better. Regardless of whether it's a bad scenario, I don't know that anyone would argue that the scenario wouldn't be better if it went into further depth about why the pollution wasn't cleaned up in the first place, even though all the mechanisms were there. Saying as little as, "We didn't have a power source, and one would've cost money, and we figured that the barrels would hold," would be something, at least.

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1 - Clan word

About clan word, ef explained it right, appart that I'm also really uninterested by a clan post just because experience shows that 99% of the time they don't bring anything to a debate. That said:

1 - There's nothing wrong in a clan post, it's normal human behavior with good aspects.

2 - I saw only his first post as a clan post and in fact only in its first part, I didn't read further before.

 

2 - Art vs Entertainment and Moral

About art vs entertainment, I agree with Qalnor, there's no real links. But there's a link between the two because the capitalism model gradually made evolves art quality on economical criteria. For most type of art, the link of the art with the economical criteria is the entertainment value , that makes the aparent link bewteen art and entertainment.

 

Moreover, mentality are evolving. Many people that will be agree about the difference between art quality and art economical value could have sometimes a first reaction that show the reverse, I constantly see that at TV cultural shows, something that still exists in my country. wink

 

About moral and art, I don't see more links. My first reaction would be, how about the music? It can be art without any moral. For movies, novels, cartoons, scenario or even games, they all create (or could in case of games) stories. Is that make quite a difference with music? Certainly, but that would be a dogmatic point of view to require a moral in any story that is art.

 

This leads me back to the VoDT example in the article.

 

3 - Moral in VoDT

Quote:
Originally written by The Creator:

In VoDT, Jeff made a decision that pollution would be the 'baddie'.

No, if there's a the 'baddie', it's Vinnia and the scenario is very clear about that. That pollution effects are bad don't make the pollution a "baddie" on a moral point of view.

Quote:
Basically, I'm saying that Jeff's mistake wasn't so much that he presented a shallow view of the pollution issue, but that he included it at all.
This is an extreme advice I disagree with. Jeff has any rights and particularely not giving any clear moral messages, lessons or thinking material. He is not wrong to use pollution effects in his scenario and not cover at all the pollution moral subject with a modern point of view. You demonstrate that this is a wrong choice through this sentence:

Quote:
When done badly, you'll get reviews complaining about Big Important Ideas and that the scenario has a Point To Make. No one enjoys a lecture.
I can't agree at least from a player point of view. I strongly enjoyed this scenario and I never wanted that Jeff give me more morale stuff about pollution.

 

Furthermore, there's a strong doubt on the reason that some people didn't like some aspects of the scenario. Did they really get disturbed by a lack of moral development or did they get disturbed by an archeological approach of the story that hapened 130 years ago?

 

4 - Archeological point of view

I'd like that those who, unlike me, get disturbed by this pollution subject, forget it one minute and look at the scenario with a different point of view.

 

One secondary but very important element of the scenario is that beside the main story, the adventurers could find many clues about the story that happened about 130 years ago (about 130 years is the safer guess). This subject is secondary but in term of scenario fun I think it is primary.

 

It gives to this scenario a lot of its mystery. In fact, at the end, this old story keeps some mystery. Is that a wrong choice or not is a difficult debate. Like an archeological approach, we end to not get 100% of the clues that explain 100% of the details with a 100% certitude. I'm not sure that this is that wrong.

 

That's my first feeling and strong disagreement about comments on this scenario. I strongly suspect that some people get disturbed, not by not having a fully explored morale subject, but by not having at the end of the scenario 100% of the past story with a 100% certitude.

 

Perhaps Jeff was stupid enough to not see the holes in this part of the scenario. But the holes are so basic that I'm not sure it's the good guess. Furthermore, there are some details that show that it's a better bet to think it as a deliberate choice. At what date happened the past events? We get at least four different dates (I count one I never found when playing the BoE scenario, but quoted by Kelandon). Almost 100 years for many people living in the valley, more than 100 years but less than 127 years for a dragon, about 130 years for a dated Empire order, 80 years for a source Kelandon didn't explained. I see it not as a Jeff stupidity proof but as a part of creating an "Archeological" approach.

 

Not having 100% of the details with a 100% certitude isn't bad for me. Keeping a part of the mystery is building an "archeology" atmosphere for this part of the scenario. Objectively it's not that bad to let player imagination running freely.

