The P-files: Sign-Up & OOC

Mostly I'd love to hear some info on stuff that clearly aren't going to happen like at all but was planned... Like other options of the stuff we had going before the whole dreamworld took over the campaign. I mean I'd love to see what would've happened there. What would've happened if we fought the Zebra's... What would've happened if we did just left the guards to their be healed by the medical peoples... And stuff like that. Along with just fully ending the combat... I mean this fight itself has gotten so overblown and lasted too long to have overstayed it's welcome.

Xel Unknown wrote:Mostly I'd love to hear some info on stuff that clearly aren't going to happen like at all but was planned... Like other options of the stuff we had going before the whole dreamworld took over the campaign. I mean I'd love to see what would've happened there. What would've happened if we fought the Zebra's... What would've happened if we did just left the guards to their be healed by the medical peoples... And stuff like that.

Well, as long as its not spoiling anything else, that fine.

Xel Unknown wrote:
Along with just fully ending the combat... I mean this fight itself has gotten so overblown and lasted too long to have overstayed it's welcome.

Its run a little long, to be sure.

Cardbo just so you know what's going on, Paper Shadow is willing to run the game for us, but only if Josh gives his blessing. Which Josh is refusing to do, even though he admitted that he has no plans to resume running the game for us in the foreseeable future/ever.

Ramsus,

From what I understand, what you want isn't just for Paper Shadow to continue running the campaign. You also want me to give him all my notes on the campaign - from setting, to plots, to characters, to hooks. That's what I'm against more than anything else. I feel that I spent way too much time and effort building up all my ideas for this setting to let anyone else run my campaign. That's because in a sense this campaign is my baby, and I can't bare to see my baby given up for adoption.

I realize I may need to explain myself in more depth here, so below is the explanation I gave to Paper Shadow. Hopefully this’ll help you guys understand my position more.

Spoiler:

If you feel the P-Files setting is really so important to you guys, then I'm not entirely against you continuing where we left off (though I'd prefer if you didn't). What I’m really against though is allowing you to use all my notes. I’d prefer that Paper Shadow (or any other GM that decides to take over) start fresh with his own ideas for the campaign – or better yet – just start an entirely new campaign from square one. You might prefer to keep your characters exactly as they are with ties to New Orreigns, but it wouldn’t take too much effort to integrate your PCs into any setting you saw fit to play them in. Believe me. I’ve done that type of thing before. Sometimes when I’ve liked a character I was playing in one campaign and that campaign shut down before its time, I’d take that character, alter their backstory slightly to make it synch with a new setting (while still staying true to the general theme and feel of the character), and slip them into new worlds and campaigns. To make it even more simple, you guys could just imagine that Paper Shadow’s campaign happened sometime after the events of the P-Files. Any ties that you formed in the P-Files could then transfer directly over to you future adventures. It’s up to you how you’d want to handle things, but you do have a lot of options.

In sum - I don't want you to use my notes, but that doesn't mean you can't still play with your characters.

@Paper/All
Want to pretend that that last battle broke reality and threw us into an alternate timeline?

So Josh, you'd rather kill your baby then give it up for adoption. Friggin wonderful metaphor.

If we're going to go to such extremes as alternate timeline or whatever, I think we might be just better off having our characters go somewhere else or something. It'll suck I never got to do a scene with Whisper's father and I'll probably just go ahead and do the Outcast scene for us as a sort of transition from one thing to the other since I still want to do that. However, it'd be silly to say our characters left things unresolved here so I guess we could see what Paper's ideas are from where we'd move on from here and since Josh no longer has any creative say (and it shouldn't matter much to Paper unless we'd be interfering with whatever new ideas he had) we players could come up with ideas for broad strokes views on how the situations got resolved. It's kinda overall a pain to have to do this extra work when Josh could just hand over his notes, but if he's going to be such a poor sport about things then we've at least earned the right to kill off/do whatever we like with the NPCs and events he abandoned. (I'm totally voting for the group having uncovered Big Mike's corrupt business practices and exposing them leading to his downfall and a restoration project for the city.)

