April 2014 event Feedback

[Zydana]

Tired..
Due to missing a good deal of things during the event, I don't have much stuff to give feedback but..

Bandit attack at Inn (sleeping area) Friday night was neat. As I was walking with an arm full of bedding and hung out in the back, I did enjoy watching what looked like a difficult fight for the players. Going back to the dinning hall, since Abaddon was left alone up there, finding him wasting bandits was great.

Meal Plan stuff - Honestly, I will admit I really disliked this. It was too time consuming and I felt it forced me to not stay true to my character and well… talk to people to explain things. Too out of character for me. Please consider this a fluke and you can expect my character to return to “normal” next event.. maybe.

That’s not saying we won’t continue to do the meal plan – there’s just going to be some revisions and hopefully more some better organization. Please let me know if you have any suggestions/feedback for the meal plan. Soups okay? Branch out and do more than soup? Any other soups to try?

Doug – Thank you for role playing out your gather essence while you were doing so. I think that’s something we tend to forget to do, and just sit and talk out of character. Honestly, it made me feel a little ashamed for not role playing out some of my abilities as well. I also was told that even though you needed to leave on Sunday morning, you took the time to head to the dining hall, and stack chairs. YOU ROCK!! And furthermore, I just wanted to say that I always love your costumes. You might not be wearing a horse or lizard face or have a tail this go around, but I always enjoy seeing your garb.

I spoke to Jared about this already, but I feel that being a healer has become quite boring. There’s no longer the sense of danger being balled up with the rest of the healers. No longer do healers need to fling themselves over their patients to prevent them from dying. By the time the big Saturday night battle is over, I’m left with the feeling of “that’s it?” and disappointment.

I understand with the new healing mechanic, there’s less downtime (aka boring time) for those in the battle (PCs and NPCs alike), but there’s not really a sense of danger for the non-fighter type healers. I’m not saying it needs to go back to how it was, but something needs to change. It’s not really fun for us healers (I feel). The struggle to keep people alive is far less. For now the only advice for you is to make the clump of healers more of a target for attacks. Anyone else feel this way or have any suggestions?

Overall, I feel it was a “meh” event, but probably due to me missing a good deal of it from working in the kitchen and leaving to work on the majority of Saturday.

[pluflove0890]

I had a very mixed event. Thank you to everyone who helped in the kitchen, it really took some of the boredom/frustration out of Saturday.

For the players, I did not spend a lot of time out on plots, so I do not know how all of the event went, but I do feel that we ended up working out together quite will when it came to saving captives and defeating bandits.

As far as NPC staff goes, the one thing I think needs some work is the communication. Everything else seemed to go relatively smoothly where I could see. I hope you enjoyed having more than just 4 to 5 npcs, it seemed to work out.

The camp is great, except of course for the setup of the "tavern" building's main entrance, but we can deal with that. I didn't spend a lot of time at the "inn," so I can't really comment about that.

Thank you to all those who helped clean up this morning. It really helped not to have just one person offering help.

[Gondowon T. Falbor]

For the most part, I have little to comment on. This might or might not be because I seemed to spend a majority of the game crafting... or... dead... but for the most part that's irrelevant. The bandits were somewhat interesting, as were the odd mutated creatures and the moving abominations such as the fuzzball with the axe, but I really didn't find anything truly extraordinary...

Until the raid on the Golden Trumpet occurred.

That was the high point of the event for me, and though it was stressful, it really showed the PC's where they worked well as a team and where they needed to improve. I very much enjoyed the mix of combat and puzzles and that the entire cave required teamwork and coordination in order to progress through. Again, it wasn't the monsters that thrilled me, but the conditions by which they were met. I might have ended up missing a few truly interesting monsters in the event (which is something I always like to see), but overall it was where and how they were fought that made the encounters interesting.

Actually, now that I remember, the monsters (or bandits, I died too quickly to know for sure) that cried for help in the middle of a fight only to confuse players and to attack the fools who got near them trying to save someone (namely me) were quite enjoyable to see. Cunning and personality in an enemy beats dangerous statistics nearly every time.

