GM Feedback Thread

[ManWithDoor]

So this Thread is generally intended for me to ask you as the Players for feedback on how I can improve the Game. Bounce ideas off you about how I set up encounters, am dealing with conflicts or rules decisions, etc.

So I first wanted to dig through the Prologue, especially the Snow Woman encounter.

When I planned out the Boss battle, I tried to think up at least 3-4 methods the Party could use to make the Battle easier, with straight-up attacking her being the Hard Mode. Which,especially for Trogdor's half-dead character, was very apparent.

1) Aversion to Fire
- Foreshadowed by the lit Lanterns falling, then the merchant not being able to light his grill even with June's enhanced Luck spell, and finally the Ancestral Lanterns being snuffed out as she appeared. I had envisioned somebody lighting the Ancestral Lanterns again, or just trying to start Fires. Even if you didn't succeed, she would be easily distracted rather than focusing on the Singers or other PCs.
2) Get Help!
- I think Hayabusa's hiatus during the beginning of the fight really hurt you here, since June would likely have sought out her Mentor, who was just down the road where June/Dexter/Pixel met him at his little book booth. I did have June do a little foretelling at the first Round, where she saw visions of a "standing cane, open book, roaring fire, cold blade". The first two were alluding to her Mentor, the third to the whole Fire thing, and the fourth to Dexter's blade being an effective weapon.
- I also mentioned there being Buddhist monks generally in the area, and Jon did get a somewhat successful Lore Roll, where I mentioned Ofuda and their connection to binding Spirits. While none of you were expert enough in Spirit for that to be useful (until Ulrich joined the Campaign), you could have hunted down one of the scattered Monks and persuaded/intimidated them into helping.
3) Conversation
- I was actually super impressed with Muskrat spending multiple rounds trying to talk to the Spirit. The Difficulty was definitely high, but even if you couldn't talk her down you might learn weaknesses or reasons why she's doing what she is. Unfortunately Pixel has limited social skills (and the dice weren't rolling great). But excellent try there.
4) Lateral Thinking in Combat
- While WOD Mages can't be as flagrant as D&D Mages with what spells they throw around, and sometimes have different limits to their magic, they also have a flexibility to their magical abilities that is so superior it isn't even comparable. So the Force Field idea? Perfect. Had a chaotic effect since Pixel didn't have the range of Spheres she'd need to target it perfectly, but it certainly frustrated the creature. June using Entropy to hinder the Ghost? Also great.
- Other ideas I thought of were a little more ... flashy. Entropy (and maybe a little Monk strength to help) could have toppled the Pagoda onto the Ghost, squashing her flat. How about a gas main explosion? Or teleporting away with the Singers to make the Spirit chase you? She might be limited to an area where the cultural belief in her is strong. Or move to the Financial District, and maybe she'd be weaker there? Would Illusions work on a Spirit? Stuff like that.


So anyways, if you perhaps felt like the Snow Woman combat was unfairly hard .... I kind of designed it that way? She had literally super-human ability to Soak damage, super-human Health levels, and some truly nasty attack abilities. But I had faith that the PCs would think of ways around that. Also, the Party is seriously under-utilizing Willpower and Quintessence. They can supercharge just about anything. Use them whenever you have a particularly important Roll that you really, really want to succeed.

Um ... Feedback? Did my reasoning when I set up the Encounter make sense? Was I being too obscure when giving hints as to her weaknesses or traits? What could I have done better to make this an exciting and challenging encounter, but not frustrating or annoying?

[Hermit]

It's hard for me to really offer any feedback on account of the fact that for all my knowledge on the lore aspects of World of Darkness and such, this is actually the first time I've had a serious go with the mechanics aspect of the game. With that in mind, I did try to consider what abilities Dexter could have used to help in aiding the conflict from a magical perspective, but unfortunately he's more or less a dot short of using anything that would be helpful in combat in his spheres, hence why I resorted to simple brute force in this instance. Plus for all his putting on airs of sophistication, Dexter's still very anti-social and not inclined towards opening diplomatic dialogue, especially with a spectral creature that opened the situation up with brutally maiming innocents.

All things considered though I'd say we did okay, though I'm sure luck played both a literal (in the case of June's powers) and figurative (dice rolls) role in this encounter.

[ManWithDoor]

Hermit:
- Lore of WOD: Not much to know, at least for the Spirit and the Spirit World. A lot of it is very nebulous, given that your cultural viewpoint can literally shape how you perceive the Otherworlds, or Spirits in general. The Canon is often vague or purposely conflicting, with hard facts few and far between. So since your character hasn't invested any points in Spirit, it makes sense that both you and your character are relatively ignorant of what's going on there. However when it comes to Time, you'll be their resident expert if I start throwing time travel and whatnot your way.

- Mechanics: I'll redouble my efforts to make sure that the Crunch of the game is clear, and you know the general scope of your Abilities. You're right that the real Power comes when you hit 3 in a Sphere. Hopefully you choose to either level up Time or Life to 3, so you can have more options opened up to you.

- Roleplay: Makes total sense that Dexter went for the direct solution, especially given the innocents in danger. Felt very true to how you've been portraying him since the beginning. I have literally nothing to fault you on that. I didn't mean to come off as criticizing anyone for just trying to punch the Spirit in the face. Just wanted to see if my Storytelling had made you feel that that was the only option I was giving you. Boxing in your choices unfairly, as it were.

[Muskrat]

The aversion to fire thing went over my head. At least for me, I think the hints would need to be clearer, but I've never been good at picking up subtleties.

I think there's also the difficulty of never having played Mage and not having played a World of Darkness game in something like 20+ years. I was as much trying to familiarize myself with the general mechanics and how magic worked as figure out some clever way to deal with the spirit.

[Muskrat]

Let me add, once I found a way to be useful in the combat, I enjoyed the encounter.

[Karstil]

I have to say that i had fun in the encounter. I also have to say i am not sure if it was becaus of the subtile hints, or just becaus it was a Winter spirit SNOW women i thougt about attaking with heat or defend with it. The end atteck with fire was than for me a good charakter suitable solution.

[ManWithDoor]

Karstil - You also lucked out, since I believe you're the only PC with any significant investment in Forces. So yeah, that certainly helped! Barring getting creative, they'd have been running around with Lighters, and that's about it. Would have certainly been nerve-wracking.

[Trogdor]

I dropped out partway through the fight, so I may not be the best judge. But it seemed fair to me. Alas, I was just at the we-can't-win-this-in-a-straight-fight point when I dropped out of sight. So I didn't get to try and explore alternate ways around the challenge. One thing I will say from years of GMing, though, subtle hints you drop usually fall into one of two categories: super obvious to the players so that you might as well have just told them, or totally obscure that the PCs are going to take forever to grasp. Getting that sweet spot where it's just right for them to figure out can be tough.

[Muskrat]

Maybe have players make a roll to see if they pick up the hint?

[ManWithDoor]

Ok, good points. I'll keep that in mind for the future. Thank you.