Anyway, so that's my idea. Opinions?

You know the thing is, we basically CAN'T pick up where we've left off... Because were this campaign has "left off" at is mid-balrog-fight of annoyance. Which Josh seems to not wanta even finish that fight or just give it the "YOU WIN" ending type of deal post-fight is all I've been asking for, which honestly, feels weird if we try to start up with any GM other then Josh to deal with end of fight and post-fight data on what just happened in-character. Sure I'm fine if we gotta do that because Josh is unwilling or unable to think up anything like that. But I for one would perfer this campaign to at least end with this balrog-fight ending... Or just Josh's role as the GM of the campaign with that.

Josh, it kinda seems to me that it doesn't particularly matter if someone else wants to use your campaign notes, because even if you want to use them in another campaign, it's not fair to us as your players to tell us we have to basically reboot the game. We have an investment in this setting as well, and you know very well I can't just reuse my character, seeing as he's so tied into the plot we've had so far. Now, I guess if we have to do the reboot style thing, I agree with Xel, a finishing post would be nice.

Ramsus wrote:So Josh, you'd rather kill your baby then give it up for adoption. Friggin wonderful metaphor.

Actually Ramsus, no. I’d rather keep my baby and let her take a long rest, because I feel she’s been abused by her friends.

Ramsus wrote:If we're going to go to such extremes as alternate timeline or whatever, I think we might be just better off having our characters go somewhere else or something. It'll suck I never got to do a scene with Whisper's father and I'll probably just go ahead and do the Outcast scene for us as a sort of transition from one thing to the other since I still want to do that. However, it'd be silly to say our characters left things unresolved here so I guess we could see what Paper's ideas are from where we'd move on from here and since Josh no longer has any creative say (and it shouldn't matter much to Paper unless we'd be interfering with whatever new ideas he had) we players could come up with ideas for broad strokes views on how the situations got resolved. It's kinda overall a pain to have to do this extra work when Josh could just hand over his notes, but if he's going to be such a poor sport about things then we've at least earned the right to kill off/do whatever we like with the NPCs and events he abandoned. (I'm totally voting for the group having uncovered Big Mike's corrupt business practices and exposing them leading to his downfall and a restoration project for the city.)

Anyway, so that's my idea. Opinions?

Again, I would prefer if you guys just started a new campaign and changed your backstories to match it – but the final say is yours. One reason I never said the campaign was dead before was that I wanted to still have the option open to pick things back up in the future (even if that option wasn’t all that likely). If you do decide to resolve everything in a “broad strokes” sort-of-way though, that would mark the definite end of the P-Files and there wouldn’t be any coming back (unless we got into some kind of alternate timeline-type stuff later – but I digress).

Also, Subz, as far as your character goes, I know we came up with a cool concept for your him and I’m sorry we couldn’t see it through in the campaign – but I actually know very well that you could still change your character to match a new setting and campaign. If you really needed help brainstorming something up, I could help you – but I don’t think it’d be as hard as you imagine to reinvent him.

As far as some kind of ending post goes, part of the reason I never finished the Balrog fight was because the end result seemed obvious enough to me. If it makes matters any better as far as the game goes though – you did win the battle against the Balrog. Your victory was pretty much inevitable at the point that we left off. The Balrog probably would’ve surrendered simply out of frustration after what Whisper had just pulled off – then he’d have given you some hint of the bigger problem in the campaign – if you wished to hear it. The specter who’d talked to you when you first entered the dreamworld would’ve come back and congratulated you in some rhyming, possibly cryptic, fashion; and then you all would’ve been warped back to Equestria – where all of you, except Chitin, would reappear before a shocked TLC (you guys remember the nurse-pony right?). You’d have been mysteriously short one member of your party – Blade Blocker – but you’d have somehow gained Nameless as a replacement. Rock and Roll’s vitals would’ve gone back to normal – and it would’ve been all thanks to your timely intervention that everything turned out okay. Meanwhile, Chitin would’ve reappeared back in the sewer tunnels, just in time to be saved by Zwana before the changeling slipped and fell into the sewer channel. They’d continue on down the sewer tunnels and the adventure would continue from there…

That typed, I know that Xel also wanted me to go behind the screen a bit and explain some of my plans, the “what ifs” and such, so I’ll start by typing a bit of retrospection and lead that into some general answers.

