Am I The Only One...
Jul. 23rd, 2015 08:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magicaddict...who didn't particularly enjoy last week's game?
Disclaimer: The game was fine - good premise, good selection of monsters, simple and direct narrative. I'm not commenting on the game design or OOC management.
But I still didn't particularly enjoy myself.
Thyrian is a nothing character. On games, he's no more substantial than Juilin was. The only challenge he represents to me is remembering his spell vocals and not cheating (failing to remember my stats correctly). Given that I get this wrong on a number of occasions (as I did last week, spending one more mana than I needed to on every spell I cast), it leaves me feeling less of a person as a result of playing him. Possibly having Eirlys present would provide an outside stimulus that is otherwise lacking, but all of the interactions he had felt staid, forced, and pretty much unnecessary. Had I handed the stats sheet to someone else and gone home, little or nothing would have changed. I don't care that he's effective - anyone with those stats would be, so the statement means nothing.
The party's combination of castings was so world-bendingly powerful with respect to the game that I never felt remotely in danger (not since Nimbus before the rules changes have I felt so invulnerable). With the exception of getting paralysed repeatedly (perfectly reasonable - I was playing a mage - but then made me invulnerable to the rest of the encounter as it is Bad Form to hit paralysed characters), nothing had a great deal of effect. I took, at most, three points of damage in a single hit, and that was to my chest, so I barely had to react, and I never dropped below half life or half wounds on any location. No fear. No danger. No risk. Unstoppable force meets target rich environment - only one possible outcome. I have fun by getting trounced, coping with adversity, succeeding in a pinch. This wasn't. This was a methodical and relentless destruction of a game's encounters by a party that wouldn't take no for an answer. I couldn't engage with it. Even IC lamenting on the abhorrence of the situation was met with a cheery IC response of "This is fun!", widely echoed.
There was a very unpleasant incident approaching the final fight in which the party become so spread out due to varying OOC ability to keep up that one section had to be paused while the the other was able to continue. As one of those pushing to move forward quickly on this occasion was one who has in the past insisted that the game stops so they can catch their breath and remain part of the game, this was irritating to me. In a society that has a culture of inclusionism OOC, using IC reasoning to justify the OOC exclusion of those who did not have the required level of fitness to keep up with them (which really was the reason for the group being strung out), also irritated me. More than a little. Then it changed, and the force so unflinchingly determined to press on at all costs suddenly insisted on not going forward any further until those behind had been notified of what was going on. What changed?
This isn't out of the ordinary - this is a variant of what I come away from most games (particularly my own) thinking. What if? If only? Why did they do that? How was this acceptable? How was that gotten away with? What were they thinking? Are they mad?
I must be missing something. If I walk away from a game no less despondent than normal when everyone else is busy singing its praises, I get the feeling it's very much on me. This is why this is here, and not emailed to the committee, or posted on the boards.
*Looks at calendar.*
Oh good - my game this Sunday.
Disclaimer: The game was fine - good premise, good selection of monsters, simple and direct narrative. I'm not commenting on the game design or OOC management.
But I still didn't particularly enjoy myself.
Thyrian is a nothing character. On games, he's no more substantial than Juilin was. The only challenge he represents to me is remembering his spell vocals and not cheating (failing to remember my stats correctly). Given that I get this wrong on a number of occasions (as I did last week, spending one more mana than I needed to on every spell I cast), it leaves me feeling less of a person as a result of playing him. Possibly having Eirlys present would provide an outside stimulus that is otherwise lacking, but all of the interactions he had felt staid, forced, and pretty much unnecessary. Had I handed the stats sheet to someone else and gone home, little or nothing would have changed. I don't care that he's effective - anyone with those stats would be, so the statement means nothing.
The party's combination of castings was so world-bendingly powerful with respect to the game that I never felt remotely in danger (not since Nimbus before the rules changes have I felt so invulnerable). With the exception of getting paralysed repeatedly (perfectly reasonable - I was playing a mage - but then made me invulnerable to the rest of the encounter as it is Bad Form to hit paralysed characters), nothing had a great deal of effect. I took, at most, three points of damage in a single hit, and that was to my chest, so I barely had to react, and I never dropped below half life or half wounds on any location. No fear. No danger. No risk. Unstoppable force meets target rich environment - only one possible outcome. I have fun by getting trounced, coping with adversity, succeeding in a pinch. This wasn't. This was a methodical and relentless destruction of a game's encounters by a party that wouldn't take no for an answer. I couldn't engage with it. Even IC lamenting on the abhorrence of the situation was met with a cheery IC response of "This is fun!", widely echoed.
There was a very unpleasant incident approaching the final fight in which the party become so spread out due to varying OOC ability to keep up that one section had to be paused while the the other was able to continue. As one of those pushing to move forward quickly on this occasion was one who has in the past insisted that the game stops so they can catch their breath and remain part of the game, this was irritating to me. In a society that has a culture of inclusionism OOC, using IC reasoning to justify the OOC exclusion of those who did not have the required level of fitness to keep up with them (which really was the reason for the group being strung out), also irritated me. More than a little. Then it changed, and the force so unflinchingly determined to press on at all costs suddenly insisted on not going forward any further until those behind had been notified of what was going on. What changed?
This isn't out of the ordinary - this is a variant of what I come away from most games (particularly my own) thinking. What if? If only? Why did they do that? How was this acceptable? How was that gotten away with? What were they thinking? Are they mad?
I must be missing something. If I walk away from a game no less despondent than normal when everyone else is busy singing its praises, I get the feeling it's very much on me. This is why this is here, and not emailed to the committee, or posted on the boards.
*Looks at calendar.*
Oh good - my game this Sunday.
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no subject
Date: 2015-07-23 08:11 pm (UTC)I have to admit, I can't actually remember what happened in the final charge once I got off the hill... I know we had at least one paralysed person because Warren just told me that was why Idaho wasn't at the front, but that's all.
Do get what you mean about the damage being fairly low, depending on who it hit, but I presume the idea was meant to be wearing out through sheer numbers rather than big damage (with the exception of the occasional Unholy 5 ghouls which hurt Mistral a reasonable amount). Plus the wearing down through the Diseases and the use of odder castings like the Permanent Enervate that went out. Could have been upped a bit, but as Steve said the only thing keeping most people going was that selection of buffs and it would have been very easy to tip the other way entirely.
Dunno. I guess I enjoyed it because for once I came off a game without being horribly stressed OOC, which is something that hasn't happened in a long time as a player. I could try and help you work out what particular things are bothering you, if you think it might help?
no subject
Date: 2015-07-27 06:47 pm (UTC)But I loved it. I loved it, because much of the time that I play Bregan I'm desperately trying to stay alive with a stat build tailored to one thing and one thing only, and the chance to cut loose with that stat build is the best. I enjoyed it because it was relaxing and I got to blow off some of the immense amount of steam I'm carrying around - one of the core reasons I lrp and one that has been eroded to almost non existence in recent years. The difficulties of life and the world resolved down into a really easy Good vs Evil, Us vs Them. And if it was one sided in that fight, it was because we were well briefed on what was coming and brought the right characters. A tribute to the power of information.
I absolutely agree that the same thing with a more complex character than Bregan would have generated less enjoyment.
I am left curious - did you enjoy the Praesent And Correct 36 hour? Because it had all the same issues for me as you're describing for this, in my perception, yet I perceived you to enjoy it. Which leaves me wondering what the difference was, if that was so?
Part 1
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