september event

jwconvery

jwconvery

Mentor
Thanks for a great event.

I had a ton of fun, couple highlights were rping in combat with the the Walker brothers as lions, having breakfast end with a portal showing up, and discussing the viability of a phase drider/bear hybrid. (my new goal)

I was not a fan of the superDuper narrow hallway in the one building but meh.

Thanks to the plot team and all the npcs. Looking forward to next year.

Need to get back into the groove, so i don't make embarrassing mistakes confusing disarm rulings with shatter rulings.

-Joe
 
The narrow hallway was something to try. It's good to know you weren't a fan. I'm sure it was rough for polearm dudes. I liked that there was a cervace right behind that hallway, it's nice to be able to not be ignored by someone with a protection aura.

If you ever want to have a direct effect on this, those rooms are a pain to setup and take down. We'd gladly welcome help from players to get it done faster.
 
as allways, i remain impressed at this chapter. plot team is great and flexible. story is understandable, the world is actually out there, not a weeks long walk away, and as allways, the players are awesome(sorry i couldnt get the sword back......dumb stupid idiot dumb pirateers). i look forward to not being nearly useless on a combat plot with anyone aside from the lowest of low level characters.
 
Yeah the narrow hallway was fun in some respects but not in others.

I had a blast running this event. I'm grateful for everyone that came out. Despite it being a light turn out it was one of the better events for me this season.

See you in the spring everyone!
 
Thanks for a great event as always. Felt it was a really strong season closer. Lots of wins or significant advances on plots which is always nice. My absolute single favorite npc was actually Blacky aka Brill just fantastic mannerisms. Overall only real gripe was the narrow hall way seemed to lead to a lot of face shots on both sides of the fence which is never good, but it was fun to have to push down such a narrow hall at the same time so...
 
I so should have done this first thing upon returning home but I didn't…so sorry about that lol.

First off I want to say thank you to the great staff and NPCs of Southern Michigan. Every single NPC was great and rolled with everything which was amazing. It was amazing to have such a high NPC to PC ratio. I have to say this was one of my favorite events in a long time. The story was great, the combat was smooth, and all around I had an amazing time. While everybody else found the narrow hallway to be a pain I thought it was freaking awesome. It felt much different than normal and presented us with all new challenges.

Some of my favorites from the event:

Everything HoG! Greatest group of people ever.

The long long long arse wave battle before Fate. There were many times we were all asking each other how long we could possibly hold out, yet we all did. Great job all.

The RP with Travis's gold. That encounter had so much story and made me change my mind about something that I have thought in game for 10 years. Travis you had my eyes watering buddy, great job.

Jared coming in to our cabin in the middle of the pouring rain asking for help. The ambiance of that encounter was awesome and made me want to help him since he had traveled through tough conditions to come ask for help.

The gecki mods. It was awesome that plot allowed us to burn down parts of the buildings and use garlic on strings to help as well. Great mods.

The fire mods. Even though I was immune you guys never pulled cards just to kill me and that was an awesome thing.

Everything my aspect. You guys have done an amazing job with these and always give players a great opportunity to advance, kudos.

There were hints to plots I have worked on for a couple of years now and I still couldn't get to them because we had so much cool stuff to do. Thanks plot! :)

All in all I think this is an amazing chapter, with a great staff, and an amazing story. I look forward to seeing the new stuff next year and working on all the stuff we couldn't get to this year. PC's please spend this winter trying to recruit for this amazing chapter. Share the amazing story they are telling with as many people as we can possibly share it with. The more the merrier always :D. Thanks again SoMI for a great year!
 
This was probably one of my favorite events of the season. I think this weekend marked the most mods that I've ever gone on in one weekend, and I definitely think that had to do with the fact that the entire town was in sync and we didn't have to split up NPC camp a whole lot to run different things. In terms of the hallway, I thought it was a cool setup, however I also usually hang out towards the back/middle, where there's usually little fighting going on.

Highlights in order of appearance:

Waymaker - As always, talking with Waymaker makes my event. It was awesome to both get information on the whole group storyline as well as my personal plot!

I thought it was super cool that Jared came all the way to our cabins asking for help before we went to bed, as opposed to waiting until later when the weather was nicer.

