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elanya at 07:20am on 08/06/2005
elanya at 07:20am on 08/06/2005I am dissapointed in the session I ran last night. In hindsight (of course), I can see a lot of things I could have done better, but didn't. I had some disoorganizational issues in combat which can mostly be chalked up to me being lazy about things I normally do. I'll chalk that up to being sunbaked and tired. Probably when you are working outside in the sun all day it is probably not the peak time to run something that requires a lot of concentration. On the other hand, I know that I am more than cabale of making the same kinds of errors without excuses... just less regularly, I supose.
That is just one of the issues though. I tihnk that in some senses, the story I am trying to run is not really suited to an online format. It requires too many opponents. I didn't really think that this would be an issue, but of course, you can't account for PCs! It took them longer to getting around to picking off the token orcs than I expected.
But even that is something that I could have dealt with if I'd thought about it. I'm less dissapointed in myself for not running the combat well, because I know I could have done a better job on a different day. What I am mostly dissapointed in is that not everyone seemed to enjoy the *rest* of the session as much as I would have hoped. I'm not shouldering all the responsability for that (just some)... I know a few of my players were not in top form, and that sort of thing can affect the energy of the game. There are other factors too... but I should eat my toast, and get dressed (and over it), hmm?
I'll just have to hope that next session is more fun!
We started excavating at the church yesterday, and we found somoene else's trench in my untiy. We figured we would. It is actaully a good thing, because the church is hoping we *don't* find anything, so we can put in a sump pump. So, we are going to dig that out to see what that archaeologist did (We have her reports, but we don't know how deep she went, for example), and then excavate the rest of the unit.
Of course, we didn't cover the unit last nght, and *here* at least, we had a giant thundershower of *doom*! Shuld be fun. :p
ETA: I dropped my toast ;_; At least there is Diablotin tonight! We just won't think about how it is the second to last session ;_;
That is just one of the issues though. I tihnk that in some senses, the story I am trying to run is not really suited to an online format. It requires too many opponents. I didn't really think that this would be an issue, but of course, you can't account for PCs! It took them longer to getting around to picking off the token orcs than I expected.
But even that is something that I could have dealt with if I'd thought about it. I'm less dissapointed in myself for not running the combat well, because I know I could have done a better job on a different day. What I am mostly dissapointed in is that not everyone seemed to enjoy the *rest* of the session as much as I would have hoped. I'm not shouldering all the responsability for that (just some)... I know a few of my players were not in top form, and that sort of thing can affect the energy of the game. There are other factors too... but I should eat my toast, and get dressed (and over it), hmm?
I'll just have to hope that next session is more fun!
We started excavating at the church yesterday, and we found somoene else's trench in my untiy. We figured we would. It is actaully a good thing, because the church is hoping we *don't* find anything, so we can put in a sump pump. So, we are going to dig that out to see what that archaeologist did (We have her reports, but we don't know how deep she went, for example), and then excavate the rest of the unit.
Of course, we didn't cover the unit last nght, and *here* at least, we had a giant thundershower of *doom*! Shuld be fun. :p
ETA: I dropped my toast ;_; At least there is Diablotin tonight! We just won't think about how it is the second to last session ;_;
tired
(no subject)
We all have off-nights once in a while. Also, don't be so hard on yourself - this was only the third session you've run, and your second D&D combat. So how do you know what you "normally" do? I think you probably just bit off more than you could chew - I know I would never want to have that many characters to deal with during an online combat. Even if some of them are only "token", they still take up your time and energy. It's not like in tabletop, where you're only responsible for your NPCs - because it's online, you're doing a lot of rolling and so on for the PCs as well, and that's where your concentration needs to be most focused, because making mistakes there has greater consequences (wrong damage, for instance, is potentially fatal).
As for the non-combat portions of the session, I found that there was just not much for my character to do. Being unable to communicate with Dalibor (even in the rudimentary fashion that some others were able to) left me with nothing to do for that whole scene (which, as I know you know, went on quite long). As for the scene at the inn, I tried to involve myself, expecting that there would be something plot-related/useful conveyed there, but instead it seemed more like killing time. Killing time is necessary once in a while, of course, but in such a short-term game, I do feel strongly that each scene needs to have a deliberate point, much more so than in a long-running campaign. We haven't been together as a party long enough to expect to fill much time with random chatting, nor would it be desirable with so little time to go.
Anyway - it was far from the worst session of anything I've ever played in. Don't beat yourself up over it, but try to look on it as a learning experience :)
"normally do"
I'm not really beating myself up over it, I just had high expectations for that session, and they were not fulfilled. Like I said, I'll just do better next time.