Post One-Shot Feedback.

Hey everyone. I know the one shot was pretty rough. I'm looking to do more Tier 3, maybe eventually Tier 4 PbP one shots, and I want to learn from each. Please use this thread to discuss feedback. Please keep it constructive.

There is also a google forms I created. Please fill it out here.

I thought it was good for the most part. What I would have liked was for the battle map in addition to being in its own thread to also be in the main thread so as to avoid going back and forth.... maybe even just a link. Good Job!

Yeah, I could have posted a link more often. I tried doing it in the comments, but personally i found keeping it straight was harder. I had it in my DM character sheet, where I already had a lot of monster info and roll tables, and if I realized a mistake after I posted it I had to fix it twice, once there and once in the post. I found doing it in its own thread was easier, though a link would have been good. I'll try to remember.

Here's a question for everyone.

First context. It isn't too uncommon in one shots to say that everything takes place in one adventuring day and thus no long rest. This is both because a long rest undoes all resources drained and it removes tension.

That said, do you guys think a one shot such as this one would have been better with a long rest after one or more fights, even if the fights had to be deadlier to compensate for you having all your strongest stuff multiple fights, or is what was done better?

I don't think I will do the heroic tests in the future. It was designed more as a compensation for if there was non-stop action so you still got something between fights, but this one shot had at least 2 moments a full short rest would have been appropriate so it was a bad one shot for it.

Pretty rough is not bad. We knew it will be deadly. In my books TPK is a fine one-shot-ending ending

I've playing in community where we had one-shot rule: 8 hours is a short rest, 1 hour nothing. No LR during the one-shot (unless DM decides an exception). I believe it is either as per DMG optional rule or stolen from eberron mournland. I was rejecting the idea at start, but get used to it.

I provided my other comments in the form, but felt like skill challenge aspect were not emphasized in the form. I don't think there were problem with it's implementation, I've just realized I don't like skill challenges in general. I would suggest next time you create a one shot and plan to use skill challenges as main option to resolve out of combat challenges, let your players know that when hiring...

Alright, now that I am officially dead...

From a GM standpoint I think the game went very well overall. I think as players we could have done better (and probably won), but it is what it is.

I will say, there were a few times I probably wouldn't have used the shield spell that you sort of auto-used it for me. I know it was to keep things moving, but the flipside is by the time I got back I sometimes felt sort of obligated to roll with it, just because enough time had passed and other things had happened that I didn't want to back the game up that far.

That's the closest thing I have to a criticism, though, so again -- not bad at all.

I understand what you said about the shield spell. What would you like me to do if I was to run another one shot for you and you had the shield spell available again? The difficult thing comes when enemies have some attacks that inflict something that affects later attacks, like the constrict action, that I kind of need to know soon how that went so I know if the future attacks have advantage or not.

The real answer -- even if it's the one no one really likes -- is to wait.

I know how that can be when you consider time zones, sleep schedules, jobs/school, and other variables that make PbP what it is... but I still feel it's the best answer.

So I wanted to make sure to give good feedback here as well as the survey.

Positives
I felt like I was able to live out my character build fantasy REALLY well. Everything from showing off the Triton race, paladin smiting and Barbarian raging. Everything added up to a great gameplay experience for me. Heck there were times where it felt like my character was being targeted specifically and because of how it was going it just felt like "yes this is what I want!"

Everything felt fairly adjudicated, how you as a DM would rule was clear and consistent

Love the setting and the character restrictions to the specific setting made for interesting decisions to be made

High level play was fun, and allowed me to take a general build I have wanted to play and adjust it to fit the game well

Could be improved
Wasn't my favorite rest mechanics, while I get it could be the module/adventure design it does seem like it punished some classes more than others (not mine but Warlocks/Monks/Fighters get put on some restrictions that steered me away from them)

The encounters really heavily relied on "now the PC's can't do anything" mechanics, and while I know some of that is needed for difficult gameplay, every encounter and enemy having something along these lines was a little rough, especially the "auto" restrained on everything

Bouncing between threads for combat information was tough as said before

Overall
I really enjoyed this game and would play with you as DM again and everyone else here as well. Had a blast.

