InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "ARROWED!!"

Strike (Mireille Bouquet) (fioreneru) wrote in sabra_la_ooc,
@ 2010-09-02 22:59:00

Suggestion Box!
So Huntress's first game is done and there were more than a few bumps in the road along the way. As such, suggestions!

I want to run more similarly themed games with her, so I would really appreciate any and all suggestions that people have for how to improve the past game or ideas for future games.

Thank you kindly! You all rocked ♥

(Post a new comment)

heeling_touch
2010-09-03 06:11 am UTC (link)

THINGS YOU PROBABLY ALREADY KNOW BUT I WILL MARK DOWN FOR POSTERITY:

1) Plaaytesting to get used to running the system and spotting the kinks in advance

2) Clarity of the rules (like how everyone was confused about evade vs. defense for half the game)

3) Handling the inevitable spiral off the rails players do (yayoi tying up kaito, claude making traps, both vulpecula and cepheus setting up ambushes comes to mind as things that maybe needed special handling rules? but idk)

4) ... basically just that, it was fun once we all actually... got the hang of it but it needed to be smoothed out before we could :|a

(Reply to this)

pierrotdetous
2010-09-03 06:27 am UTC (link)

SEE ABOVE?
also

1 dependence on stats made it really hard to interact with anything but direct offensive combat, like... "can we walk away, can that be worked out with stats?" stalled gameplay entirely, when normally it would have been an issue of just "HAY WE RAN U GUYS WANNA FOLLOW Y/N." but that can be hashed out in rules from the beginning, like, "for action !flip a coin for success" or something?

2 taking ic response into account; teammates weren't abandoning each other, so once there WAS a conflict, i think it was really only the delay of not knowing what the rules were that kept every prey team from being wiped?

3 The map was super confusing for me and seemed really arbitrary (it narrowed down to team vs team conflicts in the end, environment couldn't be interacted with, no prep was allowed). Maybe just a REALLY SIMPLE type of map instead, if you wanted an environment? (I remember a map that really worked was just like, "THIS STAGE IS MADE OF CAKE. THIS AREA OF THE CAKE IS THE MOST TREACHEROUS" "THIS STAGE IS ICY. THIS AREA IS THE MOST ICY" and let the characters go nuts from there)

(Reply to this)

ghostduster
2010-09-03 06:44 am UTC (link)

Full disclosure: This wasn't a game I particularly enjoyed, but I also realize that I didn't do my best to play it to the fullest either. Probably I would have had a lot more fun if I'd chosen the sub-optimal (but vastly more interesting) playstyle and just gotten into an awesome fight and been done with it. THIS IS MY FAILING and I am kicking myself for it post-game.

1. Optimal play vs. interesting play. Optimal strategies for both sides were also the ones that avoided the most IC conflict. It favored Hunters to roll constantly with as little RP in the middle as possible; for Prey, constantly evading or finding a safe place to hide was the optimal route. It seems like the people who had the most fun were the ones willing to think outside the game mechanics and/or stay behind to allow conflict even when it wasn't the smartest choice.

On the one hand, we should all be mature enough to step awaaay from the game mechanics and enjoy the game. But it's easy to get wrapped up in wanting to play your character intelligently / honestly enjoying competition / whatever other reason for approaching the game as ... well, a game. Having to OOCly agree to lose in order to get an interesting scenario is tough to do when you're in the heat of the moment. Which brings me to...

2. Timing. So much of this game rested on how fast you could roll those dice, and how fast you could get through a fight thread. Or how long you could drag things out. That's ... problematic. It nudges people towards the "play the mechanics not the game" side of the spectrum and punishes slow threaders. Or even the people who just want an awesome fight scene. I really think using some sort of round system would have helped this significantly.