 

That approach is certainly one step further in comparison of giving full explanation of the old story. That doesn't make it bad. Am I alone to have seen this part of the scenario like that? I doubt.

 

5 - Moral development holes or story holes?

Quote:
If you're going to address an issue, you need to address it properly and fully. Throwing in a moral without exploring the issue properly is asking for trouble.

No, this scenario use the pollution effects but doesn't make any moral about it, it's hard to make moral about bad effects. They are bad, that's all, there is no moral in that. 130 years ago that's something else but this collide with the archeological approach I explained above.

 

That's my second problem, as I explain above, the archeological approach ends to an explanation of the old story that has unexplained parts. There are two points. No it's not better to develop in any scenario a complex grey moral. No it's not a hole in moral treatment, it's a hole in story and not necessary a wrong thing as I explained about the archeological approach.

 

What surprise me is that "nobody" complain about the holes in the story but see them only as lack of moral development. Only because of the archeological approach in this part of the scenario, it is a wrong example to use it in an article about moral.

 

Worse is that holes in moral development are also holes in the old story, that involves confusion about what is the real problem on this aspect for some people. That's a second reason that makes this scenario a wrong example in an article about moral.

 

To anticipate answers already answered, no, a story can be coherent and good without to have a sophisticated moral development. What could have been the (fully explained) old story is for me a typical example. The story hole about the push button prepared in secret but not used by the 2 good mages has nothing to do with a grey moral development. That's still a hole in a story 100% explained.

The reason that Vinnia didn't used the push button has a strong clue, she just never knew anything about that.

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Meh, since this conversation is still going, I will in fact read and respond to this post. I was tempted to say, "tl, dr," but I figured that would be out of line.

 

You didn't find the date that I cited in the BoE scenario because it's not there. I cited the text document and state out of the BoA scenario (which apparently was a part of my post you didn't care to read -- I *did* cite my source). However, Jeff changed the dates between Exile and Avernum, so the comparable node in Exile gives the date that you mention.

 

Quote:
No, if there's a the 'baddie', it's Vinnia and the scenario is very clear about that.
Do you ever fight Vinnia or attempt to dispose of Vinnia? No. But do you ever fight pollution or attempt to dispose of it? Yes. The term was meant in a gameplay sense, that the player spends most of the scenario trying to defeat pollution, not trying to defeat Vinnia. And heck, if anything, Vinnia and pollution are on the same side.

 

Quote:
I can't agree at least from a player point of view. I strongly enjoyed this scenario and I never wanted that Jeff give me more morale stuff about pollution.
That's more agreeing with his point than disagreeing with it. You would've complained about the scenario having a Point To Make and wouldn't have enjoyed the lecture. The idea is to do it in a subtle manner.

 

And to your archeological point of view: while it is reasonable for the scenario not to give us everything, it is not reasonable for the scenario to give us virtually nothing. A scenario that involves some moral is an argument. It cannot make its point well without making points that link together to prove some eventual thesis. If the component threads don't fit together, then it fails in its argument.

 

If VoDT has anything to say about pollution (which I still don't really think that it does, but let's just assume), it says those things poorly because it does not make an analogy to real pollution -- and it does not do so because of the points that you claim are "merely" plot points. It doesn't have an analogy to real pollution because we have to make up the reasons that the pollution is there, perhaps with a buried hint or two that don't even particularly make sense.

 

But again, we're overinterpreting this. VoDT is not necessarily a bad scenario because its moral is not developed. Whether VoDT is good or bad doesn't really have anything to do with it (and I rather liked the scenario, incoherent moral or not). It is just not the scenario that one would want to emulate in order to write a scenario with a well-done moral, which is what the Creator was saying in the article. BoA's ASR handles morality far better, and certain BoE scenarios do it even better than ASR.

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In Small Rebellion, the Hill Runners are indeed depicted as Bad. So is the Empire.

 

In fact, I disliked Small Rebellion the most of the three BoE scenarios, because I felt _it_ had a moral lesson - a cynical one: you can't change anything for the better, no matter what you try. Moreover, I've seen that moral so many times, it's become boring.

 

(I would also think that the moral and story in VoDT are not perfect but this didn't bother me as much.

 

EDIT: ...Though I agree with Drakefyre and Vent in that the pollution wasn't the Bad thing. It was more that some things were left irritably unexplained...

