Heroica RPG - Quest Masters' Lounge

[Purpearljellyblob]

Oh, of course, I was only describing how I would handle it, using past scenarios in 53 and 136 as an example; I didn't mean to imply I was speaking for anyone else.

I personally don't read Mhinak as a traitor of any sort, to be fair, he is the only one who has made the conscious decison to speak to the Guardians.

[Flipz]

I personally don't read Mhinak as a traitor of any sort, to be fair, he is the only one who has made the conscious decison to speak to the Guardians.

Didn't Mhinak try to sell the party out to Latte, only to get attacked instead? Maybe I'm misremembering things. The point of "make sure they want you" still stands, though, I think--I'm pretty sure I remember Latte saying he didn't want anything to do with Mhinak.

[Lind Whisperer]

Thinking it over, I'm seriously doubting that this is the end of the #135 party. I'm guessing the party will be KO'd, and then have to fight their way out of some sort of prison.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Lind Whisperer

[Endgame]

Thinking it over, I'm seriously doubting that this is the end of the #135 party. I'm guessing the party will be KO'd, and then have to fight their way out of some sort of prison.

Even though that is best case scenario, I'd still be a bit miffed (though from the way Sandy's phrasing things, I think he intended this point to passable) - why the bait and switch? If Sandy wanted the party in a cage, it would've been a cutscene/wouldn't waste some of Pretzel's best consumables/give the party the illusion of a chance.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Endgame

[Lind Whisperer]

Even though that is best case scenario, I'd still be a bit miffed (though from the way Sandy's phrasing things, I think he intended this point to passable) - why the bait and switch? If Sandy wanted the party in a cage, it would've been a cutscene.

Maybe so it'd be a bigger surprise?

Thinking about it, I thought of something else. Everyone's been pretty confident that they could just go there and tromp the witch. No one expected any major major twists - from a monster that can control minds.

Maybe it was meant/added in to shake the story-line up a bit, and remind the heroes they aren't fully omnipotent?

Edited September 5, 2015 by Lind Whisperer

[Endgame]

Maybe so it'd be a bigger surprise?

Thinking about it, I thought of something else. Everyone's been pretty confident that they could just go there and tromp the witch. No one expected any major major twists - from a monster that can control minds.

Maybe it was meant/added in to shake the story-line up a bit, and remind the heroes they aren't fully omnipotent?

If this is playable helplessness, I still don't really agree with it. Works better in video games, because there is checkpoints and such. TPKO has very big finality in this game, so any realistic looking threat of it is bound to understandably vex and frustrate players.

You can do it if it's very clear that the enemy is simply unbeatable, but Farfarello started as a winnable battle, and Sandy has made a point of clarifying rules about sleep and battle order/allowing the battle to continue. Of course, we'll know down the line, but in this situation, I think the 135ers that have expressed dismay are fully justified in what they're saying. That, and mid-battle changes have happened in previous quests without and sort of reprieve attached. (Though I agreed to stop beating that dead horse, so I'll stop. )

There's ways to knock the heroes down a peg without upsetting the players themselves.

Edited September 5, 2015 by Endgame

[StickFig]

No one expected any major major twists - from a monster that can control minds.

Baba's just a really, really big rat/bat boss, right?

[Sandy]

I understand the shock and awe about #135, but I don't really appreciate people making assumptions of me trying to control the game to my own liking like some maniacal tyrant.

The thing is, I want to challenge this game format and the players from time to time by trying something new. By incorporating a secret traitor into a quest I wanted to test how PvP worked without direct conflict (which usually means a quick end to a quest). I've played Mafia and a couple of "secret agenda" boardgames a lot, so the paranoia caused by a traitor is an intriguing phenomenon.

In hindsight, I should have dropped more hints about the nature of the quest, and not be so vague about it, mainly trying to use the Baba interludes to tip off the players about the situation. The delays in the quest are partially to blame that it must've been hard to connect the dots.

But you also have to understand that if I had been frank about there being a traitor from the start, it would have put Palathadric in an extremely unfair situation by having to play a whole new role in this game with all the other players constantly watching everyone's words and actions. It was hard enough for him as it was. And yes, Palathadric agreed to being the traitor when I approached him about it privately, and he has been engaged in a quest-long "side quest" of his own.

Sure, there must be a lot of things I could have done better with this quest and this new mechanic, but I wanted to try. And some people interpreting me wanting to try new things as me being a power-hungry egotist is simply insulting.

[Flipz]

I understand the shock and awe about #135, but I don't really appreciate people making assumptions of me trying to control the game to my own liking like some maniacal tyrant.

