DMDM's Way of the Wicked: The Devil My Only Master (Inactive)

Game Master Douglas Muir 406

If we are retiring, would it be possible to also retire the game? I already have far too many games I'm no longer involved with in mycampaign tab.

I can do that.

Quick question, before we wrap: does anyone have any post-mortem thoughts? What was good, what was bad, how could I improve if we do this again?

If anyone wants to weigh in, please do. Once that's done, yes, I'll retire the game.

i enjoyed the game overall, my only thought would be give all the characters a chance to get tied into the story line, in this game it felt like Edmin, and Zimu were the stars with Judge and Dren being the supporting roles, then Jax and the every rotating Bref, Xen, Ulp kind of just being along for the ride.

that said i would totally play another game if you ran it, and it motivated me to run it in RL

I enjoyed the random snippets of history, myth and linguistics that helped describe the game world more. There was actually a lot of behind the scenes stuff with Has...was looking forward to springing a trap on Dren in the future.

The different voices and distinct personalities of npcs was great. I feel the game gave me quite a few things I've used in my current Dming game.

Random but, are any of you running or playing in a game looking for more players? I'm only engaged with one game atm as a player and would like to expand that to two or three.

The back story and cut scenes were amazing. The npc detail you provided really brought them alive with personality. This was definitely a Role playing game unlike most Roll playing games on this site. Was the best game I have played here.

It was definitely one of my favorite games. When we jumped from level 6 to 15, it sort of lost something, because I really like the building part of the characters and would have loved to have worked the Judge through dying and being reborn as a vampire.

Notwithstanding the level jump, the earlier part of the game was awesome. The personalities that you created for the npcs were great. You also added a level of suspense and the changes to the storyline that you made were great. I still think the whole slanted passage with the boulder following us was my favorite scene from any game. Although it was rather demented, having Grumblejack carry the Judge while he summoned suicide ponies was a blast from a role playing point of view, and is exactly what a LE party would do.

As the others have said, if you should wish to start another campaign, please do not hesitate to give me a call as I will jump in in a second.
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Jax, look at my campaigns. We are looking for 1-2 players in a Wrath of the Righteous campaign that I am in. It is fairly early and we are currently 2nd level. The game is moving at a moderate pace with the DM usually posting one time per day. Most of the players are pretty good at posting, and the two slower posters are the ones being replaced right now, one withdrew and the other has not posted in two weeks.

i enjoyed the game overall, my only thought would be give all the characters a chance to get tied into the story line, in this game it felt like Edmin, and Zimu were the stars with Judge and Dren being the supporting roles, then Jax and the every rotating Bref, Xen, Ulp kind of just being along for the ride.

There's a grain of truth to that. I tried to bring everyone in and give everyone equal time, but your're right that Edmin and Zimu got dug deeper into the storyline. In Zimu's case it's because Kate was the kind of player who always wants more complexity -- more plot, more backstory, I want to try this outrageous stunt and see if it works. As you may recall, this was sometimes annoying and sometimes really cool. On balance I was glad to have Kate around and missed her when she left. But anyway, she and her character generated a fair amount of demand-driven plot.

Edmin got woven in more because (1) antipaladin, and (2) antipaladin because *angry*. I've always thought the antipaladin was hard to play -- as hard as the paladin, in its way -- and I thought Edmin did a good job with it, and that inspired (or provoked) me to write a lot of backstory and generally work him in.

I don't think the others were "along for the ride" -- I think everyone got plenty of stage time, a plot arc or two, and the occasional Moment of Awesome -- but yeah, you could argue that the story was more /about/ those two, at least for a while.

I based treated Edmin as if he had a sever case of PTSD initially. The back story provided by DMDM about his mentor greatly added to this giving him a hatred for the kingdom and its leaders.

not complaining, just giving honest feedback as requested. The first book was completely awesome, even thgouh i did die billions of times.

I imagine that the Judge would have been filled in more once we began to infiltrate Talingarde proper as that was his forte, the social side of things. Unfortunately, we more or less stopped at about that point.

Stuff I particularly enjoyed as DM:

-- The fight with the Warden, because I had rebuilt him precisely to be an interesting challenge.

