HOW'S MY DRIVING: MOCK WEEK 2 AND AN ANNOUNCEMENT

[strangerpeople]

HMD: MOCK WEEK 2



Hey everyone - it's time for another HMD!

We are amazed and humbled by how much everyone enjoyed this mock week, and we are so happy with how this Mock Week turned out, especially so close to Christmas! Of course, there is always room for improvement, and while we've certainly gotten a few ideas for how to improve for future rounds, we are always keen to hear from you, the players! You guys are what made this game what it is, and continue to do so, and your suggestions have always been nothing but incredible and helpful.

We thus encourage our players to let us know how we're doing and what we can do even better, and any players who'd like to ask for feedback on their performance can also post here for fellow players to see!

Now to the announcement: round 4-6 are going to be back-to-back! Starting on April 14, 2019, reserves for Round 4 will open, with the game proper opening April 21st! From there, we will be doing Rounds 5 in the summer of 2019 and 6 in the fall of 2019. All three rounds will be self-contained, but they will also be building towards an overarching meta plot that will find a few changes in how things happen in 15 Strangers. For example - characters who die will not be automatically revived after each round Instead, they will be sharing a graveyard throughout!


Everything will culminate in round 6, because it will be a...wait for it...



In the meantime, mock week 2 has ended, but players are encouraged to backtag as much as they wish! And with that, we will see you in April for Round 4 - where the end is the beginning, it is the beginning of the end, and most of all, new worlds await for 15 strangers...

Comments

[beguiledcard]

HI GUYS. I've already yelled my feelings about how amazing this mockround was, but let me do some more of that after I get the crit out of the way!

For starters, I am very glad you guys are open to discussing the implementation of a trial time limit. Like I said in the server, I do prefer not sitting there and wishing for trial to "just end already" and to have energy for all the fun that comes after final trial! This was only a week, but I felt exhausted from that - namely because I'd poured everything into getting all I could out of such an amazing mockround.

Lastly, being careful with evidence is something I believe is vital. While it all worked out in the end, everyone getting such a strong hint that Ren was culprit in a case he could have possibly gotten away with - via evidence that was incorrect (dog bite where it was supposed to be snake bite) - was... disappointing, in its own ways.

You guys always do a great job of improving where there's room for it, so I am excited to see where things go from here!!! I had a lot of fun being part of a special case, so thank you for giving the opportunity!

In any case, the plot was fantastically done here. It was beautifully done even being held within such a short time span, and everything was packed in in such a way that it felt like we got a full round out of this. The bad guy was enjoyably awful and someone I loved to hate - someone please shove him into a pit with Marie, holy shit. And some things done here proved, yet again, that you guys are skilled in improv.

TL;DR I'm stoked for future rounds??? I had told people I would take a fucking break from murdergames, and yet you jerks have pulled me right back in.

It's unfair. :T

Don't Stop being fun. :T!!!

[backuphero]

A second session, just as wild as the first in so much less time... you guys are good at this. This was my first time getting to participate in a trial that ended in a riot, it was fun! Good storytellers can think on their feet, and this seemed like it required a lot of that - I was honestly positively reminded of my first time at my favorite LARP by how well you guys did interacting with every poke and prod we gave the setting. I'm looking forward to seeing where the metaplot goes.

Gonna second the trial time limit suggestion - this one really did take far more time than I expected. We got it figured out in the end, but... it really felt like things were going to end in a stalemate simply because there was no deadline, for a while. I am not suggesting that hints be given or something, god no, but it did feel like having the pressure on might have lead to a swifter conclusion.

I don't know how many of my fellow players will read this, but I feel like I owe you guys an apology. Anyone who's played Portrait of Ruin probably noticed Jonathan was not himself for most of the week, in a way character development and motion sickness with accompanying brainfog couldn't excuse - I tried to make it clear that he was pretty deeply traumatized by "offscreen"/PSL events, but I don't know how well that actually came across. Input is welcome on how better to do that.

[mermaidkin]

It's been a month. Obligatory reminder that I like to make radical suggestions to inspire people and you shouldn't judge yourselves by how much you cater to my whims.

For some reason we all really enjoyed the premise being stuck on a plane with a bunch of snakes. In that regard, all the actual clues themselves were pretty good. RIP MaryKate. However, if you use the investigation point system again, I would recommend having some kind of centralized resource where the players can see what investigation points are done and which are still available. This could even be an IC resource like XAMINE/LIME. That would reduce the need to have meetings. I don't exactly regret anything myself or other players did but the sheer emergency factor of the plane combined with the difficulty proliferating information meant that a LARGE percentage of playtime went into meetings instead of actual mingle threads.

There were technically quite a few NPCs if you count like Link's phone call but for most intents and purposes there were only two, Eddie and Rachel. They were good. Inbox was pretty hilarious. Rachel having no icon worked for the current purposes. I will admit that I can imagine how if this were a full-length round maybe a number higher than two could have gotten an even better outcome. I'm eating my less is more words. IC rules were a little vague but it was a short game so that didn't really hurt much. Motive announcement was great.

