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I had a lot of fun at the Diamond City special event on Friday night. The energy in the room was incredible and I was impressed by how well organized the whole thing was. The Society managers deserve kudos for such a well run event.
I have one suggestion directed toward improving future events. From the standpoint of a low level character at a first level table, it would have made the event more exciting if there was stronger feedback regarding the mechanical effect that our table's efforts were having in the game. This was particularly true in the final chapter.
Without getting spoilery, the final chapter involved a lot of repetitive activity for the sake of continuing a particular endeavor. But we never received much feedback as to how our particular endeavor was benefiting the higher level tables (except by inference).
If, for example, our "endeavor" was resulting in tangible aid to another table or tables (again the mechanics of this were unclear) then it would have made it more enjoyable for us if the GMs to arrange for some some of tangible feedback. (I cant get more specific without spoilers).
As it was, from our perspective, the game just ended with a sudden announcement of victory without a clear understanding of our contribution.
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Assuming that the mechanics were the same at the Beta at PaizoCon, your efforts were much appreciated by the higher tier tables affected.
I know that it wasn't clear to the higher tier tables at PaizoCon that the <redacted> were the results of the efforts of the lower tier tables until afterward.
I also know that, when we found out, mot of at the higher tier tables expressed our thanks for the assistance the <redacted> provided to us.
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Assuming that the mechanics were the same at the Beta at PaizoCon, your efforts were much appreciated by the higher tier tables affected.
I know that it wasn't clear to the higher tier tables at PaizoCon that the <redacted> were the results of the efforts of the lower tier tables until afterward.
I also know that, when we found out, mot of at the higher tier tables expressed our thanks for the assistance the <redacted> provided to us.
Were specific <redacted> benefiting specific tables?
We would have loved to hear a cheer go up we time we accomplished a <redacted>. Just having the link made express (rather than implied) would have totally changed my feeling about that part of the event even if everything else was left the same.
I'm not sure about the logistics issues, but perhaps we could have had linked tables of each tier. So that whenever we did our thing our GM could simply have walked over and notified the GM/GMs of the higher tier table/tables. (for example, all of the yellow tables could have been linked).
Just a little peak like that behind the curtains would have made a big difference.
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Question about running this at other venues:
Does the event work if there aren't "hight-level" or "seeker" PCs playing? (Let's say we had a convention with 8 tables, all of which were Tiers 1-8.)
Yes. There is a method for determining how much success the house has and for determining the final victory.
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Several in our group had their kids there, playing low tier, so I know what you guys did. Sounds as exciting as being stretcher bearers, which is what we did at 6th level, over, and over again!
It was not unexciting -- although it became a little repetitive eventually. We enjoyed responding to the tactical need to <redacted> while also fighting off waves of attackers.
It would have been more dramatic if the attacker waves became increasingly hard to deal with, but, as it happened, we managed to handle them without too much difficulty. Personally, I would have preferred to end with a "boss wave" but I understand that the timing at our table was controlled by external forces that made such things hit or miss.
Our GM did s good job of letting us know that the <redacted> was having a positive effect in general. My point was only that this could have been heightened if we knew more specifically who we were helping and how much more we needed to do.
Was it a close call or a cake walk on the other end? In fact, what actually happened? From our perspective we only knew that it was suddenly over.
I'm simply suggesting that next time they take into account the need for more feedback to the contributing tables as well as a clearer wrap up to the event.
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Phinous - that's the exact reason I would describe what was happening to my table as it was happening - pull back the flavor a little bit in order to show what mechanical effect they were having and what help other tables were doing to them. I think my table appreciated it.
I would have loved to hear that. In fact, I am still not sure precisely what it was.
Edit: I don't mean this as a knock on our GM. He did a very professional job with it all.
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Phinous - that's the exact reason I would describe what was happening to my table as it was happening - pull back the flavor a little bit in order to show what mechanical effect they were having and what help other tables were doing to them. I think my table appreciated it.I would have loved to hear that. In fact, I am still not sure precisely what it was.
Edit: I don't mean this as a knock on our GM. He did a very professional job with it all.
Phinous, for act three, the successes for the various tiers do influence the other tiers.
For example:
For low tier, after X number of siege engine shots fired, the high tier gets a bonus against the Big Demons. Also for low tier, when the mid tier gets a success, low tier tables have two additional artillerists arrive.
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I felt the teir 7-8 I played in the special was anti-climatic. Although I had a great GM.
A funny part my wizard i was prepping spells and confirmed the table full of asaamars could not be enlarged was interesting. I alerted the DM they could not be effected by certain spells and it made some of the spells the demons use worthless.
