VTD 13

VTD weekend was President’s Weekend.  What took me so long to post about it?

Not having President’s Day off for the first time ever had something to do with it.

Various True Dungeon activity also distracted.

Right now, Safehold program is being finalized for March 1st kickoff.  2024 token development is happening.

But, let’s go back to the long, long ago.  When monsters were incorporeal and Io’s were equipped.

Friday 736PM

We have six.  We do Epic, as usual.  DM warns us that people are getting a lot of 1’s on rolls and something may be wrong with one of the programs.

We struggle getting lots of 1’s.  This DM, not being sure if something was broken or not, let us reroll at times when it got absurd how many 1’s were appearing.  We got all of the puzzles, though we didn’t know why the answer to rm1 was what it was.  We died in rm7, not surprisingly.

But, struggling with six on Epic with an unfamiliar dungeon is fine.  If we can just stroll into Epic and just win without struggling, then it’s just too easy.  Well, maybe not.  I suggested a higher difficulty level, and there is one on the horizon related in some way to the Safehold program.

Saturday 1212PM

We have eight.  Epic again.  Where the first run was okay, this was awful.  We were constantly getting 1’s still and didn’t know why.  After this run, I found out what was going on – two rooms had incorporeal monsters and last room had displaced monster.  Except, this just made it worse.  On both of our first two runs, one of my builds had Lenses of the Fae equipped, while other builds had things like Figurine of Power Moon Dog.  One of the programs for playing VTD required that you activate a buff to ignore incorporeal even when the token was always on.  The programmer changed that later.  But, neither DM made it clear at all what was going on.

I have grown to hate token development.  But, I realized a year or two ago that tokens aren’t really what affects my enjoyment of playing.  What affects my enjoyment of playing is the dice roller, is Eldritch damage, is not knowing what’s going on in rooms even after played through them.  I don’t need to know puzzle solutions after a first run.  In fact, it was interesting for me to know the right answer on this run and have a justification for it that made sense to me but have my justification have nothing to do with how to solve the puzzle.  But, I do multiple runs of the same dungeon to metagame against them after the first run.  What I want is to know everything mechanically about the combat rooms after first run so that I can make informed decisions on builds.

Instead, we had no idea why we were getting wrecked in these combats.  That the DM on first run didn’t seem to realize we had Prayer up in rm3 meant I didn’t think to cast it on second run to stop from being “horrified” as I just figured it was BS like Eldritch Fear that ignored anything to do with defending against fear.

Rm5 being really hard wasn’t the problem.  Rm5 being really hard to do things and having effects that took you out of combat and did a bunch of damage and gave push damage is not how I would challenge people at our level.  I don’t have to win every room, don’t have to beat every dungeon.  But, the variance in difficulty is way too high with rooms like this.  This would be fine if Epic was more generally difficult so that people would be prepared, but this is much like 9B from last year where being able to beat the final room meant other rooms were way too easy.

Saturday 612PM

I found out what was going on with the various rooms by the time this run happened.  I poltergeisted this run.  I played, someone else owned the ticket.

As this was with a regular group of Hardcore players, I just tried to fit in with a 16 token paladin build.  16?  Well, was supposed to be 15, but I used Figurine of Power Phoenix to keep someone who was at 2hp from dying.  The party won after some dabbling in Nightmare combats during the run.

Someone got a survivor pin.

Sunday 1012AM

Anti-Cabal run.  We decided on Nightmare as we knew this was still going to be rough.  Until rm5, it was a cakewalk.  We knew the puzzles, we knew how to manage the combats.  I took like 42 damage in rm5 as I forgot that shock mitigation would matter and how long this combat was likely to go with our damage output.

Speaking of damage output, 60% of our party used Io’s +4 Ultra Keen Slayer Bow.  Just your typical barbarian missile build along with the two fighters.

I died three times in rm7.  No one else died.  Everyone else could have gotten survivor pins, but a lot of declining occurred.

Overall, my first run was okay, though the volunteers should have known what was going on as it just required talking to the app builder for the website app.  Second sucked.  Third was pleasant.  Fourth was solid.  Because of recency bias, made me feel better about the dungeon.

