What is best in life?

[BSF]

OK, just thought I would ask what it is that you guys would like to do. I don't necessarily mean the PCs, I mean the players. You guys. As you know, you are reaching a point of saturation with the adventure options out there. I am literally throwing too many things at you. There is no way you can do everything that you currently know is out there.

Well, at least not without it becoming cheesy. I could leave the world as a static environment where something you don't do today is still sitting out there tomorrow. But I don't play it like that. I hope all of you realize that by now. As a point of reference, if you guys had chosen to check out the haunted mansion in Saltmarsh, you probably would be knee-deep in sahaugin blood. You would probably have the equipment to fight them above and below water and you would have much more political pull in Stormhaven. But you probably wouldn't be worrying one bit about gnolls and goblins, the giants in the north would be faint rumors and you wouldn't have any clue what Greerson was like. (Lord Tannerson who?)

Actions, consequences and choices. I try to keep the game moving with those things. For the things you choose not to do, there will be consequences. There might be other adventurers (good or evil) that handle them. Or nobody might touch them. You might not care what the consequences are or they might become terribly important. For the things you do choose to pursue, you control those outcomes much more. You will understand what the results of failure and success are. You will personally reap the rewards. You wil lbe the heroes involved at that moment. But one way or another, the world will continue to change around you.

I tell you this so you understand that it happens. Time moves forward and no matter what happens, something will happen. You can't be everywhere all the time. But as your power grows through the things you do and the people you know, your influence might reach further than you personally can. Or not, that really depends on what you do as a group and as individuals.

I like the roleplaying. But I also like action. I try to anticipate the things you are interested in pursuing so I can prepare interesting adventures for you. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail. But I do try. I try not to have a strong attachment to any given story. I try to give you NPCs that are interesting to interact with. Whether because they are belligerent, helpful, useful, trustworthy, or any other range of personality types. Some will try to bend you to their will, some won't. Just remember that I am just trying to play the NPC's personality. Be prudent in your inteactions and decide how you will deal with individual NPCs. Some of them might be quite useful, some might be useless, many will fall somewhere between the two extremes.

Where am I going with all of this? I just want to give you a little overview of things from the metagame standpoint. Then I want to know what it is that you guys will think is fun to pursue. That is, what you as players want to do, not as PCs.

Yes, I know many of you will think about it in terms of what your PC would like to do. that's great! But step back for a moment and ask yourselves if you want to play something different. There are a lot of differences within the PCs of the group and I try to play against those to some degree. I know Kind might be interested in stopping the railroad, but maybe Oceas would be interested in seeing it completed (It would make trade easier right?) and Tyrm would be fascinated by how it is powered. If you guys chose to check out the train, how would this interaction play out? That is what I am interested in. But step back for a moment and think about what makes the game fun for you. Would you all rather be pursuing treasure hunts? Maybe undead slayers? Fighting the forces of evil at their very doorstep in the transitive planes to the hells? Saving the world one village at a time because everyone else thinks they are insignificant? Sailing the wide seas as explorers/merchants? Something else? A combination of some of the above?

I ask because it is a game and we are all here to have fun. So what would be fun? It might be that you are all having a blast playing your current PCs and pursuing the things you have in front of you. If so, that's great! But I need to ask so I can be sure I am keeping the game fun. What would mke it more fun? Think about it and don't worry about existing constraints in the game. Would you have more fun with a different PC? A different story opportunity? Different circumstances? Feel free to post here. After all, to some degree we all have to compromise so the entire group is having fun. Or if you aren't comfortable posting, email me (davidmoore@zianet.com) or catch me in IM some evening (bardstephenfox on AIM).

 

[BSF]

72 hours, a dozen views on the thread and no replies? Not even a good/bad thing?

 

[injuredwyvern]

I know I was waiting to see what everybody else had to say first, but I'll go ahead and jump in. The way we play is just fine with me.
First of all, I think everybody understands that what we choose to do changes the environment of the game and that is pretty much at our discression. We can go hang out in the desert or fight underwater. Those are pretty different options, but we know what we are in for in either case and it's that option element that makes for a good game.
Second, storylines will progress whether we are there or not. That is an aspect that I really like. Mostly because I saw how everything worked itself out in the last campaign, and the results were so great that I wouldn't dream of changing that formula.
So that leaves game style, which is just fine as well. Sometimes we do roleplaying and sometimes it's action, but either way it's all good.
If there are any changes that need to be made to the game, I would say we need to find a way to get over our ADD style of play. By that I mean we should try to stop being distracted by every little thing and just focus on one goal at a time.

 

[Macbeth]

My favorite part of the game?
At the risk of sounding munchkin-y, I'll say combat. Why? Cause our combat is very strategic, and I think there are plenty of ways to roleplay in combat, based on what your character chooses to do and how you describe it. I probably also favor combat since, lets face it, my character(s) are (have been) made for combat. Now I hate to get into one type of character (which is why I created Li, I had never played a full-on melee character before) but I also like really finding a niche in the group, which I think both Li and Deigh have done.

Now for the on thing that frustrates me: too many things to DO! I know this is a concious decision as part of world creation, and I like having things going on even if we aren't involved, but it sometimes feels like we're being pressured to do multiple things at once. Maybe we should carry around buisness cards for other adventuring groups and hand them out whenever we don't want to take a quest. "Sure, you need somebody to explore the dungeons of doom, but our schedule is full, try these folks over in Stormhaven." This is also probably a side effect of our ADD play style, but it can sometimes really frustrate me. I like planning, but we need to put thos eplans into action at some point.

