Jade Empire

Silk Fox likes hardasses, so being a lawful prick will appeal to her.

For some odd reason my Open Palm of a saint female character was able to get Silk Fox as a lesbian love interest. And that was even despite me constantly countering her cynism, yet oddly reciprocating her attempts at flirtation without even knowing it.

No seriously, I was originally thinking Sagacious Zu would eventually become a choice and tried focusing on him, but apparently I must've been missing a lot of the innuendos between my female character and Silk Fox. Granted, I was probably only 12 or 14 years old then, but still...

You have to be consistent in either direction to woo any of the love interests.

Also they apparently change according to your character so Silk Fox can become Open Palm, which is weird but interesting.It's kinda like a more refined version of Bastilla from KOTOR.

Anyway, should get my new charger later today and finally continue this game.

Master Li! No, why?? Who could have possibly seen this coming???

My Spirit Monk isn't particularly rattled, either. She's more perplexed than anything. Victory is at hand and then she's dead. What the hell.

The old ghost certainly enlightened me on a few things, like what the Emperor meant when he said both his brothers were treacherous. And Kin is now Death's Hand, I didn't expect that revelation. I wonder if Kin still has a mind or will of his own really.

I hope all my friends are alright... I mean, my Spirit Monk is worried about them. Me, myself, I know they're alive. Although why Li wouldn't just kill them is a mystery.

Okay this game is way too short. It has good build-up but there's no real middle. I guess the Imperial City and Fortress are the middle but then it rushes headlong to the end. I'm very dissatisfied with some results I got in terms of story and companions and I have a ton of save files to load from. I'm going back to the Imperial City and redoing stuff because fuck, if the ending is going to be so anticlimactic, I can at least fix a few things.

A fair idea, there. I guess what's odd about Jade Empire in comparison to other Bioware RP Gs is that once you leave an area, you're never going back. Makes it really easy to unexpectedly lose the ability to conclude a questline.

http://slickdeals.net/f/8336369-jade-empire-special-edition-pc-digital-download-free

Jade Empire: Special Edition is free at Origin for a limited time. I'm going to get it so I can play it later when I get a new laptop.

So why does the Arena subplot get railroaded out of nowhere? I never did finish my old JE run and I'm starting over from scratch with a few mods (there are only a few to choose from, sadly) and I was just thinking over my original experience. I remember I was having a great time with Simon Templeman's character, Viper or whatever, and progressing through the ranks all fine and dandy. Then out of nowhere, that big buffoon Black Whirlwind rushes in and ruins everything in one cutscene. That was really irritating. I was hoping I could kill BW as payback for him trying to kill me but NOPE. I am randomly forced to abandon everything I was doing and side with him.

Oh well... I need to finish JE this time. Gotta talk to my companions more and do other stuff.

It may have just been a "Hey, here's a ton of levels!" thing.

You DO realize that Viper was using Black Whirlwind's brother in the arena (AKA the "Butcher") as a corpse and against his own will, right? And that Viper himself was far from the most moral character?

Jade Empire seems like a interesting game. I own an Xbox 360 and I've seen some Let's Plays of it. I really wish I could find in a store. It would be interesting to play one of Bioware's earlier console RP Gs

If he's a corpse, what does it matter?

Viper is hardly some saint but that isn't the crux of the matter. He could be the most evil SOB in the whole game and it wouldn't matter. What matters is you are allowed to work with him for an extended period of time and then suddenly, out of the blue, the game forces him to hate you and for you to side with BW, a character I literally couldn't care less. It railroaded you for absolutely no reason as far as I can see except for the fact it mistakenly believes my Spirit Monk gives a shit about Black Whirlwind's problems.

It has some rough patches, as you might expect from an older title. It's also frustratingly short. But I'd still say give it a shot. It's very fun.

edited 10th Jul '16 1:25:05 AM by Nikkolas

So I want to defend the Way of the Closed Fist. Copied from another forum, also chronicles my current playthrough.

