Critique of myself

[Paul]

The goal of this little rant is so I can read this in the future and learn from my mistakes, help others understand what is going on in my head, and help people avoid these mistakes.

The intent of the game was to have this huge battle with a bunch of role playing opportunities. I was going to have some soldiers need help, bunkers being overrun, pilots getting shot down, and the big force user stand off. The idea sounded awesome in my head but failed miserably when it came time. This wasn’t the fault of the players, but a fault at my ability to accurately predict how well the characters would do. The first wave of storm troopers was easily taken out, I expected this. I failed to adapt at changing the role playing aspect. It became a bad choice to go back to the other side of the map just to help one person when the front line was down. I should have moved some of the New Republic solders close to us.

I underestimated time in this game. Time is VERY skewed in role playing games. In some instances 6 seconds a round is fair, you make that longer and people would complain about being able to do more. However when the situation arrives where the bomb will blow up in 5 minutes things get really messy in game world. 5 minutes should be enough to freak out anyone. 5 minutes in game time is 50 rounds. I’ve never seen anything done in 50 rounds. In the large battle we were done in (I think) 9 rounds with the force user stand off. 54 seconds to decimate half an army and some random force users. Now let’s say were at a situation where the bomb will go off in 50 rounds and we need to keep the bad guys away. 41 rounds later we are waiting for the bomb to be defused. Boring! The lesson I leaned for this game is instead of 5 minutes, just make it round based maybe 10 rounds. 10 rounds until the bomb goes off, 9 rounds of fighting 1 round of defusing sounds like a more appealing and dramatic encounter. This is a perfect setup for someone to spend a destiny point to save everyone. I suppose the counter to that is just saying on round 40 we get attacked. But honestly isn’t that the same thing?

I think the NPC and brief role playing at the start was ok. Not my best effort but I got my point across.

One more lesson I am starting to learn is don’t try and be too experimental. The battle was indented to be something that is unusual and it didn’t work (The Role Playing Aspect of Combat). What would have worked better was just a basic battle or better adjustments to the position of the characters. This doesn’t mean I am going to stop trying this idea, I just need to refine it.

With that in mind my next game; “The Alters” is going to be a more traditional role playing game.

Game Grade = C+
Game Score = 5.5 out of 10.

I’ll do better next time guys.
Also, if anyone else has anything to add feel free.

[Paul]

I’ve wanted to write this up since the game ended but I’ve been rather busy. Let’s hope I can remember what I wanted to write out.

The purpose of this is mainly for improvement of the games and my thoughts on them. This isn’t a bash session about person 1,2,3.

Let’s just start in order.

The space battle:
Really confusing to start but once we got the hang of it, I really enjoyed it. Note to Dan, please do more space battles. We need more! I am going to type out the bonuses for helping people so we don’t have to pass my hand written one around. The asteroid idea was great in my opinion the problem with it was that I should have put the TIEs deeper into the asteroids. When we ended the battle the asteroids had not been a factor for a few rounds. The battle also lasted a little too long, but that was mostly due to not understanding the system.
Conclusion: Fun, more asteroids would have made it better and more practice in space.

The Jedi Temple / Archive:
This encounter was a lot of fun and imo the best part of the game. I didn’t understand why the entire group would want to go and bring more attention to Rory wanting to get into a restricted area but it was the group’s choice. I was fully expecting Rory and PoW going to sneak into the archive while the rest of the group went to a bar or something. The mind trick worked for what it was intended to do, the dark trooper did want to let us in, but that was not the best course of action. The two main reasons why this wasn’t a good idea is there were 3 dark troopers and these 3 troopers are guarding a jedi establishment. They know what a mind trick is so they knew what was happening. They had a readied action to shoot missiles if anything happened which they did. Rory was really angry in character and the funny part was no one stepped in to stop him beating down Rage. On the flip side it was stun damage and it did end up helping in the long run as it keep Rage quiet long enough for him to be taken away. His light saber was rescued by Kahn and Rage was dragged off. I am sure everyone figured out the girl we ran into was the one that took out the storm troopers taking rage away.
Conclusion: Great RPing to save a bad situation.

The Escape:
This was also fun, the running away from the troopers was a great idea and allowed me a way to introduce the girl. The tactics done during the escape were brilliant. Note of interest: Bob’s redirect shot through an elevator hatch knocking out a stormie that was shooting at us. This lead us to the hanger in which the combat was good. If I were to make any changes with this idea was that the droids should have had more HP so PoW could have more uses for the claw. In my head the claw was instant death for any droid grabbed by it. The boxes also could have been used but by that time it wasn’t needed.
Conclusion: That was fun; my only change would have been more HP for the droids. The Gas isn’t that affective and I should have been using it against the jedi that are already in melee combat or had the troopers move in after a missile was launched. Enemy tactics were poor. Note to Dan, if you are going to use the gas, hold the actions of the baddies to shoot the missiles first then move in the melee guys to hold the jedi in the gas.

Over all conclusions: Good time guys, I enjoyed it. Little frustrating in some parts but that was due rules understanding.