In
mid-May of 2000 I asked the players to give me some feedback on how the game
was going, specifically what they liked and did not like about the game. The following is a summary of the general
points brought up by the players. I
only took the general ideas and concepts, not specific quotes or problems. I also took out any references to who made
the comment.
My
first observation when reading through the replies was that there were several
items which one player would mention as being a negative and another would talk
about as a positive. Combat (both
mechanics and difficulty), Jurgenville, NPCs, and the overall flavor of the
dungeon were all things people disagreed on.
Looking at it from the wider perspective I take that as a good sign. I’ve got players with widely varying points
of view yet there is enough to the game that they still enjoy it and continue
to play.
Another
amusing thing I noticed is that four of the players used almost the exact same
phrase at some point in their expression of problems with the game. In some form they all said “this isn’t
anything I’m going to quit over, but…”.
I guess that’s a good thing too.
This
was the most common complaint, and was also one of the main things pointed out
by the only lurker to respond to the survey.
Some of the players had problems with other players, or with another
player’s character. One player outlined
what his character thought of every other character in the game IC. But most of the conflict seems to be player
to player.
Galen
(I’m not using names, right? <g>) mentioned this and then said something
I think is quite accurate. He stated:
We've
had a few intra-party problems -- I attribute this mostly to the forum.
There is a lot of room for mis-interpretation/misunderstanding when a game is
run like this -- you lose out on the non-verbals (which, according to a recent
study, make up 93% of most conversations <G>). This leads to some
friction which has arisen.
I
fully agree with this. Paul also
mentioned how much better the game could be if we met over a tabletop instead
of in a virtual chat room. I believe
that most of the intra-party (or I guess I should say inter-player) problems
are simply due to a lack of real familiarity with the other players. While in one sense we have gotten to know
each other over the past three years, it is only a very narrow view of each
other we get every Friday evening. It’s
the blind men and the elephant analogy.
Player X may like other players who act like an elephant, but when all
he ever sees of Player Y is the trunk he considers Player Y a snake, not an
elephant. OK, maybe that’s a dumb
analogy, but you get the point. I’m
sure some sociology major would have a great time studying our virtual friendships and frictions.
One
comment that I do agree with is that too many people take a “passively
aggressive” attitude. The example given
was when a character would first say they didn’t care about a party decision,
then disagree with whatever plan the party came up with, but not be willing to
offer a counter-plan of their own.
While I realize players and characters sometimes get an “I don’t care”
attitude, please try to keep it to a minimum.
And if you do have criticism or problems, try to make them proactive and
positive.
This
was brought up by two players - one mentioning an intra-party situation, the
other taking about players using OOC knowledge during combat.
This
isn’t something I’ve seen as a problem, so I haven’t mentioned it. In many cases individual characters might
know things that the rest of the party does not. If you do think somebody is abusing OOC knowledge in the future
let me know. There may be more to the
story than you are aware of, or maybe I do need to tone them back a little.
I
run a large game. I do this in the
belief that with more people to play with players will have a greater
opportunity for role-playing and IC interaction. That belief has been rather abused over the past year or so as
I’ve tried to bring more people into the game.
The initial reaction to the new players was lukewarm at best. While the effort did show some limited
success (Dan and Kim had fun with it) in general adding more players has not
improved the quality of play in the game.
There
were two general themes dealing with the size of the party. The first was that such a large party made
for slow combat. Conceded. Obviously the more people there are the longer
it will take to cycle through everybody’s intentions and then actions. I weighed this against the possible
role-playing benefits when I brought the new players in.
The
second concern was that having such a large party made it difficult for any individual
character to have a substantial impact on the game. I’m not quite sure where this one came from. Perhaps in combat, or in party decisions. I try to give your characters ample
opportunity to grow outside of the traditional combat roles. Ari has a small army named after her. Sane has plans to take over nearby
nations.
One
other interesting observation was that the party has formed into cliques. There is the “old guard” of those who have
played from the beginning, then the “not-so-old guard” of those who have played
for several years, and then the “newbies”.
The player making the observation believed that there were walls between
those cliques, and that what clique you belonged to often determined how you
voted/acted whenever party decisions were made.
