Postmortem

1) General thoughts on the campaign
Jeremy: 2 thumbs up
Scott: can't believe you made it all up
Tom: epic scope, and the game grew appropriately
Rachel: got into the story and really cared about it. We were loyal to the land; in Cauldron it was mere convenience. The interwoven backstories helped.
Tony: The political challenges and such were really cool.
Jeremy: I get the sense this was Catherine's playground and she really enjoyed it.

STORY QUESTIONS
2) How was the tone (dark/light)?
Jeremy: It was dark but not discouraging. There was a struggle for all the right reasons.
Tony: much like Anor - struggle builds character.
Jeremy: Flynn mirrored it. Started lighthearted, but grew serious.
Rachel: we're never gonna be serious, but we were anyway.

3) How was the level of mystery?
Jeremy: seemed like Tom and Tony could follow it well.
Tom: the black sand mystery was cool
Catherine: Shackled City's mysteries were too opaque.
Tony: yeah. Enough of these mysteries, we solved ourselves.

4) How about the method of building backstories?
Rachel: was nice. Created a skeleton and then someone creative fleshed it out. Made me get involved.
Scott: Ike not having a backstory... actually worked.

5) Did you like the story?
Everyone: DUH!

WORLD QUESTIONS
6) How was the versimiltude?
Jeremy: for a fantasy world, the interactions were well thought out. Empires and kingdoms had reasons, culture, and history.
Rachel: the whole world had a history.
Tom: the custom mechanics helped.

7) Were the enemies tenacious, credible, and threatening?
Jeremy: always characteristic and intelligent, not just melee basheriffic.
Tom: felt like you were willing to gank us
Jeremy: I wonder if they were tenacious enough. Sometimes they couldn't sustain, like they ran out of big guns.
Tony: yeah, they tended to spread out damage too much.
Tom: because we were so ninja with our illusions and such. Bad guys never knew what to hit, and we could take things that should've been way too big for us. That's what NMR was built for.
Jeremy: yeah, fights were way off the XP table.

8) were the play aids like maps, store lists, and discounts helpful?
All: yes, cool.
Tony: the area discounts were nice and thematic.

9) How was the balance between railroading and too-open?
Jeremy: rubbed up against the rails a little bit but not often. Only one bad experience (the first Kelzun fight.)

10) How was the game difficulty?
Rachel: definitely harder than Shackled City.
Tony: the later stages were easier, but I don't know how much harder they could've been made.
Jeremy: from the Sid Meier comment (easy fun / hard fun) the balance was a little towards easy
Rachel: there were never "you can't win this" fights
Tom: there were plenty of really big fights, both in terms of being really tough and just being large scale
Jeremy: the scale was much better. The fate of the plane hung in the balance
Catherine: we were never the biggest things in the world
Scott: the Lord of the Rings analogy is good. It's on an epic scale.
Jeremy: we're not the focal point of everything, but we're doing key things.
Tom: we could succeed or fail at accomplishing really big things.

11) Balance between text and playing?
Rachel: we were involved in big stories. That helped make the text ok.
Scott: I understand that others need it.
Rachel: the story grew at the end. It was necessary.
Tom: the story enhanced the fights. There's a difference between fighting a huge snake and fighting Senneth, the source of the black sands.

12) What did you think of the custom rules like:
- teleporting - Tony: we were smart enough to use teleport and then dimension door to avoid the delay. Jeremy: worked out more reasonably for both us and the bad guys.
- constructs - Tom: loved the programming, wish we'd used it. Rachel: nice puzzles. Tony: Brilliant.
- Death - Jeremy: far better than cheezy, blocking, anti-cheeze cheeze. Scott: less accounting. Tony: the 5th level revive should've been slower or something. Tom: resurrection quest was great. Success or failure, Flynn will be a better king for trying it.
- the Summoning room - Scott: highlight of the campaign. Rachel: I kept trying to explain it to people during the week. Tony: with such a big level difference, I never expected it. Never thought it could work. Jeremy: I had a little inkling. It seemed inevitable. Rachel: totally worth it. Scott: quote me on it - fucking awesome. Tom: it was a nice capstone. Catherine: it was hard making bad guys who showed what the combined party could do. Everyone: the rune mechanic was cool.
- custom powers and items - Jeremy: cool, limited to a couple of unique things. Rachel: they let my character grow. Tony: I loved items tailored to my character. Tom: good variety between characters. Tony: stacking 3 class levels was nice.

DM STYLE QUESTIONS
13) how was pacing?
Jeremy: you and Tom make a good team. We're a bunch of goofballs and you kinda have to ride us.
Rachel: having a schedule for the epic fight helped.

14) what was your favorite mechanical encounter?
Rachel: the battle of white fields and nuking the temple
Tony: the early goblin fights with good use of terrain
Jeremy: the huge charisma/diplomacy battle with Abel. Heavy involvement there.
Scott: the guys with antimagic tricks
Tom: the fight in Old Rojin. All sorts of abilities at all different levels got used. And I think our answers here show, we're looking for different things from the game and you gave them to us.
Jeremy: and it allowed Catherine to grow.

15) Who were your favorite NPCs?
Tony: Enigma and the giant brothers
Rachel: yep, enigma and Anor
Scott: Snow... oh wait, different campaign...
Catherine: Minnelin
Tom: Abel... he wasn't fully a villain
Jeremy: Crazy Jared
Rachel: he'll always be a favorite

16) who were your favorite villains?
Rachel and Jeremy: Abel
Tony: Vash
Tom: Ghern -- they were lawful and motivated
Scott: Kelzun with the 1/4 mile of death

17) what about your favorite organization or nation?
Catherine: Westlay
Jeremy: agreed, the contests and festivals they held were collegiate, not brutish
Tony: the marruspawn were original, intriguing, and myserious
Tom: the kingsmen

18) what was your favorite story arc or event?
Scott: the epic summon
Jeremy: there are lots to choose from
Rachel: when we saw the mindfog guy back in session 1. Also the stormchild thing
Tom: gathering allies, not just going to bash things
Catherine: Michael and Jakob's quest
Tony: I don't want to sound too selfish, but yeah, those.

19) what was your favorite role-playing by someone else?
Rachel: Jakob donating to orphanages and monasteries
Tony: Flynn and Nate sticking to their roles, and Ike's jerky
Catherine: Nate's pragmatism
Tom: Lotus's different state of mind. Also Ike sleeping, rolling over to crit the wolf, and going back to sleep.

20) what was your favorite session?
Scott: EPIC SUMMON!
Jeremy: we were just rollin' and being funny that whole time.
Tom and Catherine: the cleric scrying on himself.
Rachel: we got so much joy out of that
Scott: taking the bow out of Ike's hands really pissed me off
Tony: Jakob jumping on the nightwing

21) was the boss fight good?
Rachel: very good. Would've got boring if it was longer.
Jeremy: watching Tony unload... damn!
Tom: the enemies had personality
Tony: they felt like good threats, like they could've killed us.

22) what engaged you the most?
Scott: I was always engaged, every week.
Jeremy: that's remarkable. It remained fresh and exciting.
Tony: there's only one group I've had this much fun with. Never had a series of campaigns last this long. Story involvement, characters, backstories...
Rachel: I liked being part of the campaign world and backstory
Tom: I liked watching other players succeed
Jeremy: we all had moments where someone else pulled something off and we're all "YAY"
Catherine: Tony and Tom's synergy scares me
Scott: it felt like I was stealing the show sometimes
Tom: we were all so badass. We all stole the show. And we built good relationships.
Jeremy: you created a playground other people wanted to play in.