Part two of the listeners questions and Sin Eater Wrap up. Questions are asked and answered.
Knights of the Night
236_WoD3_KotN_Sin_Eater_Wrapup2_What_Is_Is
[music] Hello, and welcome the Knights of the Knight actual play podcast. This is the World of Darkness wrap-up episode 236. Wrap up part two, or what is is area. [music] Just like last week, we're going to go through the weekly feedback before we finish up with the listener feedback for the World of Darkness sin eater campaign. The first bit of feedback we have is from kotnpodcast.com, the blog page. Anonymous. No, it wasn't anonymous. Actually, we assigned a comment from Archail. Congratulations to kotn on the completion of the sin eater campaign. I began listening to your group's full archive on April 2014 to fill the void after the world. That's like a year and a half. Yeah, it was. But we have a large archive. At least a picture of themselves. To fill the void after the World of Darkness MMORPG game was sadly cancelled. Oh, no. Yes, it was. And I have to compliment Scott with much acclaim on the way that fascinating library research and bizarre metaphysical perils are regularly woven into the story, in an adept and addictive manner, as well as the care that kotn puts in in the performance and the great editing of Dresden, Dungeon World, and Numenair storylines. I feel like many of the commenters on the nights regularly criticized campaign pacing and as of yet uncovered motivation. But in my opinion, that is the price one pays to allow player characters the freedom to make their own attentional focus and decision in driving the story's ultimate path. My favorite scene in the entirety of the sin eater campaign was Edgard, Jay, and Shoes Escape from the Realm of the Fairies, with the simultaneous help of the real world. In part 20, which I believe is 10-- Wait, is that when you guys were in the tree? Yeah, the heroine was summoned. But it was after we got off the spike tree. Yeah, when Edgard summoned the Lola to-- Rowana. Rowana, right. And they sold a heroin-laced cigarettes. Yeah, it was good stuff, thanks. So as I've said, which I believe is Pimp. Yeah. It's just Pimp. No, which I believe is the full title, which I believe is Pimp, because I was referring to something in French, and pretty sure that I heard from Pimp, his Pimp. Right, and he's Pimp. We don't know if you have to say it, like-- Yeah, but I didn't. Since the locus of the conflict in the hedge was most focused upon the danger of the external environment, more than interpersonal conflict over a very secretive and potentially dangerous stranger/allie, well-played realistic and cryptically by Rachel, the immune to all the interrogation and turtleneck scrutiny, the less easily classified or real people-- Turtleneck scrutiny. In the imagination of the associates, then a rogue Hobo werewolf, who as a partner was clearly and unmysteriously both a Hobo and a werewolf, each player trapped in the hedge was able to dig into history and personality of their character to give a deep and complex background breadth to their current thought space, and to the intricacies of the wider system of Vadun, as it exists in the story. Should we, like, have a minute? Go along before we forget them all. All right, let me-- let me get to the end of the sentence and then we'll comment. I mean, as much as Sister Kidio Connor always had a lot of personality and pluck infused by Jim into her struggle more deeply than with their conviction and additions and personal demons. But I think that both the flow of the story, as it unfolded, and the prudent gameplay kept them largely out of trouble for the most part. And the bishop, as well, was another character with more complications to probably learn of in future segments. Preserveably. I can't wait to find out more about the bishop. So, who says? Yes. We also made a few other dozen points. Like, you liked how we were more worried about Rachel, who was helping us than the whole ball who ate one of our allies earlier. Well, I wasn't part of that, I haven't been worried. Right. Yeah, you were worried about me and not your whole system. Yeah, I want to say that, in a story that could occasionally be uneven and, you know, lacking in strong pacing, that was one of my favorite scenes because I felt like you did each draw from something internal in your characters to try to... Well, we had to make the sacrifice. Right. And that was one of those cases where it kind of worked. It didn't happen enough in that story, but I liked that part too. I agree with him. He continues. My favorite comment of the entire campaign was Mike's discussion of worldcraft and storytelling on how evil and sinister characters do not eat their breakfast in an evil and sinister manner. Since I see this as a very common problem in modern lore building and books, comics, films, and video games, and my least favorite comment of the entire campaign was also Mike. Since I live in Iowa, which according to him stands for Idiots Out Wandering Around. Oh my God, that's wonderful. That's a great job. Did he like that? He had a laser that's admirable, and I left it in there. That's beautiful. It's a shame. It's a shame. It's a shame he's not here to hear us all compliment that. You indeed have fans in Iowa, and I still cheer Mike as he brought out the subtle knife. My best to everyone, keep up the good work. I'm a poor student with scientific research commitments, so I cannot be a Patreon supporter or an Amazon funder, but I encourage all others to donate what they can, and I will continue to spread the word to my friends about your program. In a future hypothetical game systems do not work out for you guys, I would recommend the Better Angel System, as performed in series by the Rag Nerd Dirac. Rag Nerd Rock. Hot gas. That's a title. Yes, they need to try harder. Since I think that you would all have a lot of fun with it. Good night. Night. Night. Night. There's like four nights here. I don't know how to say that. Night. Night. Night. Night. Well, even though he may be a student of limited means, I think that there was some really fantastic thoughts there in that particular feedback, and most of which I do agree with myself, that he kind of hit some points that were high points and some things that maybe were struggles as well, but we appreciate him as a listener, and I don't know what Mike's bug up his ass is about. I don't know either. He's unfortunately not here yet. He will be here. I have fine memories of Iowa, so. Alright, on to an iTunes review we had. We haven't had one for a couple of months. It's been a long time. Yeah, it's been a long time. Jesus, good on it. This one is from Kennethess Prime, who titled it Best Actual Play Podcast Out There, Five Stars, and says, "The nights are amazing. Not only do they know how to role play extremely well, but the time is taken to edit the podcast into the best actual play I've ever heard. Almost all the background shutter is eliminated, and music and sound effects added to boot." And if that wasn't enough, they make sure to go through any feedback they receive and answer questions from the listeners at the start of each and every episode. It's an incredible addition to the podcast that I really appreciate. Even if you've never played any of the games that they play, I still recommend you listen as the entertainment value is on point, and you'll learn things about role playing and GMing that isn't bound to a single gaming system. Keep up the good work, everyone. It was a Kennethess. Kennethess. Kennethess. Kennethess. Kennethess. Not just any Kennethess. The Prime. Kenneth. The Best. Kenneth. Kenneth. The Prime. Thank you very much for the review. It's been a while since we had one. I'm still waiting for an honest to write his. His one-star review. His zero-star review. It'll just be like two words. Right. He'll silver bell. But, you know, we do appreciate each and every one of those iTunes reviews, and it was nice to get back on the wagon. Actually, the iTunes helps. They bump us up, and then we show up more often. Yes. So, if anyone can take time... Who's your iTunes will find us easier. Right. Anyone can take time to write one of those reviews. We certainly would appreciate it. Over to Facebook, episode 235, that pesky fourth dimension. Luke G posted and said, "I've just had a thought 15 minutes in. Someone unrelated. Part of the reason the first Judson file novels, the first novel or two, aren't as good. It's because Butcher wrote the early stories with the intention to prove how horrible the idea would be after someone suggested he do something like the popular urban fantasy of the time. And he didn't want to do something formulaic. He started to actually enjoy writing these stories and took it serious later. Also, while I'm a fan of ignoring Lovecraft's humanity is a worthless glitch thing, and move more towards "Did we just punch out Cthulhu?" I do have appreciation for the mythos and medtorable in terms of horrifying. So, thank you, Luke. Kyle H posted and said, "If there's still time to ask a question..." Oh, I'm sorry. How come there wasn't an epilogue to the Sineadir story? I think that maybe that was part of the reason that the ending felt a little jarring. I know that things have been crazy for you guys, but I just expected some kick-ass tune and Scott's dulcet tones over the top. Keep up the good work, and thanks for putting out the show. Even us non-progressive, Jakey, you guys. Mmm. Do you need to wrap up? Like, you haven't... Apparently I have... That's what we did with the film. You told us... Art is quite as dulcet. It's... Art is our golden dulcet. Women's swoon. It's amazing. But for my... My tone is just dulcet. You know, really, there should have been an ending song. That was something that you and I didn't communicate. I didn't realize you were that close to releasing the final episode. That was just miscommunication. As far as the epilogue, unlike the other two, that we had a... There was a finish line. There was an end. You know, the B lady was defeated in shitlock. And even in chagrin, you... You walked away with the farmstead and flames behind you. It wasn't an ending of the same sort of... We're back now, safely. This was an ending in the sense of... We're gonna pick up almost from that exact same spot, which, again, we did with this story from chagrin. But to me, chagrin had just more of a marked ending. And this had more of a, to be continued. Like a part one of a two-part series. Right, like when they film a book and they split it into two movies. Right. That's how it's... Because obviously the torso murders of the '30s and the pursuit of the torso killer really is gonna be the next chapter in this story. So that's the reason for it. I mean, there should have been an outro tune, you know, an ending tune to set the tone. But really, it was my fault in not keeping in contact with you and making sure you had one. Christopher F. Posten said, "Wow, you guys actually played gurps?" I thought that... We're old! We're old! Only existed as a meme. Like fiddle? I wanted... It's mostly... I don't know what actually plays like... Fiddle? We're the bad system? Yeah, it's strangely sexually bad. It's a meme. Strangely sexually bad? If I recall... Well, I just never heard a game described as strangely