3. Balance. Personally, I think the game was skewed towards the Hunters in that all the interesting encounters required the Prey to play suboptimally, as I pointed out previously. (At least on the Hunters' side, constantly rolling meant constant shanking attempts.) If the Prey wanted to be smart, there was nothing to do. Again, we should all be able to step back from the game mechanics and play the game, but ... there should be a fair shot of winning if you play the game as intended. And the intention of most (if not every) game should be rewarding RP.

4. Rules clarity. I think you already know this one so I won't elaborate.

AGAIN I don't think this was a bad game, since it looks like people did have fun with it, but I personally didn't enjoy it. Sorry!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

ghostduster
2010-09-03 07:10 am UTC (link)

BASICALLY when I RP in a Sabragame, I want to RP in a Sabragame. I do not want to just play a game, and I do not want to just RP. You can skew towards one end of the scale to the other and still have a kickass game, but on some level mechanics and RP must be married together properly.

... and I say all that, but it is such hell getting that balance right, and every game is full of shit going Not As Planned. Even if you catch a flaw or a mistake half-way through, it's not like you can fix it midstream without being totally unfair about it. I applaud this game for the things it tried and super want to see what you come up with next.

I SWEAR I WILL STOP NOW game design is just one of my ramble buttons. Please forgive me Tokitoh, I really think you did a good job running things even if I didn't enjoy the result. /)_(\

(Reply to this) (Parent)

wheresthemoney
2010-09-03 07:13 am UTC (link)

Reposted. Cause I keep thinking of things to add after I hit 'post comment'. Derp derp.

1) Starting the game by putting the teams who are going against each other in the same post might be helpful. That way the players can OOCly communicate 'hey, we're entering your territory now!' and we can start off the conflict ourselves. You'll also have less posts to manage while the game is running.

2) Setting up the posts in advance/writing the environments in advance. I think this kind of falls under the playtesting point Lenalee mentioned. You can notice certain things that might be off or might not work. It also saves time when the actual game is going.

(Reply to this)

crazylikeavulp
2010-09-03 07:21 am UTC (link)

As someone who has made herself miserable attempting similar games, I feel like I have this perverse desire to see tabletop-style games with stats and maps actually succeed. Because I think they can! But they've always proved problematic, and I'm starting to think that maybe it'd just be better for this type of game if they were run more like heart games, with someone individual running every thread so they don't have to be simplified to the point where interactions become super-limited. Also, sub-letting out your games makes them SUPER EASY to run in that other people are doing it, thus making it an A++ super-recommended Excel Judging Tip.

This is also possibly a personal preference, but I am also severely reluctant to run games where fight scenes happen because fight scenes will ALWAYS take forever, no matter what the circumstances. The quicker and easier your death and destruction, the faster you can get it over with and get to the sweet, sweet aftermath. I'm sorry all of my game-running ideas are basically "be lazier"

(Reply to this) (Thread)

crossboundaries
2010-09-03 08:39 am UTC (link)

Jumping off your comment to give my feedback because this last was going to be the comment I made -- in a game with a lot of stats, grab a tabletop gamer to run ideas past first because the first warning I'd have is that fight scenes with dice take forever. I have honestly been in games where a single fight took eight hours because players were playing with the full round rules and dice mechanics. I totally think these things can be streamlined and run fast -- I've run so many dice-based tabletop games over the years that I am convinced it's possible. But unless you make the instructions super-clear up front and simplify the mechanics both in what has to be done and in how many HP everyone has and so on, you're in for a long haul and getting your goals met is hard. I've done a looot of tabletop gaming (sob has it really been like 19 years now...?) and I saw "three hours" and "dice-based combat" and win conditions involving kills and did immediately fret, I admit, because that is DAMN hard to pull off even with a lot of experience.

I enjoyed the game a lot! But in general fast and loose will always be faster, and if you want a game with high KO counts, you want HP to be so low people can get single-hit KOs, especially as then things like ambushes etc come into play.