In terms of specific setting page writeups and, I liked the really high number of photographs. There were a couple pretty different places, the duty free, the lounges, it gave us plenty to work with. A full round would have needed more variety that would have stretched plausibility for an airplane, but this was always planned as a single week anyway. I like how the characters were always acutely aware that they were on a plane (or a train) it's just really iconic, kind of like 999 where the characters are always acutely aware of being on the titanic.

I don't really know why titles weren't directly printed on profiles, the characters didn't know them by default; but it was nice to not have two separate profile pages. And also have the powers be discovered by the characters. Public title secret power is my preference, I had quite a fun time writing Hiyori revealing dramatically that he can see the future. Powers were fine, they felt pretty, well, powerful! Like the characters really held the keys if they wanted!

When it comes to minigames, let's first address the lack of "regular minigame" in this round in terms of some task all/most characters should participate in. And that was for the best. I think we saw in R2 and R3 that if there's some other event (Helena's death), a regular minigame won't have room to breathe, but otherwise a regular minigame is good. Not everyone will participate in it but the people who do will have fun, it can be a good way to scrape together AC... anyway, if R4 doesn't have regular minigames that would probably be okay too.

So now for the not so regular minigame I LOVE THIS???? SO MUCH DRAMA AND TENSION? CHARACTERS GENUINELY REWARDED FOR SELFISHNESS???????? BUT SOCIALLY PENALIZED? AND HAVING TO DECIDE HOW TO COPE WITH THAT? LIKE IN REAL LIFE? A+ WOULD PLAY OUT AGAIN??

The single biggest improvement 15S could make would be a trial time limit. Aware of the problems with riots in R2, during R3 the mod team prohibited execution prevention riots... only for MW2 to end with a riot. So if riots are here to stay, I would like to propose a trial time limit as well as a second trial time limit for post trial events. For example, votes are counted at 6PM EST, and then once it's midnight EST, nobody can post an afterparty taking place the same day either, they're now forced to say it didn't come together until Sunday. This way, no trial will ever be too long, and players will know when they need to show up to participate in riots afterparties and other post-trial events.

A shorter trial also serves the game because we have a small ensemble size, posting a smaller total number of comments on the trial. With a long/nonexistent time limit and a small number of character, there's time for dead space to form between new top-level comments on the trial. I think we can see, now that like a dozen murder cases have been solved over the course of 15S, it will be literally impossible to ever have a scapegoating without a time limit, eight hours at the very most. I want to see hopes clash and sparks fly! The case work in this trial was really good and so were the IC deduction attempts! Super good work guys!

Speaking of post trial events, the Discord combat system was a major shock to me. The "new RNG mechanic" described in the information post was the injury system. There was literally no advance notification that large swathes of game canon combat scenes would be written on Discord. Furthermore, players have no guidelines for translating rolls into outcomes. In fact, the mod rolls also had a lack of guidelines, given that Ni rolled for the plane steering outcome SIX TIMES. I completely agree with Ni that successfully steering the plane was the only satisfying possibility at that point, but why not just state "they eventually successfully steer the plane" from the beginning in freeform tags?

If players independently decide to use RNG as inspiration for their own tags, I'll be glad to let them do that. From my perspective though, the recommendation to use RNG didn't add anything. I knew that RNG was being used somehow, like that we needed to roll for resistance to some attacks, so I was limited in my ability to go forward with freeform writing, but there wasn't actually a structure to use instead. The fight itself was really colorful and fun though so maybe I'm just too much of a stickler for structure.

In general scheduling took a ginormous step backwards this round. There were three major incidents. Riot I covered above. Then, the bodies discovered in coach. It really would have been way better to just say "here's the new post, investigations start tomorrow". But I strongly disagree with the decision to go as far as "there's some kind of dead body" and then not identify it until later. That's just torture. Anyway, there was also the minigame results announcement. This left people with lots of problems. Also it was pretty late that it was announced the game wouldn't have a 1:1 OOC:IC day ratio.

Overall matters of the past and future, I think now that 15S had several successful self-contained rounds that attracted a committed playerbase it's definitely the right decision to go for a linked round structure. The decision to not have a direct graveyard in this short round was good because it made me feel way more like permadeath had actually happened and then reality got rewritten. I do think it'll be important going forward to standardize character statuses. Can you app characters who were in past rounds? Played by someone else? What about characters that had established presence as hostages? Just be careful.

In closing, you did let players dictate the tone of the game and that's the very most important part. Also despite several extremely passionate IC disagreements there were no times when it was like the mods failed to intervene in a fight between players. The other mods would constantly say there were things only Ni understood but this didn't seem to cause major problems so you do you? Love you guys.