I doubt I'll be in town then, but congratulations on the election
to that position of leadership. Best wishes, Mark.

-Steve

--- In Emerald_City_Game_Feast Mark Walters <markwalt@...> wrote:
>
> Wanna see some weird masonic stuff?  Have you ever been inside a
> masonic lodge?  Are you a little curious about what goes on in
> there?  Want to see me dressed up and wearing a funny apron and
> other stuff?  Care to share your favorite conspiracy theory?
> Now's your chance!
>
> Last Thursday, I had the honor of being elected to a position of
> leadership in my masonic lodge.  On Saturday, December 12th at
> 4:30 in the afternoon, me and several other men are going to be
> installed into our offices.  Anyone reading this list is welcome
> to come as my guest. * There will be free food, wine, and pie.*
>
> There will also be some interesting performances from the DeMolay
> youth.
>
> The whole thing will take about an hour and a half to two hours,
> including the time it takes to eat the food.  The ceremony part
> should be somewhat brief and (hopefully) interesting.
>
> It would be a lot of fun to have some gamer friends show up... and
> gamers are even welcome!  Turns out that masons make pretty good
> roleplayers, and one could consider masonic ritual to be a sort of
> LARP, but I digress.
>
> The lodge is located in Kirkland, at 702 1/2 Market street.  It's
> easily accessible via the 255 bus, which stops right in front of
> it.    (Walk around to the metal stairs and green awning in the
> back, the front door generally stays locked).
>
> If you're driving, park on 7th, a bit up the street.  We like to
> keep the close in parking available to our older members.
>
> If a few gamers decide to show up, I could probably arrange for us
> to hang out a bit after everyone's left and use the dining hall for
> a little gaming.
>
> --
> -Mark

I wasn't there, but I agree that urgency is important. However, I
don't think it's good to make the murder schedule _too_ often -- just
to make it so that the characters don't have a lot of time until the
next murder.

Maybe the murders always happen on a Monday night, but only on nights
when the local baseball team loses a home game. The team is having a
great season, but the characters have no way of knowing when the team
is going to lose, so they need to make sure they stop the killer soon.

The reason for that -- a clear pattern that allows the next murder to
happen at any time, but not automatically happen every time -- is
that the game-master doesn't need to have someone die every night, or
every week. That way the GM can have (for example) four murders
plotted, with a new set of clues released with each murder, and still
be a bit flexible on the game-time schedule of the murders. So if for
some reason the flow of the plot demands a long gap between murder #2
and murder #3, the GM can explain it while conforming to the pattern.
"No murder tonight; the team was out of town." or "No murder tonight;
the team won their game." That way the GM can allow time for the
characters to find out whatever the most important clue from each set
of clues, before the next murder happens.

Why would the killer only kill according to a baseball team's play?
I don't know. That's just an example. Maybe he only kills if it's been
raining for three days straight. Just pick something that _can_ happen
frequently, but doesn't _need_ to happen on a fixed schedule.

-Steve

--- In Emerald_City_Game_Feast Manu <dreamofpeace@...> wrote:
>
> I agree with everything you wrote, good points all.  Perhaps the
> murder schedule can change to every week, or even every day, to
> really crank up the urgency.
>   Thank God you left out the additional red herring in the library,
> that would have been tear-my-hair-out frustrating!  I want to
> underline Erik's point about how the patterns from the clues were
> somewhat incoherent. Best Wishes, Manu

Finally, to up the tension notch,
> the University characters should be replaced with National Police and
> Bureau of Health and Safety characters or private investigators. Dr.
> Ludgrove et al are a source of information, not as investigators
> themselves.

