These are just my random thoughts and opinions blah blah

Also writing this at work over a couple hours so sorry not going back and correcting any of it, prepare for rambling

I will say this had the best overall story of the NGs, it kept me interested for the most part. Personal favorite parts included the 'Albert kills Ghost and steals her suit' scene (even if the reason he did so was a little ehhh) and Ghost sacrificing herself in the true end (which still doesn't make much sense to me as to how that would work out but I'm willing to accept it due to Rule of Cool :p )

As others have mentioned, the puzzles weren't that great and seemed to be there for tradition's sake more than anything. The 'programming' puzzles in particular irked me. I know nothing about programming code, so not only did I not understand the puzzles, I didn't get the answers even after they were explained, either... but I've been told they were really easy for anyone who DOES know code, so... I guess I'm not really sure who was meant to be satisfied with them.

My biggest issue with the game was that it favored some characters a lot more than others. I get that it's pretty much impossible for everyone to get equal treatment in something like this, but I feel like it was pretty unbalanced. Teddy in particular got away with way too much (he murdered half the cast in two timelines ffs (three if you count the meme ending)), but it felt like he never got any sort of comeuppance until the end where he 'might' go to jail for a while, and even then a bunch of the characters seemed to want to burn Nina's corpse at first because they didn't want to possibly separate him from Violet. I'm sorry, but the 'but I have a daughter!' excuse can only go so far. Hell, even when it was revealed that Teddy murdered Bradley's parents, infected him with a lifelong fatal disease, and pretty much singlehandedly caused the entire mess, it's like... nobody cared. Not even Bradley himself. He didn't even QUESTION Teddy about it. He just yelled at and hit Emma and Ghost. Just...

On the flip side, I feel like I got surprisingly little from Emma despite her being the mastermind, and for most of the game Violet felt less like her own person and more of a 'justification' for Teddy to be a dick. I'm not sure how much of that is due to the way the story was written or inactivity, though.

And then, as has been mentioned, there's Adriana, who SHOULD have had a lot going for her, but she got Aliced harder than Alice herself. Apparently her role in the story was to just die unceremoniously over and over with, from what I can tell, little to no input from her player. The worst part? None of it felt like it had any greater meaning to it or anything that developed her character. It was just because Teddy and Helios were given the power to kill her a couple times, so they did. Or in Emma's case, I guess because SOMEONE needed to die to show how serious Emma was about keeping everyone in?

I definitely get where Pierre and Arthur are coming from regarding not having any player agency, but I'm going to go ahead and say I feel like that's been a serious issue with these games in general, at least in my experience.

In NG3, I was some lawyer who defended one of the other players one time. My role in the game was to provide more Betting Points for my team so they didn't die, then I won when Pigeon offered to leave with me. I never solved any of the mysteries or contributed in any meaningful way.

In NG5, I was some security guard who abandoned his post, letting Zero’s family die. I broke a couple pointless knives, failed to solve anything, and the one thing I actually did in the game, go against the final voting plan, not only didn't really change anything, but it pissed off Pierre, JM, and probably some of the other players.

In NG4, I was basically Zero’s assistant's assistant, which sounds promising on paper... except my only real 'power' was getting to bypass all the puzzles. I killed Zero, sure... after Nanjo's character told me who he was and where the gun was. I didn't accomplish anything on my own. ...and then Nanjo got annoyed when I gave Regina the judge token.

Would I have felt differently if I played NG7? No idea. I got stuck with Midge. Not saying she's a bad character by any means, Nanjo did a great job with her, but I couldn't even understand her character, let alone play her. So I had to pick between playing a character I couldn't get into at all for my fourth Nonary Game in a row, forcing myself to post just enough to stay minimally active... or drop out. Looking at how limited some of the players felt, it's probably good that I did.

Tl;dr I keep getting stuck with characters I don't enjoy playing, and my actions within the games don't seem to ever matter (and when I DO try to do something it tends to just make the other players mad), so why am I even playing them?

Anyway, take my comments with a pound of salt I guess, I seem to be in the minority that isn't really interested in signing up for any more of these anyway (with the possible exception of NG+ since that sounds like it'll be more focused on gameplay)

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I just like programming and was hoping people could maybe learn a little, but I underestimated how gibberish it can seem if you don't understand it at all. There was going to be a time machine related puzzle room in B2 that had history puzzles but that was nixed.


I knew there'd be some characters who were more important than others, and was mostly hoping everybody got a strong enough connection. Violet was meant to be a deliberately normal character (who probably would be the protagonist) for balance reasons but I'm not sure how effective that was.

I like Teddy a lot but I definitely don't like a lot of the reactions to him in-game. His character concept is that he's basically an extremely evil guy, and he's made even more dangerous by virtue of his daughter being in the game and him going to any lengths to protect her. It wasn't meant to make him likable at all, just flesh him out a bit. If it's any consolation he is definitely going to jail (and I wouldn't have liked an ending where he didn't).

More on Adriana later

being late to the post game thread master race.

But yeah, this was great. Probably my favorite NG so far. Don't really have that much to say in terms of criticism, the rooms obviously weren't the best but thinking about I could have also tried to post more for characterization stuff in them rather than just trying to find whatever was in the room so I'm partly blaming my lack of enjoyment on myself there.

I really didn't have many issues with the story/twists, I guess I can see how some of them could have been better foreshadowed but it's not like I ever catch on to any hints so what would I know? Everyone played their characters well too, I agree that Adriana could have done more with the homunculus stuff though.

Also re:JM posting as Emma near the end yeah I really didn't have any issues with that, can't remember him doing anything too major anyway.

But yeah overall props to JM for running this, and to all the players. I'm looking forward to the next R- oops I guess it already started.

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My only problem with the programming puzzles is that SC solved them on en masse before I could even look at the dang thread. Seriously though, I'm surprised people wanted more from the puzzle rooms, since I feel like having a game this large include puzzles would make it seem too long. But I guess it wasn't that bad in NG5.

Also I'm gonna hop on that thing about Teddy to say that hot take, the #TeddyDidNothingWrong meme was mildly funny like two or three times, then got old so fast as people started beating it to death and by Timeline Z I legit felt physical pain whenever I saw it. It's not even original X Did Nothing Wrong has been a thing for forever why did people keep making these jokes I legit don't understand

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Yeah I can apologise for not reacting to Teddy in the end. At the time I was just eager to be done with it and didn't think I could add more hatred at the time. It felt like deflecting and Bradley wasn't being rational. I didn't want to open up another field of conflict.

Plus I didn't know how far Bradley had gotten into the Bianchi timeline before he got pulled back? I'd like to have thought he had a nice surrogate dad time and a family for a bit but eh really it was just I was too tired of arguing with people at that point to turn it into a huge hate-filled thing. Bradley probably should have been madder with Teddy.


Also on a personal taste level (meaning disregard completely): I never liked the literal physical time travel stuff from Zero Time Dilemma. Seeing that in this one and become so important was a bit dissatisfying.