EDIT2: To clarify a bit: What irritated me slightly was that this "evil mage-woman" theme repeated itself again in yet another J. Vogel's game. Why was Vinnia evil?)

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Well I guess I'm a little more of a revolutionary than some of you guys, to me there was no moral ambiguity at all about a small rebellion.

 

Apart from that, there's nothing really new for me to add, I think everyone has explained their views well enough, as wrong as some of them are (kidding).

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I believed I had finished with one but the curse continue! :p

 

1 - Dates

About your source for the date, common, yes I read your post but I just saw a technical reference, I don't call that a story reference. I just wanted the quote and when it happens. Are you sure it can happens and that it's not a lost text?

 

2 - 'Baddie' but on a moral point of view

The 'baddie' was from a morale point of view and can't be the pollution effect from any point of view you look at it. It's Vinnia and eventually the Empire.

 

3 - Hole in the past story and moral

I'm not sure to have understand your part about the archeological point of view. If it's about having an unclear moral on this part of the scenario because of a hole in the story, I think this is wrong.

 

If there's a moral there, it is tiny and it's only around Vinnia and the Empire, not at all around Palhatis. There are plenty clues about that. The main hole in this part of the scenario is why Palhatis hadn't push the button after to have set up the clean up mechanism. But there are no big hole around Vinnia and the Empire.

 

Trying to search any moral reason that explains why Palhatis hadn't made it, makes no sense for me because the moral is centered around Vinnia and the Empire. Additionaly, I don't see any moral reason explaining why he didn't push the button. Furthermore he is obviously good and there's not a single clue showing him tortured by his own decision to not doing it.

 

I don't say that the scenario give any direct clue about that, but I can imagine plenty reason not linked with moral:

 

Firslty, you should quote that there's no urge to do the clean up. So there was no reason to sacrify any live. Palhatis could hardly predict his own murder and when he realized that, it was too late.

 

You should quote that Palhatis did plenty things during less than one week. At first he tried to struggle against the closing of the school and then he tried to warn the empire about the future pollution problem. That phase certainly take few days. Then he build a clean up solution. He informed the dragon. He build a shade. And finally he get killed by Vinnia before the school was closed so before the end of the week.

 

You should also quote that during this week, the empire obviously get brutal control of the school, burning places, murdering people. As Palhatis had lost any confidence from the empire, he most certainly had limited action in the school.

 

So some possibilities linked with indirect clues:

- Palhatis lost all responsibilities at the very beginning (strong clue about that) and before to have set up the clean up solution. So he could not have been able to go in the waste area anymore and after get killed before to set up a solution for that.

- Suicide/teleport problem. If teleport was that easy to build in less than a week, there would have many teleport in the school. He hadn't enough time to build one and pushing the button was a suicide.

- There could have been guards there, firstly going there could have been difficult during the evacuation, secondly triggering a brutal reaction could have cause useless death of all people still in the school or at least guards near to the waste.

 

4 - VoDT and moral

When you wrote: "If VoDT has anything to say about pollution (which I still don't really think that it does, but let's just assume)" then I agree with you. And that's all where I was turning the debate after to have play deeply the BoE version: Why reproaching it its moral treatment when this scenario doesn't have a real moral contents?

 

That said, if as you suggest, we assume that the scenario is developing a moral, despite it's not the case, then I agree, it would be much better that the pollution should have been technically much more contemporary and the archeological point of view should has been changed in order to get a detailed moral development... if the scenario had choose that way.

 

My problem is that the scenario hasn't those choices, isn't wrong to not make them and then is a wrong example for this article, ASR would have been a much better example for that subject.

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Ho man I was kidding, well I forgot the smiley but I believed the kidding was very clear.

 

Also, common you was kidding me when you supposed I didn't read your post. Or that was a provoke? :rolleyes:

 

Ok I removed the kidding part.

 

EDIT: Well afterall if just a kidding give me the win, that's not that bad! laugh

 

I WIN, I WIN, I WIN! :p

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I'm not going to go into a discussion of VoDT's plot holes again; there's been more than enough said about that and I don't think there's much chance we'll agree.

 

Quote:
Originally written by Vent:

That said, if as you suggest, we assume that the scenario is developing a moral, despite it's not the case, then I agree, it would be much better that the pollution should have been technically much more contemporary and the archeological point of view should has been changed in order to get a detailed moral development... if the scenario had choose that way.