I’ve
mentioned this elsewhere, but for the record we currently have nine
players. I will not allow anybody else
into the game until that drops down to seven players. I will then not go above eight players again. For any lurkers reading this you should
realize that means it is probably going to be a long time before anybody new
joins the game. Besides, I have already
chosen the individual who will be the next person allowed in (should he choose
to join).
I’ve
been surprised at the party’s lack of interest in henchmen. By henchmen here I mean true NPC henchmen
that the player plays (like Shadow, Pyreen, and Fredal), not the
pseudo-henchmen idea that brought Amber, Xaveus, and Garrah into the game. I have offered several people henchmen to
play and for the most part the reception has been under-whelming.
Two
players mentioned that they would like to see all the henchmen disappear from
the Underdark all together. One
mentioned this in the context of combat already taking too long, the other in
the context of some characters being very one-dimensional with no real life to
them.
I’m
not quite sure how to respond to this.
I’ve always meant the henchmen as a reward, and additional outlet for
the players to explore. But if you guys
don’t want them, we can get rid of them.
At least, we can remove them from the adventuring party. Perhaps they can stick around TSR and
provide a separate pure role-playing environment for those interested.
This
has been a bone of contention for quite a while. Almost half of the players mentioned this, including several who
have been leaders themselves at one time or another. Some offered specific criticisms of different characters as
leaders, others made general comments.
I
think the most accurate comment about party leadership was made by the current
party leader, Sane. The party’s problem
is they have rarely had a combination of a player who would make a good leader
playing a character that would make a good leader. David put Sane forward as the perfect example. David is a great player who can obviously
lead. But Sane is not a leader-type
character. He’s a behind-the-scenes
puller of strings. Still, because David
makes a good leader Sane has been thrust into the leadership role. I believe the same situation applied to
Galen/Castinar.
There
have been a few combinations that worked.
Paul/Kerianna worked, as did Robert/Beleg for a short time. But those seems to have been the exception
rather than the rule.
So,
what to do about this? I have no
clue. Maybe when somebody else gets
killed off if the player is a good leader-type I’ll encourage them to develop a
leader-type character. Then Sane can go
back to being the power behind the throne.
Here’s
another one where people had opposing opinions. Some didn’t like that most players don’t participate much. Another liked the fact that he could pick
and choose what aspects of the game to focus on. Another felt that some characters in the party were so bland they
should be taken out of play. The way I
see it there are two issues here - people not role-playing much, and the low
number of posts during the week.
I can’t do much about how much you guys want
to role-play. I try to give you
opportunities to do so and encourage you to do so between yourselves. But I can’t force you. Solving that problem is in your hands.
One
player made the comment that the game had gone from 10 posts a day to 10 a
week. I’ll take the blame for
that. I could push the game faster, but
I don’t want to. Here’s a good analogy,
the game is like Malt-O-Meal. When you
first pour your malt-o-meal into the boiling water it freaks out and boils over
(earning you a dirty look from your wife when you get home from work later that
day). Smart malt-o-meal aficionados
know to quickly turn the heat down after pouring the cereal into the
water. That way you get a nice steady
boil rather than a huge flash.
So
what’s the analogy? Four years ago we
were all new to the game. For that matter
most of us were new to PBEMs. We were
all excited about it and went full bore on the game for quite a while. Now we’ve settled down to that nice, steady
boil. We’re all still interested in the
game, but we’ve all got other interests as well. For my part I run three games now. That was a mistake, but it’s the situation I put myself in. I have to divide my gaming time (already
limited by kids/home/work/education/myriad of other things) between my three
games and any games that I play in (currently only two… <sniff>). So I haven’t been pushing Night very hard,
letting most of my effort go into Friday chats and letting the game coast in
between. I don’t think that’s
necessarily a bad thing. True, the game
doesn’t run as fast, but all of the opportunities are still there. At least, I think they are.
This
was one of the topics that people disagreed on. One player likes “dungeon crawls”. Another thought there was too much combat. One player didn’t like that the module was
combat oriented vs solution oriented.
I
agree with them all. I do like dungeon
crawls myself, and somewhat to my surprise have found that they work better for
a PBEM game. I played in one game that
was a “mystery” type game that hardly ever had combat. I eventually lost interest. PBEMs, even PBIRCs like Night Below, run
very slowly compared to tabletop games.