I also like Ghost being unrelated to Violet in the end because I think the twist would be rather silly if that was the case. How would Violet who gets infected and died in any other timeline survive and bond with Bradley enough to be allowed to go back and protect him? Just seemed odd.

Though it does make me wonder about the mechanics of the last trial...like if Violet or Bradley weren't on the elevator we were all supposed to die right? How is that detected? The ending indicates that it was tricked somehow. My first answer would be at Emma would just push a button and somehow trigger a heart attack the same way Ghost died following the chess scene. However, Emma explicitly stated she had no control over the trial once it was started and could do nothing to avert it which made it seem automated.

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Random thought, but there was a lot of love between characters in this game.

Bradley loved Ghost as a parent figure, and Violet as the only friend he'd ever have.
Midge loved Emma romantically.
Helios (in the future at least?) loved Adriana romantically.
Violet loved her father and, at least, felt strongly about Bradley.
Ghost loved Bradley as though he were her own.
Teddy loved his daughter.
Adriana loved Helios romantically.
Emma loved Helios romantically.

Really Albert's the only one without love maybe that's why he was crazy

Albert loved Isaac

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Who DIED

Pfft! Who hasn't?

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wait what

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Oops

uh yeah plot twist

Emma loving Helios and not Midge explains a lot actually. Explains why she treated her two wives like garbage!

Is this the real reason Midge went back in time to kill Helios

why did I come back to this thread to find this slander???




cmon what kind of relationship doesn't have small issues where you freeze one version of your partner and kidnap the other in a death game and pretend you don't even know her?

Also Emma is canonically completely a lesbian and uninterested in men and if JM says otherwise he's a dumb.

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Yeah Emma leaving Midge for Helios and getting married is actually the apocalyptic future that Midge was trying to avoid. The rest was stuff she made up to get the others to care.

Also, I am thinking about perhaps running an NG at some point, so I was wondering how much about this game did you have planned before we started? I know some stuff got moved around between timelines or ad-libbed.

Here's the survey stuff from sign-ups. It's read-only but that can change if it's too annoying: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

It's not pretty, but better than nothing?

Some stats for fun, discounting the two non-applications:


Snake was the most popular character, with 11 people saying they'd like to roleplay as him. After that Ace, K, Dio and Sigma (ZTD) all have 10 people.

Mira was the character the least amount of people said they'd like to roleplay as, at only 3.

Seven got 8 and Lotus got 7, a travesty.


Unsurprisingly Mira was the character who most people said they didn't want to roleplay as, at 8. After that is Clover (999) at 5, a steep drop off.

Snake and Sigma (ZTD) are characters no-one selected as not wanting to play.


Clover (999) is the character who caused the largest split opinion, with a very respectable 8 people who'd be happy playing her, and as before 5 people who specifically wouldn't want to.


Here are all the numbers:

Hells yeah Dio and Ace!

Villains 4 Life

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Here are my pregame personalities. Almost every person played their character differently, which I don't mind. In fact I pretty much preferred all of them though I won't really state my opinion on them. Only really sharing this for some context:




Wow this next part is way longer than I thought it would be (and not checked for typos). RIP Mecha

Nanjo actually really liked that qt! I think it's a good one too.


I guess I'll just mention here thank you to those who maintained the information doc. I did it a few times but neglected it even more. It really was something that was just painful to do on top of everything else so I do really, really appreciate it. You're the hidden MVPs.


I couldn't really make every person happy with the character I got. It seems I made some other imperfect choices too. I thought she lined up reasonably but that was at the time when I thought other things would happen.


Teddy's gun was only loaded in A2, for his trial. It was an empty gun in every other timeline. The exception is A1, but if he hadn't had a gun at the beginning of the game he'd still have it there. To be fair though, there were other ways to decide what had gone down there. I get how you're saying the nature of the game made you feel like you felt you had to just not waste everyone's time, and that's understandable. I'm just pointing out that I would've been fine with you choosing to go for the riskier end, and it's not like I forced you to. I understand how the gun could feel that way.

The main point here (which I'm not really saying in response to you) is that a lot of people are bringing up a lack of player agency and I'm not saying those complaints are invalid. But I think people misunderstand that while there were definitely certain landmarks I was hitting, everything else I was writing entirely based on decisions. 90% of my preplanned scenes didn't make it into the game, not even in a similar capacity.

There are of course times where players were limited at certain moments, and some more than others. But it's not a complaint I think is super fair because I did do my best to not railroad as much as I can, beyond things that I absolutely couldn't change like the preestablished story (which I still did change a good amount of). Also the ending character would definitely get some plot armor but hopefully that's understandable (and most of the endings had them die anyway :p) . There definitely was no gameplay to be heard of besides decisions and I understand that, but I did try to make them matter.


Part of me wonders if it would've been better if Adriana knew she was a homunculus, posing as a human and trying to kill Zero for Helios in the future. The reason this didn't happen was the same 'too many villains' thing, but her dying all the time could've been more palpable if she still killed from the shadows :p

I'm disappointed Adriana didn't get to kill Helios once. It was something I was waiting for all game, and Morphogenetic Sorrow was cued up. But it just wasn't in the cards when A2-2 actually played out since Helios actually sided with Adriana that time, and even actually trusted her when they found the body too.


I don't see how putting the vaccine down isn't a legitimate option though. Given how Teddy acted in other timelines it probably would've saved her life in the short-term at least.


Well the freezer thing I was hoping that the confrontation about FBI thing would come there. Or some kind of conversation. Something revelatory enough to make it feel worth it for you.

The AB Game was ass, and I won't defend it. You're right, it was terrible and easily the worst trial in the game. I don't really have an excuse besides that they were hard to think of, they were shuffled around, and you got the short end of the stick (one draft earlier though and it would've been 'FBI Agent' Adriana holding a gun trying to figure out who killed ____ in the dining room).


A2 in general is more the Teddy and Adriana branch. You can change very little in either A2-1 or A2-2 and then make A2-1 Bianchi end and A2-2 Adriana end. Adriana's end now is more of a formality to follow-up the action that just happened with her in A2-2, if it helps to think of it way. Unless you thought all of A2 sucked, then whoops.

I did give you the Adriana Ending to edit or make/request any changes. Yeah I get that that's not something you necessarily want to do but if you didn't like it, I would've changed it. I was actually totally on board with her killing Violet like you had wanted but I just wrote the default as is because I figured you wouldn't want some crazy fucking twist where Adriana realizes she's a lie followed up by another crazy fucking moment where she kills a girl no reason other then that she's human. And yeah I get that it might be hard to ask for changes if you're afraid how it could affect the story too. But you could've told me you didn't like it, and preferably before the game had ended :s

Now for the elephant in the room. The true OTP that was Adriana and dying. For that, you guys are all idiots because she's a homunculus and didn't die besides the meme end. Good night.