sexually bad. We gotta try it. Apocalypse world, which dungeon world is based on. Do you want to sit down and play something like that? Most definitely. And fucking play something like that. What's this? And play something like that. And play... Actually, you said fucking play something like that. Yeah, and you said you had a lot. You're mixing a lot of sexers, but you're confused. People are terrible. We're not. Well, I just was interested to know if the system is based on a lot of sexuality as part of the storytelling. Apocalypse world actually has sex moves for each character that you can use. Sex moves. Well, that's just credit. I mean, just as an action number, particularly sex moves. I don't know. If you remember Apocalypse world... No, I mean, dungeon world. Like, if they saw Apocalypse world, each character class had different moves that they could do. Okay. And you can choose from a list. Right? One of them was... Okay, that's what I thought. That's what I thought. I haven't played the game. I don't know. I'm just telling you it was a strange sexual culture. Absolutely. So, there you go. I'm really glad I saw that. Thanks, guys. Ari also posted on Facebook and said, "Awesome! Awesome feedback episode. It really drove deep into the many good things about gaming and game mastering. Tipping my driver's cap to all the nights. And later you posted... Oh, and anonymous? Really. So wrong. A track that Tag was dancing to. What the fuck is that even? I don't... It's Scandinavian for... What a fucktart. I think this is what it meant, but I'm not quite sure. Ari, I don't understand what that means, but it's so wrong. A track that Tag was dancing to. Exclamation point. A track probably on a CD and Tag is probably some kind of derogative. Spin-ish. Yeah. It's a very bad finish. Our car chose only 250 years old, so we don't know what... Yeah. They've been around London. With that, we will get on to the questions from the listeners and the World of Darkness Sin-Eater storyline. All right. This will be part two of our listener feedback for the World of Darkness story, the Sin-Eater. I was your story dollar Scott, although now I'm just the commentator reading off the feedback and questions from our listeners. With us tonight, starting on my right is... Michael, I played Ethan Clark. I'm Jim. I played Sister Kay Bullhane. I'm Tom. I played Jay Alton. Sorry. This is Bob, and I play FBI Special Agent Shoot Park. I'm Mike. I played Michael Clay. Thomas. I played Edgar Montes. I'm John. I played Daniel Morgan. I'm Rachel. I played Silverdale. All right. We're going on to the listeners questions. Again, this is part two, so we did handle quite a few questions on the first part of our final recap of the story. I'll start with one that actually came across this week from Steve E. For this particular story, what other system do you think would have captured the feel of it properly? I'm going to need some help here because I don't have a ton of experience with other gaming systems. I do probably know five to seven gaming systems. I know there's a slew more out there. The Cthulhu? I could certainly call it the Cthulhu or Trail of Cthulhu, or any of those might have had the ability... I don't know enough about the Trail of Cthulhu if it has a different feel about it. Right. We played Call of Cthulhu long ago, many years, and I still think it would fit well. Night's Black Agents, Michael and I were talking about it as well. Right. We had kind of talked about that last. But that's more of an investigation, and you prefer the horror. Right. Although I think going back to Shagrin, I mean, excuse me, shit luck, the first story, and really with our fourth story coming up about the torso murders, I think that investigation is going to play a big role again. So I really do enjoy that aspect of the story. I don't like to get too far into straight combat. They don't like to get too far into just role playing the backgrounds, the characters. I do like a fair dose of investigation and clues and mysteries to be solved. Perhaps that might be a good fit. We really like to try Night's Black Agents when we go to QCC in September. That would be good. Anyone else think of anything that a gaming system that might lend itself well to a world of darkness? Well, not world darkness, because this is its own story. This particular story, The Sin Eater. Again, I don't think it plays well to fate because there's too much freedom to care. If you guys would have spent a fate point and opened up a damn gate and walked through to 2011, then the story would have been over. Or it could have been if it wasn't approached, right? You guys are a good role player, so you wouldn't have done that. You would have went along with the story. But to me, there's just a little bit too much character freedom. And we've talked about this pretty much in other feedback sessions and other storylines that fate gives the characters like control. And it's my belief as a storyteller that the characters having control takes away some of the horrific aspects of horror. That you have to occasionally feel like you're trapped in that you don't have a good option. Or you have several really, really bad options, which I think doesn't play quite as much of the fate system as mother systems. I think some other person commented on using fate for horror, and they said that they thought it might work. And at the time, I didn't agree with it. But now I'm starting to have second thoughts because I think failing forward is a thing. And if you do that with fate, you can have, okay, the gate opens up. But, you know, I mean, you can handle it a bunch of different ways. And if you're going to run away, you didn't really solve the adventure. Like you said, that's not something you would do. There are consequences for working around. I'm not suggesting fate's the best answer. I'm going to say a little more convinced than I was before. And maybe it's just my lousy experience with World of Darkness. Right, exactly. But it might not be a very viable option. I mean, it can't be. I don't think there's any yes or no answer, like a black or white answer until you actually do it and try it. And I don't go over and get to that point because I like the fact there's two separate systems that we play for both our listeners and for the players themselves. By the way, we've mentioned Cthulhu a number of times. Has anybody been following the New Horizons Pluto thing? Because they actually named a section of Pluto. They did. They did. I thought that was... In fact, they put that in flip... I don't know if that's official yet. No. None of that's official, but they tend to go with the people that discuss the government. What was the whole gamelan thing that they were talking about? Starblazers. Starblazers. Yeah, there's a whole bunch of cool names. There's a dark section. There's a dark section on the moon and they named it Mordor. Yeah. We'll go on to our questions that the listeners posted from a couple weeks back. Stuart H. asked, "How did playing what had been a non-player character affect Rachel?" I thought that there were some pushback against Scott's restrictions and GM notes and how much discussion was had over the alterations that Scott made to chagrin. I remember there being some issues that Scott insisting that the head that Grace was holding, haunted, was actually a teddy bear. That's from Stuart H. They could break it up into a couple of different parts, but Rachel, do you want to... I don't even know where to start. Do you want to start wherever you want? How did playing a character that already existed and already had some history... It wasn't something you created just on your own mind. Yeah. How did that affect your playstyle? Certainly, it's a negative, I would imagine, at least first. Well yeah, there was a disadvantage to it. She was very flat. She wasn't a very dynamic character at first. I had to play her a couple of times before I really felt like I knew who she was. Because going into it was given a certain backstory. And I wasn't allowed to add and change and things, but... I mean, there was so much of the whole story. How many episodes have chapters have you guys had to before? This was our favorite, right? Yeah, so I kind of... I felt like I needed to play her a couple, maybe like three or four times before I was able to give her any actual real personal touch. Right. Editions to what I already knew. Yeah, it wasn't as fun as creating my own. That's for sure. Well, we discussed this a little bit before the recording session where you had mentioned that... playing Dresden, using the faith system, allowed a lot more freedom. That was really your first exposure to role-playing game. So I felt like... This time around. Yeah. Which makes sense. I mean, you did let me change a little bit, but that's honestly why there was so much disconnect with like... Because I gave you more and more freedom as the story went on. Right, more and more freedom. So again, it conflicted with things that had happened in the previous chapters and stuff. Oh, I thought she was holding a severed head. I thought she was younger. I thought she was younger. I thought that she was younger. Right. Because there were certain things that I was allowed to change that didn't quite match up. Right. And just to be clear, in regards to... Do you want to explain that now? The severed head. I know, not actually. I mean, I want to elaborate on it. There's a reason. I want to elaborate on it. I don't want to explain it. Yeah. The severed head dichotomy of what she's holding a severed head. What she's not holding a severed head. Is it a teddy bear? That is intrinsic to the story. That wasn't a mistake. That wasn't an error. That wasn't something Rachel changed. It wasn't something I changed, or I'd forgotten about. But it was something... John's character Daniel and Tom's character Jay saw a severed head. Yep. If you ask Rachel, or a silver bell, she is fully under the impression that she was carrying around an old teddy bear. Yep. There's an actual reason for that, and it will play out or be revealed in later stories. That wasn't an error, or that wasn't Rachel and I changing things up as a story went along. The age thing became almost a meme and a joke among itself, but we'll have to go back and listen. Is that a separate head thing? That was something that we kind of cooked up together because I was like... At first, not a thing. This again? Oh, yeah. You told me. Oh, by the way, your character... This is what it was. Well, yeah. This is what's going on, and I was like, man, no, we're going to have to create something. Right, you mean... Yeah, exactly. We created a storyline that made a lot more sense with it. Right, yeah. Exactly. So it's not... So it's more allowed to collaborate and create things based off of it. Right. So you were from the beginning, even before you started playing it, changing it up and talking about each area. Talking about each area. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. I truly think that in the next story, it will be much smoother. I think so. And I think knowing what I know now, we've talked about this last week a little bit in the last session, I think we'll do our talks on Mike. I think that would be good. Because I think it just would really add an element to the meaning. Traumatic pattern. Yeah, exactly. Absolutely. Actually, the time that you took the second mic, or we left one here... Right. I thought that worked out rather well, because Tom had twice as much rather than not being able to use anything. He was able to use twice as much. Right. Absolutely. I think we scampered off to in a joining room and talked through a scene there. And I think that really added a lot to it. Some of the stuff that we discussed around the table, or you weren't in the room, was actually made into the podcast. Right, exactly. And I think that's one of those things where as a storyteller, or a GM, you try to learn from your mistakes. I thought there would be more dramatic tension by not revealing what was going on with her character and make her more mysterious. What it really did was interrupt the flow around the table and drag down the overall pacing of the story. Meant you does not trust me. And that as well. From my perspective, I didn't mind them not trusting you. That was legitimate. But from a gaming standpoint, I think it's one of the major factors that really tripped up the story becoming a AAA story that I was really proud of to something that was more of a AA. You know, I really missed on some things I could have capitalized on that made that a really much more interesting story. It had a lot of cool elements, but it just didn't all come together perfectly for the most part. In my mind, other listeners may have loved it, other listeners may have not loved it, but from my mind, I could have done a better job. And that was one of the things I really fucked up on and would go back and change if I could do it again. Originally, I thought the severed head versus the teddy bear thing was the fog of war. People saw different things, now I'm starting to think it might be PTSD or something along those lines. Right, right. It's one thing I just wanted to clarify, but listeners, there are errors that make it into the final recording. Forget things, it's been a long time since the last thing. Threads get sometimes a little bit sidetracked or a little different. Like, you remember her being whatever 9 to 12, and I remember her being like 14. And then she ended up being 16 when all was said and done when Rachel took over. But things like that do happen, and we make errors of continuity. You can weave those type of details. Time and spirits, come on. Right, exactly. Totally. As far as the severed head went, there actually is a reason behind that. Okay, following up on that, because Kevin B had a couple interesting questions I thought regarding the story. Now that Silver Bell has revealed to Michael Clay that she is some sort of undead rich, that summoned a portal to hell, and had a flex capacitor in her pocket the entire time. We'll address the characters continued to inexplicably trust her. Do you think they can trust me? He thinks they inexplicably trust you, but why kill her? Kevin B is saying, why do you trust that woman? Oh, we've had that introduction. I don't know how many times. Right, but now that Michael Clay has seen something that he hadn't seen before, the slash line across her throat, her opening a different portal that was of a completely different nature to hell. Well, I imagine seeing some Michael Clay tells me this, and Daniel says, we'll see. You're telling me the guy whose daughter had died, but we found her in the basement covered with blood that someone severed head, who was possessed by time spirits, has some magic powers? What? But it really depends on how Michael Clay describes it. Because I know he has... I'm going to get bored of that, by the way. Yeah, because he has certain bias if he was ever to try to explain... Maybe let's be clear. It's not my personal bias. It's the nature of mine. It's not Cioro. Absolutely. But what I was going to say is to wear a wolf in the garage. You're a thief. I'm just saying, I'm only going to be an item just to mention. The one that ate your teammate. Is that everyone? I'm sorry, it's been years. That still pisses me off. They eat a world of ate our teammate, and they're like, why are you so mad at the werewolf? Why do we have to kill the werewolf? And let him stay in the fucking garage. Oh, no! In fact, we're kicking you out of your room, we're giving the werewolf your room. Cool shit, man. You mean the teammate that cut the hands off a werewolf and sewed them onto himself? That teammate? Hey, that was his choice. That was not my choice. You can kind of see where the werewolf might be a little perturbed by that, though. Excuse me? Yeah, yeah. So the werewolves are a... Let's hear it here. How about the hands off the werewolf and sewed them? No, the werewolf. First of all, a different werewolf. Not this werewolf. That's what the deck makes. That's what the deck makes. It could have been his wife, you know, but this is not important. It's a conspiracy that takes the parts of the bad guys and puts them under the good guys. You know how everyone's had come to the bad guys? With the bad guys. Like, yes. Special Agent Chew Park belongs to what's called the vast few conspiracy. He's an F, no, he's an FBI agent. No, he's crazy, actually. He's an FBI agent with a sexual mental problem. Tom is a member of the ascending ones who stick needles in their eyes and inject poison. Not just in our eyes. Other parts of our eyes as well. That's cool. Michael Clay, and he... We energized poisons and converted to management. And you guys think that I'm... Right. Well, see, now that's my point. What I was getting to. The only one we had was a witness, is Michael Clay, how he tells us and sells what happened. It's a big part of it. It's gonna be a big part. And I could see Michael Clay explaining it just the way the listener explained it. Yeah. Exactly. And so it just falls really quickly. This is not fair. Ryan played a character who belonged to a conspiracy. They were a medical conspiracy. They harvested parts from monsters. Oh, wait. And reused them. So he had a werewolf claw on one of his hands that was sewed on. It looked like a regular hand, but when he imbued it with its properties, it became a werewolf claw. And of course, the werewolf could sense that, and it took Umbridge and murdered him and aid him. But it also held the key to the major point to the story. I'm not sure. Umbridge is the right word for a... What was he? It was side street building. He was a vagrant who was a werewolf as well. It was a lesson. Couldn't we have three people in that conspiracy? I've got to kick it out of the story when we're another. That's all coming out. Oh, werewolf. First story. Okay. So I think we've answered Kevin V's first part to his question, but he has a second part. Also, in the way of more serious constructive criticism, is there any chance we, the audience, can get a peek behind the curtain on Grace. Grace and Roberto both had the potential to be characters that are distrusted by the party and worked against them at times. The difference between what the audience and the party was privy to made one character widely liked and the other one widely disliked. That's true. Now, that goes back to my original point of... Is that they knew everything? Yeah, if I could do it differently, I would have done it in the Roberto Vane, but you handled it. But I didn't want that because we'd just come off of that. And I also wanted to try to add some suspense and mystery to your character. Yeah, I do. However, going back, I would have done it differently. So yes, I think you will get a peek behind the curtain, Kevin, next time around. I didn't have a lot more sympathy. Not right now. I don't know. Roberto was liked. Oh, he was liked. He was voted as one of the favorite characters. Oh, okay. Not around the table. Not around the table. Not around the table. Not around the table. Oh, right, right. Not around the table. Fuckin' hated that. Lou's cannon. Lou's cannon. Yes. The title of it. I was supposed to make it go into 10. I was supposed to make it go into 10. Yes. Yeah, I was supposed to go into 10. You closed the door. You closed the door. Okay. You threw the grenade. You threw the grenade and closed the door. Which is very cinematic. That'd be it. And look. I want to plop it. I jumped on that grenade. It was a golf clap. But he definitely clapped it. But he did jump on that grenade. It wasn't. It wasn't. I was really grenade. It was a happy grenade. It didn't tell. No. You shouted grenade and shut the door. It was a chit like you very much. Yeah, I really didn't. Okay. Also, no offense to Rachel. This is kind of you. Something up. Also, no offense to Rachel. So intended, I am legitimately super excited for Zelda to come back. So, I'm sure Rachel is as well. All right. Moving on. Zelda is a favorite as well. Okay. This is a question for everyone. But again, I saved some Silver Ball questions from last week. So I want to get some of them out of the way here early on. Then we'll carry on with some other questions after that. Steve E. wrote. Silver Bell has been the topic of many feedback sessions. No, sure. Now that it's over, I got a good thing for being a dead horse. It's a Lego character. Maybe it's an immediate horse I should do. It's all post-it. Right. Now that it's over, how do you, and I think he's not talking to Rachel, but he's talking to the group in general, how do you feel about the NPC who became a PC? Was it balanced? Did you dislike her for having a little extra plot information? I had that happen a long ago when a friend stopped by, so I let him play an NPC. He then joined the game and kept playing the NPC. He had some knowledge of long-reaching plans, but we managed to make it work. Did the NPC go the direction I would have taken it? Nope. It turned out better. More live, if you will. So that's Steve's question. And I think that's a great question because it doesn't just set her on Rachel and Silverbell. It kind of brings out to all of you. Was there a time when you said, "Damn, we think she knows more," which actually is really true. No. So, like, not true, but you could have felt that way throughout the story. Was there a time when you got pissed at her character for knowing more, or being an NPC and being a PC? And the story was called The City there, so obviously she was a big part of the story in the gates. Did it ever annoy you guys as players? That's it. Did it ever annoy you guys as players? I think it's what Steve's asking. I think that implies metagame. Right. No. Even if I were... See, I don't know what a cineator is still. It's hard not to kind of metagame in that situation, though. I mean, you're playing it and you're thinking, "How is this character coming to this group and what's going on?" And you want to... Do I treat it as I would an NPC, or do I treat the character as a PC? Right. And that's why it was hard at the beginning to ask the questions that I would ask an NPC. And then when I started asking those questions, it's like, "Hey, back off." Right. And the other people in the group are like, "Back off." And she's coming to my face. Right. And I'm like, "No, I want to know the answers." These are good questions, answers I know and then all the answers to them. "No, we'll figure them out later." Right. It was just kind of weird and awkward. Okay. Weird and