As a result it is very easy for the players to loose sight of the big
picture, to forget clues dropped several months ago. That can lead to a decreased interest in the game. Sometimes simple is better.
But
on the flip side there can be too much of an emphasis on combat. This section of the module (the first half of the second book) has been almost
exclusively combat, some of it thrown in with no rhyme or reason. In thinking about this I’ve come to the
opinion that this section was kind of kludged in to try and connect a fairly
good beginning adventure with low-level characters (Haranshire) and what I hope
will be a great ending adventure for high-level characters. That being said I think the second half of
this book will present more “solution” type problems, or at least not be quite
as blindly hack-and-slash oriented.
One
player felt that the map the party is currently wandering around is too
simplistic. I agree. Using the player’s words, it is very much
like a highway. It’s meant to move you
from place to place quickly, with the movement and anything between the main
encounter locations not being important.
Part
of the problem there is from the way I treat party travel. Early on when the party was in the Underdark
I mentioned that the party was having minor encounters while traveling, but I
wasn’t going to play them out. Perhaps
if this was a tabletop game I would do it once and a while as a quick warm up
and to add a little spice and dungeon-dressing to the game. But with the slow pace of a PBEM game I felt
that more than a few random encounters would slow the game down too much. I think the whole scene with the beetles
(which I threw in on a whim) verifies that belief. I’m sacrificing “reality” and detail for speed. I could flesh out the map more, but the game
is already going to take many more years.
When each encounter takes a couple weeks to get through I can’t afford
to throw too many of them in.
A
couple people mentioned this - some just as an observation rather than a
criticism. The party is rich. VERY rich.
I agree. Perhaps too rich.
Almost
all of the treasure allocation in this game is straight out of the module. I don’t deviate much from it. The main reason for that is XP in the module
is based more on recovering treasure than killing monsters or coming up with
solutions to problems. I agree that
isn’t the way it should be, but it does make things much easier for me, so I’m
sticking to it. I don’t have any
experience trying to balance out XP awards (although I could probably try to
now - and will be doing so in the “For Jurgenville” game) so I didn’t want to
mess with what the module had down.
I
do see a positive side to the money issue.
It has allowed the party to build the Truth Seeker’s Retreat, providing
another setting in which to role-play.
I hope to capitalize on that as the game progresses by allowing players
and lurkers to assume the identities of people at TSR (and in Jurgenville as a
whole). While wealth shouldn’t be the
only gauge of success, especially in an adventure game with a plot like this
one, it can make certain aspects of it fun.
Still, you’re complaining that you’re rich? <g>
The
negative side to the money issue (from your perspective) is the inflation and
tight supply that I then use to try and keep the money in check. In a “realistic fantasy economy” the party
would be able to buy pretty much whatever they wanted with the large amounts of
wealth they have floating around now.
So I have to limit access to those nice Rings of Protection +3 or those
dozen spells a PC wants in order to keep the game in balance.
Several
players mentioned this. Not to my
surprise they all played mage characters.
I must admit I don’t have a lot of sympathy here. You guys are now reaching the levels where
mages really start to shine. You’ve got
access to a large pool of spell points and some rather powerful spells. Magic items for spellcasters at that stage
are more “nice” than “necessary”.
Interpretation - I won’t be sticking any additional items into the
module just to assuage those who want to find Staffs of Power along with +3
weapons.
Related
to this issue, one anonymous player really wonders why he ever gave up playing
Tharg.
I’ve
made some changes to the module, most notably with the addition of
Jurgenville. Some of the things I’ve
done haven’t sat well with some people.
Jurgenville
was another sweet and sour topic. Most
players really liked it, but there were some negative comments. The lurker who commented observed that
Jurgenville disrupted the storyline. A
player thought the party was spending too much time in Jurgenville when the
storyline was taken into consideration.
I
agree with both of these observations, but would counter with what many people
stated was the thing they liked most about the game - the chance to really
flesh out their characters. I set
Jurgenville into the game because I believed Haranshire just didn’t have the
resources to support a high or even medium level party. In Jurgenville the players have a chance to
concentrate more on their characters than the plot. Being a player-DM the
aspect of AD&D that I enjoy the most is developing interesting
characters. I didn’t think the module
as written allowed for that - both in terms of the “hurry up” plot line and the
resources (including NPCs) the players have access to.
