Worst arcs that assume your character is an idiot?

[Zhym]

I was running Belladonna Vetrano's arc today, where Pendragon is dead set on claiming Excalibur as his destiny, because he's owed it, and for other reasons that scream, "This is not going to turn out well."  And the PC just sort of goes along with it, including fighting the Black Knights, when it's kind of clear that Pendragon is completely off his Arthurian rocker.

 

Which got me thinking: what other arcs kind of force your character into acting like a complete idiot?  The first one I thought of was Kelly Uqua, where—spoiler alert—it turns out she's really a Rikti!  Who knew??  Except anyone who is paying attention, of course.  It's been a while since I ran that arc, but IIRC the arc has you working with her long after it should be obvious she's an agent for an alien invader.

 

What other arcs force characters into acting like they have no sense at all?

[srmalloy]

41 minutes ago, Zhym said:

The first one I thought of was Kelly Uqua, where—spoiler alert—it turns out she's really a Rikti!  Who knew??  Except anyone who is paying attention, of course.  It's been a while since I ran that arc, but IIRC the arc has you working with her long after it should be obvious she's an agent for an alien invader.

Assuming that you haven't already delivered a Rikti monkey to her during the Valentine's event...

[Luminara]

Janet Kellum's On the Run.  She goes right off the goddamn tracks with a wild assumption at the end of the fifth mission, without even any evidence of what she alleges happened.  Pulls a theory right out of her ass and runs with it, and your character has to be the dumbest person in existence to follow her instructions and never once stop to point out that she jumped to a conclusion without even seeing any evidence.

 

If Kellum were a Malta agent or a Nemesis Automaton, it would make sense in the larger narrative.  But she isn't.  She's just stupid.  And you're stupid for listening to her.

[Darmian]

When I'm writing AEs I do keep this in mind as much as possible. And believe me I've played plenty that don't!

 

In game?  I'll need to ponder more beyond the ones already posted above, although Who Will Die?  has some terrible leaps of "logic" all across its several parts.  And the Valentine Red Widow event arc is not the best.  And it WAS worse!  HC after some careful scrutiny got it up to the level it currently is from where it had been before!  I don't think they could actually go further without simply scrapping it entirely and they're loath to do that to any legacy material.

[Ukase]

Matthew Habashy's arc. You enter this map, and the building's on fire. And yet it has you take an elevator to the next floor. So, that in itself is pretty stupid behavior, even if my character does have super powers. And if the room I need to get to is on the 2nd floor, why don't I just fly through a 2nd floor window? Why must I almost always use a door? 

This entire game requires a suspension of disbelief. Why should a story arc where the contact wants you to do silly things be any different? 

[tidge]

8 hours ago, Darmian said:

In game?  I'll need to ponder more beyond the ones already posted above, although Who Will Die?  has some terrible leaps of "logic" all across its several parts.  

 

"Who Will Die?" (especially blue side) after the first arc completely bothers me for the lack of PC agency.... and I'm not crazy about the timers in that first arc which more-or-less force a 'yeah, you are done here' mentality in the first two missions. The cut scenes bother the helloutame for the "Am I watching someone else's story?" factor.

[Erratic1]

55 minutes ago, Ukase said:

Matthew Habashy's arc. You enter this map, and the building's on fire. And yet it has you take an elevator to the next floor. So, that in itself is pretty stupid behavior, even if my character does have super powers. And if the room I need to get to is on the 2nd floor, why don't I just fly through a 2nd floor window? Why must I almost always use a door? 

This entire game requires a suspension of disbelief. Why should a story arc where the contact wants you to do silly things be any different? 

 

Do you know when you enter the mission the objective is on the second floor? I do not recall that being the case.

 

Your debrief from the previous mission is:

 

Quote

 

You found information about something called the Ritual of Souls? That... doesn't sound good at all. But at least we know where they're going to be performing this ritual.

What worries me is who exactly gave this ritual to the Hellions. We can worry about that later, however, we have some more pressing matters to deal with...!