awkward. Anyone else? He asked if she was overpowered. She still knows what her powers are. I mean, she told me a couple of them. But then she opened a gate to hell and she sure didn't mention that. So I don't know what she can do. So you felt that she was overpowered? I'm sorry. I have no idea. Right. So I didn't bother you in one way or another. I guess so. If you gave a bad guard enough time, you could open a gate to hell. I mean... That's the thing. Right. I had the feeling at the beginning that she had a lot of answers to the questions we want and was either told by you or by the story or just dictated by the story line that she stuck in that she can't tell us any of those things. Whether she wanted to or not. To be fair, I actually really don't. You don't know. Right. But a lot of things you did choose a conceal because that's the way you found the character. You found her as someone who was hardened because of the things that it happened to her and fuck if she's going to get everything out and dispute her life story after these complete strangers, whether they rescued her or not. It takes a while to build her truck. She doesn't trust anything. And that was really her, not me saying you can't answer those questions because it will reveal the story too soon. But the very fact that you didn't know that is a negative to my mind because if you felt like that then it wasn't the flow I was looking for, which I think I've already talked about. Well, because we didn't have that knowledge before, like you said it wasn't, like if you told us what it was and we knew to play it where we don't know that, we know as players we don't know as characters. Right. I think it was spelled out well enough to start. Is that what you're saying? Well, I felt like she was never really a PC because she was originally an NPC, but then I didn't know how much was really her freedom to do what she chose to do. I thought that not me. That's us, Mike. Well, that's what I mean. I'm like, she's like, "Well, it's not her fault." I know it's not her fault. Right. That's, she. Well, I'm not good at seeing you. I'm just saying, I'm the same. But it's like, that's why you have a built-in us and them because it's like having two DMs, or a game storyteller. I get you. I get you. I get you. Don't you master's game master's storytellers? Sorry. All of them work. Right. And then the players, and so it's like, "All right." And then when we did try to find information, granted she didn't know, so she's like, "Okay, I don't know and I'm not going to answer." Nobody believed me. So I wasn't sure. Yeah, I wasn't sure if she was a character that's working with us or against us. If she's somebody that you put in here to mess with us and not help us out at all, I had no idea. So I didn't actually treat her as an enemy. But how many accurate is that in the story? I mean, we'd be suspicious of someone who... Right. ...had powers, but wasn't talking. Who we thought was responsible for. And that's the part... I mean, and you were here for it last week, but that's the part that... Yes, many. No. And that's the part where I remember, because I felt in a lot of ways like, "I'm not trying to be a jerk or being abusive, but it's just like things are happening." Yes. And based on what my character knows, I am reacting a certain way. And when somebody uses magic and disappears and is doing something magical and the team is gone, it's like, "Okay, is this attack? Is this a defense?" And I remember even trying to just tell me what's happening so I know how to respond or react, otherwise I'm like, "Do I have to shoot to the wound?" Right. To be clear. To be clear. And they're just like, "Ahh!" You know, you just... You don't know. What I've heard of... Because we've heard of them, perhaps, better. It took the metagameing question out of it. Say, "She is her own character. She may not know all the answers to the questions you're asking because she might not legitimately know them, or I might need to fill her in because this is the first time playing a character with an entire back. I don't know how much you're going to help." Because some of the problems Jay had to deal with what was happening, but one of her things was that I don't think Rachel fully understood the system. Right. And on occasion would give off this aura of being extremely powerful and then bounce a feeling at something because she didn't understand the game. It's fate where, you know, if you're good at something, your character, which as we discussed earlier, you're good at it. You can do it. You're not good at it. Yeah. So this was my first experience playing something where it could completely backfire. I do know more about your character now. And so at points she would say like, "Oh, don't worry. I can't be killed by this guy." Yeah. Right. But then at the same time she's like, "Guys, I'll protect you." And then she creates a circle that gives us two dice. And it's like, "Are you fucking kidding me?" It's almost worthless. They can almost blood and overcome it. It's certainly not understanding the gaming system and seeing this spell and going, "Oh, this will be awesome." Yep. But in game mechanics, not so much because in fate that would have been huge. In World of Darkness it wasn't. So it was part of that where she seemed much more powerful, but then was that how her character would have acted. And Jay had to act on those beliefs regardless. Well, that was just the enthusiasm of youth. Right. She could be what was happening. Like Jay. She's 16. Oh, Jay's definitely overconfused. What's going on, Jay? One eye sniper. Oh, is everyone there say there? As far as that went? I do want to say one thing with me. I do think it harkens back to whoever it was. The last question. No, before that. We were talking about Roberto. But anyway, Roberto. And how the audience knowing what was going on with Roberto made a highlight. He did definitely make the audience like him a lot more because they were privy to that knowledge. Right. To a degree, although it is metagaming, I feel like though us around the table, we certainly didn't like Roberto. That's not the right word to use. Well, he didn't help your plans. He was a disturbance. Well, he was still there that there was something going on. I think as a player, we liked John. But as characters, at least I know I did. I absolutely disliked Roberto. No doubt in my mind. Yes. I've described Roberto as a lightning rod. Right. He stirs shit up like you wouldn't believe and he brings the lightning. If there's something going on, he's going to be in the center of it. But I thought it brought a lot to the story. Oh, absolutely. See, that is a player, Scott. Well, I love everything John did. But playing my character, London, he's a wild card there. To your point, he's detrimental. When you guys kicked him out of the house and you went off on that mission and he was wandering the house, we sat at home, just he and I. And I was the demon whispering in his head and he was playing his character. And we've got that thing. So now, the listeners have a little peek. It's almost like they have a secret that you guys don't know about. That gets by him. That is, you know, him, the fan favorite. You know, that philosophy of they're in on a little secret. They've got a little knowledge. It's almost like an inside joke that they get. And that's beneficial. Right. So maybe we'll have to do a little bit of that and go on to that story going forward. Sorry. I was just going to say how if you edit and you're the storyteller. Well, he can. No, no, no, no, no. Actually, they did take the microphone into the other room and I had to edit it. And what I did was, right when they came up to the secret part, then I flipped the volume around so it was backwards just to drive the audience a little bit crazy. But I knew. And then I have to pretend that I don't know. Well, that's the difference. Well, playing for so many years, I can do that. Yeah. And Jay knows very little about her and I know a lot about her, but I still play it as if Jay doesn't know. I have to. That's the difference of having the player knowledge and the character knowledge, which is why, like with Roberto, I could only make sure that I acted on things that my character witnessed him do. So, like, when he started throwing Hellfire around, that was a big problem for me because he was supposed, as far as I knew, that he was a normal human being. So, now that he's throwing Hellfire around, which usually means, because my guy was a wizard, so it got hell on it. It's evil. Yeah. And so, when you're hell, it's dealing with demons. He's not what he says he is. And it's like, okay. And it just so happens that my character has a reason to be directly opposed to that, which is what happened. We were locking horns throughout the whole thing. But it's like I'm like a cop trying to collect the information and the evidence before I can accuse or go after him. And so, like, Michael Clay, the same thing. I'm trying to observe and investigate, so I can say, okay, that's what's happening. Trying not to use my player knowledge, that, okay, she's a sinner here. I don't know what that means yet, but... Was there ever a point that you trusted Roberto before he started throwing Hellfire around? Because I feel like with Grace, there was never a point where any of you guys ever trusted me from the gathering. I know playing Repo there was. I trusted Roberto. Right. And in fact, I had him on the mission with me when we were trying to get back. And, yes. With one in as well. And, yeah, until he took the sword and went to cut the silver string. I remember asking if Repo could take his gun and shoot Roberto before he did. There was two points that Katie saw something in Grace that she trusted her. And the one thing is when you were worried about the kids, you were, like, really worried about their safety. And she thought that's not a person who doesn't have a kind hard way to give a cry out. And the second time is when she used her sight to take a look at her. Right. And didn't see anything that she saw that was bad or evil or... Malicious. So she took in two different ways with her own eyes and with her faith's eyes. Right. She saw nothing wrong with Grace. So she said, that's right. From that on, her attitude is she might not be helping us, but she's not working against us. Right. It's not evil. Yeah. That's right. There was no trust ever from the get-go whereas with Roberto, there was trust until he showed like Hellfire, like you were saying. And I'm wondering why that is. Well... Maybe it goes back to an NPC thing. Well, it started in the very first. You know, we rescued you from a basement. We're driving in a car our way in trying. We get into a car accident and slip through time. And then you continually deny that you had anything to do with that, even though you're the only one that had... We're trying to... So there was an automatic bias there. We're trying to make sure that... Ironically, yeah. As we are rescuing you in the chagrin storyline, time spirits came out of you. So that's the only connection they had. And what's more? Oh yeah. Really? Gravity. And we're trying to take... You're holding a smoking gun going, no, I didn't. We're in a bad situation with a new person. Daniel, did you? Daniel, did you? You