Okay, okay. Adriana dying constantly was just a disaster and I felt terrible about the circumstances that brought it along. We're going through the game, and A2-1 happens. No biggie so far everybody is dying this ending anyway. We go to A2-2, plotlock.

Now we're at A1. I tried to give everyone a 'branch death' and this was Adriana's. So I shrugged this one off too. Yeah Adriana died a lot so far, but so did Emma. That's not gonna keep up for the rest of the game.

C1 was awful and kind of unnecessary filler. She dies again in C2 at which point I'm like "wow Albert and Adriana are dying a lot. Good thing that's not gonna happen at all in B." Then for B2 I wanted to give Pierre the scene I thought he wanted. If Adriana and Helios didn't kill Einstein it wouldn't have happened, and if Helios killed him it would've been him instead. Then when I found out Pierre didn't want that scene, it left me feeling even shittier that she had died again.

Anyway I don't really have a problem with any of her deaths besides B2 and C1, just their frequency. I definitely would've removed two of them if I knew the roadmap from the beginning. Though I think it's worth nothing that not all deaths are 'equal'. She was dead for most of C1 and A1 which sucks, but she died near the end of C2 and B2. Not that that makes it much better, and you definitely deserve to be upset. It's just one of the consequences of writing the game on the fly, where you don't notice how bad a mistake has snowballed until it happens enough times. And not only did she die but the story also went in directions that circumvented what were going to be story moments for her, so it was just doubly unlucky. You got the worst of it easily, and I did try to balance it with bigger character moments towards the end but it wasn't enough.


I would definitely say she was a 'side character' but I don't think that's a bad thing. I definitely still appreciated what you offered to the game, and I did like Adriana a lot too and the way you played her. Sorry if you didn't have a good time but I still enjoyed what you brought to the table.

This was written intermittently over the day, so... sorry for ramblings.




For the Ghost end, I think it would’ve been more dramatic if it started right before Violet starts her trial. Violet could be standing there, and remember what happens, and be like “I don’t wanna do my trial, I know what’s going to happen,” and then Ghost gives her reveal speech and punctuates it by turning the key herself.

Ghost being Violet was cool. Ghost being a random nobody was not, and was just a twist too far. (Ghost being Violet was cool, foreshadowed in a sense, a clever out for the situation, tied one of the lesser-related characters more strongly to the rest of the cast, and even put a new spin on the Violet-Bradley relationship. Ghost being a random nobody took all that away, and even if the Nullification Game is a black box to the universe, can the universe really not tell the difference between an actual Violet from the future and some woman claiming to be Violet? Then again, looking at the other posts in the thread, I might be in the minority position here.)
Addendum: The thing that bothers me the most about Ghost being a nobody I think is the how/why of her actions. There’s nothing wrong with having a random unconnected person who is selfless enough to give up literally everything to help a child in need… but it feels like her actions (wearing a hazmat suit from the beginning and appearing to take care of Bradley 9 years ago) require foresight that Violet from the future would have but a random nobody wouldn’t. I also read the end of Ghost’s QT, and that line about how Violet would be the only person Zero would allow to use the time machine got me thinking… I might be going way too far out from the established canon, and I’m not sure how this would have actually been conveyed in-game, but what if Violet and Bradley weren’t just linked to cause the apocalypse if they met, but destined to be together with each other? (Basically a CLAMP couple, I guess.) Just as Helios sent Adriana back in time to infiltrate the Nullification Game and stop Zero, Zero sent Violet, his right-hand (wo)man, back in time to stop Helios—but Violet, on her own resolve, undertook to save Zero by stopping the tragedy (without killing Bradley or her younger self) instead. …I dunno, I just think that’s a more interesting story than “random person is somehow prescient enough to do all this,” strongly ties in Albert end, and adds another layer to Ghost and Bradley living together.

I liked Adriana, but do think she would’ve felt a lot more complete if she had been given more room to explore being a homunculus after the reveal. I think part of the reason she didn’t have that opportunity is because there… wasn’t really a scene built into the game for that. But that can be fixed. I think a bigger part may be just because the reveal happened so late, there wasn’t enough runtime for it. The only time it really happened was in A-2, and that was the last branch we did (besides Z).

Voting weight was kinda… meh. It felt like a cool system, especially with the ability to kill for votes, but it never really ended up mattering. Voting did play a role at the end, but… voting weight was still pretty extraneous. The weighting and killing for weight and voting on things that really really matter should have been more prevalent, or the weight should have been removed and the only votes (done with normal one person one vote) should have been for leaders and at the end, IMO.
(That being said, if this was a Visual Novel or some other medium with a visual component, I think it would’ve been awesome if the bracelets on the sprites kept track of voting weight, but (as in the game) no explicit attention was ever given to them. This then could’ve served as fantastic foreshadowing to Adriana, as observant players might notice there’s something wrong with the voting weight (and it probably wouldn’t even give the entire twist away!) and everyone else could still see it after the fact.)

Bradley being Zero was weak, just because what we heard of Zero was so far off from what we saw of Bradley. (Helios also that this issue, to an extent, especially since he was so “nah I’m not gonna be like that” after we found out about what he did in the future—but it was also a lot easier to understand Helios slipping from a president trying to manage a crisis into an apocalyptic tyrant than Bradley becoming Zero.) A timeline where we saw Bradley get twisted and demented (or his potential for it, at least) could’ve helped a lot.

Bradley being a super-esper was weak. Even with the morphogenetic field, super-esper powers feel weird and random, especially since they don’t play any part in the game itself. The explanation for developing them (“He had Blight longer than anyone else and always had to stay one step ahead!”) was also pretty weak.

Violet's plot connection in the end was weak. I understand what you were going for, but it just… wasn’t done that well. The issue, I think, is that we got told, not shown. Emma was just like “Violet (or Bradley) has to die and that’s just the way it is” even though that didn’t seem or make any sense or seem like it’d resolve anything. And even Ghost and post-game revelations being “that’s just the way destiny is” kind of helps with the “I don’t see how killing Violet stops Bradley from infecting the world” angle, it’s still not that satisfying. As I said, I think it would’ve worked better if we had gotten to SEE how their connection ruined the world. It’s tough, because you don’t want to give away that twist early, but, like, maybe you could’ve put a little stinger at the end of each ending. Like “And thus the world fell to catastrophe…” (if Violet and Bradley survived) or “And thus catastrophe was avoided… but at what cost?” (if Violet and/or Bradley were dead). This
issue actually kinda reminds me of Higurashi in a sense... but I won't explain how in this post (even in spoiler tags) because it's major spoilers and I assume you're going to end up quoting this post. But the point is it'd be dropping clues about the disaster and it's trigger, so when it's revealed at the end that it's Bradley and Violet meeting it doesn't feel as out of left field. (Also in this case one more ending where Bradley and Violet escape would probably be good, since IIRC the only ending it happened was Biachi.)

