HRPT: Vadok Vras

[Fulgrim]

Angling for...

Thursday, 9 EST, 9/25/14

Other possible days are...

Friday, 9 EST, 9/26/14

Saturday 9 EST, 9/27/14

Board post to follow consensus.

[mongwen]

Thursday or Friday. Saturday's sketchy because my folks like to go out for dinner. Sometimes they do it at a decent early time, sometimes they wait until 6:00 or 7:00. Edit: Just got even sketchier because there's a football game Saturday night the typist is gonna watch. I've been known to game while watching football, but it doesn't work well when it's gonna be a bunch of hack 'n slash, which this seems to be shaping up to be.

[radioactivejesus]

thursday is best for me. If not thursday, saturday

[BashSkull52]

Friday or Saturday for me. Thursday is a no-go

[Matt]

I'd be late for any of those, probably by a hour and a half. But I'll be there then!

[Fulgrim]

Looking like...

Saturday, 9 EST.

Board post to follow.

[Justanothacivy]

Not getting off work until midnight EST tonight. ...

[Matt]

Let's do this!!!

[BashSkull52]

Busting out the lucky socks for this one.

[Patty]

grr, I think I'm firewalled out here at school, any fixes?

[MrT2G]

Now that these events have concluded, I would like to express some of my qualms with how they were handled.

No possibility for players to influence events.

No chance to allow players to follow through with or shift positions following IC events.

Forcing players to follow NPCs thereby preventing group movement.

Super NPCs.

Randomness; Super blood golem, Orcish armies retreating for no reason only to return and claim leadership later.

At best, these RPTs seemed to me to be ill-thought out which resulted in poor storytelling at the expense of several individuals. At worse, OOC favoritism disguised as IC events to elevate certain individuals.

[Matt]

I thought they were pretty damn good myself. There was definitely a lot of player influence and chances for things to go different.

[krelm]

No possibility for players to influence events.

randomness

Super blood golem

The latter was both player-influenced and not random at all. It was like a month and a half, if not longer, of plotting, conniving, back-stabbing and build-up, that no one found out about.

Also, there were heaps of chances for things to go different, they just never did. I can think of three or four times something could've been changed off the top of my head, including tonight's RPT.

[BashSkull52]

Thank you for putting in the time and effort into this Hrpt everyone involved!

I enjoyed myself immensely, and the outcome of tonight's events were actually what I had hoped for going into this shindig, but never thought it would turn out like it did.. Definately sets the stage for more grand esque plot lines in the future.

Bravo Orkin sphere and staff once again.

[tehkory]

Bravo Orkin sphere

Sounds like it was a pretty good RPT, though. Huzzah!

[MrT2G]

No possibility for players to influence events.

randomness

Super blood golem

The latter was both player-influenced and not random at all. It was like a month and a half, if not longer, of plotting, conniving, back-stabbing and build-up, that no one found out about.

If you want to count invisible RP between a singe player and Admin-animated spirits or NPCs, please see previously mentioned favoritism.

Also, there were heaps of chances for things to go different, they just never did. I can think of three or four times something could've been changed off the top of my head, including tonight's RPT.

I agree there were chances for things to go differently. However, the Admins did not allow such chances to either evolve or alter pre-determined outcomes.

[mongwen]

Was rather disappointed in the outcome myself. Would have liked to see the old Vadok warlords put up a better fight and perhaps win. Instead we've got a situation where ... well that gets too deep into IC stuff. Nor did I see chances to change anything. It's my PC's job to follow her leaders. She knows where her skills are and just as important, where they aren't. Same as most other rational PCs I suppose. Anyway, Kreezur's got that customized supergear that gave him a major advantage both times and would have done in any other challenges, and it doesn't help when one NPC makes no effort to maintain his stuff so his hauberk falls off him in mid-fight. I was told that Striza's gear had been plate and actually better than Kreezur's, but to look at him I remember his description being the lightly-armored blabla when he was in his helm. I was glad not to have to deal with another mass combat, anyway. It's all done. Now we wait...