 

My problem is that the scenario hasn't those choices, isn't wrong to not make them and then is a wrong example for this article, ASR would have been a much better example for that subject.

This is one of our major points of disagreement. I guess my viewpoint is that pollution is inherently a moral issue, and thus by including it Jeff was making a moral issue an integral part of his scenario. And if you make a moral issue an integral part of your scenario, you should explore both sides of it in terms of the values of those responsible for the conflict, in order to give depth to the scenario's plot.
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Okay, well, I'll assume Vent's post was made in good faith, then.

 

That said, Vent, the piece of text that I quoted is the direct analog to the "about 130 years for a dated Empire order" that you found in BoE. It comes from the exact same order, but in BoA. You could at least give me enough credit to know the difference between "loose text" (of which there is very little in the BoA included scenarios) and real game text.

 

About point 2, um, if you just dismiss what I'm saying without giving reasons, I can't really have a discussion with you. I don't really want to discuss this point, though, so it's fine by me if we just agree to disagree here.

 

Quote:
So some possibilities linked with indirect clues
In my opinion, the very phrasing of this gives away the problem with it: you're listing possibilities that you came up with based on indirect clues. The central issue of pollution is the reason why people pollute. The way to have a scenario that delved into the pollution therefore would be to have extended reasons for the pollution within the scenario that are described at length. By making the reasons for the pollution be so indirect, VoDT makes its treatment of pollution superficial.

 

Quote:
My problem is that the scenario hasn't those choices, isn't wrong to not make them and then is a wrong example for this article
Again I say: VoDT is not a terrible scenario for lacking in moral depth. But let's be clear here: are you saying that the scenario would not be better if Vinnia's motives were explored more thoroughly? If it truly is an archeological scenario, then let's do archeology! Lay pieces of evidence all over the deserted school, and let the player piece them all together! That would be really fun, I think.

 

About your edited part: as usual, I have no idea what you're talking about. Or rather, I think I do, but it seems rather childish, and the fact that you're "joking" doesn't make it any better.

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I'm suprised that anybody is agree with many things I'm reading here. Ha well, I'll answer another time but before.

 

***** VoDT STRONG SPOIL FOLLOW *******

***** VoDT STRONG SPOIL FOLLOW *******

***** VoDT STRONG SPOIL FOLLOW *******

 

It's a series of quotes taken from my play of VoDT BoE.

 

I put in bold some parts, are you able to explain all those parts?

 

1 - The succession of main past events

P1: There's nothing but several rows of bare pedestals and this official looking proclamation, pinned to the wall: "BY THE ORDER OF EMPEROR STEWART, MOST HIGH RULER OF THE EMPIRE.It is now officially decreed that the School of Magery, located in Skylark Vale, cease operations immediately. The deadline for ceasing of operations is one week from receipt of this proclamation.The school is to be sealed, and all magical texts returned to Empire custody or destroyed. The School is to be permanently sealed, and all students and faculty are to return to Empire custody. Anyone interfering with the carrying out of this order will be disciplined in the most severe way. A similar fate will await those entering the School later than one week from now. That is all." The proclamation is dated 130 years ago. Emperor Stewart has been dead for a century.

 

P2: The shade: "The leaders of the Empire decided that magical power could only be trusted when centralized under their direct control. The research of the School of Magery was so successful that it was the first to be closed."

 

P3: A quick inspection reveals it to be a page from the journal of someone named Palhatis: "Curse that Vinnia! It is bad enough that we are being shut down. Must she also force us to abdicate all responsibility? I must do all I can to prevent the disaster I expect. If she finds out, though ..."

 

P4: Palhatis journal: "It is clear that she listens to the Empire and no one else. She works against us as well. I know that she speaks against me. I can hear her now. 'Palhatis schemes against us. Palhatis is a traitor. Palhatis spreads rumors.'"

 

P5: Palhatis journal: "I don't know what she plans against me, but my speaking out against the evacuation and what we're leaving behind have only made me enemies. I wonder what is to become of me." That's all that was written on the page.

 

P6: A shade: "I am a magical construct, created to deliver certain programmed messages, I was placed here by the mage Palhatis."

 

P7: The shade: "The School was only given one week to close. For this reason, much virulently poisonous waste was left inside. Any leaks would result in incredible destruction. This upset Palhatis, so he took steps to prevent a disaster." "Although all of the controls and devices in the School were to be deactivated, he made sure that the controls to the waste disposal unit remained. These controls might still be activated.".