Re #teddydidnothingwrong: I use memes way past the point they’re no longer funny, back to the point where it’s funny again just because of how unfunny it’s been, past that to being unfunny again, past the point it would’ve been funny again from being unfunny if it wasn’t just annoying, all the way to… uh, yeah, physical pain, like you said. Sorry.

Re shooting Adriana in my trial: At the time, I didn’t think it was a big deal. I understood how the situation might not have been that fun for Adriana, but this was MY trial so it was MY time to shine, plus I had a gun so if I wanted to shoot you it’s not like there’d be much in the actual situation you could do about it, plus I was only shooting her because of her choice to try to use the vaccine. (This was only revealed in private chat between me and Mecha, but apparently Adriana thought that she was going to get shot even if she gave up the vaccine, but Teddy actually wouldn’t have shot her if she had followed his orders. …Well, Teddy did want to get rid of Nina so chances were high of him killing her at some point during his trial, but he wouldn’t have shot her then.) Most of all, however, this was only the first timeline, and I thought each character would have plenty of moments to shine and do their thing over the course of the game. This, however, ended up kinda not being true (most of all for Adriana and Violet imo). (…The whole situation is also muddied after the fact that killing Adriana was, in fact, the entire goal of the trial.)

Re Bradley forgiving Teddy: It felt weird, but I kind of like it as a weird character quirk from the way Pierre played Bradley. Bradley is a horribly sheltered boy with no contact to the outside world and a single acquaintance, who’s already naturally developed a unique view of morality. We also know he grows up to be Zero, whatever sort of beliefs being Zero entails. So forgiving Teddy the way Bradley did is kinda weird, but… I also think it kinda works. Bradley liked Teddy since the scene where Teddy made Bradley kill him, and nothing shook that—that’s the way Bradley’s views worked. We also knew from Albert End that Zero really liked Teddy. And Bradley’s views shifted in a way that eventually made him Zero. The forgiveness was weird, but I thought it really underscored Bradley’s character and fit in with the other stuff we knew about him.

Blight-Y should have a CFR, rather than mortality rate, of 88.89%.

Like others have mentioned, it didn't feel like there was that much gameplay... There were a fair number of decisions, and they may have shaped the game more than it felt like, but it still doesn't feel good. And even if it wasn't that good as a (forum role-playing) game, the story and characters as a (text-only) visual novel was awesome! More than anything else this felt like a visual novel where you got to write the dialogue for one of the characters. And I'm not sure why we're calling them puzzle rooms when there weren't even puzzles since the anagrams were optional.

The room phases were... kinda dull. Partly because of lack of gameplay, but partly because it was just "go in the room, wait, come out," and it felt like the timeline plot would then start only after that. Each timeline was distinctive (at the time at least... thinking back, keeping every single one straight is a bit tricky), and I did like how the timelines (especially the lettered pairs) could appear to start so similarly and end so differently. But the fact that the branches were so... short(?) was something I didn't like as much (compared with 999/VLR, where you'd go through 3 sets of doors per timeline).

I wasn't sure if I was doing Teddy well, so I'm glad to see there were people who enjoyed him. (Also even the fact that everyone seems to have a strong opinion on Teddy one way or the other makes me smile.) I'm self-absorbed, so getting a character that gets to stick his thumb in every plot pie was fun for me (by the end I think the only sub-plot he has no connection to is Emma-Midge), plus Teddy got lots of moments of moments of agency.
...Some other characters (fmpov) seemed like they didn't, with Adriana and Violet coming to mind first. (But I didn't really know what to do about that, so...)
Also, having the cast collectively shrug off Teddy's escalating misdeeds never stopped amusing me. He probably should have gotten more of a comeuppance at the end, but... that's just not the way it worked out.

there's probably other thoughts i had that i just forgot to write down at some point, so maybe i'll add more later

also jm i know i listed a lot of negative points, but (as i said in the first post) i really enjoyed the game and liked the story; it's a lot of negative points but they don't add up, and my goal mostly is to try to provide constructive criticism if you try to turn this or something else into a serious project which you'd better do or else ur banned

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General thoughts on the rest of your post:
-I was a GM for F3 and one of the twists was that the mysterious person in a suit with memory loss was another character from the future. A lot of it was not wanting to do the same twist twice, especially since a lot of player crossover is the same. So I imagine when a lot of them saw the Violet twist they though Ugh, this again? I wonder which one people actually prefer though in an 'official' version, personally I prefer the one as is. Even if I didn't keep the same Schrödinger twist I like the idea of Ghost being in a hazmat suit is just her character design, and the face under the suit really doesn't matter at all. Though I get that it can be unsatisfying cause the game is kind of 'promising' you something crazy to come from that.
-A timeline where Bradley got twisted and demented would've been cool, and that was the idea for B2. Bradley would definitely be written differently to not make it incongruent. Though I don't really see how people think any other character could've been Zero. If anything it makes more sense to me that it's one of the kids because Zero is just a guy who's fucked up in the future and there's time to get there. I definitely ended up getting a lot of things wrong about Bradley but at least I completely nailed that he'd like Teddy as early as Albert End?

The reason Helios was denying the guy in the future being him is there was a good chance he would have died before then. Also I'm pretty sure scary dictator Helios was just a homunculus, so it wasn't really him to the same degree. I think it would have been stranger if he just immediately accepted it honestly.

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I do wonder how, saviour-of-children ending not counting, did Helios ever turn around the election in the first place?

It's like a week before his election and he was getting trounced. I kept expecting some artificial hand to influence the events, like Tyrell had a homunculus involved in the voting process or something and Helios election was the first step of his tyranny but I don't think it was ever explained.


Other fun bits I liked:

- Hurting Albert at EVERY opportunity: There was a reason...your lab coat. Bradley had been forcibly experimented on by scientists all his life so you were absolutely the last person he would trust. Then when you did finally get to speak privately to him, Ghost went ahead and revealed about her patient like a few posts later. I WAS FURIOUS! It was like Albert only existed to cause misery, using up my only QT post on worthless chatter when now was the time for Bradley to drag Ghost aside and talk. Thats why your QT ended abruptly :P Talking to Ghost was more important.

- Having Anime Chess battles with Kami

-Legitimstely thinking Midge's trial would turn into a battle royale and preparing to crush people who re-entered the junk room with a crane. (Sadly no battle royale)

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Also on Tyrell:

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There were at least a couple of non-critical moments where my intentions were subverted by you directly so I feel reasonably justified in calling myself railroaded.



If Adriana knew the whole time that she was a homunculus, or even Nina, then at least the act of being Adriana would've been her making a proactive move, but as Adriana was, she was just made helpless and reactive.



I mean this is kind of my point-- that option is Adriana giving up her power over the situation allowing Teddy to do whatever he wanted in the hope (not even assurance) of short term survival. I don't even really see how this is any different than just giving it to Teddy in the first place-- presumably once I put it down and Teddy was close enough, he would've just picked it up. So both those options, presumably, led to the same thing happening, and they both required acting irrationally stupid for someone that was literally built to be competent. The third option was killing Violet, and the only reason Adriana would do that would be to spite Teddy-- again maybe I should've done that but at the time it felt entirely arbitrary and needlessly capricious.

