Goldengirl

Jeff's games are actually full of humor. It's just not as explicit as, say, Kingdom of Loathing. Rather, most of it's pretty dry and deadpan. It's great stuff.

I always got the impression that the Shapers governed in the fashion that the Romans did. The local people could continue ruling themselves more or less as before, but under the auspices of the Shaper infrastructure of law. They pay taxes to the Shapers, ask the Shapers for help, let their lands be subject to Shaper flora and fauna and experiments, send soldiers to the Shaper army, etc. but they are more or less left to figure out their own civil code. After all, the only mention of Shaper law that ever gets given are regulations on Shaping. I think the mayor in Dillame was the one who originally gave me this impression, though I may be mistaken.

They can also clearly take you down. In the end, it's the fact that most enemies don't heal themselves that makes you able to defeat them. In a scenario where it's the PC versus Poryphra where the Shapers and loyalists all have plenty of pods and spores, it almost certainly would be next to impossible to win.

Shaping disasters are not considered a serious problem, sure. Well, actually, that statement is troublesome, because they almost always are. That's why they're disasters; no one who ever sends you into a Shaping lab gone awry has ever not addressed it as a problem of some sort. However, Shaping disasters aren't generally considered a widespread, systemic problem, as far as we are aware. There's never any mention of how the Shapers are struggling to contain their own empire from collapsing due to all these failed labs full of rogues. However, we can make some implicit inferences from the narrative that suggest that they are, indeed, a problem. The Shapers have developed what seems to be (since we never get the full details) an elaborate system of checks to insure safety. That indicates that, at some point, the Shapers had far less of a lid on things and were just wildly Shaping at their own will. This makes sense for the early days of Shaping, but the empire has matured to some degree. However, their ultimate failsafe is to lock an area down and bar it, as they did with Sucia Isle. Barring things has unequivocally been a failure in every scenario we've seen. Drayks, Sucia Isle, the Geneforge, Drakons, canisters, spawners, and the stoneworks near Krotoa-Kel are all examples of things that the Shapers barred. All of them erupted into problem situations. The problem with evaluating how successful the Shapers actually are at barring things is that we wouldn't hear about the sucesses, since they're barred, but these all mushroomed into some very severe problems. Moreover, we have direct evidence from the game that indicates that the Shaping disasters are actually a serious problem. Sure, the narrative given by the Shapers indicates they're benign, for the most part. However, the PC investigates and often times expresses shock at how severe the situation is. This, too, comes from the narrative, and that's because there are factional biases present in what the Shapers say that don't match up with the rest of the narrative that we see. Just because the Shapers are telling us to pay no heed to what's behind the curtain doesn't mean that it isn't something worth worrying about; rather, it just shows they are unreliable narrators with a bias towards themselves. That's not really a shock. The interpretive debate here is whether or not we can trust what the Shapers are saying about themselves. As they are the dominant class of Terrestia and have very strong incentives to maintain that position, I'm skeptical as to how trustworthy they actually are. They censor, as stated in canon multiple times. And there are plenty of examples of the Shapers saying something that doesn't match up with what's seen in the game.

I remember a while back Iffy proving that the stealth, mechanics, and leadership route can actually get you all the way through G4 without ever fighting yourself. I think he played as a fence-sitter, or maybe as a Shaper. He couldn't have been a diehard Rebel, because they have to kill Moseh and can't escape that. I also think, though, that there were a lot of situations in which he recruited allies (not in his party) and had to help them fight off his opponents for him by blessing and healing. Anyway, as far as the issue of leveling goes... You're mostly right, SoT. However, there's one issue where the game actually plays out more or less as you describe. G5 has someone who used the Geneforge and then got somehow altered and weakened. At several points in the game, it talks about how, when you get stronger, it's more that you're remembering the powers and strengths that you forgot. Sometimes this is directly untapped via magic and further reShaping, sometimes you just figure it out on your own (i.e. through combat). The other games don't hold up as well, though, although there are traces of explanations. Shapers are taught to learn very quickly, for instance, and the G4 PC just so happens to get a lot of canisters and Shaped by the Geneforge, but they're weak explanations comparatively speaking.