This was an event that only kind of hit par for me, but I will give its high points credit where it's due, and I hope that in the future we can have a similar number of NPCs to even out the fights and get more things done, though obviously that's not something the GMs can control. Overall, not the best event, but I had fun and I was glad to be back in Phanterra.

[cole45]

Its a little self serving for me to mention how amazing and smooth checking was with the new members of FH staff. So I won't comment on how Phil and taki did a great job bringing order to chaos out of whole cloth and how nice it was to have printed tags for everything and a record kept.

One thing is that the extra staff seemed to make a huge effect. Usually you guys struggle along and made a good event out 3.5 people. this time we got to see a great event out of 10, (or how many you had.)

To the dwarves. You guys have got to stop cutting in line at NPC camp. I had it happen to me twice and a few others had it happen to them.

To Doug. Thanks for moving the chairs and generally being awesome.

I really like the big cave battle, stun aside. The puzzles were awesome. Npcs needed a little direction but it happens.

I was scared this event and even had to draw a chip. The fights were tough but seemed to be mostly rogues.

I liked being afraid. So much so I will be sleeping in the locked cabins with everyone else. I was afraid to go out alone at night.

[GM-Amanda]

Cirrus and Amanda had differing feelings about the event, mostly because a lot of things that bothered me happened out of game, and that shouldn’t affect the story or the rest of the plot, so I strove to keep them separated, except with one prominent exception.

I really enjoyed the introduction of the new setting. New NPCs were great to interact with, from the Chronicle reporters who still could barely figure out who Cirrus was, to Brad’s fame-hungry journalist, to actually having economic NPCs in game, even if just to trade in the partial resource tags. Fighting bandits, even competent bandits, was a nice flashback to my first year as Cirrus when everything was slightly more normal. I’m sure this was helped out a ton by the massive number of NPCs who showed up – having a horde of enemies to fight made it immeasurably more fun and dangerous to run out and stabbity.

Of course, for roleplaying and PC dumb reasons, this got Cirrus killed early on. The roleplaying that ensued was EXACTLY why I wanted to see more chip draws. From Gondowon’s unsteady singing, to Shea’s quiet gasp of horror, to Hamr thinking better of appropriating Seven, to Alinar asking if Cirrus was actually picking the lock to Fionna’s chambers at the crack of dawn, to Kaylan wondering why the hell there’s severed fingers in the bottom of the bird’s pack – those interactions made my event. Thank you for upping the danger.

For the most part anyway.

The Trumpet cave battle was a mixed bag for me, mostly for out of game reasons. When you have 10 NPCs, you cannot throw out special calls and minutely affected monsters like candy. On the second floor, I was throwing large normal calls, small normal calls, large magic calls, and small magic calls. None of them were reliably affecting the NPCs in a noticeable way. I spent the entire floor blocking and getting beat on in the relentless crush of bodies either trying to push through to do damage or shoving back into the players behind them in an effort to get away from it. On the third floor, I took most of my damage from using Dive for Cover, which was fun, but I could see everyone else falling way more than was safe in such an enclosed environment.

The fourth floor out in the open was a nice change, but having 75% of the town bleeding or attending to the bleeding could not prove better emphasis on why calls can’t suddenly be introduced in the middle of a scene. Stun as it was explained on the field was fine in the cave when you couldn’t be isolated, but I got hit with it towards the end of the fourth floor, then beat on for 10 seconds for about 20 points of damage. Completely uncool. Calls need to be introduced at the game on meeting where we can ask questions and have it explained to us in greater detail than a game stop will allow. I had no idea that Stun would be disrupted by damage until the end of the event.

I was ever so happy for the accidental removal of my feather wig in the middle of the battle, for extra apparent damage and a reason why both Amanda and Cirrus could exude some anger during the final bandit attack. I’m having trouble trying to rationalize in game why half the town left just before an entire camp of bandits launched a raid on the tavern. Amanda understands that people had to leave for work or other obligations (I hope), but Cirrus felt a bit of End-of-Helm’s-Deep despair and abandonment IMO to the battle, which didn’t have a contingent of Rohiirim at the end. I was pleased to see the heroes that stayed gave well enough that our NPC allies (yes, we got decimated enough the GMs took pity on us and sent four helpers, one of whom immediately turned traitor) slowly trickled out of the battle to give us a better show, and there were points where it very nearly went south, in its entirety. I am thankful as all hell the GMs pulled their punches a bit to allow the five(!) heroes who were still awake at the end of it to rescue Illund (again). I still think Cirrus should have stabbed him.