cannot answer any question, good, bad and different. Any question at all was, I'm not going to talk to you guys about nothing. I just want to say, for the record, I said, do you want to play a very difficult character or is it a very difficult background? Or would you like to create one from your own? You said, no, I'll play the one that is difficult and the one that has a back story. The story tell asks if you want to play a difficult character and you say no. It's like, great, I can write... She's going to answer some of these questions we've had throughout the last section of one work. You answer this, you can answer this, you can answer that. In some of your word choices, we're poor. Like what? I can't tell you that. I don't know. I don't know. It's perfectly acceptable. I can't tell you that. I can't tell you that. I can't tell you. It's way too much ambiguity. It's not ambiguity. I know, but I can't tell you. I can either say. I can tell you whether or not I can either confirm or deny. Exactly. That's most of the time what I was saying. What do you claim? I did not have an information. Actually, I will leave that one. Depends about what the definition of "is" is. I have... Did you really say that? You did? I don't think about it. I had... I'm not arguing at all. You guys don't. I don't know. But you sent you off from failure. I did. I shouldn't say I don't know because... I can't say I don't know. You were somewhat trusted until we went back. But it's also tough too because I just feel like there's just this head down. The beating of the dead horse picture has come up. Michael has arrived. Yeah. All right. Slightly more light topic. Lime A. wrote and said, "Will Michael Clay eventually take his night thought for dinner romantically?" [Laughter] I'm going to take this off. Is that written down there? Will Katie O'Connor finally admit her dislike of children is due to her own lack of toys as a child? Can Jay Alton find something better to do with his time than inject things into his eyeballs? Oh, hell no. It failed. Oh, yeah. That's possible. Will Ethan Clark... That's drugs. Will Ethan Clark end up as a stranger in a strange land? It's the future. Oh, no. These are questions like sand. These are the sands in the hourglass. These are the nights of our lives. So that was from a little lighthearted suggestion from Lime A. Let's see. This is from Floyd Jay. Now that everyone has at least one story in New World of Darkness under their belts, I would pose a hypothetical given a chance and with compelling storytelling preparation when anyone in the group be interested in rerolling a character and perhaps finding a different character voice. What? So obvious candidates. Jim, Sister Katie, who knows this point if she's dead permanently or not? Rachel Silverbel, Michael Dr. Clark, and of course any others who may not be 100% invested in their compacted conspiracy or just anyone that thought things would be different and wishes they would have gone in another direction for their character. Mind you, I don't think many, if any, would change their characters, but what if kind of thoughts could be interesting? Also, is there anyone in the group that would be interested in other types of characters from New World of Darkness rather than Hunter/Mortal? He goes on to mention different things like ghouls and vampires and... What the hell is a vampire? A daywalker. There you go. Thank you. What? Okay. If for some reason they were to create a new character for the Chronicle, what is the group's thoughts, negative and positive? Oh, let's just stop there and answer that and I'll go to two questions. Two questions. To answer the questioning look from Rachel, he's saying would you like to dump Silverbel and create a new character and to answer the questioning look from Jim? Daniel, played by John, used the goggles, found a little moat of sister and carried him to the gate. I caught that. So you are still living. I don't know what happened after that most seemingly... She appeared back. You exist physically. Okay. We don't know your mental state. Oh, that's what it is. Okay, so is anyone, if they had a chance, would they redo their character? Would they take it in a different direction, whether it be the same character in a different direction, or would it be a brand new compact or conspiracy? John, you have your arm. Daniel's part of a conspiracy that uses technology to augment themselves, and I'm stuck in the 1940s. 30s, actually. Yes. Okay. Yeah, they're still figuring out technology. They're not quite there yet. Right, so I don't think it's either. What do you mean it's beneficial to me at all? I don't know what I can do with this. Right. Yeah, but would you be willing to scrap the character instead? I don't know. Are you saying what I'd rather started one from... No, after the beginning, right now, if you could say Sister Katie is now dead lying on the attic floor, and now in the game is... And you bring a new character to the game. Would you be interested in a new character? If you were, would you be interested in doing something different than one of the hunter templates? I'm not. Lucy, the ghost child. Right. I like her, and I want to continue to play her. Yes. But I'm always interested in playing other characters too. Right. Both options are great, but I want to continue playing those characters, and I'm the one thing I want to do. But if she did die and I had to pick something else, I wouldn't be like too terribly sad. And I'd love to play something weird or off the loss. Sure. I'd like to do this. It's hard as it gets sometimes. Actually, I like playing stuff about it because it's fun. It's a challenge. Right. Anyway. It's hard to play someone who everyone hates. Right, it really is. That's Roberta. I'm comparatively bored with Daniel for that, yeah? Right, so maybe a chance if the story would stay too long in the 30s, you would be interested. I don't know. Another choice. Only a hypothetical. Sure. Anyone else? I'd either give Michael Klay a sunset star. I'm almost prepared to live fine in 1935 alternate universe Cleveland. Right. Take what knowledge I have of history and future and try to parlay into this. I don't know. What do you buddy with fiction, you know? Right. Or just go out and ablaze the glory of some sort. So, do you think his arc is expired at this point? I mean, are you truly bored with those characters? I'm not bored with them as a character, but I find myself sometimes hitting that boundary that I've run into before and I've talked about before where I feel like I see the cracks. I'm butting my head against the ceiling when I'm trying to contrive reasons to stay together. Right. When and times I'm like, all right, go forth. I'll file my reports and have the order of the sword busy you guys in a few weeks. Right. I've done my job and then do something else. Right. Okay. Interesting, Bob, would you anything different? I mean, obviously, Chu's got a fairly compelling backstory, but is it something you would change knowing how horrific it is at this point? I don't think I would change anything. I don't think Chu would really want to stick around with the group too much longer. I mean, if we are still trapped, we're wanting to. Right. I mean, we're still trapped back in time. Obviously, he wants to get home. Right. As soon as he gets home, he probably wants to get out of this third-class chapter. Right. It's not when he signed up for his too much shit happening. Actually, I want a dope slap Winston. Yeah. I'll find him. What about him? He's a player, not as Chu. Is it peak your interest? That character was created to track down supernatural serial killers. That would be something that the torso murders in 1935. Do you think the next chapter is something that does it excite you as a player? Yeah. I like playing Chu. I like it a lot. Do you think that would be up his alley, though, the pursuit of the butcher? Oh, yeah. It would be a little bit more focused on the skill set. Right. And whatnot. I think if we were able to resolve some issues and move them off our plate and make room for the new stuff. Right. It would be a little bit different. Right. But I just feel like we just are adding mystery and clue and tantalizing thing on top, on top, on top. And you need to resolve a couple. I sort or at least resolve something before we move on. Right. Okay. Like I said, I mean, we had our first big lead with Valkyrie, one of the last episodes. Right. And you're like, Ah, that's not what we learned. Right. Right. That's what we learned. Right. Yeah. I got you exactly. This is still from Floyd J. What is the group's thoughts negative and positive on the God machine chronicle update to the game mechanics? You didn't play. So you're really, it's not a question for you. You've never played the original world of darkness or the new world of darkness. The extra powers with risking your willpower, being able to choose two things and getting a willpower point back if you succeed, you know, that type of thing. I think we talked about aspirations. The aspirations were a negative for many of you, which I was surprised at because I thought that would be easy experience points, you know. I find it really hard because every time I made one, but we're definitely going down this road, these short term things should be something you should be able to get because they're right down the road and we just hook a left and we turn around and go back the other way. Right. I'm going to change it now. I'm going to change it and it gets almost to the point where you just don't want to make them anymore because. Or you just make them really simple or really, really straightforward. I want to live another minute. I want to take a while to get more. What about the gun damage? I didn't near what Rachel said. I said, it took forever. The pace was so slow that it just took, it was so hard to get your aspirations done. The race's aspirations were sick. Yeah. Well, that was just saying mystery after mystery and things are like compounding and similar to what you were saying. Like, you would think that you were going to finish this in the short term, but. Then something else happened. Yes. Someone else got that about. Insanely chose the goal of getting back to 2013. Exactly. Which is my character. It's going to be like four chapters from now. Well, he asked for a long term goal. Right. Yeah. You should get bonus points for that. Like find out who Binary Hex is. Like, who are we even talking about that person? Which does one of my aspirations for, but, I don't know, five episodes. Binary Hex is done with Binary Hex in the shattered minute when we took a left turn and like. But, but. Yeah. I believe they're awful. Awful game. Okay. Wait. Oh, oh, oh. I kind of like this, but I mean, I see the point of what everyone's saying. It gots a ludicrous to the point where Jim's like, I'd like to touch the car keys. Yeah. Right. One thing. One thing. I want to pet my dog. Right. Well, I want to go to sleep. Well, actually, but that's a legitimate one because we are all so exhausted. And that didn't happen. Yeah. That's exactly exciting gaming then. No. No. Right. I want to pet my sheep. Hey, I slept. That is, if we're only playing for a short time each night, that makes it more difficult and the shorter game. Right. I