Retrospective - KTK RP

[Flyg0n]

Thank you everyone for participating in the first mission of Ktk! Keldeo has been successfully freed from his toxic corruption, but it is clear now that whatever affected him has likely spread to the other legends...

Now that the main scope of the mission is over, I’d love to have a retrospective, as this was essentially a test run for the concept.

I would love to hear everything about your impressions of this little campaign! The good, bad and ugly. It’ll go a long way toward helping me plan future missions. Please feel free to share about any aspect of the campaign, both good and bad, what worked and what didn’t work for you.

I know the campaign ran long (a combo of things, one being that I was sick the first week and moved a bit slow) but regardless, I’d like to hear thoughts.

Some starter questions, but don’t limit yourself to these if you have other things to share! You don’t have to answer every one of these either. Even a brief 'I enjoyed everything!' is still helpful.

• How did the pace of the campaign feel; With regards to the amount of events? Did it feel like a particular obstacle took too long or not long enough? Did you want more or less obstacles?
• Did you enjoy the events themselves, or did you find them confusing or dull?
• Was any aspect of the campaign either too fast or slow (keeping in mind the intention of a 2-3 week campaign)?
• Did you find the concept of the ‘Resolve’ mechanic fun?
• Was the intended length suitable (2 weeks)?
• Did the general arc of the campaign and the proving of honor feel engaging?
• Would you join future campaigns?
• Were there any ooc or ic aspects that confused you or felt unclear?
• What were your favorite parts?
• Any questions about anything (even thought processes and such!)
  
  I also welcome questions about planning, cut or changed content, ideas and impressions about future campaigns, or stuff about the setting!

Thank you!

 

[Nekodatta]

- I think the amount of obstacles was right, most of the focus has to be on the legendary fight after all. Especially with so many people participating, most obstacles would have made it drag on too much, less obstacles and maybe someone that had to be less active in a specific part would miss on the occasion of contributing.

- Kind of correlated to the previous point, I quite liked it. There was maybe a bit of confusion in the part with the Mantine where people had to coordinate attacks (and maybe someone that didn't have specific types or decided to do something different could feel a bit left out, like... Breve that iirc remained at the beach), but again I think that's mostly because with so many people interacting in a RP it becomes inevitable.

- I liked it a lot! I hope something similar comes back for other legendaries and I'm really curious about what "gimmick" they each couple have now!!

- I already can't wait to throw Turo at the poor guys that will have to deal with him lol

- My favourite part was definitely the battle itself, but I also really enjoyed the part with the Mankeys and how it was resolved.

 

[Seren]

I'm gonna spoiler box this because it got a bit long, but I do enjoy reflecting on stuff once it's over...

Spoiler: ...and I just enjoy filling out questionnaires.

• How did the pace of the campaign feel; With regards to the amount of events? Did it feel like a particular obstacle took too long or not long enough? Did you want more or less obstacles?

I'll start by noting my own limitations in terms of activity, especially early on; I note this because I feel the game did move a little quickly. However, had I been able to respond multiple times, or even once a day, I might have felt differently here. (It is an irl issue that occupied my time, nothing about the game itself, so nothing that could be helped on my end.)

• Did you enjoy the events themselves, or did you find them confusing or dull?

I'd have to go back and look, but did we ever get an answer for why Keldeo beat up and imprisoned the mantine? I did enjoy both, the mantine and the sword-wielding mankey, but they felt a little... disconnected. The mankey side quest especially. I think the idea was that, living in Keldeo's realm, they were passively and subconsciously affected by the corruption that Keldeo was suffering from?

I did enjoy the concept though, and the resolution. I feel like talking the mankey down and reminding them of why they fight was a good hint at what to expect for Keldeo.

• Was any aspect of the campaign either too fast or slow (keeping in mind the intention of a 2-3 week campaign)?

Aside from my previously noted difficulties, no. I do feel like it would have been paced just fine had I managed to stay on top of it, which again, is on me and not you nor the pacing of the game.

• Did you find the concept of the ‘Resolve’ mechanic fun?

