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Post by mister frau blucher on Jun 4, 2012 8:30:48 GMT -5
This is a tough thing I think for any solo adventure to address, that balance of being able to be replayed to providing a lasting, memorable good-to-great gaming experience. How does DCG view this question and how do they address it? Hey darkscar, An excellent question, one that George and I have talked about over the years many times, among ourselves as well as with people who submit games to us. It is not an easy answer, for exactly the reasons you cite. Honestly, we take it on a case by case basis, but we opt for having the players have a single great experience over replayability. The feedback we have gotten over the years indicates that our customers prefer a solid experience over a choppier game that allows for randomness and uniqueness with every play. I think a game like Raid on Cygnosa is a good balance. It is a mini-campaign with multiple ways to enter the mountain and multiple ways to complete the task - or you can ignore the quest and just raid the mountain repeated times. But it is resource-management oriented between food and rest, and can take a while to play (most of my playtests and subsequent playings took about 30 game days). When George or i write an adventure, or we get submissions that are solid enough to develop, our focus is on a solid experience the first time through. Replayability is nice, but if somebody does not have a good experience the first playing, they are not going to replay it anyway. Hopefully there are enough branchings in the plot and enough easter eggs that a subsequent replaying will offer a different experience. I think if the plot is enjoyable and the writing is good, the adventure will be replayed, moreso than if significant portions were randomly generated on each playthrough for the sole intent of replayability. That always felt a litle hollow to me. So to answer, we focus on the quality of the initial playthrough, and hope that the adventure is so well-written and with enough alternate routes that it will be replayed. This is a great topic, and deserving of more depth, but i hope this gives you a little insight as to how we try to strike a balance. Bret
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Post by vladtaltos on Jun 4, 2012 11:31:55 GMT -5
Great question, darkscar. I've played some of the adventures from the games you mentioned, also. It's a tough issue, not easy to answer. Have an exalt!
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Post by darkscar on Jun 4, 2012 17:51:07 GMT -5
Thanks for the exalt, Vlad, and thanks for the explanation, Bret. That's probably the best way to handle it, and while it's a tough call, I'd vote on the side of a more lengthy, lasting play experience. Writing quality, as you mentioned, is the biggest component to engage the player.
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Post by vladtaltos on Jun 21, 2012 8:51:47 GMT -5
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Post by darkscar on May 20, 2013 15:17:28 GMT -5
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Post by darkscar on Apr 6, 2014 10:45:09 GMT -5
So we have all of Marco's reviews in one, nice, handy thread, here we go: Shadows in the Dark www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1EgMcr-MzE&list=UUqjObEZh6BQw2xpgMjPZ7qgWolves on the Rhine www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtbf4M_49LUAt Empire’s End www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bsJk8FYN3kI will say I find myself disagreeing with Marco on what makes a good adventure. It seems if the adventure doesn't kill all of his characters, that if he can successfully complete the game on his first try, then it's somehow lacking. I find this notion absurd. My characters should survive if I make the right choices, win the combats, and play reasonably well. I WANT my PCs to develop, have a future, grow and prosper and all that jazz. I can't do that if I'm slogging through a game that's totally unfair and unbalanced. Going through a series of total party kills or games where 3 of 4 PCs bite the dust, does not make me happy nor do I think that makes the game somehow worth it, rewarding, or memorable. I WANT TO SEE MY PCS GROW, GET BETTER, GET STRONGER. Thank you for your time.