guess we've already talked about the what downs to the pacing in that it could have been better and what distracted from that. And that was one of the things I would try to go back and change by quitting was the pacing of that story. Yeah. That's a tough question to answer. It is. I mean, we played it for five months. I could not tell you what the other system was like. Apparently, willpower works different. I like that too. Right. The willpower change worked. The aspirations didn't for most, it were all of you, I think. Well, the damage was different where you did the automatic weapon damage before it used to be how many successes you rolled is how much damage you did. But now it's how many successes you roll and then it's added to some innate damage to up and forth. Dangerous and deadly. This is a type of damage called bashing. It's a delight. It goes away pretty fast. They decided that fisticuffs and the melee weapons do lethal damage now because you can die in a fist fight. Oh. So it pretty much never shows up anymore. Right. And everything takes much longer to heal. That's what people, if anything, are complaining about. I'm wondering what bashing damage is then, if it's not fistic. You fall down the stairs. The noodles? Oh, wait. You can die falling down the stairs. There's nothing. You can die opening your drawer. I personally do not like that particular mechanic. And then Floyd finishes up with just how much rehashing did we do off microphone before we started playing. Like last week we did, and really most of our rehashing was on microphone at the beginning of each episode. And a lot of them made it to the end. It ends up being heard by the listeners anyways. But the private stuff and the work related stuff, most of that, last maybe half an hour and ends up not making it in. Stephen R. from the KOTN podcast.com blog site. So you said post. Right. Who dosed everyone in a great arc? The game ended in media as, if nothing else, the perfect cliffhanger. The test force valve three agents, grace, which, or time lord, you decide. The 12 murders, the farm, it all ties fantastic together, or at least their speculation that it does. I think Rachel deserves a special shout out for having the dedication to stick to grace when there was so much dislike for a character from the fans. I don't think it was well founded. If you look at the Avengers, half of the plot of the movie was the intentional internal issues of the team. On the issues of grace and Scott's plotting of how the final scene went down was due to Rachel's foreknowledge. To me, it seemed that part of the plot at least was very impossible to organize otherwise. Thank you for all the time and energy you put into the best actual play podcast I've found. Well, thank you, Stephen, for the kind words, first off, and liking us to the Avengers. Yeah, that's kind of cool. That's very cool. I don't think we're nearly that competent, but... The final scene was, I can answer, and Rachel can also pitch in if she wants. The final scene, Rachel was not the, or Grace, was not the only way for that to occur and it actually happened in real life where it took an exceptional success from Dr. Ethan Clark. But he finally found the combination for his different cube in order to open up the gate. It just so happened that Grace happened to do something on her end of the time wine or the time wormhole, whatever you want to call it. Just to take credit for it. To take credit for it. Look what I did. Which is exactly the same thing that happened. Right. I was saying, James just fully believes that it takes two people one at each end to open these times because it's happened twice now. My answer to Stephen R would be, you listen to the answer, really, in the sense that it wasn't one or the other, it was actually a combination of both of them that were needed. Grace probably not a parent, maybe listening in an over a long period of time, but it was always the case where both were needed to make the gates function properly. One of them could do it, but the effects would have been, and this is by a gaming, but it would have been more detrimental to Cross-Through had not both of them been as successful as they were in their, their various. Well, is it true, Lisa, in fact that she sent through the 12 agents and she was only one side of that tunnel? Well, it goes to the other side. Bum, bum, bum. Bum, bum, exactly. Something that a little teased for the fans. Or is she really? I've never been. Two people. One? I'm just saying. I'm just saying. The ones are awesome. Sure. Yeah, they are. Rachel, which one? Oh, right. 10, 11, or 12? Or nine? Nine. Really? Yeah. My wife's a big fan of nine, too. Yeah. Nine. Time-large stocks. Was that the first one of the new series? Or of the new series? Nine's in part. I love that one. I love that one. Steve E. That is an Ecclister. Facebook? Episode 232. Hell is a land without marbles. Steve E. had another question for us. Are there any storylines that you left unfinished that you wish you could wrap up? Or personal character development that would like to have seen? He doesn't say if this is for the storyteller or for the character, so I'm going to assume he means it's for everyone. I think Mike hit on it earlier, Mike, by the play, there's a lot of threads right now, and they're just starting to come together. I think as players, you might be a little happy if you could have closed a few of those threads before the story ended, which I take as critical feedback, and I'm always looking for that. But the one part that's interesting is there any personal character development going back to all of your backstories that you would have liked to have seen fleshed out a little bit in this story that wasn't, or even you, Ethan, in particular, I know you didn't love the system, barely liked the story from your perspective, which I don't take as, I mean, I take it as constructive criticism, and I appreciate that. Would you have went to have had Ethan's backstory that we worked on together? Yeah, I had a backstory developed about his wife that went missing, and that's what led to mine, his travels, to take him to bed and whatnot. Right. I'm not sure any of that really fit into that particular chapter, so I wasn't really disappointed, but yeah, eventually, maybe that, you know. It'd be fun to see a little bit more of his back, so I think looking at it as a whole, I think Ethan, the fact that he was peaceful and he didn't get to use any weapons or really have all that much effect, you know, he wasn't part of the team, maybe that contributed to my disappointment with the system right now. Right. And he never was being more challenged in the story at all. So if I may go back to a question from just a little moment ago, when we come back to the fourth story, which the name of it is yet, but obviously has to do with the torso murders, would you like to try to flush out Ethan, because you're playing him and see that character archivolve, or would you like to come into it with completely different people? Did you ever answer that question? Yeah, I didn't. I'm not entirely sure. I think I would stick with Ethan, but something worth a conversation to any of you have background elements that you felt we didn't, we could have touched upon maybe within the story. So he's got a lot going on, but it's all back in, in 2011. I mean, I was hoping to go into her trying to get to a church, hook up with what's going on. Oh, I had a whole store going to that church, all right? And we're just got sidetracked four or five times, I had figured that I'd just give up on it. Like, this is not going to happen. It's just not in the works that I would like to see her use her dogs more, and it just never happens. They're just to just never a good time to write them into the story. As far as the whole story goes on a whole, both my character and myself are frustrated with this whole system of what we're doing. I don't even know what we're doing anymore and why we're doing it and where we're going and what God is here and what we're trying to figure out anymore. I just totally don't know what's going on anymore. Right. Too many threads. Too many threads. And every time you think you're on a thread, it turns into a different thread. So she's just trying to survive. She really doesn't know what's going on in this investigation anymore, where we're at and what we're trying to figure out. She just knows she's in another time period. It'd be nice to get back home, but don't know if she's going to be able to. As far as the whole tracking down, what's going on with these agents and where they are and why we were doing it and what she has no clue. Right. And really, she was, yeah, she was a late add-in, too. She didn't start from the beginning either. Yeah, but as far as me as a player, I have no idea either. Right. What's going on anymore? Recaps not like it's due for next time. Well, in that vein, Kyle H. echoing some sentiments, but really, the time travel doesn't seem to be a big issue. But he was the big fan. How would you guys rate this section of the Vanishing City art compared to the other two? We've talked about that. Yeah. And last week, we talked about that. And no one voted that this was their favorite story. Everyone liked shitlock or springboard. Well, Jim, Rachel didn't have a chance to. But this is, well, for Rachel it was her one and only story. And that's, but Jim, you can give us, which one of the three stories was your favorite shitlock, sugar, or the cineter? Probably the first one. And that was a very popular choice. That was the only one that had an answer to the question. I'm not a big fan of time travel bullshit because he's channeling Thomas for this feedback. Who is this? This is Kyle H. Also known as Thomas. Also known as Thomas. So I wasn't a huge fan of this Chronicle. But this is actually the first rule about this game where I've had to wait a week between episodes. So maybe that's why it seemed a bit more, I can't think of the right word, but it seemed maybe a bit more choppy, like it didn't flow as well as the other two, at least to me. When we talked about that kind of two several points, that's the pacing in this particular one wasn't as strong as we, as I liked it, certainly as much as you guys did enjoy this particular story, as much as the others. I think a factor there is the size of the group because we were successful last week as well. Yeah. I think it's important to point out that. I mean, trying to keep the threads in hand for all the different things and give everyone a moment is a very tough thing. Especially in an hour and a half of play time, or whatever short periods that we have on a game. And how long do we play where our party was divided? Right. That's never- Always never pleasant. A killer. Right. Stephen R, a question and a half of the GM. How much of the game was plotted out? Where did it turn, expectantly? Unexpectedly. He actually says expectantly. But I think he might have meant unexpectedly because that seems to be a more compelling question. Whatever the case might be. But I think either way, we answered. It still gives Stephen R his answer. And I don't plot out a great deal of the story. I have a general ending in mind. I have several plot points that I'd like to hit, but try not to