The Widowed
01-04-2008, 06:51 AM
Well, Corwin has been steaming along steadily ever since kick-off; he even had time to find, undertake and finish a minor side quest along the way. Yavana got off to a slow start but then she took off like greased lightning; she'll be catching up with Corwin soon if she keeps up the pace. It's the other three characters I'm growing a bit worried about at this point. :think:
Don't get me wrong; I hate rushing people, so it's not like I'm checking a stopwatch during the prologues. But I did tailor all of the prologues so that, during the course of exploring or defining his or her character's history, each player would get a roughly equal amount of Experience by the time Chapter Zero ends, including one or two minor optional side quests per character. I'm not measuring every step of the journey, but each Chapter Zero is divided into two Acts; Experience earned during Act 1 (the first half of Chapter Zero) will be awarded for everything that happened during Act 1, and each character will be Level 5 (their current, present-time, non-historical level) by that point, if not before. So if it sounds like I'm racing the players against each other, it's only out of concern for Maz and Scarfy, who might find their characters alone together in the present without any player-run fighters, clerics or necromancers to posse up with and go about fortifying and defending their pet dungeon....
As far as I can see, the worst case would be that a player who hasn't touched his or her character in a while will become so accustomed to not touching this forum or the character that he or she will never play again, and players who leave my (virtual) table and drift away into oblivion always make me sad, leaving me to wonder "Why did that player go away? Have I in some small, nebulous way failed as a DM?". And you wouldn't want to make me sad or riddled with self-doubt, would you? :(
The best case would be that the player stops by once every now and then--demonstrating some interest in his or her character--but the character continues to lag greatly to the extent that I have to bypass some of the adventure and bump the character forward to the next act or chapter, so the character misses out on valuable treasure, information and Experience. That might make the player sad instead. And who wants that? So even though I don't expect the players to be looking at this subforum every hour of every day, even so little as checking in and responding once every three or four days would be quite dandy...maybe once a week if things are slow. But if you want to be like Maz or Scarfy and go above and beyond, that's peachy. I'll do my best to keep up. :)
For Corwin, Act 1 is scheduled to end when he joins the crew of the Blackfire (barring the chance that Maz does something which seriously alters the course of history and casts Corwin's backstory into the wind...). For Antinidia, Act 1 ends when he crosses the border--and the Mists--into dread Bardosylvania. And if all goes well, Yavana, Ashton and Thornton (and most of the living NPC Ainsleys) will be united at the end of their Act 1, which ends as they reach the grand ball which Lord Darrovan has thrown to celebrate his first year as the reigning Lord of Bardosylvania.
Once Act II of Chapter Zero reaches its conclusion (and there's a 4 out of 5 chance that it will put the "tragic" in "tragic character"...) and everyone comes to the present with Chapter One, timing between player-characters won't be such a concern; if a player lags behind, his character will shift to the back of the party and take an occasional action imposed by Wids the DM (if the character is already off adventuring) or will stay behind and help out with the crypts or--perhaps later--the manor (if the character is still home). Then, if the player suddenly pops back into play, he can either resume control of his character and rejoin the adventure in progress...mid-battle if needs be (if the former) or hop on an undead steed, leave the crypts and catch up with the rest of the party (if the latter). But for now, I'm really hoping that everyone's all together and ready to go one in-game year after Lord Darrovan's grand ball. Antinidia gets a little more leeway with his timeframe--seeing as he's alone and mere days before the present time, as opposed to two years, or five, or fifty--and I'm not the least bit worried about Corwin's timeframe, seeing as he's pretty well ahead of everyone else. But Antinidia still has a wee bit of catching up to do all the same (at least if he wants to pay off the Vesperanti's debt and respond to Darrovan's letter in a timely manner), and Yavana really shouldn't be seen going to the grand ball (even if only to tell her little brother off while he's showboating) without a certain knighted heir apparent and a fraternally devoted cleric of Wee Jas in tow....
