Friday night was Margie’s D&D game, so I was batching it. Relatively quiet evening. I finished watching The Professional (good, in a vaguely creepy and slightly exploitative way, but good) and finally watched Reservoir Dogs (a fascinating if gruesomely bloody vignette, but not what I’d call a story), both of which I’d borrowed from Stan (and both of which I’m glad I’d borrowed rather than buying). I’m glad I watched both, but I don’t expect I will again.
Slammed away (unsuccessfully) on my page design.
Saturday was general errand day, punctuated by an unexpectedly long nap. In the evening, Margie had a company award dinner she’d been invited to (a project she was on being a finalist), which was a posh and entertaining affair at the Hyatt DTC. It struck me that my employer would never in a zillion years hold such an event, even though I suspect it benefitted the company a lot more than it cost, both in terms of raising morale among the invitees and in terms of the award process itself.
Our sitter nearly no-showed again, and if it weren’t for the fact that she’s usually available and lives just down the street, I’d renew my intent to not invite her back.
Sunday was, after church and brunch and all, Spycraft day. Better going this time, I think — finally had a battle, finally got the plot lurching forward once more. The group has, not through any fault or bad play of their own, done some — well, not quite breaking, but certainly twisting of the module. I did a little bending back, perhaps unfairly (as it will turn out), but I can contemplate that for a few weeks until the next session, as I halted us about an hour-and-a-half early, knowing we were getting into some potentially meaty occurances that might well take about three hours to resolve.
I am finding more and more annoying the seams that show up, badly, in scenarios crafted for Living Spycraft tables when run as full-blown home-game scenarios. Especially since I try to go over them with a fine tooth comb, only to discover that what seemed perfectly logical in terms of possible ways of approaching things when I was reading the thing turns out to be woefully inadequate when I get five very clever and experienced gamers with no 4-hour time limit hanging over them tackling the problems so presented.
I suppose I could simply make up my own scenarios out of whole cloth, but that would entail (a) work, and (b) admitting that inadequacies in the sessions that ensued were my fault, not the module’s …
Maybe what we do is focus more on…
hmm… no that doesn’t work. Ignore me.
I think the modules are fine — they’re like the streets of New York built on LA sound stages — too much poking around and you realize that most of the buildings aren’t really buildings.
I think it might help if we let you know ahead of time about new developments in the characters or tactics that will affect play — for instance, if I’d let you know ahead of time that I’d added a feat to give me bonuses to Read Lips, Sense Motive, and Slight of Hand (or whatever the trio was), you might have be able to prepare a bit for the ReadLipsviaCamera thing.
Or, more cogently, if I’d let you know that I’d been reading up on the pages and pages of stuff on ‘how to work through a crime scene, biological profile, and psych profile, you’d have been able to prepare a bit for that. There’s piles of Spycraft material we’re pulling out — it would most certainly help to get updates on the new stuff we’re likely to try — right now, i feel a little like we’re (I’m) perhaps developing characters in secret and springing new things on you in-game.
That’s not fair to you (of course) and has the dually self-defeating result that most any GM will react to such things with a knee-jerk resistance to the unexpected avenue of exploration. It would be *better* if you knew things like “Lou’s two third level feats will end up giving her one more attack around alot of the time” or “Dylan’s going to be working the Profiling tables in the Faceman book to learn more about the suspects.”
End summary — don’t lay it all on you — we could be helping at making your prep job easier.
(Something we should probably also remember prior to Friday’s Necropolis game, I suppose. Surprises are only going to make everyone grumpy.)
Actually, none of that fazed me. I mean, if you’d whipped out the Dog Seeking Missile that Calvin had been secretly working on up in the castle attic, then, yeah, I might have been a bit irked. But the profiling stuff ,and the lip reading stuff, and the extra Lou attack … nah. I expect you guys will come up with good stuff, within the rules, to optimize your characters’ abilities.
If anything, I probably (by adjudicating lip reading on the fly) didn’t give you clear enough info. It was an excellent tactic, though, and one that brought out some needed plot bits.