-- Pretty much every scene with Zargo, particularly his laboratory and Smoove

-- Pretty much every scene with Irin, particularly her first appearance and the pen-drugs-sex sequence

-- Kate's interaction with her cousin, and the way she grabbed the whole arch-enemy thing and ran with it hard

-- Playing Captain Odenkirk as himself. The final fight with him was maybe a bit too easy but sometimes that happens.

-- Edmin's backstory, including Sir Nonus and his tragic ex

-- The long final fall of Ballentyne

Hmmmm I notice the killing of me made the greatest hits twice!!

I win! :)

No, no, no. You misread it. He said the fall of Balentyne, not the fall of Xenfal.

And, Bref did not die. He was . . . promoted . . . to afterlife warden.

Really, the Judge wanted to hunt down Nimpy and teach the annoying halfling a little something about respecting those who are more powerful. Nimpy might have made a good thrall for the Judge, which would have given the Judge great delight seeing the goodie two shoes halfling being compelled to undertake vile deeds.

I was looking forward to the final scene of Dren possibly breaking...does he open the gate at the end and let the Havero through to destroy the world...or at least set it on a path of utter chaos...OR does he take back his humanity and turn their power into his and become an agent of evil who serves mainly his own desires.

I was actually thinking I would let the dice roller decide at that point...

I thought everyone brought a unique twist to this campaign and you all did a great job adding depth to a PBP...this was one of the best that I have participated in. I looked forward to checking this PBP each and every day.

It did lose it's steam when we jumped levels but still had an intersting arc as we marched to the final stand-off. I did miss Kate and some of her flair for RP in the second part as well.

Thanks for the story while it lasted Doug. Peace out!

Roleplaying and cut scenes, and interesting NPCs with backstories, were all fun to read about. The interactions with the other Knots and the NPCs had a great deal of promise for later, plus were fun to see.

A lot of the adventure-type encounters were also fun (the rolling ball of doom, the fight with the treant, the attack on Ballentyne -- and the plotting leading up to it!)

The level jump did kind of take some of the wind out of the sails, I think. Was looking forward to seeing the infiltration into society and so forth.

And Shmoove -- ah, who could forget Shmoove... ?

Jax and Irin were plotting against you Dren...even Cimu was in on it. It would have devolved into a fight at some point :D

See, everyone loved the Judge. Nobody plotted against him - of course this could be because he was practically indestructible, not completely so, but close, and really did not give a damn about anyone else, so he never got involved in their schemes.

Edmin loved everyone and would be totally taken aback if scheming and murder of party members were involved.....except for the judge.....

Hey, what did the Judge ever do to you? Even when the option showed itself, the Judge did not dominate you, he did not turn you into a vampiric slave, you should be eternally grateful. And, the Judge means eternally. (Can't say so much for that witch that used to hang out with us.)

Whatever, dren was your healer. He saved each of you multiple times. As far as you knew he add a nice young lad though a bit weird :).

Theere was a prophecy that the dagger would lead to the end of the world...has kept that between himself and irin

Yeah, in the final book you get a rip in the fabric of reality -- basically the Lawful Good rulers of Talingarde were doing a thing that kept the Great Old Ones out, and when you murder all of them, that opens an opportunity. Dren would have had his chance to choose sides then.

and the darkness swallowed the world...

Darkness didn't swallow the world. How would the Judge be able to enjoy the suffering of others if all were darkness. No, for suffering there must be at least a smidgeon of hope that can be tantalizingly dangled before the prey, and then torn away just when salvation seems certain, thereby maximizing the pain imposed by the loss.

takes notes...

Plus, no blood from tentacles, only ichor. Tastes horrible and it just sits at the back of your throat for hours.

Yeah, darkness pretty much does swallow the world (if not stopped). Blackness spreads out from a hole in the far north, and if you touch it, you die. If you're ruling Talingarde at that point, you make your way to the center and find a gate guarded by (IMS) two deranged gigantic advanced bad-news shoggoth type things, and if you don't deal with them quickly they summon a Havero to join the fun.

Okay, if there are no further last thoughts I'll be hitting the button soon. Good night, all you evil, evil people.

Do you double-dip your chips?

Do you double-dip your chips?

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvenEvilHasStandards