TadRon
Mentor
Hello all,
First of all I want to thank anybody and everybody responds to our feedback threads for events. That information is invaluable! As a plot team we don't take the criticism personally and just want to make this game this most enjoyable for you all as possible. That said I would like to leave this thread up to talk about things we can improve on for our game in general, not just on one event.
That said in the feedback thread one of the concerns was wait times on mods and people waiting for specific runners. I would like to discuss this more at length. Cory, Brigit, Bev and I don't get to see any of this from the PC side, we only see the NPC side of it. Therefore, help us understand how we can improve in this area.
For the April event there were plenty of times when I offered folks mods but was told "nah I am going to wait on (insert other plot runner here) to come back and do the mod I want". From a plot point of view that means you are not bored, that you just want to do a certain plot. That to us means it is acceptable downtime (if that makes sense). The problem here is that if you are waiting for a certain runner for a certain mod it generally means its in regards to a long arc plot line. That means all the other runners can't run it the same way that the original runner can run it so we don't try to. However, during that time those runners could run other things but more often than not we are told by PCs that they would rather wait for x runner than do something they have no personal interest in. For example, if somebody is waiting for say Cory to run a plot, I will come in as the Puzzlemaster and talk about several things that could be done instead but get told by the PCs I interact with that they don't care about those things so they will wait for Cory. At that point as a plot runner I don't think your bored, I think your waiting for specific mods so I move on.
I can see that my assumption is wrong and that those same PCs will then say that they were bored during that time. So with the thought in mind that I can't run Cory's mods because they are super detailed and I don't want to mess up lore, what would you as PCs like to see instead? Would you like to see more job board one off mods that could be done in the lull time? Should we as runners push you harder to go on our other mods while you wait? Are there other better solutions that I am not thinking of that we could implement instead? Lets have some good discussion on this so we can all help each other make a better game
!
Also a big problem we run into as runners is writing lets say 10 mods for a weekend and not being able to get people hooked on them. We part take it as a compliment because it means your super invested into other mods or plotlines, and we also part take it as frustration because then we spent a ton of time writing mods that we get told nobody has any interest in. Then it feels like we don't have enough to do as plot because people have no interest. How can we fix this from a PC standpoint? Are the mods you won't go on too boring sounding? Do we as plot need to sell them better to get more investment? How can we interest you as PCs more into things? For example, lets say I have a TON of stuff written for a weekend dealing with an underground City called Ion City. When I come in to hook several mods for ION city I get met with sentiments of "meh, not my thing so I will sit in the tavern". That means I have to run everything on the fly for the entire event then to hook people and then the quality and the speed of my mods suffers. Are we as plot bad at selling mods, or are you as PCs just too stuck in how you want to play your character that you will ignore plot hooks to stay in character (which isn't bad just asking)?
NONE of this is a complaint. I just never get to talk to everybody that attends an event to see how we can improve on these aspects so I want to start a dialog here to help our staff and I run the BEST game possible for all you AMAZING players. You are why we run this game so I want it to satisfy you all, so help me.
First of all I want to thank anybody and everybody responds to our feedback threads for events. That information is invaluable! As a plot team we don't take the criticism personally and just want to make this game this most enjoyable for you all as possible. That said I would like to leave this thread up to talk about things we can improve on for our game in general, not just on one event.
That said in the feedback thread one of the concerns was wait times on mods and people waiting for specific runners. I would like to discuss this more at length. Cory, Brigit, Bev and I don't get to see any of this from the PC side, we only see the NPC side of it. Therefore, help us understand how we can improve in this area.
For the April event there were plenty of times when I offered folks mods but was told "nah I am going to wait on (insert other plot runner here) to come back and do the mod I want". From a plot point of view that means you are not bored, that you just want to do a certain plot. That to us means it is acceptable downtime (if that makes sense). The problem here is that if you are waiting for a certain runner for a certain mod it generally means its in regards to a long arc plot line. That means all the other runners can't run it the same way that the original runner can run it so we don't try to. However, during that time those runners could run other things but more often than not we are told by PCs that they would rather wait for x runner than do something they have no personal interest in. For example, if somebody is waiting for say Cory to run a plot, I will come in as the Puzzlemaster and talk about several things that could be done instead but get told by the PCs I interact with that they don't care about those things so they will wait for Cory. At that point as a plot runner I don't think your bored, I think your waiting for specific mods so I move on.
I can see that my assumption is wrong and that those same PCs will then say that they were bored during that time. So with the thought in mind that I can't run Cory's mods because they are super detailed and I don't want to mess up lore, what would you as PCs like to see instead? Would you like to see more job board one off mods that could be done in the lull time? Should we as runners push you harder to go on our other mods while you wait? Are there other better solutions that I am not thinking of that we could implement instead? Lets have some good discussion on this so we can all help each other make a better game
!Also a big problem we run into as runners is writing lets say 10 mods for a weekend and not being able to get people hooked on them. We part take it as a compliment because it means your super invested into other mods or plotlines, and we also part take it as frustration because then we spent a ton of time writing mods that we get told nobody has any interest in. Then it feels like we don't have enough to do as plot because people have no interest. How can we fix this from a PC standpoint? Are the mods you won't go on too boring sounding? Do we as plot need to sell them better to get more investment? How can we interest you as PCs more into things? For example, lets say I have a TON of stuff written for a weekend dealing with an underground City called Ion City. When I come in to hook several mods for ION city I get met with sentiments of "meh, not my thing so I will sit in the tavern". That means I have to run everything on the fly for the entire event then to hook people and then the quality and the speed of my mods suffers. Are we as plot bad at selling mods, or are you as PCs just too stuck in how you want to play your character that you will ignore plot hooks to stay in character (which isn't bad just asking)?
NONE of this is a complaint. I just never get to talk to everybody that attends an event to see how we can improve on these aspects so I want to start a dialog here to help our staff and I run the BEST game possible for all you AMAZING players. You are why we run this game so I want it to satisfy you all, so help me
.