Yes, although I did feel like this was, in essence, an alpha test. Talking him down seemed to lower it almost too easily, and... I'm not entirely sure what effects, if any, that had other than towards the very end when it finally approached/reached zero. I know when the battle is mostly abstracted in the RP it's a little difficult exactly to make it truly 'matter' aside from being the finish line players need to cross, but I wonder if there's possibly a way to make it feel a bit more relevant during the process?

• Was the intended length suitable (2 weeks)?

Definitely, love the idea of little bite-sized nuggets of content here and there!

• Did the general arc of the campaign and the proving of honor feel engaging?

Not sure I'm qualified to answer this one since mostly I left it to everyone else due to my own inability to go into too much detail with it. I do, however, feel like this was... quite a lot of people at once. Probably just for the first test run, but I think having slightly smaller groups would be both more interesting as well as easier to follow. There were a lot of posts to read and I'll admit I spent a lot of time skimming rather than reading just to get caught up. (Again, though, I'm willing to write this off as a 'me' issue.)

• Would you join future campaigns?

Definitely! I'm assuming here, but my guess is that while they're all going to be somewhat unique in terms of flavor, they're all linked by this over-arching main problem of something corrupting the legends. Assuming it's one main thing, we'll probably get hints of new information with every legend saved... so I guess my concern there is making sure the relevant information from previous completed missions is somehow passed on to future players who may not have participated or read all of them. Like, I think the goal was to ensure that anyone can jump in and out on a mission-by-mission basis, so that presents the issue of making sure everyone has what they need to do so.

• Were there any ooc or ic aspects that confused you or felt unclear?

I'll admit to some hesitation in regards to the mankey sidequest prior to actually doing it. It felt a bit like 'we have a job and we know what it is but let's go screw around over here first'. Not sure how to put this into words. But like... I guess it felt like we knew we weren't going to find Keldeo there but we stopped anyway (in-setting) for the fun of it, when we didn't really need to. I let it go on the merit of meta-knowledge, thinking 'well we wouldn't be shown this if it wasn't meant to be interacted with', rather than a more in-character reason of 'this is going to be an important pit stop so we should do it' if that makes sense?

• What were your favorite parts?

Admittedly, being the battle fiend that I am, I quite enjoyed that Orzo-Lite style of RP battling. Not necessarily with direct damage calculations and whatnot, but just being able to read and respond to the flow and have that be, largely, the most important part.

Also sword-wielding mankey is a spectacular mental image, thank you for that one.

 

[System Error]

- Pace was okay. Nothing was too slow. Though the one day time limits in the battle led to some late nights, probably worth a mention even if I could pull it off. Definitely worked on others however, which is a good thing. Intended length, yeah, it needed more, but it ended up 3 which didn't feel too long.
- Well, besides the inevitable confrontation, the Mankey thing was fine. A good sidequest, though that one ended up really disjointed in places due to inevitable ANTICS. You handled it well that said, not really letting them blow things up. Mixed thoughts on Free Mantine. Though that was more due to how it turned out in practice rather than the puzzle itself.
- Hm, the resolve mechanic mostly boiled down to talking down while beating down. It gave a bit more for the less battle inclined to do and led to some fun moments. That said, wouldn't mind seeing it varied up or simply winning being a possible option once low enough instead of necessarily having to reduce it to zero. Or something like standard defeat resulting in a big hit to their stat before recovery.
- Yeah, the arc worked. I absolutely had the opposite character for it though. Which was different! Had to flex my creativity to figure out ways that Nori could still make a point.
- Absolutely joining more. Already have ideas, heh.
- Nothing really confused IC/OoC. Even if that doesn't hold true IC. Having played actual tabletop games in the past, I know that Mankey Island was a sidequest for treasure.
- Favorite part was by far the slow countdown of emptying the resolve bar, that was some good stuff. On the personal side, any time I got to make Nori look dumb or silly. And that he gave the wrong impression at least once, thanks @Shiny Phantump for running with that, heh.
- Big fan of cut/changed content, so would love to hear about that. Had at least one 'just in case' line myself, where Nori explains self-defense laws when it comes to wild Pokemon way too specifically even for someone who should know. Or cut a couple extra sentences going into further detail about his past plight which made explicit he was once the good 'honorless' to a bad 'honorable' because it could be inferred anyway.