And there's that. Those of you with lagging characters, assuming you have the time to peek in every so often and type a sentence or three...give your poor characters love plz? Ashton, Thornton and Antinidia are all good, respectable and well-thought-out characters, I have big plans (and story arcs) for each of them, I hate seeing them languish and I'm really starting to miss them.... :(
Don't get me wrong; I hate rushing people, so it's not like I'm checking a stopwatch during the prologues. But I did tailor all of the prologues so that, during the course of exploring or defining his or her character's history, each player would get a roughly equal amount of Experience by the time Chapter Zero ends, including one or two minor optional side quests per character. I'm not measuring every step of the journey, but each Chapter Zero is divided into two Acts; Experience earned during Act 1 (the first half of Chapter Zero) will be awarded for everything that happened during Act 1, and each character will be Level 5 (their current, present-time, non-historical level) by that point, if not before. So if it sounds like I'm racing the players against each other, it's only out of concern for Maz and Scarfy, who might find their characters alone together in the present without any player-run fighters, clerics or necromancers to posse up with and go about fortifying and defending their pet dungeon....
As far as I can see, the worst case would be that a player who hasn't touched his or her character in a while will become so accustomed to not touching this forum or the character that he or she will never play again, and players who leave my (virtual) table and drift away into oblivion always make me sad, leaving me to wonder "Why did that player go away? Have I in some small, nebulous way failed as a DM?". And you wouldn't want to make me sad or riddled with self-doubt, would you? :(
The best case would be that the player stops by once every now and then--demonstrating some interest in his or her character--but the character continues to lag greatly to the extent that I have to bypass some of the adventure and bump the character forward to the next act or chapter, so the character misses out on valuable treasure, information and Experience. That might make the player sad instead. And who wants that? So even though I don't expect the players to be looking at this subforum every hour of every day, even so little as checking in and responding once every three or four days would be quite dandy...maybe once a week if things are slow. But if you want to be like Maz or Scarfy and go above and beyond, that's peachy. I'll do my best to keep up. :)
For Corwin, Act 1 is scheduled to end when he joins the crew of the Blackfire (barring the chance that Maz does something which seriously alters the course of history and casts Corwin's backstory into the wind...). For Antinidia, Act 1 ends when he crosses the border--and the Mists--into dread Bardosylvania. And if all goes well, Yavana, Ashton and Thornton (and most of the living NPC Ainsleys) will be united at the end of their Act 1, which ends as they reach the grand ball which Lord Darrovan has thrown to celebrate his first year as the reigning Lord of Bardosylvania.
Once Act II of Chapter Zero reaches its conclusion (and there's a 4 out of 5 chance that it will put the "tragic" in "tragic character"...) and everyone comes to the present with Chapter One, timing between player-characters won't be such a concern; if a player lags behind, his character will shift to the back of the party and take an occasional action imposed by Wids the DM (if the character is already off adventuring) or will stay behind and help out with the crypts or--perhaps later--the manor (if the character is still home). Then, if the player suddenly pops back into play, he can either resume control of his character and rejoin the adventure in progress...mid-battle if needs be (if the former) or hop on an undead steed, leave the crypts and catch up with the rest of the party (if the latter). But for now, I'm really hoping that everyone's all together and ready to go one in-game year after Lord Darrovan's grand ball. Antinidia gets a little more leeway with his timeframe--seeing as he's alone and mere days before the present time, as opposed to two years, or five, or fifty--and I'm not the least bit worried about Corwin's timeframe, seeing as he's pretty well ahead of everyone else. But Antinidia still has a wee bit of catching up to do all the same (at least if he wants to pay off the Vesperanti's debt and respond to Darrovan's letter in a timely manner), and Yavana really shouldn't be seen going to the grand ball (even if only to tell her little brother off while he's showboating) without a certain knighted heir apparent and a fraternally devoted cleric of Wee Jas in tow....
And there's that. Those of you with lagging characters, assuming you have the time to peek in every so often and type a sentence or three...give your poor characters love plz? Ashton, Thornton and Antinidia are all good, respectable and well-thought-out characters, I have big plans (and story arcs) for each of them, I hate seeing them languish and I'm really starting to miss them.... :(