force out of the players. It's a couple of scenes that I think might be compelling scenes, like almost vignettes or like just what would be a really interesting look for maybe in a mind's eye that I try to incorporate. But really, I try to at least let you guys follow the threads I've created. And sometimes your ideas are better than mine and I let that be the thread that is followed. But otherwise, no, not a ton of plotting and it turns several times for me unexpectedly. But for you guys, sure it may be perfect. Or at least you follow the thread that you thought you were supposed to be following. But I don't take that. I think that is, again, that's the players and you want them to feel like they have some input into the story. You don't want them just forced out of the light. So I don't write out the entire story and say this is the way we're going to go. I write out certain plot points and say this is how someone will react. This is what someone's end goal is. This is what someone thinks about the group in general. And then try to just have that kind of play out naturally if it can. Sometimes it's more successful than other times. And again, we've talked about how the story was not my favorite and not anyone else's favorite. So it could have been done better. Keep on our, I wanted to write a longer e-mail about this, but today I've been conscripted into helping in the family business. So quick question. After a second adventure using the second edition Godmishing rules, this one had a bit more room for non combat stuff. What are your feelings of the update versus, and we talked about this briefly, about versus the earlier edition? We like some things, we dislike some things. And following the same idea, what do you think was okay old versus new? So it was better. What worked better in the past? And I would say that. I think we talked about world power, right? I think we actually liked the new world power where it granted us additional powers. But I think overall what we didn't like was the addition of the aspirations. We kind of felt that the old system just handling morality, so I think it's called integrity now, but the morality, the sanity of the characters might have been handled better or we liked it a little better in the old version of New World of Darkness than in the Godmishing. And the version points, we like that better? I don't really doubt them yet. Right. These points are an interesting line we can cross. Yeah. Interesting concept, but I haven't seen it. Yeah, we didn't. Yeah, we haven't handled it yet. I rolled on one, I just didn't fail. Yesterday, Luke and I talked a bit about it, and since I've been lately digging into the world darkness stuff, I blame you all, but Scott particularly, I wonder what the general feelings are. Great work is always looking forward to your next adventure. So I think we, to be honest, I think there was a mix there of liking some of the old stuff and some of the new stuff, and I'll take that in mind when we play our next version, and hopefully they'll have a book that incorporates both sets of rules so we don't have to jump between 15 different books when we're trying to play the game. Sorry if that wasn't a satisfactory. We're not exactly experts on the world of darkness, even the people who enjoyed it. Jason M. for Mike, how did it feel to finally get to use the Leatherman? It was awesome. It was very useful. Really? In fact, what can't you use a Leatherman for? Well, I think it was the first time in three stories that you would be whipped that baby out and actually did something with this. No, we discussed this. We talked about this well. We talked about this well. I thought we didn't. Right. You didn't use it in the past, we thought. Yeah, right. Okay. We talked about it last week. But we cut it into a fence since you're green. Right. Well, yeah. We used it to cut it all the time. Into a fence and we went into the beach. Shave in the morning. Once per chapter. He was breaking into the beach compound. He wasn't making a hit on you. Damn it. Well, John, why would you think that the gun is anything but a helpful ally? It's only been used by a crazy hunter that has possible mind control powers and is very hostile. Hmm. Wow. Should more children go? Yep. He always got some sort of item that's trying to control your head. Yeah, yeah. It's a good poem. There was a voice in the head out. Okay. This one I didn't choose. Yeah. John S, otherwise known as the Mad Hatter, got an excellent job overall, especially toward the end. I'm telling from a listener standpoint, and I dare say, would have been from a player standpoint. Well, not quite as much as we wanted, John, but thank you for the compliment. The last episode, especially seemed to strike a good balance between dealing with the horror of what the players were facing and the player's actions being important and effective. Actually, I thought that was one of the stronger scenes as well. That may seem like too much of a compliment, so you're a dick. Yeah, I get that a lot going forward. How many parts of this story arc are remaining? The last one, while very interesting, opened as many plot points as it closed. I wanted to ask about a few, but obviously don't answer if they bring spoilers forward. What happened to the B lady? She seemed to appear in 1935, and then was never heard from again. You're talking about Tammy, son? No. Oh, the girl that, well, she was under the impression that it looked very much like Tammy. Oh, was Tammy? Okay. Right. And that's where you followed her into an alley and ended up on a horribly pointy treat. So, that really wasn't the B lady to be clear, and she probably is for all intents and purposes out of the storyline, just to what's John and anyone else who might have been wondering what happened with her. What about the buildings that shouldn't have been there? Are they in the future now as well, or at least the history of them having been made is it there? That's a great question. And actually, there is an answer to that, which I can't share with you. Why were there feeder demons in Chagrin? They seem to be unconnected to the other NPC groups, yet there they were. Because fuck Chagrin. Right. They were full of everything. Yeah. Zombies and vampires. They didn't have enough of a challenge with the Black Hawk helicopters, the zombies, the sun. And they changed the Ninja Cobals. That's right. That's right. Even demons don't need any reason. No, they don't. They don't need any reason. Actually, I got the idea for Chagrin, both from reading a pre-canned World of Darkness adventure, and from my own thoughts and ideas. I basically take a pre-canned adventure and just rip everything out of it, and just use the very, very most basic framework of it. And the feeder demons were part of that basic framework. Because there was a lot of despair. That particular compound, if you want to call it a cult or a cult of personality, whatever it might have been, there was a lot of despair in that place. And I took that despair and kept it, as it seemed fitting for the story, and the feeder demons were part of it. So they were not connected to anyone's backstory. It was just more terror for the night of terror. It was supposed to be a chaotic, crazy-ass night of terror and- And what? Mission accomplished. Mission accomplished. It did it worse. I could see the despair. There were those people in the trailer who had already killed themselves before we even arrived. And this guy pulled up. And the cross. Right. How about that? I'll get it. We'll be here from The Shattered Man again. Well, John, what I would recommend is to crack a mirror, write your name backwards on it, and see what happens. And see what happens. But in all seriousness- Do not attend. Yeah. Do not tell that at all. And I do think that the mystery of The Shattered Man has not been fully solved. This is an objection. I know there's a number of the task force that would not let that rest. Right. And I think it's- Danielle, I think, is another. I mean, there's children that are- Yeah, that's not happening. So I think that I cannot comment on that storyline, but I think if it's important with the characters, you will most likely see it showing up in the follow-up. What I wasn't sure, at the end of the story, if the gateway was going to be two-way, like everyone could go, Jay would stand there to make sure that The Shattered Man was handled, regardless of who was leaving. Right. I guess we really got to listen to that question. He was gone. He was going back to 2011, if that was an option. It was a shit that really happened. This is the past, man. Those are the questions that don't include major spoilers from World of Darkness source books looking forward to your take on the new D&D and the next installment of Dressed In. Yeah. Great. London's back. And that was with heavy sarcasm and a tongue sticking out in Motecon. Theron M had some points. Since Chagrin, the party has been finding new, relevant leads concerning the missing test force Valkyrie agents. Also Grace. Binary Hacks. The White Bishop. Their unknown ally in the past, the one who sent them, the man talking about the White Bishop. I'm not sure that was an ally for going on. Oh yeah, we don't know. Really? Not to mention that they aren't quite sure how the dead children and The Shattered Man and other things fit into the whole plot, but the players ever feel like they've bitten off more than they can shoot. All right. Go ahead. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We didn't feel like it's been crammed down. Absolutely. Absolutely. I think I answered that. No biting. That implies we have some kind of choice or influence. As they are closing Cineeder, and it will be a long time until they return to World Darkness Cleveland, what other feelings or thoughts did they have concerning the case? Would they like to continue World Darkness as early as possible? No, I think everyone needs a break, to be honest. All right. Do they personally think that a different campaign, um, drives an and/or something else, when they'll return to Task Force Siren, that they will still remember what the hell they know. That's the answer. Yeah. Exactly. All those leads and information. Yeah, we have to basically recap everything before we start again. We have a recap thing in my folder. Do the players have any of them guess what kind of being Rachel is? Yeah, but I, like, read the fucking titles of some of the splat books, so I was... Great. I don't know what that is, but I know what she is. Daniel's familiar with Wales, it's pretty sure she's not one. Right. So... My character doesn't know. Shit Black had a lot of investigation going on. That was a very investigation, heavy story. Chagrin consisted of dodging and refriting in a bit of flashbacks. How would the players and the storyteller sum up Sin-Eater? For those that played shit luck, what changed for the better, for the worse? I have a joke about this one. What did you say about Iowa, Idiot, Southside? Idiot, Southwalking around? Yeah. That was us. That was us. That was us. Time's to have another side. Time's to have another side. Walking around. Idiot. Time's to have another side. I think you said it's a bridge episode. It's a bridge episode. Right it is. Yeah, we crossed one bridge to find another