So
again, there is a give and take there.
Yes, it doesn’t fit in very well with the storyline, and can make
following the plot a little more difficult.
But time spent in Jurgenville is also when most of the character development
goes on. One player had a good comment
about how much role-playing the party does while in the Underdark. He mentioned that just by going on what had
been said (role-played) in the Underdark his character didn’t know the last
names of most of the characters in the party.
Again, I’ll take some of the blame there. I tend to treat Underdark-time, particularly during chats, as
combat-time. We can role-play all day
via e-mail, but chat really speeds up combat.
Related
to this topic is an opinion from one player that they didn’t like the Town
Portal spell, stating that it was far too strong for its level. While Seth (Diana’s player) and I worked to
balance it, I’ll admit that it is a strong spell for third level. I allowed Seth to develop it to address the
time the party spent traveling back and forth to Jurgenville. That problem was of my own making (there
really isn’t much of a reason for the party to return to Haranshire very often
in the module), so this was my way of helping to resolve the problem. Now the party can travel quickly between the
Underdark sites and the surface, which lessens the “we’re wasting too much
time” complaint. I know it’s not a
perfect solution, but as the DM I can quickly squash any abuses of the spell I
see developing.
This
was another sweet and sour topic. One
character praised how I had powerful NPCs in the story but avoided having them
dominate everything. Others weren’t
happy with the way they had been used.
The
example several people used was Valdaeron coming down to help the party, and
related to that finding the invisible quasit when nobody in the party had
detected it.
I
think I’ve already covered the OOC reasons for Valdaeron’s appearance, but I’ll
summarize here. The party had spent almost
two months real-time fighting the dragon, and that was close on the heels of
another month dealing with something I had expected to take half a session (the
beetles). I came to the conclusion that
the thread had gone on long enough. To
that I also added considerations about what had happened in the combat and how
to reward the party for a tough fight but balance that out with the fact that
they didn’t completely defeat the dragon.
If Val hadn’t have shown up the dragon would probably have been gone
(with several of the more valuable magic items and pieces of treasure) when the
party returned to face it.
I
threw Valdaeron into the mix to provide a story line for getting the party the
dragon’s horde, but avoid either another month of combat or the dragon simply
disappearing. As for why he would do
this (or why the NPCs in Jurgenville in general would be willing to help the
party out) remember what the party did for Jurgenville during Red Vale. Those same powerful NPCs were away from the
town and the party stepped up and defended their homes for them. There is a debt of gratitude there. Some of the NPCs also have plans for the
party (which I’ve been surprised nobody has picked up on or at least mentioned
yet <g>).
As
for the situation with the quasit, it didn’t have anything to do with skills,
senses, or ability scores. It had to do
with a magic item that Valdaeron carries and where that lead my
story-telling. In fact, when I first
brought Val down I was trying to figure out how to have him confront the dragon
without a huge battle taking place.
Then I remembered this magic item he had and realized that would let him
sense (not locate) the quasit. He then
cast a very common spell to locate the quasit, and an admittedly on-the-fly
spell to neutralize it and hold it while he could question it, thus providing
the conduit to the dragon without a face-to-face confrontation.
Another
problem related to spells is that a player wasn’t happy that I was limiting
access to illusion spells. I’ve got a
simple reason for that, even if it doesn’t sit well. Illusions are very hard to adjudicate as a DM. They can be extremely powerful spells that
can be easily abused. I usually feel
like I’m in a struggle with David any time he casts an illusion, trying to
balance the fact that illusions are central to his character with not allowing
illusions to become too powerful. That
struggle will probably continue since I’m not even sure there exists a good
balance point, but I can avoid having the same struggle with other PCs by
restricting access to illusion spells.
Again, it’s not a perfect solution, but it makes things easier for me.
Holes
in the Combat and Tactics rules
I’m
not real sure what the player who mentioned this was after. Admittedly there are some holes. But there has to be some kind of balance
between realistic combat and not taking three hours for every turn. One player’s chief complaint was that
combats take too long. Combat and
Tactics does a fairly good job of balancing out realism with game flow, within
the restrictions of the basic AD&D combat paradigm (turns, rolls, etc.).
