Debrief and Wrap Up

[Pale Rider]

True nuf! Started fleshing out the next mission. Watched Alien and now Jurassic Park.

[Morse]

Did you get the PM of stuff I was supposed to re send you Pale?

[Pale Rider]

Yep, it's being incorporated into my new mission.

[MarcusOTerra]

True nuf! Started fleshing out the next mission. Watched Alien and now Jurassic Park.

Clever girls....

[Corporal Hicks]

I would be open to two campaigns but it might be too much for some people. I don't support or oppose it.

1. What did you like the most? The least?
-MOST
-I liked the 24 hours equals 2 game minutes thing. It kept things moving. I thought it was great.
-I liked having a choice of where to go. Up or down.
-Overall it was a great campaign, but it's much easier to remember the bad stuff.

-LEAST
-More then anything I hate fighting armies of anything. It's not fun to just say "I fire into the oncoming horde." When I make games I'm always tempted to have a large scale battle at the end, but players always complain because they feel like they aren't making a difference in a large scale battle.
-I wasn't sure if I should take charge or ask officers what to do. They weren't posting very much and I felt like if I asked them what to do then nothing would happen and I would miss opportunities. I'm not criticizing the actual players... everyone gets busy. Hell, when I got a girlfriend I left the site without warning for six years
-I think that the break did cause Creed to leave for good. But it's hard to deal with that issue
-As for the 24 hour thing.. I did feel pressured to do my actions and not wait for officers or GM approval. Normally I say "Roberts heads downstairs. If he got there unharmed he would do such-and-such" Instead I was saying "Roberts ran downstairs and started doing such-and-such

2. What can we do to improve?
-Maybe we could ask new players for their email so we can harass them if they stop posting. If I had Creed's email I would just say the action started and he would come back.
-I really liked the Zenus Vier tunnels. That was the hook that kept me here so long. Being in a cramped space where two xenos is a major problem. I also like when squads split up and have to communicate by radio. Small scale works just fine.
-Have people use their equipment up. Have it get melted by acid and stuff.
-I'm not sure how to combat this, but in most of our missions, the smart thing to do is always to bug out and nuke the site from orbit as soon as you see one alien. That kind of takes away the realism when I want to go further in for the game's sake, but I feel like the smart thing to do is just to run.

3. Who should we fight next?
-I think it would be cool if we could bring sentry guns with us and deploy them. Tunnels are good for that.
-It would be cool to get cut off from the dropship. It would add new urgency to our mission, like they had in the movie.

[maxvale76]

Okay; so I'm pretty sure it was a joke; but Morse's comment of:

'Just for the fun of it, I should start having Morse start referring to Sam by racial slurs and go on genocidal tirades regarding Colonists. - Force her hand.'


I'm gonna ask to please, please, please, please don't do this....as an aside; in RL I'm a joe-blow WASP American male married to a black African-American woman (as in she was born in West Africa and came here to the U.S. as a little girl and became a citizen at 18); and having to deal with the sadly not-too-infrequent comments/looks from all different kinds of people; this is an area I'd rather avoid in my 'escape from reality gaming life'. (To be fair; we also get plenty of good comments/looks from all different kind of people too....so I'm not totally a 'glass is half-empty' kind of guy. ) Call me a silly, Star-Trek loving fool who prefers worlds where people just judge each other on choices made rather than stuff they had no choice in (gender, skin-color, etc.); but that's my preference. So Sam and Morse razzing each other or eye-rolling or whatever due to personality differences is fine; but I'd REALLY rather not go down the other kind of road.

Thanks and I will now stop my bleeding-heart plea and return you to your regularly scheduled grim gaming world filled with horrible monsters wanting to eat you.......

[Morse]

Ya no it was a joke. I do a lot of writing and I'm big on holding characters with flaws. I've utilized major cultural stigmas shown in Aliens but also that come in different scifi's. Namely the way the marines made fun of colonists when they heard about the op. - I just take it a step further. And his robophobia, taken from Ripley but also the movie A.I.

Its all really just for that, doesn't have anything other then that.

[Quinn]

What I really enjoyed: The attention to detail was incredible, as well as the ability to go along with the crazy ideas that we players come up with.

