It's over? But we didn't have a feast in the feast hall...we didn't have a sea battle....didn't fire the ballista....didn't even get to sneak a certain Mantis on board...we didn't even finish the date! No second game?!? But...but

Ok, first thank you to the GM team and my fellow players. It was too short an experience, but it was fun. There were some things I didn't agree with in Rixy's game wrap-up announcement, so I wanted to contribute my worthless opinions to be ridiculed, mocked, and ignored (Hey, I'm trying to stay realistic, it's the internet

Good Stuffs:

1. NPCs. Wow, fleshed out NPCs who actually come up to you in Open threads when your not expecting anything and interact with you. I was really impressed with them. I know they're an extra drain on GM time, but I loved them to bits. Interacting with PCs is fun, but can sometimes be hard since they've got their own little stories going on, and they don't always mesh well. These NPCs really hit the spot.

2. The mechanics of sea battle. We didn't even get to use them, but they look really cool.

3. The story. Ok, I just want to say that the story was really interesting, and the surprise a really cool twist. All the similarities and differences between the cultures was extremely interesting. Everything was fleshed out and you could learn a ton about it with some interaction. Even my character who didn't really care found himself getting sucked into it, and there's a lot of future winter court discussion brewing in his head about "What really are the differences between us and the gaijin?"

4. The ship. Rixy said that they felt the lack of locations led to problems. Actually, I thought it was really convenient to have small groups of people assigned to certain locales at certain times, and not a ton of places to be alone at. I show up to pbps to interact, not to post long solo posts about how cool I am (I mean, I'm really cool, but y'all know that) Things were able to move along at a good clip, without suffering main court thread quicksand.

Bad Things

1. "Pre" Game: I liked the pre-game of Black Scroll as it gave us a chance to slip into the mindset, without being a huge time drain for everyone. This pre-game seemed like "Ok, so we're starting the game without everyone in, so go nuts!" I would have rather just started the game early and worked people into activity rather than calling it a pre-game. And really, starting at least two major combats pre-holiday weekend with a hard lock post holiday weekend? True lots of holidays I'm available, but not this one. Why would you do this?

2. The big combat thread timing issues: Ok, I was let down by this one. I'd hoped that there'd be more game for y'all to make it up to me, but there's not, so -5 reputation So I think almost everyone wanted to be in the main combat thread except our hardcore pacifists. But the signup window was tiny and a few missed it, and that left them nothing to do for the past couple weeks. So I signed up for it, went to work expecting to be ghosts in because I'd filled out my tactics sheet and such...and found we were already at round 3 with no sign of me. I got into the thread....and then spent days clicking the refresh button wondering why we were clicking in at maybe 1 round per day. We finally finish the topdeck thread, I get myself all lined up for below deck nastiness, go out to board game night....and come back to find I'm locked out of it. I realize at this point y'all wanted the darn thing over, but geez, I wanted to play! Also, the mooks on the topdeck looked a bit stat heavy on both sides. Nameless mooks with agility 4, ref 3, earth 3, and use void is not cool to run into as an IR 1 character. Jayant Uptal being combat capable enough to fight the whole damn ship by himself is also not cool. We needed the help, but it was supposed to be about us.

3. Getting the fishes out of the water: Considering that Lankh was meant to be the main meat of the game, giving players the choice to stay on the boat was probably not a good one. Yeah, getting ordered by the captain to go out and interact with the locals might seem heavy handed, but it's about the only way to get some of the traditionalists out there and playing. There was a lot of similarities between the cultures that could have led for at least a couple of people to go "Well dang, they're not so different AND they're screwed" instead of "Hahaha, sucks to be you gaijin!"

Kobune had a lot of potential, and there were some really good things about it, but it just didn't quite deliver. Still, glad I played, and am sad y'all are so frustrated as to not run a second game of it and cutting it short by about a month. Hopefully will run into a bunch of you in other pbps

<Chop of>

Bayushi Nobuyoshi

Bayushi Nobuyoshi wrote:1. NPCs. Wow, fleshed out NPCs who actually come up to you in Open threads when your not expecting anything and interact with you. I was really impressed with them. I know they're an extra drain on GM time, but I loved them to bits. Interacting with PCs is fun, but can sometimes be hard since they've got their own little stories going on, and they don't always mesh well. These NPCs really hit the spot.