If you guys are interested to know, as a GM I realized during the course of this dreamworld section that my strengths are in creating characters, settings, and character interactions. I tried to do too many things in the dreamworld and experimented a bit too much doing things I wasn’t familiar with. That solar system puzzle was one example. That shouldn’t have been one of the first puzzles I presented to you in the campaign. It was a little too complicated and I didn’t give you guys any hints to help guide you through it.

Also there was a lot of fighting. I did this because I wanted you guys to be able to use all your combat abilities (especially since the campaign had been extremely light on combat up to that point) and I specifically wanted to accommodate members of the party like Gleeda (who liked to fight). I probably should’ve just let you beat the Balrog when Nameless uppercut him – or when Chitin used her element (either/or). I wanted to give you guys a kind of grand finale to the dreamworld encounter though, and I wanted to give you a challenge – something that would ideally be fun and not a complete pushover, so that you could – once again – have some more combat in the campaign. I’m not sure why Xel found the fight to be the worst he ever encountered (Possibly because it dragged on because of so much outside controversy? We got into a lot of OOC fights during that fight – though the IC fight itself actually wasn’t that long. I think we were officially on Round 4 or 5 of the combat.)

I will admit I got a little carried away during the last fight. I got frustrated at how easily you guys could shut down the Balrog – I forgot how much gear you guys had, and also how this didn’t need to be the toughest fight ever since it was really only your second boss battle of the game. That typed, my initial goal was for the Balrog to be strong enough to KO at least one PC – but when I saw how quickly Whisper could bring even an unconscious PC back to full health, it no longer felt like that goal alone was enough. There was no threat at all of the Balrog doing really anything to you guys, so I kept trying to amp up his strength so the end result of the fight would be a bit more climactic. I probably should’ve just ended the fight sooner and moved on – especially if you guys felt so strongly about not liking the fight – but I got a bit of tunnel vision, and I wanted you to have at least one challenging fight in the dreamworld (you’d practically bulldozed over all the others).

I know that a while back, DB had also been wondering how you guys would’ve had any chance of beating the Balrog if Chitin hadn’t used her magic point. Well, to be honest I hadn’t ever intended for you to fight the Balrog in the first place. He was going to be a boss I saved for later. You were just going to be introduced to him here – then he was going to sic some Nightmare Brutes on you and get away. When Nameless uppercut him though, and especially after I realized what DB was planning, I realized I had the perfect storm to have the Balrog fight you earlier than intended – and for you guys to actually have a good chance of beating him too. Subz and DB basically unlocked an optional boss fight with what they did in tandem – and I was hoping to give you extra campaign-based knowledge as a reward. That was the plan anyway…

But in retrospect, playing this campaign made me realize that a lot of our OOC arguments started up during combats – or at the threat of combats (like with the Zebras stealing from the shop). Combat was more often than not a plague upon this campaign, and if we had continued, it probably would’ve been better to move to a skill check system or something…

To answer some other questions –

1. What would have happened if you’d fought the zebras?

-By that, I assume Xel meant the Vodun in the shop? If you’d fought them, then you would’ve been doing what I’d expected you’d do. I originally set up that encounter intentionally to give you all a chance to use your combat abilities. That typed though, I never really liked forcing fights on players when there was any potential (no matter how miniscule) for negotiations – and sense Whisper got a cutie-mark crit – I felt I had to give you guys the ability to avoid the combat.

