So despite the fact that I lent my aid to Askier to have this event integrate people as smoothly ICly as possible, I have been awfully quiet on those forums. Until now.
Let me preface this by saying that Good storytelling, Gathering RPers and Fun are, no matter what is said and or believed, the primary objectives of this large scale event. This has been a conscious effort initiated by Askier right there to bring the community together and to give anyone who could have been a little hesitant to jump into RP a chance to join in the fun, and focus on a common goal, thus creating opportunities for all people involved to make lasting connections. This is exactly what occured during his first event, and discussing about it later we came to agree that this was without a doubt the most positive of aspects that could be taken away from the event. And the good man Askier, as the crazy creative mind that he is, and encouraged by people who heard about his first event and wanted more, wished to revisit the deed. Who can blame him?
The first of points I want to address is the format. I will begin this with a simple statement: we did not see the width of the attendence coming in the slightest. Comparing to the first series of events, there are easily 2 to 4 times more players interested into playing this out, and this is not even counting all the people outside who, not willing to participate in the main events, enjoy hearing about the whole plot but in a more private setting. To be honest, this is what we wanted the plot to be about. The big events were there to give directions for people to move, but the big of it was to be played in smaller groups, outside of any scheduled large scale meeting, people basically acting/rolling with the plot in their own way, and their own understanding of it. Why so? Because even in the first events, we could easily see what could be improved, and what had to disappear from events to improve the quality of the storytelling. And also because you know... it's easier to play your character and have an impact on things when you're not RPing away with 20+ people around doing just the same. Yet those scheduled events had to have some big impact to be relevant and to make the plot advance.
Second, the organization. We were very few. Very very few. Essentially, Askier is the mastermind, who knows exactly what are the ins and outs of the plot, knows pretty accurately what direction to take for the plot to end in a good way, and moves ICly as Jin'li to do just that. Melkire and I, as two people who are regularly playing with Askier, accepted to lend a hand into the organization without a simple question. No reasons to say no, we had quite some success with this way of working for the first event, and we had no reasons that things could go awry for the second. Thus we began, about a month ago, to RP the pre-event, where essentially Jin'li who was a mere pawn on the boards of his masters, came to be this completely and insanely overpowered threat that needs to be dealt with. And before anyone says anything, yes, he is overpowered, and I believe that is suitable for the character. He is most certainly to die at the end of this whole plot, and the fact that he is so powerful encourages people to gather against him. At least that is how I view this.
Then the collars happened. It was a way to bring Osric down and slight the threat he was posing to Jin'li, and even to use his momentum against the very city he gave his life for. The night it happened was certainly strong with feels, bleed-through and what not, but this was certainly a strong moment. Back on point. That collar was designed to be somewhat of a crippling mechanism, yet one that was interesting to play with, for people actually asked if their character could be bound with such an item, moving completely outside of our expectations. And here it is another time: every one of the players whose characters are currently collared have given the permission to Jin'li to do so. I can see myself having wanted to have one for my own character, just so I could interact with the mechanism for some time. But we needed to have people for both sides to try and organize things, and bringing people in, and so I agreed on my character being essentially untouchable, for the need of the plot. While some might argue that such a thing is overpowered, I will answer you that with this few people involved into the makings, we kind of had to take a conveniance agreement. Some people, which to avoid any kind of repercussion thrown their way, I will not identify, did chime in to bring help and increase the numbers of participants, and all the better to them, because that, personnally, was a nasty splinter taken out of my hands. And I am only saying this because of the sheer amount of people that wanted to meet my character Kahn'a as a gateway into the plot for the Heroes side, because each interaction I had to achieve that goal was interesting, and I had fun, but like I just said, the number of those was dazzling.