What I didn't like: The sudden ramp up from one turn a week to one a day. I didn't notice that, and four turns had gone by before I even checked the website. That's why I didn't post in about forever. That and it got really confusing about who I was with or where I was. I agree with Morse that the Wey-Yu card has been overplayed, and that I'd like to see conventional Marine equipment used (Conestoga and UD-4L). The Snakefighter, while interesting, makes me hesitant to commit it to combat because that's our only way home.

What I'd like to see: Other xeno races. I liked the idea of the Huldra, but it felt like we were a bunch of adventurers slaughtering a village because of their tech level. I'd like to see some more beasts used (If Jurassic Park is being used as an idea, go right ahead with that!). And I'd like us to get back into space, get called to a derelict ship, someone gets attacked by pirates, mix it up a bit. The mass battle was interesting for me, but not so much for the other players, so I think "field style" battles should be limited.

As to the preds and motion sensors, we get the reading off the sensor but don't see anything, so we'd assume that the sensor isn't working (they have malfunctioned before). But the trick is you have to play a Pred very carefully as they are damn powerful. Sure, we're better equipped than a handful of Green Berets, but Preds are damn smart. I'd personally do some careful alluding to their presence (flayed bodies, plasma burns, etc) rather than have us meet one outright and deal with it. It's a great idea, but one to be carefully handled.

[Quicksilver]

I agree with the others that the level of detail is nice. I also feel that the overall posting rate is good and the inter-turn posts keep things moving. For the most part you did a really good job of keeping everything going and addressing rolls and actions as they occurred.

I agree with Quinn that the jump to 24hr posting was sudden, and so make it harder to work with. I also feel that 24hr is impractical for many people, particularly when taking about 2-minute long rounds that could well involve multiple interactions. Some people just can’t get on every day, and more importantly, multiple times per day to see if they’re getting responses to their questions or orders from superiors. I’d recommend 48hr be used instead for those kinds of things, and 24 saved perhaps for times when we have really short, say 5 second, rounds and we’re not going to be responding to what others do.

Also, on the general subject of pacing, many of these adventures feel… top heavy? Front loaded? Anyway, it feels like we spend a lot of time and have a lot of time to post on things like, going to the briefing, hanging around, walking to the mission location, then once we get to the actual attempting to complete the mission, things fly by in a couple of turns leaving us with very little time to react or instigate things. Also, I believe a bit more consistency with when new ‘turn’ threads are created would help the feel of the pacing. Say after every major change of location, or other “resetting” factor. Its awkward to have to go back to a previous thread to find the question your supposed to respond to.

The game’s a lot of fun, and you’ve got quite a talent for storytelling here. I’m looking forward to the next game. (Well, the next game I can join – I think I’m going to have to skip one mission because of vacations/work ramp up.

[MarcusOTerra]

I'm with silver on this. There was no real 'waves' or phases to the op. It was, you're here, poke around, poke the WRONG thing, look down the WRONG hole, and suddenly you're on a timer or face certain death.

Bombing the hive was the big mistake, of this op, I think. That woke up the main hive and made them an issue. Otherwise, I think we would have been fighting the midget queen and her pale horde, had time to look around, THEN the queen would have woken up, once she realized her weird neighbor was dead and there was killing ot be done.

Maybe I'm misreading things, but hey, I burned stuff: Sal's happy with that.

[Corporal Hicks]

We will miss you Quicksilver! Maybe you could stay on the dropship and post as much or as little as you want. That way you could rejoin us if work slows down or something. Just a thought.

As for turns, I prefer more turns to less. Once it gets to like 8 pages it gets confusing for me.

[maxvale76]

Morse: Cool....I figured we were probably on the same wave-lenghth; just wanted to make sure

Quicksilver: Well, if you have to take a break, I completely understand; but I'll miss my long-running squad mate if you do. Either way; looking forward to seeing you on the boards!

Pale/Everybody: I know I've said this before; but I'll just keep beating the proverbial deceased equine; CANON IS WHATEVER YOU WANT IT TO BE! Considering that we're basically role-playing a game that pretty much only assumes that Alien and Aliens are CANNON; everything else is whatever you want it to be....i.e. if you want the Predators (or any other kind of threat for that matter) to have some kind of techno-whatever ability to be 'invisible' on motion sensors; go with that. Do NOT get caught up in trying to stay "true to the source material"; if that source material consists of movies, video-games, comics, novels, etc.; many of which probably don't agree with each other in the first place. It's your game amigo; run it however you want to!