 

[canisaries]

Thank you for running the game! Here are my thoughts.

• I thought the pace was good. In fact, had it gone faster, I probably wouldn't have been able to keep up.
• I enjoyed the events.
• I can't recall if I felt like any particular moments were slower or faster than the others.
• I really enjoyed the Resolve mechanic. It felt like a puzzle to solve.
• As said before, I think the length it ended up taking was better. However, I know that might not be the case for everyone.
• I had some trouble with the combat, but I think that was 100% me not knowing how to RP combat. I very much enjoyed the proving of honor.
• I'm not sure if I'll join future parts, but that's for personal reasons. I underestimated the amount of effort it took to keep track of two RP games simultaneously.
• I think in some places I wasn't totally sure of the details of the environment. I remember wanting to write about my character's feet planting into the ground, but not being sure what kind of terrain it actually was, I decided not to risk it, and it felt like too minor of a thing to ask about.
• As my previous points already suggest, my favorite part was debating honor with Keldeo.
• No questions at this time.

 

[Flyg0n]

Kind of correlated to the previous point, I quite liked it. There was maybe a bit of confusion in the part with the Mantine where people had to coordinate attacks (and maybe someone that didn't have specific types or decided to do something different could feel a bit left out, like... Breve that iirc remained at the beach), but again I think that's mostly because with so many people interacting in a RP it becomes inevitable

That makes sense! Unfortunately with some things it's hard to let everyone get into everything but after this test run may also plan to split groups or have player limits. And finding a way to coordinate a little more, perhaps with some GMPC input more. I avoided trying to GM too much since I like to give players freedom, but I also want to avoid any needless confusion.

- I already can't wait to throw Turo at the poor guys that will have to deal with him lol

Oh my gosh yessss hype

I note this because I feel the game did move a little quickly. However, had I been able to respond multiple times, or even once a day, I might have felt differently here. (It is an irl issue that occupied my time, nothing about the game itself, so nothing that could be helped on my end.)

Yeaaahh such is the nature, alas. I am glad you could be there for the end though! Drapion was fantastic and having him be able to try and attack keldeo since he is immune was delightful.

I did enjoy the concept though, and the resolution. I feel like talking the mankey down and reminding them of why they fight was a good hint at what to expect for Keldeo.

I'm glad to hear! The Mankey was definitely a setup to give players a hint of what to expect for Keldeos fight.

Assuming it's one main thing, we'll probably get hints of new information with every legend saved... so I guess my concern there is making sure the relevant information from previous completed missions is somehow passed on to future players who may not have participated or read all of them

That's a good point! I think there won't be too much big info for new players to get but most likely I should be able to use in character explanations from Clink or other gmpcs to deliver key Intel.

I'll admit to some hesitation in regards to the mankey sidequest prior to actually doing it. It felt a bit like 'we have a job and we know what it is but let's go screw around over here first'. Not sure how to put this into words. But like... I guess it felt like we knew we weren't going to find Keldeo there but we stopped anyway (in-setting) for the fun of it, when we didn't really need to. I let it go on the merit of meta-knowledge, thinking 'well we wouldn't be shown this if it wasn't meant to be interacted with', rather than a more in-character reason of 'this is going to be an important pit stop so we should do it' if that makes sense?

Hah, yeah. It is a bit diversion supported by meta. There's an in character case of "well maybe we can help pokemon in trouble"
(and actually they were planned to play a brief assist in the final fight but there was already so much happening it was too much to add).

I do think there's a case to be made for tying things together a bit more seamlessly though, so I'm glad you brought it up.

Also sword-wielding mankey is a spectacular mental image, thank you for that one.

It really is
Originally there was set to be two islands, one with Mankey and one with Honedge but the image of them together was just too fun.

Pace was okay. Nothing was too slow. Though the one day time limits in the battle led to some late nights, probably worth a mention even if I could pull it off. Definitely worked on others however, which is a good thing. Intended length, yeah, it needed more, but it ended up 3 which didn't feel too long.

Thank you for letting me know!