 

P8: Wedged between to moldering tomes, you find a note, which seems to have never reached its addressee: "Pergaltho - Vinnia plans something. I know not what. She means us no good, though.""Desperate times, my friend. I have done my best in Master Control to make sure disaster can avoided. We can only hope someone makes it down there, before disaster strikes. - Palhatis."

 

P9: The dragon: "It is strange. Just before the humans left, a lone wizard came to me. He did me a kindness. He told me of the nature of my cell. He said his name was Palhatis, for what little that is worth. The wizard was bothered about my being left here. He said he could not free me, but could tell me how to be freed later. If someone would free me, I would reward them. I can give instructions."

 

P10: Someone has carelessly left a note on top of this desk. It's brittle and yellowed with age, but still readable. "It is time. Get Palhatis and Pergaltho to Visitor's Quarters. I will do the rest. - Vinnia"

 

P11: In Phalathis desk: You search through the ashes and find a scrap of paper which escaped the fire. it reads:"Vinnia wants to meet with us. Does not bode well. Fortunately, the tools are in place. If the disaster does occurs, it will still be possible to undo ..."

 

P12: Two bodies are slumped against the wall of this cavern. They must have been mages. Their traditional robes still bear not only the insignia of Empire mages, but the dark blood stains of their owners. These two were stabbed to death.They've been here for quite some time. Only bones remain, leaving you to wonder: for what offense were these two mages brought here to be murdered? - That's not necessary Palhatis and Pergaltho but that could be.

 

P13: The shade: "The mage Palhatis was one of the administrators for the School of Magery. When the Empire closed the School, he was murdered."

 

P14 - Kobolds inscription: SACRUD HISTRY OF GULZUS TRIBE IN MEMRY OF DEAD AND LOZT WE SEE BAD MAGUZ LEEV CAVES AND GO IN CAVES TO GET NEW GRATE HOME TO LIV IN!DEN WE GO IN BUT GATEZ CLOZ BEHIND US AND WE IS STUCK AND MAGES LAUGH AT US AND SAY PLACE CLOSED FOREVER AND WE STAY HERE AND LIVE AS WELL WE CAN

 

2 - Empire will and violence

P1, P2, P10

 

E1: The shade: "Many here were killed by Vinnia, on orders from the Empire, when the school was closed. It was thought that they were disloyal."

 

E2: You find the body of a murdered mage. She was barricaded up here behind several force barriers, and left to starve. Ugly business.

 

E3: Many years ago, four mages were brought into this cavern and murdered. Their multiply stabbed bodies are arrayed before you. Whoever closed the School of Magery, they wanted to close it for good.

 

E4: Administration level: At first, it seems that you've found areas that have been struck by the inevitable decay. This floor is in an advanced state of disrepair. The walls have collapsed, the ceiling has caved in in places, and rubble and debris are everywhere.Looking closer, however, you realize that the decay was not natural. The walls and rubble have been scorched by fire, and the structures look less like they've fallen apart and more like they were torn apart. Before the school was closed, someone went to an awful lot of effort to make sure that this level was blown to pieces.

 

E5: About a library: This is very interesting. This room must have contained a number of spell books. Before the School was abandoned, however, someone came here, and, with a few well placed fireballs, burned them all. Considering the amount of ash and charred paper here, it must have been quite a library. You look over the wreckage, stunned by the sheer waste of it, and can only wonder who would do such a thing.

 

E6: Here is yet another area that was blown up before the School was abandoned. You haven't a clue what these rooms were used for. The destroyers were thorough.

 

E7: You find another room which was destroyed before the School was closed. You have little doubt that plenty of invaluable magical texts were destroyed.

 

3 - Vinnia personality

P3, P4, P5, P8, P10, P11, P12, E1

 

V1: Although the desk is empty, you notice that there's a small piece of paper crumpled underneath it. It reads: "Don't forget. Caretaker key left with Provost. Healing Scepter still with Apothecary. Be sure to recover.""If only we were given more time. Vinnia will have my head if they're left. Be sure not to forget."

 

V2: The shade: "Vinnia was an administrator, and very loyal to the Empire."

 

4 - Danger of pushing the button

B1: If you don't push the button: Probably a wise move. This isn't a suicide mission.