My biggest problem right now is figuring out whether to try to bring one major plot point back on the tracks (which would require some GM fiat behind the scenes, perhaps unfairly), or shift things around to make the plot move forward the way it’s supposed to, only taking into account what you’ve done so far (which would take less fiat, but make quite a few other things less relevent in retrospect).
I think that gives me an idea, though …
I admit to terrible curiosity about what plot point’s gone so terribly off-track — if it’s any consolation, nothing really feels off track at the moment, excepting the escape of the faux-post-mistress.
I too can’t wait till we get done to take a peek behind the curtain.
And I loved that Doyce got the Evidance sheets and the whole lip reading thing. Great stuff.
Though, I think that Jackie (Lou) would have loved it if Margie (Calvin) had cooked up a dog seeking Missile up in the attic.
Pondered some stuff on the way home, and now think that it’s a good thing that Lou, Gina and Gozi are outside of the castle.
Now I’m going to have to think about what major plot point we are frelling up…
…sigh.
Let’s just say that the narrative flow of the scenario, as presented, seems increasingly implausible — except as a bunch of LS players rushing around frantically and doing Gather Information checks in lieu of, well, actual role-playing and thoughtful consideration of good strategy and tactics.
Some of the PCs have been far more “effective” than the scenario anticipates. Others have been less “effective” in the lines they’ve pursued. And none of it has been due to any particularly bad or lacking gameplay on the players’ parts.
I’ll note just one meta-issue here. The nature of LS is that the game has a time urgency to it. That is, in turn, supposed to reflect, I think, an in-game urgency. Reading (and re-reading) the scenario, though, provides no such urgency, leaving a number of your plans to reasonably and soundly be stretched out over the course of a few days, whereas there were some assumptions about a more compressed and driven investigation in the module that haven’t played out that way. In retrospect, I could have artificially punched that aspect up (as has been done in other modules) with time limits, some impending event that requires a sense of urgency, so at least a bit of that is on my shoulders, too. Live and learn.
Part of it also gets back to what Doyce has previously described as table-sense. At a con table, you get an instinctive feel for what sorts of avenues of action (and investigation) are intended, and what aren’t, particuarly when the GM’s tells come into play. There are way too many places (to draw on another excellent Doyce analogy above) where this particular scenario has places where you can slip past the false-fronted buildings into the back lot, meaning either quick thinking on my part as to how to gently usher you back into the sound stage, or else hopefully-not-too-arbitrary walls being put into place to keep you from wandering out in the first place.
Living and learning.
That being said, I’m glad things are not seeming (on the front side of the curtain) too forced in this regard.
Well, You seem to have done a good enough job that nothing has seemed forced whilst ushering us back on the path.
Game wise, the time constraints have come out in little dribs and drabs. At first we assumed that we would have until some time the next day to get a sense of the place and do gather info checks (while not frantic, we were in a hurry to do it before nightfall). We had a slight time check of 18:00 for the dinner with Montrose. And then Dylan found out about the time lock for 22:00 so things got a little bit pressured and we had to drop off the list several things that we could have explored.
One thing that I did find amusing was the fact that somebody somewhere else had the equipment that we wanted/needed. Next time make sure we have at least glow sticks.
I thought of a couple of things last night as I was going to bed that Calvin would have thought of sooner.
1) Rather than trying to determine who the unknown post-mistress is directly, we should be looking for a connection within the castle. Who has a sister or girlfriend that might match her description.
2) I keep forgetting that Bainbridge is missing not dead. (Is he on a Zodiac with the post-mistress)
3) I think the Lieutenant deserves some further investigation. Is he incompetent or is that a cover so we won’t look deeper?
And to Doyce – you are right, please share with Jackie my plan for our upcoming mêlée – Thanks
*blank stare*
OOOHHHH. Necropolis. Right.
Oh, thank heavens — here I thought it was another nefarious player secret conspiracy thang going on in my campaign.
Oh, Dave…We’re past the point in this scene.
With the last little bit to go all we need to do is let slip the dogs of war…oh, um, I mean Lou and we’re good.
Now, if we do a good job next time, you can spring the next mod on us so we can do the gear up phase prior to going home.
The thought has actually occured to me.