Maybe undead slayers? Fighting the forces of evil at their very doorstep in the transitive planes to the hells? Saving the world one village at a time because everyone else thinks they are insignificant?

All of these sound cool to me, I really like fighting evil as a big motivation, and it shows through in my characters. Sure, treasure hunting could be cool, but I'd rather be in combat with the bad guys, saving the world from evil. And, on second thought, scratch undead from that list: Skirmishing only works on creatures that are vulnerable to critical hits, which a goos part of undead aren't.

I definately like my current PC, and everything we've done so far. The slow past of the last couple of weeks have been a bit trying, but it always seems after a few slow weeks we have our best sessions, like the battle on the airship, or the ride into Delve, or when Li and Tyrm were captured by gnolls. So even if we have a couple of slow weeks, I'm not worried. Really, I like pretty mcuh eevrything as it is. I'm not one to trade in PCs too often, and while I've got a pretty good backup idea, I like (Scholar) Deigh, and I liek the current circumstances.

 

[BSF]

My favorite part of the game?
At the risk of sounding munchkin-y, I'll say combat.

Cool, I will consider that a vote for more combat. It is sometimes hard because you guys really don't rush off into conflict willy nilly. As well, there are significant breaks of RP that I try to integrate for the value of finding out more of what is happening in the world. Some are more significant than others. Finally, because of the metatheme of stories/myths/legends, I also need to provide the opportunity for you guys to tell everyone else what you are doing and why it is important.

But some of those things could be sped up a little bit so we can have more in the way of combat as well.

Now for the on thing that frustrates me: too many things to DO! I know this is a concious decision as part of world creation, and I like having things going on even if we aren't involved, but it sometimes feels like we're being pressured to do multiple things at once. Maybe we should carry around buisness cards for other adventuring groups and hand them out whenever we don't want to take a quest.

This one is a little tougher for me to quickly address. I try to keep a lot of things floating out there are possible hooks for you guys. I have my own predictions on which ones you will really pursue, but I try to keep options available so you can surprise me. As the DM, I certainly don't expect you guys to be able to do everything. But various NPCs might try to apply pressure. They key for me is that there is no one single "right answer". You will make choices and those will drive the way the world develops. So don't feel pressured to try to do an adventure that you don't really want to. Sort the wheat from the chaff and do the stuff you want to do. Sounds easy right?

Of course, another part of the reason I throw so much stuff out there is so you don't easily know which story arcs are the big story arcs in the game. You have to figure that out yourselves.

 

[Macbeth]

No need to trash roleplay time for more combat, the balance now is pretty good. I'm not saying things need to change, I'm saying I like this part.

 

[BSF]

OK, Friday night after many of you had left Russ brought up one of the things he really enjoyed about the last campaign: The secondary characters. He enjoyed the way we sometimes traded off between the two groups. That did allow me to show you different aspects of the game world and allowed you guys to look at different adventures that your primaries might not be interested in.

Russ suggested that we might want to create a group of secondaries and then use them during the summer when Sage, and possibly Chris, will be unavailable. It's a good idea worthy of discussion in a new thread. So I will start that up now.

 

[Tormal]

Well I'm certain i'll be repeating myself when I say that this campaign is going great. I love where our characters are now and to think of where they will be going. I have been able to put as much thought into Tormal as I did Aaron... if not more. The greatest thing I love about this and the previous campaign is that, even though we joke around and stuff, we play seriously to have fun. Other campaign's i 've been in have either fallen apart of just gotten wacky and oddly unentertaining. I'm thankful for having a DM that takes time with his stories and making sure there is a point rather then throwing random things randomly around in a randomly chosen story line starting in a random unknown world with random and unknown history, people and places. Where nothing fits together or makes since. If you catch what I mean Let's just say I'm really enjoying it!

The only issue I really have with the group (Not the campaign really...) is our time management and ADD issues. We really should try and focus on just one or two things at a time rather then jumping from quest to quest and so on. This is obviously something the group will have to conquer but we should work on it. Other then that the balance on the game is superb, the story is extremely rich, the combats always intense and bloody , the NPC's interesting, the descriptions very vivid and most of all we are all having fun.

 

[Kultar]

Well I'm certain i'll be repeating myself when I say that this campaign is going great. I love where our characters are now and to think of where they will be going. I have been able to put as much thought into Tormal as I did Aaron... if not more. The greatest thing I love about this and the previous campaign is that, even though we joke around and stuff, we play seriously to have fun. Other campaign's i 've been in have either fallen apart of just gotten wacky and oddly unentertaining. I'm thankful for having a DM that takes time with his stories and making sure there is a point rather then throwing random things randomly around in a randomly chosen story line starting in a random unknown world with random and unknown history, people and places. Where nothing fits together or makes since. If you catch what I mean Let's just say I'm really enjoying it!

The only issue I really have with the group (Not the campaign really...) is our time management and ADD issues. We really should try and focus on just one or two things at a time rather then jumping from quest to quest and so on. This is obviously something the group will have to conquer but we should work on it. Other then that the balance on the game is superb, the story is extremely rich, the combats always intense and bloody , the NPC's interesting, the descriptions very vivid and most of all we are all having fun.

I second this post.

 

[BSF]

And on a related note to other threads that have been bumped...

Post your thoughts if you have them. Also, expect that we will be jumping into a new adventure very rapidly Friday night. I am curious if it will accomodate more combat as well as giving you something to focus on immediately. To do that, I might take a little creative liberty with your PCs. Do me a favor and just roll with it unless I am completely misrepresenting the character.

After the game, let me know how it worked out. Either personally, through email, IMs or posting here. Whichever you are comfortable with.