01-27-2020, 11:12 PM
Like I said in my FB post, the NPCs and Shapers worked incredibly hard. There was a lot of people doing things a lot of things. Thanks for hosting the event, I appreciate it. It was nice to finally PC again after over a year of NPCing/Shaping.
Highlights:
> the props were nice, especially the surgery mods. Super well done, they looked really fun. I like that they had multiple levels of things to do.
> the variety of the rooms was nice, the rooms all seemed different with many things that were going on. There was stuff for alchemists, physicians and blacksmiths.
> loved the organ room, masks were great, music really set the mood. I loved the use of bard abilities. It was a cute poke in the side joke
> The shifting of the puzzle room was interesting, and I liked the idea of it.
Feedback:
> From my POV I had very little I could do or help with. There were mods for different groups of people and I thought perhaps there would be a magic focused one. Perhaps I could identify it, read rituals or even assist in a rite or ritual. But I could not fight or help in the non-combat things as much, as I did not have the appropriate skills. I'm all for making characters feel like their skills are useful, but some activities that weren't gatekept by a skill level would be nice. Players often just want to do things, and I saw many PCs sitting by walls unable to help or do anything. I would suggest putting in more activities to do things for all players.
> The 300 pc puzzle was a bit much. It was also solid coloured in a rainbow, it was super difficult and note really fun, just frustrating. I found the riddles were also not super interactive, nor was the "leave a thing behind." The pen thing was sweet, and was fun to do with a group. My suggestion for coming up with puzzles is to google "escape rooms" or "video game puzzles" or "camp fun activities". These are great things to pull from as they are made up of fun activities. We don't want to feel like we are just doing something to "take up time", gamers/players like to feel like they are achieving something or overcoming.
> The enemies had a LOT of body damage. Between the biting, dismembers, acid. The poor small mages never stood a chance. As well there was a lot of minimizing, which is a very frustrating mechanic. The rooms that had a mix of bad guys felt a lot more satisfying to fight. I would recommend doing that more!
> It felt like we should've failed or never got the chance to finish a room. I clutched some rank beef heart for 30 minutes. Only to get booted out of the room. It was the most frustrating thing of the night. I tried to solve the puzzles, but touching them or interacting with them damaged me. And it was implied we needed elemental magic. And it seemed we were very out of elemental mages. Maybe having more ways to solve puzzles that don't require X skills would be nice. It felt like if we didn't have a physician, a thieves cant person, elementalist or alchemist with us, we should've been stuck in that mimic forever. My advice is to continue to have those things, but still have a more difficult option to do the thing if we don't have those skills.
> Interactions that hurt you. I think these are good things, I just wouldn't make it the first thing that happens in your game. I touched a box and it ate my arm. That's fine, but it very quickly taught me that interacting with things will kill me. Which can be bad when you want PCs to touch things and investigate things. I would just save it for later.
> I loveeeeddd the book about the captain that got consumed it. I spent most of my game waiting to see if there would be a man trapped in the wall that only wanted death. I was pretty dissapointed there was not one. And the book was only useful for a physician mod (?) I would recommend keep putting out small things like this, but use them as a chance to hint at what may come.
> Pacing was a bit wonky, it felt like we either doing SO MUCH or waiting a long time. Having a "static room" where PCs can go and RP would be nice. You can run small RP mods that only require 1-2 NPCs in this room just to keep PCs entertained.
> Alex and Derek covered my opinion on the depression mechanic. I think something to help it is instead use "voices" so PCs can choose their own reaction to it. Or make it so the mechanic is intractable. Maybe we can use mind melds to help it or calm it down. Or maybe the depression want's a cool broach. Or maybe we need to make the cure IG and collect items for it. It would've felt better if we could actually interact with it.
Interested to see what comes next! Good luck!
Highlights:
> the props were nice, especially the surgery mods. Super well done, they looked really fun. I like that they had multiple levels of things to do.
> the variety of the rooms was nice, the rooms all seemed different with many things that were going on. There was stuff for alchemists, physicians and blacksmiths.
> loved the organ room, masks were great, music really set the mood. I loved the use of bard abilities. It was a cute poke in the side joke
> The shifting of the puzzle room was interesting, and I liked the idea of it.
Feedback:
> From my POV I had very little I could do or help with. There were mods for different groups of people and I thought perhaps there would be a magic focused one. Perhaps I could identify it, read rituals or even assist in a rite or ritual. But I could not fight or help in the non-combat things as much, as I did not have the appropriate skills. I'm all for making characters feel like their skills are useful, but some activities that weren't gatekept by a skill level would be nice. Players often just want to do things, and I saw many PCs sitting by walls unable to help or do anything. I would suggest putting in more activities to do things for all players.
> The 300 pc puzzle was a bit much. It was also solid coloured in a rainbow, it was super difficult and note really fun, just frustrating. I found the riddles were also not super interactive, nor was the "leave a thing behind." The pen thing was sweet, and was fun to do with a group. My suggestion for coming up with puzzles is to google "escape rooms" or "video game puzzles" or "camp fun activities". These are great things to pull from as they are made up of fun activities. We don't want to feel like we are just doing something to "take up time", gamers/players like to feel like they are achieving something or overcoming.
> The enemies had a LOT of body damage. Between the biting, dismembers, acid. The poor small mages never stood a chance. As well there was a lot of minimizing, which is a very frustrating mechanic. The rooms that had a mix of bad guys felt a lot more satisfying to fight. I would recommend doing that more!
> It felt like we should've failed or never got the chance to finish a room. I clutched some rank beef heart for 30 minutes. Only to get booted out of the room. It was the most frustrating thing of the night. I tried to solve the puzzles, but touching them or interacting with them damaged me. And it was implied we needed elemental magic. And it seemed we were very out of elemental mages. Maybe having more ways to solve puzzles that don't require X skills would be nice. It felt like if we didn't have a physician, a thieves cant person, elementalist or alchemist with us, we should've been stuck in that mimic forever. My advice is to continue to have those things, but still have a more difficult option to do the thing if we don't have those skills.
> Interactions that hurt you. I think these are good things, I just wouldn't make it the first thing that happens in your game. I touched a box and it ate my arm. That's fine, but it very quickly taught me that interacting with things will kill me. Which can be bad when you want PCs to touch things and investigate things. I would just save it for later.
> I loveeeeddd the book about the captain that got consumed it. I spent most of my game waiting to see if there would be a man trapped in the wall that only wanted death. I was pretty dissapointed there was not one. And the book was only useful for a physician mod (?) I would recommend keep putting out small things like this, but use them as a chance to hint at what may come.
> Pacing was a bit wonky, it felt like we either doing SO MUCH or waiting a long time. Having a "static room" where PCs can go and RP would be nice. You can run small RP mods that only require 1-2 NPCs in this room just to keep PCs entertained.
> Alex and Derek covered my opinion on the depression mechanic. I think something to help it is instead use "voices" so PCs can choose their own reaction to it. Or make it so the mechanic is intractable. Maybe we can use mind melds to help it or calm it down. Or maybe the depression want's a cool broach. Or maybe we need to make the cure IG and collect items for it. It would've felt better if we could actually interact with it.
Interested to see what comes next! Good luck!
A Faceless with a moon shaped mask that is decorated with small flowers. She has a passion for tea and colourful kimonos.