Huzzah! We at least got that score!

2. The mechanics of sea battle. We didn't even get to use them, but they look really cool.

A few sea battles had been planned, obviously, but had to be dropped due to what were felt to be time constraints or story constraints. I'm kinda bummed we didn't get to use them either, but they'll be there for other GMs to peruse and use at their leisure at least.

3. The story. Ok, I just want to say that the story was really interesting, and the surprise a really cool twist. All the similarities and differences between the cultures was extremely interesting. Everything was fleshed out and you could learn a ton about it with some interaction. Even my character who didn't really care found himself getting sucked into it, and there's a lot of future winter court discussion brewing in his head about "What really are the differences between us and the gaijin?"

That's what we were trying to do. So, hurray! It worked!

4. The ship. Rixy said that they felt the lack of locations led to problems. Actually, I thought it was really convenient to have small groups of people assigned to certain locales at certain times, and not a ton of places to be alone at. I show up to pbps to interact, not to post long solo posts about how cool I am (I mean, I'm really cool, but y'all know that) Things were able to move along at a good clip, without suffering main court thread quicksand.

I'd like to hear some other opinions on this front as well. Because that's really not the impression we had.

Bad Things

1. "Pre" Game: I liked the pre-game of Black Scroll as it gave us a chance to slip into the mindset, without being a huge time drain for everyone. This pre-game seemed like "Ok, so we're starting the game without everyone in, so go nuts!" I would have rather just started the game early and worked people into activity rather than calling it a pre-game. And really, starting at least two major combats pre-holiday weekend with a hard lock post holiday weekend? True lots of holidays I'm available, but not this one. Why would you do this?

Much of the GM staff is wondering at the actual purpose of "pre-game" now, honestly. Black Scroll worked well, but not every game can pull off pre-game with letters. It's a trial and error thing.

2. The big combat thread timing issues: Ok, I was let down by this one. I'd hoped that there'd be more game for y'all to make it up to me, but there's not, so -5 reputation So I think almost everyone wanted to be in the main combat thread except our hardcore pacifists. But the signup window was tiny and a few missed it, and that left them nothing to do for the past couple weeks. So I signed up for it, went to work expecting to be ghosts in because I'd filled out my tactics sheet and such...and found we were already at round 3 with no sign of me. I got into the thread....and then spent days clicking the refresh button wondering why we were clicking in at maybe 1 round per day. We finally finish the topdeck thread, I get myself all lined up for below deck nastiness, go out to board game night....and come back to find I'm locked out of it. I realize at this point y'all wanted the darn thing over, but geez, I wanted to play! Also, the mooks on the topdeck looked a bit stat heavy on both sides. Nameless mooks with agility 4, ref 3, earth 3, and use void is not cool to run into as an IR 1 character. Jayant Uptal being combat capable enough to fight the whole damn ship by himself is also not cool. We needed the help, but it was supposed to be about us.

I will take some of the blame for this one. I was far too willing to wait to let posters make their own post and work was very busy which left me no time to post during a good chunk of the day. That being said, there were some who did not leave ghosting instructions, and then when they did post, did something different from what their tactics sheet said. Another issue that slowed things down was IC dying on us for awhile that left PCs needing GMs to make rolls that slowed the fight down further. But yeah, I learned my lesson there.

What made Jayant a combat monster was really just the simple fact that he was a Rank 3 character, his attacks only keep 3 dice unless he goes on Full Attack or spends a Void Point, and his damage is normally less dice than a Strength 3 katana wielder. He just had some disturbingly good rolls that were totally unexpected, and with his disadvantages there was really no way I could keep him from joining the fight on the ship.

3. Getting the fishes out of the water: Considering that Lanka was meant to be the main meat of the game, giving players the choice to stay on the boat was probably not a good one. Yeah, getting ordered by the captain to go out and interact with the locals might seem heavy handed, but it's about the only way to get some of the traditionalists out there and playing. There was a lot of similarities between the cultures that could have led for at least a couple of people to go "Well dang, they're not so different AND they're screwed" instead of "Hahaha, sucks to be you gaijin!"