 

B2: If you don't insert the crystal: For all you know, you're about to bring a river of deadly goo pouring in on you. You back away, and the hole disappears.

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Funny how they had the time to destroy an entire floor of the School, but not to press a button, isn't it? You've made your point, but you've also shown that the scenario still has serious plot holes that it doesn't satisfactorily fill.

 

As for the last two messages, it's clear from the context that they relate to two conditions that didn't apply to the mages closing the School: the party not knowing exactly what all the machinery does, and the defenses having failed over time after the School was closed.

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Vent, other than having copied virtually all of the text out of VoDT, I'm not sure what point you were trying to prove.

 

EDIT: Presumably that it was, in fact, a good archeological scenario. If so, you missed my point completely. And yeah, read the Creator's last post again, because I say the same thing.

 

EDIT 2: Now that I have a moment to explain, I will. Every snippet of archeological evidence there answers one question, but raises two more that are never answered. I had not noticed the shade saying, "The School was only given one week to close. For this reason, much virulently poisonous waste was left inside" (and I'm guessing neither had anyone else, because this would be the FIRST bit of evidence that anyone who was making the case that the waste was not cleaned up for lack of time should cite). It convinces me that this was, in fact, the reason in the designer's mind that the School wasn't closed. It still doesn't cohere with the rest of the story, but this was Jeff's reason.

 

Palhatis had time to MAKE AN INTELLIGENT SHADE AND STICK HIM IN THE CONTROL AREA, but he didn't have time to PRESS A BUTTON. And Thuryl's point is correct: pressing the button did NOT release some unknown danger. The mages were familiar with the cleanup system, because THEY BUILT IT. And moreover, the statement, "he made sure that the controls to the waste disposal unit remained. These controls might still be activated," indicates that Palhatis specifically knew what the controls did.

 

The whole time I was reading over those messages, when I played BoE's VoDT, BoA's VoDT, and now, too, I've been thinking, "This is all very interesting, but there is much more to this story." Palhatis's statement, "my speaking out against the evacuation and what we're leaving behind have only made me enemies," seems to indicate that Vinnia hates him and eventually murders him primarily because he wants to clean up the waste.

 

In other words, Palhatis had time to make an entire covert setup for someone else to come along and push a couple of buttons and clean up all of the waste, but there was so little time before the school closed that cleaning up the waste would delay the closing of the school and therefore anger the Empire. This doesn't make sense.

 

Yes, one can make up explanations that turn all of this into reasonable plot material. But a true archeological scenario would not require the player to invent explanations to fill plot holes. The story of what had happened before would become central to gameplay.

 

Having said all of this, I still like VoDT. I don't think these points are critical to the enjoyment of the scenario. I just think it could've been better if more was done with this.

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Quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:
EDIT: Presumably that it was, in fact, a good archeological scenario. If so, you missed my point completely. And yeah, read the Creator's last post again, because I say the same thing.
What exactly is your point, Kelandon?

You've come out as supporting Creators article, but at the same time you've come out saying that you aren't sure you really consider VoDT preachy (which to me sounds like a clever way of not admitting to a position on the subject).

Well that's fine, but I don't think there's a person in this thread who doesn't agree with the basic idea that a scenario shouldn't be too preachy.

The only real point of major contention in this entire thread, that I'm aware of, is on the issue of whether or not VoDT falls into the category of preachy or not.

Now there has been a lot of hand waving in this thread saying that nobody ever really meant VoDT was preachy so much as it wasn't the best scenario ever made, but Creator hasn't backed down from his position on VoDT, he has, in fact, affirmed it more than once in the thread:

Quote:
The 'message' of the scenario is pretty simple. "If you pollute, bad stuff happens."
That's an excerpt from his most recent affirmation on his position on VoDT.

And there has been further hand waving suggesting that it's not a big deal anyhow, that even if he does think that, the article can simply be boiled down to the idea that nobody wants a preachy game. Well everyone agrees with that, but I can't possibly agree with the suggestion that an example which encompasses scenarios 'as preachy' as VoDT doesn't have a very large influence on the impact of the article.

It would be like saying 'I really hate racists.. like Christians' and someone defending that because the person was really only saying that they hated racists, it doesn't really matter what examples he used.

Examples DO matter, because they define the scope of the point, and it is the scope of the point which is in debate, not whether or not the point was valid to begin with, which nobody in their right mind can possibly disagree with.
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Quote:
What exactly is your point, Kelandon?
My main point was the last paragraph of that post, not the preceding ones.

