The Fifteen Strangers Mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
strangerpeople) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
notasstrange2019-08-21 01:35 pm
strangerpeople) wrote in notasstrange2019-08-21 01:35 pm
HOW'S MY DRIVING
It's time for the HMD! After all, a reckoning cannot be postponed indefinitely as they say-and that includes what you you guys have to say about our performance this round! After all, it's you guys who make this game what it is, and you absolutely made this round amazing. Seriously, this round was great, and we can only hope that we can keep improving your experience, so that the next round will be even better than this one!
Also, backtagging will continue for as long as you guys would like us to do it-and of course, the graveyard will continue in between rounds! Keep in mind, however, that in about a week, there will be an update for the graveyard-one that, like with the ending for the living's side, will lead into R6. So, stay tuned for that!
And-with that, we will see you in October of 2019 for R6-and the conclusion of this arc of 15 Strangers!
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I think the biggest hiccup I noticed was that we had a few slowdown issues when Ni needed to be out, but y'all already noticed and aim to fix that one, so I think we're good.
Love you all, and looking forward to spectating R6!
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I'm looking forward to more graveyard shenanigans and to watching R6 unfold!
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Overall, I really did enjoy this round. I want to make that really really clear, because I do have some significant criticism. Nothing like the backchannel discussions of the madness mechanic in the last round, but still significant. I’ll get to what I enjoyed most before all that, though.
Sunless Skies/Fallen London really isn’t my cup of tea, but you guys made it a fun hell world to stomp around in. Lilac was a delightfully awful warden-type (though MARIE still has my heart), even learning her backstory didn’t make her any less awful, and I deeply appreciate that. Much as it would’ve been a thrill IC to finally get to fight her, I actually like that we didn’t, because it fit with the theme of a world where there is no such thing as victory.
Which, by the way, is one thing I didn’t expect to actually enjoy so much as I did. There’s definitely been a tonal shift from the first three rounds in the second half so far - what I’ve read of R1 and R2, despite everything, seems to be overall more optimistic. R1-3 (and 3.5/Mock Week 2) were settings where it was possible to go home again, to triumph even against death, and the switch to the non-revival of the dead coupled with much more overt horror settings is something I’ve enjoyed. (Mostly - but there was backchannel discussion about the mechanic that is no more, so I won’t drag that out again.) A setting where heroics are simply acts done in a vacuum with no real effect, where banal evil is background radiation, where consequences stick... well, in the end we didn’t quite get that, but for the majority of the game it felt like it.
The effects such a setting has on the characters forced into it are very different from one where it seems that evil can be defeated, and it’s been interesting to see how that’s shaken out. As mine go: Eric falling apart as he did in R4 was something I’d kind of expected, but I hadn’t remotely expected Charlotte to break the way she did. Still, when you take someone who expects the world to make sense and map to the books she’s spent her life reading, and put her in a setting where it would seem to her that the one consistent law of reality is that good always fails before evil, I don’t think there’s really any other outcome. 20/20 hindsight, I guess; I did enjoy writing it, and I mean that, even as much as almost every attempt at steering her away from “this world needs to end” was met by something that reinforced that notion instead! (And, in the end, she was less “persuaded to relent” than “exhausted to the point of giving up and going with what the group and the boy she liked wanted”… I’m not sure how clear I made that, but that’s on me.)
I had fun this time. I just want that to be clear, because from here on in I fear I may seem like I really didn’t.
Though I know you guys were probably left with only notes and not a lot of knowledge about how the crossover was meant to work: the Mystic Messenger elements left me cold. Their inclusion did make the plot work, but it just seemed jarring - it was apparent that this was definitely not Canon Sunless Skies even before the Madoka elements were revealed, but those felt more woven in rather than hastily appliqued. Having Evil Space Vicky replaced was necessary for the plot, having a wish made was necessary for the plot, but… it wasn’t clear how the visions certain characters had tied to the MysMe cast, even though it became clear out of game in chat that several of them were linked. Their inclusion seemed like a type of fanservice more than something plot-essential, even as interacting with them was necessary for the Final Investigation and Rika was literally responsible for the Sun. Who said fanservice was for didn’t seem clear at all, too, though that’s beside the point.