Maybe in the future I'll try and arrange better time limits that are a little longer, and if necessary shorten other sections slightly to smooth things over.

It definitely was pretty quick paced but I could probably get away with a bit extra length. I'm feeling 3 weeks may be a better time frame but we'll see.

Mixed thoughts on Free Mantine. Though that was more due to how it turned out in practice rather than the puzzle itself.

Oh that's interesting! Can you elaborate a bit? Was this due to either confusion or participation with lack of moves to use/etc?

Hm, the resolve mechanic mostly boiled down to talking down while beating down. It gave a bit more for the less battle inclined to do and led to some fun moments. That said, wouldn't mind seeing it varied up or simply winning being a possible option once low enough instead of necessarily having to reduce it to zero. Or something like standard defeat resulting in a big hit to their stat.

Yeah, this is definitely an alpha run for Resolve (and part of why I picked Keldeo, so I could stay pretty simple.) I definitely want to experiment with more variety! The talking here happened to end up being more effective than even I anticipated. It'd be cool in the future to have extra mechanics to blend in and help the battle savvy have some extra fun.

I agree though. I think there's ways I'd like to vary it more to give players with different interests ways to also participate.

It happened that players didn't end up getting a KO, thanks to how stuff played out, but doing so definitely would have lowered his resolve.

Big fan of cut/changed content, so would love to hear about that. Had at least one 'just in case' line myself, where Nori explains self-defense laws when it comes to wild Pokemon way too specifically even for someone who should know. Or cut a couple extra sentences going into further detail about his past plight which made explicit he was once the good 'honorless' to a bad 'honorable' because it could be inferred anyway.

There was planned a third island, in case the group was truly massive (so 13+ active) where the group would split. Players would find a phantom Kyrem and a broken horn from Keldeo. Players would have had to figure out how to approach the situation (ambush, debate, sneaking etc). For lore and time reasons this didn't slot in well... Almost also split the group at with the mankey/honedge island into two seperate islands, but I think it worked kind of fun, even if it was chaotic, to have everyone together.

There could have been a final phase to the fight but because of timing and most of all, player impact and behaviour, this was subverted.

But future obstacles I could see myself planning splits to give more players a chance to get in, and let players interested in different situations to pick...

It'll be fun to see more of Nori's convictions and past in the future, there are some very distant ideas that might prove interesting.... I also got a kick out of seeing him have his moments of being accidentally goofy or silly.

I had some trouble with the combat, but I think that was 100% me not knowing how to RP combat. I very much enjoyed the proving of honor.

I'm glad you liked that! I wanted to have a situation that had players less combat inclined still able to have impact. In the future I hope you feel comfortable trying to either learn if you want or asking for advice (if you ever felt up to another)! These are pretty chill so if you wanted to try and get the swing of things more its not a bad spot.

I think in some places I wasn't totally sure of the details of the environment. I remember wanting to write about my character's feet planting into the ground, but not being sure what kind of terrain it actually was, I decided not to risk it, and it felt like too minor of a thing to ask about.

ahahah yeah, thanks for mentioned. I am quite guilty of floating void spaces on accident, since its clear in my head and I forget to put it to paper. I'll make note of that for the future. But don't worry, little details like that are perfectly fine to ask, i don't really consider anything too minor honestly.

Glad the other parts were fun for you! Samson was a good foil to have around and I liked seeing his approach and Keldeo needling him for standing up for himself. Pokemon Mewtwo movie moment tbh. "fight me">"No"

---

As said before, I think the length it ended up taking was better. However, I know that might not be the case for everyone.

Honestly I kind of find myself agreeing...

---

A question to everyone: I found that three weeks is actually a rather nice length potentially! The projected end was two, but I am curious if people find in general if one is preferable over the other. (of course, 3 weeks risks it turning 4 lol but such is the nature). An upside of 3 weeks is 11/2 weeks roughly of obstacles and the rest of time for boss fight, providing the mission has a boss fight.

Anyways, general thoughts on length of 2 vs 3 weeks is appreciated!

 

[Nekodatta]

Three weeks feels pretty natural to me and I would agree to making that the standard length

 

[Negrek]

Thanks for running this, Tetra! I had a lot of fun with this, and from everything I've seen, other people did, too! On the whole I think this was a very successful RP. To answer your questions...

