Choice of Rebels Part 1 WIP thread

Continuity error: I had killed and buried Linos and Horion at the pass but this text appeared in the religion section. “You can’t help thinking again about Linos’ offer.”

After letting Linos and Horion through the pass without kidnapping them I was left with either self proclaiming to be Eclect, encourage them to self interpret the Cannon, or not meddle at all. Not meddling seemed to really increase my skepticism and I would like to encourage Angelic worship without declaring myself Eclect or taking the path of self interpretation.

“They dump them unceremoniously at the crossroads, along with a scrap of parchment identifying them as Horion de Lelle and his retainer Linos.” Wouldn’t it be better to identify him as the Arcon’s cousin, if that’s what you knew he was? There’s already an option to keep his death a secret.

This page is looping on me.

"The murders of Horion and Linos spur one more small crisis in the life of your band. Everyone knows that hospitality to traveling strangers is an obligation under the Karagond Canon; but you hadn’t realized that for Whends, it’s an absolute cornerstone of sacred and social Order. Most of the Whends in your band are vocally outraged when they discover your appalling violation of the guest-code.

Several of your Shayardene followers respond with scorn and anger. “You wouldn’t have us offer bread and shelter to a Kryptast or Alastor, or keep them alive if they fell into our grasp,” Radmar snaps at an affronted Whendish outlaw. “How is a noble any less our enemy?”

“Don’t ask us,” she grates back at him. “Ask the Angels. They’re the ones you’ve offended. They’re the ones who’ll send the pestilence on us.”

Unfortunately, having failed to convince them of your religious vision, you’re in no place to intervene in the argument. No one leaves the band over the issue – they’ve just enough loyalty for that. But morale plunges among both the dissident Whends and those who disagree with them."

Edited: Found a spelling error. “‘Somethow’ it was never good enough for Hector to be better read than you.”

1 Like

Your own gender doesn’t matter.
If Breden is male, then Suzanne will be female.
If Breden is female then Simon will be male.

Suzanne/Simon only shows up if you’ve a low anarchy though, otherwise it’s Kala/Kalt.

I don’t see anything wrong with Outlaw as the title. An outlaw is simply a person who is excluded from protection under the law. Even if you were forced into joining the rebels, even if you choose not to steal, kill, or kidnap, that’s still what you are: an outlaw from the Hegemony.

Incidentally…

“One particular hundred-yard stretch had grown legs like a centipede and run a half-mile before collapsing. They reckoned it had been chasing us.”

So can I go to therapy now or should I wait for the nightmares to set in first?

2 Likes

Lots of good points on why Outlaw is a worse subtitle than Uprising. If I wanted to stick with the idea that the subtitle refers to the MC rather than your rebellion (and yes, FG also makes good points on why that’s a poor idea) – any thoughts on what would work better?

Well, my initial thought was that there was no reason for you to directly contact Calea (why would she want to help you?), nor to contact Hector unless you had tender feelings for him (why would you imagine that that would go well?). But as the Calea parlay grew in scope and significance, I have been thinking that it might need to get a broader unlock.

And by the way, this is a textbook example of why it takes me longer to write my game than I think it will. (1) I decide that Chapter 3 needs more action, and that the Keriatou need to do something before the Phalangites descend. So OK, I’ll put in a brief vignette where Hector attacks you and you have a choice of response. (2) I like @Rebelmaiden’s suggestion that the MC should be able to be in love with Hector; that’ll have nice repercussions down the road. So I write in the choice of how you feel about Hector. (3) Having written that, it suddenly feels inconceivable that a lovestruck MC wouldn’t at least have the choice to try talking to Hector. Let’s add that to the choices for a response. (4) Hey, wouldn’t it be interesting if Calea showed up instead of Hector? Hector would just want to kill you, but Calea would actually talk. (5) Hmmm, ok, I’d originally planned that conversation for Game 2, but since this is what Calea thinks, it would come up here. Let’s write it out now.

And thus a scene which wasn’t originally going to exist at all turns into something which I probably need to link to other choice paths, because it’s too long and too much fun to have in just one obscure corner of the game. (: See also the “survived the winter” bonfire celebration in chapter 2.

I clearly need to join @jeantown in her New Year’s resolution.

I’ll see if I can give it that spin in my restructure of Ch 2.

It happens way out in the woods, and there’s no one there (father, Simon, Bleys) who has a chance to recognize Horion.

I thought the interrogation/conversation scene was getting a bit long… but a “form of government” question would be worthwhile. Let me see about adding that.

Hahahahahaha! :slight_smile: OK, no more flip-flopping between CoReb, Rebels, etc… the author’s preferred acronym for this game is now officially XOR.

Were there specific lines of questioning you’d cut as pointless?

Ah, that’s a bug resulting from my not setting the “milady” variable to Captain in the shortcut-to-Ch-3 menu. I’ll fix that later when I’m back at the computer.[quote=“odessatales, post:2331, topic:1601”]
does ‘in the cups’ mean drunk?
[/quote]

Yep.

Yes. If you got “de Lelle” there when you knew that he was the Archon’s cousin, it’s because I didn’t set the delelle variable to “Leilatou” when you found out who he was. Don’t suppose you remember what path led you to that particular bit?

And thanks for all the bug/typo catches. I got the looping page myself but couldn’t figure out what was causing the problem. Will look again this eve.

I accept no liability for mental trauma caused by Horion’s horror story. (:

2 Likes

@Havenstone

Well done making the Xaos-lands genuinely scary. Before I read that I thought exploring out there would be a good idea. Now I’m just “NOPE NOPE NOPE”.

By the by, I was replaying the Carles prologue and I didn’t see any mention of Samena’s Song before the MC brings it up, and I could’ve sworn there was. Am I just misremembering?