In all fairness, the regions the games took place were exceptional. Sucia Island is the only one of its kind, and its shutdown was effective for two hundred years. Drypeak was a backwater colony that would have had no problems had the Shapers not gotten involved in Sucia Island. There wasn't even anything particularly wrong with the Ashen Isles, aside from a minor squabble between Diwanyia and Lankan on Harmony Island. Looking at regions in G4 and G5 doesn't really work in this aspect, as everything is changed due to the Rebellion. I think it would have been far more illustrative of Shaper society to see any of the major provinces in peacetime. Until then, all we know of regular Shaper society is what it's like at the war zones and backwaters. One thing I would like to point out, however, is how much I love the civilians in Geneforge 4 and 5. They're one of the aspects of the game that I thought impressively well-written. They tend not to be ideologues or even want to take sides. However, when they do, they're almost always loyalists because they hate how much death and destruction the rebels have brought. I thought that to be a particularly realistic touch by Jeff in a series full of people spouting philosophy.

I imagine that the Shapers are like many orders of elites. They maintain their image so absolutely to the oursiders, and therefore when they recruit from the population to train new Shapers, there are two possibilities. The illusion may be bought so wholly that it's actually faithfully reproduced without any duplicity, such as with Alwan, or the illusion remains merely an illusion for power-hungry individuals, like Rawal. It would be easier if we had some idea of how people became Shapers. Taygen shows that Shapers can marry, and presumably have children, so I imagine that the children of Shapers are first pick to become Shapers as well. Whether or not outsiders can become Shapers is less clear. At some level, Shapers seem devoted to ideas of meritocracy. However, I'd imagine that outsiders would have far less motivation for the Rebellion if it were so easy to become a Shaper. Perhaps it's some mix of the two, where only the rich can afford to send their children to Shaper schools like the Greenwood Academy. I don't think Rawal is evil. He doesn't have a solution to the Rebellion, but then again neither do the Shapers of the Coast.

I find Rawal to actually be one of the more realistic characters in the Geneforge series. Moreover, he was representative of the older, classical era of Shapers that prompted the Rebellion in the first place. I'm thinking, here, specifically of the Shaper Council that would rule over the world, even if it was burnt to a husk, as they said in the ending of G3. From a roleplaying perspective, it's understandable to hate him as he basically holds the PC hostage. Maybe I just have Stockholm syndrome for him, even though I usually play rebel?

Hmm. You clearly need to have your implants adjusted. Don't worry, we have sent someone to fix that for you next Thursday.

Considering the loyalty issues all of the Hands had (except, possibly, the PC) I doubt any of them would become Redbeard's new Heart.

At first I interpreted sugar very broadly - many things, such as fruit, have sugar that you need to survive. Looking through this thread more, I'm looking at that category more narrowly as candies and sweets. Certainly not my favorite group, though it's a nice treat every now and then. Looking back, as all of the other categories are staples in my diet, I'd give up sugar. Indeed, I basically already have. However, I voted for meat at the time since I misunderstood the category, on the basis that I gave it up before for a year, so I could do it again if I wanted.

Those could be any three dead people. In fact, if they were dead Hands (or Eyes or anyone, really) I'd guess they'd give them a more respectable burial than just hauling them off in a cart. Those corpses are probably from the attackers.

In practice, I don't think this is different than the informational asymmetry problem you identified earlier; rather, this just compounds it. There's opportunity for adverse selection, obviously, when initially selecting insurance. Good drivers are going to expect low interest rates, since they're good drivers. However, there are very few ways for these drivers to signal to insurance companies that they are good and therefore deserve prime insurance rates. Instead, insurance companies have to squint and stare at data to try and guess based on categories (eg teenagers pay more, males pay more, etc.), look at past trends in accidents, etc. Beyond that, though, there are opportunities for moral hazard in how the insurance company deals with you, the other driver in an accident, and other firms. They can swindle you or others, or they can't; the problem is, just as early, that it's really hard to know if they're actually acting in our best interest or not.

It's been a long time coming in Spiderweb games, but I'm glad to see it happened. Everything else sounds great, too; I'm sure this is going to be an amazing sequel!

Excellent well done! What do they say, good things always come in threes? Well, this is the third milestone lately, so way to finish strong.

Banks are rent-seekers? Who'd have thought!

No, the one with the poisoned wetsuit.

Data the Android was only semi-intelligently designed, since his creator was only human.

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but perhaps the smaller jaw has to do with the descended larynx? The descended larynx that adults (but not infants) have gives us the ability to make a lot more sounds, and thus opens up vocal communication, and language more broadly, as a possibility. That's obviously an evolutionary advantage.

Watching jokes fly over newer members' heads makes me feel old. Also, I saw that Commander Eddie posted this and blanched.

I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov ​by Fyodor Dostoevsky. I have a feeling it will take a while.

I'm just going to say, if we'd been doing play-by-post this wouldn't be an issue...