How did the pace of the campaign feel; With regards to the amount of events? Did it feel like a particular obstacle took too long or not long enough? Did you want more or less obstacles?

I think the pacing was good. With 2-3 weeks to work with, I don't think you could add many more twists/obstacles, and having fewer would probably feel slight.

Did you enjoy the events themselves, or did you find them confusing or dull?

I enjoyed the events! I did like the mankey scene more than the mantine scene, I think because that one felt a bit more "characterful" and open in how it could be approached. The crystals seemed a bit more prescriptive (hit them with an appropriate attack), and I think made it a bit harder for some people to participate, since they didn't have attacks of an appropriate type. Puzzles that require a high amount of coordination are tricky, I think, because it's easy for plans to get thrown off by one person not doing what's expected or for things to bog down because everyone's waiting on one/two specific people to post.

I think at some points the large group size was a detriment, as the puzzles (and most RP puzzles, tbh) can be solved by usually like four to six people, max, working together, so then you just have a bunch of people standing around not feeling like they have much to contribute. I think it would be worth experimenting with splitting the party or introducing more elements that give players clear and distinct roles to play in scenes, like you mentioned trying. Or, of course, player limits, though I don't know that anyone wants that. :P

I did appreciate that with e.g. the mantine island you laid out a variety of different avenues for solving the problem: people could build a raft, some people could fly, some people could free mantine, etc. In theory this should have allowed people to contribute in a variety of ways, but I think in practice it can be hard to get people to do that; one method is jumped on by the most active players, or seems like the coolest/most interesting, and people pile on it and then find their character doesn't necessarily have anything to do there. It's tough!

I do agree with Seren that it would have been nice to tie the individual puzzles in with the broader story more--like, we were never going to skip mankey island, since going straight from freeing mantine to the final boss battle would have felt pretty anticlimactic! (To me, at least.) But ultimately that ended up feeling just like a detour that was fun from an RP perspective but didn't really fit in with the larger story, i.e. we could have skipped it without any impact. Which is exactly what it was intended to be, I think! But I think having there be a more concrete benefit to having gone and done the thing (and maybe a more clear motivations for characters to pursue them IC) would make these sorts of sidequests feel more rewarding. In this case I think the prize was supposed to be the berries, but if those ended up changing the parameters of the boss fight at all, it was unclear. The mankey attack you planned but ended up cutting would also have been good.

Was any aspect of the campaign either too fast or slow (keeping in mind the intention of a 2-3 week campaign)?

Not really. Things slowed down midweek, which I think is just inevitable with people's schedules. Worth it to keep in mind; I don't think you can do much about it.

Did you find the concept of the ‘Resolve’ mechanic fun?

Yes! I think you did a nice job of running a boss battle that was much more about roleplay and interactions than attacks and numbers as such. If there was anything I would like to see here, it might be to see some more integration of traditional pokémon battling/attacks with the "resolve" or RP elements. As you mentioned, Keldeo was never knocked out in this fight, but it also wasn't clear to me throughout how he was doing in terms of health/on the fighty side of things--most big combos seemed to have more of an impact in terms of lowering resolve rather than because they did damage as such, and regular attacks didn't seem to do much of anything. This makes sense because you want to incentivize teamwork and creative thinking more than "my pokémon has flamethrower and that's super effective, I'm going to have it use flamethrower" on repeat, but I wonder if there's any way that the battle side of things could be fleshed out so people who maybe don't have as much to contribute on the RP side of things still have something they can do, even if they aren't able to coordinate a big multi-attack with other people. It might be helpful for new players or people in unusual time zones, etc.

Was the intended length suitable (2 weeks)?

I think the actual amount of time the campaign ran (about three weeks) feels more comfortable than two weeks. I think the only way you're going to cover substantial ground in two weeks is if you have a lot of people open to posting multiple times a day, which is probably unrealistic in most circumstances. So regarding your new question--yes, I would vote three weeks.

Did the general arc of the campaign and the proving of honor feel engaging?