As a by the way, I never saw an IC post. We just all kind of magically knew something was coming and soon...

[Matt]

Here's some things that could have been changed by players. (player, aka Warboss) Sorry for the IC.

1. Surrender to Kreezur when he won the duel, or after smoke monster. Instead of charging and fighting. Maybe Kreezur would've kept attacking, but I doubt it.

2. ALL HAIL KILLER SMOKE MONSTER.(this is what I was ICly going for myself but no one was down with that haha.)

3. Got some PCs together and just killed Striza in front of Kreezur and swore allegiance to the strongest Uruk in the first place! RAWR!

4. Everyone could've guarded and rescued Striza. No more smoke monster, battle would've happened then, Striza would be -alive-.

There's four good ones from the original RPT that was witness by Mrt2g and Mongwen as well.

For the other RPT?

1. Anyone could've shot Kreezur in the beginning and started a blood bath. It crossed my mind.

2. Ambush Kreezur in the gatehouse while we had advantage. Though we would've been reeeaaaal messed up at the end of the fight, we definitely could have won.

3. You could've betrayed the Vadok after that first RPT and approached Kreezur about showing him the way in without traps/opened the gate for him.

4. Challenged Kreezur. Though you'd be very dead it definitely would've made the RPT change for you.

Just because you don't see/don't feel like you can change stuff doesn't mean you can't.

[toofast]

Here's some things that could have been changed by players. (player, aka Warboss) Sorry for the IC.

1. Surrender to Kreezur when he won the duel, or after smoke monster. Instead of charging and fighting. Maybe Kreezur would've kept attacking, but I doubt it.

2. ALL HAIL KILLER SMOKE MONSTER.(this is what I was ICly going for myself but no one was down with that haha.)

3. Got some PCs together and just killed Striza in front of Kreezur and swore allegiance to the strongest Uruk in the first place! RAWR!

4. Everyone could've guarded and rescued Striza. No more smoke monster, battle would've happened then, Striza would be -alive-.

There's four good ones from the original RPT that was witness by Mrt2g and Mongwen as well.

For the other RPT?

1. Anyone could've shot Kreezur in the beginning and started a blood bath. It crossed my mind.

2. Ambush Kreezur in the gatehouse while we had advantage. Though we would've been reeeaaaal messed up at the end of the fight, we definitely could have won.

3. You could've betrayed the Vadok after that first RPT and approached Kreezur about showing him the way in without traps/opened the gate for him.

4. Challenged Kreezur. Though you'd be very dead it definitely would've made the RPT change for you.

Just because you don't see/don't feel like you can change stuff doesn't mean you can't.

This. Even as someone relatively out of the loop, these were all feasible actions/event that any random PC/group could have carried out.

Yeah, super NPCs usually suck ass. Yeah, a lot of plots in past and present RPIs are staff-driven and allow for very limited player involvement and deep impact. This isn't one of those cases.

also, lol for there being like one female pc and a player referring to their character as 'she' while being worried about not revealing ic info?

[Oblivion]

1: Kreezur and company initiated the combat immediately after smoke monster ... thing... died. With no waiting to see if we'd actually go over to his side after he defeated Striza. It was just 'Attack Striza's old followers' and spam of npcs.

2: Again, there was no chance of 'worshipping' smoke monster, since as soon as it spawned up it attacked the player group side.

3: Had potential except nobody actually thought Kreezur was the strongest since he didn't bother to openly challenge Striza in an orc duel for leadership to begin with, and had to make alliances with Jeex and ambush small squads of orcs out in the wilderness.

4: If everyone had guarded Striza, the result would've been the same as when we didn't, the mobs would have been spawned in and mass melee would've ensued with likely more player deaths than there actually were.

Second RPT:

1: Crossed my mind as well, but frankly from what I'd seen on an ooc level, it wouldn't have changed the outcome beyond players being killed by the rather large group of npcs that'd been brought to stand around and enforce Kreezur's position.

