OOC: First, RA, I'm genuinely sorry that this hasn't been enjoyable for you. I think I can understand some of your frustration as a player. In other circumstances, the party would easily have been able to deal with three relatively low-level NPCs, and as a player, I can see why you would be frustrated that it proved to be very difficult for your character to accomplish that. I started this thing with some pretty clear instructions from doghead as to how this was likely to play out, but the party quickly thwarted that. At that point, my goal was to just let the PCs and NPCs interact with each other in a manner that was consistent with my understanding of the NPCs' characters, motivations, and capabilities. Aside from a couple of rules hiccups and retcons (for which I am grateful to you, RA, for educating me on some of the finer points of the rules), I think that's pretty much what happened. Again, I'm sorry that you didn't find that entertaining as a player.
Second, I'd like to declare a 24-hour cooling off period. During that time, I'll read and respond (if I feel that a response is appropriate) to any post here, doing my very best to leave my ego out of the discussion. It's hard to read emotion over the net, but I have been sensing that RA isn't the only person here who is feeling some frustration. If there is some lingering resentment, I'd rather get it out in the open and deal with it rather than let it fester until someone drops out of LEW altogether.
Third, looking over my last post, I can see how it could be interpreted as conflating IC and OOC. My apologies for not writing more clearly, that was not my intent. I'm not here to play a game of "gotcha" with the other players, and I thought I did slow down several times to explain what was to me a very complex and confusing encounter to the players. Due to the nature of the encounter, no player had a "God's eye view" of the counter, mainly because no character could take in the whole of what was going on. My goal was to ensure that each player was aware of everything that player's character knew, no more, no less. Most of the "you"s in that last post should be directed toward the characters, not the players, meaning that the comments were directed IC, not OoC. I don't think that Eternity acted like a moron at all...given what was posted by me and by E13, I assumed that Eternity's priorities were to ensure that Private Stander was stable, and then to get the heck out of there. E13 didn't post anything about "let's make sure he doesn't get back to camp" or "let's make sure we pick him up" or "Eternity is going to fetch her horse and then ride back to the prone form of Private Stander" or anything like that. Given that, I thought that when I posted...
"Having stabilized the fallen soldier, Michael dashed off in the direction of Kinthriver, hoping that his mount would still be waiting for him. Hulgyr followed him, still hanging on to Ironwolf's psicrsytal, and thanks to years of chasing game through the wilderness, caught and passed the heavily armored cleric. Neither reached his mount, but both could see Eternity and Almayce ahead, who were making preparations to mount up and ride away."
...that I was being perfectly clear to the 4 players who that post was intended for. And if anyone would have posted something like, "OOC: Wait a minute, who's got the soldier?", I would have patiently explained, "OoC: Nobody", just like I did when it finally did come up in game. And if someone would have posted, "OoC: Hold it, I thought ____ picked up Private Stander", I'd have posted something like, "OoC: I don't see anything like that in post xxx, yyy, or zzz". At which point it either would have been retconned, or I'd point out that character ____ could head back over to the prone form of Private Stander and pick him up on the next turn.
Obvious (or even likely) miscommunications, I can deal with. But OoC, I'm not a telepath. Based on posted actions, I'd likely have been more sensitive to Zaeryl wanting to ensure that all 3 soldiers were accounted for before riding off than I would for Eternity, that's just a matter of deciphering RA's posting style, E13's posting style, and the character and motivations that they've given Zaeryl and Eternity, respectively. But in the end, I'm not a mind reader, and if a player posts that their character walks right up to a fallen enemy and then immediately posts that they run over to their horse and mount up, I'm not going to assume (some prior post to the contrary notwithstanding) that their character would automatically stop to pick up or drag the character over to their horse.
Again, I'm sorry if any of you haven't enjoyed this, but I do promise to give careful consideration to any suggestions or comments that you might have.
). This particular incident may not have been fatal, but it demonstrates a state of mind that I'd rather not have to deal with--ask the players in my games and they'll tell you that when my explanations are vague or I see them doing something that is patently moronic due to my power as GM to realise that 'technically you dropped the one you thought you had' or the like, I always always point it out with "Are you sure you want to..."
