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+---- Thread: [Periodic] Crimes Against Nature Sign-Ups (/showthread.php?tid=12700)
RE: [Periodic] Crimes Against Nature Sign-Ups - Knight Kat - 02-14-2016
Thank you, Verad, for running another lengthy Fate-14 plot. I am so glad this story got to center in the Twelveswood. It feels like I just completed the reading of a novel, and my character was part of it.
RE: [Periodic] Crimes Against Nature Sign-Ups - Zelmanov - 02-15-2016
I want to congratulate Verad not solely for his story crafting but for his (and other GMs for this event) ability to cater towards players new and old, combat chainsaws and social intellectuals. Congratulations on what can be called superb balancing of making each person have moments of power and powerlessness.Â
I almost hope another Verad campaign doesn't happen too soon or else Orrin may be considered a deserter for his extended stays out of Ishgard.
RE: [Periodic] Crimes Against Nature Sign-Ups - Verad - 02-19-2016
Milestones and Character Advancement
If your name is listed below, you qualify for the appropriate benefits of the milestone. Please bear in mind that we will be using the pyramid structure for improving skills; I will explain this below.
For this plotline, experience is being given out based on involvement throughout the length of the storyline as well as character development. If your character substantially changed through the course of the plot, you are much more likely to get a Major than a Significant milestone.
Minor Milestone
Ashmira Honzen
Edda Eglantine
Franz Renatus
Ginshaw Ihrnachtwyn
Jil'enkette Denma
Kestya Nolan
Klynzahr Ihrnachtwyn
Mholi Mujuuk
Nheu'a Polaali
Odile Dornier
Qara Htgo
Spahro Llorn
Tiergan/Lurial Vashir
V'aleera Lhuil
Verad Bellveil
Minor Milestones grant one of the following benefits of the player's choice:
- Rewrite any Aspect except your High-Concept Aspect
- Swap the placement of any two skills on your sheet.
- Replace a +1 skill with a skill not on your sheet.
- Buy a new stunt, reducing your FP refresh by 1.
- Rewrite one of your existing stunts with a new one.
Aya Foxheart
Enju Abbagliato
Gallien Vyese
Jana/Khena Ridah
Leggerless Hanzou
Orrin Halgren
R'elend Tia
Reppu Hijiri
R'Shesha Otharn
Significant Milestones grant the benefits of the Minor Milestone above and all of the following:
- Add +1 to a skill up to the limit of +4, or add a new +1 skill. The skill pyramid must still be maintained (see below)
- If you have an untreated Severe Consequence, rewrite it so it's in recovery.
Major Milestone
Anstarra Silverain
Kiht Jakkya
Leanne Delphium
Liadan Summerfield
Nihka Mioni
Tengri Moks
Zanzan Yanzan
Major Milestones grant the benefits of the Minor and Significant Milestone above and all of the following:
- Gain a permanent point of Fate Point Refresh. You may immediately cash this in to buy a new stunt if you wish.
- Your +1 to a skill of your choice may now break the +4 limit. The skill pyramid must still be maintained (see below)
- You may rewrite your High-Concept Aspect if you wish.
- If you have received an Extreme Consequence, you may now rewrite it so it's in recovery.
Under these advancement rules, there can never be more skills at a higher level than those at a lower level. So if Verad's skills look like this:
+4: Rapport
+3: Contacts, empathy
+2: Deceit, Rogue, Provoke
+1: Will, Notice, Stealth, Resources
Verad can't use a point from a Milestone to push Empathy to +4, since that would break the rule above. Instead, he would have to get a new skill at +1 and then use other milestones to push Empathy up to +4 like so:
+4: Rapport, Empathy
+3: Contacts, Resources
+2: Deceit, Rogue, Provoke
+1: Will, Notice, Stealth, Physique
Some of you may have sheets that already break the pyramid from other plots. That's fine, but your skill choices in the future will need to rebuild the pyramid. If your pyramid is out of order, you may take this opportunity to reorganize your sheet entirely, or you may keep your pyramid locked as is until future milestones give it the pyramid shape.
Awards
Awards have no bearing on advancement and are entirely for player amusement. Wear them with pride.
Expert Goose Chaser - Orrin Halgren, whose lust for Amdapor ended the threat of the dread voidsent Diabolette and sent the group on a tangent.
The Hand of Fate-14:Â Leanne Delphium, who is the #1 most-frequent participant of events, signing up for 15 when most people have an average of 6-7 events in total.
Least Likely To Blow Up Anything - Zanzan Yanzan, who, despite having the powers of pure fire and destruction at his command, has Rapport as his most-rolled skill.
Most Overblown Threat - Kuru, whose frustrating cuteness thwarted the efforts of several nightmarish horrors to kill everybody else in the party.
Mercy Award - Pretty much everybody for consistently choosing not to kill NPCs I was sure weren't going to make it out of their first event alive. Special mention to Leanne Delphium.
Artificial Plot-Extender - Liadan Summerfield, who spent so much time hanging around the villain that he actually changed his mind when I expected him to die in a bossfight.
Edit:Â Adjusting the tally to shift Kiht Jakkya from Significant to Major after discussion with her and the other DM.
RE: [Periodic] Crimes Against Nature Sign-Ups - LiadansWhisper - 02-20-2016
I'm a huge nerd, so I actually made a list of the songs that inspired me and formed my playlist during events in this storyline. I'm hiding them behind spoilers so you are not overwhelmed.
I hope you are entertained!Overall Theme:
O-Rehn Fahn:
On Empathy:
Personal Journey/Struggle:
On Redemption:
Those Taken By the Void:
Battle Music:
Requiem:
RE: [Periodic] Crimes Against Nature Sign-Ups - Verad - 02-22-2016
Crimes Against Nature Post-Mortem
As with The Scales in the Sands, this is an analysis of what I think worked particularly well about the plot over the past six months, as well as some thoughts on where to proceed in the future.