John,
    That certainly could work, but the idea of bringing in "Consulting
Detectives" for especially odd cases is very in genre. My only problem with
having Ludgrove et al as the investigators was that mundane clues, like the
trail of blood, really should have been spotted by the cops. More oddball clues
like bad dreams and nursery rhymes might be overlooked as decent people in the
setting seem to eschew the supernatural and so may be culturally blind to such
things. Hence the need for Ludgrove and his team.
             Erik

My comments aren't exactly diplomatic, but feel free to forward them.
    As for the setting I think it has potential. We really didn't get to see much
of it though. I mean, the only steampunk things described were the big
elevators, the character's equipment, and the fact that the city was enclosed.
Frankly, if the equipment had been super powers it wouldn't have felt any
different. Potential, but not quite realized in the short bit we had.
    I actually thought the idea of the rhyme was kind of cool and if he had run
with it, basically a boogyman that you had to be polite to or else, could have
been very creepy. Sort of a cross between a Nightmare on Elm Street and Baba
Yaga.
    Interesting pieces but needs a better presentation.
                                         Erik

--- In Emerald_City_Game_Feast@yahoogroups.com, John Reiher <kedamono@...>
wrote:
>
> Thanks folks, would you mind if I forwarded your comments to Shawn,
> the fellow who wrote the game?
>
> Also, was there anything positive about the adventure? Any comments
> about the setting?

 

Now, as a GM, I like the setting, it's steampunky and a bit fantasy-like just enough to fun to play in. It's an interesting concept and I look forward to seeing more on it as time goes on. The adventure gives a taste of this world, which is enhanced by the artwork done by the game designer himself.

However, running the adventure, um, I had to improvise in several cases, especially with folks you guys asking questions. If I had to make up information, I did my best to make sure it fit in with the rest of the information. And I cut a scene. There was a scene in the University Library that would have been a major red herring that did nothing to advance the plot. In fact it would have muddied the plot.

Problem #1 with the adventure: Other than the rules up on the Clockworks Wiki, there was no guidance on creating characters. I had to ask to find out that each character was built on 5 xp and the Big Damn Hero bonus. Also, I had to read through the blog notes to find out that the designer used Necessary Evil for the steampunk enhancements. All that has to be part of the adventure so that other folks not familiar with the Clockworks wiki and blogs could build characters.

Problem #2 for me as a GM was the lack of consistency in how information was imparted to the players, and the lack of information that could be imparted to the players. In two scenes, you make one persuasion roll and you get an info dump.  In the other two scenes, you're forced to make a series of rolls to get any information. The library if played as written, would have taken at a minimum of 84 character hours. With all four academic pregen characters, it would have taken 22 hours to get all that information, or about two 12 hour days. And let's not forget that one of the pieces of information was something written by one of the PCs himself! That should have been a simple common knowledge roll for Dr. Ludgrove.

The problem is, as Sarah pointed out, all that information should have been in the National Police report that was handed to the players. The Crime Scene, the Mortuary/Autopsy, and Library do something unwanted. They give the impression that the National Police are ineffectual boobs and can't see evidence that untrained individuals were able to find.

Problem #3 was that at least two of the characters, The Rat and Dr Ludgrove, should have had access to more information than was in the game. The Rat comes from the 2nd Level and would have known about the School and it's legends. And because of that, so would have Dr. Ludgrove. 

Problem #4 was that there was no urgency. There was no ticking clock. The next murder was going to happen in a year, so the team, rightly so, handed over their information to Agent Crane and said "Good luck in a year."

Problem #5 was that the combat oriented players didn't have anything to do until the very end. With three combat oriented characters, Coach, Raymond, and The Rat, they had nothing to do until the possible combat with the Morlocks and the final combat with Gentleman Caller.

How would I resolve this issue? Well for one thing, I'd give the players at least two strong candidates for the murder, and I'd change the timeline of the adventure from the morning of the murder, to a week before. Nothing drives tension like a ticking clock. I'd also compress the timeline from 30 years to 30 months. That ratchets up the tension several notches right there. Finally, to up the tension notch, the University characters should be replaced with National Police and Bureau of Health and Safety characters or private investigators. Dr. Ludgrove et al are a source of information, not as investigators themselves.  The police know that the next murder will happen on the 8th day of the month, to the eldest daughter of a family on 9th Level, who was born on the 8th of Vendimal.  Problem is, that's three different people. Now it's important to find out that Allia is having bad dreams, now it's important to know that this person can teleport into locked rooms, with forays down into the slums to roust the wrong person and have a fight, and then a quick race back up to 9th Level to stop the Gentleman Caller before he can kill the girl 8 minutes after Midnight...

