Re: General Non-game Chat Thread

[Ayleth Bartheld]

Dammit, I'm really, really sorry I was so slow. Work took a lot out of me lately

[Loreia]

This is the first game I've been part of that has ended like this. Really sucks, but I admit I've been losing interest. My attention has been drifting on, and I feel that this game, or what's left of it, has suffered because of it. I feel like I've learned a lot though, and I'd love to try again at a later date.

[Theomore Tullison]

Games like these (although my experience is primarily with nationsims in the past) tends to have a life expectancy of around 9 months, too many things can cause a loss of momentum. Blood in the water lasted for maybe 2-3 months I think? Southron Ambitions crashed in 2. If we were to kick off a spiritual successor to dragonsdance, I think 9 months is realistic on account of us knowing more about what works and what does not than we did with BITW and SA. Too many things can go wrong to expect more, so we did have a good run.

[Reader]

Well done to Baelon for being and excellent player and stepping up to try to keep things going.

As Theomore points out, this game had a much longer run than most PbP forum games, managing two full stories, several offseasons packed with events and starting a third story. This was a hastily activated stop-gap after Blood in the Water disintegrated, but ran for some time. Delighted to have had a chance to play with such a fine group of players - you guys wrote the best stories that came out of this, I just provided a framework.

I've started a thread for people to sign-up for a final bit of rolling and roleplay to wrap things up as promised long ago. I owe it to all of you and we're a couple of months off the Doomtown Reloaded kickstarter beginning, so I've got fewer playtesting duties than normal over there.

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

I feel like I really let this game down in the end. It's weird because I know -why- I slowed down...but in hindsight I still wish I hadn't. I still wanted to go on, long after my real DRIVE to go on had faded.

That said, it has been one of the best and most satisfying play-by-posts I've ever had the privilege of playing, so I can't really feel bad about it. I give all props to Reader, for wrangling wild PCs like a champ...to Theo for having the guts to be as bad as he wanted to be, and to all the folks like Baelon and Daveth who pretty much carried me in terms of the system itself and helped me throughout.

You're all top notch, and I hope I get a chance to play with you again.

[Theomore Tullison]

Theo turned out quite a bit worse than initially intended. So had to figure out how he went from the original image to nasty places. Some bad calls from my end and that it took too long before anyone gave me signals (that I managed to see for what they were) made that turn out into something not quite so fun as it should have been.

I want us to get back together again, so if anyone wants to try their hand at narrating, I'll be around to play someone with an eye to go around and make things interesting, hopefully on the lighter side of things than Theo or my version of Ayleth. If it takes long enough before anyone happens to step up to the podium, I may eventually come up with something, but no promises, and I think I am both happier and more capable as a player. I do have a very long laundry list of ideas and thoughts about what could work well, both in terms of system and setting, if anyone feel like sparring on setting something up.

[Reader]

Turning out worse than intended is fun too - sometimes characters take you on a particular journey! I enjoyed your Ayleth too in the sadly briefly lived BITW. I enjoyed Theomore and he helped drive a significant chunk of the plot, which is essential in a quasi Sandbox like this. My NPCs had plans and executed them plus there were official events but many of the high points were player initiated.

I hope I'm fortunate enough to play another game with you and see you playing something lighter (for variety) or another Ayleth style character. I'd enjoy working with/against either.

As for narrating you might surprise yourself - I enjoyed it far more than I expected and hadn't run a PbP before. I'd be happily still running this if it weren't for the (happy) return of Doomtown Reloaded and my involvement in that. Delighted to bounce idea around.

[Reader]

I feel like I really let this game down in the end. It's weird because I know -why- I slowed down...but in hindsight I still wish I hadn't. I still wanted to go on, long after my real DRIVE to go on had faded.

