Out of Character

Those were some (expectedly) harsh yet very accurate comments. I recently realized that saying the players "okay this is not much fun now but it will be" is meaningless at its core because every scene in a play is meaningful and should be orchestrated so that all of the players can enjoy it. I hope you can take my excuse as a newbie GM for not handling that bit as good as I should.

I don’t want to comment on the effects of your choices here, just that they were not as "effectless" as it seems to you. But still, I’m very happy with your contributions and the characters you have developed throughout. I really respect you for keeping up with the game, as well as some great roleplaying. I’m grateful I get to play with you.

First of all, thanks for running this for us, ireneofunyes, and for asking for feedback -- it's by far the fastest way to improve as a GM, and to make adjustments to a game to improve the experience for everyone.

Take my comments as you will -- just my opinion, and they are intended to be constructive rather than bitchy. :)

Qralloq nails it -- at least at the moment, this seems to be a scenario that's kind of at-odds with the traditional style of play that Fate is known for. Some Fate games actually aren't all that open-ended -- there are specific settings and conceits... but one constant is for the PCs to *matter*, for their decisions to really impact how the plot and game unfold, and even for them to be able to affect the fiction itself in small ways. The classic example is a character in a warehouse using Create an Advantage to state that not only are crates present, but they are big and tough enough to provide cover. Someone else might build on that and decide what's in those crates. You can see how this is kind of at odds with the little railroad at the start of this adventure.

I've been suspecting that some of the choices early on will affect things later, and that's fine, but just be aware of something as a GM: some players, when either their full agency is taken away, or it becomes clear that their agency is a mirage, that nothing they do matters in the moment, nothing affects the fiction -- that might be a big enough turn-off that they will just up and quit. Many Fate players are in this camp, as they are playing specifically to collaborate and have that agency and effect on the world.

System-wise, just remember: only ask for rolls when failure is just as interesting an outcome as success...

Hope this helps!

Yeah, railroading is the right word for it. I as a player highly dislike railroad gaming, even in video games but I think they are even more frustrating in table top RPGs. I planned the campaign to be this kind of an experience from the beginning but I guess an experienced and clever GM would turn it into a fruitful and more Fate-like game. I’m not that GM (hopefully, yet) but I will try to make you experience that agency as much as possible throughout the rest of the game.

That is the best thing you could have said. I've found you to be a kind and active member of GP. Thanks for giving this a shot and I look forward to what comes next in this game. The mystery you've set up is definitely interesting.

Yeah, don't be hard on yourself. Just learn from it!

[Bad news, many years in, I'm still learning. :) ]

I won't beat a dead horse repeating what everyone else has already said. I'll just add that I was having fun with that last scene before you ended it, and I'd have liked to play it out more. I'm enjoying playing Hariette, and the interactions with the other players, and I'm looking forward to the story continuing.

I'm not qualified to say much since Fate is new to me but I am enjoying my character too.

Glad to hear that! I have plans coming up.
Please don’t feel that way. You don’t have to comment on how accurate this game is for a Fate game, I’d like to hear your opinions on your experience throughout.

@FluxCapacitor, how about you?

Lastly, let’s set a deadline before we start the next session. I’m proposing Thursday night. I’ll start the next session sometimes during Friday (we’re probably on different time zones so it’ll depend on where you are). Until Thursday night (17 March) I’d like for you to finish:

-Details of your characters after minor milestone like stunts, aspects, or any other option rules allow you. You can continue as it is, of course, if that’s what you prefer but remember that if you don’t make any changes to stunts and aspects, you can only change them after another minor/major milestone after that, so you will kind of miss your chance.

-Ideas for your ship. I kind of went with "ships as characters" concept where I designed the ship as a character, gave it some skills and stunts etc but as I said before you are free to do whatever you want. I remember a suggestion about an AI planted to the ship, for example. I’d like to hear your opinions on how you’d like to proceed this.

-Lastly, this is not something you must do but you can both give some suggestions for the larger setting and worldbuilding or for your characters as well. These things will sort themselves out during the game probably but if you have any ideas or concepts you’d like to explore I’m open for it. You can also ask me to clarify some things I set on the beginning.

I'll see what I can do by Thursday, but here's an advanced heads-up: I'm going to be on vacation and likely not reading / posting much from March 19-27th...

Oh, hope you’ll have fun on your vacation. If you’ll be completely unavailable, then we can postpone our starting date to 27th or 28th. If you can post (although seldom) during that time then we’ll start when you’ll be able to finish your character. A hiatus that long may not be so good for the general game but we can if we must. Or, alternatively, we (you and I) can make something up why your character is unable at the moment (like you passing out or something).

I think you should proceed -- don't wait that long. Chances are decent I'll be able to post a couple of times, and if not, just put Hiro in a situation where you're not waiting on him...

My two cents - I liked the intro scene, and felt it was a bit like the teaser at the beginning of a show episode. It gives a bit of flavor and piques your interest. Maybe because I was anticipating that, I didn't have expectations that we were going to have a whole lot of agency in this scene. More that it was going to be chance for the players to get to know each others characters a bit and establish a little bit of their relationships before we dive in to the meat of it.

As for timing, I'm up for staying on pace. I'm really liking everybody's characters and their distinct personalities. I think everybody did a great job and I'm looking forward to seeing where this goes.

Great. I'm really happy that you engaged with the story and liked it. For the timing, we're back withh the original deadline. You finish those character details until Thursday night (or Friday morning for some) then during Friday I'll post the next step.

I think I'm looking to add one more aspect, and likely not adding any stunts or changing skills. I feel like Hariette ought to have had an aspect that applied to that mental attack, but she didn't, so I will think of something

Unfortunately I won’t be posting until tomorrow due to some personal issues. I’ll get the story going as soon as I find the time. Sorry for delay.

No worries, RL comes first. We'll be here.

Three more days before I'm back from vaca and on a more regular schedule...

Still looking for comments on the ship stunt? It doesn't follow normal Fate conventions, though plenty of Fate games use stunts in more flexible ways...

Yeah, we can discuss it. As I mentioned you can modify it as you like. It was merely a placeholder.

Is everything alright? You seem reluctant to post since we started Session 2.