foundationmods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
foundationmods) wrote2019-01-05 04:07 pm
foundationmods) wrote2019-01-05 04:07 pm
HMD
How was the round? How did we mods do this time around? If you have any comments for the mods, feel free to leave them here! We want to continue to improve and do better in future rounds, so your input is important!
If you would like to contact us privately, you can do that as well by messaging either Eski (Eski#2807) or Maple (Mandy#0822) on Discord. If you want to talk to both of us, we can set up a group DM.
If you would like to contact us privately, you can do that as well by messaging either Eski (Eski#2807) or Maple (Mandy#0822) on Discord. If you want to talk to both of us, we can set up a group DM.
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First off, you guys did a great job with the worldbuilding and I appreciated all the little details that went into the setting, like the vents being part of the Resort’s circulatory system and with the PCs being centred in the stomach area. As others have mentioned, the memories were also a very nice personal touch and I commend you guys for writing so many, particularly for the characters that you were canonblind to; I can’t imagine how much work that must have been and how much time it must have taken up, but it really did do a good job of integrating the characters within the setting. I’d go so far as to say that the worldbuilding was probably the strongest element of this game and it’s clear how much love went into it.
Moving onto the plot and I know this is likely beating a dead horse at this point, but I pretty much agree with what everyone else said about the focus being on Reyes and Ichigo’s relationship. The thing is, it also seems to stand in such stark contrast to the rest of the information that was supposed to be the main focus of the round; namely, how the Resort worked and the mafia game. My impression was that (from the amount of information they were given about the Resort early on) the final trial was going to focus heavily on figuring out why the mafia game was run or who 34 was in-game. But by making endgame all about Reyes and Ichigo’s relationship, it feels like any theorizing about why the game was done or who was responsible was ultimately pointless, because in the end, none of that needed to be resolved to get a ‘good ending’.
I get wanting sequel hooks and I get leaving mysteries for the next game to cover. But there didn’t seem to be any reason why some of those points (that ended up being revealed in the epilogue anyways) couldn’t have been made part of the discussion so that the players would have to have something to solve in endgame. I know a lot of it already came up OOCly before and I think most people probably already knew/suspected 34 was involved with the mafia game after she was pointed out in chat during the end of Week 4 (which honestly is a whole other problem in and of itself), but having it established ICly would’ve helped make the final trial seem more substantial. As it was, it just felt like the final trial was all about guilt-tripping Reyes as much as possible, and even then I’m not so sure why that was a requisite for good end. Would the Lady refuse to let them leave unless Reyes apologized or was punished to her satisfaction?
This is connected to the feeling that the circumstances behind the final trial seemed fairly contrived to me. I can sort of understand it from the standpoint of the Resort wanting to get some closure to the incident, but it’s still odd to say “sorry for the inconvenience we caused to all of you, but we’re also not going to let you out until you tell us what you decide to do with him”. If the Resort really was washing their hands of the whole thing, I’m not sure why the living had to stick around to discuss that stuff then and there? Furthermore, I also don’t really understand why the Lady didn’t let the dead back into the new bodies or let them get some of Reyes’ medicine to tide him over. On an OOC level I understand: survivor pool should be taking charge of what happens during the final trial while the dead are mostly on the sidelines. The problem is the seeming lack of IC justification aside from, “no, we aren’t doing it until all of you decide”. The same issue exists for the medication and it seems even more egregious because Reyes is a danger to everyone, including the Resort; again, I didn’t really know what withholding that was supposed to accomplish aside from… I don’t know, punishing him, maybe?
A few more questions on the Reyes and Ichigo thing, if it's okay. You're right that people get what they put in and interacting with the NPCs will give them more plot information; I would never debate that. But if the flag(s) for good end are friendshipping the NPCs, where does that leave characters who wouldn’t do that ICly? Does that mean that all the antagonizing they may end up doing will just lead to a bad end or they just contribute nothing to endgame? Were there alternate flags for good ends that didn’t involve friendshipping Reyes?
Also one last sentence to reiterate, but I agree with pretty much all of the other points about the plot that were mentioned by the other players, even if I didn’t specifically mention them here.
