Channel Feedback

Dear Everybody,

I hope you're all enjoying the channel as much as I enjoy running missions and creating stories for it. But a channel is nothing without its players or its players' feedback, so that is why I am asking you all to send me some feedback via message onboard or in IRC about the follow:

1. What do you like about the channel?

2. What do you dislike about the channel?

3. What would you like to see in the future?

I would like to hear honest feedback from people. There's no need to hold back with criticism, because criticism is what makes a person better at what they do. Please get back with me on this as soon as possible, because I would assuredly like to get started on these changes as soon as possible.

Thanks,

The Friend

Likes:
I enjoy the atmosphere of applying conventional thinking and expertise to nonconventional problems. I also like the unique flavor of the setting and its various cultures.

Dislikes:
There is a heavy reliance on setting knowledge and wiki information. This debate has gone back and forth several times, but I always get the distinct impression that I'm in over my head and have no idea what I'm doing whenever I get involved with any ongoing plot.

A recurring trend I've noticed is a mission structure that involves a dichotomous choice which leaves no room for other player options, due to artificial time constraints or the like. It essentially forces players and PCs alike to blindly pick a door and hope for the best, then live with the consequences of their forced blind choice. I do not believe that this is conducive to player input at all. You could basically replace the PCs with anyone and have the same outcome.

What I'd like to see:
I would like to see missions in which the PCs can exert more influence on the overall outcome than going through the motions of exposition, then holding a vote to pick A or B with no further options or ideas able to be considered. By influence, I do not mean being the ones to call the shots on major political decisions, but rather, putting their unique skillsets to use in a way that significantly alters the ultimate outcome.

Excellen wrote:Likes:
I enjoy the atmosphere of applying conventional thinking and expertise to nonconventional problems. I also like the unique flavor of the setting and its various cultures.

Dislikes:
There is a heavy reliance on setting knowledge and wiki information. This debate has gone back and forth several times, but I always get the distinct impression that I'm in over my head and have no idea what I'm doing whenever I get involved with any ongoing plot.

A recurring trend I've noticed is a mission structure that involves a dichotomous choice which leaves no room for other player options, due to artificial time constraints or the like. It essentially forces players and PCs alike to blindly pick a door and hope for the best, then live with the consequences of their forced blind choice. I do not believe that this is conducive to player input at all. You could basically replace the PCs with anyone and have the same outcome.

What I'd like to see:
I would like to see missions in which the PCs can exert more influence on the overall outcome than going through the motions of exposition, then holding a vote to pick A or B with no further options or ideas able to be considered. By influence, I do not mean being the ones to call the shots on major political decisions, but rather, putting their unique skillsets to use in a way that significantly alters the ultimate outcome.

Thanks for taking the time to write this out. I appreciate it. Let me first start off by saying this: The wiki is a wiki. It is not there to be a device used as a means of storytelling but rather a knowledgebase for people to use whenever they're unclear about something and I'm not available to answer them. It's also a good area for me, as the GM, to store information so I can keep everything in line when it comes to stories.

The mission structure of the channel isn't meant to be some sort of 'Do point A or point B to progress to point C or possibly point D.' Despite what's been shown, the missions that I have been doing are, essentially, directed by the actions of the players. For instance, in Chapter 3 (Fanfare for the Common Man, the excursion into Dimension 002) the group could've made a conscious decision to charge straight into the laboratory to procure the information or man they needed or they could've done some sneaking around and asking. Instead, Altair was brought into the mix and I was originally only planning on Altair being a background character and nothing more.

There is some dynamism to the story. Also, if you want to participate, there is a section in the wiki under Mission Synopses that allows you to get a quick summary of what's going on. Asking me or one of the GMs about what's going on is encouraged as well. That being said, I will do my best to make it show that the players are in control of the story. This latest mission, Chapter 5, has been done with a looser, sandbox-esque feeling as a way of gauging what can and cannot be done with our playerbase when it comes to a true player-lead campaign where information is scarce.

So, in the future, yes, there will be more of what you're suggesting. I am taking steps towards that right now.

Thanks for being so quick to respond! I'm glad to hear your views on it, and I'll be sure to keep that in mind for future participation.

1: What I like about the channel:

The murky morality of it all, the fact that we can be grim and such and NOT be sulked at and such by the Gms but appreciated that not everyone in a game is happy.

The many interplays of cultures and the long and rich history of the TOR world (this can also be difficult as players who haven't done all the reading may go WTF is going on?)

2: Scheduling frustrations, mainly. But given the Gm's situations, I completely understand and the like, I'm just a very schedule-oriented person so I can get excited about a game coming up, and get very bummed when a scheduled one is canceled. (Not that the GMs don't have completely understandable reasons, they do)

There have been one or two Ogre's choice given to us, and that can be frustrating, and it seems like negotiated solutions to some problems are hard to bang out, even with three played diplomats on the team.