I thought the campaign felt fun and engaging throughout, and I thought the focus on honor tied things together with Keldeo nicely and gave the campaign a nice thematic core that people could latch onto with their RP if they wanted--it could get a little deeper than a typical D&D one-shot, "get through the dungeon and these small skirmishes, defeat the boss, you're done." I think there's an opportunity to draw that out more through the whole of the RP that might enhance the fun a bit.

Most of the discussion of honor came up in the final boss battle; it was kind of there in the mankey fight, where nobody was battling in an honorable way, but it didn't seem to have much to do with the mantine island, and the theme didn't feel fully developed up until the final fight. It might have been fun to include some "tests of honor" earlier on in the story, so that the boss battle could feel like more of a culmination of what the previous scenes had introduced. Maybe some characters start out skeptical of the idea, for example, but come to appreciate the importance after what happens to them in the pre-boss scenes. Maybe the party's honor could be more severely tested before reaching Keldeo--this would give characters the opportunity to fail during one of the earlier trials, then have a more dramatic reversal during the boss fight. (Whereas most people are not going to take the boss fight as a time to have their character fail in such a way that it would potentially hurt the rest of the team.) In general, I think bringing the theme forward more in the early parts of the campaign would give people more opportunities to use it as an inspiration for their RP or craft a character arc with it, if they felt so inclined.

I did really enjoy that people ended up taking a variety of different approaches to understanding honor in the final fight without them being penalized, though!

Would you join future campaigns?

Definitely!

Were there any ooc or ic aspects that confused you or felt unclear?

Nope.

What were your favorite parts?

Mankey scene and boss fight, certainly.

Any questions about anything (even thought processes and such!)

I'm really curious where you'll take this next! Are you planning to just work through the Swords of Justice, or are you thinking you might bounce around to other legends first?

I'm tickled that you had originally thought to do honedge + mankey separately, but ended up combining them. I do support sword monkeys; can't be mad about that choice. The potential scene with phantom Kyurem also sounded like fun--drawing from Gates to Infinity Keldeo lore there?

I'm also curious what the final stage of the fight would have been... I was kind of prepared for the water all over the arena to come into play somehow (e.g. it gets poisoned and then everybody there has to deal with the poison's effects), but I guess as it was that was just to provide some justification for Keldeo jetting around real fast?

 

[Hanafuda]

Three weeks, please.

 

[System Error]

Three is fine.

Oh that's interesting! Can you elaborate a bit? Was this due to either confusion or participation with lack of moves to use/etc?

It was set up so yeah, whoever jumps in and starts the cycle first gets to do it, everyone else got left out. In that case, Mighyena and friends. Like I mentioned OoC though, it fit Nori so I didn't mind much, but I imagine others might've gotten annoyed.

It'll be fun to see more of Nori's convictions and past in the future, there are some very distant ideas that might prove interesting....

Oh definitely. There will be meeting any of his assignments as a Pokemon Rehabilitator (since Pachi was a 'starter' gift). You'll see his future too, if only by necessity, though not that far ahead. Azelf should be the most interesting with him, for reasons. Of course, I can also bring my other protagonist Prema Kannagi instead, who should be interesting anywhere due to being a priestess. Or together if there's ever a chance.

(Speaking of future, I was hoping to use this to help figure out a scene near the end of his the current fic. It didn't work at all, because Nori is so variable that even though he had to go to a watery battlefield here, the different circumstances meant a different reaction. Really wasn't kidding when I said he might react unexpectedly.)

- I already can't wait to throw Turo at the poor guys that will have to deal with him lol

Random related thought I had, what if he/someone like him was here and brought one of the Metal Muskedeers along with him? Imagine Keldeo's "wtf" reaction. Of course, you could do it against the others.

 

[Seren]

A question to everyone: I found that three weeks is actually a rather nice length potentially! The projected end was two, but I am curious if people find in general if one is preferable over the other. (of course, 3 weeks risks it turning 4 lol but such is the nature). An upside of 3 weeks is 11/2 weeks roughly of obstacles and the rest of time for boss fight, providing the mission has a boss fight.