When did Adriana get to kill Teddy? Or Helios?



I didn't have access to your notes, so I didn't know that was in the books. It might've made the scene more dramatic, but it doesn't change the fact that it was ultimately a situation Adriana had no say in-- it was happening to her rather than her having an active role in the situation. It still would've (I assume) ended the same way, just with some debate and exposition. Again, on its own, disappointing but fine. But in the context of the rest of the game, this was profoundly unsatisfying.



All of A2 did totally suck-- why was I made to have two different Mexican standoffs with Teddy in those branches? If I wasn't going to be given any agency to resolve the situation in a way that was satisfying to the character, then fine-- sucks for me, but there's more game to play. But then why do it again? You say that Teddy had a useable gun in only those timelines, but like half of my dialogue and nearly all of the time the focus was on my character (while she was alive at least) came from those two branches, both of which Teddy had a significant advantage over Adriana by being able to, if not end her life, make her completely helpless.



I didn't want Adriana at that point. I had just been another profoundly unsatisfying event that again, I felt didn't make any difference to the story. I even asked you for a few things regarding my ending and were refused. Given that, there was no way that, with what happened in that branch, I even could've had a satisfying ending.



I agree, for the most part, but even if Adriana died in nearly every timeline, it would've been forgivable if for some significant part of a timeline, Adriana could've driven the action and done something that the other players would have been saying "wow that was totally epic", even if it were evil or resulted in her death. But that never really materialized and I don't think that was my fault.



My objection isn't that Adriana was a side character (I knew that going in), it's that she was forgotten about. I don't think that if Adriana were removed from the story it would've changed it in any significant way, and whenever I tried to make my own drama by imposing her on the story, I was moved by the GM (literally).

I'm only writing this up now because I was too tired yesterday sorry here we goooooooooooooooo



I was actually on board with the reason he did it honestly. Obviously if he stayed out of the suit it would be pretty suspicious and everyone would kill him after what he did. I liked how Sherrington didn't want Blaketon to die because of his rash impulses too, it was cool.



Being the guy who solved a majority of them in the first place (sorry about that by the way PB I wanted to atone for NG5 (ironically, this also makes me the person who solved the most "puzzles" in the game)) I'll say I wasn't fond of them either. I've only had 2 years of programming from high school and I honestly wouldn't consider myself an expert but the puzzles were pretty simple to me. What I did dislike though is that any newbie to programming wouldn't necessarily be able to do some of the programmes because some of the notations used (like the and thing and the string length thing) weren't really brought up. Even if it was just pseudocode and JM would've accepted any other reasonable alternative I didn't like how the existence of some of them wasn't even made clear.

I don't have any actual problems with the puzzles sucking though since I expected as much. JM has told me that he's not good at puzzle rooms and I hear NG3 was also like that. I'll say it's ironic that people seem to be dissing the puzzle rooms for being easy way more than NG6 though (and ironically, NG6 actually had more puzzle rooms in comparison despite being shorter in length over all).



I'll take the brunt of the responsibility for it since I originally made Albert lean in favour of Teddy despite it being extremely OOC of him to do so. I'll admit that I wasn't too into the decision and was actually pretty conflicted over it since both sides seemed to have solid arguments. I changed my mind afterwards but ultimately that part fell pretty hollow, yeah. I sincerely apologise for doing that.



I'll admit I didn't really feel much about Emma despite everything that happened but I at least liked that she was the mastermind, since it made sense and clicked her character nicely to me. I also really like Violet and felt like she had a lot of personality, actually. I disagree with her being a "justification" because a lot of stuff Teddy did wasn't really for her, which I felt made him interesting. But yeah, I really liked Violet's personality and she was a fun member of the cast to me.



I agree that the meme felt stale to me and I think it had an adverse effect on the game itself as well since it sometimes gets hard to tell whether people are being serious or joking. It's how I felt about the Albert memes as well.



Implying I'm the only crazy character this game

But yeah, I actually pointed this out to JM as well XD He said that Albert was meant to be more of a bridge which I guess is fair enough. Coincidentally, the only timeline where he doesn't die or go crazy is the one where he sees a resemblance to Isaac in Bradley and try to save him :p



I know you're not asking me but heck it, I'm a former NG GM and I want to feel important again. Essentially, my planning was pretty much done by the start of NG6 in terms of characters and gameplay stuff. I came up with the basic concepts and then built upon the location and why the game was being held. The puzzle rooms were (and this isn't something I've said publicly before and I know I'll fetch a lot of criticism for) were...partially done before the game started. I only managed to finish the first two sets when I put up the sign up thread and I had to finish up a lot of stuff regarding the Director's Office/Oubliette and the final room during the game (in terms of puzzle design more than general concept). It was hectic as heck but I had to do it considering I was running on a pretty strict deadline. It's also why I went so crazy because I was literally making stuff about the game while the game was going on and I literally had no mental energy to come up with any new puzzles or playtest them. I know I got given a lot of criticism from people because of that so that's why. Sorry if this angers some people but that's why I really didn't bother playtesting the puzzles and frankly I don't care enough to hide this anymore. But yeah went on a tangent there but my planning doc gives a lot of the details if you're interested. The majority of character concepts and such were already decided pre-game, of course. But yeah TL;DR GMing's tough.



Ah, good times. I don't regret choosing what I did, by the way :p Yes I was purposefully aiming for the insane murderer character don't gimme that look it's a good role okay?



Yeah, I think I managed to get a better reference to Blaketon ultimately because I had pre-written scenes with him to show how he was. Sherrington I mostly just had some notes about how he was a mad scientist who has a cynical worldview so I just went my own way with him :p I think I managed to bring out his worldview at least (which was, yes, what the pink ping pong balls post was all about) but ultimately he was involved in so many "crazy" situations that I ended up overplaying him to some respects. I think having the Midge QT bit would've also helped because I didn't really have a base to play off of for Sherrington. Also minor complaint but sometimes I felt that hiding info that Sherrington knew got in the way? Not usually though and I appreciated how it gave me a lot of room for doubt but stuff like just saying "Oh Midge is Clara and she used his time machine" wasn't really much to go off of in terms of interaction and I was pretty confused. I think having that for Albert's ending would've helped as well because it was pretty apparent that I didn't really know who Midge was when addressing her as Sherrington.



I think BP definitely raises a good point here and I don't have much to add but looking back, I'll say that it is weird why she would mess up her face in the timelines before Z if she didn't know her being "Violet" would be important down the line.



Honestly, that wasn't my reaction to it at all. I actually liked the initial twist because it managed to click perfectly with Ghost and Violet as a whole and made sense with the info we had. And being an F3 player myself I didn't really mind the twist "repeat" because it was done in a fresh enough way for me to like. Also I don't think I really liked that case as much as other people do anyway so whatever.



