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Post by thedefiantbudah on Jan 17, 2013 11:16:01 GMT -6
yes...both "stories" are for 3rd level characters
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Post by WxMAN on Jan 17, 2013 11:19:19 GMT -6
Awesome... it'll be fun to see what 'cliffhanger' I'm left on after your run...
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Post by LabRat on Jan 17, 2013 11:20:20 GMT -6
and i think i found the second "half" of my adventure...just have to do some more tweaking At least you didn't do what I did. I focused on the back half of the adventure first. Yesterday, I had an 'Oh Shit' moment and realized I don't have anything with which to begin.
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Post by thedefiantbudah on Jan 17, 2013 11:51:35 GMT -6
the interesting part of this...is that I am pretty sure i can interchange them if needed
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Post by Rigil Kent on Jan 17, 2013 13:24:44 GMT -6
and i think i found the second "half" of my adventure...just have to do some more tweaking At least you didn't do what I did. I focused on the back half of the adventure first. Yesterday, I had an 'Oh Shit' moment and realized I don't have anything with which to begin. LOL. I'm actually okay with beginnings and endings ... its all the crap in between that causes me grief.
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Post by WxMAN on Jan 17, 2013 13:40:13 GMT -6
LOL. I'm actually okay with beginnings and endings ... its all the crap in between that causes me grief. That's my biggest issue too... that and my natural proclivity towards brevity... "A dark and stormy night... the PC's do some stuff... and the day is saved... HORRAY!"
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 17, 2013 13:42:23 GMT -6
That's my biggest issue too... that and my natural proclivity towards brevity... "A dark and stormy night... the PC's do some stuff... and the day is saved... HORRAY!" I think it's everyone's biggest issue. And, this is "medieval"…it's "HUZZAH!"
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Post by LabRat on Jan 17, 2013 14:04:10 GMT -6
At least you didn't do what I did. I focused on the back half of the adventure first. Yesterday, I had an 'Oh Shit' moment and realized I don't have anything with which to begin. LOL. I'm actually okay with beginnings and endings ... its all the crap in between that causes me grief. I am just the opposite. I always start with a concept, drop it in the middle of the story, and then work my way out depending on what inspires me first. That way if I get stuck then its bi-directional so I can always go work on the beginning if I am stuck on the ending and vice versa.
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Post by WxMAN on Jan 19, 2013 23:45:03 GMT -6
Review 18 Jan 2013:
Amazing how nicely things go when people (me included) are actually fully engaged. Really impressed with ChrisIII doing his best to avoid the cell phone use...
Regarding the game... I think the only real issue overall is just how... limiting... the story is overall... There just isn't much meat to really bring your own flavor into the story beyond the beat for beat LotR story... It may be why Giger has been having issues really forcing himself to really sit down and dedicate a lot of time to prepping (though that is just my idle speculation)... Only other real 'negative' thing about last night was just that is was quite short - only 3 hours...
Other than that it was nice having everyone really engage in the story and Giger kept control and momentum going... he handled my little ring grab very well since I'm sure he didn't expect me to make a mad grab for Fredo's ring...
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 21, 2013 9:45:05 GMT -6
- Last week was Fight-Porn—didn't really intend otherwise; it's that part of the story
- It was a bit short, and next week may be the same—these two were originally intended to be one session
- Looking back, that first "bad" fight must've been a perfect storm, because all the others have been much easier (too much?)
- Happy for the opportunity to show off Gestlin a bit
- N8's ring-grab was unexpected, but welcome—good RP
- Overall, it all went about like I expected, and I felt better about it when it was over than I did before it started—still having issues getting the work done
I think the only real issue overall is just how... limiting... the story is overall... I don't see how it's necessarily limiting, but I only see it from one perspective. There have been opportunities to diverge from the "beat-for-beat," but those paths were not taken. Everyone is following along so far, which is fine, for the most part… But, having brought this up, it shines the spotlight on a long-standing issue in RP, in my experience of late, a good example of which is my Crusade game I ran for the FG group: The tendency amongst Players I've seen is that they tend to follow along with the story—like a rail-shooter arcade game—and not "write their own." In Crusade, I included a number of NPCs in the group, specifically to provide opportunities for RP, and to generate some "activity" (for lack of a better word) along the way. If I did not include them, essentially, the Players would just look at me and ask "What next?" rather than create their own drama. I really needed to remove them, to reduce the overall party size, but if I had, nothing would happen until the party got waylayed by bandits or something. In our f2f experience, we've just seen the same thing—in the pre-Borrington travel bits, nothing much occurred, but when the halflings were introduced, with their own drama, "stuff happened." I had considered running Crusade for us, but I'd run into the same issue—need to leave the NPCs out, but can't. I'm just as guilty, BTW; it's a struggle to come up with something to do with whatever character when not given something specific to react to. This isn't necessarily an indictment of the way you/we play, here, just shining the light on an old issue; something to think about. It's reflexive, really. I think we tend toward reactionary play, when we should be proactively writing the story, each on our own—like everyone is an equal GM at the table, with the one behind the screen just the designated "lead." For the record, N8's ring-grab is a good example of the right way, I think—which is exactly why I decided to reward the "voluntary failure" to encourage this sort of thing.
