HOW'S MY DRIVING

[strangerpeople]

HMD




Hey there, everyone! It's time for an HMD! The last HMD of 15 Strangers...current overarching story arc. And man has it been a ride. And it's a ride we've been proud to go on alongside you guys as R6 ended with a Golden End!

We've said it before and we will keep saying it, but what makes this game as successful as it is, is you, the players. You guys are our lifeblood, our literal and metaphorical heart. You guys are what help to drive the story, the characters, and ultimately the future of the game. And, we always try and implement what you guys suggest when HMD comes up after every round, though it's not always fully successful or consistently implemented (Hey there, links to weekday menus! Where'd you go after Round 3? Did someone forget you? :/ ). But your critiques and suggestions are always welcome, and the end of this round is no different. Even if this is the end of Camazotz's reign of Tabooty terror, it's not the end of the game.

Looking back, we can say there's been good, there's been bad, and there's been Round 4. And one other thing we as the mods all agreed upon as Rounds 6 came to pass was our own little critique of ourselves. Namely, that the mod team definitely needs to take a break. 15 Strangers has been a labor of love for a little over three years, and it's been one that everyone has been working hard to try and make as excellent as possible, no matter if a mod joined the team in R1 or R5, no matter what's been thrown our way.

So does this mean this is the last round of 15 Strangers in the end? No. (In the end? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.) In fact, we're planning on continuing the game, and R7's story was decided some time ago. In fact, this particular round has been in the works for...well, some time actually. And you're probably all going to scream once you see it, when it is finally announced.

The overarching plot will also still be present, with callbacks here and there-after all, as as a certain brain said, the Meme is ever-present and cannot be contained. But future rounds won't be as Extra-Strength Plot Concentrate as it has been and will be more self-contained. At least, that is the hope!

In the meantime, though, we're taking a murdergame mod vacation. We'll still be here, as will backtagging, the 15 Strangers Round AU meme that we will be putting up in the near future, and probably a tiny bit of incessant R7 teasing over the coming months. Possibly even a Mock Week 4, hmm? But this spring and summer at the very least, we're going to take a rest and come back recharged and ready to go.

And with that...thank you. Thank you so much, all of you, and we'll see you again some time in autumn, 2020!

Comments

[silvertongueheir]

So, I think one of the big issues here was definitely lack of informing people in advance of potential big events. Both the temporary deadland visit and the deadland final boss fight basically came as a surprise because they weren't telegraphed in advance. I know the deadland visit was given a before-the-fact announcement when a meeting on that day was also mentioned, but that ended up happening when some of the players were already asleep and would likely miss it.

[illusionarymelody]

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.