Campaign frustrations thread

[Blackferne]

Okay we have be at this for over a month. And while I'm having fun, I feel like there is some frustrations about the campaign and I'm sure some I'm not even sensing so I'd like to air it out and figure out what the best way forward is.

My frustrations:
The game doesn't move fast enough because I play to respond off of what you guys say and do, and sometimes that might take a while due to not checking in for a while. When I DMed in high school I did so in a very conversational manner that seemed to work for that group. I had a rough sketch on paper and would talk it through with folks. Eric by contrast would write up long descriptive pages on what we saw and felt which I think in retrospect might be better for this format.

I've got a story idea that is a long mystery and not very combat oriented at first. I think this might have been a mistake, especially for my first campaign in this system with this format. If I could start over I would say straight rule book class and races, set sometimes in the century around the battle of yavin (movies) and write each chapter as a stand alone adventure. Your draw to the group would have been answering the equivalent of "Help wanted, need extraordinary folks".

I've been afraid to get into combat because I've been so obsessed with mapping it out. That has been a mistake on my part because I should have just said "we'll be more loose with combat because we don't have a table.


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What frustrations or concerns do you have? Would you want to start over in episodic content now that we know the ruleset a bit better?

[Furiel]

My biggest frustration is how the dialogue and character interactions don't always flow well because someone can say something to someone and if that person isn't online at that moment then there is no chance to respond.

Using the end of last evening as an example when Syric insulted Eli to his face, then ends his post saying that he walks away. My response would have been immediate and to his face without giving him the opportunity to walk away, unless he thought that insulting a professional fighter to his face then turning his back on him while he was reacting to the barb was a good idea. But because I wasn't online AT THAT SECOND and a couple more posts were made based off that then my reaction becomes moot and ignored because they can just say "well I walked away" and the narrative continued based off that action rather than how it would in reality, which would be a continuing exchange.

[Blackferne]

Well that is the price we pay for playing over a forum. I am hoping live sessions fix that some.

[Furiel]

I know, but you wanted my frustrations, that's a big one because it could be abused by people, especially if their characters don't like each other...

[Bulwark]

two things:

it seems slow at this point, I think some combat would spice that up.

When we split up, all the action can happen with one group, and everyone else just has to sit around and wait for that to be resolved.

Both of those should be pretty easy to solve though.

[Whiteness]

I don't know what to do about the game moving faster due to it being on a forum, specifically one blocked by websense. There are times people would want to do something with their character but can't because the game has moved past that point (Dood wanted to be at his trial, Syric would have caught what poobot said and corrected him) but those things may just have to happen for the overall game to keep moving.

I would not be adverse to starting over now that I've had a feel for how things work.

[Whiteness]

I started that post an hour ago and got busy and didn't see the responses. Furiel, I'm sorry Syric shot Eli.

unless he thought that insulting a professional fighter to his face then turning his back on him while he was reacting to the barb was a good idea.

You don't like that Syric was threatend when Eli was grabbing him and you don't like that he wasn't threatened in the above situation. You seem to get upset at how we play our own characters, and I'm sorry, I have no experience with this stuff.

[Furiel]

I started that post an hour ago and got busy and didn't see the responses. Furiel, I'm sorry Syric shot Eli.

unless he thought that insulting a professional fighter to his face then turning his back on him while he was reacting to the barb was a good idea.

You don't like that Syric was threatend when Eli was grabbing him and you don't like that he wasn't threatened in the above situation. You seem to get upset at how we play our own characters, and I'm sorry, I have no experience with this stuff.

Nope, I got no problem with how each of us play our characters. It'd be nice if everything was all sunshine and rainbows and we got to ride unicorns while getting jerked off by supermodels every day, but that's not how it goes. The way you play your character and the way I play my character put us almost naturally at odds with each other routinely. What frustrates me about that is not that it happens, it's that it can't run it's natural, organic course due to some of the limitations we have to work with due to it being a forum game. By all means keep doing what you are doing and eventually we'll either find some common ground, one of us will die, or one of us will kill the other. It'll be fun to see which one actually occurs.

[Whiteness]

I started that post an hour ago and got busy and didn't see the responses. Furiel, I'm sorry Syric shot Eli.

unless he thought that insulting a professional fighter to his face then turning his back on him while he was reacting to the barb was a good idea.

You don't like that Syric was threatend when Eli was grabbing him and you don't like that he wasn't threatened in the above situation. You seem to get upset at how we play our own characters, and I'm sorry, I have no experience with this stuff.