^That typed, I’m not saying that you should or shouldn’t have fought the zebras. Both choices had their own consequences for future interactions with the campaign’s supporting cast. It was up to you guys to decide what you wanted to do.

2. What would’ve happened if you’d just left the guards to be healed by TLC and other nursing staff?

-Nothing, and by that I mean nothing good. Rock & Roll would’ve continued to suffer psychological trauma from the nightmare feeding frenzy as the nurses alone did not have the proper equipment and skills to help them. By the time they were able to get special treatment, the damage done by the nightmares’ feeding could’ve proven irreversible – or fatal. So you definitely made the right choice going into the dream realm.

Alright, and with that typed, hopefully all this info goes some way towards satisfying everyone. I did really love this campaign and I put a lot of effort into it. I know you guys each put in a considerable amount of effort as well – but in my obviously biased opinion, I feel it’s almost always the GM that has to do the most work. I know I wasn’t perfect, and as I already admitted, I made a lot of mistakes. I’m still not an expert on GMing, and as you remember I warned you of that when you first joined up. I felt like some of you guys still gave me a pretty rough time throughout this campaign though, and even now I feel a bit hurt by the fact that you’re trying to go over my head and continue the P-Files without me. I know that some time ago I tried to kick Ramsus out of the campaign, and you guys all said that without Ramsus, the campaign wouldn’t be the same, that we might as well just end it right there. Well, here we are sometime later, with me, the GM, having left– and yet you still want to continue the campaign without me. I feel a bit insulted, because it seems like you’re saying that you need Ramsus in the P-Files but you don’t need me - you just need my notes.

^I know that interpretation is a bit skewed. I was trying to force Ramsus out of the P-Files against his will, I was leaving of my own accord. Still, I am having trouble coming to terms with the fact that you guys want to continue my campaign without me. Why can't you just start up another campaign with your old characters, and respect my wishes to put this campaign in stasis?

I find this difficult myself, but if the campaign is your baby, Coffee is mine. He's built up history and backstory and accomplishments and defeats and to wipe that slate clean without a pretty compelling reason is unthinkable. If I to start a campaign, I wouldn't use Coffee again, at least not without linking him in some way to P-Files. I'd rather start a completely new character.

Putting things on hold would be pretty problematic. We'd have no in character explanation how we got from where we were to where we are and any time that would matter (from large scale things down to simple character interactions) we'd be staring at this awkward empty elephant sized space. While I can't speak for any one else, I don't think there's a realistic chance you'll even start running this again while I'm involved, so that means for me, at least (though I would suspect Xel as well from the things you've said), that there's no point in leaving an awkward hole in my character's story.

There's also the matter that it wouldn't make sense for us to go forward in our character's timelines to play under someone else and then back to yours where stuff that happens in your game would possibly change things in ways that would invalidate things we'd already done in the future timeline. So basically, once we move forward without you with these characters we basically can't return back to this point in time. Basically, there is no stasis option, there's alive and there's dead. If you're not participating, the difference between the two states should mean nothing to you. Whether we're using New Orreigns and your NPCs or we're not, it won't have any impact for you. The only event that matters here that effects you is whether we start playing with these characters again or not.

As for that last bit of.... I don't even know what to call that... I suppose that's just a natural outcome of gaming etiquette and behavior. It stands to reason if you force out a player because you don't like them personally (not getting into the finer details here, but they do matter), that other people would not want to play in such an environment. As for us wanting to play without you, that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with wanting to play our characters. The choice for us is play without you or not play without you, either way it's still without you through no choice of our own. (As much as I've love to claim "well, people just love me more" that would be not at all what the reasoning is.)

At this point, I don't even care if you give your blessing and notes to Paper unless it effects Paper's willingness to run something for us. Though I do feel bad for Sub that'll make extra work for him and mess up whatever short term character arc stuff he had planned. Staying in New Orreigns has the benefit or not having to start from scratch and not having to do some things to make things fit and not having to abandon some other things. Going to a new place however gives Paper more control of the NPCs and the situation without having to worry about dealing with things we already might not have liked that were going on when you were running things (like I was never really satisfied about the situation Whisper wound up with regarding Big Mike and it always felt like it was bound to blow up in our faces).