I'm replaying Jade Empire now and honestly, I think the Closed Fist is getting a bum rap here. It is very similar to Sith Philosophy.

Peace is a lie, there is only passion.

Through passion, I gain strength.

Through strength, I gain power.

Through power, I gain victory.

Through victory, my chains are broken.

The Force shall free me.

Bladed Thesis: It's a philosophy of both strength and purpose. (How does your philosophy view strength?) Strength is only the beginning of the Way. More important is the purpose behind it. Those who possess strength but lack purpose leave nothing in their wake but random acts. (Could you explain what you mean by purpose?) Purpose is what separates us from soulless evil. Adversity teaches us strength. Those who learn only weakness from it have neither purpose nor place in the world. (You don't see that philosophy as cruel?) Just the opposite. Cruelty stems from a lack of purpose. We are to be tolerant of suffering only if it has a larger purpose, a coherent goal to justify its existence. (You see no value in other ways of living?) The Way of the Open Palm is an excuse for the weak to be coddled. Even worse, however, are those who choose no path. Without purpose, their lives have no value.

To see if you truly comprehend his ideals, Bladed Thesis presents you with two spirits. One is a woman who, destitute and with no other options to feed her and her child save begging, she attempted to rob a store. She was captured by a load of guards and executed. The other spirit is a man, a former bandit chief who once toyed with a feeble opponent so long that the bandit chief's second-in-command betrayed him. Which one deserves death more according to the Way of the Closed Fist?

Obvious answer is the bandit: "He wasted his strength on display. There was no purpose to toying with the trader." "Taunting a foe, playing with them, teaches them nothing."

However, you can say the woman deserved death more: "While she acted with purpose, she lacked the strength to save herself."

Obviously The Force part doesn't apply but it's very clear Bio Ware wrote both of these ideas. They are very Darwinian Survival of the Fittest ideologies. The thing is, you are looking at it solely as some sort of art form that is to be passed on. There are Sith teachers, there are Closed Fist teachers and then there are also people who simply want to gather as much power unto themselves as possible. This too is in compliance with the philosophy. Quests and "good deeds" are justified in the CF Path by the fact that the CF feeds off the discord in the world. Kreia does not approve of how you weaken others by doing good deeds but a practitioner of the Closed Fist, unless they are seeking to spread the philosophy, is under no obligation to think this way. The discord of the world - all the petty complaints of weaker people - exist to empower you.

How about this as a good example of the different "types" of Closed Fist people. Tien's Landing is fucked because the dam is open. Sailors are stranded in the town because of low water. The townspeople themselves suffer because they can't fish and whatnot. You are placed in charge of deciding the fate of TL by going to the dam. A corrupt businessman offers to pay you a large sum of money to destroy the controls and keep the dam forever open. You get about four different responses to his proposal and two of them are accepting it. One accepts it for the money and another accepts it, not for silver, but because it will "strengthen" the people of Tien's Landing through the continued hardship. Whatever you pick, you get CF Points for destroying the dam controls. (you also get a nifty item out of doing this - very much in line with CF philosophy)

As for Fuyao (the would-be slave girl), I just did that part. The reason you probably get more CF Points for selling her is that she hesitates and resists. When you tell her to "kill the fat man" she will object and say she doesn't want to hurt anyone. Your response can be "fine, weakling. You deserve to be a slave." You are already going outside the Way of the Closed Fist by offering this girl assistance when she has not earned it and i tdoes not benefit you. Then she basically says "I want to be a victim!" in the face of your help.

The Way of the Closed Fist is completely amoral and self-centered. Just like not all Sith are masters who pass on their teachings, not all Closed Fist followers have to choose to indulge others by mentoring them in the Way.

Tell me this doesn't sound like Open Palm vs. Closed Fist:

Bane: The Jedi shackle themselves in chains of obedience: obedience to the Jedi Council; obedience to their Masters; obedience to the Republic. Those who follow the light side even believe they must submit themselves to the Force. They are merely instruments of its will, slaves to a greater good. Those who follow the dark side see the truth of their enslavement. We recognize the chains that bind us and hold us back. We believe in the power of the individual to break these chains. That is the path to greatness. Only if we are free can we reach our full potential.