Yeah, I figured after looking at your QT. To be honest, it was a pretty arbitrary character detail anyway so had I gone with a different design I don't know if our rivalry would've even existed to the same degree XD Didn't mind the QT ending so abruptly either, if anything I actually loved how randomly it ended. But yeah it was pretty ironic that you were the one who ended up reminding Albert of Isaac so much in the first place considering you loathed me :p At least we managed to make up in the end, right?

Anyway time to end this ludicrously long post with a crazy ending to tie everything up whoooooooooooooooooop Detective Gumshoeeeeeee!

---

JM I need to revise my endings ranking, THIS is the best one.

this isn't just the best ending, as far as i'm concerned, it's the only ending

---

I love the way it ties in with the other NG7. Absolutely brilliant.

---

I went through our discord chat from the beginning of the game to find all these moments where you asked me if you could do something:



That is it. Maybe I'm missing a particular instance but I don't really see much railroading.


Ok if I sound curt on this part, it's because we already talked about it for two straight hours after it happened when you weren't happy with the outcome. I have heard every single side and angle of this argument before, not just from you but from BP and other players.

In my eyes, you are wrong.

When Adriana first finds the vaccine, she does not act with competence. I'm not saying you're wrong for choosing this, and I even thought it was cool. But she immediately escalated the situation far past necessary, and even the wording of her post practically begs Teddy to pull a gun on her.

Teddy offers an alternative to handing him the vaccine. Adriana refuses.

Adriana does something that shouldn't even be possible because of the vaccine cap. Even if it was, she pretty much chooses the only option that's guaranteed to get her killed.

So in summary:
-Adriana forced herself into a situation where she had a gun pulled on her.
-Adriana could've given Teddy the vaccine. She also could've given it to Violet or Bradley. She chooses to inject herself with a gun trained on her.

You told me "I had good reason to not give it to Violet or Bradley", but the fact remains that it was an option and she decided not to do it with great pettiness.

If we consider it a binary choice of "Give it to Teddy" or "Break/use the vaccine", you had her choose the option that was guaranteed to get her killed rather than the one that had the chance to save her. Yeah you didn't have assurance of short-term survival but the point of decision-based gameplay is that you're not supposed to know the exact consequences of the decisions you'll make.

And guess what? If Adriana was just a simple campaign manager (like she thought), she would've lived if she gave Teddy the vaccine. Short-term and long-term (well no guarantee past round 1 I guess).

But no. You feel you should've been given more options, and that everybody should've talked it out. You feel that I should've forced BP to not do what was rational for his character.

You had Adriana make the blatantly incompetent choice. Helios even told her earlier that Teddy was a mob boss, so you had her disobey him and get shot for it. And you know what, I think that's cool characterization, but you're still just upset that it didn't play out exactly how you wanted and the scene wasn't catered to you. Enough already.


You chose to spare Teddy in A2-2.

Helios getting killed would've been me having to force him to act in a way that PB specifically instructed me not to. So no I couldn't hit every roadblock because I wasn't actually railroading the game towards them.


You were not made to have the first Mexican standoff. You had Adriana escalate the situation to that point.

In the second standoff, she had the power, and you chose to spare Teddy.


This is a lie.



The ONLY thing I changed was a line of dialogue or something that was just you confused in thinking that the ending took place in A2-2. That is it. Saying I refused what you asked is a lie. I even was willing to retcon the ending later to add Violet being killed, but you decided that it was just going to be a missed opportunity.

I'm sorry if you were "done with Adriana at that point." My point is that the ending was under your control (all it really needed was the Helios exposition dump). You didn't like it, and you said it was "mired in self-pity." Fine. But guess what, that's just as much your fault because you approved it.

I wanted to make endings that each player was happy with. But yet again I don't hear about anything you dislike until after the game when it's too late to change things. You could've had an ending you liked if you communicated with me, but you didn't. That's on you.


See examples above.

I realize there was messy stuff regarding Adriana but you're putting far too much on me and nothing on yourself. Helios dying in B1 was set up so Adriana could get invested in his death and investigate it (since you asked me earlier what opportunities you had to show off her 'competence'). She got stuff to do in the B2 storyline as well as all of A2. And then I thought she really got moments to shine in Z too.

I totally concede that things could've gone better in regards to Adriana. That's without question. But she was not set-up to fail, and still could've been much better given the material and scenarios she had. I realize there was shitty stuff. But I don't think it's fair at all to put that all on me, or to say hyperbolic things like that I roadblocked you at every turn or that was there literally no directions you could've taken your ending so it wasn't worth trying because you felt it was guaranteed to be bad. If you feel like you didn't care anymore and that she was just hopeless by that point, then I won't change your mind. But I didn't think that. As a character her time alive and her amount of narrative moments still far exceeds characters from other games. I still liked her as a character even if not as much as some others. I won't say you're wrong if you think otherwise.

------

And SC, that ending was amazing (sorry for having to put this as an endnote to the above). Unfortunately though Einstein doesn't bark so I give it a 0/10000, but better luck next time.

Last edited by JesusMonroe on Sat Nov 17, 2018 6:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Also the popularity ranking is gonna be posted tonight because nobody has submitted at all in the past 24 hours. Only 8 people submitted for now so maybe I'll push them a little further if more submit but otherwise it'll be tonight.

Poll results. You can still use the survey if you wish after because I like seeing the opinions. Keep in mind that these results are from a very small sample and even among these samples these opinions were extremely varied. A lot of favorites were other people's least favorites, etc. And of course keep in mind this is all for fun :p

Sweet! I win GM's choice of favourite ending! That's enough for me! *cuddles eighth place trophy*

---

Okay, JM, I'll be a little curt now, but frankly I think it needs to be said. I've heard from all the other players at this point and have their angles on this so I think it's fair for me to say.

You are wrong.



Anyway, on a much lighter note...



Hahaha, nice XD I'm pretty happy that Albert is at least in the top half so I'm satisfied enough by that. Definitely also surprised by my ending being number one but I'll say I was also very very happy with it as a whole mainly becauseI got to do a lot of stuff there, it was definitely worth it.

(Also if you guys want my character/timeline ranking it's literally in my QT go there for fun times)

---

You are missing a few instances that I can recall:



Also you're misrepresenting our chat, but I'm happy to give you my point of view.



Although I used the word "rewind", I think it was clear from context that you're not noticing that I meant that I was happy to start over with that branch point after I'd died. Not only did, again, you not say no, this is precisely what we then did. So I thought you were clear with what I was asking. That was me saying "I'm not, in fact, quitting the game."



To my knowledge, we never discussed this. So I feel a little out-of-the loop here. I did ask whether I could use my injury to regain some control over the situation, and you said no, because he was "hyper-aware" which doesn't really make him psychic or a master at detecting deception, but at that point I didn't contradict you.

