Robert Kogan's arc: ARE WE THE BADDIES? (spoilers)

[WhiteNightingale]

That man isn't a reporter, he is a TERRORIST. He isn't pursuing truth, or justice, he's on a petty personal vendetta against Altruist Division and is willing to get any bystanders maimed or killed to see it trough. Even Frank Castle (hell, even 90's Wolverine) would have brough him in the moment he suggested getting posers murdered by the Column. Also, just hear him talking, that man. Is not. Right. In the head (let's weaponize Devouring Earth and pull an Arcturus Mengsk IN THE MIDDLE OF A POPULATE ISLAND! WHAT COULD EVER GO WRONG?)

 

Maybe re-label the alignment of this mission to "Rogue," because only a psychopath would play along with that terrorist (Or maybe Rogue/villain, since this rather felt as petty as Silver Mantis' SF).

Edited June 19 by WhiteNightingale

[Rudra]

From your description (since I have not bothered with anything KW yet), nope, it makes no sense to change him to rogue alignment. The rogue alignment missions has the character doing good things, not terrorist acts, as they work towards redemption. Almost all the vigilante tips on the other hand have the character doing unnecessarily cruel acts. Like the vigilante tip mission where you blow up an entire building without evacuating it first so the tabloid magazine that is officed in that building has all the negative data they were going to publish on you for their next edition wiped out. Sounds like the new arc fits the theme.

[Lazarillo]

6 hours ago, WhiteNightingale said:

Even Frank Castle (hell, even 90's Wolverine) would have brough him in the moment he suggested getting posers murdered by the Column.

I mean, look at Magneto and the Joker and we've seen what villains do to nazis, but devs seemed to think being the 5th Column's obedient toady was acceptable for redsiders of any and all stripes, so having people in the blueside spectrum thinking that working with them is okay is just the next step in the "no, guys, you should really think these guys are cool" approach that the writers seem to want to be taking lately.

Edited June 19 by Lazarillo

[TheMoneyMaker]

Alignments

 

Hero - the good guys, they do good things to be good and helpful

Villain - the bad guys, they do bad things for fun, profit, or any number of bad reasons

Rogue - sorta bad guys, they usually do bad things but are known to cross the line and do good things.....so not all bad

Vigilante - sorta the good guys, they want good guy results but are more than willing to engage in bad guy tactics and acts to achieve them

 

Rogue and Vigilante don't fit neatly into something like a classic D&D alignment architecture. They aren't the neutral alignments between the good and evil ones. Instead, they are a gray area of good guys willing to be bad and bad guys willing to do good, but they cover a pretty wide spectrum. What one vigilante does might be too far over the line for another. Like your vigilante might be willing to murder villains for the sake of justice while others might just be willing to break lesser laws (commit arson or robbery) to either target the villains or even frame them for doing it in light of hard evidence of the villain's plans. The key is not whether or not the action itself is good or evil but rather what end goal does it serve?

[PresidentDSG]

The City of Heroes vigilante is generally the "the ends justify any means" sort, full of missions where you'll sacrifice or endanger innocents if it gets you one wtep closer to killing the criminal. They're not just Batman or Wolverine, they're specificially riding a sled down the slippery slope. This is just based on tip missions, actual story arcs tend to lean into this idea even more.

 

The fall to villainy kind of needs you to start being a jerk before that point.

[Vanden]

3 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

I mean, look at Magneto and the Joker and we've seen what villains do to nazis, but devs seemed to think being the 5th Column's obedient toady was acceptable for redsiders of any and all stripes, so having people in the blueside spectrum thinking that working with them is okay is just the next step in the "no, guys, you should really think these guys are cool" approach that the writers seem to want to be taking lately.

 

Well I can tell from this post you haven't run the arc, but you sure were eager to jump to conclusions about it.

 

For anyone wondering, no, Robert Kogan's arc doesn't have you working with the 5th Column. You manipulate them to sic them on another group, the same sort of thing that's all over the Power arcs in Praetoria.

[Lazarillo]

30 minutes ago, Vanden said:

You manipulate them to sic them on another group, the same sort of thing that's all over the Power arcs in Praetoria.

Sounds like you should just skip the middle man and wreck both groups yourself.

 

HC's track record with original arcs, honestly, has pretty much turned me off to making further attempts.  The very first two (I think it was the first, the level 25 Rogue and Vigilante arcs) were good and all the rest have been overcomplicated, letdowns, or overcomplicated letdowns.  And the kinda feeble reassurance on this one doesn't really make it sound better.

Edited June 19 by Lazarillo

[Vanden]

25 minutes ago, Lazarillo said:

Sounds like you should just skip the middle man and wreck both groups yourself.

 

Sounds like you shouldn't be drawing conclusions about things you have no experience with. I'm not here to defend Homecoming's honor or demand you like their content or anything, but this sort of thing just makes you look ignorant.

Edited June 19 by Vanden

[PeregrineFalcon]

4 hours ago, Lazarillo said:

I mean, look at Magneto and the Joker and we've seen what villains do to nazis, but devs seemed to think being the 5th Column's obedient toady was acceptable for redsiders of any and all stripes, so having people in the blueside spectrum thinking that working with them is okay is just the next step in the "no, guys, you should really think these guys are cool" approach that the writers seem to want to be taking lately.