 

Your briefing for the mission is:

Quote

 

There's no time to lose, Character. We know where the Hellions are preparing this Ritual of Souls. You need to get in there and put a stop to them, once and for all.

The most important thing is to stop that ritual and rescue the citizens who were kidnapped. There's one other thing I'd like you to look into.

 

<You: What is it?>

I'd like you to see if you can find out who gave them the ritual. If someone's supplying the Hellions with something this dangerous, who knows who else they could be helping.

That's all assuming you can stop the ritual. If not, well, we'll have bigger problems on our hands than who is giving these guys rituals!

 

Your character enters the building not knowing where the ritual is being performed nor who is performing it.

 

One might quibble, the building is not on fire but rather there are fires in the building--kinda like there being a fire in the toaster oven in the breakroom would not be a reason not to use an elevator, but I will grant any significant amount of fire can spread quickly and so taking the stairs is the wiser course.

[MTeague]

The entire Twinshot ordeal. All three story arcs.

A fair bit of the Dr. Graves content, as well.

[High_Beam]

2 minutes ago, MTeague said:

The entire Twinshot ordeal. All three story arcs.

A fair bit of the Dr. Graves content, as well.

Come on Kiddo!

[Erratic1]

I greatly enjoy the Protean/doppelganger arc (both sides), but consider Protean is a known Arc Villian who has crippled and put both Manticore and Back Alley Brawler into the hospital. Moreover, he has supposedly killed multiple heroes (and their families). Sure, the story arc suggests before the final mission that you bring friends....

 

Should Robin call his Teen Titan buddies when preparing to face off against Doomsday, or should he perhaps call in the Justice League?

[FupDup]

27 minutes ago, MTeague said:

The entire Twinshot ordeal. All three story arcs.

A fair bit of the Dr. Graves content, as well.

To be fair, those two were intentionally designed to be extended tutorials. 

[Jacke]

When I think about it, I kind of remember the Barracuda Strike Force.  Talk about starting out as sheep being led to the slaughter.

 

Then your team becomes the shepherds for some rather overpower "sheep".

 

The finalé is rather harder than the Kahn TF.  And as bad as a +4 Kahn would be, I don't even want to think about a +4 Barracuda.  😺

 

 

[Techwright]

3 hours ago, MTeague said:

The entire Twinshot ordeal. All three story arcs.

A fair bit of the Dr. Graves content, as well.

 

Beat me to it by 2 hours. 

 

Montague Castanella's arc:  I don't know that it is forcing the character to be an idiot, but it is forcing the character, potentially breaking a character's concept.  After rescuing Percy, you're asked if you have considered joining the Midnighters.  At the end of the arc, you're made a Midnighter without your say so.   Roleplay-wise, not every character embraces magic.   I'd much have preferred a dialog where the player character is given a choice: become a full Midnighter, or become a member of a non-magic Midnighters' Auxiliary Corp that supports the Midnighters, and therefore has access rights.  I realize the "no thank you" option cannot be utilized as that cuts the player off from all related stories, including the Labyrinth and Chimerora, but maybe a third dialog option is that Montague understands your choice, continues to hold you in high regard, and slips you a back door key "just in case".  

 

 

Edited yesterday at 05:30 PM by Techwright
A minor grammatical adjustment

[PartyKake]

Let's be honest here.

 

If we're talking about comic book storylines, this is "99% of them" if your character is a woman.

And that's after drastic improvements.

 

Except for Fantoma.

But that's Golden Age shenanigans where you don't really get to say a character was thinking about anything really.

Just "F U I make it rain JUNGLE CATS!"

  

25 minutes ago, Techwright said:

 

...or become a member of a non-magic Midnighters' Auxiliary Corp that supports the Midnighters, and therefore has access rights.  I realize the "no thank you" option cannot be utilized as that cuts the player off from all stories, the Labyrinth and Chimerora, but maybe a third dialog option is that Montague understands your choice, continues to hold you in high regard, and slips you a back door key "just in case".  

