OOC: Post Game

[BenTheRat]

That wraps up the module, you are free to continue to roleplay in the IC thread.
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I'd love to answer any questions you have, I'd love to hear any constructive criticisms, maybe suggestions on how to do things better.
Overall I thought it went pretty well, the death count was a bit higher than I thought it should be, but I think the forum format led to that.
But I'd love to hear your thoughts on it also.
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I am considering running a follow up. Hell I've already got it half written, and can probably start in about 6 weeks. If you are interested in carrying the same characters over we can heal and gain stats and add a few new characters in to kick off the new one.
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If you want to, make 2 skill checks for each skill you used during the game. Your health will be healed up to max and a lot of your sanity will be healed as well. I need to go look that up first.
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I hope everyone had a fun time, I know I did. Thank you for playing.

[Priest]

I, for one, have had a great time. The scenario worked okay, any problems were due to the nature of pbm and time zones. I would love to be able to continue, but could it be with Warren? Once he is healed. Scott is okay, but I can't help feel that he maybe has seen quite enough of haunted houses for one lifetime. Whereas Warren is still after that one story that will make his name.
Thanks for Keeping, an often frustrating experience.

[BenTheRat]

Yea Warren will have healed up by the time the next one would start. I like Scott, I may give him to someone else if they want to pick it up. You guys need someone to do 1st aid in the group.

[Silver Priest]

I enjoyed it a great deal, even if Michael had the distinct privilege of being the first to die. I am curious if the subplot with the reverend could have been resolved in this game, or if you deliberately left it as a hook for a followup.

Out of curiosity, how did we compare tot he group you ran this for live?

[BenTheRat]

Ahhh, Phil and the Rev. What did happen with that loose end??
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The live group did much better, 1 dead, 3 with temp insanity. And the guy that died was someone hit Corbitt with a shotgun with this guy standing right next to him.
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But to be fair, its easier to discuss things, and pass things around sitting at a table than in the forum. They also didn't go for the red herring spell like Harrison did. They found the diary, you guys never opened the 1st room in the house.
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In the diary it makes it pretty clear Corbitt is invincible, and you need the counter-spell.
You guys did better at the chapel. They almost did a TPK there, but spent some time doing first aid, research and loaded for bear when they went in the house. Then I thought it was a friggen swat team the way they searched the house.
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They got down the spell and when I tried to corrupt the caster, he blew me off. Then Corbitt only had about 2 rounds before the spell got off. As soon as I dominated someone, two people knocked him out. One player ran in to "dance" with Corbitt so the spell would go off, then about 3 shotgun blasts and he was dust. Of course so was the 1 player.
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I went a lot deeper with Phil with you guys, than I did them. They actually captured Tom and tortured him for info. Phill got the Rev in both games.
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Overall it was pretty even you guys doing better, until the final room. They were ready going in, you weren't. You just thought you were which is where things fell to crap. You also go the Book of Astrology charts and they did not.
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In the end, they got paid, and only lost 1, you didn't get paid, and lost 4 players.

[DrVendetta]

Ben,

I had a great time.
I would love to play in the follow up.

I havent done CoC in probably 25 years so sorry for all of my stumbling with the rules, and this was also my first Forum experince so there was a big learning curve there for me as well.

There are things I did like about the forum experience much better then the face to face experience, the role playing was much better here then I have experienced in a long time

I thought the timezone issue was a little bit of a speed bump but u did a good job of keeping everyone engaged.

I appreciate all of the other players as well, the role playing part of this was the big hook for me.

-Dr Vendetta

[Papa Gateau]

Hey all,

I enjoyed this, thanks for running it Ben.

Apologies again for the occasional radio silence.

I'm stuck in rural France - so forum or email based gaming is all that I can play, so I have to live with the limitations of that. Having said that, I do feel that it allows for some good role-playing. My only real criticism of the format is that doesn't really allow for fudging of dice rolls if or when the GM should want/need to. That's only a minor criticism really and one I probably wouldn't have raised if Sonny hadn't been killed off and discarded so easily

I'd be happy to continue with the follow up, if you are all happy to have me along - I already have an idea for a new character.

Thanks again Ben and the rest of the group it was fun and I look forwards to the next instalment.

