Backfeeding

[Loxmardin]

Bumpity. Updated the OP, and Kidnapped is underway.

[Wuvvums]

How am I at running events? As a DM? Do I manage to keep things interesting for everyone? Is there something I should work on improving? (Events I've ran: See; Kidnapped.)

I feel like the last few Kidnapped had this inherent problem and I think it's how passively it's ran. I know it can be hard to manager 60 players, and yet at the same time I feel like it's fundamentally flawed for the premise of an event to be “put players in X location and deal with each other,” with the occasional hazard that pops up for 1 hour, every other day or so.

I am guessing the most present hazard or danger in kidnapped is supposed to be the other characters, because as such the encounters between the kidnappers has been somewhat minimal. The big problem is that there isn't much motivation for players to put each other in danger. There is no gain, and even if the player is particularly aggressive IC, OOC you know if you started any crap then you're going to have 5 or more players come onto your character for it. The mechanism of having so many people together forces order onto the players, whether they want it or not. Not to mention, all the players are aware that they are victims and don't have a reason to feel that the other kidnappees have it out for them. They know it's someone else who made them end up this way.

In Skin Thieves 2, there was a reason to not trust other players and to even try to fight and kill one another. That was because you didn't know who was an imposter, and players either had the motive to survive, or subvert one another. Along with that there were also monsters out every day, and constant interactions with the environment. Like Kidnapped they were trapped, but you could tell something was going on there that put players in an active role, and kept everyone on the edge of their seats.

What is at stake?
Yesterday we had a deal where we would trade weapons for food, and while that could be an interesting tradeoff, one has to consider what are we giving up with our weapons? Is there going to be something we have to defend ourselves against? Are there going to be monsters? Will we be forced to turn on one another? Where is the danger?

Also, hunger is a sort of passive threat. I am not sure if we can quantify the drawbacks of hunger right now other than saying our characters feel ICly miserable. If the tradeoff between hunger and weapons is a thing, it should come up somewhere. Perhaps if there is a battle, or players have to compete to survive, then hunger could bring a defense drawback while being weaponless could bring an attack drawback. It's something to consider.

I missed the entire second day of Kidnapped because I had to study immensely, but I heard that it was solely character driven. We could have a day or two like that, but I don't know how it will span out for two weeks, sitting around and worrying that we're trapped. I'd like to see some sort of apparent danger, and perhaps some very hard choices to make.

[Loxmardin]

Hmmm; Thank you for the input. I'll need to speed things along a bit.

[Wuvvums]

You're welcome. <3
And much appreciated.

[Grakor456]

So, you keep asking me for feedback, so I'm going to provide this bit from the first few days of Kidnapped. I can't comment much on your actual RP because we never really RP together...hopefully, the event will let us change that up a bit.

But, on Kidnapped 6 itself so far, I want to touch on some things that Wuvvums said...

Hunger: So...I briefly mentioned to you that I really didn't like the idea of starvation as a primary focus in this Kidnapped, and I'll try to explain why here. As Wuvvums pointed out, it's a very passive threat, but I'd also add on that it's not necessarily a very interesting one. Now, opinions are going to vary on this, but I'll say it anyway: situations where the losing consequence is merely "I'm miserable" aren't terribly interesting, because the loss isn't terribly interesting. Playing a character that is just flat-out miserable just tends to make the player miserable (or at least it does to me.) That isn't really all that fun.

Hunger itself could be an interesting thing if the problem was more interactive. It's a hurdle to tackle if it's possible to overcome, but this isn't the case here. Sure, the weapons-for-food thing would probably have been more interesting if it were more frequent or accessible, but the whole thing feels...uninteresting to me, especially to build on Wuvvums' second point, which I'll get to in a moment.

But it's not like playing a wounded or otherwise inconvenienced character is bad. I purposefully and willingly gave Surthak a bad concussion just to illustrate that through the event so far. Some problems can work out well...if they can be overcome, interactive, and provide interesting limitations that the character wouldn't otherwise normally face. I just don't feel that hunger really applies to this.

The Weapons: So I mentioned this as well, but I want to repeat that the event feels awfully awkward from a sense of progression. Everyone has their weapons and armor already. If superior force is stopping the prisoners from breaking out, then what is ever going to really let them actually manage to do so?

This Kidnapped supposedly is one where everyone's natural talents are supposed to be shining through and be important, but what's really going on primarily is that the heavily armed and armored characters (warriors and rogues especially, but DKs and paladins to a lesser extent) are stomping around unhindered, while most clothies are just bystanders thanks to the anti-magic field. Previous Kidnapped events had all of the prisoners on the same level playing field...this one does not.

Now, this should present an interesting situation where prisoners are more at each other's throats, but even that doesn't really happen. With the removal of guards as anything but NPCs, everyone is now on the same side, meaning most of the antagonism only happens when you're online, or with the small handful of obviously psychopathic characters still lurking about. Said psychopaths can't really do much since provoking a fight will promptly get them dog-piled. There's no real incentive for the players to antagonize one another, beyond that nebulous, passive threat of hunger that most people are just ignoring anyway.

I may have more to offer later, but these are the criticisms that I'm offering right now. I'll write more when the event is over, if nothing else.

[Loxmardin]

Leeeebump.

[Grakor456]

RP with me more, noob. We must not let Gron/Surthak die! The fans demand more jokes!

[Reigen]

Liek OMG you're like, such a like, total dudett.

We should like...totally like hang out and like...type our imaginary like worlds together. LIke. yeah.

[ImagenAshyun]

I haven't encountered Gron in person, so I can't provide much feedback there. All I got on him was second-hand information through Surthak and other folk. Thus, my feedback will be focused on Kidnapped instead.

For something that was different (no player guards, no Faceless, new location, HUGE player turnout even in the "low" days), I enjoyed it. It was surely a different pace, and of all the Kidnappeds I've attended, this one was taken place when I could RP more. Thus, I managed to get more interaction, leaving incidents up to the players. However, what negative results that happened here, I chalk up to the fact that it's, well, different. Not everyone likes hunger as the oppressive force (and for a brief moment, thirst). Me, I liked it. I like the fact it was enclosed and crowded. I like how our only connection to the outside world beyond the harpies, ogres, and gnolls was Gron. Though not every player took to positive heart the entrapment and starvation, I enjoyed this feeling of entrapment. The stagnancy, I felt, established the feeling of entrapment well.

If you ever go back to wider space locations with player guards, I do encourage taking what good things happened in this Kidnapped and continue it. Though I did not get everything I thought I could from this Kidnapped, I did enjoy it a lot. I really did.


Thank you for the event, Loxmardin.