Where do we go from here?

[Merc]

Okay, so as was originally planned, the main adventure centered about reaching Ranus and defeating and/or exposing him. You're about to complete that goal.

So what do you guys want to do from this point on? Specifically:
1) What do you want to see?
2) What do you want to fight?

Also:
3) What do you like about this game?
4) What -don't- you like about this game?

5) How happy are you with Iron Heroes?

----------
What do you want to see?
Myself getting an encounter balanced so it's not a cakewalk nor annoyingly long. Both the last two encounters took longer than they should have, due to how the enemies were designed (tonight's was a fair part because of how you handled it though, and how initiative worked out).

What do you want to fight?
Well, I still want to throw you against pirates someday...other than that, I need to try to figure out how to work back in more mundane human encounters, though those are even harder to balance than the mystical crap you've had to deal with recently. I also do have a follow-up on the Kheldar/tower of terror box plot point, and a few other possible plot points depending on your comments.

What do you like about this game?
It's good DM practice for me, and you guys are generally pretty willing to let me experiment with stuff and not complain about it.

What -don't- you like about this game?
Except for Drac, most of you bastards don't give me feedback. I don't mind the lack of complaints, but gimme feedback, damn you! =p

I also don't like that I've been finding myself looking more at supernatural type encounters for you guys to fight. I don't know why, but when you guys fight humans you just tend to steamroll them. The last few supernatural encounters were a bit tougher than they should have been though.

How happy are you with Iron Heroes
It's interesting enough, and there's some mechanics I would probably port over to 3.5e (such as how hit dice are handled). That said, it feels awkward to not give you rewards, but at the same time, hard to give you something and making it really feel like a reward either, due to how the system treats items.

I'm actually kind of interested in running a 3.5e game in an Eberron-type world (warforged, artificers and other steampunk/magicpunk stuff), but that won't happen for a while, probably as a replacement for True Steel if it ends for a reason other than "I need a break, quitting."

In meantime, I still have some thoughts on what I would like to do with Iron Heroes, just need to figure out how to balance things so they're interesting for both sides of the game.

[Dracos]

Swing, batta, batta, batta...  Trying to wait for at least someone beside me to give feedback.  :)  Or maybe being lazy, but wow, nobody checks the game board.

[Merc]

Navi does on a semi-common version, although doesn't post a lot. Nama is rare, but I've seen his name pop up as browsing the boards. I'm pretty sure Ataru and Cid don't even check the board though (outside of character sheet thread anyhow)...

[Dracos]

Cid runs a game!

But yeah.  Nama was on yesterday and I thought he'd post but guess not.

[Namagomi]

Was going to post yesterday.  Had to quit and shut off computer due to threat of storms.

1) What do you want to see? - Okay.  Main thing I want to see is my luck with dice stop sucking, but that'll never happen.  Therefore, my secondary objective that I'm determining for myself is, well...I feel like I'm too reactive as a player.  Not proactive enough.  And, well...yeah.  I want to change that, I guess.

2) What do you want to fight? - I'd say at least try to go somewhat easy on the supernaturals.  We've already fought two sets in a row (one accidentally overbalanced by your admission).  And while you do admit that humans are a pain in the ass to balance, it's viable to at least go for combined arms tactics of sorts.  Yes, even with small numbers.  Navi brought up the point that most things aren't threatening damagewise and take too much time to kill, so I guess going on a lower-defense higher-offense paradigm might be viable?  (...as long as it's not another damned T-Rex, plzkthx)

Also, side-comment regarding the statues: They seemed to have a decent amount of HP.  More, notably, than they did when not-possessed.  Thus suggesting that we'd be taking down...two a round at best.  While taking attacks from the moving statues.  And then having to fight the normal statues.  Simply put, it was a tad unintuitive due to the unlisted disparity.  Also it massively sucked not being able to crit in that fight.

3) What do you like about this game? - The characters, mainly.  Though that admittedly is a general reason why I enjoy games.  That aside, system stuff below, and sometimes being able to do crazy stuff like goomba stomping henchmen from two stories up.

4) What -don't- you like about this game? - Might just be me, but maze segments are a bit of a pain--if only because online, flow seems to be a bit of a pain.  Introducing a map as of the most recent crawl was beneficial at the very least.  Also, of course, my bad luck with the dice at times.

5) How happy are you with Iron Heroes? - Lemme put it this way.  IH lets you actually get something out of ranged weapons for once.  That aside, it also doesn't come in with the expectations that Gandalf Merlin McRaistlin Napalm Jr. IV Esq. is supposed to solve half the problems for the party, and Pelor Worshipper #65535 or Stoner Hippie Lad another third, leaving barely to the non-supernatural characters.

