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Originally written by Kelandon:

Do you ever fight Vinnia or attempt to dispose of Vinnia? No. But do you ever fight pollution or attempt to dispose of it? Yes. The term was meant in a gameplay sense, that the player spends most of the scenario trying to defeat pollution, not trying to defeat Vinnia. And heck, if anything, Vinnia and pollution are on the same side.

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Originally written by Thuryl:

Funny how they had the time to destroy an entire floor of the School, but not to press a button, isn't it?

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Originally written by Thuryl:

You've made your point, but you've also shown that the scenario still has serious plot holes that it doesn't satisfactorily fill.

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Originally written by Thuryl:

As for the last two messages, it's clear from the context that they relate to two conditions that didn't apply to the mages closing the School: the party not knowing exactly what all the machinery does, and the defenses having failed over time after the School was closed.

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Originally written by Kelandon:

It convinces me that this was, in fact, the reason in the designer's mind that the School wasn't closed. It still doesn't cohere with the rest of the story, but this was Jeff's reason.

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Palhatis had time to MAKE AN INTELLIGENT SHADE AND STICK HIM IN THE CONTROL AREA, but he didn't have time to PRESS A BUTTON.

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And Thuryl's point is correct: pressing the button did NOT release some unknown danger. The mages were familiar with the cleanup system, because THEY BUILT IT.

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And moreover, the statement, "he made sure that the controls to the waste disposal unit remained. These controls might still be activated," indicates that Palhatis specifically knew what the controls did.

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I've been thinking, "This is all very interesting, but there is much more to this story." Palhatis's statement, "my speaking out against the evacuation and what we're leaving behind have only made me enemies," seems to indicate that Vinnia hates him and eventually murders him primarily because he wants to clean up the waste.

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Palhatis had time to make an entire covert setup for someone else to come along and push a couple of buttons and clean up all of the waste, but there was so little time before the school closed that cleaning up the waste would delay the closing of the school and therefore anger the Empire. This doesn't make sense.

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Yes, one can make up explanations that turn all of this into reasonable plot material. But a true archeological scenario would not require the player to invent explanations to fill plot holes. The story of what had happened before would become central to gameplay.

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Having said all of this, I still like VoDT. I don't think these points are critical to the enjoyment of the scenario. I just think it could've been better if more was done with this.

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