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<blockquote data-quote="Desdichado" data-source="post: 1226237" data-attributes="member: 2205"><p>Anyway, here's some more detailed commentary about the two games I ran.</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Duchess' Tea Party:</strong> What can I say; this was a bit of an experiment, and the good folks who signed up got to "playtest" the concept of mixing "How to Host a Murder" with D&D. All in all, I think the concept was quite successful, and I had a good time running it. I also had a good time watching it; in theory, I have merely to set the game up and then watch and enjoy as the players run with the concepts of their characters for a big portion of the game. Although portions of the plot I concocted were pretty flimsy, i.e., why the PCs were in danger of being killed by these demons when they already hadn't been, it seemed to go fairly well anyway. Poor William Ronald got somewhat the short end of the stick, in that his character and KnowTheToe's character had a deep rivalry that he didn't understand until the end of the game. He also was nearly killed by an imp (although what do you expect from a wizard with no real directly offense-oriented spells who decides to investigate a church pretty much by himself?) and had to bear the brunt of the Duchess' daughter's ruse. It was gratifying as a DM to see the look on his face when he "rescued" her, attempted to cast a <em>protection from evil</em> spell around her, and then lost the spell as she stabbed him in the back and broke his concentration (as well as his heart.) I did learn a bit from the playtest though, and I think there's a few things I could do to really tighten the concept up. I went out of my way to make extra characters, but with no one to play them, the secrets that they both had and knew about others, didn't really make enough of an appearance. I thought I could roleplay all that with three characters plus everything else, but in reality, some of that stuff dropped off the table. I think for this type of game I not only need a character for every player, but also a player for every character. Also, I think the transition from "roleplaying the tea party" to "trying to banish Dagon back to Hell" was a bit too abrupt -- some other fishy business would have ratcheted up the tension in the game and also allowed the built-in rivalries between the characters to show up more. Anyway, the concept was a success -- I'll definately run "The Duchess' Tea Party Strikes Back" at some point in the future with new characters, a new scenario and the improvements that I could see needed making.<br /> <br /> </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul"><strong>Dark<sup>o</sup>Matter d20: Exit 23:</strong> This one was a bit more straight-forward in theory, although it had it's share of surprises too (especially when the entire group almost blew themselves up. Who's idea was it to pump gas on an open flame at a truck stop again?) Because the "Exit 23" is a bit on the short side, I gave some prior thought to more stuff I could add to it, but the group absolutely refused to follow up on the plot hooks I dropped to go there; at the end I made a last desperate bid to show that something really interesting was going on in that direction, and it backfired badly and actually scared the players away from it! They truly played up the Dark<sup>o</sup>Matter feeling of paranoia quite well. Because of this, I had to do a bit of juggling and winging it, which is fine, but it just so happened that after a pretty good, tense game, the ending felt contrived, lame and anticlimactic. There was some great roleplaying here, though, especially from the characters with a somewhat err... more lax view on certain legal matters and their interaction with the PC state trooper. I had to laugh, to at some of the antics of the characters too. In addition to the aforementioned close thing with the entire group blowing themselves to cinders, shadowlight's character was in negative numbers three times, William Ronald's was (I believe) twice, and Trev's character was at -9 before finally being stabilized. The characters actually killed the three Hoffman Institute men, who might otherwise have recruited them, and at the end they were recruited instead by the shadowy Department-7 government agency at the end of the game. They also forgot about the grease fire they set in the remains of the MacDonalds at the truckstop, so their handcuffed and unconscious prisoner succumbed to the flame, and the characters themselves came really close to blowing themselves up a second time. One of the players, and I can't remember which one, pointed out that they were playing Dark<sup>o</sup>Matter as if it were <em>Feng Shui</em> which I thought an apt comparison. I'd definately run this again sometime too; we had a great time with it.</li> </ul></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Desdichado, post: 1226237, member: 2205"] Anyway, here's some more detailed commentary about the two games I ran. [list] [*][b]Duchess' Tea Party:[/b] What can I say; this was a bit of an experiment, and the good folks who signed up got to "playtest" the concept of mixing "How to Host a Murder" with D&D. All in all, I think the concept was quite successful, and I had a good time running it. I also had a good time watching it; in theory, I have merely to set the game up and then watch and enjoy as the players run with the concepts of their characters for a big portion of the game. Although portions of the plot I concocted were pretty flimsy, i.e., why the PCs were in danger of being killed by these demons when they already hadn't been, it seemed to go fairly well anyway. Poor William Ronald got somewhat the short end of the stick, in that his character and KnowTheToe's character had a deep rivalry that he didn't understand until the end of the game. He also was nearly killed by an imp (although what do you expect from a wizard with no real directly offense-oriented spells who decides to investigate a church pretty much by himself?) and had to bear the brunt of the Duchess' daughter's ruse. It was gratifying as a DM to see the look on his face when he "rescued" her, attempted to cast a [i]protection from evil[/i] spell around her, and then lost the spell as she stabbed him in the back and broke his concentration (as well as his heart.) I did learn a bit from the playtest though, and I think there's a few things I could do to really tighten the concept up. I went out of my way to make extra characters, but with no one to play them, the secrets that they both had and knew about others, didn't really make enough of an appearance. I thought I could roleplay all that with three characters plus everything else, but in reality, some of that stuff dropped off the table. I think for this type of game I not only need a character for every player, but also a player for every character. Also, I think the transition from "roleplaying the tea party" to "trying to banish Dagon back to Hell" was a bit too abrupt -- some other fishy business would have ratcheted up the tension in the game and also allowed the built-in rivalries between the characters to show up more. Anyway, the concept was a success -- I'll definately run "The Duchess' Tea Party Strikes Back" at some point in the future with new characters, a new scenario and the improvements that I could see needed making. [*][b]Dark<sup>o</sup>Matter d20: Exit 23:[/b] This one was a bit more straight-forward in theory, although it had it's share of surprises too (especially when the entire group almost blew themselves up. Who's idea was it to pump gas on an open flame at a truck stop again?) Because the "Exit 23" is a bit on the short side, I gave some prior thought to more stuff I could add to it, but the group absolutely refused to follow up on the plot hooks I dropped to go there; at the end I made a last desperate bid to show that something really interesting was going on in that direction, and it backfired badly and actually scared the players away from it! They truly played up the Dark<sup>o</sup>Matter feeling of paranoia quite well. Because of this, I had to do a bit of juggling and winging it, which is fine, but it just so happened that after a pretty good, tense game, the ending felt contrived, lame and anticlimactic. There was some great roleplaying here, though, especially from the characters with a somewhat err... more lax view on certain legal matters and their interaction with the PC state trooper. I had to laugh, to at some of the antics of the characters too. In addition to the aforementioned close thing with the entire group blowing themselves to cinders, shadowlight's character was in negative numbers three times, William Ronald's was (I believe) twice, and Trev's character was at -9 before finally being stabilized. The characters actually killed the three Hoffman Institute men, who might otherwise have recruited them, and at the end they were recruited instead by the shadowy Department-7 government agency at the end of the game. They also forgot about the grease fire they set in the remains of the MacDonalds at the truckstop, so their handcuffed and unconscious prisoner succumbed to the flame, and the characters themselves came really close to blowing themselves up a second time. One of the players, and I can't remember which one, pointed out that they were playing Dark<sup>o</sup>Matter as if it were [i]Feng Shui[/i] which I thought an apt comparison. I'd definately run this again sometime too; we had a great time with it. [/list] [/QUOTE]
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