I do want to say that overall this round was pretty fun, but there were some very clear problems with communication to players and things being handled in a timely manner. While I get that Ni and Kay had stuff going on, it was pretty clear this round that there is a very serious issue with communication between mods and players.
Gray already stated one big issue that came up, announcing important events during the week. The deadland visit especially should have had a placeholder comment so players knew that something was going to happen that was going to take their attention for a good chunk of the day. We didn't find out about that until the day of and only because a player was trying to plan something that day. We also didn't find out about it from the mods, but from Lenga. On top of that, we were told that it wasn't important enough for a placeholder, yet that visit event took nearly the whole day OOCly to tag even if ICly it was only 10 minutes.
Another issue of miscommunication happened in the first case. It really wasn't very clearly communicated that Nanaki could have been alive and walked to house 14 himself. The evidence made it look far more like a third person who was still alive had to have dragged him there, which led to characters then accusing the living suspects. This could have easily been cleared up with Arthur getting the vision for Nanaki's death, but we didn't get that. Now I get that Kay was busy that weekend, what confuses me is why this wasn't prepped in advance to ensure we'd get all the evidence or why there wasn't other evidence that indicated Nanaki's death wasn't instant because characters definitely got that impression.
The deadlands event with Snachel that led to her demise was also another issue, though I get that deadlands events are more chill and not mandatory for characters to attend. However, the event itself was very difficult to come up with reasons for characters to not be there because of the way the announcement was made ICly. I think that could have used some more clear communication as well or at least an easier way to justify absences for characters who would have come, but players weren't awake yet or were busy with RL stuff.
Now one other thing I do want to bring up: the distrust mechanic. First off, it was very frustrating that the FAQ gave the impression that characters would distrust everyone because they would be given an impression someone was working with the mastermind. Then when the round started, oh it turned out it wasn't going to be like that, we were just going to distrust the other characters just because. I have two serious issues with how this went down. First is that we were very much mislead in how this was even going to work. The second was that we know this mechanic was put into place to prevent people from splintering into groups based off their rounds and instead it ensured that characters would do exactly that. This was definitely a very poorly done way of attempting to resolve a problem that may not have even been a problem to begin with and I still feel could have been resolved in a far better way.
However, I doubt that is going to be something that will affect future rounds. My main concern is that the mods do a better job in the future of communicating to players and also for having means of making sure things run smoothly. Lee mentioned on last round's HMD that Ni really needs to delegate better, and it was clear this round that is still an issue. We get that the mods can't help some of the stuff that happened this round, but you guys can do a better job in making sure every member of the mod team is capable of handling stuff. Outside of playing NPCs, there shouldn't be just one mod capable of handling most tasks. I'm sure Kay and Ren do plenty, but to us players it really looks like Ni is handling most everything because a lot of things really came to a halt in weeks 3 and 4 when Ni got sick. I don't fault the mods for the fact that stuff happened, the issue here is more that there weren't measures in place to ensure that someone else could handle stuff too.
no subject
Gray already stated one big issue that came up, announcing important events during the week. The deadland visit especially should have had a placeholder comment so players knew that something was going to happen that was going to take their attention for a good chunk of the day. We didn't find out about that until the day of and only because a player was trying to plan something that day. We also didn't find out about it from the mods, but from Lenga. On top of that, we were told that it wasn't important enough for a placeholder, yet that visit event took nearly the whole day OOCly to tag even if ICly it was only 10 minutes.
Another issue of miscommunication happened in the first case. It really wasn't very clearly communicated that Nanaki could have been alive and walked to house 14 himself. The evidence made it look far more like a third person who was still alive had to have dragged him there, which led to characters then accusing the living suspects. This could have easily been cleared up with Arthur getting the vision for Nanaki's death, but we didn't get that. Now I get that Kay was busy that weekend, what confuses me is why this wasn't prepped in advance to ensure we'd get all the evidence or why there wasn't other evidence that indicated Nanaki's death wasn't instant because characters definitely got that impression.
The deadlands event with Snachel that led to her demise was also another issue, though I get that deadlands events are more chill and not mandatory for characters to attend. However, the event itself was very difficult to come up with reasons for characters to not be there because of the way the announcement was made ICly. I think that could have used some more clear communication as well or at least an easier way to justify absences for characters who would have come, but players weren't awake yet or were busy with RL stuff.
Now one other thing I do want to bring up: the distrust mechanic. First off, it was very frustrating that the FAQ gave the impression that characters would distrust everyone because they would be given an impression someone was working with the mastermind. Then when the round started, oh it turned out it wasn't going to be like that, we were just going to distrust the other characters just because. I have two serious issues with how this went down. First is that we were very much mislead in how this was even going to work. The second was that we know this mechanic was put into place to prevent people from splintering into groups based off their rounds and instead it ensured that characters would do exactly that. This was definitely a very poorly done way of attempting to resolve a problem that may not have even been a problem to begin with and I still feel could have been resolved in a far better way.
However, I doubt that is going to be something that will affect future rounds. My main concern is that the mods do a better job in the future of communicating to players and also for having means of making sure things run smoothly. Lee mentioned on last round's HMD that Ni really needs to delegate better, and it was clear this round that is still an issue. We get that the mods can't help some of the stuff that happened this round, but you guys can do a better job in making sure every member of the mod team is capable of handling stuff. Outside of playing NPCs, there shouldn't be just one mod capable of handling most tasks. I'm sure Kay and Ren do plenty, but to us players it really looks like Ni is handling most everything because a lot of things really came to a halt in weeks 3 and 4 when Ni got sick. I don't fault the mods for the fact that stuff happened, the issue here is more that there weren't measures in place to ensure that someone else could handle stuff too.