I will agree with you that things would have been better off if we dropped PT's combat system and just resolved things through skill checks and such, it's not like the system lacked adequate means to handle conflict resolution.

Edit: Cardbo (and maybe Sub and/or Xel, DB you don't get a choice =P ) I don't see anything wrong with some of us making new characters while some of us keep our old ones if Paper runs something for us in a different place. I just know I'd like to keep playing Whisper (and last I checked DB would like to keep playing Chitin, but I dunno.) Though, if I was going to be the only one keeping my character, it would probably be best for me to make a new character too. (But at this point we're assuming way too much about what Paper is/isn't willing to do and we really need to hear from him. All we know for sure is that he was willing to continue running P-Files, that doesn't mean he necessarily automatically is going to agree to run a completely different game instead.)

As I mentioned previously. I've got a emotional investment in keeping Coffee in P-Files. If he's no longer in P-Files, or in a game logically linked to P-Files, he's no longer Coffee, he's a clone, and if Spiderman has taught us anything, clones suck. Anyway, if the campaign isn't P-Files or a continuation of P-Files, I'd prefer to start a new character.

I'm not sure what to say here. Hello...

^Hi.

Also, I did want to clarify in response to this statement:

Ramsus wrote:As for that last bit of.... I don't even know what to call that... I suppose that's just a natural outcome of gaming etiquette and behavior. It stands to reason if you force out a player because you don't like them personally (not getting into the finer details here, but they do matter), that other people would not want to play in such an environment. As for us wanting to play without you, that has nothing to do with you and everything to do with wanting to play our characters. The choice for us is play without you or not play without you, either way it's still without you through no choice of our own. (As much as I've love to claim "well, people just love me more" that would be not at all what the reasoning is.)

Well honestly, I would call it a bit neurotic, and I actually debated whether to mention it or not in my last post. It was a thought I wanted to share though, actually in the hopes that someone would respond in the way you did Ramsus. I just wanted to get some clarification here. I wanted to be sure one way or the other that one of my fears were unfounded. Whether you meant to be nice or not, I do appreciate what you typed. In all sincerity - thanks.

Also, on a side note - Cardbo, I'm not sure about everybody else, but Spiderman sure seems to have taught me some much different lessons from you...

...

Clones?

XandZero2 wrote:

Also, on a side note - Cardbo, I'm not sure about everybody else, but Spiderman sure seems to have taught me some much different lessons from you...

...

Clones?

Spoiler:

Ok, fine.  He also taught us that one shouldn't make deals with the devil over your elderly aunt in the hospital.

Paper Shadow wrote:I'm not sure what to say here. Hello...

Hello. My name is Indigo Montoya.  You killed my father.  Prepare to die!