With how sore, bruised, and tired I am, I feel fulfilled, but not quite satisfied with the event. Cirrus was out of the loop for most of the planning stages, and I wasn’t able to keep most of a thread going together for what was going on. I was especially sad that I couldn't dive further into those pulling the strings in the Bleakbone Tribe. I’m looking forward to putting some plans into place to change that a bit.

[Kaylan Chargeender]

those....were FINGERS.....?!?!?!?!?!
*shudders and runs around wiping my hands on any clothlike item*

blaaahhhggyellpp!!!!!





why is there never a vomit smiley when ya need one...

[Phinkis]

I had a great time. I really liked the flow of the event. Over the span of Friday night more and more things presented themselves and for a little while Phinkis felt overwhelmed. I didn't know how we were going to handle all of these issues before they blew up in our face. When I took my nap Saturday morning I felt a little better but still worried. By the time game break hit I felt much more confident and felt that we could actually do this. At the end of the event there were still some issues left to deal with but I knew we were looking into them.

The cave battle was a lot of fun for me. There was a few issues with some of the new npcs but they were handled quickly and those npcs seemed to take direction well. I do agree that the stun call needed to be handled a little better. I also didn't know that stun was broken by damage until I heard a couple npcs disusing it. Luckily I only got hit by it twice, and was covered both times. The fourth floor was bitter sweet for me. Everything seemed somewhat hopeless at the end there, I was preparing myself to distract all of the monsters so people could have a minute to recover when our guide came to me a recommended we disenchant the horn. I felt very silly and somewhat ashamed suddenly that I had not thought of that sooner. My friends lay broken and dead around me and I could have prevented the whole thing.

The planning for the bandit attack was intense as we scrambled to raise our dead and made plans to protect the horn.(I know there was some issue who had the horn at some point and if the staff have any questions for me, since I had the horn for a majority of that time, I will help in any way I can.) The battle with the bandits was amazing. I spent most of it inside the inn, holding doors when the warriors needed healing and still felt concerned for my safety.

Going to save the boy after was great too, even though I was so tired I could barely stand by then. Going in, I was sure it was going to be a trap but imagine my surprise when it wasn't. Dealing with that final bandit who was holding the boy hostage was awesome.

There were so many other great times I had, enigmites, innocense and chaos deer, but if I expanded on all of them then this would never end.

Big thanks to all of the players who let me be a part of their story and are now a part of mine.

HUGE thanks to the staff for making this all possible, I know how much work it is.

I want to apologize for talking so long at checkout and not getting down to the tavern to help out. I will try to have things sorted out sooner next time.

[GM-Mike]

Thanks for the feedback everyone and hope more is yet to come. I'm only here to give a BIG apology for the stun call issues. That is totally on me. I meant to talk about it at the game on meeting but forgot (I'll bring notes in the future) and then I explained it inadequately when the time came. I'll do better.

I will post my feedback under Brian's post in the general discussion forum in a few days, but I like to give everyone a chance to comment before I make mine--I don't want to influence the field!

MIke

[Alinar]

Had a great time at the event! The best part was that all of our abilities worked as you’d expect them to against some of the more common foes (bandits)!
The fear of death was high, but for the most part NPCs held back believably when necessary. The night raids on the village were a prime example – the bandits sometimes outnumbered pockets of players significantly, but the mere fact that the players stood up to them gave them pause. No self-serving bandit wanted to be the first to charge into a possible 30 boom or 12 vorpal. Well done!
However, hitting downed players with high damage calls was a bit much. Likewise giving a slay-active creature Arctic Blast essentially made them one hit killing machines. Additionally, if an NPC hits a stunned PC several times and the PC doesn’t move, it’s clear the PC doesn’t understand the rules. The NPC should immediately stop and explain it, not take the opportunity to rack up a cheese-dick kill. Of course, that's easy to understand if the NPC also didn't know damage cancelled the Stun.