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Post by jlv61560 on Apr 6, 2014 23:31:47 GMT -5
I have to say I pretty much agree with Darkscar on this one. It seems to me that an adventure should more or less be judged on it's own merits, not necessarily by some standard of blood-letting. Mind you, I find Marco's reviews interesting, but in some ways they seem to be predicated more on his own preconceptions about what an adventure should be instead of what the one he's reviewing is. For example, he critiques (slightly -- he's not malevolent about it at all) the Dark Vale for being too "easy" to solve, but the primary thrust of the scenario (at least from my play-through of it) seemed to be more to evoke a sense of fear and uncanniness in the reader, or create an atmosphere, as opposed to thrusting him/her into a nearly insoluable puzzle or a series of brutal fights. Putting it another way, sometimes you use a can opener to open a can, not a hammer. Nor do I support TPK as a desirable outcome. Even if I'm just playing the games as completely one-off stand-alones instead of a series of adventures designed to build my characters and tell a more comprehensive story about Stormspeake and Tyrin, I still don't appreciate having my characters wantonly slaughtered. At least if they're going to die, let's make it meaningful. Of course if I'm an idiot and manage to get all my characters killed off, that's on me, not the designers, but I don't particularly enjoy being railroaded into some event or encounter where you do the "save or die" routine. I rather imagine most of us don't. Not that Marco is actually advocating such a thing, but he seems to be less averse to it than I would be. I like his reviews, not least because they provide some food for thought and a different perspective on the games than I bring to the table, but at the same time, that doesn't mean I agree with his comments in their entirety! All in all, I like where George and Bret have been taking us, so I think my bottom line is: Keep on keeping on; you guys are doing good work. (I DO agree with his comments re: improved production values in the games -- you people just keep getting better!)
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julie
Full Member
Posts: 171
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Post by julie on Apr 9, 2014 11:39:38 GMT -5
Yes, some of Marco's comments leave me looking at the screen askance. I guess he has to find something to not like, in order to seem like he's telling it straight to his audience. I do agree with him on the grammar errors in the booklets. That should be clean. All in all, though, I give the games high marks.
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Post by jlv61560 on Apr 9, 2014 23:43:34 GMT -5
Yes, some of Marco's comments leave me looking at the screen askance. I guess he has to find something to not like, in order to seem like he's telling it straight to his audience. I do agree with him on the grammar errors in the booklets. That should be clean. All in all, though, I give the games high marks. Hmm. That's entirely possible, I never even thought of that!
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Post by mister frau blucher on Apr 10, 2014 9:58:56 GMT -5
Hey, guys,
Thanks for the kind words!
jlv61560, I can't remember if I have welcomed you to the boards, yet, I have been sporadic lately - so welcome aboard!
I agree, I do not want to set an adventure so deadly that it is pretty much impossible to avoid a TPK on the first playing. We try to balance that with something that challenges you. Given the vagaries of dice, it is difficult to hit the sweet spot - but we try!
Bret
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Post by darkscar on Mar 22, 2015 16:05:27 GMT -5
I missed this one back in June, 2014, so here it is now. As always, there's some things he likes, some things he doesn't like. Marco reviews... Raid on Cygnosawww.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYusPca91g
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Post by fantasygothic on Apr 15, 2015 3:01:55 GMT -5
I think that the best approach to replayability is to make modules with world map consisting of hexes or points, like Barbarian Prince or old Microquests. I didn't try Darkcity Games yet so I don't know how it is done here.
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Post by mister frau blucher on Apr 18, 2015 10:19:20 GMT -5
I missed this one back in June, 2014, so here it is now. As always, there's some things he likes, some things he doesn't like. Marco reviews... Raid on Cygnosawww.youtube.com/watch?v=7fYusPca91gHey Darkscar, Thanks for the link! I missed that one, too. He has some interesting things to say about ROC. I agree that there are probably too many combats. I really wanted the characters to improve dramatically by the time they face the Ochre Mask at the end. There are a lot of locations and npcs in there, I do think it is our most intensive adventure from that standpoint. Bret
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Post by mister frau blucher on Apr 18, 2015 10:22:45 GMT -5
I think that the best approach to replayability is to make modules with world map consisting of hexes or points, like Barbarian Prince or old Microquests. I didn't try Darkcity Games yet so I don't know how it is done here. Hey fantasygothic, Welcome to the boards! I like the hexcrawl style. Most of our adventures are plot-driven rather than hexcrawl, but there are plenty of places to go offroad to. Our most recent, Ebon Rebirth, is very sandboxy/hexcrawly. Bret
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Post by fantasygothic on Apr 19, 2015 3:16:28 GMT -5
That's nice, but what power level is Ebon Rebirth in term of attribute points? For example 35 point characters etc.
Right now I'm playing introductory modules with rules being a mix of TFT and Legends, it's great. I also use hex map and wilderness travel rules. I've seen that Little Black Book is for beginning characters so this will be probably first module I will buy.
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