I'll take some blame for this one. Jayant's whole purpose was to get you guys interested in seeing the rest of Lanka, and that didn't work out quite as planned. In retrospect, I probably should have given him Rokugani to ease character relations. We had several people capable of speaking Rhuumali at game start though so we didn't think it would be a big issue. And when we felt that interest was flagging on the ship, we pushed on to the main plot a little faster than we had originally intended, so Jayant really didn't have a lot of time to get to interact with you guys on the ship before you guys got to the city.

Kobune had a lot of potential, and there were some really good things about it, but it just didn't quite deliver. Still, glad I played, and am sad y'all are so frustrated as to not run a second game of it and cutting it short by about a month. Hopefully will run into a bunch of you in other pbps

<Chop of>

Bayushi Nobuyoshi

We really just don't think that, considering the reaction from most characters was standard Rokugani xenophobia, we could really push a second game through. There will always be other PbPs though.

My own two cents.

1. NPCs. Wow, fleshed out NPCs who actually come up to you in Open threads when your not expecting anything and interact with you. I was really impressed with them. I know they're an extra drain on GM time, but I loved them to bits. Interacting with PCs is fun, but can sometimes be hard since they've got their own little stories going on, and they don't always mesh well. These NPCs really hit the spot.

These are a 'specialty', if you will, of the games Elonweis and I run, just like playing a Mindshred game means some rather dark and often oni-flavored action. Glad to hear they're still appreciated.

2. The mechanics of sea battle. We didn't even get to use them, but they look really cool.

Believe me, I'm distressed these didn't get used, too, given that I not only had to make 'em but made my poor patient husband playtest them with me. There was originally supposed to be a big sea battle D4 with the group that sank Jayant's ship but, at that time, we were seeing a serious interest lag (more on why later) that, combined with my RL issues with changing shifts, let us to decide that we'd better push through to the plot. There was also supposed to be a big 'escape the city' sea battle, too, but after the long ship-raid we decided that was just too much possibility for never finishing the game at all.

3. The story. Ok, I just want to say that the story was really interesting, and the surprise a really cool twist. All the similarities and differences between the cultures was extremely interesting. Everything was fleshed out and you could learn a ton about it with some interaction. Even my character who didn't really care found himself getting sucked into it, and there's a lot of future winter court discussion brewing in his head about "What really are the differences between us and the gaijin?"

Thanks! There was a lot of research (Volsung in particular did an obscene amount of reading) to try and flesh it out so that's good to hear.

4. The ship. Rixy said that they felt the lack of locations led to problems. Actually, I thought it was really convenient to have small groups of people assigned to certain locales at certain times, and not a ton of places to be alone at. I show up to pbps to interact, not to post long solo posts about how cool I am (I mean, I'm really cool, but y'all know that) Things were able to move along at a good clip, without suffering main court thread quicksand.

I'm pleased that you felt that way because that was the idea of the roster, though in retrospect instead of going for 'let's break up the Clans as much as possible' I should have gone for 'lets group by RL timezones as much as possible'

1. "Pre" Game: I liked the pre-game of Black Scroll as it gave us a chance to slip into the mindset, without being a huge time drain for everyone. This pre-game seemed like "Ok, so we're starting the game without everyone in, so go nuts!" I would have rather just started the game early and worked people into activity rather than calling it a pre-game. And really, starting at least two major combats pre-holiday weekend with a hard lock post holiday weekend? True lots of holidays I'm available, but not this one. Why would you do this?

Ugh. Never again. I was pretty anti-pregame before this but was willing to give it one last go. This clinched it that, unless it's a court and MS' letters thing would work, ya'll can just be bored while we finish character approvals. I'm fairly certain the 'let down' after the 1:1 ratio is why we saw such a massive drop in posting/interest by D3. I know at least a few folks are distressed the game's ending early but for a while, it looked like it wouldn't even make D6 so applaud yourselves for a good recovery.