Thoughts?

On Nov 20, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Manu wrote:

I think that's right on, Erik. The patterns led in all sorts of directions, almost none of them in the end relevant to solving the mystery or defeating the bad guy.  Also, there was no challenge involved in getting any of the clues, and the fighters had nothing to do until the very end.  That scenario needs work!  Best Wishes, Manu  

Check out www.therealnews.com

Sent from my iPod

On Nov 20, 2009, at 7:52 PM, "theletteromega" <theletteromega@yahoo.com> wrote:

 

John asked for commentary on the adventure he ran Thursday, not written by John. While John did a fine job running the game, the adventure had... issues. Some things were discussed after the game but here are some more thoughts.
The adventure had many of what I would call Pointless Patterns. As a mystery, part of the point is to figure out what is going on. In doing so people will usually look for patterns, and certainly look into any pattern they see as possibly significant. If the killer only targets red-headed males from Iowa then the players will think that this is an important clue and try to do something with it. However, while this adventure had many patterns most of them were useless as clues, or even as cool back story. 
The big example was the dates of the murders. They all happened on the same date every year. That is a pretty stark pattern. However, when we went to look into it all we got was that the day was considered unlucky. No, oh this the day of the great fae massacre or the day of a big orphanage fire 30 years ago or something. Nothing that would give a lead as to the background or whereabouts of the killer. It wasn't even a cool reveal with us finally finding out why the pattern and saying "Oh, that's just sick!" In fact, we never found out why the murders took place on that day. 
It's a blatant violation of Chechov's gun. Ok, a red herring here or there is not necessarily bad. However, this particular pattern also removed all time pressure from the adventure. One person was going to be murdered a year from now if we didn't stop it. So the investigation could have gone on for 10 months and still been completed in plenty of time.
Then there was the nursery rhyme. It basically indicated that the Gentleman would kill you if you were rude to him. Was this even true? If so, how did he make sure that a 15 year old girl, born on a specific day would insult him before the specific day that he murders people? Follow her around and be obnoxious until she yells at him? Also, could we have just walked right into his lair and, as long as we weren't rude, do whatever we wanted without him being able to attack? This also produced no clues as to his whereabouts or back story. Indeed is was so tangential, I don't even know whether it was supposed to be true. Yet, it doesn't fit at all with the pattern of yearly killings.
It's as if the adventure writer just thought "Hey, that'd be cool, oh and that, yeah a nursery rhyme!" and threw them in without any regard for how they went together or whether they would work well with the plot.
Indeed, basically every pattern in the entire adventure was either meaningless or actually lead away from the final encounter.
With John running I still had a decent time, but he was definitely working at a handicap trying to run this one.
Erik


--- In Emerald_City_Game_Feast@yahoogroups.com, Emerald_City_Game_Feast@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
> Reminder from: Emerald_City_Game_Feast Yahoo! Group
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Emerald_City_Game_Feast/cal
> 
> Thursday Night Game
> Thursday November 19, 2009
> 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm
> (This event repeats every week.)
> Location: Wayward Coffeehouse
> Street: 8570 Greenwood Ave N
> City State Zip: Seattle WA 98103
> 
> Notes:
> http://www.waywardcoffee.com/
> Free admission, but people are expected to buy some food or drink from the coffeehouse.
> 
> 
> All Rights Reserved
> Copyright © 2009 
> Yahoo! Inc.
> http://www.yahoo.com
> 
> Privacy Policy:
> http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us
> 
> Terms of Service:
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>

--

John Reiher

Have Mac, will Travel

==========

Live Journal:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/johnreiher/

My Living Sustainability Blog:

http://kedamono.wordpress.com

 ------------------------

 "Another one of them new worlds.

 No beer, no women, no pool parlors - nothin'.

 Nothing to do but throw rocks at tin cans and we got to bring our own

 tin cans."

 ---- Ship's Cook, United Planets Cruiser C-57D

       Forbidden Planet

 

Thanks folks, would you mind if I forwarded your comments to Shawn, the fellow who wrote the game?

Also, was there anything positive about the adventure? Any comments about the setting? 