Third, the first event in itself. Due to Askier's scheduling, there were concerns that he might have not been able to make it in time for the event, in which case we would have had to roll with some unexpected developpements. I say this to show that we tried to have a lot of unexpected situations/curved balls covered to ensure the plot would go in the right direction. Guess what? We were not prepared enough, yes yes we goofed. But people seemed to have had their share of fun, which was satisfying enough for us to be relieved that it did not turn out into a disaster. Some of the complaint I heard/read about was the lack of interactions with the Villains squad that walked around poisoning wells. If people insist that defensive patrols should have been organized to keep the waters safe, then I guess I am to blame for more or less purposely screwing that up. During my round of RPing new characters into the plot, several times Kahn'a has been suggested that water poisoning could be a thing, to the point where he sort of became convinced that it would happen sooner or later. However, let us take a stop right there and think about the greater scheme of this plot.
How impactful would have Jin'li's attack on the city been if he got completely blocked while poisoning the wells? Would he have been able to get out alive with a strong organization on the look for him? Probably not. Or at least not without some kind of powerplay, which always leaves a sour taste in the mouth of those who got tricked.
Also let us discuss about what did happen. A bomb exploded at the Gates of Nald, massing a crowd towards the gates to see what was happening. Expected. Goodies see baddies who made the explosive set off, and defend themselves against the assault? Expected. A little squad of Villains go around the town, fooling whoever asked them about the barrels they were carrying, and that in order to dump the poison into the water source mostly undetected? Expected. Some NPCs gathered around the curious scene of supposed alcohol being dumped into the water and tried to get some for themselves? Expected. But that certainly does not mean that this was a large scale massacre. If anything, the poison ran into the water undetected for a bell more or less. That leaves time for your thristy average john to go grab his fresh drink of poisoned water, and die from it, but not enough to provoke a complete drop in Ul'dah demography. Results? Hundreds of victims, yes, much like the spread of an uncurable disease, but not something that wiped Ul'dah off the map.
We also tried to ICly give people some direction to handle the rising crisis as quickly as possible, and that with the clear intent to have it sorted ASAP, to avoid interferences with people who just were not interested/unaware of the plot. We certainly did not want any sort of awkwardness happening for those people just because they did not attend. So in short, poison is detected, orders are given to ship water and cut the access to the main fountains/water places in town until they are drained away, and filled again with unsullied water. Tadaaaaa. Everything's clean. Does that mean the attack would have had too little of an impact? Certainly not. It created some panic, shook the shaky organization of the heroes - shakiness that, again, I am mostly responsible for - and gives Jin'li more space to act in the future, knowing that he has moved people enough so that they might direct their attention onto the poison and the dead more than on what's coming... We'll have to see where that goes, though.
My final point will be directed at all this talk about consequences. Again, I will refer to the first event Askier wrote. So he had his character make a pretty nasty attempt on the city of Ul'dah, one that would have affected people much like it happened with the poisoning. And yet... if you were to meet him ICly those days, you'd find a much different person, and most importantly, one that's free. Why is that? Well, because this is the result of some long-term RP plans that involved only a handful characters. So yes, it is very understandable that there is confusion regardless Askier IC status, but that's something that was RP'd out, my character knew what was at stake, he dove to take someone out of a nasty fate, and succeeded. That's all there is to be known about this.
I do bring this up because people seem very keen to suggest consequences should be faced by other players' characters. From an IC point, I do understand it completely, however remember that you as a player can only have so much impact on another player's character. Everyone is free to play the consequences the way they want to, for their own character, including completely dodging the bullet. It's their choice, not ours, and that's an occasion for some real IC struggle, should they choose to face such consequences. That does not give anyone the right to shun them if they simply don't want to deal with it extensively. Again, the reason behind this plot was to give some interesting story for people to get sucked in, and bring them together towards a common goal, either good or bad, for them to make connections. Certainly not for the RP to be cleaved towards a chase against the bad guy who got used, that might eventually just devolve into tensions from the people who are not willing to have their character endlessly chased and those who, for IC reasons, won't just let go.
This post was certainly very sloppy and rambling-like, but I find it is an accurate description of how all this passionate conversation seems to be, to me. A big mess. And one that has the potential to grow nasty thorns. So please let's just step back for a second, take a big breather to make sure we can get back into the game with better spirits, and overall less frustration. This is already pretty disheartening to see that people are looking more in the direction of flaws and what is headache-inducing rather than focus on what fun can be had from this. I guess we could have handled it better too. But again, there is so much a tiny group of persons can do. Especially with tight schedules.