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Post by Rigil Kent on Jan 21, 2013 13:03:56 GMT -6
I have a tendency to "go along with the story" because I don't want the GM (regardless of who is GM) to vapor lock when I decide to go left instead of right. Not all GMs are good at making crap up on the fly and I know from experience how easily a PC's out of nowhere action could throw me for a loop or even cause the entire game to grind to a halt.
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 21, 2013 13:14:48 GMT -6
I have a tendency to "go along with the story" because I don't want the GM (regardless of who is GM) to vapor lock when I decide to go left instead of right. Not all GMs are good at making crap up on the fly and I know from experience how easily a PC's out of nowhere action could throw me for a loop or even cause the entire game to grind to a halt. And I am usually that guy that vapor-locks. But there's a difference here, two levels of Player Guidance (to use the GURPS terminology): there is the "go left instead of right" sort that you mentioned, that can wreck campaigns, and the "adding some color to an otherwise colorless situation" that I'm on about. Sometimes the latter can bleed over into the former, it's true. Lately, though, it's been my goal as a GM to have the story take on a life of its own, as a cooperative result of GM and Player contribution, beyond just the success/failure of die-rolls.
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 21, 2013 13:52:18 GMT -6
I should probably add for the record that my intention for this adventure was that you guys could completely turn the LotR story on its head—tie up the halflings, take the Ring into Nefaria yourselves; make a serious play to get the eagles to dive-bomb the mountain, etc. This, of course, has not happened. I couldn't just come out and say so, or I would be inviting a worse fate for my run, but maybe I was wrong to think so?
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Post by thedefiantbudah on Jan 21, 2013 18:24:04 GMT -6
so in essence...we broke the game by not breaking the game?
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 21, 2013 22:37:06 GMT -6
so in essence...we broke the game by not breaking the game? Only if what you wanted was to break the game (or more accurately, the LotR progression)
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Post by WxMAN on Jan 21, 2013 23:45:06 GMT -6
I don't see how it's necessarily limiting, but I only see it from one perspective. There have been opportunities to diverge from the "beat-for-beat," but those paths were not taken. I didn't mean limiting from a PC perspective but more from a GM's standpoint... Unless the PC's do something rather unexpected most of the story is essentially written without much opportunity to really dig into it as a GM - but that is just my passive observation and may or may not have any bearing in reality.... The tendency amongst Players I've seen is that they tend to follow along with the story—like a rail-shooter arcade game—and not "write their own. Yes, I agree, it is something I'd hope to change eventually as well... How to do so is the question... I expected Generica to be more of GM led event with only four (max) sessions it is hard to have the GM 'start' the story and allow the players to 'make it their own' as the story is intentionally short... In a longer campaign I think we could much better work on having the PC's take the story on their own... you guys could completely turn the LotR story on its head—tie up the halflings, take the Ring into Nefaria yourselves; make a serious play to get the eagles to dive-bomb the mountain, etc. This may be the case, but I think the there may have been a misstep in the way one of the early runs went... My memory is a bit foggy, but I seem to remember early in your run (1st session?) we had got the ring and was discussing things with Gestlin and the PC's had all suggested different ways of getting to mount doom (eg, teleporting over there, riding eagles, etc) and as we were all sort of joking throwing ideas out there to "short circuit" the journey... but every scenario came down to "there is a good reason you can't do this, but I can't think of it"... It felt like (to me) we all knew that the 'chosen path' was to do the LotR thing, quite like how we hand wave a 'new' PC entering the campaign after a PC death or a new player comes in mid campaign ("you look like the trustworthy sort")... which is fine, except it set the tone that "we're doing the LotR journey, I know there are ways to completely break it but we'll just hand wave those away"... Which may be a reason why we haven't flipped the campaign on its head... I'm sure it wasn't your intention to do that but that combined with the group's natural tendency towards trying to follow what the PC's believe to be the GM's plot kinda set what would happen pretty firmly in stone... At least that's my theory...