Honestly, I feel like three weeks does work a bit better! It gives you more wiggle room to shove in more complex sidequests, and it gives people who can't post every single day some leeway to get caught up without missing a segment entirely.

 

[Nekodatta]

Random related thought I had, what if he/someone like him was here and brought one of the Metal Muskedeers along with him? Imagine Keldeo's "wtf" reaction. Of course, you could do it against the others.

According to the fic canon, Turo only has a Miraidon and the Metal Muskedeers (love the name lol) haven't been created yet ... But it *would* be SO COOL I'm tempted to have him bring one as a second Pokémon, like an early prototype that's still in the "testing" phase before it becomes an actual Pokémon.
(In the Timeslip canon most future paradox work kinda like Banette and other Pokémon born from objects or created artificially. Like, only the first couple of them are actual literal robots developed artificially by humans, after they grow independent (if they're programmed well and simulate the original closely enough to act like a living being) they become actual Pokémon thanks to whatever Pokémon magic gives sentience to any other "inorganic" species. Pokémon like Miraidon simply did it naturally on their own.

 

[Flyg0n]

I was doing some rereading and apparently left this in the reply box and never finished??? Lol I am so so sorry everyone
Here's a timely reply

---

Thanks everyone for the input! It does seem like 3 weeks is pretty universally a nice length for a mini mission, so I'll see how that goes moving forward. I expect some may be longer and some that length.
2025-Me note: How do we feel about 6 weeks... asking for a friend...

Putting this under spoilers because lonk...

Spoiler

First, thank you very much for all the feedback! This is all extremely helpful insight!

Which is exactly what it was intended to be, I think! But I think having there be a more concrete benefit to having gone and done the thing (and maybe a more clear motivations for characters to pursue them IC) would make these sorts of sidequests feel more rewarding. In this case I think the prize was supposed to be the berries, but if those ended up changing the parameters of the boss fight at all, it was unclear. The mankey attack you planned but ended up cutting would also have been good.

Honestly true. Yeah I was originally going to try and do a bit more but whew, there ended up being so many moving pieces it was hard to add more. They did actually have an effect near the start of the boss fight but as the fight continued it became a bit trickier to keep up with and I wanted to focus more on flavor over background numbers.

In future missions with a large battle I might consider writing extra opponents or planning other elements to the battle. Between even accounting for Flygon, as well as keeping up with players actions I didn't want to overwhelm. Definitely gives me something to think about how to plan around for the future though!

In theory this should have allowed people to contribute in a variety of ways, but I think in practice it can be hard to get people to do that; one method is jumped on by the most active players, or seems like the coolest/most interesting, and people pile on it and then find their character doesn't necessarily have anything to do there. It's tough!

Yeah my hope was definitely that some people would work on some stuff, and other people could free Mantine, but its hard to avoid one option being a lot cooler hah. For small puzzles, I think if I have dupes, so multiple people can be involved, or design distinct but interesting variations that can work as well.

I think it would be worth experimenting with splitting the party or introducing more elements that give players clear and distinct roles to play in scenes, like you mentioned trying. Or, of course, player limits, though I don't know that anyone wants that. :P

Gosh yeah, this is one I have been mulling over and will continue to. I kind of knew going in for sure a large group would be hard, but it still helped me get a good a feel. But yeah, regardless, I'll be thinking about ways to write in good party splits. Player limits make me so sad . I just want everyone to be able to come if they want (especially not having to think about who to cut or invite for future missions).

I mentioned this briefly in a post further up, but I had considered multiple islands, with the Mankey being on one and Honedge on another. The split I had considered would be diplomatic inclined characters could pick one route, and fighty characters another, but there might have been some uneven disparity. I could still see something like that working for the future though, that way players with different interests can do the things they like best.

But if not a character/flavor split, could always just design split puzzles or dual puzzles.

As you mentioned, Keldeo was never knocked out in this fight, but it also wasn't clear to me throughout how he was doing in terms of health/on the fighty side of things--most big combos seemed to have more of an impact in terms of lowering resolve rather than because they did damage as such, and regular attacks didn't seem to do much of anything.

Originally I did plan to calculate it more, like I did with AQ's final fight. After turn 1 and 2 I lost track of tracking the numbers like I planned to do, and ended up focused more on flavor 😅.

