OK, here's your choice for feedback.  Did you like the adventure?  Did you like the adventure?  How were your judges?  We need your feedback.

I liked last year's adventure better, /but/ still had a good time. Our judge was very good. Not sure how we identify judges, I never caught his name. Whoever had the misfortune to get the Desperate Measures team, thursday 9pm.

I did NOT like how late we started. Seriously, this was awful. I did NOT like the tucked away from everywhere location. Honestly, because of our team, I'm sure we didn't advance, but I never even checked. I know they said you could check online, and the VIG room had wifi, but I didn't feel like lugging my laptop about. Plus, well. Our team. *sigh*

I /did/ like that the noise level seemed much more tolerable than in the Hyatt. Some groups also went to other locations.

The story was good, as always. The puzzles were not as plentiful, but they were a few toughies in there. The pop culture references are the ambrosia I just love, and they were top notch this year.

Of course, foxxtail and Narcissia really shone as the Taras. I think Jay should get rookie of the year for his fantastic turn as Ant... the kid's a natural!

The only qualms I had was that Rohvar and Kiroc didn't have enough to do in the story... Ant was a bit overused in the plotline. And there were times where it wasn't really clear what was to be done next (especially in round 2).

braewe:

I did NOT like how late we started. Seriously, this was awful. I did NOT like the tucked away from everywhere location.

I know I complain about this all the time, but we REALLY need to do something about how the subsequent round startups should happen.

Virtually EVERY time we run out of time in Round 2, and that's because we lose an hour because other teams do not have their act together. You know what happens in most sports teams when your team isnt ready at the correct time? FORFEITURE.

If your team isn't at the mark, you don't deserve to win.

Well, some of that delay was because we had to marshall in the gaming room.  Usually as teams are assigned judges, they head out immediately.  This year we put everybody in the gaming room because our marshalling area was so teeny. (except when the hotel graciously let us use their back lobby on Friday, that rocked)

Mike B:

The only qualms I had was that Rohvar and Kiroc didn't have enough to do in the story... Ant was a bit overused in the plotline. And there were times where it wasn't really clear what was to be done next (especially in round 2).

I've got to address this one without spoiling it too much for people who might have acquired a copy and want to play at home.  In round 1 Kiroc arrives on Anfractus to a heroes welcome.  But did he really deserve it?  and then he is immediately accosted by his pregnant childhood sweetheart demanding marraige and/or support..  Later there are at least one possibly two major combats where he should have taken the lead. 

In Round 2 Kiroc is given a chance to redeem himself with the islanders.  He was the captain of the Venture and all the scenes aboard her afforded him plenty to do.

Round 3 I will grant you that Kiroc is no longer the focus.  "Ant", who spent Round 1 defined as "inconsequential" is a new man and Celledrus is searching for his daughter

For Rovahr/Graluk Round 2 should have been a feast.  Once they left the Venture, it was all about him.

In a good adventure, the focus needs to shift so that everyone gets a piece of the pie.  It's not always completely possible to do, however.

Oh, and I'm really glad to hear that about Round 2, because we were really afraid the opposite would happen and the players might think things were too much on rails.  Ambiguity is good.  Confusion is bad.

For our starting time, it was round 1. We had our team together, name picked out, chant written, before 9pm. We hung out in the hall waiting and waiting and waiting, then they finally did the marshalling. I should have looked at the exact time, but it felt like 10 before we even began. I am however, pretty sure it was closer to 930-945. We did get an apology, but there was that /entire/ open area up one flight of stairs with no one using it. Why not marshall there before 9 and let the groups who were ready begin? In fact, by the time they began, there /were/ no partial groups. Everyone had settled into a group of 6.

I've always played in the first session of the day before, so maybe this is usual?

We moved into that "Open Area" the next day.  It made things go much faster.  But that area was part of the hotel lobby essentially.  It's one thing to commandeer space in a convention center like we've done before, but another to move a huge noisy event like a Nascrag marshalling into a hotel lobby.  The Omni staff was so great to us, I want to thanks them for all their help and support.  Once they realized our need they let us have a big chunk of their space out of the goodness of their hearts.