For example, my current Spirit Monk just destroyed both the Forest Shadow spirit and the Mother demon. As you can tell Dawn Star, the heavens' arrogance knows no bounds. Letting the Mother run free would be counterproductive and purposeless and letting the Forest Shadow endure would be tantamount to admitting servitude.

And on that note, I would completely disagree with "unearned" power with regards to the Heart. The Sun Bros took the Heart justly - proving humans need not kowtow to the otherworld - and you defeat all three of them. It is interesting to note none of them are Closed Fist/Open Palm followers, though. At least, I don't think they are.

edited 11th Jul '16 10:30:25 AM by Nikkolas

I'm not sure why you are feeling need to defend Way of Closed Fist, the old guy who teaches you basics of the philosophy does good job of explain good points about it, problem about it is that in game you do it by being evil dickhead for sake of being evil dickhead. The options that actually feel like philosophical are much rarer

Also, you murderer

edited 11th Jul '16 10:50:13 AM by SpookyMask

Well that's exactly what I'm trying to defend. Not all those options are actually Stupid Evil Jerkassery. Some of them make plenty of sense within the philosophy.

It's just that it's a philosophy of being a jerkass.

Also, even worse, you are using concept of survival of the fittest wrong so I feel true wrath here man o-o Because that is one of things that truly anger me, understanding basic concepts of ecology and animal biology/evolution wrong that it actually makes me feel like I should be violent even though I'm somewhat-pacifistic-self-defense-still-allowed normally : D Kidding aside, yeah thats one of my pet peeves.

Survival of the fittest means just surviving situation to get to point you make next generation. If that means "You are really good at begging for your life", then that qualifies as fittest. Being stronk enough to kill everyone else is really bad for survival since it means you probably get in fight-to-the-death situations a lot :D

Anyway, doesn't matter if its philosophy of being a jerkass or not, nobody likes them, not even other jerks.

The deeper issue at hand is that both the Sith and Closed Fist philosophies are fundamentally flawed due to their insistence that their adherents act selfishly as possible, constantly seek to gain power, and act in a way that makes it damned near impossible to build trust or loyalty.

It's a terrible method of leadership and motivation too. Sure, you'll be feared, and people will follow your command as a result of that fear, but you'll never be truly respected. And it's practically guarantied that you'll one day push things to the point where you're hated more than feared - a big no no in Machiavellian politics. And with that lack of respect you'll probably be given an extremely negative image in the history books, or even worse, disregarded as a complete failure and scrubbed out completely from the records out of spite.

So in reality, Closed Fist/Sith teachings would only ever work in the short term if applied on a personal level, and did so sparingly. Dipping too much into their methods will eventually just get you labeled as a massive self-centered douche, and rightfully so. Anything long-term is simply out of the question.

Now, if you want a good example of how to be a Sith/Closed Fist, you'll have to look at the KOTOR MMO, or the Star Wars: Legacy comics. Those two are the only times I've ever seen a Sith act in a rational, well-thought out manner, seek to keep the respect of their men yet retain a fearful image, and even try to act in a manner that actually makes others stronger though hardship. Best example in KOTOR as the Sith Warrior would be to encourage a former Jedi (among others) to abandon their restrictive teachings in order to tap into their true potential, helping weak candidates become strong by removing the obstacles in their lives, or making the choice on which group to screw over not upon personal gain, but upon whom would be the better candidate for solving whatever the problem was. You don't see any of that in either Jade Empire, or most portrayals of the Sith.

What I've heard of The Old Republic, its Villain Sue Emperor and what the novels did to Revan and The Exile has made me doubt it can do any justice to Sith Philosophy.

