Now that I've had time to have a good night sleep, I can finally put together my thoughts on the event.
First and foremost: THANK YOU SO MUCH for everyone who came out to participate. It was so amazing to see - both in and out of character - so many folks coming to help little Chachan out in his hour of need. From those who showed up early and waited patiently for the event to start all the way to those who ran late but still wanted to be a part of things regardless, I was touched by how many wanted to be a part of this. When I first put up this event, I honestly didn't believe I'd manage to field eight people for the Praetorium run, let alone enough to fill and run all three first phase dungeons like my original (crazy) plan put forth.
There's just so much thanks to give. From the Coralites who shared their time with me on Saturday to RP the aftermath of the last story post, to everyone who showed up to participate (including a special thanks to fellow Coralite Shinjo and co-DM Howl for stepping up and filling in for a couple late arrivals), to everyone who stayed (or joined solely for, in the case of John) afterward for some amazing post-event RP. To those that gave the thread a look, to those who wished me luck and kept my spirits up through all my little panic attacks about how the event would go, and to those that wanted to attend but couldn't due to one reason or another. And, of course, for everyone who took the time to play with Chachan and/or Gogon to bring them to this point.
And one extra special thank you to Virara and Howl for being my co-DMs in this. For giving awesome ideas, giving their own life to the event, and for helping me make sure all the groups got the attention I felt they all needed for coming out and being a part of this. I don't think I could have handled such an expansive first event without your help and input.
Coupled with that, I'd also like to apologize to the Defense Team - for effectively leaving you to your own devices in the push-back and distraction while the "plot" happened in the Praetorium 8-Man run. Thanks to all of you for still hanging around and participating in that, even despite my shortcomings there.
As for my feelings on the event itself? Well, I can only hope everyone had as much fun with it as I did. From the opening banter amongst all who arrived, to RPing Erwin's combat-high cheerfulness, to watching a Howl-played Aerygoeya whining about how he had his rights, to the delve in Castrum Centri and all the interactions between the player characters and the NPCs there, all finally ending with a quiet moment of camaraderie in Chachan's room around the kotatsu. We hit every plot point I wanted to hit (and more!) with aplomb, and even set some seeds for some potential future RP. I don't think it's possible to be any happier.
Was there things I could improve on? Of course. I should have planned more for the Defense Team - I had a general plot idea for a dungeon run for them, but didn't have a backup plan for a combination of classes that would make running such a dungeon difficult. I have much gratitude for all of them - with a special shout-out to SM Nick for being a sort of impromptu mini-DM for it, from my understanding - for their patience and understanding with my shortfall there.
Also, I feel like I should've had some sort of logging going on, or at least taking a lot more screenshots than I did. Franz was awesome enough to capture the pre-event banter, along with his delve into Satasha (and the bits of the Halatali delve done over the LS), and Kage took some awesome screenies of the Toto-Rak delve and the Defense Team doing their work. I'm not sure if Franz is comfortable with me linking the Google docs of the former, and I don't have immediate access to the latter at the moment but... if you are both okay with it, I'd love to share both in some manner or another - along with the scant few screenshots I had the wherewithal to take myself. If anyone else took some nice screens or logs, please feel free to share them too!
All in all, I feel like it was a wonderful event - made possible by everyone who wanted to be a part of it. Thanks again, everyone, for helping make the Gogonji Gambit a reality.
First and foremost: THANK YOU SO MUCH for everyone who came out to participate. It was so amazing to see - both in and out of character - so many folks coming to help little Chachan out in his hour of need. From those who showed up early and waited patiently for the event to start all the way to those who ran late but still wanted to be a part of things regardless, I was touched by how many wanted to be a part of this. When I first put up this event, I honestly didn't believe I'd manage to field eight people for the Praetorium run, let alone enough to fill and run all three first phase dungeons like my original (crazy) plan put forth.
There's just so much thanks to give. From the Coralites who shared their time with me on Saturday to RP the aftermath of the last story post, to everyone who showed up to participate (including a special thanks to fellow Coralite Shinjo and co-DM Howl for stepping up and filling in for a couple late arrivals), to everyone who stayed (or joined solely for, in the case of John) afterward for some amazing post-event RP. To those that gave the thread a look, to those who wished me luck and kept my spirits up through all my little panic attacks about how the event would go, and to those that wanted to attend but couldn't due to one reason or another. And, of course, for everyone who took the time to play with Chachan and/or Gogon to bring them to this point.
And one extra special thank you to Virara and Howl for being my co-DMs in this. For giving awesome ideas, giving their own life to the event, and for helping me make sure all the groups got the attention I felt they all needed for coming out and being a part of this. I don't think I could have handled such an expansive first event without your help and input.
Coupled with that, I'd also like to apologize to the Defense Team - for effectively leaving you to your own devices in the push-back and distraction while the "plot" happened in the Praetorium 8-Man run. Thanks to all of you for still hanging around and participating in that, even despite my shortcomings there.
As for my feelings on the event itself? Well, I can only hope everyone had as much fun with it as I did. From the opening banter amongst all who arrived, to RPing Erwin's combat-high cheerfulness, to watching a Howl-played Aerygoeya whining about how he had his rights, to the delve in Castrum Centri and all the interactions between the player characters and the NPCs there, all finally ending with a quiet moment of camaraderie in Chachan's room around the kotatsu. We hit every plot point I wanted to hit (and more!) with aplomb, and even set some seeds for some potential future RP. I don't think it's possible to be any happier.
Was there things I could improve on? Of course. I should have planned more for the Defense Team - I had a general plot idea for a dungeon run for them, but didn't have a backup plan for a combination of classes that would make running such a dungeon difficult. I have much gratitude for all of them - with a special shout-out to SM Nick for being a sort of impromptu mini-DM for it, from my understanding - for their patience and understanding with my shortfall there.
Also, I feel like I should've had some sort of logging going on, or at least taking a lot more screenshots than I did. Franz was awesome enough to capture the pre-event banter, along with his delve into Satasha (and the bits of the Halatali delve done over the LS), and Kage took some awesome screenies of the Toto-Rak delve and the Defense Team doing their work. I'm not sure if Franz is comfortable with me linking the Google docs of the former, and I don't have immediate access to the latter at the moment but... if you are both okay with it, I'd love to share both in some manner or another - along with the scant few screenshots I had the wherewithal to take myself. If anyone else took some nice screens or logs, please feel free to share them too!
All in all, I feel like it was a wonderful event - made possible by everyone who wanted to be a part of it. Thanks again, everyone, for helping make the Gogonji Gambit a reality.