Let me preface this by saying that Good storytelling, Gathering RPers and Fun are, no matter what is said and or believed, the primary objectives of this large scale event. This has been a conscious effort initiated by Askier right there to bring the community together and to give anyone who could have been a little hesitant to jump into RP a chance to join in the fun, and focus on a common goal, thus creating opportunities for all people involved to make lasting connections. This is exactly what occured during his first event, and discussing about it later we came to agree that this was without a doubt the most positive of aspects that could be taken away from the event. And the good man Askier, as the crazy creative mind that he is, and encouraged by people who heard about his first event and wanted more, wished to revisit the deed. Who can blame him?
The first of points I want to address is the format. I will begin this with a simple statement: we did not see the width of the attendence coming in the slightest. Comparing to the first series of events, there are easily 2 to 4 times more players interested into playing this out, and this is not even counting all the people outside who, not willing to participate in the main events, enjoy hearing about the whole plot but in a more private setting. To be honest, this is what we wanted the plot to be about. The big events were there to give directions for people to move, but the big of it was to be played in smaller groups, outside of any scheduled large scale meeting, people basically acting/rolling with the plot in their own way, and their own understanding of it. Why so? Because even in the first events, we could easily see what could be improved, and what had to disappear from events to improve the quality of the storytelling. And also because you know... it's easier to play your character and have an impact on things when you're not RPing away with 20+ people around doing just the same. Yet those scheduled events had to have some big impact to be relevant and to make the plot advance.
Second, the organization. We were very few. Very very few. Essentially, Askier is the mastermind, who knows exactly what are the ins and outs of the plot, knows pretty accurately what direction to take for the plot to end in a good way, and moves ICly as Jin'li to do just that. Melkire and I, as two people who are regularly playing with Askier, accepted to lend a hand into the organization without a simple question. No reasons to say no, we had quite some success with this way of working for the first event, and we had no reasons that things could go awry for the second. Thus we began, about a month ago, to RP the pre-event, where essentially Jin'li who was a mere pawn on the boards of his masters, came to be this completely and insanely overpowered threat that needs to be dealt with. And before anyone says anything, yes, he is overpowered, and I believe that is suitable for the character. He is most certainly to die at the end of this whole plot, and the fact that he is so powerful encourages people to gather against him. At least that is how I view this.
Then the collars happened. It was a way to bring Osric down and slight the threat he was posing to Jin'li, and even to use his momentum against the very city he gave his life for. The night it happened was certainly strong with feels, bleed-through and what not, but this was certainly a strong moment. Back on point. That collar was designed to be somewhat of a crippling mechanism, yet one that was interesting to play with, for people actually asked if their character could be bound with such an item, moving completely outside of our expectations. And here it is another time: every one of the players whose characters are currently collared have given the permission to Jin'li to do so. I can see myself having wanted to have one for my own character, just so I could interact with the mechanism for some time. But we needed to have people for both sides to try and organize things, and bringing people in, and so I agreed on my character being essentially untouchable, for the need of the plot. While some might argue that such a thing is overpowered, I will answer you that with this few people involved into the makings, we kind of had to take a conveniance agreement. Some people, which to avoid any kind of repercussion thrown their way, I will not identify, did chime in to bring help and increase the numbers of participants, and all the better to them, because that, personnally, was a nasty splinter taken out of my hands. And I am only saying this because of the sheer amount of people that wanted to meet my character Kahn'a as a gateway into the plot for the Heroes side, because each interaction I had to achieve that goal was interesting, and I had fun, but like I just said, the number of those was dazzling.
Third, the first event in itself. Due to Askier's scheduling, there were concerns that he might have not been able to make it in time for the event, in which case we would have had to roll with some unexpected developpements. I say this to show that we tried to have a lot of unexpected situations/curved balls covered to ensure the plot would go in the right direction. Guess what? We were not prepared enough, yes yes we goofed. But people seemed to have had their share of fun, which was satisfying enough for us to be relieved that it did not turn out into a disaster. Some of the complaint I heard/read about was the lack of interactions with the Villains squad that walked around poisoning wells. If people insist that defensive patrols should have been organized to keep the waters safe, then I guess I am to blame for more or less purposely screwing that up. During my round of RPing new characters into the plot, several times Kahn'a has been suggested that water poisoning could be a thing, to the point where he sort of became convinced that it would happen sooner or later. However, let us take a stop right there and think about the greater scheme of this plot.
