Last Stand

We did it! The game has run all the way to day 12.


17+ large scale combats
Tailored Plots for all
Bad puns.

We had it all! First thanks goes to my Co-Gm Crawdad who did a fantastic job building this game as my partner in crime. Last Stand could not exist without him. Double thanks as well as he was managing a lot of very important issues in his day to day.

Then of course thanks to each and every one of our players who made this a fantastic game to GM. We definitely ended up with quality over quantity I think (one of the few games I've seen players all politely offering one another the chance to participate in limited events) and it showed. Enjoyable characters, fun personal quests, strong banter and a really good team spirit. Everything a GM could want!

Mechanics wise we wanted to focus on a combat heavy campaign with a lot of diversity. So events should feel different and every combat, even the simple ones, should be distinct through use of location rules, different enemies or at the very least narrative importance. Some of our event experiments went great, others I would fine-tune again in the future, all the nature of experimentation!

We also wanted to run some tailored plots for as many folks as we can. Lots of larger games don't have the capacity to do anything personal for a player (and where's the fun in that?) so I particularly enjoyed the chance to run some smaller more targeted scenes.

I will keep monitoring day 12 throughout the rest of the week, so please ping me if there's anything I can do for you. But I won't lie, after a couple weekends of running 3+ simultaneous combats my bed is looking pretty good right about now...

What a fantastic game you both ran! Thanks for the opportunity to play a heroic Jedi and participate in your story I had a really great time playing with everyone and the diversity of events was impressive. Loved my personal mission, those were all so entertaining to read.

Get some sleep so you feel like you can pick it up for a sequel one of these days

So yeah, thanks for everything, it ran really well and was a pleasure to play. 11/10, would recommend GM pay rise.

That's a lot of combats! Actually, I'm wondering where that stack up to the history of combats per GM in recent games, you might actually top a record here! Thank you very much for your hard work in the game! Running combats can be very fun but after you're done, I can totally understand the bed part, haha.

What's your favourite combat set-up? Which combat didn't quite go as expected?

Zephrin Hayn wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 20, 2023 9:49 pm

Snip

You know all the right things to say I had a lot of fun with Zephrin and his story. I wasn't initially intending for him to end up with a padawan, but I think it worked really well! He'll end up a wise old master in no time We shall see about the sequel once Crawdad and I emerge from hibernation.

Vala Roke wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 20, 2023 11:50 pm

Snip

Phone GMing combats is just...would not recommend. But, it builds character! Thank you very much for the kind words and being a part of our game! Crawdad and I both really appreciated Vala and your input!

My favourite combat setup was probably the triad fight with the 3 individually specc'ed Mandalorian knights designed to fight as a unit. I would say chasing the train on the speeder bikes didn't quite go as expected (not just that it took a while to catchup, but the PCs had surprisingly accurate counter fire!). Also the Haneul fight while a lot of fun was pretty rough on the player's! A real heroic effort to overcome here there and pull out the win!

I really appreciated the variety of combat (even if my contribution was mostly the rather one-trick rifle-to-the-face pony this time around). Kept things interesting and there were enough of them to definitely give me plenty to learn from. Very much appreciated you GM voice throughout the descriptions and creativity in narrating the flow of battle plus the many Triumphs/Despairs.

Thanks for the massive amount of work (and phone posting through combat *shiver*). It's been a lot of fun. The forest vessel/jacked mad scientist hunt had a nice balance of urgency/importance to 'hulk smash' humor to it.

Are there plots or NPCs you didn't get to roll out as much as you'd have liked? NPC's with horrible pun names waiting in the wings for another adventure? XD Will people be able to track down the Geist and finish its reign of terror?

Master Sikso!!!

Thanks, that was a brilliant medals post, much appreciated!

What were the highs and lows of the game for you as GM? Anything you might change up for a sequel (mostly thinking house rules / gameplay, but more broadly if anything comes to mind)?

Tomin wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 3:50 am

I really appreciated the variety of combat (even if my contribution was mostly the rather one-trick rifle-to-the-face pony this time around). Kept things interesting and there were enough of them to definitely give me plenty to learn from. Very much appreciated you GM voice throughout the descriptions and creativity in narrating the flow of battle plus the many Triumphs/Despairs.

Thanks for the massive amount of work (and phone posting through combat *shiver*). It's been a lot of fun. The forest vessel/jacked mad scientist hunt had a nice balance of urgency/importance to 'hulk smash' humor to it.

Are there plots or NPCs you didn't get to roll out as much as you'd have liked? NPC's with horrible pun names waiting in the wings for another adventure? XD Will people be able to track down the Geist and finish its reign of terror?

It turns out that 'gun' is a very effective trick though! Delighted you enjoyed the various combats and the quest through the forest, although I always look back and wish I did more interesting stuff with the various wacky narrative dice results that can crop up.

If I'd had the capacity I would have enjoyed teasing out the various Mandalorian lieutenants a bit more, giving people more insight into how they ticked. A lot of that ended up as content in their fights though.

There are definitely more bad puns out there (although Wired Earp will always hold a place in my heart) and as for the Geist...well that's tricky, is it even alive? Maybe it kills people and steals their faces for uh, completely benign reasons?