2. The big combat thread timing issues: Ok, I was let down by this one. I'd hoped that there'd be more game for y'all to make it up to me, but there's not, so -5 reputation So I think almost everyone wanted to be in the main combat thread except our hardcore pacifists. But the signup window was tiny and a few missed it, and that left them nothing to do for the past couple weeks. So I signed up for it, went to work expecting to be ghosts in because I'd filled out my tactics sheet and such...and found we were already at round 3 with no sign of me. I got into the thread....and then spent days clicking the refresh button wondering why we were clicking in at maybe 1 round per day. We finally finish the topdeck thread, I get myself all lined up for below deck nastiness, go out to board game night....and come back to find I'm locked out of it. I realize at this point y'all wanted the darn thing over, but geez, I wanted to play! Also, the mooks on the topdeck looked a bit stat heavy on both sides. Nameless mooks with agility 4, ref 3, earth 3, and use void is not cool to run into as an IR 1 character. Jayant Uptal being combat capable enough to fight the whole damn ship by himself is also not cool. We needed the help, but it was supposed to be about us.

We believe enemies should be challenging and that in any good combat, some people should die/come very close to death. That means they (gasp) have tech of their own, especially when they are the 'boss battle' of the game. The idea is that way, when you win (as we hope you do), you get a very nice sense of accomplishment, instead of going "*yawn* Oh, is that all?"

Invisible Castle, on the other hand, as well as my teeny tiny dice, apparently believed you PC types needed a spanking.

I feel your pain, trust me (You guys who were at Black Scroll and saw Jirihime miss with a 9k5 and 9k4, respectively, know that). I actually did 'nerf' the below-deck a bit when it was obvious that IC was not going to play nice. Combat is always iffy and the more people are in it, the more chance there is for a sudden upswing for one side or the other to cause things to go very badly. Seriously, I don't think I've ever rolled this well on either side of the 'screen' in any game, ever. It was pretty horrifying.

As for holdidays...I don't know where you live, Nobu, but I didn't realize there WAS a recent holiday >.>. That last window was very small, I realize that, but the topdeck did take waaaaaay too long and it was getting to the point of 'wrap this up or never have a 'real' end to the game.'

3. Getting the fishes out of the water: Considering that Lankh was meant to be the main meat of the game, giving players the choice to stay on the boat was probably not a good one. Yeah, getting ordered by the captain to go out and interact with the locals might seem heavy handed, but it's about the only way to get some of the traditionalists out there and playing. There was a lot of similarities between the cultures that could have led for at least a couple of people to go "Well dang, they're not so different AND they're screwed" instead of "Hahaha, sucks to be you gaijin!"

We tried a 'let the players choose their own way' approach this game. As you say, it didn't work so well. Lesson learned.

It's been said but I'll put my +1 in.

Pre game.

No, no, no. Never again.

Alright, since one of these threads popped up I suppose I'll add my own two-cents. First of all, thanks for running the game, of course. Thanks for allowing me to play in it. Thank you, GMs and players, for helping me really enjoy Yakusoku. Now, onto the stuffs.


The Good

1. The fact that the NPCs do come up and interact with you was a definite plus. As Rixy said below, it is a specialty of her/Elonweis and I was glad to see it here.

2. Running a tight ship, pun intended, OOC: As I was talking to Volsung about last night, the OOC drama was minimal, problems that popped up on the OOC board were policed very well. The players didn't have to feel like they needed to treat one another like best friends in order to post but at the same time it was rare to see anyone stop being respectful. When issues did pop up, they were solved in a timely manner or, given that they were minor, simply let go so that they'd die rather than becoming a 'thing.'

3. The detail of the setting: Some people will grumble that it was small, and they'll be right. Some people will talk about how they didn't want to be in Lanka and I respect that. Can talk about some of that later. But as a setting, the game world was very fleshed out. You didn't have to wonder about details here and there and then get no answer on them from the GMs because they were 'trivial'. The ship felt like a ship and the gaijin port felt like a gaijin port.

4. Giving more than tiny amounts of XP: This was a grand idea. Frankly, players enjoy advancement. While the game ended quickly only allowed so much of it, the fact that in one more week I would've been able to up a trait (and I would've been able to do it sooner if I hadn't done some skill raising) was rather awesome. The 5 XP/week definitely beats out the 1-3 we've seen elsewhere in terms of just allowing the players to have some fun growing their characters.

