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[Unholy_Pariah]

Tbh this whole mission has me peeved.
lm 90% sure its not intentional, but the whole thing feels like you're just doing whatever you think you can get away with in order to achieve a tpk.

maybe its just the fact you hide certain rolls without subtle descriptions to let us know they've occured.
but at this point it honestly feels like you're actively sabotaging us, to me anyway.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

Yeah ill admit I don't like this mission very much as well due to the sheer shitshow its been and well....to be honest Its mostly pretty boring...or like when I read it feels a little dull..
Ozarck is probably burned out on the mission because its been going for so long.

[Unholy_Pariah]

thats kinda the problem I have here.

I mean sure it took a longass time to get going, but as soon as cho and samuel started making progress with the metalpedes it seems like ozarck got bored with the rest of you dicking about in the starting rooms and decided to hit the nuke button so he wouldnt have to deal with this mission anymore.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

I was kinda confused for most of the mission to where noir actually kinda was and noir...did not really know what to do...or how to do it....Also the whole cart thing....was...kinda annoying. And just stalled things when the mission could finally get going.

[Ozarck]

U_P makes some excellent points. I'd like to share my perspective on how it went down. If you guys feel like I am bullshitting here, feel free to say so. that's why I said to go ahead and complain.

Tbh this whole mission has me peeved.
lm 90% sure its not intentional, but the whole thing feels like you're just doing whatever you think you can get away with in order to achieve a tpk.

maybe its just the fact you hide certain rolls without subtle descriptions to let us know they've occured.
but at this point it honestly feels like you're actively sabotaging us, to me anyway.

This mission was more or less lost as soon as both supply carts were destroyed. the fact that you guys had an opportunity to reclaim them was a genuine positive from the Christmas gift !!fun!! But it wasn't supposed to be easy to get them back.

I never intend a tpk. I tried to get people moving away from the severely corroded and collapsing first room. I gave plenty of options for people to leave when the giant monster appeared. I warned mj more than once that trier was risking calamity with his med rolls and his attempts to drive the carts. I warned spaz about driving the carts into mj's crystal room, which is where you guys set up shop to get the carts back, by the way - same broken room full of rubble, hanging by a thread. Ad i warned you guys that Noir was not the best pilot for the cart, even going so far as to allow Ebony to attempt to communicate with her through a spell not really intended for that purpose.

oh, and -2s. Let's talk about player stats on that one. Noir has three -2s. Intelligence, memory, and general knowledge. Frankly, it's lucky she hasn't caused much more harm so far.

You are right that I hide certain rolls without mentioning that they happen. Honestly, I am not sure how much of that I should reveal, since some of it has to do with information that would not be known otherwise. heck, I've rolled "Does this player have a clue about what's about to happen? Let me give them an opportunity to figure that out" more often than I've rolled any other hidden action. there have been times where I was like "This outcome is going to be confusing. let me roll to see if they figure out why it happened this way." If the roll is low, I can't really help IC. so I wait for an objection and respond to that ooc.

I'll admit, the Christmas gift experience was more of a monkey's paw than I expected, and that added to an already rough experience, and like you, I was glad we had finally gotten rolling, but by then, I felt that it was already too late, due to the destruction of the mission supplies. And I couldn't just autodrop more supplies, since the supply issue was written into the mission from the start. And I made that clear before this thread even got made.

thats kinda the problem I have here.

I mean sure it took a longass time to get going, but as soon as cho and samuel started making progress with the metalpedes it seems like ozarck got bored with the rest of you dicking about in the starting rooms and decided to hit the nuke button so he wouldnt have to deal with this mission anymore.

I feel like I set the nuke on a timer, placed it right in front of the group, with a big red "push me to stop the nuke from exploding" button, and watched as everyone started hitting the thing with rocks. After a certain number of giant-ass boldtexted warnings, I kinda had to follow through.

I was kinda confused for most of the mission to where noir actually kinda was and noir...did not really know what to do...or how to do it....Also the whole cart thing....was...kinda annoying. And just stalled things when the mission could finally get going.

I found this to be a big challenge: keeping everyone informed of exactly where they were, simply because I felt that I spent a lot of time saying (to variuos players) "you are in the starting room, right next to the carts. And you are in the room next to the starting room. You've been in that room for the last eight turns. You are two rooms away from tehstarting room. You just re-entered the starting room. You are right next to the stairs. honestly you could just go up the stairs. No need to climb on the highly unstable rubble right next to the fall int onothingness. Nope, still in the starting room, which is, seriously, for the third time, about to fall off into space."

I honestly have been confused at how unclear my directions have apparently been, with maps and everything, on that matter.