On Nov 20, 2009, at 8:35 PM, Manu wrote:

I think that's right on, Erik. The patterns led in all sorts of directions, almost none of them in the end relevant to solving the mystery or defeating the bad guy.  Also, there was no challenge involved in getting any of the clues, and the fighters had nothing to do until the very end.  That scenario needs work!  Best Wishes, Manu  

Check out www.therealnews.com

Sent from my iPod

On Nov 20, 2009, at 7:52 PM, "theletteromega" <theletteromega@yahoo.com> wrote:

 

John asked for commentary on the adventure he ran Thursday, not written by John. While John did a fine job running the game, the adventure had... issues. Some things were discussed after the game but here are some more thoughts.

--

John Reiher

Have Mac, will Travel

==========

Live Journal:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/johnreiher/

My Living Sustainability Blog:

http://kedamono.wordpress.com

 ------------------------

 "Another one of them new worlds.

 No beer, no women, no pool parlors - nothin'.

 Nothing to do but throw rocks at tin cans and we got to bring our own

 tin cans."

 ---- Ship's Cook, United Planets Cruiser C-57D

       Forbidden Planet

 

John asked for commentary on the adventure he ran Thursday, not written by John. While John did a fine job running the game, the adventure had... issues. Some things were discussed after the game but here are some more thoughts.
The adventure had many of what I would call Pointless Patterns. As a mystery, part of the point is to figure out what is going on. In doing so people will usually look for patterns, and certainly look into any pattern they see as possibly significant. If the killer only targets red-headed males from Iowa then the players will think that this is an important clue and try to do something with it. However, while this adventure had many patterns most of them were useless as clues, or even as cool back story.
The big example was the dates of the murders. They all happened on the same date every year. That is a pretty stark pattern. However, when we went to look into it all we got was that the day was considered unlucky. No, oh this the day of the great fae massacre or the day of a big orphanage fire 30 years ago or something. Nothing that would give a lead as to the background or whereabouts of the killer. It wasn't even a cool reveal with us finally finding out why the pattern and saying "Oh, that's just sick!" In fact, we never found out why the murders took place on that day.
It's a blatant violation of Chechov's gun. Ok, a red herring here or there is not necessarily bad. However, this particular pattern also removed all time pressure from the adventure. One person was going to be murdered a year from now if we didn't stop it. So the investigation could have gone on for 10 months and still been completed in plenty of time.
Then there was the nursery rhyme. It basically indicated that the Gentleman would kill you if you were rude to him. Was this even true? If so, how did he make sure that a 15 year old girl, born on a specific day would insult him before the specific day that he murders people? Follow her around and be obnoxious until she yells at him? Also, could we have just walked right into his lair and, as long as we weren't rude, do whatever we wanted without him being able to attack? This also produced no clues as to his whereabouts or back story. Indeed is was so tangential, I don't even know whether it was supposed to be true. Yet, it doesn't fit at all with the pattern of yearly killings.
It's as if the adventure writer just thought "Hey, that'd be cool, oh and that, yeah a nursery rhyme!" and threw them in without any regard for how they went together or whether they would work well with the plot.
Indeed, basically every pattern in the entire adventure was either meaningless or actually lead away from the final encounter.
With John running I still had a decent time, but he was definitely working at a handicap trying to run this one.
Erik


--- In Emerald_City_Game_Feast@yahoogroups.com, Emerald_City_Game_Feast@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
> Reminder from: Emerald_City_Game_Feast Yahoo! Group
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Emerald_City_Game_Feast/cal
>
> Thursday Night Game
> Thursday November 19, 2009
> 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm
> (This event repeats every week.)
> Location: Wayward Coffeehouse
> Street: 8570 Greenwood Ave N
> City State Zip: Seattle WA 98103
>
> Notes:
> http://www.waywardcoffee.com/
> Free admission, but people are expected to buy some food or drink from the coffeehouse.
>
>
> All Rights Reserved
> Copyright © 2009
> Yahoo! Inc.
> http://www.yahoo.com
>
> Privacy Policy:
> http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us
>
> Terms of Service:
> http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>