So yeah, happy.  It's a variant that lets you have martial stuff still be relevant--something 3.5e never really figured out how to do outside of EXTREMELY specialized and one-dimensional setups until they released Tome of Battle.

[Dracos]

I subject you to yammering.  All of you.  Including the lazy bums that won't post feedback.

1) What do you want to see?  What do I want to see...  I'm not sure how to answer that question phrased like that.

I suppose I want to see us move more toward a wild and crazy adventuring party.  We are about to finish our main objective.  Hopefully the war is cleared up.  We've got slight hooks, but nothing really to stop us from going back to our boring lives.

So why do we continue adventuring?  It really depends.  We could be commissioned by the king.  I suppose.  But we don't have anyone left in the party who has that as a requirement.  So I'd rather not.  We could also be lured out by enemy parties, threats, political agreements, whatever.  Still rather not.  I'd rather it be US that the motivation to continue from so that we're free agents and can decide entirely on whim to go save a village or charge into a mystical mountain that nobody has ever climbed.

Maya particularly is up for seeing the world and living it large, so pushing on this is partially that I want more of a backdrop for playing out my character.  Aleph would probably come along to continue his quest to Hit That (Enemies should let him know, it's unhittable :P) and not be a normal sleepy fellow in a normal town.  So that leaves Jack, Elise, and Anassia.  Jack has lots of reasons he could come along.  A really cool one might be building up his own international thieves guild with the roaming guild leader.  He could simply not want to return to the lazy life of being nobody.

Elise is a bit harder.  Without a push from the king, she might not have any reason to travel.  But at the same time, maybe she'll come to keep folks out of trouble and on the straight and narrow path~.  But that's a bit maya centric viewed.  Still, I'd think the most interesting would simply be that she's a religious fanatic who's traveled through three countries without seeing a single other person following her religion.  She could do a lot with that, from going out to understand how these uncivilized people live without the guidance of the book to being the legendary missionary warrioress.  Priest Rezo...I mean Paladin Elise?  Well, just a thought.

Anassia is the hardest to really guess, but I wonder if it matters since player wise she tends to background and follow?  A bit harsh, but I dunno.  Anyhow, I suppose the most reason is that if she goes home, she's a freak with a skeleton squirrel in a land that doesn't really like magic.  If she travels, she's rising on the path of a sorcerer knowledgeable in the magical traditions of a dozen lands, seeing magics that she'd never encounter in her home.

Anyhow, enough on that.  What else would I like to see?  Wealth!  I think you've really missed out here merc.  IH removes wealth as a mechanical importance for the most part.  The masterwork system 'does' return it, a bit, but let's ignore that for a bit.  Let's talk about wealth in the absence of horribly expensive magical items.  What does this mean?  It means we can treat wealth as pretty much solely character personality as a motivator.  It's Glitz and Glitter.  Nobles can offer us huge amounts for doing tasks or we can take tasks for poor ass villagers that can't pay us a dime and it's not a mechanical concern, just an In Character interest.  We can get charged ridiculous fees for fancy things, and it's not a concern of 'oh this is all the game breaking' thing.  We can have bribes, political manuevering, tossing money at enemies to bribe them elsewhere.  Money basically can exist free of being a measure of mechanical power and be a narrative/role playing convention more similar to how it ends up in exalted or tristat.  It doesn't have to be argued much about because it isn't an important part of how powerful the character is.

I'd like to see that as I think it'd be an interesting motivation point for Maya to acquire and discard glitz and wealth.  To be more whimsical along the lines of grabbing new costumes as she goes, chitchatting with random nobles, etc.  And then chase it as she irresponsibly empties the purse :P.  Basically, we're powerful characters so far that wade in the mud save for a few handouts and the king's purse.  I suppose a limitless pile of gold is nice and it's been nice not worrying about it, but it feels like it could be a real fun toy in the context of the game that we've just handwaved off.

Of course, it goes without saying as well is I'd like more showy stuff. :)  Playing a character built along it makes me always want to dash out there and go with it.  I enjoyed so far getting to mess with random street performers, put on a distracting show while others freed slaves and killed little Timmy's dad, and otherwise be a traveling show off that can win at being a showoff.

What I'd like to see?  More feedback from the others.  We're no where near as lively as Planar is for opinions and moves and its a pity.

2) What do you want to fight?  People.  Mmm, but why People?  What makes them more fun than the supernatural fighting a statue?

Because People talk.  They taunt.  They scream, cuss, and flee.  They have objectives that isn't just maul us.  They can be humiliated when they miss, victorious when they stab us, and worried when all of their weapons break.

Supernatural folks can be people too, but the ones we've fought so far haven't been.  They've been obstacles or monsters.  Both are easier to run, but not as fun as people.

You brought up balance, so I'll talk a bit on that.