[Lenglon]

No mission briefing + no time to examine mission equipment + complex mission-critical equipment that cannot be easily moved by hand + extremely hazardous start location = mission is a non-starter. the carts trapped the team at the start location, and then the hazard they were trapped in destroyed everything. because of this, we've effectively made negative progress - to the point where a mission restart would be safer and easier than continuing. a complete restart btw, with no mapping or other exploration progress saved. the starting setup was seriously that bad. an actual mission brief and an explanation of what the carts can do and how to use them was mandatory for the location we were put in.

taking that situation, and adding the christmas event - which i am extremely unhappy with due to its unfair nature and how it penalized roleplay - did you notice that the only wishes that were actually granted were ones for immediate requests? the rock, jack's revival, and theee carts. and the ones that were based on a character's core motivations - Aylia's wish to know about her dad, Dar's wish to find his master, Asiin's wish to protect, Terrance's wish to live - were just a massive penalty with no upside whatsoever? I sure did. We each listed off our character's core motivation because we trusted the GM, and figured that at worst there'd be a prodding or annoyance we'd have to deal with themed on our motivation. that'd have been fine. instead being given a total "fuck you" that completely destroyed the character motivation? that was not okay.

and now we have the aftermath, where the already struggling team got one last chance at replacing the mandatory mission equipment lost due to the stupidest mission start location and brief of all time, but doing so requires risky actions while under the stacking penalties of an approaching time limit and the christmas fuck-yous. so far, it isn't working.

If Aylia had the knowlege Lenglon has, she'd be sending the survivors home right now, with a commendation recomendation for Cho, NO penalty reccomendation for the team members, and request a investigation and possible court-martial for the officer in charge of organizing the expedition in the first place. Harmless prank no-teleport-warning is one thing, organizing an oversize team and putting them into a deathtrap with no mission brief or chance to familiarize themselves with those damn carts is something else entirely.

If the mission was restarted, with just Aylia, Dar, Cho, Jack, and Ebony, and with the knowledge we have now, betcha we'd complete it with nary a scratch.

PPE: Oz's post
Oz, I agree that you gave warnings, but lets look at that room you put the carts in for a moment, and bear in mind that the only method we had to move them was to PUSH them at the time since no character had investigated them effectively:
Exit Aylia used - vertical hole up, non-cart passable
Exit along the cliff face - sloped ground, carts will probably slide out of control out into space
Exit actually used - Trier's crystal forest.

so there was literally no good options.

if we'd had a chance to familiaraize ourselves with the things before mission start, instead of dropping two giant heavy boxes of unlabled buttons on wheels on us right as we entered a dangerous area, then we'd have had a fair chance. instead you effectively put everyone in a locked room and made alarms blare about how the nerve gas was coming soon and we needed to enter the exit code on the keypad soon - without giving us any way to know the exit code.

that's not okay.

[AbstractTraitorHero]

I have to agree with lenglon....A lot there it...was basically like that and I was left puzzled how to do it...And noir had way less of an idea then I did that was for sure.Noir was litteraly I have no idea what is going on I'm going to listen to jack and aylia,Noir....was very confused this mission and I was as a player confused...which made things worse for noir....I'm just hoping everyone who is left right now gets to evacuate anf recover and figure out what's going on...because this mission is fubared.

[Ozarck]

I agree: I messed up not giving you guys a mission brief. And the Christmas event was a failure. I am willing to correct the Christmas event.

As for the starting location: I disagree that it was anywhere near as difficult as it became.

there were two dangers in the starting room: falling out, and the monster that started eating the room.
the room itself was not dangerous. the room to the north was, and of course, that's where Jack, Noir, and half a dozen others decide to explore. That room had virtually no floor and no place to go

The first issue was resolved in one round: you got the carts stopped, moved to level ground, and secured. And then I gave a description of the carts. a simple follow up examination of the controls by someone who did not have a -2 to general knowledge was all it would have taken to get them up and running. literally running. You guys could have been miles away before the second threat manifested. I honestly felt there would be plenty of time in the starting location for you guys to figure out the carts, had everyone not gone and done everything but look at them.

the second issue did not manifest "in a locked room with alarms blaring." It didn't even show up until after the first cart had been wrecked. And it took several turns, full of warnings, before that became an issue. Trier's crystals were a bigger issue, and earlier. Did I need to erase what would have been a relatively minor threat because the team was already setting itself on fire?

I did, at the start, say that there was only one cart accessible door - the one to the south. Looking back, I could have been more generous with exits - specifically making the two on the east cart accessible, which is what they ended up as anyway.

[Egan_BW]

I understand that there's a world of difference between -2 gen kno and -1, but I still didn't want to touch those things at all, seeing what Trier managed.

[Ozarck]

hmm.

Everyone who was on this mission, PM me what they would like done with their characters.

Also, PM either "I want the Despair Mission to not have happened" or "I'm fine with moving forward from here."

I understand that there's a world of difference between -2 gen kno and -1, but I still didn't want to touch those things at all, seeing what Trier managed.