I am not certain that you understand what villains really are, or that not all villains are the same.

 

My VG on Homecoming, originally formed on the retail servers before the 5th Column came back, is The Fifth Column: Wehrwolf Division. "Die Fünfte Kolonne wird wieder aufsteigen!" A surviving remnant of the Fifth Column, the original Nazi Supergroup. My villains would have no problem working with this guy, so long as it benefited them or the VG.

 

Hannibal Lector is another example of a villain that I do not believe would have an issue working with Nazis, so long as they allowed him to play his games. So would Freddy Kruger. So would many other villains.

 

Now Magneto? Sure, he won't work with the Fifth Column, even during those times in his career where he's actually a villain, because that's his thing, but I doubt he'd have a problem doing those same things as long as he was working with a different villain group.

 

If you truly believe that all villains would refuse to work with the Fifth Column then I submit to you sir that you do not truly understand the term 'villain.'

[WhiteNightingale]

Since I really don't care for a semantics debate. I'll just add:

 

Last mission is BUGGED: If you select "I owe  you no explanations" and then "Attack them and save everyone" the next objectives no longer spawn.

[Rudra]

Funny thing, I just did that arc. And I never worked with the 5th Column. I attacked them, spared their leader, convinced him to gather more 5th Column and fight me in a challenge where I wasn't at so they fought the Council instead, and that was it. So where did anyone get the impression you go all buddy buddy with the 5th Column in this arc?

 

The arc even gives you control over how it progresses. For instance, you can not kill people when you blow up that building. How is this a terrorist arc? It's a definite vigilante arc, letting you push the boundaries or step past them however far you want in the name of justice against Crey.

[WhiteNightingale]

2 hours ago, Rudra said:

How is this a terrorist arc?

 

Call me old fashioned, but setting a beacon that will flood Kalisti Warf with Devouring Earth and siccing the Fifth Column to massacre paid stooges who weren't even real Council just so Becky from cheer squad is no longer elected as homecoming queen is where I draw the line. In 20 years, not even Lord Recluse has crossed the Arcturus Mengsk line (let alone for such petty reasons).

[Rudra]

52 minutes ago, WhiteNightingale said:

 

Call me old fashioned, but setting a beacon that will flood Kalisti Warf with Devouring Earth and siccing the Fifth Column to massacre paid stooges who weren't even real Council just so Becky from cheer squad is no longer elected as homecoming queen is where I draw the line. In 20 years, not even Lord Recluse has crossed the Arcturus Mengsk line (let alone for such petty reasons).

This is actually pretty tame for vigilante content. And definitely not appropriate for rogue content, especially in Paragon City (even if Kallisti Wharf is a co-op zone) where all the rogue missions are decidedly heroic.

 

Edit: Remember, for a vigilante, as long as the bad guy(s) get theirs, the ends justify the means. No matter how many innocents may get hurt along the way. They are just one more step away from becoming villains themselves. They have become the monsters they are fighting and quite possibly are on the edge of joining them.

 

Edited June 20 by Rudra

[Steampunkette]

Hero: Good person doing good things.

Vigilante: Someone who convinces themself they're doing the right thing while they progress further and further into villainy.

Villain: Bad person doing bad things.

Rogue: Someone who convinces themself they're the big bad having moments of mercy while they progress further and further into heroism.

 

The arc fits precisely where it is, and would undermine the Rogue alignment. That said I wouldn't be opposed to allowing Villains to do the arc, too, or Heroes to do the Rogue arc.

 

Sure, Punisher wouldn't manipulate literal Nazis to attack and kill his enemies, or use the DE to force the issue against his foes. This vigilante arc is just further along the "Becoming a Villain" line than Marvel has Frank Castle at. Perfectly good "Crossing the moral event horizon" arc to become a supervillain.

 

Also: While Magneto and Joker both draw the line at working with Nazis, the Red Skull and White Dragon have both had tons of team-ups with other villains across the last 70 years with various supervillains.

 

Now, of course, they MOSTLY only work with other nazis and white supremacists in the comics, and largely exist as an easily punched supervillain no one balks at while helping to humanize or create sympathy with other supervillains... Mostly because for good reason, nazis and white supremacists are seen as among the worst of the worst types of people.

 

Edited June 22 by Steampunkette

[El D]

I haven't run any of the Kallisti Wharf arcs yet, but as a follow up to the general conceit of this thread - why isn't the age-old standby of 'headcanon it differently' in play here like it is for every other story arc? If you don't agree with a particular writing choice for a character you're playing, you are entirely free to explain it differently and concoct an alternate context more fitting to your character's involvement. That's aside from the fact that the arc itself apparently already offers branching paths that change how it progresses in ways that can avoid the initial complaint entirely anyway. 

 

Maybe the 5th Column are all illusions. Maybe the DE attack was faked via a few plant controller buddies. Maybe this whole thing is a set up against Robert Kogan because he stole the player character's lunch once in sixth grade. Players can literally make up whatever they like - and often do. There was a really well-known long-running thread about a player's OC dating Positron on the original forums (not to discount Samuraiko as just 'a player' but still). If that path doesn't fit your preferred view of 'proper vigilantism' then make something up. Or don't run that path.