It don’t really feel like I have any choices
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I’m loving all these codenames so far 
i made my MC codename Ghost, I wish i had the mindset to call him Cinder
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Sounds like a good excuse to play again.
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If they don’t already, we need everyone to react to some of these codenames.
Y: “So, what’re you gonna call yourself?”
MC: “I’ll go with…Inferno”
F: “Seriously? Because you burned alive?”
Y: “Oh lay off.”
F: “Look, just because they died doesn’t mean I can’t call him out on that stupid joke”
Y: “Well I thought it was funny…”
MC: “This conversation seems like it’s getting a bit heated”
Y: “Ha!”
F: “Kill me.”
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Could you be a little more specificic about why?
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I was just reading through what people said. I do agree, the arguments get tired. I was just particularly frustrated because I am in the awkward point where the only way I could play my MC in character was for them to basically be entirely miserable, unable to do anything about their situation, and faithful to Panam. This is not really what it feels like the author intended, at all, it feels like there is a canonical planned path for how the MC should be which is why I just didn’t end up enjoying the sequel.
Anyway, I still need to make a new MC, one with a much fiery spirit who would deathly hate Leon, since it would make it easier to align themselves with Arcadia, a need for vengeance. Also this is IG an indirect reply to @KV1_DESEMPREGADO about how some players might feel they have no choice. I really didn’t, I felt like my choices were punished by the author, whether it was Tahlia acting as their mouthpiece or not being forced to have my MC not just reveal themself to Leon’s little bro [names are hard] when they were masqueraded and trying to escape…? That is exactly what my MC would have done, but no choice for that was there and the scene felt very forced to me. Why wouldn’t they just try to escape right then and there? No choice, though, unfortunately.
There are various points where I felt like it, but it’s been a few months since I read the demo, and I am not particularly interested in revisiting it right now. I just know that my MC was a highly empathetic, reserved, and generous person with a noble spirit. They took their death with grace, and so as a result had no ill will towards Leon or Panam.
They knew [or at the very least believed] that their death would end a lot of needless bloodshed and would clear everything up, a neat bow, and they trusted Leon to lead the country even if they were bitterly disappointed in Leon for not helping them. [To clarify, they were upset, obviously, their lover condemned them to die, but they did not hold contempt over Leon for making the choice. They knew what was at stake.]
There is no room for an MC like that in this demo, predominantly due to how Tahlia is written, but also because a lot of choices don’t properly capture what I would want my MC to do. For example, either you are happy in Arcadia and adjusting to life, or you are actively trying to escape. There is no option for “you understand you do not have the cards in your hand, you are not loyal and yet you have not yet planned an escape,” or something like that. This kind of thing is incredibly important for characterization. A choice missing there felt very obtuse to me and the fact my character got such a severe treatment for choosing the better fitting of the two options presented made it all the more bitter to my tongue.
It’s been months, and yet I still clearly remember how I felt reading it. I dropped the demo shortly after that, I couldn’t stomach it. But there is a great example of where it feels like there is both missing choice, and a lack of real choice for the character. Having massive loss of control like that can be very isolating for readers, [obviously, there are plot threads that need to move forward, approach is integral here] at least it was for me.
Oh yeah, that isn’t mentioning how dreadfully out of character my MC felt. You just died, you died on a stake, burned alive, and yet my MC is meant to be jovial and light hearted? No, that felt very out of place. That was another contributor, I think, to how it felt like ‘choice didn’t matter,’ because it felt like my MC should have had a much stronger reaction to something as visceral as that.
TLDR: I do think there is a problem of lack of choice in this Demo. I felt my own character was… Out of character.
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Admittedly, I felt that a little at parts. For example, I feel there are a few too many bits where something goes wrong no matter what you do, and you just pick your poison. Like, the one that comes to mind is the bit with the bandits, where no matter what you do, you HAVE to suffer some kind of permanent injury. I’m supposed to be an experienced fighter, you’re telling me there’s no way I can beat these guys without fucking it up?
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You can always just not save the children.
Being an experienced adventurer doesn’t mean things will always go as you want them to, the entirety of Book 1 kinda supports that theory.
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No, but being an experience fighter would mean chances of you messing up would be very slim
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An experienced fighter wouldn’t go into a fight of 4v20 thinking they will come out unscathed.
Summary
Mage Reborn, at least for me, will always be about it’s believable cast and how they interact with each other and with their World.
I always thought that single interaction has great parallels to AMR and it’s ending:
Trying to play is safe will resolve in children’s death, teaching you that one should take the risk if they want to accomplish something.
Saving most/all children while sacrificing your own well-being teaches you that you can’t save everyone without paying some sort of price.
Both of those lessons can develop Mage in different ways while still following the main theme of self-sacrifice.
Mage, like every other character in this series, is a flawed person (regardless of how you try to roleplay them, sadly) who trying to do their best for what they believe in, they are not a perfect hero who will always come out of top. I feel something like that would ruin other characters struggles, making it harder to actually care about them.
It’s 6:40 am for me and for some reason I went into tantrum and wrote whatever I wrote in the summary, feel free to not read it.
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Whatever bro…my uncle is butterbean and my father is a season deer hunter, I’ve been around fighters my entire life as well as being a boxer myself, so like I said a experienced fighter is gonna have a lot going for them so they can make it out of most fights unscathed
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Everyone : Fighting over something
Me : Still waiting for update
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I’m starting to wonder if following this is still worth it.
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Yeah, but there should definitely be a way to avoid it. Like I said, not that many branches as it is. This isn’t asking a lot.
If I was the writer reading all of this it would hurt and I just wouldn’t want to deal with it having criticism is okay but some of the posts not saying any names because this is not a attack just my thoughts seem more harsh and more like bashing then real criticism
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Is there any polyamorous romance here?
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People are bored without any new content so we dont have anything new to talk 
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I think F and Yu is a poly romance
From what I’ve read thus far on the Patreon demo, it is totally worth it. And I think there should be a public update soon.
As for those who don’t like the choices, I suggest doing an @ to Adam. I think he’d be responsive to suggested changes to the choices, if they fit the story. Deciding why your MC is going along with Thalia doesn’t change the fact that they’re doing it, after all.
Yep, it is. And I can’t wait for it to get some traction!
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I’ve been reading the Patreon demo too, and honestly I don’t feel that the issues raised about lacking choices go away. MC is still firmly following the Arcadian railroad with your only real options being “do you love Tahlia and pledge allegiance to her forever” or “do you impotently hate Tahlia while still doing literally everything she wants anyway”.
Without going into too many details about the latest Patreon update this means going along with a plan I consider morally terrible without fighting any more than a couple of snarky dialogue options and honestly I’m not thrilled about it. More options to subvert or ignore Tahlia’s orders, even if they lead to punishment like the failed escape attempt, would go a long way towards making this portion of the story more enjoyable to me.
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