3: Oh what I want in the future? A massive space battle! At least this many birds in the air. http://starwarsscifimodels.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/battle-of-endor.jpg

And then a Massive land battle with infantry and explosions and death or glory and blaaaarg. This level of ridiculous explosions at minimum please. http://endzonefuncity.com/resources/_wsb_474x335_40k.jpg

Also I'd like to have the option as players of visiting or exploring some of the local cluster of dimensions as an explatory or pursuit type thing at some point.

Also, I want to see kweli trip and fall down a poop-soaked slide into a midden heap. just once

Magnus wrote:1: What I like about the channel:

The murky morality of it all, the fact that we can be grim and such and NOT be sulked at and such by the Gms but appreciated that not everyone in a game is happy.

The many interplays of cultures and the long and rich history of the TOR world (this can also be difficult as players who haven't done all the reading may go WTF is going on?)

2: Scheduling frustrations, mainly. But given the Gm's situations, I completely understand and the like, I'm just a very schedule-oriented person so I can get excited about a game coming up, and get very bummed when a scheduled one is canceled. (Not that the GMs don't have completely understandable reasons, they do)

There have been one or two Ogre's choice given to us, and that can be frustrating, and it seems like negotiated solutions to some problems are hard to bang out, even with three played diplomats on the team.

3: Oh what I want in the future? A massive space battle! At least this many birds in the air. http://starwarsscifimodels.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/battle-of-endor.jpg

And then a Massive land battle with infantry and explosions and death or glory and blaaaarg. This level of ridiculous explosions at minimum please. http://endzonefuncity.com/resources/_wsb_474x335_40k.jpg

Also I'd like to have the option as players of visiting or exploring some of the local cluster of dimensions as an explatory or pursuit type thing at some point.

Also, I want to see kweli trip and fall down a poop-soaked slide into a midden heap. just once

Thanks for the response. I don't personally think things are too murky as far as who's right and who's wrong, since we definitely have the protagonists and antagonists. As you probably can tell, I like to think of the stories in channel similarly to that of a book versus a traditional RPG. One of my biggest grievances with most RPGs is that everything boils down to 'Good guys do good things, fight bad guys and good things happen and everybody wins.' That is fine sometimes, and I appreciate that it appeals the base, escapist fantasy that people subscribe to when roleplaying.

However, too much of that and critical thinking goes out of the window. I am not saying that every channel needs to stimulate the mind in some profound way but instead, you can have a channel that is somewhat thought-provoking and unconventional. One of the major things I like to show is that not everything can be sparkling, sterling 'good' decisions. Every action has a reaction - good or bad, depending on the circumstances. Sometimes what's good can also do more harm than a lie. What's good for the goose may not necessarily be good for the gander. That's how things work. Not through magical coincidences, but by thought, choice and reaction. I hope that these are portrayed organically in the channel.

And yes, sometimes characters can be unhappy, conflicted or pissed off. In a perfect world, everybody's happy all the time and there's no conflict. However, the setting is far from ideal and I would expect the characters to act like people instead of players using their characters as a vicarious substitute.

I apologize for the scheduling SNAFUs. There's not much that can be done on my end about my illness, since ulcerative colitis is a bitch and a half. I will try, in the future, to schedule missions when I'm truly capable of running them (Chapter 3 was a miracle run) and do my best to see that people can play when the missions are schedule. Sometimes it won't align, but there's not much that can be done about that. Player participation has been down, too, but I hope that will be rectified soon, too.

As said in the previous response, the choices characters are making were never meant to be so 'Do this or Do that.' Those have been done and they will probably be some (albeit far, far less severe) in future missions. Character choice is what will be used to progress missions now. If a character throws a curve ball, we'll just have to be dynamic. That's expected of any GM worth his or her salt.

And the other dimensions in the setting will be in play soon enough. There's still quite a bit of stuff in the System that players can explore before stepping out into the big pond. The Second War arc will probably come to a close within the next few months and that will allow us to get to what's beyond their own System and explore the numbered dimensions of the Concern and some even unchartered. The choices and settings will vary greatly.

I don't blame you for the scheduling snafus, like I said, I understand why, and honestly I feel terrible about getting an apology of any sort from you, illness sucks.

As far as player participation, it seems like there is a lot of "oh I missed this plot on the ground floor, I should sit this out." I think we need to remedy that more than any other problem, making each mission more accessible to drop ins. Obviously the current arc is somewhat difficult, as the lack of command structure makes us unable to run briefings before each mission, so unless someone steps up and runs the briefing IC, with the tacit understanding on the part of the players that this is as good as the GM npcs running a briefing, we're going to continue to have issues with people not knowing what's up, and going "I don't want to look confused."

