Yes, Urban’s right, what you do with the Relics affects your Political stat. Give them to the colonized peoples/groups who could claim to own them and you’ll get pro-oppressed points; sell them to rich foreign museums and you’ll get pro-powerful points.
Ooh lol so you can’t persue fame if ya don’t want to support those in power?!?
That’s unfortunate… I want my MC to be a famous archeologist but don’t want to support the oppressors…
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Yeah, I designed it as a trade-off. Usually, you have to choose between money and glory or “doing the right thing”. (Although in the London chapter, if you give the Relic to Singh, you get lots of money as well as pro-oppressed points!)
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Meh… Money isn’t important, fame that’s good but I hate supporting the oppressors though.
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The right thing for me is to sell it to the highest bidder. If my character found the relics, he has the right to get a reward for his work.
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The stat is also affected by things like helping the Efe, though. That’s why you’ve only got a “mild” tendency to support the powerful, instead of a strong tendency!
Sure. But that’s the beauty of these kinds of trade-offs: they respond well to role-playing. Different players, and different MCs, will have different ideas about what’s right, and the game can accommodate that! (that’s why I put “right thing to do” in quotation marks in my earlier post: it’s all relative!)
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Yeah, I always gave it to the museums…
I don’t care 'bout money, but my MC should get the recognition for all that pain and effort…
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I wish it was, money or fame or doing the right thing… Money and fame don’t have to come in same category…
Like museums, highest bidder and the locals/the rightful people… Like
Museums = Fame and a small amount of money, small support to oppressed
Highest Bidder = Huge amount of money and little to no fame… small support to the oppressors
Locals/Rightful people = no fame, small amount to no money and full support to the oppressed…
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At the final fight with Schneider, why we can’t shoot him? He is there saying “the power is mine” like all evil characters, it would be the right time to just shoot him.
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“Have you ever heard of an island called Diego García?”
Why yes, Anderson, I have heard of it 
On a serious note, I loved it! Especially the Maria redemption arc (if that’s what it can be called). The “I will if you beg me” had me chuckling. And also the “my ancestors made out with one of you?”. Pure gold.
I wonder, will Relics II be in Mexico, if you write it?
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The ending of this one certainly does suggest that Mexico will be involved, doesn’t it? Guess you’ll have to wait and see!
@Urban - I’ll take a look, that’s not a bad suggestion!
@Empress_Nightmare Hmm. I’ll give it some thought …
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In fact, some of the choices do work like this. If you think about Chapter 1, for example, you have three options:
- Take it back to America and unveil it to the public: this gets you a lot of glory, some money, but doesn’t support the oppressed.
- Sell it to the British for their shiny new museum (which is a real museum by the way: the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, opened a few years after the story was set): this gets you lots of money, some glory, but doesn’t support the oppressed.
- Give it to the rabbi in Amman. This gets you a lot of pro-oppressed points, a bit of money, but no glory.
So sometimes I split things up like that!
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But the museum belongs to the colonizers, so you are supporting the oppressors.
And I think the options are balanced, you have 3 different choices in most chapters, with different rewards.
But those options are bare minimum, which won’t make much change supporting the oppressed or oppressors…
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I think with this I’m trying to get into the politics of archaeology and colonialism. In the Indiana Jones movies (the main inspiration behind this), one of the most famous lines is when Indy says “It belongs in a museum!”. But that’s a problematic line. Nowadays, a lot of formerly colonized peoples are looking at all their treasures far away in big Western museums and saying “You know what? That doesn’t belong in a museum! It belongs to us, and your ancestors stole it!” There’s a very lively debate about what should happen with this, and whether museum objects that were taken in the colonial period should be sent back to where they came from if the people ask to have them back. I was trying to get the book to engage with those debates a bit, and to get readers thinking about heritage, colonialism, who owns the past etc.
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Overall, your approach to this seems to be working.
The first option (glory) I identify with the King Tut Tour –
The second option (money) I identify as the historical option –
The third option (indigent rights) I identify as the modern option –
The only trouble I see with this approach is that for the majority of your audience, they won’t have the education/background needed to understand this without an explanation like you provide in your last post.
Because of this, you might want to consider an “author’s note” at the beginning of the game to clue your readers into your goal with this mechanic.
If you have this, and I am just not remembering it, I appologize.
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Oh, I hadn’t thought of that! I’ll give it some thought, thanks very much.
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OK, I’ve made a couple of changes. I added an explanation of the museum / indigenous peoples mechanic in the “Explanation of the Stats” page on the stats screen. I made Schneider order the MC to drop their weapons before he starts doing his big villain rant in the “surrender” path (this seems the most reasonable way to deal with the “why don’t you just shoot him?” question: after all, at that point in the story you are being held at gunpoint by the SS after surrendering, so there’s no way that shooting Schneider wouldn’t be instantly fatal to the MC). I also caught a couple of accents that I missed before: thanks for nothing King Léopold!
Now that the whole thing’s been up for a couple of days, I have a couple of questions that I’d really like feedback on (in addition to any other feedback people may have):
-
Does it feel like a complete and satisfying standalone story? And are there still enough hooks and dangling threads to make you want a sequel? (Balancing these two things is always tough when you’re writing a book with a sequel already in mind).
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Does the structure work? The whole thing about being imprisoned on the ship and interrogated, with the individual adventures as flashbacks? I had one comment that it didn’t work, that the framing narrative gave away too much about the endgame, that the storytelling wasn’t fun because of this. I’d really appreciate a wider range of views on this: do you agree? Do you like it as it is, or would you rather see it restructured in a more linear way?
Finally, I want to have a go at creating a poll. I tried to make each chapter distinctive, by playing around with different tones and genres, but in the sequel I’ll need to be more consistent in terms of tone and genre, because it’s one big story rather than six little stories. So what would really help me would be if people could take a moment to vote for their favourite adventures from the book in a poll below (you can select up to 2). If I find out what people enjoy most and least, that will help me work out how to pitch Book 2 in a way that will be most appealing.
- Chapter 1 (Palestine)
- Chapter 2 (Tibet)
- Chapter 3 (New Orleans)
- Chapter 4 (Congo)
- Chapter 5 (London)
- Chapter 6 (Hong Kong)
0 voters
Thank you all for taking the time to answer the questions and / or do the poll!
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Then there is no way to actually fight Schneider. If you shoot him it would be faster, then fighting him in melee would have the same consequence.
Yes.
Yes.
I think it works well for this story. It was a clever way to do the timeskip for each adventure.
I think the only parts of the story it gives away is that you found all the relics and you failed at Hong Kong.
To me it would be Congo and Palestine.
The first is the best episode by far. The action scenes (specially the siege) were abundant and well written, the romance with Cleo was good too.
Palestine was a great way to start the game, the Indiana Jones vibes from this chapter was the strongest from all chapters. And (again) there action scenes were one of the best in the game, only losing to Congo.
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