A
specific criticism was that I changed the critical hit rules in stride. I’m not going to search through old e-mails
and chat logs, but I believe I mentioned at some point before this became an
issue that we would be using all appropriate rules out of C&T. Another player mentioned the evolution of
the rules over time as an annoyance, but an acceptable one. We started out basic, then evolved some
rather complex house rules. Almost all
of those house rules have now been replaced with the Combat and Tactics
rules. That includes critical hits.
One
player asked if we would be switching over to 3rd edition when it
came out. I have absolutely no idea. I’d have to evaluate it first, weighing how
easy it would be to convert characters over (I’ve heard it is next to
impossible) and how much re-learning everybody would have to do in order to use
whatever new rules they come up with.
We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Combat
was another area that received praise and criticism. One aspect in particular received both - how difficult the fights
were. Some players really liked it,
others found the battles too difficult.
Players have quit in the past over how difficult I made the combats.
I
freely admit to making the combats as difficult as possible. The gaming sessions I remember the most from
my days as a player are the ones that were fought down to the wire, where the
fate of the entire party may have come down to one saving throw, or one to-hit
roll. I try to make the combats in
Night the same way.
The
specific complaints about combat were that somehow the monsters always know how
to counter any plans the party comes up with.
In many cases that is because the monsters often seemed to have detailed
knowledge about the party before combat begins. Then, even when the party has scouts out, they always seem to get
surprised anyway.
Let
me explain my take on those subjects. Yes,
monsters have often been able to counter the party’s plans. Sometimes that has been the party’s fault
(some rather foolish plans - at least from my point of view as the one familiar
with the module). Other times I have
done that to make the combat more interesting.
And at other times I do it because the monster you are fighting is very
intelligent. Many of your opponents
have lived in their lairs for decades and would know the terrain and
environment far better than the party, or than myself for that matter. Since I don’t know all the little tricks
they would have probably come up with over the years, I often give them an edge
by allowing them to respond intelligently to whatever the party tries. That being said I have never laid a trap for
the party based on the party’s actions, or penalized the party for trying some
action.
There
have been several situations where the party has chosen to camp near an
enemy. In some of those cases the
opponent has had a chance to observe the party, either through an intermediary
(like the aerial stalker or the quasit) or directly (like Bertram - the first
rakshasha you met). Yes, the opponent
does gather valuable intelligence that way and may be given an edge in battle
due to it.
There
was a specific complaint about the party being unable to detect invisible
creatures. I don’t think the party
really wants me to make it easier to detect invisible creatures in general,
especially where much of the party’s scouting is done while invisible or
cloaked. Other creatures besides party
members can sneak just as well as you guys can. I have rolled to see if the party detects anything in the
past. Admittedly it is a difficult roll
- just like it would be difficult for something to detect Sane or Castinar were
they to try and move within hearing distance of it.
Finally
there is the issue of the scouts always being surprised. First, I disagree with the general
complaint. There have been several
times the party has been able to scout out an area undetected and respond accordingly. Second, there may have been times I’ve given
the monsters an edge here, yes. That’s
because in many situations surprise is the only advantage a monster has. Take piercers as an example. If the party notices them they are basically
a non-player.
To
wrap this section up a good reminder from Paul. Yes, I like to make combats difficult, but I also dislike killing
characters off. As Paul put it:
It's
easy for the dm to kill the party. If
that is the goal, then the players will lose every time.
Here’s
another that got both sides. One
individual thought the game ran too fast at times. Others thought it was running too slowly.
When
I asked for input on how the game was going I was expecting to have a lot more
negative comments that positive ones.
That isn’t because I think the game has serious problems; it’s just that
if something is working you don’t mess with it. I figured people would talk about things that weren’t working -
which they did. But I did get some good
positive feedback as well.
Since
I’m not necessarily going to “reply” to any of these, I’ll just let you know
what people thought. In many cases I’ve
already mentioned the comment as a counter-point to a complaint discussed
above.
Players
liked the following aspects of the game:
You
can’t please all of the people, all of the time… especially when you have a
group of players like I have! But if
you can keep most of the people mostly happy most of the time you’re doing all
right. That’s my overall impression of
the comments. There are still some
rough spots to work out, but for the most part the players are enjoying the
game and plan on continuing playing for a long time.