How impactful would have Jin'li's attack on the city been if he got completely blocked while poisoning the wells? Would he have been able to get out alive with a strong organization on the look for him? Probably not. Or at least not without some kind of powerplay, which always leaves a sour taste in the mouth of those who got tricked.
Also let us discuss about what did happen. A bomb exploded at the Gates of Nald, massing a crowd towards the gates to see what was happening. Expected. Goodies see baddies who made the explosive set off, and defend themselves against the assault? Expected. A little squad of Villains go around the town, fooling whoever asked them about the barrels they were carrying, and that in order to dump the poison into the water source mostly undetected? Expected. Some NPCs gathered around the curious scene of supposed alcohol being dumped into the water and tried to get some for themselves? Expected. But that certainly does not mean that this was a large scale massacre. If anything, the poison ran into the water undetected for a bell more or less. That leaves time for your thristy average john to go grab his fresh drink of poisoned water, and die from it, but not enough to provoke a complete drop in Ul'dah demography. Results? Hundreds of victims, yes, much like the spread of an uncurable disease, but not something that wiped Ul'dah off the map.
We also tried to ICly give people some direction to handle the rising crisis as quickly as possible, and that with the clear intent to have it sorted ASAP, to avoid interferences with people who just were not interested/unaware of the plot. We certainly did not want any sort of awkwardness happening for those people just because they did not attend. So in short, poison is detected, orders are given to ship water and cut the access to the main fountains/water places in town until they are drained away, and filled again with unsullied water. Tadaaaaa. Everything's clean. Does that mean the attack would have had too little of an impact? Certainly not. It created some panic, shook the shaky organization of the heroes - shakiness that, again, I am mostly responsible for - and gives Jin'li more space to act in the future, knowing that he has moved people enough so that they might direct their attention onto the poison and the dead more than on what's coming... We'll have to see where that goes, though.
My final point will be directed at all this talk about consequences. Again, I will refer to the first event Askier wrote. So he had his character make a pretty nasty attempt on the city of Ul'dah, one that would have affected people much like it happened with the poisoning. And yet... if you were to meet him ICly those days, you'd find a much different person, and most importantly, one that's free. Why is that? Well, because this is the result of some long-term RP plans that involved only a handful characters. So yes, it is very understandable that there is confusion regardless Askier IC status, but that's something that was RP'd out, my character knew what was at stake, he dove to take someone out of a nasty fate, and succeeded. That's all there is to be known about this.
I do bring this up because people seem very keen to suggest consequences should be faced by other players' characters. From an IC point, I do understand it completely, however remember that you as a player can only have so much impact on another player's character. Everyone is free to play the consequences the way they want to, for their own character, including completely dodging the bullet. It's their choice, not ours, and that's an occasion for some real IC struggle, should they choose to face such consequences. That does not give anyone the right to shun them if they simply don't want to deal with it extensively. Again, the reason behind this plot was to give some interesting story for people to get sucked in, and bring them together towards a common goal, either good or bad, for them to make connections. Certainly not for the RP to be cleaved towards a chase against the bad guy who got used, that might eventually just devolve into tensions from the people who are not willing to have their character endlessly chased and those who, for IC reasons, won't just let go.
This post was certainly very sloppy and rambling-like, but I find it is an accurate description of how all this passionate conversation seems to be, to me. A big mess. And one that has the potential to grow nasty thorns. So please let's just step back for a second, take a big breather to make sure we can get back into the game with better spirits, and overall less frustration. This is already pretty disheartening to see that people are looking more in the direction of flaws and what is headache-inducing rather than focus on what fun can be had from this. I guess we could have handled it better too. But again, there is so much a tiny group of persons can do. Especially with tight schedules.