[DW] The Desolation of Innocence (RPG OOC Thread)

[Mazer Rackham]

Understood! 

Bring forth the Zeal of the Tsugaan Chono...

Spoiler

 

 

[Machine God]

I like that band, they're from Mongolia and they do some great Metallica covers. 

[Necronaut]

M-M-M-M-MONSTER KILL (KILL KILL KILL)!

[Mazer Rackham]

Alright gents, Midnight tonight GMT 31/07/22 is the closing time for this game.

Get your Parthian shots in beforehand if you want.

Otherwise feel free to leave feedback in this thread - and I really would like to hear from you what was good, bad or indifferent, what you would have preferred to see if your expectations were not met, or anything else. Please note, I'm not particularly worried about any rules conflicts or mishaps - we all made them.

The map-work was a bit of a misfire, but in the end I think we got something workable to put appropriate pressure here and there, and we've piloted quite a lot of stuff.

Thoughts?

On a related note, I've noticed our IC to OOC ratio is 1:2 which shows very good engagement for this game and is encouraging that a combat RPG can work well.

My Last note here is to thank the players for their participation in this game and I hope to rope you all in for another trip into the Desolation of Innocence!

Edited July 31, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Machine God]

It worked. 

[Trokair]

My own issue aside of struggling finding and showing the voice of the chaplain I can only think of one thing I would have liked to see go better, and it took some thought to get here.

 

The closed in spaces certainly helped make things problematic and tense in a space hulk way, but another aspect of spacehullk that I did not really feel was progression across a map. The failed map we had to skip I assume was supposed to give us that sense.

With the others it was more a case of: we arrive, we move to the middle (with maybe one or so ranging ahead) and we kill everything and then we move on.

All together it was a running moving battle, but each structure time was more of a stand still kill the screen and then load the next one. I am very much reaching here, as the game itself was enjoyable.

As I write this another thought occurs from my limited space hulk experience, the option of multiple paths to the objective, but that presumably raises the complexity and can lead to split parties.

[Mazer Rackham]

Thanks for your feedback.

Those are all valid points, which I welcome and pretty much agree with. (Which is good, because it means there's nothing unexpected glaring out at us). They tag onto comments made by AT about the map structure allowing for more than one way to the target, fire lines, etc.

The down time and a few examples from Plunder have given me a slightly better understanding of how to make the maps and use the tools I have, and will give me a chance to fool around with them. I might put up a few test maps in here (the OOC) for feedback for future missions.

The splitting of the party is certainly a dynamic that makes Space Hulk very dangerous to the players. Tighter corridors and different routes will certainly force those tactical decisions, and I do want to get you into them - for this first trial out I wanted you rolling dice and under some pressure, so I think that worked, and we learned a lot.

Overall, as long as you enjoyed it, I think we had a lot of success in many ways with this.

As to Nergüi, his character I am sure will come out a little more over time - especially with the missions ahead, which should be a little more drawn out over time, and would present better opportunities to RP. I hit Necro and Lysi with quite a bit of "voice" opportunity in order to get a better showing for them, as they have multiple characters. I am certain the White Wolf, and the other heroes of the Imperium will get more screen-time soon. 

Thoughts?

[Necronaut]

@Mazer Rackham this was a rather enjoyable concept game, which you absolutely ran away with following my offhand remark in the Plunder OOC thread. Great job all around! I agree with @Trokair somewhat about the maps, which I understand are challenging to put together, and I certainly appreciate all of the hard work you put in. Narratively, I liked how we hacked and slashed our way through a long-ish path on the way to the hangar bay, however it might make it easier for you (or harder in some way?) to maybe scale things back a little bit and instead of creating separate maps, create one slightly larger, interconnected map. Understandably, since we're not playing on an actual tabletop, this has some added challenges, such as scaling and scope of work, but sticking us all on one map/area to explore and stomp heads (somewhat in line with what Trokair suggested), might contribute to the atmosphere and make it a little more like the tabletop game you set out to very roughly emulate. It will require more legwork on the front end, but might make it easier for you on the back end.

[Mazer Rackham]

Much appreciated! 

Yes, the map work is my Achilles heel really - the maps you guys were running around were section cuts of a mahooosive 1440 x 1440px space station map intended for star wars and Roll 20. (I'll actually put it up in full at some point), and as everyone picked up on, I was very concerned about scale and how much such a large size map would be possible on this forum, especially for mobile users.

The other end of this is of course "Theatre of Mind", which would increase narrative scope, (as you mention with the run to the Rally Point) but present far more challenges in terms of player movement and tactical cohesion. I find a lot of TT players tend to switch modes from Narrative head, to TT Omnipotent General when maps are involved as they steal a lot of mystery and ambience, but these are the balances of concessions we must make for sake of an action-orientated game.