Role-play was great all around and the bacon and pancakes were superb! The morning Taki raid was tense – especially when I think I saw him draw back on the bow. Made sense he thought twice about it, though. He might kill one, but then would have been immediately swarmed and overwhelmed. Hope he thieved a prize before leaving!

[Phinkis]

I wanted to add a major thank you to the ones that made the meal plan happen. I brought food but barely touched it because there was so much awesome food. In the future if there is a meal plan I'll be in!

BACON!!!

[Marcus]

I am firmly with everyone with what has been deemed the good and the bad. All the "good things" were great and need to continue. I have a couple of gripes, though, which are things that turned aut fine in the end but were frustrating while they happened.

All the combat was top-notch and enjoyable, (especially how the huge bandit fight in the tavern played out!!!) with the possible exception of a couple of things:

All the maxed-out Rogues swinging "18". I'm not sure how they were stacked to get that high over normal critical strikes, and I don't usually even care to know with an elite bad-guy or two in a large group, but I was constantly hearing "12" or "18" and nothing else. And a lot of it was coming faster than some of my skills that take 15 seconds to charge. In just the late-night ambush by the Inn alone I was hit with 3 separate calls of "18", which luckily two of glanced off my hammer. Boy I'm glad I unconsciously hold it in front of me, as that nice large head saved my butt!

I also didn't like the cave much at all, for the reasons Amanda gave. There was quite a bit too much mis-communication between the NPC's and the players, and as such there was never any moment where I felt that I knew whether or not I was completely guessing when delivering an attack on the NPC's as to whether it would do anything at all. It also was not fun to feel completely powerless the entire plot. I know my healing was absolutely essential (and I'm happy to be of use in that way!), and the last scene was awesome in a horrible sort of way, but I wish I could have done something to help protect people who were up and mobile other than to step in and get absolutely beat on. I tried every single skill on my character sheet aside from Touched and Read/Write, and I still can't tell anyone if any of those skills actually worked or not for the entire cave, even swinging for damage. And with most of the last scene monsters swinging "Crush" that was completely impossible to mitigate, even blocking for weak characters meant all I was doing was getting the crap beat out of me with "5"s, which meant that Stun was exponentially confusing.

I totally understand that Banish and Repel wouldn't work on anything after the first couple of times I was told they didn't (thanks veteran NPC's for saying "no effect" when that was indeed true- that totally helps players as much as having the skill work!), but I thought at least swinging magic would be a point in my favor seeing as usually in mundane circumstances it does nothing, but we were in a place made of magic- I was hoping that would make like-effects work well. But I would ask an NPC if the magic was doing anything and they would say "no" leading me to stop enchanting my weapon and start swinging normal damage- but then another NPC later would say the normal damage wasn't affecting them! Frustrating.

I'm really astoundingly surprised that the golden horn cave wasn't a player-wipe.


Other than those things, the only really lasting problem I had was that the event really just felt like another one of last-year's "traveling" events.

Now, that may change in time, but it really felt like we were in another far-flung place where absolutely no-one knew us at all (or at least that was the impression I got from everyone other than Illund), and our exploits to gain renown with the NPC's of Haven really meant nothing on a personal level because that was "all back in Haven, you just won't see it during the event" like some of us were told last year when the same question was raised. I was thinking the entire time up to the event that all the things that our character had done in the Haven Chronicles would gain us some individual popularity as heroes, which is why we were typing them up?

It kind of felt like we could have been the biggest "good guy" to NPC's in Haven, or a huge "bad guy", and the people in the Wildlands would have treated us the same, which is to say not know us at all. I may be forgetting something, but I don't think even the reporters for the Chronicle even knew who most of us were.

It's not like it's something where everyone needs to fawn over us, but every once in a while having a random NPC surprisingly know a character and greet them accordingly is a huge ego-boost because it feels like we are actually making a mark on the game setting, and I know for me would go a huge way in feeling like I'm part of the living world.

I'm also pretty bummed that the cool evocative things mentioned in the Haven Chronicles (like the town that was "off limits") are completely inaccessible to us in-game as they are weeks of travel away. I thought the Chronicles were not only a way to explain the years away, but also a set-up for the coming location change.