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 22, 2013 9:03:17 GMT -6
I didn't mean limiting from a PC perspective In that case, maybe a little, but I did have plans for going left instead of right I expected Generica to be more of GM led event with only four (max) sessions it is hard to have the GM 'start' the story and allow the players to 'make it their own' as the story is intentionally short... It was my hope that, as the game went on, new GMs would start picking up on where the Players were taking the story, rather than dictating the story…and that could still occur This may be the case, but I think the there may have been a misstep in the way one of the early runs went... I think there was a misunderstanding of the NPCs' handwaving as GM handwaving—how to do that better, I wonder? But it's true that I didn't have a particularly good reason for not breaking things, that I would most-certainly have patched up were I able to prep better—that really bothers me right now; I feel like I'm not giving you my best.
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Post by WxMAN on Jan 22, 2013 9:18:25 GMT -6
that really bothers me right now; I feel like I'm not giving you my best. Now don't do that... Its so much easier to Tuesday morning GM and point out 'missteps' or things that could have been done 'better' but as I have now learned - things move ridiculously fast in the hot seat and its so easy to make a mistake on the fly and not even realize it until sessions later (if ever)... It doesn't matter if you are 100% prepped that night or pulling it all out of your ass, mistakes happen and that's just part of the game - its how you recover from them once you've identified them that makes the difference
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 22, 2013 9:33:19 GMT -6
Its so much easier to Tuesday morning GM When I say "not my best," I mean it by way of comparison to my previous efforts—this one just hasn't been to my usual level, if for no other reason than that I haven't been able to self-motivate to the level required. At the current table, only Rigil will really be able to say whether it "measures up" on the other side of the screen (I've GMed Chris before, but he was only there for one or two sessions). Time will tell if I'm truly at the end of my ability, or just slumping.
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Post by Rigil Kent on Jan 24, 2013 12:54:53 GMT -6
At the current table, only Rigil will really be able to say whether it "measures up" on the other side of the screen It will really take some doing to top the one session of "Apocalypse" you ran (that was fricking awesome) and I was rather pleased with most of the Dreamland stuff (I recall you complaining about the second half of that run) as well as the Outlands games. Your lack of excitement about running is definitely visible though I thought you did a really good job on Friday keeping things moving and active. Clearly, we need to smack some motivation into you...
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 24, 2013 12:57:19 GMT -6
Clearly, we need to smack some motivation into you... A Sisyphean task, I'm afraid
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Post by LabRat on Jan 24, 2013 13:46:49 GMT -6
Clearly, we need to smack some motivation into you... A Sisyphean task, I'm afraid Clearly you haven't experienced my backhand
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Post by Rigil Kent on Jan 24, 2013 13:49:41 GMT -6
Heh. And I could Gibbs slap him at the same time. If nothing else, it'll make me and LabRat feel better!
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Post by LabRat on Jan 24, 2013 14:04:13 GMT -6
Heh. And I could Gibbs slap him at the same time. If nothing else, it'll make me and LabRat feel better! You know, I think you're on to something. Best case scenario it works and Giger gets his gaming groove back...worst case, it doesn't but we still get to smack him around a little
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 28, 2013 9:18:51 GMT -6
Self-AAR for Session 25.1.13: Officially now, I profusely apologize for my failure to show up at all. My mental and motivational state has deteriorated to the point that I can't realistically make any promises of recovery, only hopes.
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Post by LabRat on Jan 28, 2013 11:51:48 GMT -6
Self-AAR for Session 25.1.13: Officially now, I profusely apologize for my failure to show up at all. My mental and motivational state has deteriorated to the point that I can't realistically make any promises of recovery, only hopes. Anything we can do to help?
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Post by Gigermann on Jan 28, 2013 13:20:05 GMT -6
Anything we can do to help? It is my current self-diagnosis that the matter will require "professional attention." Only thing for you (all) to do, for now, is to be patient, and lower your expectations of me until shown cause to do otherwise.
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Post by WxMAN on Jan 28, 2013 13:28:04 GMT -6
Well... then this round robin is a good thing as it may allow us to have up to four people willing to GM at any given time... At the very least we have Rigil and me... with the possibility of adding Shelley and/or ChrisIII...
So it is very possible you won't need to GM until you really feel like it which may give you a welcome break...