Balance in IH is as wonky in play as I'd always saw it would be.  By playing a mostly in spec harrier, I'm playing something that is practically speaking about 13 AC above the rest of the party.  That's pretty much a untouchable by comparison.  And given how moving on spec is much more feasible than moving off spec it'll stay that bad or worse.  She can treat most things as mooks if they don't have magic to hit her with.  Most of the players would have extreme difficulty hitting her at all.  Elise can and will shatter every weapon raised against us.  It's simply going to happen a lot of the time.  It renders normal humans not very threatening in her presence, and makes it hard for boss types to raise a weapon.  Her to hit is almost equal to her AC, giving a basic Elise/Fighter copy type about a 85-90 percent hit rate against her, provided they got to swing their sword at all.  This pretty much leaves her with defending with her HP anytime she doesn't slaughter enemies or enemies are significantly below her hit.  Anassia is as glassy as a normal wizard type, but without really the ability to contribute as a normal wizard type.  Anything that's a threat to one of the combat monkeys is an instant slaughter with her, and then just as you played the smart demons 'why not hit the character that isn't going to stay standing and isn't going to dodge'.

Balance, in the common vernacular of enemies being challenging, is something that's going to be very difficult to achieve.  It's a DM preference thing whether that is a real problem.  There's lots of ways for challenging encounters that don't involve really enemies being able to directly and reasonably challenge us.  Hostages, Unmatched objectives or other non-pure combat scenarios can add a bunch here.  Also, combat can be used to fulfill different goals than providing challenge in the game.  I suspect that combat as a showcase area for players to do badass things to competing bad guys is one that would work pretty well.

3) What do you like about this game?

I can do stunts.  Sure, there's the mechanics of it as well which are beefy and nobody but me has gotten their head around it, but ignoring that, I can have my character run circles around folks, leap up and swing across the room, and generally bounce all over the place.  Fun.  I would be fine with doing it without really bonuses, though I'm glad that they are mechanically incentivized.  Basically, even without magic, we can do epic things.

I like playing with the other characters, though I find Aleph and Elise step ahead of the others clearly.  Aleph set a goal in changing his relationship with Maya, so it provides interesting teasing back and forth between them.  Elise and Maya sit at pretty opposite ends of the 'how to deal with life' table, and would probably be snarky enemies to each other if they weren't thrown together by fate.  Teasing and Corrupting her is amusing and I hope she finds more time to try and lecture/drag Maya toward moral upbringing.  It's a pity her background is "I am Naive to the World" which gives her a little less foundation to try and encourage good behavior, but hey she tries.  It's a fun dynamic there.  The others are fun sometimes, but they sort of lack clear standout motivation and interaction.

I like maya as a character.  She's a sort of crazy type that wouldn't have been viable in D&D.  She stands in sort of a monk/dancer type role that there just wouldn't have been the skill points to reflect and the mobility level she has would be unreachable until very late in the game.

4) What -don't- you like about this game?

 Folks don't read the board.  Folks don't talk midweek.  Folks don't show up reliably on time or feel bad about leaving us all hanging.  The investment in an awesome shared role playing experience feels a bit weak.  It really sucks when we end on a decision point and instead of quickly working it out midweek, we spend a chunk of beginning time toward it.  The time thing mostly.

Attempting to do a maze/giant realistic dungeon sucked.  I'm rarely a fan of those, but frankly realism doesn't serve us well here as it keeps us gritty and I don't feel that gritty tone fits with these characters.  They aren't tough hardened, make a torch out of sticks on the floor types.  It's ridiculous realistically that we storm a prince's guard and cut them all down!  Why can we do that?  Because we're cool special people, not normal gritty folks.  So why are we wandering around settings that are so mundane and normal?  Sure, a real castle has a bunch of floors, countless servants, etc.  But 80 percent of that could've been tossed away and railroaded us toward chasing down the wizardly big bad and I think we would've all found it better than the realism.  anyhow, a lot of yammering that maps to "Small playable maps are better."  Especially online, but I've rarely seen giant sprawling maps work well.  It might not be realistic that a castle has like 10 rooms, but then at least players treat them like rooms and not speedbumps.

That nobody else uses stunts.  The enemies walk up and smack somebody.  Most the rest of the player cast do as well.  There's no flying dodges where a dozen arrows are fired.  There's no leaping smashes of doom from hammergirl.  Zombie army never tears down a building and lets it fall on the enemies.  Basically, we keep to non-magical D&D restrictions, which is a pity.  Forget even necessarily getting a bonus and just do more crazy stuff!

5) How happy are you with Iron Heroes?

Okay.  It's nice to play something different and it's a cute enough foundation.  It fails strongly at grit by separation between what players can do and realism.  It also has pretty wonky balance and build issues (Many that could be avoided by removing the buy in rank 1 of feat trees in most/all situations).

