(#1-06) "Lost on Spirit Road" (Inactive)

Game Master rainzax

I'd say at least a 9, perhaps a high 8 at lowest, but that might be on my poor memory.

Flow of gameplay was great! We took a while, but I was fully prepared for that. It happened because we were roleplaying quite a lot and making longer posts for it. Nor were you lax during those times, you posted early and often to develop each situation.

Mechanics were likewise good. Considering everyone is new to the system, even slightly unorthodox encounters can be hard to parse. You took at least one (mainly the poracha fight) and handled it quite well. Keemul may have been mad during that one, but I wasn't.

Immersion was excellent! From the start, we were given the chance to explain in detail who our characters are and what brought them here. This is something that sadly doesn't happen in as great detail when unprompted. Having some props to add to our own narratives helped a lot with structure. I may have enjoyed it less had I not expected it beforehand, but I can't see a time where I wouldn't have any fun there.

I'm less sure about fidelity. I have played and run this scenario before, although most of the mechanics aren't at the forefront of my mind (again, bad memory). I feel like some things were tacked on that weren't part of the base adventure. The one I remember most was having to talk down Lin Po and Ti Lan. It would make sense, depending on the extent to which we advertised our Pathfinder affiliations. Besides, none of the changes I saw worsened the scenario, each was fun. Just something to be mindful of when adding.

Duty was also very good. You accomplished yours (running the game and allowing the players to have fun). You understood the mechanical and in-game requirements of that and kept it all balanced.

I would say in the high range, for sure.

Flow of gameplay was great. Most of the delays were on us, as we didn't put in contingencies. Examples of these in the Discussion group up front could be helpful, especially for newer PbP players. Your prompts were good.

Mechanics were good. The only issue I had was the poracha fight. Specifically, I could not wrap my head around its ability to sneak and get in two attacks. I could see a sneak to approach, an attack and then a sneak to retreat.

Immersion was great I thought. The role-playing went well.

I'm also less sure about fidelity as I have no context of what should and shouldn't be in the module.

As Keemul said, Duty was very good. You accomplished yours (running the game and allowing the players to have fun). You understood the mechanical and in-game requirements of that and kept it all balanced. Your use of the symbols made things much better, IMHO, both for players and for combat.

Overall, I would say it went very well and I appreciate you running the game.

The game was perfectly fine in my opinion. This might sounds kind of strange, but I actually think part of it might have been a little too tightly structured, but that is probably more personal preference than anything else. I tend to GM in a much more casual way that leans more towards benefiting the players. This might be because I work as a teacher for young children (ages 4-12) and like to run my classroom with pretty loose daily structure to allow them to self-explore things that they want to work on or it could just be that I try to see this as a game and try not to take it too seriously as long as we are having fun.

Flow: 2/2 Might need a PbP rubric instead of a typical PFS rubric for this one. For PbP I'd say the story flowed at a very reasonable pace.

Mechanics: 1.5/2. The only issue I recall was the stealth/hide/seek DCs. The only reason I'm counting it at all is because it was a pretty critical component to the fight, but I also know it is an easy rule to get wrong. The other stealth rule is stealth for initiative rolling against perception DCs and not perception initiative rolls (but I don't know if that even came up this game).

Immersion: N/A I won't give this one a rating because I was pretty detached from this game and that was my own fault. I'm still having some trouble getting into 2e PbP instead of 1e and I'm also feeling pretty burned out from the amount of 1e PbP I have done.

Fidelity: N/A? I don't know if this scenario ever had the opportunity for us to really solve many issues creatively through no fault of your own. This category I would say felt perfectly fine without giving it a number score.

Duty: 2/2 Without checking to make sure, I don't think we strayed from PFS rules at all. I don't think we needed level bumps applied and I'm pretty sure we were in the right tier, etc.