5. Letting the players choose their own way: Yes, it resulted in a lot of subplots not seeing play and ultimately resulted in the game ending early. But frankly, even had the captain ordered people off the boat and into Lanka, they would've simply found someplace else to not-interact with the local color and the same result would've been likely. Furthermore, the players would've felt rather railroaded and that's never a good thing.

6. Showing GM-empathy: Both pre-game with my situation, and a special nod to Rixy for some things we discussed in the final combat thread. Rixy, you've always been fine with killing PCs. You know I've felt in the past that you were maybe a bit too fine with it. When we ran into the monsters below deck I assumed that was what we were seeing. You proved me wrong and I apologize for that assumption.
________________________________________________________

The Bad

As I always say with something like this, I apologize ahead of time for the blunt way that I write. Don't mean to hurt any feelings here.

1) Pace and Scope of the Final Combat: This could've certainly gone faster. There were momentary lulls that I feel really ate away at player interest. Then there were, as Nobuyoshi mentioned, momentary speed ups that resulted in players not being able to participate. As far as scope is concerned, and some people may be surprised by this, I think it should've been bigger. What I mean is I think many, if not all, interested players should've been allowed more participation. With the day extended, the people on the sidelines, by choice or fate, had very little to do. This is one of those things that I heard a good deal of complaining about. For some, it was their decision. You didn't sign up in the big combat knowing it would take away- what did you expect? For others though, they had no choice particularly when it came down to moving below deck and whatnot.

2) NPC Voice Crossover: While the NPCs were available and fleshed out, at times I was seeing a lot of one NPC talking like another NPC. Now some of this could've been wanting multiple NPCs to give off the 'I'm a smarmy sailor' vibe but at times it made them feel a bit inconsistent. It was never really a major thing, just something I happened to notice once in awhile.

3) Setting Inconsistency: How afraid are the people in Lanka of Rokugani? They have an embassy here so presumably they deal with Rokugani at least a bit. Presumably said Embassy gets the occasional guests, such as a ship like ours docking for supplies, yes? At times it felt like there was this air of panic but it was panic for panic's sake; an attempt to create more tension without the players offering much in the way of a catalyst. On that same note, how many gaijin guards are there? The maharaja have an army, or 10? At times it seemed very 'be afraid for he has many troops and they will destroy us'. At others it felt like he only had troops when it was convenient for the story. Now, these may not even be actual inconsistencies. I'm well aware that seeing things from a player's point of view leaves one's view rather skewed. But it still felt that way and I know it made some players even more leery about RPing in Lanka.

4) Pre-Game: I had great fun there and it almost left me wanting to commend this. In the end though, I'm forced to agree with Nobuyoshi and Rixy on this one. It was fun... but it wasn't the best for the game as a whole.

5) The Setting was Small... But if Felt Smaller: Beautifully written setting. And a definite change from the court games that seem to fall flat these days. But at the same time, there were times when I felt rather than having tea time in a court room, we were climbing ropes on a ship. Same amount of SSDD with a different backdrop. Furthermore, the fact that we could leave the ship/town (much) made it feel even smaller than it was. On the ship, especially when we were in tainted waters, there wasn't all that much to do. You can only do so much exploring when you live with everyone on a boat. In Lanka, the above mentioned inconsistency made it feel very restricted. Did these people see us as saviors to fight off the incoming horde? Or did they think we were part of the invading force? Could we walk the street without causing an angry mob? Or were we going to get the embassy burnt down if we decided to spend too much time out and about?

I think one way of rectifying this would've been to flesh out the other ships in the form of having forums. They may've seen very little use but at the same time, they were there. They would've allowed a bit of exploration beyond the gaijin lands and opened up a few opportunities.

6) The fish were too out of water: We didn't know the language. We didn't have cultural experts with us. The information we were given prior to arrival seemed to be little more than a means of fueling our paranoia about this place. Having guides/translators was nice but it only helped minimally. If we had been prepped ahead of time, ICly or OOCly for going into the Ivory Kingdoms we could've rectified this to some degree. No matter what 99% of the PCs were bound to be fish out of water. And even that other one percent would still have to acknowledge we're in a foreign, savage land. But I feel that having PCs that were more adequately prepared for the foreignness of it all would've encouraged more involvement.