Also this is precisely why Revan and Bane engineered the Rule of Two. There, in that structure, the treachery of the Sith can be used to strengthen the Order, not weaken it. I'd really recommend the Darth Bane Trilogy of novels if you haven't read them.

Legacy was a good comic, though.

But the Closed Fist is not an order like the Sith. Apart from the Black Leopard School run by Smiling Hawk, there is no real congregation of Closed Fist practitioners. It's just one or two persons at most. And as for a CF ruler being unpopular...I don't think they'd much care. To get Silk Fox to follow the Way of the Closed Fist, you tell her to be more assertive. She will then be the one with power so she should take what she wants. She vows to throw away tradition because what has "tradition" ever done for her except hold her back and make her unhappy? That does not sound like a monarch interested in being beloved - it sounds like one interested in pursuing her own gratification.

Okay, I am rapidly making my way through JE, just about to enter Lotus Assassin base, and I have spotted two Closed Fist decisions I disagree with.

1. Poisoning Crimson Khana and helping Iron Soldier. Okay, I guess that's three choices. Poisoning Khana is fine and dandy accoding to the CF Way but splitting your profits with the Guild? Not acceptable. It means you are too weak to beat her on your own. Then later on, assuming you poisoned Khana, Iron Soldier solicits your aid in killing a guy in exchange for him taking a dive when you face him for Silver Divion Champion. I think that too is totally unacceptable, especially on his part. He also professes to follow the Way of the Closed Fist but he's more like Gao the Lesser's pathetic imitation.

2. There's a son who TRIED TO BURY HIS DAD ALIVE so he could get his business and wealth. You can just kill the old man because everyone thinks he's already dead anyway. Or you can have the two of them talk it out and see the son felt like DADDY NEVER CARED and whatever. In the face of this great revelation and affectionate bonding of father and son, you can say "I hate melodrama. I prefer tragedy. Die!" Even earlier than that you can say something like "Oh no... I can see where this is going. I better kill you both!" And you get CF Points for this! That is textbook Stupid Evil, one of the few completely unjustified things I've seen all game thus far.

On the other hand, I loved Dawn Star's reaction to this. "YOU DON'T HAVE TO KILL EVERYONE!" Naturally she's anguished by what you did but I like to imagine she was more exasperated. "By the Heavens, more corpses? Are you ever gonna grow up, Stormcloud?"

It reminds me a lot of that early KOTOR mission where you can sabotage the two feuding families to ensure that the young couple doesn't get together or that both families wipe each other out. You don't get paid in the latter route obviously but it is totally worth it for how hilarious it is. It's way better than the "I'll kill you all" route in this JE sidequest.

Situation #1 should be proof enough that Closed Fist would be a piss poor philosophy to follow in real life. Cause if a person can't even compromise or haggle under the code, then holy crap are they gonna have a hard time surviving anything that involves other people and everyday life.

Oh and as for the Emperor from the KOTOR MMO, what prevents him from being a Marty Stu is how despite the absurd amount of power Darth Vitiate possesses, he's far too self-absorbed and arrogant to truly capitalize upon it. He seriously believes the entire galaxy to be his plaything, and doesn't even bother to get involved in the daily affairs of the Sith Empire - he'd rather leave bureaucracy to the other Sith Lords. But regarding Revan? Yeah, Bioware really screwed the pooch on his plotline.

But then again... I haven't played Jade Empire in years and have forgotten most of the minor plotlines, and I'm going by your interpretation of it. Are you explaining the plot exactly how it happened in the game, or adding your own spin on it? Because I think it might be the latter for this one...

I haven't really talked about the plot. I've talked about the Closed Fist's ideals - as explained by the inventor of the Way - and why I think many of the so-called Stupid Evil choices aren't really like that.

Besides that, I mentioned how I characterize my Spirit Monk - sort of an ultra-humanist who really hates all manner of otherworldly creatures. And you can characterize your SM that way, as I said. I forget when it was exactly Dawn Star brings it up but the quote I listed - about the arrogance of the heavens being immeasurable - that is a line you can choose in the game.