I do agree that in the future, I should like to give a bit more clarity on that. I think it'll help balance flavor and move impact. On turn 1 players managed to knock off about 25% of his health. By that metric I believe based on my instictual calculations and memory of the fight, Keldeo would have ended up with about 20% of his health or so by the end, tops. Definitely near a KO.

I wonder if there's any way that the battle side of things could be fleshed out so people who maybe don't have as much to contribute on the RP side of things still have something they can do, even if they aren't able to coordinate a big multi-attack with other people.

Big agree. For missions with big fights I think I'll consider even posting some approixmated health values, since I have my background calculations. A little bit of numbers and mathing can be fun, and give that extra oomph. I'm always on the fence because I'm not math person and don't want players to feel like they have to minmax or have stuff be unbalanced, but I have some ideas for a middleground...

It might have been fun to include some "tests of honor" earlier on in the story, so that the boss battle could feel like more of a culmination of what the previous scenes had introduced.

Also big agree here. I'll definitely incorporate this into my notes and ideas for future campaigns, since I really want to explore lots of legends and their concepts. I had meant for this to show through more in interactions with Mankey and Honedge but I was also trying to be mindful of length. Now that I've practiced I have a better handle on how long certain things may take.

Maybe the party's honor could be more severely tested before reaching Keldeo--this would give characters the opportunity to fail during one of the earlier trials, then have a more dramatic reversal during the boss fight.

This is also a good idea, to build a nice mini story instead of just events, that way character can have a little arc and get tested more.

I did really enjoy that people ended up taking a variety of different approaches to understanding honor in the final fight without them being penalized, though!

Oh man yeah, this was my favorite and also hardest part. I wanted all kinds of characters to be able to give a pitch instead of just having to lie or conform to one opinion. Definitely my own favorite part because I had exactly zero plans or notes for this section beyond "keldeo's resolve will only go down if characters can prove their honor".

Everyone gave such fantastic takes on the idea 😭.Definitely got perspectives I hadn't even considered or expected.

I'm really curious where you'll take this next! Are you planning to just work through the Swords of Justice, or are you thinking you might bounce around to other legends first?

I would very much prefer to bounce around, hah. Otherwise I'll end up working my way through by set, but I think I'd like to chance to explore whatever catches my fancy. Plus mix things up.

(2025-me note: I have some strong ideas for other legends and myths so definitively bouncing around is the plan. There's some meta/in-universe reasons I have to justify but ultimately its just more fun for me and easier than trying to only do sets).

The potential scene with phantom Kyurem also sounded like fun--drawing from Gates to Infinity Keldeo lore there?

Actually the Keldeo movie is where I got a lot of inspiration from (soundtrack too!). Honestly one of my top fav pokemon films of the newer ones. I had no idea GTI had Kyurem/Keldeo stuff.

I'm also curious what the final stage of the fight would have been... I was kind of prepared for the water all over the arena to come into play somehow (e.g. it gets poisoned and then everybody there has to deal with the poison's effects), but I guess as it was that was just to provide some justification for Keldeo jetting around real fast?

.... wow that would have been really cool. * furiously makes notes *

One part of the final phase concept would have involved Keldeo trying to use other pokemon inhabitants as shields to get the group to stop attacking, and I briefly contemplated dynamax. Also had the potential to cheat and use healing items on himself. None of these quite came into play because I felt that between time constraints and player actions, it had enough impact.

It was set up so yeah, whoever jumps in and starts the cycle first gets to do it, everyone else got left out. In that case, Mighyena and friends. Like I mentioned OoC though, it fit Nori so I didn't mind much, but I imagine others might've gotten annoyed.

Ahhh yeah i know see what you mean. Thanks for pointing that out, definitely something I plan to address for future campaigns.

 

[candycanearter07]

Hi, when are signups starting?

 

[Flyg0n]

.... 😅 This is a retrospective. That means its for an already finished campaign. This one finished well over a year ago too, I had just forgotten some replies.

Bench has one starting in July, if you want something there's that

 

[candycanearter07]

great thanks for the helpful tip