Hi guys! I wanted to let you know I had fun as Twitchy, and am one of those going: "Wait, where's the game going?"

1. I got the feeling that something has happened during the game between people that soured something for the GMs. I'm pretty sure I've missed what it was, but then I have random cases of complete obliviousness.

2. I really enjoyed the NPCs, as I never felt they were carbon copies of someone else. The amount of posting it took to cover everything was impressive and much appreciated. Cook for Captain signs would go up, should we get to vote though, as I got a feeling of the Captain being disconnected from the PCs, and even the Captain not knowing why.

3. Suggestion for getting us all off the ship and out into the Ivory Kingdoms: Our ship's sent as an away team to go recover the Ambassador who was off visiting a village near Lanka. Even part of the PCs being sent there, and the others having to keep the locals happy long enough for them to return, meanwhile learning about the Ivory Kingdoms would work I think? Also, I have to agree with the idea of the Captain ordering us all off the boat...there was a lot of players doing the standard: its gaijin and likely evil and dirty and I'll have none of it, with no boots on their rears to actually *do* what the Captain gave them orders to do.

Thank you guys, I think you did a fantastic job. The setting was interesting, the characters fleshed out, and it was nice to not be in a "winter court" for once. Unfortunately I started school for the first time in ten years a week and a half about, and up until the other day my schedule was waaaaaaay out of wack. So I will say my drop off on posts had nothing to do with interest

Sad to see the game come to such a quick end, however I understand the reasons why. So thanks again for a fantastic game!

Ichiro Yakusoku wrote:6. Showing GM-empathy: Both pre-game with my situation, and a special nod to Rixy for some things we discussed in the final combat thread. Rixy, you've always been fine with killing PCs. You know I've felt in the past that you were maybe a bit too fine with it. When we ran into the monsters below deck I assumed that was what we were seeing. You proved me wrong and I apologize for that assumption.

Those monsters were actually surprisingly squishy. They just got crazy attack and damage rolls that turned combat really quickly.

3) Setting Inconsistency: How afraid are the people in Lanka of Rokugani? They have an embassy here so presumably they deal with Rokugani at least a bit. Presumably said Embassy gets the occasional guests, such as a ship like ours docking for supplies, yes? At times it felt like there was this air of panic but it was panic for panic's sake; an attempt to create more tension without the players offering much in the way of a catalyst. On that same note, how many gaijin guards are there? The maharaja have an army, or 10? At times it seemed very 'be afraid for he has many troops and they will destroy us'. At others it felt like he only had troops when it was convenient for the story. Now, these may not even be actual inconsistencies. I'm well aware that seeing things from a player's point of view leaves one's view rather skewed. But it still felt that way and I know it made some players even more leery about RPing in Lanka.

The people of Lanka weren't afraid of most of you, it's just when some went around openly disparaging them, or walking around town in armor (because the only logical reason to go out in armor is if you are expecting a fight), or single handedly destroying valuable defenses that they got nervous. I think the confusion on how many guards there are came with the assault on the boat. The Maharaja did have troops. They were kind of busy preparing for the impending assault. Plus the Rokugani needed that ship gone as much as the Maharaja did so they were more than happy to have your assistance.

5) The Setting was Small... But if Felt Smaller: Beautifully written setting. And a definite change from the court games that seem to fall flat these days. But at the same time, there were times when I felt rather than having tea time in a court room, we were climbing ropes on a ship. Same amount of SSDD with a different backdrop. Furthermore, the fact that we could leave the ship/town (much) made it feel even smaller than it was. On the ship, especially when we were in tainted waters, there wasn't all that much to do. You can only do so much exploring when you live with everyone on a boat. In Lanka, the above mentioned inconsistency made it feel very restricted. Did these people see us as saviors to fight off the incoming horde? Or did they think we were part of the invading force? Could we walk the street without causing an angry mob? Or were we going to get the embassy burnt down if we decided to spend too much time out and about?

I think one way of rectifying this would've been to flesh out the other ships in the form of having forums. They may've seen very little use but at the same time, they were there. They would've allowed a bit of exploration beyond the gaijin lands and opened up a few opportunities.