That said, it has been one of the best and most satisfying play-by-posts I've ever had the privilege of playing, so I can't really feel bad about it. I give all props to Reader, for wrangling wild PCs like a champ...to Theo for having the guts to be as bad as he wanted to be, and to all the folks like Baelon and Daveth who pretty much carried me in terms of the system itself and helped me throughout.

You're all top notch, and I hope I get a chance to play with you again.

You were wonderful throughout an unexpectedly long running game, we all had odd moments of slowing down or having issues with other. It was great to narrate for you, I share all your sentiments.

[Theomore Tullison]

I'm not sorry with the turn Theo took, but for many reasons, I wish I had made him call off that Pennytree shit, that was out of character for him and lead to substantial OOC crap. Though it's also difficult to sit here and determine where his path would have taken him otherwise, because I sort of enjoyed how everything in chapter 2 plotted out his future course, pity that I didn't get to pursue it.

Still, Theo doesn't quite manage to push Marq Mooton (the Southron Ambition version, not the brief cameo we got here) off the throne as my favorite character ever. Although that may have more to do with Marq being designed to exist in self-contained and highly entertaining scenes. But I think I've come to grown to prefer longer running schemes, which may have hampered Theo in so far as he was intended to be more of an older version of Marq, several shades darker that may be.

Anyhow, when it comes to accolades, I have a few of my own:
Number one goes to reader for keeping up with our bullshit for almost two years.
Side-awards:
First one Loreia, Dunstan and Baelon gets to share, when it comes to character concept and execution in play, these were my favorites, each character have some very interesting sides to them that the players behind manages to latch onto and lift forward to make for enjoyable reading. If I had to pick a single winner, I'd say Loreia because I feel I noticed an improvement in general roleplay ability throughout the game.
Second one I'll throw to Gwyn, Arlyn and Ben, also subjective, but these three are the ones I found the most enjoyable players out of character.
Last one, goes to Corrine, this shout-out is because I've been playing forum games for over a decade now, and while the game is the main reason people come to the forum, the community is often the main reason why people stay on it. Perhaps less so here than other places, but it is still important, and Corrine has probably been the biggest contributor if you combine the IC and OOC activity, and post count is not the only metric here.

As for me and narrating, I've tried it before, didn't go so well, so I make no promises.

[Gwyneth Drakeson]

For those who are not overly attached to the Game of Thrones RPG, a couple of players from this game have joined up over at http://savagerifts.com/index.php. They're running a lot of parallel games there, so I couldn't say we'll definitely all be in the same team, but there's RP areas where PCs from different teams can still meet and chat, so it'd still be a chance to keep playing together.

At least until we can get something else going for ourselves.

[Baelon Drakeson]

Other than Reader, I'm intentionally leaving this post devoid of names. More for fear of accidentally leaving someone out due to brain fogginess.

It was a great game, in no small part because it existed on multiple levels - there were interpersonal, inter-house, regional, national, and international conflicts and plots. It really felt like we were part of a larger world, but with the focus still on our handful of houses.

A huge shout out to Reader for setting the stage and and the framework, the NCs and external plots, and weaving together our disparate story threads (and sometimes wildly out of the blue twists and divergences) into a semi-cohesive whole. Not to mention the often thankless job of mediating the OOC conflicts, playing 'fun police', and wrangling mechanics to try to keep everyone happy (an impossible task on it's face).

Another huge shout-out to the plot drivers, those players who through schemes or force of personality created the weft to Reader's warp (though I think we were all rather warped at times ). This was a game where the world was not a problem to be solved, but an incomplete work of art - there for us to shape to our own desires, and many of us did so in significant ways - some unwittingly, some subtly or indirectly, and some boldly and brashly.

Yet another shout out to the roleplayers. I can get caught up in the OOC strategies and schemes, but the scenes where I was roleplaying with others were my favorites, and brought out aspects of Baelon that truly surprised me, and then shaped everything else. Reader might have been the warp and the plot drivers the weft, but the roleplay is the color and pattern. Without it, you end up with a rather dull tapestry indeed.

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