The thing is, I want to challenge this game format and the players from time to time by trying something new. By incorporating a secret traitor into a quest I wanted to test how PvP worked without direct conflict (which usually means a quick end to a quest). I've played Mafia and a couple of "secret agenda" boardgames a lot, so the paranoia caused by a traitor is an intriguing phenomenon.

In hindsight, I should have dropped more hints about the nature of the quest, and not be so vague about it, mainly trying to use the Baba interludes to tip off the players about the situation. The delays in the quest are partially to blame that it must've been hard to connect the dots.

But you also have to understand that if I had been frank about there being a traitor from the start, it would have put Palathadric in an extremely unfair situation by having to play a whole new role in this game with all the other players constantly watching everyone's words and actions. It was hard enough for him as it was. And yes, Palathadric agreed to being the traitor when I approached him about it privately, and he has been engaged in a quest-long "side quest" of his own.

Sure, there must be a lot of things I could have done better with this quest and this new mechanic, but I wanted to try. And some people interpreting me wanting to try new things as me being a power-hungry egotist is simply insulting.

Yeah, this is why I brought up 118, actually. In hindsight, how much cooler and more fun would it have been for you if I'd told the four of you (and only the four of you!) about the switch, and then had the real Heroes in a PM side-Quest the whole time? Sure, it would have robbed the four of you of the surprise of the twist, but not only would the audience have still been surprised, but you as players would have had a ton of opportunity to drop hints and create foreshadowing to make the moment of revelation even more powerful. I had three very experienced QMs on that Quest, and I really wish I'd taken the opportunity to lean on your roleplaying and storytelling skills more; by collaborating with you rather than just stringing you along, it would have crafted a more engaging experience for you four as well as a more entertaining narrative for everyone else. All of you are great at player-character separation (even better than me, I must admit ), so in hindsight I realized you could have more than handled the duality of playing characters that needed to not know something you as players already knew.

[Sandy]

Yeah, this is why I brought up 118, actually. In hindsight, how much cooler and more fun would it have been for you if I'd told the four of you (and only the four of you!) about the switch, and then had the real Heroes in a PM side-Quest the whole time? Sure, it would have robbed the four of you of the surprise of the twist, but not only would the audience have still been surprised, but you as players would have had a ton of opportunity to drop hints and create foreshadowing to make the moment of revelation even more powerful. I had three very experienced QMs on that Quest, and I really wish I'd taken the opportunity to lean on your roleplaying and storytelling skills more; by collaborating with you rather than just stringing you along, it would have crafted a more engaging experience for you four as well as a more entertaining narrative for everyone else. All of you are great at player-character separation (even better than me, I must admit ), so in hindsight I realized you could have more than handled the duality of playing characters that needed to not know something you as players already knew.

That is actually an excellent point. I, too, should have trusted players' capability to keep player knowledge separate from character knowledge, and it would have probably caused a lot less irritation among the players.

[Duvors]

You know Sandy, I think your problem is that, as the creator of the game, you don't need to run your ideas past anybody, whereas everyone else has to run their ideas past you. This means that you have nobody to offer any criticism on your quests. There's nothing with your storywriting, that's top notch stuff, but the statistics tend to have balancing problems.

[CMP]

You know Sandy, I think your problem is that, as the creator of the game, you don't need to run your ideas past anybody, whereas everyone else has to run their ideas past you. This means that you have nobody to offer any criticism on your quests. There's nothing with your storywriting, that's top notch stuff, but the statistics tend to have balancing problems.

What in the world are you talking about? Most QMs I know don't run battle statistics by Sandy.

[Endgame]

Sandy has said that the mathematical part of battle balancing isn't his strong suit, and that's understandable. It's frustrating when things are acidentally made unbeatable (Happened once, arguably twice in 93, quest 50 failed as a result of it, 135 is about to fail as a result of it?) but in no way do I think it's done maliciously. Sandy is just trying to create a varied, difficult experience. Sometimes it doesn't work (Cacophonia, Farfarello) and frustrates the players, but Sandy's eforts towards creating an interesting experience should be appreciated.

I sill disagree vehemently with what is going on in 135, but time will tell.

[Duvors]

What in the world are you talking about? Most QMs I know don't run battle statistics by Sandy.

Really? Then the first post needs some alteration because it says that a quest pitch to him should also include some examples of enemy statistics, if this isn't for the purpose of checking for balancing problems then why is it there?

[Lind Whisperer]

Really? Then the first post needs some alteration because it says that a quest pitch to him should also include some examples of enemy statistics, if this isn't for the purpose of checking for balancing problems then why is it there?

