Nostalgia vs. Hindsight: Fight!
A friend recently reached out and asked for logs of the Exalted game that we were in online a few years ago, which has had me going through them - partly to clean them up a bit, and partly to remember myself. It's... interesting.
I can see the life I felt in the early sessions. I remember really liking my character and looking forward to accomplishing great things in a world of spirit-gods and virtually-immortal chosen. There were a lot of neat characters and Exalted is full of "awesome" if you can wade through the mechanics.
Unfortunately, I've noticed a few gaps in my log coverage. Tainted Whispers, a fairly important NPC, made her first appearance in between a couple, so following my logs she just sort of "appears." I'm also missing some of the "duels" with another circle, which is sort of sad.
And I can also see the cracks in the game. While I liked Five Days Darkness and his gift to the PCs was useful, he swept through and totally invalidated all the planning to recover Auric's heart in a prime example of deus ex machina. I can see where the quests start piling up a bit too high. I can more clearly watch as Auric's attitude seems to become worse (devolving into, at one point, basically an entire session of "I have no reason to be here" whining). I think I was fully aware at the time, but it's still pretty obvious to me that Naga's possessive ever-presence hampered Alexi's ability to bond with several circlemates (and his "I'm so cute and innocent" fascade never really scored any points). And the reading refreshes my memory on how I was constantly concerned with taking too much of the spotlight, yet always feeling like other players simply weren't putting enough into the scenes and plans for me to back off.
In a game like that (run online a couple nights a week), there's always pressure to try to make some progress durring a session, especially when the characters are given heaps or stuff to accomplish. In retrospect, I really wish there had been more opportunity among all the PCs to interact in the downtime between scenes (perhaps between the sessions). Due to those pacing concerns (and Naga's hovering clinginess), I never really got to know Nightlily past her brief introduction bit about her background. Actually, I can say the same about all the other "PCs" probably, since Tamara, Naga, Symphony, and Kashim were sort of deemed NPCs. And even them, I didn't get to talk as much about the past as I might have liked. And the plot that had some of them "transferred" to alchemical forms later on didn't receive all the psychological/emotional development it probably deserved.
And that's just my memories plus the first 24 logs I've gone through. The game actually managed to run for a little over a year before crumbling. That's pretty good, considering.
I can see the life I felt in the early sessions. I remember really liking my character and looking forward to accomplishing great things in a world of spirit-gods and virtually-immortal chosen. There were a lot of neat characters and Exalted is full of "awesome" if you can wade through the mechanics.
Unfortunately, I've noticed a few gaps in my log coverage. Tainted Whispers, a fairly important NPC, made her first appearance in between a couple, so following my logs she just sort of "appears." I'm also missing some of the "duels" with another circle, which is sort of sad.
And I can also see the cracks in the game. While I liked Five Days Darkness and his gift to the PCs was useful, he swept through and totally invalidated all the planning to recover Auric's heart in a prime example of deus ex machina. I can see where the quests start piling up a bit too high. I can more clearly watch as Auric's attitude seems to become worse (devolving into, at one point, basically an entire session of "I have no reason to be here" whining). I think I was fully aware at the time, but it's still pretty obvious to me that Naga's possessive ever-presence hampered Alexi's ability to bond with several circlemates (and his "I'm so cute and innocent" fascade never really scored any points). And the reading refreshes my memory on how I was constantly concerned with taking too much of the spotlight, yet always feeling like other players simply weren't putting enough into the scenes and plans for me to back off.
In a game like that (run online a couple nights a week), there's always pressure to try to make some progress durring a session, especially when the characters are given heaps or stuff to accomplish. In retrospect, I really wish there had been more opportunity among all the PCs to interact in the downtime between scenes (perhaps between the sessions). Due to those pacing concerns (and Naga's hovering clinginess), I never really got to know Nightlily past her brief introduction bit about her background. Actually, I can say the same about all the other "PCs" probably, since Tamara, Naga, Symphony, and Kashim were sort of deemed NPCs. And even them, I didn't get to talk as much about the past as I might have liked. And the plot that had some of them "transferred" to alchemical forms later on didn't receive all the psychological/emotional development it probably deserved.
And that's just my memories plus the first 24 logs I've gone through. The game actually managed to run for a little over a year before crumbling. That's pretty good, considering.
I do have to learn to hold back on adding quests on top of quests. This is something I'm trying to develop a knack for - it's slow going, but it's there. A part of it is 'if the PCs aren't actively working towards a quest, add something new to give them something to do'. This is a pretty bad mentality to have. On the other hand, I'd have liked it if the PCs actually talked with one another more in-session, getting to know each other and whatnot, but most of the time, the players didn't seem interested in it. Sure, Naga was clingy - but that shouldn't have stopped the group from chatting with one another over a campfire or during travel from Point A to Point B. The problem with doing things 'between sessions' is I don't think I'd get a chance to see the conversation play out, or offer elements from the environment or anyone who might be there at the time. Or heck, getting a chance to see what was said, and incorporate it into the game later on.
ReplyDeleteHeck, if you only added new things when we weren't working toward something else, it still wouldn't have been an issue. :p Naga definitely did hinder interactions with Auric, as half the time he seemed to refuse to say anything around the Sidereal. But then, I can't help but feel the entire dynamic between Alexi, Auric, and Naga (in any direction) was entirely too fettered with OOC emotion. With the others, it's harder to say. I think Kujath would have responded better to some one-on-one interaction - he was pretty chipper after a night with Symphony (which was probably more than talk, admittedly). Nightlily never had a great deal of "presence" in my perception, so I have trouble gauging her precisely, but she struck me as someone who would open up more "in private" than in front of the group. Selina made Alexi jealous as all get out early on. Heh. And Vee... well I seem to be unable to communicate with that player's characters in any form. But there were several scenes where PCs were going on about one thing or another and Naga had "seen Alexi to her room," so she entirely missed them. On one hand, the dramatic ranting was sometimes wearying to listen to, but on the other I always felt like Alexi should have been there for her circle and wasn't - because of Naga. I'm sure it's a combination of factors, but as I'm progressing through the logs and the quests are piling up, there seems more drive to do rather than to sit around and talk and such. I sort of wish we'd gone with Auric's urging back in Yu-shan: as dangerous as that fete might have been, it would have been an interesting opportunity for different RP. But we were in a rush to go get the last pieces of the sword to go fight tFaFL while juggling the crown for 5DD, plus still being pressured to move on Thorns, and restore the territory of Whitewall. And that was even putting aside things like getting Tamara's memory back. I think if there had been less sense that we had to get on with all that, people may have been more willing to go to a party. I know I certainly felt more pressure to try to move the plot forward and avoid anything that felt like sidetracking as things piled up. The game became more about accomplishments than interactions.
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