Post by Paul on Mar 14, 2011 9:45:37 GMT -6
Since I wrote one for Jim, I'll write one for Geoff.
First off I wanted to put my usual disclaimer. This isn’t a competition and I am not posting this as a means to. What this is intended for is to help Geoff know what he did well and what he didn’t do well.
Secondly I’d like to put in a second disclaimer. I’m tired as hell and I hope this will end up being coherent.
I know we talked about most of this stuff after the game but reading it months from now should give us some kicks. Let’s start with the best part of Geoff’s game. NPC “actions” What I mean by that is your NPCs where dynamic, unique, and memorable. The commander was interesting and Zion was a jackass (him taunting us continually over the PA was a GREAT touch). This may sound cliché but I think Zion should be your personally reoccurring bad guy. We never got to “fight” him. I could see in the future you have a nice list of NPCs like I do. As I’ve said in one my of GM Blog posts, I prefer to care about the NPCs. There is nothing wrong with having NPCs being just blips on the radar, but I find it more personally satisfying if they have structure, meaning, and importance. But the flip side of that is never making the NPCs more important to the PCs.
Your puzzle was very easy. But imo that is what made it good. It was clever enough to be a challenge, but easily understandable. There were a few possibilities that could have been different characters. At the same time you kept us on the rails a bit by forcing Rage to come with us. You could have easily just taken out that part of the puzzle. Not a big deal for us but may cause problems for “other” players.
The maps you created where very unique. The colors were rather annoying, but after you explained it I got it. There was a TON of detail of the maps. I am sure you had so many things planned for us that we didn’t get to. Use that stuff for a future game. Don’t feel bad about not using it during that game. My suggestion would be to use numbers on the map rather then different colors and if we entered a room with a strange floor, then just create another picture of the floor. Room 28’s floor looks like this:
The low part of the game was the battles. I won’t fault you for that. One of the hardest things to do is make opponents balanced. I just felt that you were changing things up too much that it was very obvious. If we get our ass kicked we get it kicked it happens. I felt that the opponents were flat, the exact opposite of your NPC interactions. The droid fight with Sebastian is a good example. In order to make a decent droid vs sabby it should have a high dex / defense score. If that were the case then the force lighting wouldn’t hit. The downfall of any droid is the low will and fortitude defense. Like I said after the game, to beat/compete with the force wizard you will need multiple opponents or another force wizard. The droid could have easily had a personal shield. Sebastian’s attack did 80+ damage. A droidika has a SR of 20 and HP of 40. Not a good example but your droid could have had an SR of 20 and HP of 160. The 80 points of damage is dropped to 60, and the droid is at 100 instead of 80. That should equal one more round for the droid. The most annoying and useful attack for a droid is a self destruct. Once Sebastian won it should have exploded and done a crap load of damage. This by the rules acts like an area attack. Sebastian will take at least half damage. The personal shield should slow down Sebastian’s attacks that he will eventually “blow his wad”. There are non cheesy ways to deal with a force wizard. I think I will write up how to beat each of our characters.
My suggestion for you is to run your games with a good deal of NPC interaction and not a lot of combat (at first). Your game and your “style” are perfect for “Role” players. Focus on that and the “Roll” playing will fall in. A LOT of people enjoy the “Role” playing. Your games would be boring for the “Hack n Slasher” types.
I had a great time and look forward to your next game.
First off I wanted to put my usual disclaimer. This isn’t a competition and I am not posting this as a means to. What this is intended for is to help Geoff know what he did well and what he didn’t do well.
Secondly I’d like to put in a second disclaimer. I’m tired as hell and I hope this will end up being coherent.
I know we talked about most of this stuff after the game but reading it months from now should give us some kicks. Let’s start with the best part of Geoff’s game. NPC “actions” What I mean by that is your NPCs where dynamic, unique, and memorable. The commander was interesting and Zion was a jackass (him taunting us continually over the PA was a GREAT touch). This may sound cliché but I think Zion should be your personally reoccurring bad guy. We never got to “fight” him. I could see in the future you have a nice list of NPCs like I do. As I’ve said in one my of GM Blog posts, I prefer to care about the NPCs. There is nothing wrong with having NPCs being just blips on the radar, but I find it more personally satisfying if they have structure, meaning, and importance. But the flip side of that is never making the NPCs more important to the PCs.
Your puzzle was very easy. But imo that is what made it good. It was clever enough to be a challenge, but easily understandable. There were a few possibilities that could have been different characters. At the same time you kept us on the rails a bit by forcing Rage to come with us. You could have easily just taken out that part of the puzzle. Not a big deal for us but may cause problems for “other” players.
The maps you created where very unique. The colors were rather annoying, but after you explained it I got it. There was a TON of detail of the maps. I am sure you had so many things planned for us that we didn’t get to. Use that stuff for a future game. Don’t feel bad about not using it during that game. My suggestion would be to use numbers on the map rather then different colors and if we entered a room with a strange floor, then just create another picture of the floor. Room 28’s floor looks like this:
The low part of the game was the battles. I won’t fault you for that. One of the hardest things to do is make opponents balanced. I just felt that you were changing things up too much that it was very obvious. If we get our ass kicked we get it kicked it happens. I felt that the opponents were flat, the exact opposite of your NPC interactions. The droid fight with Sebastian is a good example. In order to make a decent droid vs sabby it should have a high dex / defense score. If that were the case then the force lighting wouldn’t hit. The downfall of any droid is the low will and fortitude defense. Like I said after the game, to beat/compete with the force wizard you will need multiple opponents or another force wizard. The droid could have easily had a personal shield. Sebastian’s attack did 80+ damage. A droidika has a SR of 20 and HP of 40. Not a good example but your droid could have had an SR of 20 and HP of 160. The 80 points of damage is dropped to 60, and the droid is at 100 instead of 80. That should equal one more round for the droid. The most annoying and useful attack for a droid is a self destruct. Once Sebastian won it should have exploded and done a crap load of damage. This by the rules acts like an area attack. Sebastian will take at least half damage. The personal shield should slow down Sebastian’s attacks that he will eventually “blow his wad”. There are non cheesy ways to deal with a force wizard. I think I will write up how to beat each of our characters.
My suggestion for you is to run your games with a good deal of NPC interaction and not a lot of combat (at first). Your game and your “style” are perfect for “Role” players. Focus on that and the “Roll” playing will fall in. A LOT of people enjoy the “Role” playing. Your games would be boring for the “Hack n Slasher” types.
I had a great time and look forward to your next game.