Fair. But as team leader, you could have gotten someone to look at them. Or prevented Trier from doing so. I was surprised that Aylia didn't follow up with her first inspection of the cart. I figured Lenglon wouldn't have let it go at the description I gave her after she asked for a detailed description early on.

[Egan_BW]

hmm.

Everyone who was on this mission, PM me what they would like done with their characters.

Also, PM either "I want the Despair Mission to not have happened" or "I'm fine with moving forward from here."

I understand that there's a world of difference between -2 gen kno and -1, but I still didn't want to touch those things at all, seeing what Trier managed.

Fair. But as team leader, you could have gotten someone to look at them. Or prevented Trier from doing so. I was surprised that Aylia didn't follow up with her first inspection of the cart. I figured Lenglon wouldn't have let it go at the description I gave her after she asked for a detailed description early on.

_{I've never lead anyone in my life.}

I could have stopped Trier, yes, but at that point, IC Asiin knows nothing about him, OOC I didn't know that he had -2, and there were a million people running around, performing seemingly innocuous actions. Am I expected to check the stats of every other character to keep them from doing something stupid?

[Ozarck]

hmm.

Everyone who was on this mission, PM me what they would like done with their characters.

Also, PM either "I want the Despair Mission to not have happened" or "I'm fine with moving forward from here."

I understand that there's a world of difference between -2 gen kno and -1, but I still didn't want to touch those things at all, seeing what Trier managed.

Fair. But as team leader, you could have gotten someone to look at them. Or prevented Trier from doing so. I was surprised that Aylia didn't follow up with her first inspection of the cart. I figured Lenglon wouldn't have let it go at the description I gave her after she asked for a detailed description early on.

_{I've never lead anyone in my life.}

I could have stopped Trier, yes, but at that point, IC Asiin knows nothing about him, OOC I didn't know that he had -2, and there were a million people running around, performing seemingly innocuous actions. Am I expected to check the stats of every other character to keep them from doing something stupid?

No, you are right. Perhaps I am thinking too much from a GM perspective on that.

[Lenglon]

Early on, I didn't want to shift forms, and my examination was limited by the form I was in. there were other people there, and I didn't think there would be danger in leaving the carts where they were so long as we didn't actually set up camp there - several hours at least before threatened by anything but our own stupidity. I figured this was going to be a multi-day event, and was beginning to scout ahead to get a general idea of what we were dealing with. then as things went to hell, I kept in mind player knowledge vs character knowledge, and Aylia had no reason to know to come back, though I did try to supply her with an excuse to do so.

the threat to the starting area came far sooner than I expected.

regarding the behavior of our -2's, I try to let people handle their own mistakes, and assume if you have a char with -2's, you will avoid using the -2 stats on your own. I don't like opposing the action of another player generally. Trier, frankly, I just avoided as much as possible, and let him either kill or save himself from himself, with my goal just to stay out of the blast radius.

It looks like I should have been way more hands-on this game, micromanaging the teams and such. I didn't want to be restrictive, and I did want to be in that particular form in case of combat, but as lead, I should have given up on those and just assigned jobs directly. starting with a reorganization of the teams and their members and continuing from there (would have made a base camp team and two scouting parties sent in opposite directions, and yes, base camp would be boring.)
and I think I'm the only person on the mission that did check every single character's stats, and I have trouble remembering them all in any case.

[spazyak]

I will admit I played a large part in the dicking about in the begginning, though my origional plan was just to spend 3 turns split apart, then get going down a route. Though we all can see what had occured. I did try to split up the group I seemed to have been put in charge in based around what would work together the best and help make up for innabilities of each other.

(also sorry for the crappyness of this post, not feeling too good)

[Unholy_Pariah]

I honestly believe you that its not an intentional tpk attempt. But the lack ofof critical description on rolls really doesn't help.

I mean there appears to be a pattern of life threatening rolls happening secretly in the background rather than being openly shown. as a rule if thumb if something is gonna kill someone you should really focus on fleshing out that part of the turn so people can understand whats going on so they can react accordingly (or understand why you made them react in a certain way), plus its a lot more interesting to read that way.

I mean the thing with solams amulet is one example, that really needed a little disclaimer or a small bit of descriptive fluff so he could understand why you "ignored" his action and set him up for a fight.

another more critical example is noir with the cart crash, 90% of the group was standing there basically just doing busywork while watching and waiting for her to do something, and all we got was "noir fucks up, the cart's been destroyed again and heres a list of who died." rather than a nice few sentences about how we all watch her coming in too fast and then all panic and trip over each other trying to dodge the cart.
Not only did it make the whole event feel like you just dismissively rolled who died instead of letting us attempt escape, but it also cheapened the story because you gave us absolutely no description of the event beyond noirs perspective.