I honestly don't know where the feeling of inconsistency came from for Lanka. Was it with the edict? It didn't say don't go out there. It just said "Hey, please stop scaring the citizens by wearing full armor on the streets, no unsanctioned magic until we know what the hell is going on, and since one of yours just took out one of our defenses, whenever you're near our defenses again you're gonna need to have a guard to make certain we don't have another incident." I honestly think it was fairly moderate considering the situation they were in.

6) The fish were too out of water: We didn't know the language. We didn't have cultural experts with us. The information we were given prior to arrival seemed to be little more than a means of fueling our paranoia about this place. Having guides/translators was nice but it only helped minimally. If we had been prepped ahead of time, ICly or OOCly for going into the Ivory Kingdoms we could've rectified this to some degree. No matter what 99% of the PCs were bound to be fish out of water. And even that other one percent would still have to acknowledge we're in a foreign, savage land. But I feel that having PCs that were more adequately prepared for the foreignness of it all would've encouraged more involvement.

As Rixy said before. Big surprises are bad. That is definitely one of the lessons to take out of this.

Right now, I just have to echo Yakusoku and Nobuyoshi's points. They pretty much cover the good and the bad for me.

I agree whole-heartedly that while the pre-game was fun, it was in the end bad for the game. Either let people wait another week, or just start the game a week earlier and let people still fill in during that week. Black Scroll's pre-game letters worked well, but wouldn't have worked in this setting.

Those monsters were actually surprisingly squishy. They just got crazy attack and damage rolls that turned combat really quickly.

This is true. There were also bad rolls on the other side. As far as their mechanics, I did feel the damage on the beast-heads was a bit high, particularly with having to fight them after we were wounded and most of us were out of void points, without having time to heal between the above and below deck fights. All in all though, they were decent mechanically. That said, that's not what I'm referring to with the empathy thing. That was strictly about a conversation I had, via PM, with Rixy. Mind you, I felt the other GMs did well here as well. But given my past discussions with Rixy about character death, particularly in major combats, I felt that the discussion with her warranted specific acknowledgment.

The people of Lanka weren't afraid of most of you, it's just when some went around openly disparaging them, or walking around town in armor (because the only logical reason to go out in armor is if you are expecting a fight), or single handedly destroying valuable defenses that they got nervous. I think the confusion on how many guards there are came with the assault on the boat. The Maharaja did have troops. They were kind of busy preparing for the impending assault. Plus the Rokugani needed that ship gone as much as the Maharaja did so they were more than happy to have your assistance.

I honestly don't know where the feeling of inconsistency came from for Lanka. Was it with the edict? It didn't say don't go out there. It just said "Hey, please stop scaring the citizens by wearing full armor on the streets, no unsanctioned magic until we know what the hell is going on, and since one of yours just took out one of our defenses, whenever you're near our defenses again you're gonna need to have a guard to make certain we don't have another incident." I honestly think it was fairly moderate considering the situation they were in.

The confusion wasn't just with the boat. It was also with the (seemingly) inconsistent way in which we were being seen as a potential threat. Some of it can be chalked up to NPC attitudes. But at the same time, if the Maharaja had hundreds or thousands of troops the idea that a handful of Rokugani walking about looking a bit iffy would set the people off out of fear seemed a bit odd. At one point it was being noted how much we're in the minority. In another breath we'd be told that despite the fact that if one of us raised a weapon we'd be buried in moments, the people were being scared by/of us.

As far as the edict goes, I do believe that felt a bit inconsistent namely with the whole armor thing. However, given I was in one of the threads that spawned that and talked a lot about the fallout IC, I took a long look at it to make sure that wasn't the only basis for my opinion. That said, the inconsistency I felt there came mostly because of the Embassy and past dealings with Rokugani. Kasuga aside, I don't see any Rokugani going about a foreign land not wearing their armor. Maybe some Unicorn... in the Burning Sands. It'd be one thing if we were some big force walking around in mass, looking like we're looking for/expecting a fight. This is doubly true when the locals know an assault is coming. You would think, since some of them were expecting help from us, that seeing us armed and keeping an eye out for threats would have a positive impact. No one was running from point A to point B, weapons drawn, as if a fight was breaking out. People were walking the streets casually wearing the same armor they'd wear in any city expecting war... or that I'd expect 99% of Rokugani to wear on any visit here, no matter the circumstances. And really, I'd expect most Rokugani to come in and wander about, if they even leave their boat, looking A LOT more trigger happy than we did.