Again, I enjoyed it a lot! ♥ I got emotional development and funtimes out of it, and Rolo met new people and all that was great for me. But I'd definitely say that if you want to set up something in a specific style of gameplay, grab people who do a lot of running or designing in those systems and do a quick check on pitfalls because a lot of stuff doesn't come out as apparent until you've been there. I'd love to see what you do next, mind.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	thisdoesntsuck 2010-09-03 07:29 am UTC (link)
	I thought this was well-planned, it just needed clarification and also I think it should have been a turn-based game as opposed to timed. I am super fond of stats not being controlled by the players because I think it puts everyone on the same level, so I'd love to see more of that. (Reply to this)

	analyze_that 2010-09-03 08:36 am UTC (link)
	...so this maybe went on longer then we expected. (Reply to this)

	vaticanpieninja 2010-09-03 04:06 pm UTC (link)
	I jumped in after the learning curve and thought it was fun and smooth going \o\. Though yes I'd also switch from time based to turn based because it did feel like if all the hunters just kept going at it prey would lose. Or else they could evade as a team? (Reply to this)

clap_your_hands
2010-09-03 11:49 pm UTC (link)

Okay, I probably could have a lot to say on this, but a lot has already been covered and I'm sleepy and derpy as fuck right now. XD

One thing that hasn't been covered that I noticed, that really bothered me, though, involves rules and metagaming. I know there's a few people around here who do it, and while it annoys me I'm not going to hold it against them or tell them to stop it, but it's something I avoid as much as I possibly can. I personally as a player know TONS of shit Ed doesn't know, and live in a different timeline than he does, and I go to efforts to make sure that (again, as much as possible) I don't let my knowledge influence his, verify what names he knows people as, check the passage of time, and so forth.

Now, that said, this game had fairly deficient OOC rules, and extremely deficient IC rules, which left me at the start of the actual game with a character who had no idea what the fuck to do at all. The setup forced me into a scenario where I HAD to metagame or nothing would happen; he'd wander around a bit, meet the other team, and have a friendly chat. "Oh have you seen anything else to hunt? No, me neither." Better planning and playtesting has been mentioned, but along with that, better communication is also a great necessity, both IC and OOC.

And in tandem with that, try to anticipate some of the questions people might have, and try to in advance create rulings for them. It bothered me that questions like "can we go for KOs or does it have to be kills?" and "What about my powers, do I still have my special powers?" weren't anticipated, when they're honestly kind of obvious ones. And it also bothered me that the answers to those were unclear and showed that they hadn't been anticipated. As a GM you shouldn't ever have an answer that comes across as "Uh... I don't know." Anticipate and make a decision, or make a decision on the fly and stick to it.

Um. That's all. And I apologize if any of this comes across as bitchy, I swear I don't mean it to be, but I am so tired right now. XD Really I'm not mad or anything! Just. So tired.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	crimson_blank 2010-09-04 02:37 am UTC (link)
	Ah, I forgot about that--characters not understanding what they were supposed to do is also evident in Canis' encounter, in which Flames promptly does what she is supposed to and attacks, and everyone else on the team tries to stop her. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	clap_your_hands 2010-09-04 02:40 am UTC (link)
	...Oh hey on that topic, someone needs to unlock all those posts. (Reply to this) (Parent)

crimson_blank
2010-09-04 02:35 am UTC (link)

Watanuki said it well, but my two cents are: the game sounded really awesome and I felt that it was right up until the teams started encountering each other. In other words--up until the meat of the game.

Getting screwed by the random number generator is fine by me, but it felt like the stats gave the hunters every advantage, which isn't fun for prey, particularly when you've got prey who aren't inclined to just flee haphazardly regardless of any circumstances. The mid-game rule clarifications exasperated this feeling of unbalanced game mechanics, as the prey's defense was halved. On a personal note it is never fun to have your character/team half-dead in the very first encounter before someone actually takes the time to explain how the game is played--especially when you can't say "all right, now that we know how to do this right, let's start over."

(Reply to this)