As for the main plot, eh. The Water Dragon basically serves as a supremely unhelpful but patently benevolent guide. Siding with her is the obvious thing to do. Obvious as in so clear you should do it that the game might as well beat you over the head with a stick that says "WATER DRAGON GOOD." Jade Empire is not a subtle game in any way. (see: Zu and Dawn Star. Dude is the worst liar in history)

But yeah, other than that, I haven't really addressed the story. I just kind of gave my PC's spin on some things as viewed by the Way of the Closed Fist.

Eh, you can spin pretty much all horrible/stupid philosophies around character somehow.

Like, tabletop RPG example, you can explain why character would follow one of Pathfinder's minor gods' Zyphus' religion(hes god of accidental deaths, the tragic and pointless ones) which is all about proving how universe is governed by random chance instead of fate by trying to increase chance of pointless deaths(in the "Hey let's sabotage a ladder so that chance of someone's snapping their neck is higher" kind of way).

Sure you can explain why character would follow that type of mindset, but they are still stupid jerks about it

I actually agree with you on the Sith and Closed fist paths; insofar as they are subtle paths where you could demonstrate a more authoritarian PC and how that is equally viable.

But most RP Gs don't seem to handle that side well - I think there is an element of Writer on Board. Plus Bioware, for all their skill elsewhere, aren't brilliant at nuance some of the time!

It's why I turn to Planescape Torment as a good example of how to do Pragmatic evil. You CAN be a truly repulsive creature, or you can be ruthless but for good reason. And whilst I know it's a Lucasism that the Sith are Always Evil, the basic reading of their path is of independence and curiosity, of struggle against adversity, which is against authoritarianism (Which, going by past comments, Nikkolas, I find quite amusing and contrary for you!)

But the Closed fist is basically about empowerment - it's explained well, but the characterisations are not deep or nuanced enough - they are cartoon evil.

The other thing is that the Water Dragon being imprisoned is patently BAD for the world as a whole (A world where the Celestial Bureaucracy is a thing that keeps the world actually working) - and it's resulting in ghosts, decay and all kinds of nastiness. Yes, you can admire the Sun brothers but they have broken the world, which in the long term is bad for them as well.

Ye, wanting to kill good spirits in a world where good spirits are actually a thing and part of how world operates... Its kinda being a prick

I have not personally seen the film but did you see Avatar? I post on another board that regularly goes into huge (like, HUGE. Several pages) worth of discussion and debate about who the good and bad guys worse. The nutty, warhawk colonel is portrayed as a hero and the Na'vi or whoever they are just dumb selfish aliens and our "hero" is presented as a man who sold out his people for sex.

Now, given what I know of the movie and James Cameron, this seems about as likely as saying the real hero of Titanic was the iceberg because you jus treally hated Jack and Rose.

What I'm driving at is, I am probably indulging in some Rooting for the Empire here. The conflict is so blatantly stacked in one side's favor BUT IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE. Like I said before, the Lotus Assassins are supposed to be a band of fiercely devout followers of the Emperor and Death's Hand. They give up their life and will for his majesty's glory. Yet their base is a den of pointless sadism and thuggery.

When the rest of your party is flipping out at the "arrogance" of what the Sun Brothers did, your can respond with "arrogant, but audacious." They did not just atack the Water Dragon and Spirit Monks for the lulz, they did it to end a horrific drought that threatened their way of life, their civilization, and god knows how many people.

So when the story gives me all these tantalizing, intriguing tidbits and fails to properly utilize them...I'm left to utilize them myself. Call it headcanon or roleplaying or whatever you like. I think of it as me fulfilling all the potetnial Jade Empire had. (and it has SO MUCH)

As for authoritarianism...well, I wouldn't actually follow the Sith IRL. I hope you realize that. :) I wasn't sticking up for them as a position I 0myself believe in, just explaining its appeal and nuance.

If we are allowed to use headcanon to fill holes, then couldn't we just "headcanon" it so that killing people is good because it just is?