The Thursday marshalling was tough.  The space was too cramped to get people in rows and impossible for our staff to move around. 

Does anybody know when we'll be back in the convention center?

I thought the marshalling for rounds 2 and 3 was actually great, better than ever!  we basically all started at the same time and we got to hear everyone's chant and stuff :) we got to sit :)  we all got to see girls gone gamers and team rambo.  I really thought that was a win...

how the characters can interact with each other is a little more important to me than that each of them interact with the story in a satisfying way, and this year character interaction was done better than ever (rohvar excluded).  much kudos to the writers for that.

however, the small problems series will be tough to beat :)

I had an absolute blast. My team (Girls Gone Gamer) was awesome (Go Tara! Like, omigod!) and I loved our dynamic. Mike B and Foxxtail are old hats at Nascrag, and BelBearvan had Nascragged once before, but this was my first Nascrag ever. In addition, my friend Jay had never done any RP'ing before. I think he really did a freakin fantastic job as Ant and I hope he comes back with me next year.

I had a great time with the puzzles. I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that I solved the slugs puzzle so fast that even an ace puzzle solver like Foxxtail assumed my answer couldn't be right and second-guessed me, but I was right right RIGHT! The crystal puzzle that "revolved" around Ant was a killer, but we finally got it.

Our judges were great. My very favorite judge was the judge in the second round, because he had such a fun time with an NPC's accent. I don't even mind that we took up a good 30 minutes on the recurring joke that surrounded that accent, cause we still finished (awww yeah!) and it was, well, very funny stuff.

My humble suggestions:

1. Allow all the teams to see the cheers. In the first round, we had our cheer first and were led out right away. It was nice to get to start so early, but I wanted to see all the cheers to get into the full spirit of the event.
   
2. After roll call and cheers, if there are some teams that are full and some teams that are missing people, work out the missing people after the full teams get to start. Should the full teams be penalized timewise by the delays caused by teams that are missing people? Should time slots for subsequent rounds and the awards have to be slid back to accomodate late starts? I think it can be avoided.

To wrap up, Nascrag was one of the absolute highlights of my con. I am really pleased that Foxxtail and I won MVP awards for our Taras, and I am proud of our whole team for working together so well and for having so much fun. I will absolutely be scheduling to accomodate Nascrag next year.

Jess

aka Narcissica

aka Tara

aka the other Tara

braewe:

For our starting time, it was round 1. We had our team together, name picked out, chant written, before 9pm. We hung out in the hall waiting and waiting and waiting, then they finally did the marshalling. I should have looked at the exact time, but it felt like 10 before we even began. I am however, pretty sure it was closer to 930-945. We did get an apology, but there was that /entire/ open area up one flight of stairs with no one using it. Why not marshall there before 9 and let the groups who were ready begin? In fact, by the time they began, there /were/ no partial groups. Everyone had settled into a group of 6.

I've always played in the first session of the day before, so maybe this is usual?

According to the timestamp on my camera, teams were playing by 9:25.  That's not bad at all.  That's seated with the judges and in motion.  Best case scenario is 9:15.

Narcissica:

Our judges were great. My very favorite judge was the judge in the second round, because he had such a fun time with an NPC's accent. I don't even mind that we took up a good 30 minutes on the recurring joke that surrounded that accent, cause we still finished (awww yeah!) and it was, well, very funny stuff.

Sl'theh: SSsssssssir! Sssurvivors ssswimming ssssssssstarboard!

Kilroc: Sweet! Steer slightly starboard! Search for the sextant and spyglasss in the ship stores!

Sl'theh: Yessss! Sssssssssssteering sssslightly ssstarboard, ssssssearching for the ssssextant and sssssspyglass. Sssshall we ssssally the missssenmast sssir?

Yeah, that was awesome!