I don't think that Jeff attempted to use VoDT to say anything about pollution. I also think that if we assume that VoDT is a statement about pollution, it is a fairly shallow one. Therefore I think it is not the right scenario from which to draw inspiration if one wants to write a successful story with a moral attached to it. My agreement with the article goes exactly that far.

You may find my ideas contradictory in places because I have changed my mind a few times in light of the evidence (which I think is a good thing to be able to do). The above paragraph states my position right now. That was not my original position. For example, Vent is clearly right that in Jeff's head, the reason for not cleaning up the waste was lack of time. He has found text (finally) that demonstrates that.

EDIT: For clarity.
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Quote:
Originally written by Kelandon:
I also think that if we assume that VoDT is a statement about pollution, it is a fairly shallow one.
And you've done it again, you've avoided stating what you actually think. Do you assume that VoDT is a statement about pollution or do you not.

I don't care what you think Jeff intended.
I don't care what you think Creator is assuming nor what it would mean if that assumption happened to be true.
I don't care what you think Vent thinks.

Jeff, Creator, and Vent are all capable of speaking for themselves quite well on the subject, and two have done so.

What I want to know, is whether you actually agree with the notion that VoDT contains a lesson about pollution, or not. And let me restate so there is absolutely no confusion, whether intentional or not: do you believe VoDT came off as being preachy?

There are only basic choices for answers to this question, 'yes', 'no' and 'I'm not sure'. I've said you're not sure before, but I have trouble believing you managed to say so much on this debate without ultimately forming an opinion on the actual topic, regardless of how firm that opinion is.
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Quote:
In other words, Palhatis had time to make an entire covert setup for someone else to come along and push a couple of buttons and clean up all of the waste, but there was so little time before the school closed that cleaning up the waste would delay the closing of the school and therefore anger the Empire. This doesn't make sense.
It didn't make sense to me either, when I played the scenario. Nor did I understand, why speaking up should make Palhatis an enemy, so dangerous that he had to be murdered. And the stone that opened the school, why was it hidden in the vicinity as well as the instructions on how to operate the lower level. Palhatis couldn't have done it. He was dead by then.

The only context that brought these puzzling pieces together was for me to imagine that Vinnia never intended to stop the basement activities. Quickfire would have destroyed all, so yes, she'd want to avoid that. And whoever suggested it would endanger her plans and herself. If she thought of secretly returning after a while, then it all made sense. But maybe her own end was closer than she anticipated. In the visitors' section is a throne room. When you sit down on that throne, a spirit appears, and I well remember its first sentence: 'I was Vinnia.'.
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Qalnor, calm down. If that's what you wanted, I misunderstood you. I'm not being evasive.

 

I don't think that VoDT was supposed to contain a statement about pollution. I don't know how much clearer I can say that. However, I do think it's possible to assume there's a moral in there and try to find one. If this is the part of my opinion that you're confused about, I'll try to explain further.

 

A few years ago, I wrote a little-known BoE scenario called NK0: Prologue. I didn't intend for it to have any kind of moral. It wasn't supposed to be a statement about anything. However, I imagine that one could poke around in it and find a moral somewhere. For example, it contains an episode in which one person in charge of a ship cheats the other person in charge of the ship. If the party helps out the captain being cheated, completely unasked, then the party gets rewarded. You could argue that the moral to that is, "Good deeds bring rewards." It completely wasn't an intentional statement, but it's there; is it a valid thing to bring up in talking about this scenario? I don't know, but I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt and talk about it.

 

I've said that I don't think that Jeff intended for VoDT to make a statement about pollution, but I don't think I've said that means that VoDT can't contain a statement about pollution at all.

 

So I guess the answer to your question is: I acknowledge the ambiguity. I think that there are two equally valid different readings of VoDT, one of which is that it is a lesson on pollution and the other of which is that it is not. It's not that one is correct and the other isn't. They're both valid readings based on the scenario.

 

I *do* think that VoDT doesn't contain a well-written and convincing statement about pollution, and for me, that's enough for the purposes of this discussion. At this point, I think the Creator's article describes one valid reading of VoDT as if it were the only valid reading, which is a bad idea, but I also think that VoDT is not the right scenario to emulate in order to create an effective scenario with a moral. I'm not on any particular "side," either favoring the Creator's article or opposing it; this isn't a war. I'm just participating in a discussion.