Okay that should be enough rambling....for the three other players that haven't said hello.

[Dracos]

2/5 opinion's get.

[Navilee]

You want my opinion?  YOU CAN'T HANDLE MY OPINION!

Okay, done with that.  On to the meat.

1) What do you want to see? - I like new things.  Battle in Routine Settlement #18 is boring.  In traveling, we should see a wide selection of people, cultures, religion, geology, and weird shit.  Things that make the characters say 'this is weird, and we travel with a chick that brings the dead back to life'.  Things that might challenge their world view, morals, or just opinions.  Conflicts, catalysts for change.  Events that cause characters to make choices which are fundamentally unimportant for the realm, but have earth-shattering results for them.  Things like that.  Variety is the spice of life, after all; give us enough variety that we get sick on it! ^_^

Further, on supernatural:  My opinion on this usually varies by system but in more magic-light systems (Iron Heroes, Cthulhu, etc) I like it rare. Overexposure to the supernatural makes it become just natural.  It's one of the problems that I could argue D&D has - magic is mundane.  There are laws, and boring books written on it.  It's not magical at all.  Admittedly, my normal problem is with more specific issues within the system, but I digress.  Supernatural encounters and problems are perfectly valid, but they should be sprinkled instead of dumped into the campaign. And, again, more variation is better; instead of a magical creature, the characters are being pursued by a magical storm.  They don't know who sent it but have to find it to stop it.  But they can't stop to sleep, or else the storm will catch them and do something nasty.  So the characters are running, constantly terrified and growing more and more exhausted, but knowing that stopping would be death.  Good character development and a more ambient threat.  Again, should be fairly rare.

And I do like puzzles; that name-puzzle was fairly clever even if it took some time to figure it out.

On a character level, Anassia is somewhat intrigued by the idea of a magical school, despite the risk of explosion.  Her current plan is vaguely setting out toward one after finishing their task, although if everyone else is going elsewhere they will probably get in trouble and die without her so she'll stay on; they aren't the brightest group of wandering farmers ever, after all.

2) What do you want to fight? - This I don't make suggestions on.  Fights are a vital (if often overextended) part of RPGs.  However, instead of presenting us with actual enemies, I am fond of having our enemies being something more ephemeral (I have no idea if that is the right word but it sounds awesome so it's staying).  Like organizations.  Say if witch hunters find out that the group has a token necromancer.  When confronted by the hunters, if they kill them the organization will just send more, stronger.  So, instead, they may try to think of a way to either evade the hunters, or convince the organization that Anassia is dead.  Or environmental hazards, like a swamp that is arguably 'alive' trying to kill the party; that's a threat that Maya can't bunny-on-crack around.

3) What do you like about this game? - The characters are awesome, but, honestly, I really do love the system.  Iron Heroes is a hoot.  A half-finished, horribly balanced hoot, but a hoot the same.  Although I wish that most of the 'boost damage' or 'boost hit' things worked with non-melee weapons.

4) What -don't- you like about this game? - A lot of people are griping about the map, but, really, there is a way to have larger maps work and be a benefit as opposed to a burden.  Instead of searching rooms individually, abstract it away.  That way you can have large, impressive maps without bogging the game down with "I search this room." "Nothing." "And that one?" "Nothing again.".  Also, detail is your friend with rooms and maps of any size, rooms of 'nothing' break suspension of disbelief unless there is a good reason.  

Oh, and being utterly useless, but that's a minor complaint at best. ^_^

5) How happy are you with Iron Heroes? - I love Iron Heroes.  Sure, it lacks a real internal consistency and doesn't have enough errata (actually, I haven't looked errata up for it.  That might be a good idea) to fix what is irrevocably broken, but they make an attempt.  But it's plucky and stylistic, and that goes a long way with a system.

There.  Is that enough words for you, Drac? :P

Edit:  Somehow, it got lost in the wordslurry: Maya is only really able to have AC of insane when she can move freely.  If you want a tense encounter, figure that the enemies will have studied their power and adjusted for them.  Maybe they lure the PCs to a place they can't effectively maneuver, making Maya as vulnerable as the others.  Or maybe they separate the party, recognizing that Maya would likely back down if they're holding a blade to some throats.  Of maybe introduce a foil: A character similar to Maya in build, only more powerful; an evil harrier would be a bitch to kill because they would be able to hit-and-run on the party while Maya is trying to kill it.  Don't overuse, since being denied your classes cool overmuch is aggravating, but token encounters restricting abilities can add to tension.

Edit Edit:  Damn you, the title is making me want to listen to the Buffy musical.  You are a demon.

[Dracos]

Gonna suggest that answering Maya being broken by throwing an Evil-Maya at the party would be a terrible idea.  Having to slaughter a harrier would be an entire evening just fighting that one character.