I get that the situation was supposed to be volatile and chaotic. But it really felt like the people were all over the place on it to the point where it didn't make a lot of sense... and not in the good way (panic, by its nature, shouldn't make a lot of sense. It tends to be rather illogical). So they see us as a threat or expecting a threat because we're wearing armor? Aren't we still carrying three foot long razor blades, when wearing our armor or otherwise, looking nearly as threatening and/or battle ready?

That said, don't want to beat a dead horse. The point of the whole deal is it felt inconsistent. It felt like the people wanted our assistance at one moment, treated us like we were 'just there' the next, and were seeing us as a source of fear and panic the next. Again, it could just be chalked up to player perspective. Its not like I had all the information at hand and not like I read every thread. I could be completely wrong about the inconsistency and respect anyone who feels that I am. Just kinda felt, to me, like the panic thing was being pushed for the sake of having the people panic.

Hrm over all I liked the game I would have to say the gm's did a good job all around. Now I'll touch on points that poppred out as good or bad to me.

1. Pregame: I think this was both a good and bad Idea... It was good because it did let the pc's have a bit of a chance to learn what was going to be expected of them on the boat, but bad because it kinda exhausted a lot of the activities we had to do on our little setting. It also did get rid of a bit of distance he had to travel by boat to get to lanka. As it was it took us about 3 days to get there after pregame ended. If you didn't do pregame and you had to push the landing towards lanka ahead to day 4 or 5 after we left port that would of shrunk the world by leaps and bounds.

2. Lanka: I liked Lanka and really i think it was another thing that was both good and bad. Really I wasn't expecting it and defiantly wasn't expecting it as soon as we got there but I can understand your reasoning behind it. I rather agree that a bit of foreshadowing to it would of been likely a good idea because it probably would of changed the character I played. As Kaito isn't too fond of land in the first place and the cursed storm on day 5 more or less ended most of his intention to explore Lanka. (No offense Junpei) The edicts didn't help either but in hindsight I think a couple shipboard announcements explaining one the storm and what the edicts meant could of helped matters.

3. Npc's: They were great as always but I think the stop in Lanka added a few too many of em. Most Pc's needed a translator to do even the most simple tasks and I can only imagine how much of a drain that put on you as gm's. Still thank you for tthe effort.

4. The CFS Threads: Specifically the one's I was involved in felt to me like they needed something to speed them along. There were a lot of times especially in the investigation one where I wanted to do more but I ended up just trying to push them along in a effort to try and get them done in a timely fashion. Of course that might of just been me.

As to the big attacking the ship thread which I missed I can understand why the sign-up had to end after about 8 hours. Ya wanted to get it done in a timely manner completely understandable.

There are likely more things I could point out but I think they have been said maybe two or three times already. All around if was a good game and thank ya for having me along for it.

There have been more than a few points that were well brought up already. Like Qian-Fan, I will contribute my +1 to it too.

The opinions of pre-game do bear repeating again as there were a lot of things spent and burned in that part when it could have gone into the game start. I know there was effort to keep RPing light and quick but sometimes things don’t always pan out. The combat pacing was longer than it needed to be and time deadlines should have been set for each round before the ghosting policy kicked in.

Running the game on the ship wasn’t an easy task, and it was harder setting it in the Ivory Kingdoms. Even though we had our own little daily ‘courts’ and clear duties, getting a grasp of being on board of a ship needed more of a nudge. That also left large frames of time that half the crew wasn’t available. Regiments and routines are a part of the Imperial Legion, I think it would have been hard for anyone to balance. On the other hand I found the Ivory Kingdoms to be expansive and very interesting, and enjoyed the difference and similarities in culture. The time there was easily a high point of the game, in my personal opinion.

That said, I would like to thank the team for running a unique game.