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Post by LabRat on Feb 3, 2013 12:39:27 GMT -6
I think that this is probably going to be one of the more difficult aspects of GM-ing because I struggle with being objectively self reflective. N8 says I am normally too hard on myself so I will try to not be overly negative. I think for my first time, the evening went okay. Here are some thoughts: - First encounter was fine. My main goal was to wrap up either Wally and/or Maia in a net, so yay for that. This gave me an idea of how you guys handle mooks, and pretty much told me that I need to include more heavy hitters for the party. So I will adjust accordingly in the future.
- I didn't know how quickly you would figure out the trick to getting past the zombies. I was hoping that they could start to pour in before you would wise up that you wouldn't be able to fight your way through this. Probably what tipped you off was the sheer number of zombies I started out with. If I did it in waves then the fight might have lasted a bit longer.
- I wanted to do something a bit more creative with the bennies, so that there was an in game reason as to why the adventurers would get a benefit without explanation. Hopefully the unicorn poop wasn't too girly.
- Some parts seemed like it dragged a bit, though I couldn't precisely put on finger on why, or how to fix it. I think that will just resolve with time. It is a very different perspective on the other side of the screen. You are way more conscious of how engaging the story is. Too often I was asking myself if you guys were just having fun by going off topic, or if you were bored. I won't know till I get feedback.
- I don't know if the level of treasure was appropriate or not. I think it was a bit on the generous side but with my campaign there isn't a ton of opportunity to receive treasure so I figured I would be generous when the opportunity presented itself.
- Zebulon was a very last minute addition (as in within an hour of starting the campaign). I thought the group could need a constant nemesis whenever they go back to Kingsport. I don't know if I will revisit him during my run, but I have some ideas on how to make him interesting.
- Once you got to Kingsport, things felt a bit rough. Probably because from that point on I really didn't have anything prepared. I wanted to introduce some new characters but I needed some more time to flesh them out. Next week will be better because I have been working on it for much longer. There is something to be said about experiencing your first run and only having a week to put together a tie in. It was an interesting experience.
- Kudos to me for actually making my own campaign than going off a MOD as I originally intended. I really only did that because I am competitive, and if N8 could do an original campaign, so could I.
- I shall reserve judgement for now, but I think that I like writing campaigns a lot more than I like GM-ing them. It takes a lot out of me to be GM, and I could feel that I was waning by the end of the evening. Hopefully, with repeated exposure, I can desensitize my feeling that I am the "center of attention" for the entire evening.
Overall I give myself a 7 out of 10. Probably above average for a first time, but I still have a way to go in order to achieve a performance level that I am satisfied with.
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Post by Rigil Kent on Feb 3, 2013 18:11:57 GMT -6
The first session is always the hardest for me. I tend to have a of of backstory in mind or want to introduce certain plot elements at once. Throw in the usual "Oh, my fricking gawd, this week has sucked" that comes into play far too often, and session 1 sometimes has a habit of getting out of hand. Specific Remarks: - First encounter was certainly fine. As we've seen both in this game and in my Crimson City one with Aria blowing through mooks, it is really hard to accurately judge encounters. What inevitably happens, in my experience, is that the GM either underestimates the ability of the PCs (and they blow through the bad guys like said BGs are asleep) or they go the other way and the GM has to pull something out of his butt to avoid a TPK. Rarely have I seen a GM consistently create encounters that fit that middle ground. Anymore, I tend to intend to intentionally throw boatloads of mooks at the PCs instead of a single, really tough enemy principally because I'd just rather the characters enjoy wading through dozens of foes and feeling like badasses. Plus? The sad part of a single foe is that the PCs can surround him/her and Rodney King the poor guy. So I caution you to expect to continue struggling with encounters. This goes for treasure as well.
- Regarding the zombies and The Book ... I'm actually not sure how you could do that without tipping your hand early. I'm thinking ... if the guy had some sort of protective measures in place that required the PCs to bash through said defenses while defending against the zombie incursion, that might have worked. Or perhaps the book resisted catching fire? Like it would have to actually dropped into the fire ... but touching it could lead to issues as well?
- I liked what you did with the Bennies. I'm not sure what I'm going to do yet, but I thought what you did was fine and amusing.
- I will admit that I'm a little bit surprised that both you and WxMAN opted to create adventures completely from scratch on your first runs, although so far, in both cases, you've done well. Now that I think about it, though, I'm pretty sure when I first started running, RPGs were even more of a niche entertainment and with no interwebz, modules did not exist in the sheer volume that they do now so I had to create scenarios myself as well, so kudos!
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