That crossover led to the ending we got, which I know wouldn’t be so tidy (nor would the time problem be so emphasized) if it were actually the good ending it appears to be on the surface. Don’t spoil me if I’m right or wrong, I appreciate creeping fridge horror. I was almost certain, however, that we were headed for an ending only “Good” insofar as no one else died immediately… and while I might be alone in this, I think that would have suited the setting much better. A tidy Good End where going home is possible doesn’t suit a world where victory doesn’t exist. I understand wanting to dial things back for the sake of your playerbase, but if that ending actually is what it looks like on the surface, it feels like a complete cop-out to me. You’ve raised the stakes by removing revivals and implying the multiverse is collapsing in on itself, commit to those higher stakes! I know I’m probably the only one who’d like to see IC actions have lasting IC consequences when those consequences might be terrible indeed, but I am that person.
Though, speaking of consequences... that’s another thing that bothered me. I can’t really say I’m for IC actions having lasting consequences when they’re taken in the absence of OOC knowledge that would have let anyone reasonable fiddle with characterization to avoid a TPK, and there was one incident in particular where a lack of OOC clarity had myself and Letty convinced we may have fucked the entire game over. Yes, I’m speaking of the escape business. If you’re wondering if people here for writing collaboratively will assume simply tagging in under a toplevel that mentions “everyone has to be written as escaping or there’s a nonstandard game over” (paraphrased, but I’ve been picking at this for days and I’m lazy now) counts as “written escaping”... please don’t assume anything. I’m not even sure anyone else caught on that we weren’t expected to play things out until much later when it was said outright.
The “Deep Cut” mechanic remaining unlockable via backtagging after the week where a given event was accessible ended and the party moved on to the next station was something that was not at all clear to me. I like the concept, but that could have been explained more clearly, and the degree of story involvement was also unclear. It’s quite possible the third trial would have gone down almost as it did without the Betrayal business all happening, and truly I could have done without having a nonstandard game over button handed to me, but that entire event did not seem like something with no bearing on the overall storyline even as we played it out.
Resolving lingering plot threads via backtagging is also something I’m not entirely enthused about. While the Final Trial and aftermath did drag on, it didn’t appear that player engagement was flagging. The very abrupt epilogue drop was not intended to feel like a gate slamming down, I know, but… it came across that way anyway. The entire ending, Final Investigation through escape from Perdurance through Final Trial, felt like it could have been spaced out over the course of an additional week. There was a lot of plot revealed all at once, and I don’t think there was any way the Final Trial could have only taken one day given the sheer density of it all.
The other issues I had with this round are unfortunately all solvable by one thing, and it’s something I definitely understand might be hard to do.
Ni, you’ve got to learn to delegate. You’re a blast to write with, and obviously extremely dedicated to running a game everyone can have a good time in, and that’s why I’m saying this. I do not want you to exhaust yourself for the sake of letting us all have a good time. I understand that you want to personally ensure that the game runs as well as possible, but you have a team, you can rely on them.
If there’s a four-person modteam, one person among the four should not be the only one able to run the majority of NPC interactions for the living characters. The time commitment needed for one person to do that is staggering, and it leads to situations where offline events leave the primary NPCs unavailable. I understand that consistency in diction and reactions is sometimes hard to pull off with handing an NPC between people, but there’s no reason why you should have to carry all of that by yourself. Detailed notes on (or maybe something on the level of an app for) NPCs might help distribute the load.
Detailed notes on items and setting would also probably help. I’m not suggesting even something so fancy as a searchable spreadsheet, just a list one can CTRL+F would allow other mods to explain plot and setting details that had to be set aside until you were available to ask. To be fair, this didn’t seem to happen during time-restricted events, but if there are items that tie in to the setting available for trade, why isn’t there a list of what the items are somewhere on the table behind the metaphorical DM screen? Getting "Ni's the one who knows what that is, but she's not here and the rest of us don't" as an answer about items or setting details was frustrating.
We're heading into the metaplot capstone round next, and I want you and the others running the game to have a good time with that, too.