July Feedback

[Kidwynn]

I just wanted to take the time to say that wow the event was great. Ok, great is actually a little tame. It was awsome, fun, fantastic. Big cheers to the NPC staff for part of the enjoyment and big cheers for all the PCs.

The role-playing was fantastic!!!!! From the orcs, to all the guild heads, to all the guys in the Order of the Phoenix, to Nuk screaming at 4am waking me up about ready to just kill a few people with her screaming.

It was probably my favorite event to date.

-Julie

[saturnstartrek]

I had a total blast. All the strife and suspicion was totally awesome. I can't wait for Sept to see what happens.

Lynn-Z

[dier_cire]

Yeah, the weekend was awesome! Er, wait, I was in Benton Harbor...

At any rate sad I had to miss it, but wow did I learn a ton about driving. Hopefully, I'm 6-7% faster than I used to be. Learned a lot of little tricks. Best line of the weekend: "Your car is like a woman, you have to be gentle and nice to her before you can get some. You can't just punch her and lay her..."

[Sethreal]

Let me just start off by saying....Final Haven ROCKS!! Ok now that we have that settled. I was very impressed by the siege battle, I think the GMs did a great job with it I had a blast. Now I didnt want to bring up a certain subject but I think it is necessary. 5 MILE TRAIL MY ASS!! Just kidding although it was alot longer than made out to be I still had fun the first half, and the stuff we got made up for the other half. All in all it was really great I can't wait until the next one.



JJ/Sethreal

[Curufin]

I had a blast.

Yeah, I did too, it was called a 30 boom...and it sent me to -20. Then I had another blast....but that was only a 15 boom, of course I only had 6 life at the time.

All in all, I had a great time. Damn Dark elves (but not my Nuky ). Great role playing everyone! The Saturday night siege fight was intense. The only gripe I had was that that was so an eight mile hike and not a five mile trek like everyone claims.

It seemed to me that there was a lot more PC to PC interaction which is always good. I cant wait for September!

[Ug]

I had a great time!!! I saw just TONS of just really great roleplaying and participated in some great battles. I literally both laughed and cried at this event. I had a really fun time on the hike, my only problem really being that I *REALLY* want to goto bed right now, but I cannot move my legs to make it to the bed.

Help...someone please help....I live in Howell....can't....remove....from....chair....

*sighs*

This is gonna hurt. Oh well. Night all

[Tonia Glowski]

Well, frankly... I'm pissed... I had a headache for three hours afterwards because Donovan made me cry.

For those of you who don't know me well or weren't sure, I'm not at all upset out of game, I was totally excited to die, hehe. I'm sure now we're all gonna hear from my husband about how I conjure tears all the time...

As far as plot, it is very difficult for me to judge, as we had secluded ourselves from town and only came out of the cabin when asked to by townspeople. Chris and Mike, you did a great job of handling the (still numerous) amounts of PCs left around on Saturday afternoon. The two plots I saw then intrigued our interest and participation.

Additionally, from what I saw on Saturday evening, the raid on the keep was a well placed encounter in its respective plot and was planned in a balanced way. I know there are always tons of calculations in providing enough risk and excitement versus overkill, but I'm just gonna highlight my conversation with a few plot guys after the mod, so all of the plot guys can hear them:

#1 - Don't be shy to kill your PCs. Especially since now there are a few ways to bring them back and it seems this town refuses to let anyone die if they can retrieve even a thumb. On the flip side, let your PCs kill your NPCs... it seems like twice now (Gnosh and the Keep) the battle has just fizzled with retreats. It may seem anti-climactic after having fought someone for so long.

#2 - You might reconsider cutting your stats/creatures in the middle of the mod, unless it is so seriously off balance that it is clearly a mistake - and even then err on the side of your original plan. If it looks grim for the PCs, let them retreat, back off and recoup, try another strategy, or frankly, take losses. PCs are always incredibly creative... especially when they didn't employ the right strategy from the start. Put it in their hands.

#3 - The experiment with "ballista" NPCs (for lack of a better term) I think went very well and was a more adequate reflection of what PCs would be fighting (i.e. There are 3 Archers, but 1 NPC to play them. Allow the 3 Archers to charge and prep at the same time and the 1 NPC to deliver those hits).

#4 - This is my only complaint: Why tell NPCs not to point out to the PCs that they got hit with a packet, arrow or how much they got hit for? If you don't want them taking that much damage, then adjust your stats beforehand. It seems like a horrible way to enforce your melee and totally counterintuitive of the whole system of "phys-repping" combat. Maybe I heard these instructions wrong or maybe I just didn't understand the full context, but I was a bit miffed when I heard this.

As for the roleplaying, it's already been said... I really wish this whole game could be a movie so everyone could see what everyone else was doing at the same time, it's down right comical and ironic. I'm looking forward to seeing its resolution, even if that means a knife in the back.