Waking up early and running a mod before breakfast. I liked the additional benefit that Raynne had after using all of his resists, as opposed to just "Sorry about your luck". The same thing goes for getting garlic and wearing it around our necks. I love that we can do small things like that and it has an impact on a mod.

Exploding the stone with Flame! I thought it was neat that the circumstances happened to work out in this manner and that this was a valid tactic.

Life Lion mod! Life nodes are pretty goddamn scary if you stay there for too long.

Talking with Thaddeus and getting his views on what the adventures are working on.

FINALLY KILLING THAT STUPID BIATA AND SENDING HIM TO THE GRAVEYARD.

*Fate Fight notes below*

Exploding the stone with Death, and ranting with Kit in the rifts. Some of my favourite RP of the weekend.

Ruining our stealth plan against the bandits with bronchitis. Sorry! I loved being able to death them down instead, though. :)

Ending the night escorting Baron Ko back to his keep, and learning things about being a greater.

The Fate Fight was one thing I wasn't solid on... Most of that chalked up to being PC miscommunication, but to me I didn't feel like we fought half of a plane. Now, perhaps that's because I played dead for half of it, or maybe it was the Fire Totem and/or resonators, but regardless, I still had a lot of fun. I thought the old artifact scrolls were a really cool touch and it opened up a whole new array of things we had to think about.

Thanks again for an awesome event. To reiterate what Chris said, I think the story is absolutely amazing, and I can't wait to see what happens in the spring! :)
 
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Thank you guys. That might sound self-serving but it isn't just for saying nice things. We have gotten great negative feedback in the past that have helped shape the game. Telling us when we are doing things right isn't just a nice ego boost, it lets us know to keep doing them. I'll say it again, I had a great time this event.
 
Highlights of my weekend (in no order):

-Mind Repair Mod, which was super cool!
-Resonators, so many times it felt like we where going to lose it. Four to five ice elementals pounding on it, and not knowing very well who is dieing, dead, or playing elemental game.
-Still loving the mod cabins/tunnels. It does help with the immersion!
-Had a lot of fun traveling with Bonrodi and Kit
-Going to get garlic and discussions about garlic
-Waylaying Naomi
-Overall the story, there is a lot of depth, and this includes all the players.
-On an OOG level, it was very awesome for all the congrats (on getting married). Felt the love.

My only downside was it was hard to believe this was the closer. Maybe it is too early in the year, but overall I like to think of closers as season finales. That they leave us hanging and can't wait until next season right at the end of the event. I understand (and even appreciate) wrapping up existing plots.
 
I had a great time this weekend, it felt like the action was fairly steady and as always our staff and NPCs were excellent.
Things I liked about the weekend that stick out in my mind
  • Life tainted Lions
  • Bandits
  • Alienist encounter
  • Mods on a timer, that we couldn't miss (but had to do)
  • Situations where everyone gets to play a role
  • Opportunities for newer players to have a substantial impact on world events
  • The story that is evolving in the world
  • The immersion created by the mod building/tarp and mattress walls
Some things I have issues with
  • My inability to communicate why we're doing something to everyone even when there is a small event. Its all my problem, but I don't like when people are missing out on what I see as a really cool story. If you don't know what is going on, please feel free to ask questions. I know this somewhat of an IG statement but we like getting people involved but can only do so much if you don't ask us what is going on. If you have ideas but don't know how to pursue them feel free to ask IG or OOG for assistance.
  • The Fate encounter. Like Ian said, it didn't seem epic enough to be half a plane. I cannot put my finger on exactly didn't work right for me but it seemed off. I liked the idea that we had really prepared for the encounter and thus mitigated certain effects but even after the waves of elementals (nearly killing a lot of people, actually killing a couple of people, and almost failing the whole situation) I never got the impression of power that I expected. This might have been a case of different expectations or just miscommunicated expectations. It certainly didn't ruin my weekend and in the end was the most physically taxing thing I've done in months.
  • The walls in the mod building. I love the immersion, I hate the safety issues created by super narrow passages and the fact that we don't know if the walls go all way up until the PCs get hit with a lobbed packet. I'm sure part of this is a frustration at our imbalanced tactical situation (we don't have many celestial casters/ranged attacks while the NPCs can take advantage of their own tactical positions) but I cannot blame that on plot. We need to get our friends out to play with us and then convince them how much fun Celestial casters and Archers are to play.
  • A bit too much plot. I thought that Chris playing Jared showing up in the dead of night was a great encounter IG. OOG it was just one thing we had to squeeze into a weekend filled with mods on timers. After speaking with Chad I came to understand that perhaps the situation lacked the urgency that the PCs perceived but that is partially on the Plot team. A good example of a mod that I think was designed to have the same impact as the Gecki mod that worked better in my mind is the vacuum node. Plot guys, you've done a great job of setting things up, sometimes its OK to just let them play out without adding a new layer each weekend. Either that or when you add a very optional module take care to express that to the PCs so we know when we can prioritize things.
Looking forward to next season and maybe even playing a little more in other chapters.
 