Mike B:

Sl'theh: SSsssssssir! Sssurvivors ssswimming ssssssssstarboard!

Kilroc: Sweet! Steer slightly starboard! Search for the sextant and spyglasss in the ship stores!

Sl'theh: Yessss! Sssssssssssteering sssslightly ssstarboard, ssssssearching for the ssssextant and sssssspyglass. Sssshall we ssssally the missssenmast sssir?

Yeah, that was awesome!

Oh yeah, and the Howard Cosell impression was great, but Foxxtail and I were so busy writing our songs (what were there, like 10 of them?) that we missed anything more than a glimpse at all that action. Man, I had fun.

I initially posted this on Saturday.  Before I talked to anyone, so I thought I would add some of my teammates impressions.  Everyone felt the judges weren't prepared and kept losing the thread of the story.  And that some of our problems seemed markedly artificial.  The woman who played Kiroc didn't like how they went over with her that the islanders gave us provisions, and then it turned out that that didn't include water.  The guy who charmed monster was upset that his creative idea was shut down and wasn't dealt with.  We were in general a table of unhappy players.  

Ok, I must say that our team highlight reel is 90% these two lovely ladies, but those songs were fantastic. Not only did they come up with them in seconds, they were perfectly on-key.

My favorite (prolly got the lyrics wrong)

(To the Tune of The Lion Sleep Tonight)

In the Blast Room, the deadly Blast Room, the bugbear tries to fight!
His blows are lousy, the crowd is drowsy, and and he has a wimpy right!

Oewemohweih,

Oewemohweih,

Oewemohweih,

mujeresliebres:

I initially posted this on Saturday.  Before I talked to anyone, so I thought I would add some of my teammates impressions.  Everyone felt the judges weren't prepared and kept losing the thread of the story.  And that some of our problems seemed markedly artificial.  The woman who played Kiroc didn't like how they went over with her that the islanders gave us provisions, and then it turned out that that didn't include water.  The guy who charmed monster was upset that his creative idea was shut down and wasn't dealt with.  We were in general a table of unhappy players.  

So after a thoroughly underwhelming experience; I don't think I'll be doing Nascrag again.  It seems like they try hard, but clearly they're not consistent.  My friends did it a couple of years back and came in 3rd place.  So I don't think we had a bad team or anything, even though it was my first time at Gen Con.  Although not being able to choose our own characters probably had something to do with it.  Why was that anyway?  The character concepts had been online for months; its not like they were a secret.

 

It was just an absolute nightmare dealing with the GMs.  Yes plural.  I don't know why we had two, but it made puzzle solving a total pain because they started talking to different sides of the table so instead of working together it was like teams of three were working and even when we tried to share information across the table the GMs didn't catch that we were sharing so they would repeat information. 

 

Then there were several times in the game when clearly one or both weren't paying attention when we said we did something.  For example, the sulfur is making it hard to breathe, we say we're going to tie scarves over our mouths, and then several people make the appropriate hand gestures.  Two minutes later, "You all start choking from the fumes."  Us, "Even with the scarves?"  One GM, "You have scarves on?"  And over and over. 

 

I don't know if this is standard, but I also found the GMs to be incredibly patronizing.  I can't tell if they were doing it as much to the other players, but I definitely felt singled out.  I don't know if its because I'm a girl (which trust me girls get talked down to all the time in gaming communities), or I was just sitting closest.  But even before the game started, the GM was talking about how he left all his dice at home, and I thought I heard him say "and I need a d20."  So I said, "Oh do you need a d20?"  Him, "Sometimes I'll have you roll a fort save or a skill check, and for that you'll need a d20"  Bear in mind, I had all my dice out at this point.  Me again, "So...you don't need a d20."  Him, "Oh yeah I'll need to borrow one."  During the game, when we fought the bird dinosaurs I literaly howled, and said "I charge at the monster with my claws. Does 15 hit, oh wait 17 [because I forgot to add the +2 from charging]."  I gave my damage, and then the other DM decided to "check my work" and said "You can only attack once."  Which is what I did!  The other one I remember is another player cast Protection from Elements: Acid for 108 pts on me.  And the GM turned to me and said, "That means when I give you acid damage you subtract the damage from those points first and then your normal hit points."  Me, "I know..."  I'm not saying I know everything about the rules or something, but what the hell is up with all of that unsolicited advice?  I certainly don't think I looked confused, tired and frustrated maybe but not confused.  And honestly if it had been one time it wouldn't have bugged me, but it just seemed to be constant.