[Todd]

From a GM standpoint its always tough to gauge when enough is enough. Not just combat, but plot wise. We nixed a few plots, added a few more, adjusted what was left. An argument against that is, 'the events of the world continue, you cant change them just to be nice.' This is true in a manor, but we also have to make sure not to tip the balance of IG power by running an easily confused plot. One plot we pulled would have ended in a Mass PC on PC battle that most likely would have seen the Orcs dead. Not that that cant happen, we just dont want it to be our fault.
I'm glad everyone had fun, I was honestly worried, but of course the role-playing was top-shelf. (as always) In fact thats why I'm posting. Typically you guys post to give us feedback on the event. This time I want to give you feedback on 'your' event. Phantastic! You guys never cease to amaze me. Every now and again I get burnt out between logistics, and real life. But you guys inspire me each and every event. I honestly cant say enough.
Thank You All!

short answers
1) Shy? Killing PCs should be done in moderation. Few people would enjoy a fight that kills off half the town. Killing NPC's? Our NPC's are more like jr. PCs. They are not mindless. We try to make them act in accourdance to how the creature would react in a real situation. Occassionally maybe we drop the ball, but we do our best. If a few have escaped Its ok, you've killed plenty.
2) Cutting stats/creatures? Its a tough line to walk. Maybe they couldve handled a bit more, maybe tehy couldnt. The 'Strategery' of the PCs determines alot of these things, but so does dumb luck. This was a feild decission made to inhance the game, not spoil it. As I said, tough line to walk, but in the end 'Story' is more important than 'mechanics'.
3) Experiment with "ballista" NPCs? Success in my book as well.
4) Complaint: Why tell NPCs not to point out to the PCs that they got hit? This is more of an instruction missunderstanding. We want to hinder the PCs (in fact I made it my personal mission to make sure there was not a single sheild left after that battle missed by two), what we dont want is argumenst detracting from the game. 'I hit your toe', 'No it bounced first'. 'No it didnt'. In a Mass battle, especially a closs quarters one, its hard to keep track of all the calls being made. I like to believe that everyone takes the right amount of damage, so if they missed it I assume they didnt feel it, or hear it. If so rather than argue it out, just shoot them again In short we want to make sure everyone takes there lumps, but we dont want to hamper the situation , by breaking the flow of the game to do so.

[Corbyn]

I agree that the event was a great one. Everyone's roleplaying was top shelf, in particular, I thought many of the new people were exceptional. I appreciate the NPC's sense of balance in terms of what we can expect from event to event. This time I saw plenty of chances for everyone to employ their skills, and was impressed by the creativity of PC's taking advantage of this. When I first started playing, I was hoping the game would stay fairly small in terms of number of people. As we continue to see a population swell, I am thoroughly enjoying having so many interesting characters who contribute uniquely to the game, with new ones to meet every event. Everyone keep recruiting!

[Peace420]

This event was awesome, yeah the walk was ridiculously long, but that aside there were lots of very interesting things that happened. Along the walk a ton of interesting plotlines to follow were found. The powderkeg that was lit awhile ago finally blew up and to my surprise we didn't kill off half the town on our own without any help from the NPC's. We have some excellent role-players at FH and that brings so much more to the enjoyment of those that play.

As far as messing with #'s of NPC's, Tonia what you may not realize is that the # the PC's were told after re-conning was doubled. So the cutdown really should have never had to happen if the # would have been consistent with what we were told.

[Dallid]

Very cool event! Indeed I have forgotten (blocked out?) the last four or five miles of the dreaded Blue Trail in favor of the increadibly awesome first two miles. I look forward to future interactions with the xynophobic lizard people.

The battle at the Keep was beautifully balanced - Seemed to me we won by the skin of our teeth (and the now-famous 'Donovan Maneuver' )

And a wonderful role-playing challenge to try to retain a calm and reserved personality when you're pissed at half the towns characters.

[Corbyn]

Woe be to those who are around when Dallid snaps. At least now we have some idea of what it might take to trigger such an event.

[GM_Chris]

LOL well thanks all for the feedback.

A couple of clarifications though I will be vague since I don't want to ruin anything that happened nor argue.

1) We did slightly increase the numbers though as far as I know we did not double the number.

2) As I will say again I am not afraid to kill any PC's and anyone who thinks other wise needs to talk to a little dark elf that I slit the thoat to.

I have to say I LOVED the politics!!! I also enjoyed the siege very much. From as far as I could tell the PC's just barely were able to win that fight and perhaps if the beastman leader was a tad smarter or done things a little differently most of the town might have even died! Very well done.


I would like to tell people that one thing that interests me are battles where there is not a single NPC to fight, but multiples, like the siege where we will have warriors and empaths. I wanted to bring this up because I see a ton of theives in game most likely due to the attractive 12 backstab. As was probably apparent though that 12 vorpal is not as effective as being able to mitigate damage in seige type situations.

Anywho I hope people had a ton of fun. If on a different thread or in private someone wishes to discuss in detail strategy for the seige this time or the big battle we had last time feel free.

Chris

[Nelkie]

I had alot of fun this event. The politics was great and the roleplaying was wonderful. The seige battle was great. As a NPC I saw the PC's very disorginized and nobody leading the group which helped the beastman hurt the PC's. I came out of that battle with some good group tatics that the PC's can use in the next seige.

The dawarven honnor duel was great. I just don't know how I keep getting myself inthose postions.

I just want tolet everyone know that I'm not pissed at anyone, and enjoyed yelling at Rolland and roleplaying the tension. That is what this game is about and what makes it so much fun. We have to worry about the NPC's and watch out for the PC's one might have pissed off. Makes it exicting and fun.

Keep up the great work everbody.

[Ug]

Wait, I thought it was that we had to watch out for the PCs you have pissed off?

<jk>


hhehee