Nope, I got no problem with how each of us play our characters. It'd be nice if everything was all sunshine and rainbows and we got to ride unicorns while getting jerked off by supermodels every day, but that's not how it goes. The way you play your character and the way I play my character put us almost naturally at odds with each other routinely. What frustrates me about that is not that it happens, it's that it can't run it's natural, organic course due to some of the limitations we have to work with due to it being a forum game. By all means keep doing what you are doing and eventually we'll either find some common ground, one of us will die, or one of us will kill the other. It'll be fun to see which one actually occurs.

I think we just found some common ground.

[Whiteness]

Ok websense won't let me go to any other thread so I'm going to post it here, I will be out most of tonight trying to get my taxes done and then I'll be watching my daughter til the wifey comes home, but if I'm needed for anything I can be IMd and hop in for a minute if the GM will roll for me (I hate using the die roller on my phone).

[Blackferne]

Ok websense won't let me go to any other thread so I'm going to post it here, I will be out most of tonight trying to get my taxes done and then I'll be watching my daughter til the wifey comes home, but if I'm needed for anything I can be IMd and hop in for a minute if the GM will roll for me (I hate using the die roller on my phone).

Tonight is raid night for me, soooo there won't be that much done after I leave work. Tomorrow Dood and I will be testing the mumble server he set up and a virtual tabletop app I found. If that is successful then we will be solid for tuesday live session.

[Gandolfini]

If you guys want another tester tomorrow, I'm available.

As for frustration, I guess if I had one it would be how long it takes things to get accomplished. Getting clothing takes a day. I like the NPC interactions and see their value but it just takes a long time.

I would guess that running this game is like herding cats. Or managing programmers.

[Dood]

I would guess that running this game is like herding cats. Or managing programmers.

This.

I think the speed is a frustration for everyone, but I think that everyone understands why pacing is difficult and tries to grin and bear it. There are times when I think each of us finds ourselves more frustrated than normal, but it passes.

The only other frustration I've really had, which I've already discussed with Pat, is the fact that there are times when I feel that we aren't led enough by the nose to what we're supposed to do. This goes back to Pat's normal style of DMing which is more conversational and really works well in a tabletop setting when everyone is present. It's my preferred gamestyle, but I think there are times in this game when players need to be more dictated to rather than left in the sandbox.

Without the ability to constantly converse, it becomes easy to get caught up in your own (the player) concept of what's going on without another voice to pull you back to the group consciousness or your character.

Anyway, even with the frustrations, I like this game. I think it's interesting and I think a lot of the kinks are getting sorted out and that the fun-factor will start ratcheting up quickly.

[Dood]

And FYI, this is why I generally don't volunteer to beta test games anymore.

[Bulwark]

The only other frustration I've really had, which I've already discussed with Pat, is the fact that there are times when I feel that we aren't led enough by the nose to what we're supposed to do. This goes back to Pat's normal style of DMing which is more conversational and really works well in a tabletop setting when everyone is present. It's my preferred gamestyle, but I think there are times in this game when players need to be more dictated to rather than left in the sandbox.

When we arrived on Bryx I felt like we were all kinda wandering around without a clear path of what to do. (not unlike playing SWG )

[Dood]

The only other frustration I've really had, which I've already discussed with Pat, is the fact that there are times when I feel that we aren't led enough by the nose to what we're supposed to do. This goes back to Pat's normal style of DMing which is more conversational and really works well in a tabletop setting when everyone is present. It's my preferred gamestyle, but I think there are times in this game when players need to be more dictated to rather than left in the sandbox.

When we arrived on Bryx I felt like we were all kinda wandering around without a clear path of what to do. (not unlike playing SWG )

OOOH! Dood is totally going to be a moisture farmer!

[Whiteness]

Ok, in trying to get caught up and review some information I have to say the confusion on the flow of events is my biggest frustration.

The night of the puking, I thought Cusp and I were walking out of the theater when barf bros were causing their ruckus, then I get a call to go pick them up so I attempted to, but the next thing I know it's the next day and it turns into we called the station. I think we need to keep better track of where we each are timewise. Would it be reasonable to post the time we are acting in everyso often?

example: Like Furiel posts a time when he leaves to go running, and when he gets back he posts the time he's acting in at that point. For me, my last game post was going with Wailer, but Syric hasn't acted during all this talking and now seems to have few options, I'd like to post what I would have done but it seems 'wrong' in that it doesn't fit the flow among other things.

I liked how Pat was putting the time in, but then it's the same scenario where I plan to do something, sit down to post and it's 4pm and my planned action no longer makes sense.

We're all resonably intelligent people here, there must be something we can do to make this go more smoothly

[Whiteness]

I don't even know if I've slept in the last day