At least.....that's my 2 pennies; take it for what it's worth!

[Pale Rider]

Well I definitely hope those who played both missions noticed some improvement. I definitely felt.rusty.the first one out. And I appreciate everyone's candid constructive constructive criticism.

[Morse]

I don't think bombing the other hive was our problem. It was the scope of our bombardment. The Snakefighter just doesn't have the fire power. I really dislike the ship. It has a poor payload, and its only real "benefit" is its ability to move unseen. But if given the option between a Conestoga and all it comes with, or the Snakefighter, under no circumstance will I take the "stealthy" option.

As for the top down approach, I'll agree this one was a bit more flat battle paced. But I don't believe it was the number of enemies or their movements that caused the issue. It was the location. We were sitting in a jungle. There was more tech in our ship then there was within four thousand miles of our location. - Colonial Marines defend the colonies...... not backwater labs with 20 people in them. - At least thats what I think.

I personally think we need to get back to space. The point of the Aliens universe is its a dirty, isolated, lived in environment. Its like where ever you go its built for a basic necessity. But space is where it is. An open environment like this just didn't give off a very Aliens vibe to me.

Now if you asked me if it gave me and ALIEN VS. PREDATOR vibe, then I would agree on the grounds that the Predator side is always a jungle place. But as much as everyone is talking about predators I would urge an immense level of caution.

The inclusion of Predators will totally and completely go against my point about Wey-Yu. Why? Because everything in that universe always goes to the same conclusion. "What are these Predators and how can we copy their shit?" - It will turn into us trying to figure out "how to fight it" and some weird mystery we don't want to do, and take us away from the point. It also gets us away from our aliens routes.

Now am I in favor of references to it? Sure. Am I in favor of the inevitable Predator-Marine shootout or alliance to fight Xenos? Absolutely not. You will of course tell me that we won't do that, but I will argue these little bad ideas are a slippery slope that can lead you right to a place you don't wanna go.

And just for the sake of argument (in spite of Max's point on cannon being what you make it) numerous sources of AVP literature show that the motion tracker picks up Predators. Its excessive high frequency Doppler Effect can't be beat, its not like they can change their density. - But there's zero realistic chance of us encountering one that ends without half of us being severely wounded and maimed. - and though robotic prosthetics are in this universe... I don't think its anyones first desire.

So to conclude - I say we stick towards the Aliens side, and if we do see anything else... keep it hidden. - New Xeno Races are good, but you hardly need to make them up. Not only does the handbook have them, any number of material has shown us pictures and details on a wide variety of them, such as runners, praetorians, even the horrifying visage of the Ravager or Carrier.

[maxvale76]

Obviously everybody has there own opinion; but whatever works for you Pale; go with it. For me;

The only other Alien race in the RPG book of any real note is the Harvester; as for other sources; while I know that there are a lot of video games, books, comics, whatever with all kinds of Aliens and Predator stuff; I've never really seen or read any of them (other than the so-so first AVP movie and about 20 minutes of the god-awful bad 2nd movie which I actually left the theatre over; because it was that bad to me).....so yeah; I'm not really into A vs. P stuff; but I DO like the idea of fighting a Predator or something like it....and as I already mentioned; use whatever explanation you like...the Predators have something that jams the Motion sensors; whatever....

Of course; I don't mind sticking with just Aliens either; but I'm really not a fan of Giant versions or Eight Legged versions or Red versions or whatever....I just like the classic version.

As those who were around way back when I ran my short-lived campaign know; I'm also a big fan of Harvesters.

Also; I don't really care much about whether we're in space or on a planet or a ship or whatever; I like the different kinds of environments and I actually like less tech and large-scale weaponry....I want more small unit kinds of action and less vehicles using cannons, missiles, mortars, etc. I like that stuff in 'cut scenes' if you will as opposed to us manning said weaponry and cutting loose.

Obviously; this all just my take on it.....everybody's got their own; so take it and run with it and do what makes the most sense to you.