Ok this is gonna be rather brief and to the point because its coming up to 3am here but here goes:
First of all, I really appreciated what you were trying to go for with this game. I was really excited for it, and I like that you guys are trying to break the norms of murdergames and change things up a little. However, I kind of left this round feeling disappointed.
I won't touch on the mafia dynamics, as it seems you guys are already well aware of it, but first and foremost: the pacing didn't work very well at all. Reveals happened all too soon, most notably with the revival of the dead which removed pretty much all stakes and tension for the characters and death became kind of...meaningless. Except for the situations of double dying which, for the two main NPCS, that was apparently a bad end criteria but it seemed really unclear where the opportunity for that was really going to happen. Things happened too much too fast, I think the distribution of information ICly went too quickly (and it felt like characters were just told things, rather than figuring them out for themselves which didn't feel very engaging), and attributing it to "the players going too hard" suggested you guys lost the reins of the story a little bit more than anything else.
Again, timing wise, having certain situations having an IC=OOC balance didn't really work out because...not everyone's really available that whole time, or people have to get up and do things, or take time to consider and write their responses. I understand having restrictions but the 20 minute machine gun voting is just something I would not suggest repeating again (and definitely definitely please give your players a greater heads up than "be at the trial"!), and to a lesser extent, the time limits on the Tiger event.
I think the resortghosts account was a neat concept in theory, but in the end it just was...kind of a mess. People saw tags they didn't want to see, it was just kind of a hassle to log in - log out, and lose track of tags and not know who you're threading with. I understand wanting the mystery, but I'm uncomfortable concept of not having an idea of who it is I'm interacting with, personally.
I'll echo above sentiments about the role of the NPC's conflict in the plot because really, it's been said about as best as it can be. It felt really unsatisfactory that a lot of stuff seemed to be just happening around us as a cast, and a lot of the things to do with the mafia monsters and their motivations were really unsatisfactory. It seemed you guys were going for a "who are the real monsters?" kind of plot thread for a while but that never really seemed to go anywhere. The final trial, as a result, also felt anticlimactic and not particularly exciting. I really think elements of paranoia could've been a lot stronger - especially because this is based off of The Thing. There just seemed to be ever-dwindling reason for character tension.
I think the chat could've benefited from stronger moderation in terms of sensitive topics, and in a similar vein I was really uncomfortable with that final memory with Szayel. I think really, at this point, I will just be echoing what people have already said. I really respect what you guys are trying to do here, and I did enjoy my time in this game to a point (and I think, if you want to keep anything, please keep all these fun worldbuilding memories and details because those were just so much fun), but I think you guys might have been trying to balance too many things at once in this round.
Thank you for this experience, for your efforts and for reading. I hope this has been helpful to you & best of luck with Round three!
no subject
First of all, I really appreciated what you were trying to go for with this game. I was really excited for it, and I like that you guys are trying to break the norms of murdergames and change things up a little. However, I kind of left this round feeling disappointed.
I won't touch on the mafia dynamics, as it seems you guys are already well aware of it, but first and foremost: the pacing didn't work very well at all. Reveals happened all too soon, most notably with the revival of the dead which removed pretty much all stakes and tension for the characters and death became kind of...meaningless. Except for the situations of double dying which, for the two main NPCS, that was apparently a bad end criteria but it seemed really unclear where the opportunity for that was really going to happen. Things happened too much too fast, I think the distribution of information ICly went too quickly (and it felt like characters were just told things, rather than figuring them out for themselves which didn't feel very engaging), and attributing it to "the players going too hard" suggested you guys lost the reins of the story a little bit more than anything else.
Again, timing wise, having certain situations having an IC=OOC balance didn't really work out because...not everyone's really available that whole time, or people have to get up and do things, or take time to consider and write their responses. I understand having restrictions but the 20 minute machine gun voting is just something I would not suggest repeating again (and definitely definitely please give your players a greater heads up than "be at the trial"!), and to a lesser extent, the time limits on the Tiger event.
I think the resortghosts account was a neat concept in theory, but in the end it just was...kind of a mess. People saw tags they didn't want to see, it was just kind of a hassle to log in - log out, and lose track of tags and not know who you're threading with. I understand wanting the mystery, but I'm uncomfortable concept of not having an idea of who it is I'm interacting with, personally.
I'll echo above sentiments about the role of the NPC's conflict in the plot because really, it's been said about as best as it can be. It felt really unsatisfactory that a lot of stuff seemed to be just happening around us as a cast, and a lot of the things to do with the mafia monsters and their motivations were really unsatisfactory. It seemed you guys were going for a "who are the real monsters?" kind of plot thread for a while but that never really seemed to go anywhere. The final trial, as a result, also felt anticlimactic and not particularly exciting. I really think elements of paranoia could've been a lot stronger - especially because this is based off of The Thing. There just seemed to be ever-dwindling reason for character tension.
I think the chat could've benefited from stronger moderation in terms of sensitive topics, and in a similar vein I was really uncomfortable with that final memory with Szayel. I think really, at this point, I will just be echoing what people have already said. I really respect what you guys are trying to do here, and I did enjoy my time in this game to a point (and I think, if you want to keep anything, please keep all these fun worldbuilding memories and details because those were just so much fun), but I think you guys might have been trying to balance too many things at once in this round.
Thank you for this experience, for your efforts and for reading. I hope this has been helpful to you & best of luck with Round three!