I personally had a great time this weekend. Admittedly I was concerned as it was our first full weekend making the adjustments we set forth in the town hall meeting. I felt a lot of positive improvements really came from those changes and I'm very grateful to the feedback that we are getting at where things could have been more fun.
Crunch time: Crunching all over the camp on Friday and Saturday was a great and broad feel to the game for me. I enjoyed that the players spread out to B and C cabins. I loved that the crunchies followed them out there and in the late hours remained waiting at times. Real assassins were in the woods this time and I think people could truly feel it. I enjoyed waking a few people up in different cabins. More than that I was very proud at how the players could recognize and respond to (in my case mostly) a water elemental and knew how to handle them. I think several more learned a few new tricks they got to exploit over them that really made my day. Also the late night dangerous random rifting monsters was something we had not done in a while. In the rare times when your cabin can't really protect you it is great to see players leap out of bed ready for the fight.
Elemental Fight: so I have gotten double feedback from people on the time-neutral function of the "three simultaneous fights". Some have told me it really kept them in the story/rp of it even with the delay. Others asked if what was happening in town was out of sync with something. To say nothing that the 2nd mod took twice as long as the other two (not the players fault, it was a heck of a fight). The presentation of that mod adjusted from the initial plan on the fly and it was my call. While I'm glad people got a kick out of the on the fly mechanic it is pretty clear to me that it's a pretty poor story telling device if half the people just remain confused. Thus something that complicated won't be attempted again. At least not without a clear format that everyone understands going in first. Either way I apologize if anyone was confused or bored by the mechanic. That certainly was not the intention.
As for the fights themselves:
Ice: I was impressed. You started on water and marched into Ice. I wondered if I had too many NPCs to make this viable and you stayed as organized and deadly as a roman legion. Even when you crossed over to Ice and the cold/double damage of the plane kicked in you rolled right into, in fact you pushed harder. Your shield wall stayed organized and nearly unbroken from armor swaps the whole way through. I have no critique. Do that every time.
Radiance: It was a blast doing the 6 man mods this weekend. This was one of my favorites. The stakes were very high for this one and you learned the mechanic quickly while rolling with the intensely threatening fight well. That was a privilege to watch.
Stone: Holy. Crap.
You planned that very well. I expected it to take twice as long. The elemental blades were handed out, and the sky rained down electrical devastating bird seed like an angry god. It wasn't just quantity it was quality and focus fire. Those that didn't have the element protected the others that did. I was also very happy to see that the highest damage dealers were not the first priority, but rather those that were not swinging quite as high. It really meant the elementals had no weak point to push on. While I can't discuss it in detail I'm certain a few of you noticed some of the specific changes taking place with our monster cards. I'm very happy that it was noticed. As much as we may have asked our players to roll with elemental aura change it is very gratifying that players are making the discovery on the plot side of what we have changed on our end. If you don't know what I am talking about... please discuss.
The battlefield roleplay by Nyo and a few others recognizing Monolith from the oneday (and the challenge he potentially possesed) to mid-fight negotiate their way into the portal rather than fight it out was superb. I understand the resulting roleplay after the fight in the tavern was great.
Quick note on portals and how they are handled in SoMi for everyone:
If the portal is a properly repped doorway/opening (
and not just a ill defined piece of cloth or other rep) it is treated much like a circle. Nothing (
unless a player or monster has a very specific and very rare ability to do otherwise) passes through portals such as packet or weapon based attacks. NPCs and Players must clearly and fully cross the threshold of the opening to attack anything on the other side just as they would if they were hopping in and out of a circle. Unlike a circle however, for safety purposes, players and npcs must give space to someone crossing over so that they can fight safely and fully on the other side. Otherwise it would be charging. When physrepping walking through an open and fully repped portal there is no need to call a 3 count to do so, you actually physrepped the action already.
Politics and Guilds: Wow the guilds look great! Well done to Annette for the rep! Holy crap the dynamics of the town rp have shifted with clearly defined kingdom laws for the players to make use of (or destroy
). Political roleplay has often been a weakness of mine. I was glad to play Ko from the beginning so I could relearn what it meant to be neck deep in them mirroring his own political ignorance. I would like to think I have gotten a bit better but it always makes me trepidatious at best. To come in and be instantly engaged by 6 players, have four passionate RP meetings that spanned many characters... it was great. I'm sorry I didn't get to address more players. I always wonder if I have been in game too long and talking (nearly always) as Ko so after all the "politic mods" were over I skedaddled. I was impressed that the laws and political tensions between other players resulted in some intense and amazing role-play. I loved that people and creatures were all over town instead of just crammed into the same building. I hope everyone else does too. Are there other ways we (staff and players) can facilitate this town feel more?
Immersion: I wasn't exposed to a great deal of OOG talk, and I am certainly not innocent of it, but I think we can do better about staying in game.
Self Marshaling - excellent work by all players. I saw a number of times where people called other on a hit or packet they might have missed. Thank you. It just makes the game so much better all the way around.
Destroy Magic on Wizard locks: just going to apologize for flubbing the call the first time. As Chris said above if I had selected no target and struck with just a destroy magic ritual effect it would have worked as per the ritual. However to perhaps clarify the Sanctum situation slightly: after the first flub every following Destroy Magic specifically and deliberately was in-game targeting a Ward that was not there (and thus never worked).
The Sanctum Fight: That was fun, I got sunburned, that wasn't fun. You guys really held it together well. Rolling with the slow power creep and the occasional insurgence well.
Mod sizes: I think the reduced mod size really let us put some quality into a somewhat slower progression of mods and properly make certain that everyone got to be involved on the mod they got to go on. I saw some really great times had from that fact. Then I saw the big shows like elemtnals and Sanctum roll like an invading army that was fantastic to fight. The limits let us create cards that did not feel over powered and do so with less NPCs. I know because of the limits of people on mods that some people got left behind... and that really sucks. I had a number of conversations with people and we will discuss ways to avoid that particular "suck" in the future that won't rob us of this big improvement in our mods. Player fun is the number one goal of course, please pardon our dust as we get this working.
That said NEVER hesitate to come to plot/npc camp to let us know things got missed or you are bored. Never never never. We likely won't know if you don't tell us. We need you to tell us. Pretty please.
I had a great weekend. Thank you to you all.
Travis
Plot Guy/Owner/Favorite color: Green/hates cucumbers
PS- I really enjoyed what I am calling the "Dryad Grove". I can't wait to see what you do next.