Zephrin Hayn wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:47 am

Master Sikso!!!

Thanks, that was a brilliant medals post, much appreciated!

What were the highs and lows of the game for you as GM? Anything you might change up for a sequel (mostly thinking house rules / gameplay, but more broadly if anything comes to mind)?

It would take more than just some war to stop him being there for his former padawan's medal presentation Highs for me are pretty much anytime a player asks the GM if they can try to do something awesome and then the dice abide! I think that's when this particular system is at its strongest. Lows are usually when the opposite happens!

For a hypothetical sequel I think I'd probably move away from such a heavy combat focus, if only for my own sanity. I really enjoyed it but variety is the spice of life. Something during the Jedi Civil War perhaps? Very KOTOR 1 -> KOTOR 2 vibes.

Houserules wise I think the modding changes worked but could go further in that quest for a sweet spot where modding is strong but not overpowered. I might consider tweaking the combat more generally, but any houserule has to be really worth it in my mind to justify the added difficulty of people not being familiar with it.

GM Nicha wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 10:14 am

For a hypothetical sequel I think I'd probably move away from such a heavy combat focus, if only for my own sanity. I really enjoyed it but variety is the spice of life. Something during the Jedi Civil War perhaps? Very KOTOR 1 -> KOTOR 2 vibes.

Houserules wise I think the modding changes worked but could go further in that quest for a sweet spot where modding is strong but not overpowered. I might consider tweaking the combat more generally, but any houserule has to be really worth it in my mind to justify the added difficulty of people not being familiar with it.

Zephrin liked that.

Re: modding, I really liked the houserule for one automatically successful modding roll (paid for normally) during downtime. That worked well and makes a reasonable bit of upgrading achievable without needing a mechanics-heavy character.

Ah, my co-GM and savior! Without you, this game wouldn't have been more than a GM's screen with "Sexy jawa?" scribbled on a post-it note behind it.

I think we worked well together! I appreciated working with someone willing to try a bunch of different things. And do a bunch of work. Especially that later one. But it's the first one I'm more curious about.

What did we try that you really liked? Is there anything we tried that you think might be worth doing differently next time?

Thank you very much for the game and for everything. I greatly enjoyed it all, even if I had just too much in my brain of RL stuff to be able to fully dive into things. You did a good job with all the combats, the NPCs, and making things entertaining.

Good job!

Zephrin Hayn wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:04 pm

Zephrin liked that.

Re: modding, I really liked the houserule for one automatically successful modding roll (paid for normally) during downtime. That worked well and makes a reasonable bit of upgrading achievable without needing a mechanics-heavy character.

That was the intention, and I'm delighted to hear it helped! The goal was for everyone to feel measurably more powerful by the end of the game than at the start.

Hatoful GM wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 1:57 pm

Ah, my co-GM and savior! Without you, this game wouldn't have been more than a GM's screen with "Sexy jawa?" scribbled on a post-it note behind it.

I think we worked well together! I appreciated working with someone willing to try a bunch of different things. And do a bunch of work. Especially that later one. But it's the first one I'm more curious about.

What did we try that you really liked? Is there anything we tried that you think might be worth doing differently next time?

Sexy Jawa is for out spinoff game, The Last Sand.

Likewise though, I think we made a good team! Your forum-fu is something I can only aspire too. Very much appreciated you sticking with me through the entire game, even with everything going on.

I really like the varied events, particularly any one that strongly encouraged the players to coordinate and debate strategies! I think what I might do differently next time would be setting out some blocks of time post-game start to go through all our events and tailor them to who we have signed up to make sure our goals are on the money.

Apollo wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 9:08 pm

Thank you very much for the game and for everything. I greatly enjoyed it all, even if I had just too much in my brain of RL stuff to be able to fully dive into things. You did a good job with all the combats, the NPCs, and making things entertaining.

Good job!

Thank you, much appreciated! Apollo was a lot of fun whether it was heroically leading others, going deep undercover or pewing with his twin pistols! I think you managed to get a lot of value out of inspiring rhetoric. The boost dice can be fickle but once you got the boost train going it swayed a lot of dice pools from solid to excellent!

Zephrin Hayn wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 21, 2023 12:04 pm

Re: modding, I really liked the houserule for one automatically successful modding roll (paid for normally) during downtime. That worked well and makes a reasonable bit of upgrading achievable without needing a mechanics-heavy character.

Same! It was definitely nice to know I could do a little of this without much fuss.

GM Nicha wrote: ↑

Mon Mar 20, 2023 8:58 pm

I will keep monitoring day 12 throughout the rest of the week, so please ping me if there's anything I can do for you. But I won't lie, after a couple weekends of running 3+ simultaneous combats my bed is looking pretty good right about now...

I can feel that. I wasn't in nearly as many combats as you and I'm just about worn out from it. In other news though. Thanks for the game! It was a lot of fun though as always nowadays i am not nearly as active as I like to be.

I did like a lot of things you two did. Probably especially the discord planning threads for every combat. That really helped to make things run more smoothly in my opinion. There are of course a myriad of other things as well, but i can't name them all. it would take too long.