However, on Discord, the complaining never ended, and I kept getting wound up about not being informed as to what’s going on and wondering why DMs didn’t have more information on why things worked the way they did.

Because I’m irritated about other TD things at the moment, it’s easy for me to be negative.  However, I understand trying to make dungeons more difficult as they are too easy for people like us who have > than Epic builds.  Epic Double Down or solo Nightmare is what I consider the right challenge level.  But, it should be incremental and not feel like a gotcha as people don’t know what difficulty to choose when dungeons vary too much in difficulty.  Also, displaced monster in rm7 is BS.  There is only one token in the game that counters displacement, and it was only printed 12 years ago.  I’m all for that token being useful, but, then, either reprint it or give people alternatives.

I could rant about token development or the Safehold program or whatever, but I did some self-examination.  I don’t own these games.  I can choose not to play them or not put money into them or whatever much like I can choose to not watch a movie.  My attempts to help are tinged with my cynicism and how negative I can easily be, so they probably don’t help as much as I thought.  I want to talk about games I play.  I want to do analysis.  But, I don’t have to.

I’m not a believer in “if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything” – I’m very much the opposite in belief as the point of analysts and analysis is to point out what is wrong with things.  However, there’s a line where criticism just isn’t helpful and is just self-serving.  I have a blog to gripe about things.  If people want to read it, great.  But, I find lots of posts about games I play to be worthless, and I’m trying to be more cognizant of when I’m just whining.

Fisticuffs 20230203

Sign of the times.  I played Shadowfist last Friday and didn’t post immediately here about it.  Instead, I posted these comments to the Discord server:

We had four games.  I went first in four player with Merlin to left, Daniel opposite, Paul to right.  I was playing Abominations.  Merlin Good Ol’ Boys.  Daniel Dragon Guns with Gunslinger for Bite.  Paul Unstoppable Four Mountains Fist.  Daniel burned for victory a bunch of times, then got locked out (unless he could Bite a second time) with zero power and four in his BfV due to Potlatch.  I could have delayed this game a bit longer, but a Good Ol’ Boys got through after hours on my never used Valley of Ashes even with ITAYG and Golden Comeback played while it was in play (both played to stop bids for victory).

I played threesie with Paul to left, Drew to right.  I had resource issues, but managed to play a third Great Wall and an Urban Monk on same turn to look threatening.  Paul had Architects/Hand for some obvious reason.  Drew won off of Underworld Gateway in a game that didn’t last forever.  I played a total of two Railroad Workers (both of which got Toasted after being in smoked pile), Urban Monk, and Red Ally.

I finished my patty melt while Daniel won off of the broken power of CAT Tactics in a fourway.  Paul to his left, Drew across, Merlin right.  Merlin did vampire stuff.  Paul Dragon/Purists.  Drew Syndicate.

We did five player where only three players play on any given turn.  On a player’s turn, only two opposite players exist.  Daniel first with Petal stuff.  I skipped a turn, eventually played some Ascended stuff that didn’t rein in Merlin at all.  Paul to my left was Dragon.  Drew was Hand Faceoff.  Merlin Fiery with some Ice sleaze.  Put out bunch of pingy foundations, then three Flambards, and a Fire Serpent.  With Paul’s site hit for 5 from Daniel, it was 3 Body with a horde coming in from Merlin.  Paul’s game was rough as Merlin and Daniel were the only two actually making any progress.  Drew kept giving me power through Chinese Connection, but I had no defensive tricks and could never generate enough attack to actually do anything to Merlin.

In three games, I never once made a bid for victory.  Occurred to me that the last deck I played probably should only be played in foursies.  I’ll try to build decks that actually do something even if that’s against my oeuvre as it makes for better games when actually have things like Killdeer in Ascended deck or whatever.

Takeaways?  I continue to not get around to lots of deck ideas.  I continue to not be able to threaten to win in games, part of which is being able to stop others from winning or achieving dominant positions.  I have an idea for building decks differently than I usually do.  I mostly get attracted to designators.  I should build around edges and other engine cards that generate power or fighting without having to spend power I don’t have (either because I can’t take sites or because I’m tired of burning for power).