Biggest reason I know why I'm trying to fight for this campaign to keep on going is because... Well, Josh, do you recall the Greendale campaign? Like at all? Cause this whole event feels like just another rehash of that one's ending at this point (the OOC stuff over combat just being the braking point for the GM) and also we all have fought tooth and nail for this campaign to keep running as long as we could get it to run. You recall there was a time before this forum that you wanted to quit and end it. But we dragged you back in... I might not feel the same about Gleeda as I did about Zeela at that time... But I know that I wouldn't care to start a new campaign with Gleeda. Hell I wanta see where this game is going, not play a new game in the same setting, not play a new game with the same characters, I wanta see where this game is going... What made this fight the most unfair in my eyes for one thing it was a summoner that summoned full monsters that their threat level was assumed to be really high along with the main enemy having an auto-damage-for-damage effect that because it's a "trait" it gets around the daze effect. Most if not all of the save ends effects were easily neutralized without any known payment on the enemy's fight. (I like to assume there was some type of payment or something for this but we don't get to see it, you didn't hint at it... AND STILL you seem to refuse to post the monster's stats, which isn't helping me feel the fight as anything but the most unfair fight ever) So it basically seemed to be immune to two our party's major powers... Much like how the Final Greendale fight wanted to be immune to Intteruppts and Reactions... (which would've shut down Zeela's two attack moves she brought into combat there) Only way that fight doesn't get most unfair in my mind is because the GM did agree to remove that insanity once it was explained why it was insane and unfair. Which at this point the only way I can ever see that fight as "fair" in any level of the term or just being a hard challange means I need to see what effects the monster had. But again, I don't blame you for making an unfair monster, I assume it was mostly just built without realizing it was unfair with some of it's effects. Hell all fgihts in this combat system turn into two types "cakewalk" and "OMGSOUNFAIR!" I've yet to feel like I've been in a fight that doesn't count as one of those two. Sure some fights have been fun as well as one of those other two... But still they've always been either "cakewalk" or "OMGSOUNFAIR" that's just how I see this combat system at this point. It's how jadded I've become to it.

Also... The fact that this campaign just get's stopped (basically is over because of Josh hating everyone) after this very fight... Feels very ROCKS FALL EVERYPONY DIES in my opinion too. Which only adds to the bad taste this balrog fight has gotten...

So while we wait on Paper to make decisions, I've decided to do the Outcast scene I'd been waiting on forever.

https://blackstarsanctuary.forumotion.com/t25-p-files-outcast-scene#1744

Just post here or in the thread IC if you're participating.

Xel, I do remember the Greendale campaign. To be honest though, the OOC stuff over combat was not my breaking point. It definitely didn't help my attitude towards the game - but it wasn't what finally made me decide to end the game. I just didn't feel that I could continue to run a game for people I didn't get along with. I also was getting tired of all the complaints, my own mistakes, and the breakdown in communication between all of us.

To further clarify, the game just wasn't fun for me anymore. I didn't feel like we had the camaraderie that's required for a successful role-play, and I just didn't feel that my efforts were worth it.

Also, as far as the Balrog goes, he was not summoning full-power monsters. The summoned Clays and Flamemanes were dealing about the same amount of damage as their full-strength counterparts, but they also only had a fraction of the originals' health and none of their traits. They were a bit weaker, and I'd originally planned for them to only be summoned every other turn - but I'd decided to speed things up when I saw how easily you guys were trouncing the Balrog in the first place. I really don't understand why you think your save-ends were having no effect at all on the Balrog. They were. I just realized rather quickly that making the Balrog deal half damage for the entire fight with every attack was just too much of a neuter. I tried to counter that by retconning an effect that allowed the Balrog to deal double damage with his combustion attacks when he was effected by save-ends - thus the half damage only effected the Balrog's active attacks, not his passive trait.

Xel Unknown wrote:
Also... The fact that this campaign just get's stopped (basically is over because of Josh hating everyone) after this very fight... Feels very ROCKS FALL EVERYPONY DIES in my opinion too. Which only adds to the bad taste this balrog fight has gotten...

On a final note here, I don't hate everyone Xel - far from it. I do dislike some of you at times. Again though, I just feel that the energy I put into this game could better be focused elsewhere. I'm at a point in my life where I'm being pressured from multiple angles, and I need to focus on what's really important. This game was one distraction that I felt could be cut in order to give me more time to do what I need to do.

So is it that nobody is interested in the Outcast scene or that you guys somehow don't know what you can do on a path with two dazed ponies approaching you?

Is Paper or Xand PHing the outcast scene?

Neither, it's me. (This had been an arrangement with Josh since Outcast was first mentioned.)

I'm a little leery when people talk to themselves IC, but I guess I can give it a shot.

I don't actually plan for Whisper to take much initiative here. She basically mostly did her job already by leading the group here.

Edited my last post in the Outcast IC scene. Hoping to give people something more to react to.

Have we gotten to whereever we're going? It may be time for a scene change.