A brief overview: My original plan for this plot involved expanding on the number of opponents who could stand toe-to-toe with the players after dealing with the problem of large, single bosses being very easy to beat for a savvy group in Scales. The plan was to have the twelve prisoners as a regular threat, each posing an individual challenge, and each death slowly revealing the corruption of the real villain, to lead to a climactic boss-fight.
I estimated it would take about three months.
Since all involved know how off-base almost everything in my projections turned out to be, let's look at what worked.
Strengths
Theme:Â The concept of taking a closer look at the problems inherent in Gridanian governance - specifically that it used to be based on some pretty brutal suppression of groups marked as outsiders as recently as a generation ago, and that it is based around a kind of living child sacrifice - hit hard for a number of players, and generally everybody was sympathetic to at least one of the prisoners or O-Rehn Fahn with a few exceptions. Â It hit so hard that I hadn't considered the roleplayer capacity for mercy. That was part of what made the plot last so long - since nobody killed any prisoners, O-Rehn remained uncorrupted for longer. If even one had died earlier in the story, it would have taken a very different turn.
Flexibility: The above necessitates discussing another element: This story could have been very different, insofar as it was "scripted." My plans for it presumed what would happen if characters killed NPC X or Y, but did not rely on them for the plot to continue. There are notes for events written up that either never came to pass or played out differently. The dungeons were different based on the order in which they were tackled. There was a third dungeon that I'd never considered but everybody seemed eager to try, so why not write it up? As a general rule of advice for budding Fate-14 DMs, it's useful to not get too attached to a specific set of outcomes in order for the story to progress.
Co-DMs: Credit needs to be given to Nihka Mioni and Spahro Llorn for helping with this, addressing a problem I'd had with Scales. The two of them did a great job handling sideplots, and Nihka's storyline expanded into a mini-plot of its own. They were also extremely helpful for answering sheet questions, handling rules disputes, and introducing new players. I would be a wreck right now if it were not for their assistance.
Office Hours:Â Taking a cue from academia and setting specific office hours where I could answer questions about the rules or help people with adjusting their sheets lightened my workload considerably as DM. Prior to that, I would field questions from players nearly constantly, and while I can't fault the enthusiasm, it did mean it was my main activity whenever I logged on. If you plan to DM and manage a larger storyline of your own, I highly recommend this.
Weaknesses
Too Many Hooks (Too Many Hooks . . . ): While having a lot of prisoners and the mystery of how they got out and where they came from gave many, many opportunities for players to get involved early in the plot, there were so many different angles to consider that I couldn't give appropriate attention to all of them, and could easily have shaved several. Some of these hooks were not developed through player choice: Hamond Wolfedge, the Ala Mhigan monk from before Theodric's rise to power, was largely ignored. Others were present, but weren't well-developed due to lack of time. In particular, I think I could have cut out Pelderain Dornier, the Duskwight quack, and the Horse Oil plot at large without affecting the overall storyline.Â
Information Sharing: In Scales, one of the things I liked about the plot was that small event sizes required players to RP out of events in order to pool information and come up with plans of action. Crimes has shown me the downside of that in what happens when players won't pool information. There were several instances where players were at an impasse because their characters, for legitimate in-character reasons, did not trust each other and wouldn't share information they'd gained. This was another cause of the plot's length because it could lead to OOC delays as people argued over whether they should be working together or not, and I was not a fan of using the Fate-14 system to compel people to talk to each other. In future storylines I'll need to find some means for players to communicate effectively on the OOC level without compromising what they feel they would do in-character.
Kidnapping Nihka Mioni:Â I need to qualify this by saying that I feel the kidnapping was the correct move for the plot as a whole. We had telegraphed the possibility of it at several points throughout the storyline by including her kidnapper from very early in the plot, and several people were aware it was a possibility. The resolution of the kidnapping also tied into the themes of the plot mentioned above, and primed some characters to be in a very dangerous mental state when they confronted Neruhm.
That said, the practical act of managing the kidnapping was messy because many people were very invested in finding her as soon as possible, which made the larger storyline grind to a halt for a week or two. and in part because there was a conflict between what people were trying to do to find the character and what Nihka and I had deemed plausible methods. I found myself in a position where people were getting angry because their actions were not producing results, but I was unwilling to compromise on the difficulty of trying to find her based on the means described. It led to a lot of frustration on all sides, and I will be much more careful about attempting any plot development of such nature in future storylines.
What's Next?
For me, a break.
I've been tinkering with the Fate-14 system for a year and a half. In that time I've run four storylines - two while I was testing out the basic system in Harbingers of Dawn and two more on my own, here in the forums. In that time a lot of people have taken interest, the popularity of the system has expanded enough that I know of at least one FC using a version of it for their own storylines, and other members of the Roll Eorzea linkshell are already planning new stories in the wake of Crimes' ending.
In that time I've experienced the problem everybody who spends most of their time DMing experiences - the inability to play my own character. I've been fine with this; Verad is a bit player in the world, and I'm happy to take a backseat IC while other people do bigger things. But I'd like to get back to playing him and a few alts in earnest.
To that end, I'm going to be stepping down from managing the Roll Eorzea linkshell in favor of other members as significant staff. The Fate-14 rules are finished with the single document Fate-14 Complete, and that will replace the document links in the linkshell's page. The only other document I will be adding is a bestiary of common Eorzean critters for ease of DM use.Â
It's been a pleasure running storylines for everyone; no doubt in the future I will get the itch again. I cannot thank the RPC and Balmung community enough for taking so much of an interest in these plots that the system could grow the way it did. It's yours, now. Please look forward to it.