John asked for commentary on the adventure he ran Thursday, not written by
John. While John did a fine job running the game, the adventure had... issues.
Some things were discussed after the game but here are some more thoughts.
     The adventure had many of what I would call Pointless Patterns. As a
mystery, part of the point is to figure out what is going on. In doing so people
will usually look for patterns, and certainly look into any pattern they see as
possibly significant. If the killer only targets red-headed males from Iowa then
the players will think that this is an important clue and try to do something
with it. However, while this adventure had many patterns most of them were
useless as clues, or even as cool back story.
     The big example was the dates of the murders. They all happened on the same
date every year. That is a pretty stark pattern. However, when we went to look
into it all we got was that the day was considered unlucky. No, oh this the day
of the great fae massacre or the day of a big orphanage fire 30 years ago or
something. Nothing that would give a lead as to the background or whereabouts of
the killer. It wasn't even a cool reveal with us finally finding out why the
pattern and saying "Oh, that's just sick!" In fact, we never found out why the
murders took place on that day.
     It's a blatant violation of Chechov's gun. Ok, a red herring here or there
is not necessarily bad. However, this particular pattern also removed all time
pressure from the adventure. One person was going to be murdered a year from now
if we didn't stop it. So the investigation could have gone on for 10 months and
still been completed in plenty of time.
     Then there was the nursery rhyme. It basically indicated that the Gentleman
would kill you if you were rude to him. Was this even true? If so, how did he
make sure that a 15 year old girl, born on a specific day would insult him
before the specific day that he murders people? Follow her around and be
obnoxious until she yells at him? Also, could we have just walked right into his
lair and, as long as we weren't rude, do whatever we wanted without him being
able to attack? This also produced no clues as to his whereabouts or back story.
Indeed is was so tangential, I don't even know whether it was supposed to be
true. Yet, it doesn't fit at all with the pattern of yearly killings.
     It's as if the adventure writer just thought "Hey, that'd be cool, oh and
that, yeah a nursery rhyme!" and threw them in without any regard for how they
went together or whether they would work well with the plot.
     Indeed, basically every pattern in the entire adventure was either
meaningless or actually lead away from the final encounter.
     With John running I still had a decent time, but he was definitely working
at a handicap trying to run this one.
                                              Erik


--- In Emerald_City_Game_Feast@yahoogroups.com,
Emerald_City_Game_Feast@yahoogroups.com wrote:
>
> Reminder from: Emerald_City_Game_Feast Yahoo! Group
>  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Emerald_City_Game_Feast/cal
>
> Thursday Night Game
> Thursday November 19, 2009
> 6:30 pm - 10:00 pm
> (This event repeats every week.)
> Location: Wayward Coffeehouse
> Street: 8570 Greenwood Ave N
> City State Zip: Seattle WA 98103
>
> Notes:
> http://www.waywardcoffee.com/
> Free admission, but people are expected to buy some food or drink from the
coffeehouse.
>
>
> All Rights Reserved
>  Copyright © 2009
>  Yahoo! Inc.
>  http://www.yahoo.com
>
> Privacy Policy:
>  http://privacy.yahoo.com/privacy/us
>
> Terms of Service:
>  http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>

I need to try and rest up before I have to go back to work next week.  I have to
work at Macy's on Black Friday.....

Has Kalia (Indian Restaurant) reopened yet? If so, I'd love to go there.

I know they were closed for repairs after the fire hit Olive You (next door). At
the time I'd talked to them, the guy there said they'd be open again in about a
week, but I'm not sure if that conversation was more or less than a week ago...

=Rolfe=

I'd like to play Suella Ogden.


Laura

Hello,

This email message is a notification to let you know that
a file has been uploaded to the Files area of the Emerald_City_Game_Feast
group.

   File        : /Clockworks RPG/More University PCs.pdf
   Uploaded by : kedamono <kedamono@...>
   Description : More pregen PCs for Clockworks RPG, updated.

You can access this file at the URL:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Emerald_City_Game_Feast/files/Clockworks%20RPG/Mor\
e%20University%20PCs.pdf

To learn more about file sharing for your group, please visit:
http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/groups/original/general.htmlfiles

Regards,

kedamono <kedamono@...>