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I was at a table of all 10th level characters. We had a good time and handled it pretty easily. We were not an optimized group, and most of us had never met before sitting down together. We had a summoner, a druid, two rouges, a ?(barbarian?) and my bard. We had a great GM who knew his stuff and was well prepared, but our group was more than a match for all of the challenges, though it always seemed to take us a while. We even kept getting "heal the whole party" bonus cards sent to us from the Seekers and we only ever used one of them. My bard didn't take 1 point of damage all night, even though it was my goal to get into melee combat after getting a few buffs up. We didn't go for the super challenging
On the down side, where we were located the music just sounded like annoying noise, so we would have been happier without it.
One of my biggest disappointments occurred during one scene outside the wall...
Overall, it was enjoyable, but I preferred the variety of "Race for the Rune Carved Key" more (which I played and GMed at smaller venues and enjoyed very much). As others had mentioned, it would have been very nice to get a bit more of a feeling for *how* the other tables were helping us mechanically, or how we were helping anyone else. Actually, who did benefit from the 10-11 tier's successes?
Anyway, thanks for trying something new!
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Our GM spoiled the mechanic at the lower tables.
Our GM stated that when they had played the mod before, that in the Demon General battle, that their demon was killed by a ballista bolt fired by the low level tables, so we were cheering every time we got a bolt off. It was kind of nice that we had fired off a shot right as a monster died, then there were 5 rounds between that and the next monster appearing, and so got 2 shots off in like 5 minutes because we were just zapping with cure wands and readying actions.
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One demon saved, but a set of two demons both failed their save at the table I was playing at, and that turned that demon encounter around.
Or maybe we were getting the benefits of rocks dropped on the demons' heads. Either way, it was a great benefit to our combats.
And I agree, it would have been a lot more enjoyable if the correspondence had been better announced at PaizoCon.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 8
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I was at a table of all 10th level characters. We had a good time and handled it pretty easily. We were not an optimized group, and most of us had never met before sitting down together. We had a summoner, a druid, two rouges, a ?(barbarian?) and my bard. We had a great GM who knew his stuff and was well prepared, but our group was more than a match for all of the challenges, though it always seemed to take us a while. We even kept getting "heal the whole party" bonus cards sent to us from the Seekers and we only ever used one of them. My bard didn't take 1 point of damage all night, even though it was my goal to get into melee combat after getting a few buffs up. We didn't go for the super challenging ** spoiler omitted ** option in our last round because we were running low on magic. Unfortunately, even fighting some of the big demons from the first Bestiary did start to feel a bit repetitive toward the end.
On the down side, where we were located the music just sounded like annoying noise, so we would have been happier without it.
One of my biggest disappointments occurred during one scene outside the wall...** spoiler omitted **
Overall, it was enjoyable, but I preferred the variety of "Race for the Rune Carved Key" more (which I played and GMed at smaller venues and enjoyed very much). As others had mentioned, it would have been very nice to get a bit more of a feeling for *how* the other tables were helping us mechanically, or how we were helping anyone else. Actually, who did benefit from the 10-11 tier's successes?
Anyway, thanks for trying something new!
Hey Mimo! I remember you! I was playing Bram the Ranger at that table. I can see how he'd be mistaken for a barbarian, with his hatred of evil outsiders, light armor, two-handed weapon, and buckets of hit points.
I felt the same disappointment that we couldn't spare the humans who started stabbing us. If I recall right, the GM explained they were long-term demon cultists who had infiltrated the crusaders army as mercenaries. I have my suspicions that their presence is an important part of the season's story (as in, mortal demon cultists instigated the attack as part of another plan.) Still, it would have been a great heroic moment for you to snap them out of mental domination with a countersong.
As for the final act, I would personally have preferred my character die fighting something new than easily survive an encounter with Bestiary 1 monsters, but I didn't want to pressure anybody else into attacking a mythic foe.
The audio was so bad where we were sitting that at first I thought they left the mic on accidentally and it was picking up a laptop fan or something.
All put together it was a fun experience. I've GMed Race for the Runecarved Key, Blood under Absalom, and Year of the Shadow Lodge at two of our local game stores, and I'm looking forward to running Siege of the Diamond City.
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Hi Sam! It was good to play with you. Sorry I forgot your class, I knew you weren't a barbarian, but for some reason I always blank on melee rangers. Anyway, I'm sorry if my cowardliness kept us from an epic victory. If I had had a better appreciation of the support we might have gotten from the other tables, I might have been more inclined to risk it, even though I was essentially out of spells. Maybe next year!