Finished the first run of Insidinari a week ago (Me and Vonfiedler as hosts; Quagsires, Mastadi, Maxim and Auramaster as players). Some thoughts and feedback from the first run:
- IRC as a medium for playing worked. Especially changing nicks to the characters' encouraged RP. On the other hand, idling became an issue when everyone else had to wait when someone didn't focus on the IRC window all the time, eventually the 1-5 minute waits on every combat turn add up to a lot. Combat was smoother later on, though. (Commitment/having same timezones could help but timezones weren't that much a problem as we played on Saturday afternoon/nights)
- Not knowing the DnD/PF rules beforehand limited combat options somewhat and caused many untrained rolls since the characters were premades and not player-optimized. The RP/noncombat encounters went fine without knowing the rules throughly, though. (For next playthroughs, the players will get to make their own characters if thay want, but then rules-reading is required.)
- A suggestion came up that the slower parts (NPC dialogue and RP) be hosted over a Smogon social group during the week between sessions. This would streamline gameplay and depthen many details. (This is something big to experiment on. I think I couldn't do that involving reffing over the week due to no knowledge in forum RP, but with two hosts or someone with experience it might work well.)
- Double hosts proved rather vital, allowing the session to happen when the other couldn't attend.
- Combat was mapped using Google Draw. It worked, but a heavier system could have been used to keep track of buffs/HP.
The campaign took approximately 2 months, divided into 5 or 6 sessions of about 5 hours each.
On the whole, the gameplay went well enough for reruns to let everyone play some PF/DnD on Smogon. Naturally the adventure will improve over every rerun, for the next run especially combat flow and balance will be considered. RP and NPC encounters went rather smooth.
I won't be able to work on Insidinari for 2 weeks due to camps, but there will definitely be more runs of Insidinari (will post more on it in July). If you want to host Insidinari yourself, ask me and Vonfiedler for details.
- IRC as a medium for playing worked. Especially changing nicks to the characters' encouraged RP. On the other hand, idling became an issue when everyone else had to wait when someone didn't focus on the IRC window all the time, eventually the 1-5 minute waits on every combat turn add up to a lot. Combat was smoother later on, though. (Commitment/having same timezones could help but timezones weren't that much a problem as we played on Saturday afternoon/nights)
- Not knowing the DnD/PF rules beforehand limited combat options somewhat and caused many untrained rolls since the characters were premades and not player-optimized. The RP/noncombat encounters went fine without knowing the rules throughly, though. (For next playthroughs, the players will get to make their own characters if thay want, but then rules-reading is required.)
- A suggestion came up that the slower parts (NPC dialogue and RP) be hosted over a Smogon social group during the week between sessions. This would streamline gameplay and depthen many details. (This is something big to experiment on. I think I couldn't do that involving reffing over the week due to no knowledge in forum RP, but with two hosts or someone with experience it might work well.)
- Double hosts proved rather vital, allowing the session to happen when the other couldn't attend.
- Combat was mapped using Google Draw. It worked, but a heavier system could have been used to keep track of buffs/HP.
The campaign took approximately 2 months, divided into 5 or 6 sessions of about 5 hours each.
On the whole, the gameplay went well enough for reruns to let everyone play some PF/DnD on Smogon. Naturally the adventure will improve over every rerun, for the next run especially combat flow and balance will be considered. RP and NPC encounters went rather smooth.
I won't be able to work on Insidinari for 2 weeks due to camps, but there will definitely be more runs of Insidinari (will post more on it in July). If you want to host Insidinari yourself, ask me and Vonfiedler for details.