 

No, VoDT didn't come off as preachy to me, but it didn't come off as reasoned or thought-provoking either. I hope that explains my point of view enough that you understand.

 

On another note, ef, that's interesting. I think I'll take a look at that throne room again.

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All right, that is more attention than this thoroughly mediocre, tiresome scenario EVER deserved.

 

Any RPG plot, in so far as it is structured around the quest to defeat a social problem that has been abstracted, externalized and exemplified by some enemy other, is fundamentally ethical in design: we are good because we are us; you are bad because you aren't. Die.

 

Whether or not that mechanism then dispenses a "message" is an academic question. At some point in the most "entertaining," least "preachy" scenario, somebody's gonna commit some suppposed atrocity or do something else that asks a player -- no matter how perfunctory the asking -- to feel the righteous rising of the gorge and, on the strength of that, direct a remorselessly vindicating blade against the inhuman cause, blah blah blah.

 

VoDT is only conspicuous because it tries to use that ethical logic to solve a problem which exceeds the explanatory power of ethical externalization. Thus the clearest, smartest thing said in all this mess:

Quote:
What irritated me slightly was that this "evil mage-woman" theme repeated itself again in yet another J. Vogel's game.
Take a structural problem inextricable from everything valued as human progress and happiness -- and therefore, a problem insoluable without sacrficing or otherwise relinquishing something of value to that happiness. Then lose your nerve in the face of writing a plot adequate to that choice (it would require making players play differently as a result of their decisions). Upon which failure, find the nearest scapegoat: there's one recently escaped from the kitchen -- she can't have gotten far. Those vale-dwellers, let alone the PCs, never gained anything from the cause of the pollution, so as a representation of the question, VoDT is mealy-mouthed, if not basically dishonest (likewise the Geneforges, though that's another story).

 

No matter how well-represented or explained the "sides" of a moral choice are in an RPG, if that choice does not require a player to change the way he or she plays -- not just to kill different arrangements of sprites, but to engage in different forms of action -- it is at best an abstract choice of taste (which flavor do you like best, "individual" or "society"? biotech or nature? guys with blue uniforms or guys with red uniforms? on whose behalf would you like to slaughter, Coke or Pepsi?). At which point, the most complexity you can hope for is ASR-style nihilism, which -- since all sides reduce to the same denominator -- readily converts into a complacent affirmation of whatever prejudices a player brings to the story.

 

How about not scrapping the article but changing its focus? More nuts and bolts: how to make the mechanics of gameplay change as a result of the "moral" decisions you ask a player to make. This might, among other things, involve coming up with plots other than the quest plot.

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I'm calm, for the record.

 

And whether you were being delibrately evasive or not, I don't know, but you weren't really addressing what I consider the point of this discussion. I tried not to accuse you of being evasive by using the word 'avoided' instead of 'evasive' because it leaves open the possibility of non-intent.

 

I agree with your statement that VoDT doesn't contain a well written or convincing statement about pollution. I furthermore can say quite honestly that when I played VoDT, I too did not feel that I was being preached to.

 

Given that, I find Creators original article to be flawed because of an example it gives. It may well be that a very small percentage of players who play VoDT will feel that they are being preached to, but as you aptly demonstrated, you can dig up a moral in just about anything if you try hard enough.

 

And that issue is the only major dispute I see in this thread. People keep talking about whether VoDT had plot holes or not, and I just don't even see how that's the issue. That would be a fine issue if the thread was called 'Try not to have plot holes in your scenario'.. I doubt anyone would have argued about it. But it's not. This is an article about the preachiness of scenarios.

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Quote:
you weren't really addressing what I consider the point of this discussion.
Maybe not, but I was addressing what I consider to be the point of the discussion. :p

Quote:
People keep talking about whether VoDT had plot holes or not
I tried (and evidently failed) to make the point that the plot holes were inextricably linked to the success or failure of the moral of the story.

I agree with Boots. This has to be a first.

If I've learned anything from this thread, it's that we should encourage more people to post over on the Lyceum's CSR. I hadn't read anything that criticized ASR for its handling of morality until now, but now that I read some, I think some of these criticisms are valid. In BoE, ASR scores very high, at about the level of Brett Bixler's best scenarios.
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