[BenTheRat]

Thanks for the response Papa, I'm one of those mean GM's. I let the dice fall where they may. Even on the table top, I usually roll my dice out in front of the group. It's pretty rare I'll "fudge' a dice roll. I know a lot of GM's do that, and have played in games like that.
And I think a lot of players become more reckless when this happens as they know the GM will save them. In my games people figure out real quick, don't put yourselves in those spots, as I'm likely not to save you.
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I hated to see Sonny bite it also, but really the only reason he died was because Harrison did the whole "I'm joining the other side" routine. Then AFTER Corbitt kills you and Jordie, he switches back. I was kind of glad Richard put a bullet in his head at the end.
The Military was on the way, so if he killed everyone but Harrison, the tank would have put down Corbitt. And if Harrison had lived through some amazing role-play, I probably would have had him go insane.
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Luckily in this game, a new character usually isn't a whole lot worse than one thats been on a few missions. In fact, sanity is usually higher.

[Occigon]

Ben, thank you so much for this. It was a lot of fun and I'm grateful for how patient you were with those of us who were online role-playing for the first time and still learning the ropes. Looking back, I would have done some things differently - in particular, I htink this kind of role playing requires a character with a much more distinctive personality than the one I created - but I had a great time. Thanks a bunch! And thanks everyone!

[DetectiveSocks]

Playing with this group I really enjoyed PbP a lot! This scenario has taken us a lot longer than expected instead of finishing by Christmas last year, but I really enjoyed it. There were some things about my character I wished I changed, specifically Jordie's background into a but it's just small minor details. After reading classic hard broiled detective like, "Farewell, My Lovely," by Raymond Chandler, it really inspired me to write with that Jazz Noir/Private-Eye Monologue, even if it had it's incredibly cheesy metaphors. Except, everything I wrote was in 3rd person perspective, so I didn't want to ruin that train of thought midway through our game. There's still a lot more hard-broiled detective novels to read, to brush up on my writing.

It's obvious to say that some of my personality attributed to Jordie, specifically my love for classical literature. My last post about Oedipus Rex was because I had to write an essay about it, and I realized that everything that was happening at the end of our game had an incredibly striking resemblance to it. Also I was burned out too, I had to read so many books this semester and I didn't feel like reading or writing at all. Simple sentences like, "I couldn't have put it better myself," would leave be genuinely confused for a good five minutes, when most of the reading I've been doing is symbol hunting and looking for the tiniest subtleties in a sentence.

I would be interested in playing again, and I wish I could use Jordie but she's dead, perhaps a more polished version of her.

[BenTheRat]

I really enjoyed your writing, but I can understand when you are doing so much for school, even a little more seems like a real chore. Most replies, I was trying not to get cryptic, because I was usually in a hurry just to stay on top of giving you a post, or I didn't want to confuse you. I did try to make the NPC's a bit more 3 dimensional, I hope that came through.

Tonight I'm running the game at the con. So we finished in the nick of time.

But Socks, I can so see Jordies older sister coming into town to figure out what "really" happened to her baby sister.

[BenTheRat]

I am having Handy move this into the Completed module file. I think this is the 3rd running of The Haunting going into that folder.
Though probably the most original and longest.

Thanks everyone for sticking with it and playing.

FYI, I did run it at the Con and it was a huge hit. I spent too long in the research phase and they ended up skipping the chapel all together. I figured they were all dead. When they woke up Corbitt, people started to drop like flies, some ran, locked the basement door and set the house on fire. (sound familiar.)

Anyway, in the end, everyone had fled or was dead in the basement except the guy with the pognus. So Corbitt couldn't attack him or control him, so he started to summon the dim. shambler to kill the wielder. But this gave him 5 rounds to attack without worry and in that he managed an impale (25% base, so 5% or less) which is what was needed to kill him if his shield was still up. So they did kill him, then they had to bust open the coal chute to get him out.

This was how I originally built the module to kill Corbitt, but thought it was too impossible, so I added the dispel into the book to give the proper easier way to do it. They just got lucky.

Look for my next exciting module, "A Star on the Shore" in the next month. I've already worked out 80% of the module in my head I just have to get some stuff on paper and flush out the details. It is an original module written by myself as a continuation of the Rat's Haunting. I'm looking to crank it up mid-July (I'm out of town on vaction till July 12th) so I'll start right after that. It should be a blast.

[DrVendetta]

Sounds Great!

Drop me a message when you are ready to fire up again and I will join

Have a good vacation.