That's for beginning QMs, so you don't end up having a Lvl. 1 Barbarian+Knight+3 Rogues party facing a level 50 Eldest Dragon *Absorbs All Elements* *Immune to all Negative Effects.

[Flipz]

Really? Then the first post needs some alteration because it says that a quest pitch to him should also include some examples of enemy statistics, if this isn't for the purpose of checking for balancing problems then why is it there?

That usually only refers to first-time QMs, so that Sandy can tell whether or not you understand how creating enemies works; Sandy doesn't police individual battle balancing that tightly unless there's people complaining about it.

[Duvors]

That usually only refers to first-time QMs, so that Sandy can tell whether or not you understand how creating enemies works; Sandy doesn't police individual battle balancing that tightly unless there's people complaining about it.

Okay, thanks for clarifying that.

[Sandy]

Farfarello isn't unbeatable, the party just had bad rolls. That's just a natural part of all roleplaying games: you can get screwed by bad luck.

The party in #135 is so powerful that they swept through the first three battles - all of them designed to be hard. The whole quest was designed with the high risk - high reward concept. The party just ran out of luck at the worst possible moment, and Palathadric took advantage of it.

[swils]

The party just ran out of luck at the worst possible moment, and Palathadric took advantage of it.

I feel like I can comment on this without the quest being wrapped up:

I strongly disagree with the notion that we had bad rolls in that fight. Granted, we still had to take down a near-full-health Farfarello, but we weren't in a bad spot. Quite the contrary: we were setting up for the possibility that Nerwyn could knock it out with a single roll. Palathadric's bolded action was to repeat his attack, not drop two giant, tide-turning items on us. We were completely blindsided by that, and, without commenting too much on the rest of the quest yet, I feel that we had absolutely zero way to prepare for that/anticpate it. That's not unfortunate rolls. That is, admittedly, a clever move by Palathadric, requesting that he get to act before Namyrra, but I don't think that it was fair to hide his actions from us. He declared that he was repeating his attack (which, without any target specified, should have been against Farfarello or, if you want to say that because he switched sides at that point, it should be against the first person listed in our battle order (because he didn't specify another target), so Thormy should have eaten those attacks.

Again without getting into the quest as a whole, I think it was really unfair to us for that round to play out as it did. Without any indication that it could/would, it went against the standard battle mechanics of "declare your actions, in bold, in the thread". Now, I think it would have been perfectly reasonable if he had flipped sides at the start of the round, putting us in a bind, perhaps (It's hard to say whether or not that would have actually hurt us, we are admittedly a very strong party). But when the rug is pulled out from under our feet in a single round where we thought all actions had been submitted, that's just not fair to me.

TL;DR I respectfully disagree that we lost this battle because of any bad rolls/running out of luck.

[Flipz]

Farfarello isn't unbeatable,

I think when people are saying "unbeatable", they're referring to the round as presented (that is, Namyrra is asleep and everyone else is either KO'd or controlled)--mathematically speaking, it's currently impossible for Namyrra to win.

EDIT: To give specific odds, Namyrra has a 25/1944 (just over 1/77) chance of achieving the necessary rolls to survive to the next Round and escape, and I don't think that accounts for the fact that those rolls need to occur in a specific order, either. Honestly, the limbo of knowing the odds are insurmountable but still having to wait for them to play out is probably more painful than the actual loss.

Swils also brings up a fair point, that definitely deserves consideration, but I won't comment further either way just yet.

The whole quest was designed with the high risk - high reward concept.

Err, not to be overly harsh, but--high reward? Sorry, I'm just not seeing it, especially given the price several players have had to pay in the process.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Flipz

[Sandy]

Err, not to be overly harsh, but--high reward? Sorry, I'm just not seeing it, especially given the price several players have had to pay in the process.

That's what you get for criticizing an unfinished quest. Sheesh...

[Duvors]

Unfinished? Does that mean that the quest was incomplete when you started it? Shame on you!

[Endgame]

That's what you get for criticizing an unfinished quest. Sheesh...

I recognize that you have put a lot of work into the back-end of the quest and the rewards, but considering the party is about to be wiped, what's already there is all we can judge it on.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Endgame

[CMP]

I recognize that you have put a lot of work into the back-end of the quest and the rewards, but considering the party is about to be wiped, that's all we can judge it on.

I think he meant that as in wait until the quest is over before making any judgments about it.

[Endgame]

I think he meant that as in wait until the quest is over before making any judgments about it.

Good point. I've kept saying that I will, and I have been failing many times, and for thst I apologize.

Edited September 8, 2015 by Endgame