I suspect once we get to the end of the war arc, and go more into dimensional exploration there will be less people getting confused because we can do more one-off stuff.

Oh, another thing I'd like to see more of within reason. Some player-run missions. Do we have anything like that in the pipe?

Magnus wrote:Oh, another thing I'd like to see more of within reason. Some player-run missions. Do we have anything like that in the pipe?

<_<

Magnus wrote:I don't blame you for the scheduling snafus, like I said, I understand why, and honestly I feel terrible about getting an apology of any sort from you, illness sucks.

As far as player participation, it seems like there is a lot of "oh I missed this plot on the ground floor, I should sit this out." I think we need to remedy that more than any other problem, making each mission more accessible to drop ins. Obviously the current arc is somewhat difficult, as the lack of command structure makes us unable to run briefings before each mission, so unless someone steps up and runs the briefing IC, with the tacit understanding on the part of the players that this is as good as the GM npcs running a briefing, we're going to continue to have issues with people not knowing what's up, and going "I don't want to look confused."

I suspect once we get to the end of the war arc, and go more into dimensional exploration there will be less people getting confused because we can do more one-off stuff.

Oh, another thing I'd like to see more of within reason. Some player-run missions. Do we have anything like that in the pipe?

As I said, this current chapter is partially a litmus test to see what people can and cannot do when there's a lack of structure in the mission. It is, in the truest sense, a player-driven mission. Not every mission will be like this and sometimes you have to take risks. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. But there lies a problem with people not wanting to participate due to not being in the mission from the inception. Let it be known that all you need to do is ask me, read the mission synopsis OR ask a fellow player the skinny on what's going down.

Player missions will be included into the mix as well. Some extradimensional, some not. All I ask for in the future, when they become more commonplace, is that they focus on a story. Player-ran missions typically want to focus mostly on their characters and understandably so. However, the risk you run with this is that the mission becomes solely focused on that character rather than the story at large and what you have left is something that's less for the players and more for the person running it. Preferential things, like that, are what I'm trying to avoid the most.

Because of that, I will speak with every person willing to run a player-ran mission to ensure that this doesn't happen. They will be happening and it'll be happening sooner than you think.

Likes:
Involved plot, colorful NPCs, a sense that the game world is very dynamic and not static unless plot time.

Dislikes:
I don't think this can really be 'corrected' in any way, but scheduling problems between myself and the game arise (which are expected), but when I do have a chance to contribute, I feel like I'm left in the dark without having attended previous sessions, making me want to play less in the story and just there as a player/character (Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing in the channel). I feel like I just have to live with this situation, but sometimes it does get frustrating.

What I'd like to see:
I think the thread already mentions what I want to see... I'll add on if there's any more.

Horo wrote:Likes:
Involved plot, colorful NPCs, a sense that the game world is very dynamic and not static unless plot time.

Dislikes:
I don't think this can really be 'corrected' in any way, but scheduling problems between myself and the game arise (which are expected), but when I do have a chance to contribute, I feel like I'm left in the dark without having attended previous sessions, making me want to play less in the story and just there as a player/character (Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing in the channel). I feel like I just have to live with this situation, but sometimes it does get frustrating.

What I'd like to see:
I think the thread already mentions what I want to see... I'll add on if there's any more.

Thanks for taking the time to respond. I apologize for not responding sooner.

I know that you and a few others have been put off by not being able to catch up on what's going on in the channel since the narrative is a constant thing. While I can't apologize for that, I can apologize for the fact that you've been put off from the channel in any way.

For the time being, what I can recommend to you are the following two things to (possibly and hopefully) help:

1: Quick TICK: http://theconcern.pbworks.com/Quick-TICK
Quick TICK is a part of the wiki that explains what happens in the previous chapter and will also include a small summary of the current goings-on in the future. This will give people who have not had the chance to participate the ability to understand some of what's going on.

2: Asking the GMs, fellow players or me what's going on:
I know that I'm usually AFK, but I do respond to tells as quickly as possible and I'm mostly aware of all of the goings-on in the channel at most given times. That being said, I would be more than happy to take the time to catch everybody up. Never forget that the GMs are always there to help you first and foremost. If any of us are unable to do so, then please ask your fellow players to give you the skinny if the GMs are unavailable. They will more than likely be willing to tell you the happenings in message.

I'm usually around and if you have any questions whatsoever, never hesitate to ask me, the GMs (including the person running the mission) or any of your fellow players for information. I'll personally do my best to keep you updated.

Now that the first Season is done, I suppose I should offer some feedback. I'd like a little more work for the secondary engineering characters, if at all possible, and as much communication between the ops and the players as possible.

All in all things haven't gone poorly, as far as I'm concerned. I'd like us to campaign to drum up more players, and be fairly accepting in what we let in and play with for newbies, if only so that we can get more players and improve their characters and play over time, if that makes sense.