Right, my phone ate my earlier attempt at this, but here are my thoughts in response to @Notsofunny’s review. In part, I’ll just echo something I’ve said a couple of times upthread:
For example, I personally enjoy authors who make the most of the richness of language–like Gene Wolfe, or China Mieville, or Neal Stephenson–even when that means I have to crack a dictionary sometimes to follow what’s going on, or to appreciate their wordplay and reappropriation of archaic words. I know that style isn’t for everyone, that one person’s “richness of language” is another’s “needlessly uses long words when short ones would do.” 
That’s fine. We don’t all like the same things, and not everyone will like Rebels.
Similarly, pursuing a nonviolent path is intentionally tough, in some ways the more so the more consistently nonviolent you are (e.g. refraining from killing the Theurge who comes after you in the end will lead to your permanent scarring and survival by luck alone). That’s not because I think that’s the wrong path, or want to push readers towards violence and theft. I believe in nonviolence, which is why I wrote multiple nonviolent paths in the story.
But I also believe the path to success for a pacifist is generally a painful one, tending to involve some combination of rejection, suffering, getting the crap beaten out of you, crucifixion, and/or a bullet on a Memphis hotel balcony or New Delhi lawn. Nonviolence involves the willing acceptance of those kinds of sacrifice and pain; and especially if you’re a leader, it involves the acceptance of other people’s pain, not just your own.
That’s not a popular nor an easy path, especially in the early days of a movement. There’s a reason why consistently nonviolent rebellions are rarer than violent ones… and why even the ones we’re most likely to recognize as successful today were unpopular with lots of people at the time.
Finally, it’s fair enough to be dissatisfied at the dearth of romance options. Given more time and different priorities, I could have written more romances into Game 1 rather than holding them for subsequent games. As it is:
You may be right that I should have written more options to “rain fire and brimstone” on rebels who go against your will on the stealing thing, or at least make threats in that direction. I think that would have been a failure path, but I can see how it would have been satisfying to have the choice.
Your idea about being a Keriatou plaything with romances developing out of that is a fun one! Some of what you’re looking for will appear in later games, i.e. romances with nobles (including Calea) and doubts about the scope of your rebellion and its impact on people you love. We’ll see if you like it then (keep an eye out here to play the free betas, so you don’t have to throw good money after bad).
The MC’s ability seriously to question “whether I want to rebel or not” always needed to go out the window, though. There’s no way I could write a game set in this world where there’s a plot that has you entirely as a bystander to the rebellion–it would be so radically different that I’d never finish!
The protagonist is a rebel, by authorial fiat; as the series rolls on you may find yourself no longer the leader of a major faction, but you’ll never jump off the main plot threads into ones that are just about keeping your head down and surviving peaceably with the ones you love. If that’s not a railroad you’re happy to ride, that’s fair enough, but it’s the railroad this series is on.
Again, thanks for taking the time to share your critique; I regret that you didn’t enjoy the game.
I think there will continue to be a few different stats with Breden, doing different things. I may need to add those for some of the others, too.