I think the intent is that they would consider that auxiliary corp to still be part of the Midnighters. Think of it like Montague sort of lightly tapping you with his elbow and saying "eh? you sure you don't want to experiment more with magic? Door's open whenever you feel like it."

Edited yesterday at 05:18 PM by PartyKake

[Worm_Kalpa]

I got a few.

 

Sgt. Schorr's arc is for rogues and you work with three other "rogues" being sponsored by Wyvern.  The other rogues give their backstories on there being a line they wouldn't cross but mainly their interest is in money.  After a few missions, it is clear that these rogues aren't that different from villains, just focused on money instead of world domination or being evil.  There isn't a point where you can point that out to your Wyvern contact or make a note to self and expect a betrayal or two.  And in the last mission, each of them complain they weren't getting paid enough and threaten you to handover some of your pay.  Apparently this arc was in i24 beta when the live game got shut down, so I hope it would have been polished and improved if there was time. 

 

Willy Wheeler's arc deserves a mention, since it treats your character as incurious but handles it alright.  There isn't point where you ask why you're fighting villain groups as a villain for suspiciously non-villainous reasons.  But you end up turning the tables on Wheeler's source and leave Wheeler with the mess.  So that works for me. 

 

Playing them again after the revival, Master Midnight's and Vanessa DeVore's arcs treat your character like an idiot.  For backstory, Master Midnight is Praetorian Percy Winkley who betrayed, murdered, and reanimated the dimension's version of the Midnight Squad, and is a very obvious honeypot target.  Vanessa DeVore, however, sees him as a possible ally and even some part of him being a hero.  Trying to get Cerulean (a surviving Midnighter) to work with Master Midnight is a factor that leads to him and his followers splitting from the Carnival of Light.  You then work with Master Midnight who later betrays you because he's too horny for an evil sorceress.

 

Compare those First Ward arcs with Dr. Hetzfeld's and Neuron's arcs where your character takes charge and turns the tables on Hetzfeld and Neuron.  At no point in Master Midnight's or Vanessa DeVore's arcs is there a chance to ask "Should we really work with the guy that killed a bunch of mages that could be our allies, since working with him will split the alliance and likely create more enemies, and who will very likely (and does) betray us or be compromised?"  I would be okay if the broad strokes of the plot if there were some optional objectives in the missions to at least try to have some leverage over Midnight.

[srmalloy]

5 hours ago, Ukase said:

And if the room I need to get to is on the 2nd floor, why don't I just fly through a 2nd floor window? Why must I almost always use a door? 

You can ask the same question about any mission set in a warehouse -- there are lots of other ways to enter a warehouse, but you always go in the 'front' door. Even setting it up as a random chance for you to get a "you open a skylight and slip into the warehouse" entry. Or even -- if you've noticed that many of the 'alcoves' in the warehouse missions are actually the trailers of semis backed up to loading doors -- start in one of those, having convinced a trucker to deliver you to the mission covertly.

[keyguardactive]

It helps that lots of my characters are idiots. 

 

Like, Crimson Sentinel is a magical Mythology professor collecting dangerous artifacts. He doesn't know much about aliens or power armor. But he's one of those guys who is an expert at one specific thing and it makes him think he's probably brilliant at everything. Never questions himself. It's probably his most fatal flaw. 

 

Besides, in the moment, in the heat of what's happening, the characters probably don't GET to think too hard about lots of things that would bother me, the player. We're always operating on a time crunch to stop something bad from happening. 

[Forager]

I mean... y'all are clicking Accept.

[Maelwys]

Any arc that involves handing anything over to M.A.G.I. for "safe keeping".
They might as well install a big revolving door in their vault with Azuria stood outside hawking tickets.
🙄
 

Edited 11 hours ago by Maelwys

[srmalloy]

9 hours ago, Maelwys said:

Any arc that involves handing anything over to M.A.G.I. for "safe keeping".

Every time I do the Wheel of Destruction arc on a character, when I'm turning a new piece over to Azuria for 'safekeeping' I always say something like "Azuria? I'd like to have this piece of the Wheel of Destruction stored in the MAGI vaults under 'will call' for the Banished Pantheon."