 

So all that plus all around us there were tables of people laughing at the top of their lungs having a fun time.  And our table barely had a few chuckles. The GMs didn't even smile when after a player cast charm monster on one of the bird dinosaurs, we all decided to climb on top of it and ride it to the volcano.  Plus I had this exchange with one of the GMs which seriously borders on the bizarre.  He was speaking as one of the kobolds (who we saved from the bird dinosaurs), "Have fun storming the castle."  Me, in character, "Do you think we'll make it?"  Him, "What?"  Me, out of character and sightly louder, "Do you think we'll make it?" Him, "I was quoting The Princess Bride."  Me, "Uhhh." Another player jumped in at that point and said, "She was feeding you the next line."   Now that I look at the quote, I see the actual line is "Think it'll work?"  I hope I was close enough for gaming though.

 

So yeah I was playing a character I didn't enjoy with two GMs who weren't paying attention, talked down to me, and apparently lacked a sense of humor.  I could've done something else with six dollars.

I am very sorry you had a bad time. But I don't believe NASCRAG GMs would possibly be that poor. The charm monster on the lizard creatures was pretty much the standard non-violent solution (almost every combat in NASCRAG has a peaceful alternative. As foXXtail once said, if you are fighting all the time, you are doing something wrong), so that's probably why the DM (forgive me for saying this) felt it was uninspired.

But yeah, I'd file an official complaint with NCM, but I really doubt a NASCRAG judge would be this bad. I HAVE had GMs where we had no chemistry with them, but each time they at least made an effort.

Mike B:

My favorite (prolly got the lyrics wrong)

Your version... almost bore a slight resemblance to what Foxxtail and I wrote. :)

Narcissica:

Mike B:

My favorite (prolly got the lyrics wrong)

 

Your version... almost bore a slight resemblance to what Foxxtail and I wrote. :)

Ant... I hear kobolds make good megolodon bait, lad. Prepare a matchin' set of trawlin' hooks! (grunt)

Mike B:

I am very sorry you had a bad time. But I don't believe NASCRAG GMs would possibly be that poor. The charm monster on the lizard creatures was pretty much the standard non-violent solution (almost every combat in NASCRAG has a peaceful alternative. As foXXtail once said, if you are fighting all the time, you are doing something wrong), so that's probably why the DM (forgive me for saying this) felt it was uninspired.

But yeah, I'd file an official complaint with NCM, but I really doubt a NASCRAG judge would be this bad. I HAVE had GMs where we had no chemistry with them, but each time they at least made an effort.

Well it was my experience.  And everyone agreed that they weren't familiar with the module.  The exchange between the player and the GM over the charm monster went something like this, "'I have charmed one; we can ride it the rest of the way.'"  The GM, "Well it doesn't last that long."  The player, "It's supposed to last (8? I don't remember what level he was) days."  The GM, "Well it has an intelligence of less that 3 so it doesn't understand commands."  The player, "Then we use hand gestures and signals."  Later he told me they kept drawing him aside and mentioning that he should be reacting to situations etc., but his view was that he was on a secret mission, and he didn't want to blow his cover.  

Also at one point, I was playing Rohvar, I mentioned not understanding the local flora (7 Wisdom afterall and not really a surface dweller).  And instead of letting us resolve my character's question the GM turned to me and repeated the description of the flora.  Now that I think of it, neither of the GMs were particularly familiar with the story, but almost all of the bad exchanges were with one GM.