Moving onto the NPCs; obviously this was already touched on for the plot portion, but I do want to make some mentions of trial and events. For trial in particular, I think that generally you did a good job in making Atsushi contribute to the discussions in trial but not give away too much; obviously it can be a tough balance to strike between wanting to give players some slight hints every now and then but also not ruining the mystery. However, there was one point in the third trial where I felt like the outcome ended up being heavily influenced by Atsushi, and that was at the end when attention was drawn to the people in the Persona room.
I’m assuming there was a combination of factors in play: first, you guys probably didn’t want another six-way tie situation to come up again so you thought you’d point players in the right direction and secondly, ICly Atsushi was defending himself from further accusations. But considering how much sway mod characters can have and the tight time limit, that basically ended up completely upending the trial with the majority going to Minato when previously he was not even being considered as a suspect (at least, from what I could see in the discussions). Now don’t get me wrong: #saviorgate was fun to watch unfold because I don’t think you could’ve predicted that level of craziness. But the game should be about player decisions and their conclusions; as it was, it didn’t feel like it was something that completely came about organically because Atsushi’s comments appeared to have heavily influenced that outcome. Again, I get that Atsushi suddenly not defending himself probably would’ve come of as OOC, but I feel like there should have been a way to do it without explicitly pointing fingers at other suspects like that because it was bad timing.
Secondly, about the ‘Atsushi turns into a tiger’ event: I understand that OOCly, part of the reason why that was happening was because there weren’t enough kills and endgame otherwise would’ve been too difficult to run. That’s why the event was open to everyone else and I assume you guys were anticipating a much higher death count initially. I also believe you guys already acknowledged that you should have used the Cleaner role instead and I agree with that because you wouldn’t have been forced into this weird middle-of-the-road approach during the event.
Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great you guys want to take player actions into account! I think that’s a big part of why planning stuff like Ventventures is really fun. At the same time, you automatically no-selled a lot of options; the tiger was bulletproof and lanceproof, could heal and was amazingly fast and strong. Now, I can see why the tiger was made effectively invincible if the goal was to kill a bunch of characters, since you wouldn’t want it to be easily dispatched. But you guys also ended up providing them with a lot of options to evade that (e.g. distractions with catnip, pointing people towards the pool and anti-gravity rooms as options to contain the tiger). So in the end, it ended up feeling a bit on rails (i.e. if you want to survive you must use one of x options) while also not quite accomplishing the goal of taking out some of the characters.
Obviously what’s done is done and being left with too many characters is far easier to deal with in a traditional murdergame, and these were extenuating circumstances in a way. The most I can say is that you guys seemed to prioritize conflicting OOC issues for this event (player agency vs. needing to cut the numbers down) and that just didn’t really work. I do think player agency is very important and that should have been priority for an event like this, it just may have been too ambitious to wrap that secondary goal in there as well.
Other minor things regarding the event: there was no set end time announced on the post, and it seemed to just be decided in chat that it would end at 6:00 PM EST. It would’ve been good to have had a heads up for that. I also agree with the sentiment that the event seemed more geared towards being a player plot, because it ended up putting a lot of focus on Atsushi.
Some other things that I’m not sure how to categorize:
- Agreeing with everyone that there should’ve been a heads up for the trial with the multiple vote offs. I was under the impression that it would’ve been the same as previous weeks where six hours were given for discussion and the sudden change in format threw me for a loop, even though by that time I had no horse in that race.
- Be a bit more careful with letting information slip in chat; it’s definitely understandable that you guys are excited about things the players discover and the little tidbits you put in, but when you overemphasize some stuff, it can kind of give the twists away.
- Somewhat related to the previous point how the Jorogumo was supposed to be killed by drowning and water being the spiderweb’s weakness; I don’t know if that was the logic players was supposed to use to deduce the correct method of execution, but if it was then explicitly stating it during investigation/in chat basically shut down any opportunity for that role to rotate. It didn’t end up mattering in the end, but just be a bit more conscientious of the information you give out and how it could affect things in the future.
I know a lot of this ended up coming off kind of negative (and probably repetitive!) but I do want to emphasize that I had a lot of fun in this game and ultimately I would still consider my experience positive! I found you guys approachable as mods and it was clear that you guys were very enthusiastic about modding for everyone, which was great! I hope you guys get a good rest and I look forward to seeing what you guys have planned for following rounds. Cheers!
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