It seemed odd to me that my guests seem surprised at being let go, I asked them to be my guests, I told my father they were guests, I told the camp they were under my personal protection, shared the scroll of blood magic, received the blessing of the priest, asked my guest to visit me again, and yet apparently I had to reassure them that I wasn’t going to kill them and wear their faces as hats.

It would be one thing if my behavior was inconsistent, but after the way I interacted with them I feel like they should have been expecting to be let go unharmed.

While it wouldn’t work for my character, how about an option to offer to ransom our guests? If he was captured by the vile enemy of the empire, why it would make him an unfortunate loyal citizen of the empire in the eyes of public opinion, yes?

2 Likes

If I can offer a two possible solutions to conundrums now raised…

  1. Instead of Outlaw why not describe the character of the rebellion at that time Dissent, Insurgency, Unrest or the original Uprising.

  2. Instead of meeting Calea why not just have the meeting with Hector go south. Either he kills you or you barely escape with your life depending on skills and choices. I think that is a valid outcome given Hector’s nature as you have described it. You can save the current Calea scene for a future installment.

2 Likes

Damn my poor typing skills, but given all the X’s in this game it might not actually be that bad.

Exactly. The “ch” in choice isn’t pronounced like the Greek chi, of course, but that’s what makes it a good joke. :laughing:

Not knowing even the themes of the later games, how many you plan to have or anything like that makes it difficult to choose a title that will fit easily in with a theme.

The other problem is people’s protagonists will differ. So you’re going to have to pick a common theme that all of our protagonists have. We’re all leaders, all in charge, and all heroes in our own way. While we are all fighting the established order, we’re doing it for different reasons. So you might want to try and think of something along that lines.

But I’d think focus on what the Rebels themselves would call us. But really, wait for the first game to be finished, then think again on the title. If we suggest something now I’m sure it’ll just change again, whereas once you’ve finished writing you might have a better idea of one word that might sum up this part of the story arc.

I liked Uprising because it did seem to neatly describe everything that happened without having negative connotations.

1 Like

Just recreated the delelle bug. It occurs when Blyes tells me who he is after I had taken them back to camp and then didn’t question them.

Also "strangers line 7264: Invalid expression, couldn’t extract anther token: #I can’t bring myself to watch that beautiful bastard Hector die.

1 Like

Is there any way to avoid losing control of the helots at the Harrowing and starting an “orderly” uprising with Charisma as a weakness? I really want the large amount of former helot bandits you get in addition to Zvad’s small band of merry men but still want to keep my MC be a genius and somewhat competent soldier with a rough, unpolished manner.

Mainly because as a nobleman myself, I want Shayard’s nobility on my side. Also because Breden’s a helot and although such people will be free in my glorious, righteous and independent kingdom, they’ll still be just filthy peasants at the end of the day and a well-bred individual such as I wouldn’t be caught dead fraternizing too intimately with the lower orders

. Also, ditto with Kala/Kalt but even worse since at least Breden’s a reasonable guy/gal who can be convinced to submit to the authority of his/her (non-imperial) social betters, while Kala/Kalt is a crazy noble killing fugitive whose in desperate need of a good beheading!

I’m actually a little annoyed you can’t have Kala/Kalt killed or at least told to leave if you’re a noble and they dare to presume you have a dislike for your fellow aristocrats just because the peasants wouldn’t listen to your wise judgement and spare your fellow nobles. And in act of blatant savagery innate to the lower orders, executed their betters like rampaging barbarians! It’s especially a little jarring when you’re roleplaying a stuffy, nasal gazing, silver spoon jackass who certainly wouldn’t accept a noble killer in his/her ranks.

Suzanne/Simon on the other hand, I like. They’re of noble birth which satisfies my unapologetic snobbery and the blatant sycophancy of them somewhat amuses my absurdly oversized ego. He or she would make a fine King/Queen consort.

Sadly no. Although you can still get Simon to join your rebellion if you fail to convince the unwashed helots to see reason. It involves a rather lot of them starving however…

“It involves a rather lot of them starving however.”

I’m okay with this. :innocent:

Could you explain how, please?

Don’t cause anarchy and by that I mean don’t do many quests.

Don’t go over 17 anarchy, which given your choices in the beginning will afford you 0-2 anarchy points you can cause while raiding.

Granted you could just send away as many of your followers as you can, at least not everyone dies that way.

Nope! I feel embarrassed but I read through the code and it’s a result of picking Shayarin instead of Koine in the beginning. It feels natural with an aristo but it’s strange to see with a helot, it feels like the MC is trying to ennoble him/herself.

I just gave this a quick playthrough, it’s awesome so far. If this game is going to let me be Joan of Arc like the religious path seems to be hinting at then I’ll play the hell out of it.

It shouldn’t have done that. The choice “No – I could lose them all by meddling with religion.” should just take you straight to the Hector vignette without any stat change. Want to try another playthrough?

Think I’ve fixed the other bugs, including the loop – thanks again!

You mean, before “I tugged at his arm and asked if he could sing Samena’s Song in memory of my mother”? No – it never appeared before that request.

Ah yes… that would be because when you told your father they would be your guests, instead of a slight increase in the variable that measures your relationship with Horion, I slightly increased the variable that measures Horion’s status in your band – which means the game thought you’d kidnapped him. That should be fixed now, and the unwarranted anxiety hopefully gone!

A 0 charisma MC unfortunately won’t be able to control the mob. The best you can do is direct them to less objectionable targets. Order them to kill the alastors and such quickly - they won’t heed any calls to mercy without at least a 1 in charisma. Afterwords, have them rob the traders. They’ll leave the nobles alone then at least, so you can avoid angering them any more than necessary.