So I thought I'd share my thoughts as well.
Lessons Learned
First, the "heroic rest" did not work out. I was trying to go for an adventure where there was such a time crunch that you wouldn't really be able to rest, but in reality there were a few times you could have taken a short rest like normal, like after the boat and after the dragon fight. There wasn't a long rest as by midnight you could still fight Hythonia but the king's daughter would have been a gorgon. Maybe I could have given you a choice to take a long rest, but I didn't think any of you would want to lose at half of the quest.

Second, the legendary resistance was meh. Probably not enough spellcasters to really test, but overall probably sticking with the old system would have worked better.

Lastly, i'm not sure how I felt about the potions i gave hythonia, but I greatly regret the potion of flying. Not sure why I felt the need to use it. I think the potion of heroism and the potion of giant strength were enough, if even too much.

I had originally planned to have a skill challenge to get the boat to the island through the rocky shore, but was bewildered when the party didn't want to bring the boat to shore at all and as such what I thought was going to be cinematic was instead avoided by player choice. This was not on the players, but instead on me for having a solution in mind instead of having a problem and letting the players do as they wished. As such, make future one-shots more open ended to see what the players come up with rather than assuming "players must do x at this location".

Players will always screw up your awesome plans. 🤣🤣

We can't stress enough, you did great as our GM and more than anything else it was fun. At the end of the day -- that's what matters most.

Exactly! Had a great time and it’s great that your taking feedback and actively trying to become a better gm.

I also want to say, while I don't think this was a great adventure for the epic rests. I do see value in the attempt in how to do it.

There is an adventure module I want to run that has a short rest problem, the nature of the adventure is a non-stop 3-4 quick battles.

Again while I don't know if it worked for this adventure the attempt was a solid iteration of something I wouldn't give up on.

Since this adventure is over, I'm thinking I should retire it so it doesn't take up space on everyone's Games feed, though retired doesn't mean you can't go back and look over it. I'm thinking by next monday, 8/5, i'll retire it unless someone has a reason for me to not do that yet.

I have 3 replies to the survey so far. Filling it out is not required, but if the other 2 players who have not could do so, more feedback means more to go off on in the future.

I've already finished a GM character sheet for another one shot, level 15, default "fantasy land" setting. Trying to decide how long to wait before I post an interest check thread.

It was a short and enjoyable one shot, and I don't have anything to add that hasn't been highlighted before. Maybe I'm still giddy the Dice Gods let me survive and pull off that epic last minute kill. Fitting for Theros.

Final note: I enjoyed a good game with a good DM and good fellow players, and I'd definitely be up for another go-round.

I would echo what annex said. Also level 15 one-shot would be fun. High level is really fun to try and build something unique you don't see normally.

Can I just go on record as saying that we knew in advance we were taking on a Medusa Queen, so the fact no one else took blindsight (or Devil's Sight with Darkness) is wild to me. 🤣🤣🤣

I mean, I am a barbarian who can cancel disadvantage with Reckless Attack. I took Fog Cloud...hoping others took blind fighting/blindsight stuff.

When I post the next game, i'm not going to say what the boss is. I'm not sure if it is a good or bad idea for the players to know what a final boss of a one shot is every time (stuff like this one it made sense) as high level players are already super powerful and if they knew they were going to fight a vampire and came with a group of clerics and paladins, the vampire wouldn't stand a chance and it might be too easy.

What do you guys think on knowing the final boss of a one shot during character creation? And if players do know and choose options to make the fight easier, should the DM let the boss fight play out normally knowing that it might end up being too easy due to PC optimization, or should they add in wrinkles to keep it challenging?

Here’s a twist. Maybe next time make it themed. For instance all pcs are thieves or kobolds etc