8
edits
Changes
Analysis
==What worked, what did not work and what should be improved==
Communication during the event was probably the biggest failure; we relied on one GM who was supposed to handle the in- and off-game phone calls, online presence, and feed relevant data to different groups. This worked well enough when things were quiet; it became quite a clusterfuck when things went hectic. We gravely underestimated the amount of time phone calls would take and how much the players would be doing in-game phonecalls to whomever. Our communication system was jammed, which affected the police group in particular – they couldn’t get data from their moles and street police patrols (which would have been supplied by the GM’s, based on where the other groups were moving), quite effectively cutting them off from the rest of the game. It also affected the online-players, as the GM-played NPC’s became mostly inactive.
Second, some character preparation and casting work failed. Some players got characters that didn’t suit their playing style, which resulted with a boring experience. Some characters were just bland; the concepts didn’t work at all. And finally, some where written in a way which didn’t result in meaningfull play. For example, the Sabbat gang had a mortal boyfriend (or juicebag) with them and he was written to be a pretty obnoxious guy. The player did a great job playing him – and the Sabbat gang kicked him out after they reached the town, having been just this close to wasting him. That player missed most of the game – and didn’t even know he had been in a car with three vampires, until after the game.
One of the players had to cancel his appearance because of illness, just few hours before the game started, and we couldn’t replace her. This left her characters husband a bit alone regarding the relationship stuff.
Some mortal character players felt that they got support role character when they found out, after the game, that there had been a whole other dimension in the game. Some comments can be read from here. Should have put more effort to writing the mortal plot-hooks, probably, though the supernatural/mortal divide was there by design.
Some of the characters suffered from a background bloat, which then affected some other backgrounds as well – when the deadlines came close, the quality of writing suffered.
On the positive side, apart from the communication glicthes, the game as whole worked pretty well. Things clicked together and events movent forward, generating more and more stuff when things progressed.
The rules worked for the players; that is, they weren’t used much and when they were, the usage was subtle and quick. I’m not sure how much the nature of rules – very freeformish – affected their usage, but more complex rules would probably just have been skipped.
I think we mostly succeeded in the main goal, simulating a certain amount of time in a city of darkness in “realistic” manner. The masquerade was kept until the end; some mortal players probably guessed that there was supernatural stuff going on in the background, but it didn’t blatantly jump to their and especially not to characters eyes. The pacing of the game mostly worked; slow start and buildup, hectic ending.
Also, we managed to get material internally consistent, which save us from lot of trouble. The players were pretty much capable of playing on their own, without need to constantly update them about setting- and character related things.
Probably the most important factor was the fact that we chose our players and made an invitation only -game. It’s a cheap shot, but this way we didn’t have to worry about things like cheating, differences in play styles (though we eventually got some of that, as mentioned) or too many other player-level things.
==Techniques used==