I would like to take the time to partially address the Fate issue to gain some clarity.

What I hope to gain here is where the feeling dropped off.

Without revealing too much the Fate encounter went more or less to spec (some details are omitted here). Players had to do dangerous tasks (three mods) to prepare the resonators for roughly two effects. The first effect was to neuter some of Fate's more terrible abilities such as his ability to voice radius the field. The second effect was to have an active trap that had to be sprung on him to utterly hamstring his abilities once the players had wounded him sufficiently. The players successfully maintained the resonators through the nearly three hour wave battle, and then again when Fate showed up so this mechanic could be used.

I can say for certain that Fate, without the trap, had a very good chance at rolling the town.

Now with that info does the situation clarify for those that participated in it? - OR - Was there something else that caused the feeling of threat from a major foe still feel flat?

I'm really asking here, I don't want any of this to sound otherwise. I want to better understand the effect our projected story and game mechanics have on our players.
 
Travis-
  1. It was a three hour wave battle? I lost track of time. Now I understand why my calves and thighs hurt so much on Sunday and Monday. That speaks to part of the situation that I felt.
  2. I think the problem was we had no idea how far we had to wound Fate before the trap triggered. We kept hearing how terrible he was and prepared accordingly (for those who did not know there was an artifact summoned and a powerful flame totem in the area that helped with the fight in addition to the three mods that we completed.) It seemed like we had used a fair amount fighting the wave battle and the actual encounter with Fate was relatively quick.
I believe you when you say that we did the right things to make the battle go our way, but the image I had built up of Fate itself did not meet my expectation. I expected a much more prolonged battle with Fate, even after the wave battle. Not that the reality was bad, just that it did not match expectations.
 
I would go so far as to say that the fight was two hours and the some without worry of exaggeration.

This is exactly my point though. The reality of the situation did not match what the players experienced. That may be my fault as I wrote his three tiered card. One without the flame totem, one without the Drevec resonators, and then his base this-is-totally-unfair card. The players did a very good job just unloading into me once they got their feet under them.

Do you think if you had known more about what was going on that it would have changed your perceptions?

I guess what I am asking is because the players were rewarded for not only doing all the prep work accordingly but successfully defending the function that was certainly make or break for the fight did the fight still feel less than it should be with all this knowledge you didn't have before?
 
Travis,

That knowledge definitely helps.

I don't know how well this would work in practice, but I had an idea that might have solved this... Could it have been potentially doable if the wave battle was halved (or any percentage of your choice), and then the power of those extra elementals go into Fate himself? That would shorten the wave mod, and then make Fate have felt stronger, even though the same amount of resources would have been used.

I know that I was a bit confused as to the flame totem bit... Like, I knew it mimicked a fire node, and I helped build it, but what I didn't know was how it came into existence or what exactly it would do other than to "weaken Fate". I think the first part of that problem is just that I didn't talk to Mathis long enough about it, but the second half I think could have been helped from plot. My gauge was that the totem would help a little, but not much, and that all the resonators would do is just trap him, as opposed to weaken him as well. Perhaps if we had known that both these things were really going to cripple the sh1t out of him, I might not have had the same feeling?

Again, I had an absolutely fantastic event, and just like Matt said, this certainly didn't ruin my weekend.
 
Thank you. I'm not trying to improve the encounter post event. What I am doing is comparing the reality to the perceived reality to improve my game play.

What I am asking as players do you favour that played it to the numbers even though it wasn't quite what you expected but it is what you earned, or in this case would you have preferred I cheat-on-the-fly to make the fight more prolonged and possibly more enjoyable?

This isn't the first time this has come up, and it seems simple enough but for the game we run I would like to hear from the players on the subject.
 
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