Like I said, other than the last part (because I am a huge "setting" guy), nearly all of the "bad" parts of the event were really just rough edges that are fine after the fact, as everything turned out fine and they were sometimes just because some bumpy edges needed smoothing out. It's part of the game, and I await the next chance I have to play.

[GM-Amanda]

18s are only possible with a Rogue/Av'yana with a Curved Blade (which is what Cirrus rocks). Usually it's a 20 second count. With a Sage buff, skill mastery potion, or a balanced blade, that goes down to 8 seconds.

12s are a standard Master Rogue crit, with a 15 second charge.

I know it's hard with limited NPC costuming, but R/A/C is a wicked powerful combo without any notice that we might get hit with it. My feather wig was $14 online. Plz.

[GM-Mike]

I apologize for the 18s. I didn't even know any of us were swinging them. I know I never went above 12. I agree 18 is a bit much. I will say that I (and likely I alone as I certainly didn't instruct anyone else to do so) doubled the charge times for rogue, so I didn't swing 12s unless at least 30 seconds passed? I swung a lot of 12s. The key against rogues is to not let them do that. I understand that we had a lot of npcs and you had low numbers by the end so hat would be a scary proposition in that case, but I have found any time I play a rogue, whether ther be 8 NPCs or just 2, I am usually allowed to charge my skill. Just something to think about.

[Kaylan Chargeender]

Cirrus
18s are only possible with a Rogue/Av'yana with a Curved Blade (which is what Cirrus rocks).

1) no she rocks because she is to the sexy/kinky/feather chicken joke what Neo is to kung fu movie heroes.... "there is no feather, there is only the chicken...or....Cirrus"
2) without posting spoilers, there is another way to get to 18 without having fethers. Might even let cirrus get to 22(or even 23)....shhh...dont tell her though...

Ovak Stonecrusher
I apologize for the 18s. I didn't even know any of us were swinging them. I know I never went above 12.

I agree 18 is a bit much.

Just for your peace of mind, I was out ath that fight alot, and MOSTLY what I heard was 12s and 15s(roge/curved/ hero point or weapon focus). There were a handful of 16 or 16s the entire combat i think.
In fact the roges letting me stand still for 5 minutes at one point was the only reason i survived and didnt join Cirrus, and I can say it was more the number of PCs to NPCs, with a dash for combat build PCs versus non com PC build ratio thrown in. I didnt see any staff failure in atht battle really.
I also loved that fight. Its one of my top 5 FH fav combats.

I will say that if the NPCs were calling anything but 12 by using a curved blade, I didnt find any on the NPCs I searched. Just something to keep in mind I guess.

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I was thinking the entire time up to the event that all the things that our character had done in the Haven Chronicles would gain us some individual popularity as heroes

Just for your peace of mind a little CJ, when one of the reporters came to kaylan, they did ask if certain others were present, Markus being one. Kaylan tried to point those people out, but I think you were on a mission/plot while i was in the inn and I did not see you. The NPC did ask though, and even asked about events in the Chronicle. Just an FYI.
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As for feedback...

The Good:
check in
W O W
This event was the most fun I have had as Kaylan since the zombiepocalypse event. There were several fights where I thought for sure my goose was cooked, and they weren’t just one biog giant juggernaut fights, it was fast and tactical and a challenge...and I got to bonk Jarrod in the noggin. So a win!

The plots from MC and the story actions and 5 year world changes opened doors to RP with PCs I had not had RP cause to before. I think Kaylan talked more with Toritaka this event than he has if you added all his previous events together. That is cool. I would mention the RP with Alinar, but since Kaylan wont ever admit to asking for a history lesson from an elf, such will not be seen here(ppsssttt...thanks a ton Doug! As always a true pleasure to RP with you. Don’t tell anyone!)

I think you guys have it to a point where the only issues are the fact that players have to wait in line in crap weather (which there is little you could do except MAYBE have em all wait in one of the side rooms????); get an online line check in process set up so players just hand you sheets they printed off and get tags/coin/etc in an envelope, scribble the sign in sheet and head out; and maybe change the layout of the tables in that center room for better traffic flow between tables (such as turn the one Taki used perpendicular to Phil's and clear the weapon table for noob PCs to sit and do PC sheets and such).
My only other critique would be better in between event info communication. for example, even if the player doesn’t get info or action sought, a reply that is" we got your request, no data or resolution yet" keeps you from feeling badgered, and the player form feeling ignored or left in limbo.
Overall, the extra bodies, and the help of Phil and Taki have truly refined the process to a stones throw from as perfect as it can be.

