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Post by Jennalaia on Jan 28, 2018 14:13:09 GMT -5
Event Name: The Double Magic Show
Event Date: 1/20
Keyword: slapping a thing of custard
Event Summary: Lyn's brother, Oliver, invited Lyn to perform a double magic show. During the show, Lyn disappeared and Kayla appeared in her place. It was discovered Oliver had pulled a prank on Lyn with the intent of scaring her away from the stage, and had discovered Kayla was a Card and Played her. Upon visiting the understage and discovering the box Lyn was supposed to be in was empty, JBS+T realized that Lyn had been kidnapped and worked to figure out who had done it. Unfortunately, they guessed the wrong person and Lyn eventually returned with a bullet hole in her stomach and fear for the Dealer who had killed her mother, Dorothy.
Additional Comments: I know I fucked up the puzzle hard, so you don't have to mention that. Suggestions of other puzzles to do are welcome, though.
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Post by The Gab Fairy on Feb 6, 2018 23:15:09 GMT -5
Here are my thoughts. Goods- Genuinely fun, interesting puzzles below the stage. Even though they didn't lead to anything except a piece of kettlecorn, they felt meaningful and fun and dangerous in just the right way. It felt very Justus - you knew these were kids living in a modern, magic world. It's the kind of absurd that keeps the suspension of disbelief. Why would there be traps below the stage? Well, why wouldn't there?
- Most of the rolls incorporated didn't determine whether or not something worked. The rolls to grab the thing (I think it was a card) from Oliver, for example, were not an ultimatum, but instead shaped the narrative. It was less of a 'you missed, better luck next time' and more of a 'you missed, try again!'
- The fight scene felt very strong. The characters pushed back and forth and got angry and upset. People weren't dying, but Teo got hurt and had to sit out. It's kind of funny in retrospect. A bunch of high school freshmen and sophomores beating up an 18//20 something.
Bads (this section will probably be longer; disclaimer, most of this isn't actually the "bads")- I know you already know about the puzzle, but I'm mentioning it to relate it to something else. The puzzle itself was actually very complex and good, save for the mishap. Part of that also had to do with the time of night. The failing wasn't so much in the puzzle as it was in the indication of what the good and bad end depended upon. The fact that you had to tell us that the bad end was received because the characters didn't redeem Lyn to Kayla was the Bad for a simple reason - it didn't feel like it.
- So out of that preface, why didn't it feel like it? At the very end of a series of strong puzzles below the stage was a piece of kettle corn indicating something in relation to the kidnapper, which you had to use the puzzle to figure out. The puzzle also required a lot of intense concentration and OOC action. Whenever we come up on a big choice narratively, there's usually a big OOC break like that too. The puzzle was why there were so many NPCs needed at the theatre. Attention was diverted to them in the beginning and bringing it back up, again, made it feel important. The last reason is because I don't think you ever said post-rp what would have happened if we'd chosen correctly. Choosing the kidnapper felt like the determinant because it had lots of build-up, something that wasn't as present in the fight scene.
- Sidenote, mostly: NPC interactions could have been a little stronger. Something that might do that next time is including characters that the kids themselves know, not just the RPers. Maybe some of the upperclassmen, a Justus shopkeeper or two - just someone the kids could say hello to and sit down beside. Don't be afraid to pander to the audience.
Goods, again- I really did like the confrontation scene. The only thing it lacked was a neon sign pointing to it saying, HERE IS THE DETERMINANT. (Not really.) The subtlety with which emphasis was placed on discovering the kidnapper would have been amazing if that had been moved in the direction of the confrontation. Maybe it was there, but I don't think the majority of us really caught it.
- That said, be careful basing your good or bad end on ingratiating one character to another. If things had gone as intended, I'm pretty sure it would have been fine in this event. Once I was able to say, yeah, okay, that's believably something to base the ending around, I was actually rather fond of the scene. Even though we got the bad end, I didn't regret it a bit because the characters acted true to their natures. It felt very natural, and if I could go back I wouldn't change the ending. Sometimes giving NPCs who have been assholes a Reason You Suck Speech is worth the bad end.
- I felt very engaged in all of the scenes during the meat of the event, and I think everyone else did too. It picked up the pace nicely.
Overall, I thought that it was a good event with a few flaws that detracted from enjoyment, but I'm able to look back on it and realize that the few points which did detract did not upset the entire experience. It's sort of like a white dress with a few ketchup stains. You wear the white dress, which is lovely, but then you get a ketchup stain and that's all you can see for a little bit. When you look back though, you're like, "Damn, that dress looked good." |
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Post by The Gab Fairy on Feb 13, 2018 19:57:28 GMT -5
Here are my thoughts. Goods- I think the use of intrigue was handled very well. The use of an external note to provide some external detail and add detail to characters we had yet to see much of was a nice touch. There was a palpable sense of wanting to know more.
- I think the narrator's knowledge of stage magic was effective. There was a sense of knowledge in a lot of the stage magic scenes that simply can't come with mere research.
- I think Kayla's reactions after being freed were really telling of her experience. It was a real show don't tell moment when Kayla reacted to the feelings she had when being under Oliver's control. It gave a sense of what the experience was like and what kind of control Oliver had without directly spelling out the details.
Bads- I think the insistence to keep going with plot threads while only a handful of people present didn't help in preparing participants for the final act. While participant presence is out of the narrator's control, the narrator could have used this time to RP tangential things so players would not be in the dark. For example; before the canon show there was only two people present,
and the narrator may have liked to open the floor to other people's NPCs who might attend rather than continuing with plot. - I think the delivery of the puzzle wasn't the right fit for RP. Regardless of the outcome and answer to the puzzle, the puzzle and its solving didn't suit the RP format. Participants were drawn out of the RP in an attempt to solve it, and there was no conceivable way that the characters could have been solving it in a similar way. The characters came to a conclusion based on nothing that happened within the RP itself. The delivery of the puzzle information was jarring and unrealistic to how someone would recall something. An alternative may have involved characters walking around and collecting information from multiple NPCs who remembered different things and have the characters talk about it as they go.
Overall, I thought that it was a good rp marred with some bad timing and choices. The core was good but the circumstances of how it played out were poor. |
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