I think you may be thinking about the first death, which I wasn't taking about in the paragraph you quoted, but in case I'm wrong here's our entire Discord conversation dump pertaining to the time of the second "standoff":



That's like me coming up with three or so different plans and you saying "no" to each of them-- maybe I could've pressed you harder, but I don't think I was misinterpreting. In the end, I did try to do something dramatic and fun and proactive.

But am I really the entitled and obstinate player that you're making me out to be here? Like, I took every "no" in stride and attempted to come up with alternatives.



I don't think I should have to explain this to you, but this isn't incompetent. Adriana was put in a situation where someone had power over her life, and someone placed a vaccine in her purse. I think given what we know now, this wasn't the intent, but it appeared very much at the time that this was an attempt to frame my character, which would've resulted in her death if she'd done nothing. Once she realized this, she had to either take control of the situation or be killed. So yeah, she tried to leverage the only power she had over the situation (that she had a vaccine) to try to exert some control over the situation.

The only alternatives that Teddy offered were for Adriana to, again, give up that control so that, presumably, he could just have power over the situation (and her life) again. I don't see how it's surprising, especially given that I correctly deduced that the "alternative" was playing into exactly what Teddy wanted.



Again, this was Adriana exerting whatever pittance of control over the situation she was given. But I was told the situation wasn't resolving in any other way, so I made what I'd hoped was a dramatic (if not entirely rational) decision in that direction. I didn't kill Adriana there, but you can feel free to insist that I did. I made a desperate choice which wasn't even honored.

But to call it "pettiness" is ridiculous. You don't know my intentions (and you never asked), so I don't even understand that accusation-- I clearly spelled out to you Adriana's train of thought. But I certainly feel punished for it now, anyway.



See, this is absolutely what I'm talking about. I could not have known that at the time-- Adriana was thinking that she got set up to be killed by Teddy. In fact, that's exactly what happened. Null had given him explicit permission to smoke whoever he wanted, so it wasn't unreasonable to think that as soon as Adriana gave away the vaccine, she'd be dead-- there's a rational case to be made that Teddy would've just killed her outright because you put us in a situation where there was no incentive for him not to do so. You can claim that this is "[my] fault for escalating the situation" but Adriana felt like she was about to die, and was desperate.

In this context, in this situation, I wasn't given a choice that I could recognize (which is the same as not having a choice), and I was given an ultimatum: my time was running out. So I did something irrational in the hopes that some drama would come from it. But I didn't like my choices being restricted like that and I don't think I'm being entirely unreasonable to say that I was forced into that situation by circumstance, not by me. I've explained a few times now what Adriana was thinking at the time, so I don't think it would do any good to rehash it here. Were this real life, I probably would've given over the vaccine, but I don't RP to do what I'd do in real life, otherwise all my RPs would be about being sedentary and shopping for groceries. If that makes my (entirely reasoned) decision petty, well then I'm happy being one petty bastard.

And in retrospect, this last sentence doesn't even make sense-- as far as Teddy (the guy with the gun) was concerned, he was sure Adriana wasn't just a campaign manager-- given that Null was okay with Teddy killing us all.



I'm sorry to have to break this to you, but this a roleplaying game with more than one player. Entertaining alternatives isn't beyond the scope of expectation. And for that matter, BP and I did talk it out and I felt leagues better at the time because we did. But I guess communication isn't something you wanted to encourage. The only reason I, the player, reacted as strongly as I did was because I felt like I was given an ultimatum and a no-win solution. Which, again, as far as I could possibly have known, I was.

And another thing-- I never said that anyone's character should be forced to do anything. You can feel free to keep getting my motives wrong, but I'd appreciate it if you didn't misrepresent me to other people here. I've made this clear to you in private and here in this thread, so I don't understand why you're trying to make me out to be the bad guy in this particularly offensive way, when all I wanted was to talk it out among the players and understand the decision. When that happened, I ultimately accepted the situation for what it was.

Look, throughout this entire diatribe, you've painted me as an entitled and demanding player, but we've also both copy-pasted parts of our discord logs-- when you read these, am I really the rigid, uncompromising player the above quote seems to imply that I am?



I chose to not let Teddy kill himself. This is not the same thing as having power over killing Teddy. These two things aren't the same.



It's not a lie, and you have no ability to ascribe to my intentions like that.



Once it was clear that you weren't having it, I, again, gave up. I feel like I had to do that a lot this game. You refused to engage me at all on the broad strokes of Adriana's ending. Even if, after reading this, you have some good reason why x or y couldn't happen, I did not lie, and I'd like for you to take that back, please. I did try to discuss Adriana's ending with you, and you did say no, even if it wasn't in so many words.



I can't really blame you solely for the ending, but it definitely showed me what you thought my character was, if nothing else. Yeah I didn't provide massive re-writes for the ending you penned, because my ideas were out-the-window already, so I didn't bother. Is that on me? Yeah, it is. But to claim "look I gave you a google doc so I wash my hands of it" is completely unreasonable.



I'm sorry, but what? You didn't communicate this to me, but even if you had, you gave me like two hours (and a handful of posts) between my initial reaction before you had Ghost exposit the next part of the story. This sent me a clear signal that it's time to move on from Helios' murder and go to the next thing. I thought I was being accommodating by not pressing things further, even though I wanted to. If you'd have wanted something different, you could've given me a bit more explicit of a prompt.

Moreover, while Adriana's decision with her memory in the Z timeline was deeply personal, it didn't have any effect on the story, or affect any of the other characters. If it had turned out that Helios had a bigger stake in Adriana, then that could've been very dramatic, but it was clear very early on that that wasn't going to be the case. PB wasn't into RPing the romantic relationship, and I didn't want to make him uncomfortable. I'm not blaming him for that, nor you, really.

As for Bradley's death, I think there was genuine potential there, but you decided to neuter it by just having Teddy move me. See above for why I didn't like that.



It may be hyperbolic for me to say that you roadblocked me at every turn, but for many meaningful decisions I tried to make for myself, you had some aspect that you either subverted or negated. Was Adriana a collaboration between the two of us? Sure, but you were the GM and had all the power in that collaboration. You could've enabled me, not in every decision I wanted to make, but maybe in a few things that mattered to me. I did not feel as if I had a say in some very meaningful character moments for Adriana. I don't think it's unreasonable for me to say that those moments spoiled my experience.

-You asked me that while I was asleep, and then I saw in the thread that you already had Adriana go to inject the vaccine. There really would've been no problem with her breaking it, especially since it was broken like a post later.

-It was an extremely awkward situation for the players because they'd feel that was godmodding. It really didn't matter which character did it because nobody except for Bradley thought "everyone dying" was a good idea.

-I honestly thought you were joking up Adriana becoming President, that's why I didn't really respond when you said HW was Director of the CIA. I was just like "huh neat." I would've been fine with it though. I think it would've been really stupid that a candidate (with a completely made-up identity and backstory that no doubt would've been figured out from a background check) could come out of the woodwork and suddenly win the election over the heavily favored opposition in 9 days, but I would've been fine with it.