Healing rules
I can see the point made above about being a healer being boring, and was just rolling the idea, while on the drive home, of a suggestion to maybe have a healer specific plot come through a few times a year. One where fighting and killing or puzzle solving wasn’t the answer, and it was more about healing natural disaster victims, the environment, using the heal skill to channel the PCs essence power some artifact for the good of all...).
While I think this event may have made it less dangerous for the healers due to the PCs effective use of the tavern for protection and the warriors working well as a team to keep the non front line types protected (even when WE did the attacking at the bandit camp, the PCs were working well and smart; that makes for safe casters and healer in my opinion.), I do think that playing a healer and to some extent low ranked crafter can be dull during combat if there is no fear or threat and no plot focus for them at at least every other event.

Food was great!!! the extra tasty soups were just the thing to warm the belly on the cold...snowy...frakn shit ass Michigan bullshit weather....night. Thanks to the Hamogis that did he food for that.

Shea Stonebrook: the palpable absence of this PC and player at events is a travesty that the GMS should rectify post haste. That is all.

I am glad you guys took my feedback on this and corrected the issue. If it happens again I will make a mage + sage PC that has to be in monster camp all the time asking questions, and then play naked...that is all.


The Bad:
Scream
I still feel a better label is "voice Radius" so that how it works is its more self explanatory.

I think this should be in the bad AND the good sections. There were, or seemed to have been, a crap ton of hooks and not enough time to get groups to do them all. Might have been that the big fights Friday both wore the PCs down (in an outta game) and made them over cautious a bit.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved the three big Friday fights, even into the wee hours. Id like to see actual thieves sneaking in the inn to steal crap, but I am playing a warrior and we all know I'm not quite right in the head


The Ugly:

Screw Michigan weather...just screw it!!!
Nuff said there.

I really really feel we should have some in game reason that the tavern burns down and has to be rebuilt so that the only doors are the one at the far end away from the kitchen, and possibly the back door (although there is a ton of tree limb debris out there and we should have a team clear that before next game on if we use that door. I volunteer to help with that. Its not really safe to fight there during the day let alone at night because of the debris and the slope of the ground). Fighting by the door close to the kitchen isn’t safe and leads to combat in the kitchen, which is also unsafe and has the potential for large messes and ruined food.
The doorway is too cramped and the path in into the main area is way too narrow for fighting safely, plus it spills right into the food prep area. Just think its a bad idea to use that door in game.

overall a 5 star game

[Marcus]

Well..... part of the rogue problem was our fault. Outside of the Inn (it was a random attack about 4am on Sat- the attack on the tavern was just after that because they left us to go there.) We were definitely outnumbered, as they had already pretty much sacked everyone inside, and I know I for one was was determined to get in to try to save anyone I could, and my compatriots were right there with me (all three of em!). So when they told us to back off, we became...er...belligerent, lol. I'm pretty sure there was some "18"s, as I remember doing the math in my head about what I could take after being hit with one of them. Could be wrong, though, but I remember clamming up pretty bad because I was backed against the (closed) door and got lucky to deflect a 12 and then an 18 to the side off the hammer head, right in close order of each other. Think I might have even let out an "Eeek", but that's hardly knightly, so probably not.

Rogues should remember if they are hit with a Charm: Calm, not only are they dropped to swinging "1", they have to take the full uninterrupted ten-count to get out of that before they charge up any crit strikes or even the crit strikes will be capped at "1", at least if I am reading the rules right, because it's ALL damage.

Funny enough I never really thought about that until now, I only do it worrying about basic damage, lol.

Fighting by the door close to the kitchen isn’t safe and leads to combat in the kitchen, which is also unsafe and has the potential for large messes and ruined food.
The doorway is too cramped and the path in into the main area is way too narrow for fighting safely, plus it spills right into the food prep area. Just think its a bad idea to use that door in game.

I can agree with that. It's also a pretty nasty blind corner if people are running around it. We would still have two doors on opposite sides.