We played at St. John’s.  I used to go there for cheap non-fast food burgers as they used to do half price burgers Wednesdays and Saturdays.  Then, went to 1/3 off.  Now, I don’t know if they have any promotional pricing.  It was much quieter, especially for a Friday, for probably the obvious reasons.  I got a patty melt, which I had never gotten there before.  Comparing to my own.  I like my own better.  I want my bread crunchy (but not dry).  This was too soft.  I’ve always found their burgers too meaty, which is why I used to typically get chili burger.  I don’t think Daniel and Merlin understood what I meant by that.  I don’t mean too thick.  I mean the patty is underseasoned and tastes too much like cooked ground beef rather than actually being a good burger taste.  I dipped the patty melt in various condiments as it was neither greasy enough nor onions carried enough flavor juxtaposition.  I noted that my preference in the area (by area I mean a huge area as not close to my house) is Texas Roadhouse for burger.  Their bacon cheeseburger is just right, except I prefer good bread over hamburger bun style bread, and it can fall apart a bit.

Posting this deck because it should be reworked and because of its own name.  Cheng Hu Bai makes little sense unless you realize this is a “Red” theme deck.  The healing is probably over done.  It’s fine to not run 5x Dockyard when expecting to never make a bid for victory, but this doesn’t reliably do anything.  Red Ally really needs some combo so that it can survive giving Superleap.  I find that folks murder my Blood Eagles if they have enough time to do so.  Maybe more Festival of Giants and less other things.  Can easily take out the Rice Paddies, which I have never gotten to generate power.  Maybe they could if running better characters.

Red Deck Loses
Guiding Hand (60)

Hand Cards (49)
Characters (21)
1x Cheng Hu Bai
2x Master Yuen
4x Railroad Workers
3x Red Ally
3x Red Master
5x Shaolin Student
3x Urban Monk

Edges (3)
1x Fire in the Lake
1x Superior Mastery
1x Undisturbed Meditation

Events (11)
1x Blessings of the Fall
1x Confucian Stability
1x Corners of the Mouth
1x Festival of Giants
1x Into the Light
1x Iron and Silk
1x Journey’s Reward
1x Rigorous Discipline
1x Secrets of Shaolin
2x The Willow Bends

Sites (7)
-Feng Shui Sites (1)
1x Temple of Boundless Meditation
-Non-Feng Shui Sites (6)
1x Red Senshi Chamber
5x Rice Paddies

States (7)
1x Crane Stance
2x Essence-Absorbing Stance
2x Mastery of the Red Principle
1x Simple Paper Fan
1x Yanyuedao Blade

Factionless (11)
Feng Shui Sites (11)
1x Sacred Heart Hospital
10x The Great Wall

Consulting

Two weeks in a row, no supers game.  No Iron Empire recently as player’s wife just had child.

And, yet, I’ve been talking to folks about RPG play.  In particular, I’ve been talking to someone about a game I’m not involved in.

It gives me an opportunity to do something I don’t do while playing or running a game.  Well, more than usual.  Many times, I might comment about a direction a game can go in to advance a plot or involve a character or whatever.  In this case, it’s far more extensive for such things.

As a GM, I don’t think like a player.  This is suboptimal.  But [insert same comment again].  As a consultant, I can point out how players would react to something.

Players will try to follow up on something in front of them.

Trying to delay payoff on some plot/subplot/mystery/surprise runs into this problem.  If you give something the players can investigate, they will investigate right now.  Unless there’s something so much more important that they are forced to deal with it later.  Or … they will ignore it completely forever.  Players are fickle.

So, how do you put off something?  Seems like best way is don’t make it clear that something can be investigated but have it matter at some later session.  For instance, players loot the treasure room and snag the high value jewelry.  In and of itself, the jewelry is just worth beaucoup florins.  But, when the party goes to sell it, someone reacts.  Could be a screwjob on the party or could be a good thing that they recovered it or whatever.  Symbolic value.

Now, there are other possibilities.  Players want to investigate something, but they get attacked or their allies get attacked.  They have a time sensitive issue and the deadline is approaching.  Maybe their ally is on trial and will be executed and this interesting thing isn’t related to the trial.

