The Trail of Sky and Fire

Chapter Four: Twilight of Bone and Shadow

The Story:

Treasures

XV 18 One Substantial Treasure, eight Minor Treasures

Observations

—Once again, i'm not giving out enough info. The last time i was told this was a problem, i got away with it by having a great deal of information to give out about the Sasquatch. That info, however, was drained pretty quickly with one Arcana check. That was before i realized it's "Highest Hit is the Number" technique given out on the blog. With the Sasquatch game i was giving out a fact for every hit every character made. That parched my fact bag pretty quick. Especially later, when i was making it up on the fly. It's hard for me to make stuff up on the fly and not feel like i'm just handing the characters the mystery. I don't want to solve it for them, it feels like i'm cheapening the experience. According to my players, who explained this to me at length, that is not the case. What they were looking for was a direct explanation due them for a good Perception/Arcana role.

—I'm also noticing, and this is probably due to the number of players i'm encouraging, that it's really hard to tell a story about the 'best of the best' in a group, when they aren't fully tallied yet. I mean, the first game was easy "Okay, you're a Pathfinder and you're a Healer? Fine. You're the leader of the Pathfinders, and, what the heck, you're the only Healer this Tribe's got." But as i invite more players, and those players have to have more characters due to EndCheck Boxes, the roster for the 'best of the best' is getting bigger and bigger. Without a good amount of backdrop characters it's starting to feel like a handful of wieners cowering about a legion of bad-asses.

—Finally, and this is the big one, what's the deal with tactical constraints? I recall my first encounter with this option. Tony said, "There's a large chandelier on the ceiling, hanging low enough someone could swing on it. For tactical constraints." And i thought, "Okay, this game is pure awesome." But in the last game the two players pretty much said, "Why would i Brace or Charge? I could do the same thing with a quick flavortext about how i 'use my surroundings' to get Red Dice from the DM for tactical constraints. That's multiple Red Dice, instead of just one." This was at first weird because i kept thinking, "Okay, that's a legitimate reason for more Red Dice…" then i started to say, "Wait…this is giving them way too much advantage. Maybe i should re-read it…" only to discover that i should be giving them Red, Blue, or Green dice for their attempt. So i started to give them 'not reds' and they didn't like it. Is Tactical Constraints Broken?

Complaints
Players did not like that i was not giving them enough from their Perception/Arcana roles. Again.


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