I'm responding to the rest in bulletpoints and keeping this short:

-You were the one who told me while we were GMing F3 "it's not the GM's job to give the characters something to do". I even disagreed with you, but those were your thoughts.

Now you might think "I wasn't expecting Adriana to do anything given by the GM! I was roadblocked everytime I tried to do otherwise!" Welp, just gonna agree to disagree there because that was already discussed at length.

-Regarding the chat dump about the second standoff, there were so many parts of the game where it was very clear you were behind on the details or not entirely sure of what was going on. And I get that timezones were an issue, and I also get that I'm to blame there for probably making some things more confusing than they needed to be. But saying she's gonna keep it until she gets answers is a perfect example, because that accomplishes nothing except killing everyone else. And I was fine with you doing that, all I said was breaking it was the same thing.

Teddy being 'hyper-aware' doesn't mean he's psychic. He literally sees that Adriana is inhuman and incapable of dying, then she suddenly passes out. Not only would Teddy have not fallen for it, but BP certainly wouldn't have since he knew about homunculi from other timelines.

I didn't refuse 'not breaking it and not giving it', I just said that's spiritually the same as breaking it and you didn't elaborate.

-All I'm saying for the first standoff is that I set up a circumstance, you escalated it to the standoff, and then complained about being in the standoff. You can argue that you had 'no choice' but there was a choice. It's as simple as that. When I said incompetent and petty, I didn't mean her choices were unreasonable. I felt they were fine, and I felt they characterized her well. Flaws are interesting after all, and a lot of other people liked these sequences too. You don't have to like them, but that's not worth arguing more over.


-Teddy would've killed himself if you allowed him to (BP was prepared for that). So Adriana did have the power to decide Teddy's fate and didn't do it. Also Adriana was the one who revealed Teddy as the killer, and she was the one who spurred everyone to not burn Nina's body. So I feel like she still did give him some comeuppance anyway.

-Regarding the chat dump of your Adriana ending ideas that I rejected, like I said I thought it was a joke. But you could've put it in her ending.


-This is a really lame thing to say. Yeah, I'll get some things wrong when writing characters (that's why I send the endings in advance). But I hardly think her crying over finding out she's not human and her life is a lie is unreasonable. You might think it was too pitiable and not suiting her at all. Fine. But you're making it sound like I had this pathetic image of her the whole game that colored every scene and decision that was tailored for her.

-Adriana needing to be investigating Helios' death didn't require an explicit prompt I felt (see above with "It's not the GM's job to give the characters something to do"). Sure it could've been more clear and I don't blame you necessarily for missing it but I was giving something for her to do.

-The decision with Adriana's memory was just meant to be her final choice. I don't know how you expected it to affect the story significantly from my end. I still felt her small moment with Helios before was very nice.

-I disagree with there being potential in Adriana preventing Bradley from getting in the elevator. The whole thing felt highly irrational to me and more like "Have to give her something to do." I should've made it a third ending though. At the time the game was almost over and I was tired of people forcing the 'everyone dies' bad ends.

-I never said giving you the Adriana End doc completely washed my hands of anything bad with her ending. In fact I did take culpability with it. I just think it's silly to act like you couldn't do anything because you were 'done with Adriana' but then also complain about decisions that happened later.

And here's my final note in the matter. You can feel free to reply to the above, but I'm probably not going to continue this topic since it's already going in circles.

There are people who wanted to be in this game but couldn't. And instead of being sour of having to sit on the sidelines, they still found enjoyment in the game. There are other people who didn't like their characters, the situations they were forced in, or the game itself but they still felt their need to leave their mark on the game.

If you have any criticisms about the story itself I'd love to hear it. But Adriana? Nah, it's gone on long enough. Even if everything you said was 100% true (which I don't think so), it doesn't matter to me anymore frankly. Adriana's role in the story will change in the future, and I'm not even GMing again so I don't really have a lesson to take from this.

You could've gotten a different character who didn't have as many awkward situations thrown at her. You also could've just not participated at all, but you were lucky enough.

And I'm not saying "Because you were lucky enough to be in the game, you can't complain about it." But I do think there's a certain amount of obligation from the players to see the game from the larger picture and care about things beyond the scope of their character. If you felt Adriana poisoned your experience so much that you were just done with her and couldn't write an ending, you should've subbed out. Because at that point you don't have the game's interests anymore.

This is also the second time for a game you've told me that I've poisoned your experience so much that you found yourself unwanting to contribute. To me that's just a bad growth mindset and no other player felt this way.

Also, out of all players, I was most accommodating to you. Not in story stuff, which I am fine with admitting there were a lot of fumbles. But I got up earlier very often to make sure I could get posts in before you fell asleep. I would tell other players to make certain decisions before you fell asleep. I would put the game on hiatus for 10 hours sometimes because I needed Adriana around for a certain moment. Sometimes I even skipped the gym because I usually go in the morning but the only way I could make a certain post before you fell asleep was if I wrote in that time.

And I'm not saying you need to be grateful or change your feelings because of this stuff, nor is it your fault that you live in a different timezone. But I made every effort to make sure Adriana felt included and involved and you're treating me like I didn't do shit.

I'm 100% sure I could give Adriana to a lot of other players and change nothing about the situations she was in, and they'd still leave with a much more positive experience than you did. So yeah, that's the long and short of it. You can call me wrong all you want, talk shit behind my back, I don't care. But it feels like you just decided at a certain point in the game that you were going to be inculpable and unhappy, and that I'm not gonna change your mind about that.

If you don't want to talk about this anymore, that's your prerogative. But will you at least concede that I didn't lie? I intend to RP here again, so I'd rather not let myself be called out for something I didn't do because you didn't take one of my suggestions seriously.

This is what I originally replied to. I didn't refuse anything, you just took my non-reply to what I thought was a joke as refusal. You could've written an extended Adriana end where she gets elected (she even saved a child so it was right there) but you didn't. When the time came for Adriana's ending, you chose to not do it nor ask me anything about her becoming her president (which people can see from the chat where I linked it). It was you being done with Adriana that made it so that ending didn't happen.

So I didn't refuse anything you asked for, even gave you carte blanche to write whatever you wanted, and at worst didn't reply to one of your ideas (which was Adriana becoming President which is so ridiculous that I don't think it's bad to have seen it as a joke either). Your word choice of 'refusal' was intentional and deliberate to make people think I treated you worse in this game than I actually did. The only way you didn't intentionally lie is if you forgot about the initial conversation and in your memory I refused you but if that's the case I shouldn't be the one under heat for this since you're accusing me of things that didn't happen behind the scenes.

Anybody reading now can form their own opinion on the matter, so no I'm not gonna take it back. You called me out on something that didnt happen, and said I wouldn't have allowed something that I would've allowed. So no I won't do that for you, I've done enough for you and been unthanked for it.