2: Ambush Kreezur in the gatehouse... When he could literally beat any of our players, who could only engage four at a time and likely only fight one at a time due to special combat techniques like 'fend' or whatever it is called? Meanwhile he also brought several other likely skilled and over-geared npcs with him and generic npcs to boot when he came in. The generic npcs alone would be a match for most of our player base one on one.

3: A possibility and probably on a few orc's minds considering how quickly several jumped ship in hope of favoritism.

4: Another possibility, however it goes along with the feeling of 'no matter how skilled, there's no chance.' there might be -one- pc who -might- be able to challenge Kreezur, skill wise, after the moot murder house. But the slant of gear is blatant to the point where I thought Kreezur was wielding Blood Drinker (as an aside, since when do battleswords do piercing damage? convenient considering the armor available). And in the end, when the most skillful and well geared of our available npcs are blown out of the water, it shouldn't be a surprise when nobody player-wise steps up to bat just to sacrifice themselves.

Oh, I'd have to agree with the assessment of Striza's armor. I get the feeling that it was never meant to see actual combat and was just a restring of what was available at the start of the game.

[Oblivion]

In the end, I'm really not trying to drag out or make an 'argument'. All I'm trying to point out, is that there was no way any players could have changed the eventual outcome and as such, instead of such a long and drawn out and overly dramatic drama, Kreezur should have just been made to challenge Striza in the first place and things would have gone on as normal in orc-land with less player death that could have been avoided.

[MrT2G]

1: Kreezur and company initiated the combat immediately after smoke monster ... thing... died. With no waiting to see if we'd actually go over to his side after he defeated Striza. It was just 'Attack Striza's old followers' and spam of npcs.

2: Again, there was no chance of 'worshipping' smoke monster, since as soon as it spawned up it attacked the player group side.

3: Had potential except nobody actually thought Kreezur was the strongest since he didn't bother to openly challenge Striza in an orc duel for leadership to begin with, and had to make alliances with Jeex and ambush small squads of orcs out in the wilderness.

This. This. And This.

I know of at least one PC who had actually told Kreezur he would follow him if he beat Striza. This was blatantly ignored.

[krelm]

Just as a sidenote, I'm the guy who built Striza's armor, weapon, and Kreezur's battleaxe.

<worn on head> a blackened iron trapjaw helm
<worn at neck> a gorget of bristly, blackened scales
<worn over shoulder> a dusty greasy bundle of rags
<worn on body> a heavy, orkish breastplate with spiked pauldrons
<about upper right arm> a grimy black armband showing a shattered skull
<worn on arms> a pair of bristly, blackened scale sleeves
<worn about waist> a black leather swordbelt bearing a battlesword
<worn on belt> a dusty, pale, squirrel leather pouch
<worn on legs> a pair of blackened, bristly scale leggings
<worn on feet> a pair of black, spike-toed boots

The helm and breastplate were gquality plate, and everything else was gquality scale, with the exception of the gorget, which had to be changed after a PC got his hands on one, while his sword and Kreezur's axe were squality weapons. Striza, from what I saw as a builder (granted this was, what, three months ago) had straight 90s in every skill, while Kreezur had straight 80s. I can't remember what their stats were.

Anyway, the point of that is, Striza, statistically, should've won that fight, provided everything was the same as I'd left it those few months ago (it most likely was, considering that I also built Zabalk and nobody saw fit to change his stats until he accidentally killed a PC). He lost like a lot of people lose a lot of fight in this engine-- he got unlucky. He fell down and took a severe, and apparently failed all his will rolls from then on out.

Were all of those stats and shit too OP? Probably, but when they were designed they weren't meant to fight PCs, ever. Feel free to keep bitching about that, or to take it over to Songweaver's thread. I just felt like throwing those numbers out there to clear up some misconceptions and maybe affirm some other stuff.

[MrT2G]

...when they were designed they weren't meant to fight PCs, ever.

Well, someone missed that memo.

[Alcarin]

Locking this thread. See forum policies about keeping things productive and ending conversations that have served their purpose for explanation why.