I'm glad we seem to have done ok. A happy medium would seem to be fixed combats then, perhaps, having the running battle as a Macro, overarching process, as opposed to a core, Micro-driving focus. Other suggestions have been made about a fixed number of Rounds to enhance player momentum, but I wanted to save that for increasing the stakes with certain scenarios. (Story always comes first).

The front-loading of work is certainly a concept I'm in favour of. 

You will all just have to be less demanding with map updates! If I can get the formula right, you won't need to.

I have some more ideas in mind for the maps, and will certainly attempt to roll everyone's feedback into the next Mission.

I'm glad to say that Damocles will have fixed fight areas without running battles, so the current setup may work a little better for that. (ie scraps in a club, drug den, lab etc, the bread and butter stuff of TTRPG fights).

[Trokair]

I don’t know how feasible it would be but if you can have the large scale map mostly unrevealed and as we work our way across it we see more and more of it. A bit like that one round where things where obscured until we scanned it.

 

Like a fog of war in RTS games, at first we know nothing, then things in our line of sight, and as we go on areas we have seen but are not in our line of sight any more we see the terrain but no any movement in it or so.

 

 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Trokair

[Mazer Rackham]

It's certainly an idea I considered, but was unsure how feasible it was.

With the testbed of Mission 1 showing how far things can be pushed, it may certainly be something to add to the toolbox on a larger scale.  Good thinking. 

Edited July 31, 2022 by Mazer Rackham

[Machine God]

I think that it is a problem with computers or smartphone devices. You see everything on the screen, alright you have blips that turn into targets but the terrain is somewhat known. Back In The Day, Space Hulk was whoever won the initiative went first - I go you go. 

The terrain was just tiles, Fog of War the Terrain Maps. If you aren't there you don't know what is there of course Auspex will send info back to the team. 

Space Hulk was move and set Overwatch because Genestealers were deadly. 

The problem you have is the FFG rules and RF. Marines are hard, dial it up you say that Genestealers are hard but we have not seen that. 

We have just see Marines go, we meet Xenos we Mince them. 

We don't see Space Hulk Dread that we had in the 90's when it was invariably a Genestealer win. 

[Mazer Rackham]

Yeah, again some good observations there on the map/terrain.

You've got problems when you turn it from a D6 and low armour points, to cranked up to beyond 11, and with special abilities. The Genestealers are dangerous, no mistake, Razor Sharp is quite a potent force when you're a 65-75% hitting Stealer. When they actually Dodge (!) and you get swamped, you're in trouble.

Again, it was the map situation there preventing that, because it was hard to separate you, and drag you down. Besides Rank 4 Space Marines are utter powerhouses compared to Rank 1's, and in TDA they're really hard to kill. This was, however, the first mission, so when you crank it up with Scythe Strain, to 1D10+14 Pen 7 Razor Sharp, Preternatural Speed, and 4-5 Attacks, then we have a little more fizz in the champagne.

Plus there are hooks in character backgrounds which will force dangerous 'off mission' decisions.

There are more things in this Hulk than Stealers... and each mission is going to be a learning curve for all of us.

Hopefully we will get enemy types in here the Nook has only ever dreamed of...

We're (hopefully) just getting started.

[Necronaut]

Bah sorry I didn't get a closing response in for Arcturion, ran out of time and couldn't get much of anything together. Until next time! 

[Lysimachus]

Interesting, looks like the next mission might be one for Laeknir... who's gonna be Squad Sgt though? Might be time for Nergui to take the lead??

[Necronaut]

Probably Nergüi. We shall see if Brother Gerhardt makes an appearance, or if we keep gambling with brutal warp-phenomena with our new resident psychic vampire-knight. 

[Trokair]

An actual Apothecary would be welcome by the sound of mission two. Nergüi pseudo Wolf Priest status means he knows enough to get himself into medical trouble, but not necessarily enough to save the patient if it is anything other than basics.

[Mazer Rackham]

8 minutes ago, Trokair said:

An actual Apothecary would be welcome by the sound of mission two. Nergüi pseudo Wolf Priest status means he knows enough to get himself into medical trouble, but not necessarily enough to save the patient if it is anything other than basics.

Nonsense, ser!

For the great sages state that time heals all wounds, but we all know medical malpractice and death is faster.

[Necronaut]

And here I thought it was a high Intelligence score, a narthecium and a successful medicae test! ;)

[Mazer Rackham]

Ha, ha! Yes of course!

Spoiler

Dude knows this is 40k, right?

 

[Machine God]

So the 'Mission' is over?

Just pondering if we stay on the Space Hulk in our Beachhead to conduct other forays as 'Missions' could being on the Hulk and not returning to the DW Ship count as a Mission.

I'm just thinking about the blurb for the Heart of Iron?

[Mazer Rackham]

As long as your PC can operate from the beachhead, he keeps what you chose until the game is over (one way or another).

Think of missions as episodes instead, we have to work in abstracts a bit.

[Machine God]

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