One thing GMs need to remember is that they may think they provide something interesting, but, if it’s not actionable, then the players aren’t likely to think it’s all that cool.  Players want their PCs doing things (I hope, I guess a lot of players want their PCs to get more powerful without caring if they do anything, but whatever).  Always have to think about what is actionable about what is being conveyed or it’s likely to get ignored.

Players hate enemies surviving.

Individuals may find recurring villains interesting.  Groups want to murder everything.  While everyone should know this, the implications of that for setting up situations are important.  Have to be prepared for a villain to get murdered in any encounter.  If the villain survives a murder attempt, is the method of survival going to feel like cheating the party of a win?  Is there some way to cause the villain to survive that won’t feel like cheating the party of a win?

Of course, players not thinking in terms of winning and losing through murder/survival but through impact upon the world helps.  But, have to just plan on murder.

So, I got into thinking about what value comes from villain murder.  If it’s not interesting, then it’s just like PC deaths that aren’t interesting – why bother?  So, if can’t save villain, have to figure out how to make the death interesting.  Release a greater threat.  Make players feel bad about murder.  Give players new info.  Give players new plot direction with like lead on loot.  Aftermath of villain death is interesting.  “Oh, you murdered Evilgod?  Well, then, you should marry my child and take control of my vast empire of breweries.”

There’s always “You can murder me or you can save your precious gin joint and its one-of-a-kind still.  Bwah-ha-ha-ha.”  This assumes parties care about anything more than murder.  “You can murder me or I can give you a deed to the adamantine mine, which I totally have to sign in front of a notary.”

Players don’t pay attention, don’t remember, and only care about a few things.

I read theangrygm.com.  You can get professional GM advice there.  You can read about how need to constantly repeat things there.

I take notes in most of my play.  When I play a game and not take notes, there’s something seriously wrong with the game or it has some really unusual structure to it.  Even so, I don’t record everything.  I often don’t record things my character wasn’t present for, though it depends upon the game being played.  I certainly care about some things and not others.  I care about spelling NPC names correctly.  I care about place names.  I don’t usually care how many rounds it takes to murder enemies.  I may record my combat actions in my notes and record my outlier rolls, but I don’t usually ever go back and look except in immediate aftermath of a session.  Meanwhile, I will go back and look up who someone is and where we left them.

Still, I don’t get quotes of characters perfectly right, usually don’t take down quotes at all unless I find them amusing.

For this particular campaign, an issue is changing the focus on who the greatest villain is.  There’s no particular reason the party would work with the lesser evil at this time because they have no reason to think that enemy is the lesser evil.  One of the things for the GM to introduce is a reason for the party to reassess who needs murdering the most.

To try to get players to remember things, create a personality document.  Can include the PCs in the document.  I was reading the workbook from The Princess Police and kind of forgot that we had a party creation sheet.  In that sheet, players put some of their own comments about their characters.  Players often don’t know important information about other PCs.  Maybe the group wants things that way, but I’m a storyteller, so metagaming to produce a more engaging story is better to me.  Any character feature that doesn’t matter doesn’t matter.

And, that can apply to NPCs.  I’m really bad about developing NPCs to a high degree, but the players never learning things about them that I found interesting.

There are other campaign documents that should exist.  Yes, a mission statement about the campaign.  But, how about players’ top 5 favorite sessions, bottom 5 sessions, top 5 favorite NPCs/Villains/both, bottom 5?  Things the players want to do written down?

One of my GMs sent out questionnaires about what our PCs were up to or thought about things to help him set up future events.  I think that makes sense for other groups.  Now, sure, lots of players eschew providing constructive feedback/input.  But, can ask them more limited questions.

Can even *gasp* ask the players about mechanical goals or what mechanics aren’t to their liking.  Some players care more about their characters doing particular mechanical things and get frustrated when those don’t happen.  Even though I’m not a powergamer or buttkicker, I like having character sheet features that are different from other PCs’ character sheets and having those matter.  One of the reasons to play a supers game is to lean in to power sets, and a lot of my powers/abilities don’t really matter, which indeed frustrates me.

Players waste real world time.

Actually, didn’t consult on this.  Guess save this for another time.