Official post of defunctness

[Sierra]

The game's been lapsed for a while now, but I figured there should be some formal last words. I mostly just let it wind down because higher enthusiasm for the new game idea* made running this one less attractive. The discussion that followed the posting of said new game idea made the basic flaws in the plotting of DF more apparent (I asked for a crew of mercenaries and then gave them a metaplot that they would be disinclined to involve themselves in, probably forcing me to resort to negative reinforcement to keep things moving; this would've become more apparent had the game progressed further). I enjoyed running it; it was fun, I feel like I've learned a lot about GMing and am pretty confident about being able to run future games better. Just seemed like DF's time was passed.

Also thought I would open the floor to comments and such. Have any feedback on the running of the game, feel free to share it. Also any lingering questions about plot stuff (if people remember any/still care) could be answered.

(*Which I have not actually commenced running, no. It has occurred to me that, being unemployed and wanting to use this time for the writing of fiction, running a game--while fun--would be too much of a distraction for me to get anything done. Of course, as it turns out, I have pretty consistently wasted all my free time anyway, but this is part of the larger Cid melodrama and we needn't get into that here. Long story short, when Eb floated the notion of a drow game, I figured I'd just let him have the Saturday timeslot.)

[Corwin]

The kind of personalities we had wasn't very conductive to advancing the plot, no. A mutual miss, there, I guess.

So what was said plot?

[Sierra]

The lead psychics on Sudoul (homeworld of Targo) were engaged in a plan to take control of the gates in the various colony worlds, bypassing the need to rely on Earth for anything and even being able to threaten Sol with a total lockout. You all helped to scotch this scheme when you took the Black Wind, but they'd cultured alliances with influential figures on a variety of worlds and much of the game would've been spent rooting these people out. Retribution would have eventually come in the form of unsympathetic men with guns, theoretically forcing you to stick with the government side just because the opposition was trying to kill you.

The problem here is that you guys, being mercenaries, had no real reason not to just go to Sudoul and say, "Hey, you know if you paid us to work for you, you wouldn't have to send goons after us?" I wasn't really prepared to deal with that eventuality, though in retrospect it would have been rather fitting (and amusing) for you all to jump to the villains' team.

Targo's esperphobia might have acted as a block to that, in fairness, but, well, he was already working for one of them (Lorna, the government agent who gave you the pirate job in the first place; also the only esper actually working for the central government and pretty much the most trustworthy NPC in the game, but I dunno if that would've made a difference when Targo found out what she was later).

Had the game continued, what would've followed would've been a comprehensive tour of the colony worlds unearthing Sudoul's allies--in addition to whatever local jobs you could find and whatever work that the old rich guy you collectively dubbed Future Bill Gates had for you--presumably culminating in some manner of confrontation with the powers that be on Sudoul. I've already covered why the latter would've been unlikely to happen given that it would make more sense for mercenaries to just switch teams.