bridge. Yeah, we crossed one bridge to find four other bridges. Yeah. That has another bit of questions and feedback for us. Just listen to the wrap up session. I have to be the rules lawyer again. Thomas, feel free to tell me if I'm right and then go fuck myself. I don't mind. I noticed that you've been using new defense rules at World of Darkness, nearly glossed over as if everyone should know it's there. But I believe you're a client wrong. Athletes does add to defense now, but as stated in the God machine chronicle page 197, a character's defense is normally subtracted from any attack rolls where it applies. If she chooses to dodge, the defender rolls her defense as a dice pull against each attack. Each success reduces the attack or successes by one. Nope, Mad Hatter, you're completely right. I wouldn't read the rest of your description, but you're absolutely correct. Personally, I'm not sure how much I like the new rule. This is Mad Hatter again. Combat should be rather brutal and I agree. At the end of the day, we use the rules as you guys see fits. You guys are great at making sure the story comes first. That's why I love your podcast so much. Thank you so much, Mad Hatter. I noticed that in the feedback section, there was a lot of talk about the pacing of chagrin, which I find nearly comical due to one thing. World of Darkness has a great system to move the story along in social settings, but gets bogged down in combat. Combat has, in my humble opinion, always been a weakness to the system, but that's also why I like it. D&D focuses on combat and glosses over the social side of the game, where World of Darkness is just the opposite. That said, Hunter is arguably the most combat-heavy of the game, so is expected to run into this side of things. Secondly, World of Darkness books have historically had very good indexes in my opinion, which makes me angry that the GMC book doesn't have one. Also, adding to the blue book, rather than replacing it, was a horrible idea, so he's saying having that. It changes, but not this, exactly. It made it very confusing for a lot of the rules, and for people who enjoy telling stories, we pretty much ignore a lot of the things that got in the way of that. Finally, Scott, I fully understand the difficulty of ringing in control to increase horror and give the plot a sense of direction while still allowing enough control to have the players feel their actions actually matter. I think the Sydney-Eder chronicle had issues on both sides, but hopefully that helps give you more input to hone in on that sweet spot. Stay thirsty, my friends. So that is the Mad Hatter, and I could agree with you more. I think I learned a lot in that story after having two where I thought were relatively successful stories. I felt like the Sydney-Eder was lacking a lot in pacing and in even direction sometimes, so I've learned a lot as a storyteller, and I hope to use that next time around. Farron M had a question for you, Rachel. In Rachel Grest, the horror storytelling mood driven by Scott, the fact that this looks different from Dresden. Dresden's mystery, this is horror, and if you get that, what is her take on what we listeners call Scott horror? That's the worst kind of horror. That's like the other name that my wife calls me by, that's the interesting title. Scott horror. Scott horror. I don't know how to take on it. I mean, I didn't like not being in control, obviously, you're not in control. In a system, which wasn't really Scott horror, but it's a system more than that. The system is apt for horror, though, because you don't have control. Right. And you didn't like that as much. You would like to have... Did you... Okay, yeah. Okay, that makes sense. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. It was definitely scary to think that you have control of something, and then you don't. So would you say, I guess, the question I would ask you then, the question that may be there and would follow up with you would be, were there times when the lack of control? And the fact you could roll dice and not have any successes and completely screw up, did it let itself to a scarier feeling in the game? Oh, yeah, of course. I mean, because then you question whether or not you should... What you should... I mean, it made you think twice about situation, what you would do, what's going to happen if you fail, which is likely whether or not there's a way out, you know, all kinds of things. But it lent an aspect of horror or fear, I guess, rather. Okay. Rachel, never having played horror before can't compare a scot horror to any other type of horror. I can't. So, that part of the question was kind of... But, I mean... No, but your answer to say, you gave her a very bad... Fear of what's going to happen, and obviously, people can die. Right. Which would fate, you know, that's the question. It's really hard to kill you guys. Yeah, it's really hard. So, there's always that question. It's her key. Doesn't know any other horror than scot horror, so she can't compare it to Rachel. Absolutely. So, our final question is one from Luke G. And it's something that we've kind of hit upon, but I want to paraphrase, because it was... It's a good, meaty piece of feedback, but to wrap up, because it's been a long section of our second section of feedback, what I will say is Luke is basically saying, basically talking about character secrets, and characters having secrets, and how it affects the flow of a game, and how it affects the relationship with other individuals around the table. As much as it's a compelling topic, I think we've kind of hit on it by answering other people's questions. So, Luke, I think we've got the answer that you were looking for, but if we missed it, please let us know, and we'll address it next week when we start our D&D sessions, I believe, right? Five E coming up. Next week? Also, in regards to the feedback, this went over a two-week period with literally pages upon pages of written content. If we missed your question, if I paraphrased it in some way to shorten it, under time constraints, and didn't get to the meat of what you were really trying to say or trying to ask, please feel free to write back. My apologies for the any errors I might have made. You guys did a fantastic job as listeners, bringing a lot of discussion out. I think this is one of the more interesting feedback sections we've ever had for a story, because the story didn't go over as well as they sometimes do in the past. We so seldom get negative feedback. Right. And there's a lot of questions and really not to be mean in any way at all, but really the constructive criticism in many cases coming from the players around the table. Of course, there's been so many, this is a great compelling story, it was fantastic, from the listeners, "Hey, great, I'm glad you felt that way." But there's work to be done, because the people around the table, they didn't have as much fun in this particular story as they had in the past, so that kind of sets my agenda for the fourth story and how we're going to go about it. So again, if we missed anything, feel free to write. Thank you for all your comments, both critical and appreciative. One last thing I want to say is we've been doing this for five years. It's coming up on five years, September will be five years. And I got to say that without a doubt, I've met some of the most incredible and interesting people out there, our listeners. I've talked to a lot of them on Facebook, had conversations with them, and it's just amazing to have a chance like that to meet the people that are out there and discuss gaming with them, and I enjoy every moment, and I want to thank the fans and the listeners for their experience. Thank you to the fans. Thank you for listening, keep giving us feedback. I think that was an excellent way to end it, guys, and we'll see you guys in five years. Thank you for listening tonight's of the night actual play podcast. If you'd like to send us questions, comments, or feedback, you can reach us in a number of ways. From Twitter, @KOTN_podcast, or by email feedback@KOTNpodcast.com, and don't forget the iTunes reviews, or our Facebook page, Facebook.com/KOTN.podcast. Speaking of Facebook, join like-minded folks at our Facebook fan page, and lastly, there's our blog page, kotnpodcast.com, where there's an Amazon link on the right-hand side. Thanks to Zen Audio Smith for the intro and outro music. Get your own music at zenaudiosmith.com, and join us next week for more mystery and adventure theater. And the part where Rachel was talking about how she liked fate and how she compared it wasn't actually being recorded at all, growing at the end of the episode. Yes, working at the end of that really- What are you doing? I don't know what I'm thinking, but I just wanted to try and talk to you. It's Kentucky, Burbanale, and Breckenridge Brewing Company's Vanilla Porter. I like it. I think it turns out delicious. It actually does. It's cool. It's very smooth. We use velvet. It's a pub down in Columbus. It's very, very smooth. Yeah. It's called the pub. It's called the pub. Yeah. I have plenty more in there if anybody else wants. You try. I just want a trial. It's very good. It's very good. I had a great hand. I really like it a lot. It smells sketchy. It smells sketchy, trust me. It's very smooth. It's very smooth. Originally, I thought the whole, you know, seven-hand versus the teddy bear thing was- No, I know. It's got a cart of water. It's not. I don't know if you want to record the trial. I think it's- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I think it's feedback that should be- Yeah. I was just saying the- Will the rest of the characters continue to inexplicably and explicitly inexplicably and inexplicably and inexplicably and inexplicably and inexplicably. It's impossible to understand to me. I passed out. I passed her. Not at all because there's no witnesses. So wait, what? It's a wook. Do you not? Trust her? No one trusts me. MPC is not. Play your character. Just okay. I know. Last person. He had some knowledge. I only played one. Oh, thank you. She's watching the clock. She's watching the clock. It's over three o'clock. It's a recess. Have you guys ever done an unedited podcast like, I wouldn't know. Crack 'em in the clean. Oh, very horrible. I mean like- I guess not necessarily unedited, but- I have taken immense enjoyment from seeing, from hearing them recording, and then hearing the finished product. You know how much we take out? It is a very unique experience. The only people who could experience it are you guys who know something more than the audience, but I don't know any more than the audience. And that's the only those of us who listen to it. Do you read any of those? Most of us don't listen to it. I don't know. I don't even know if it's like an edited version. An edited version? I just need an idea to sell the- or to offer the unedited version. Yeah, but then what if we're not- It's a great job. If you will, it's a shit. Like the directors cut the slightly longer, but not- It is the last episode we had two minutes of, you know. Yeah, I do. What are you looking at me? Because you were about a minute and a half of those, you know? Look at all the hell I was. I just think you can go and listen. I think I'll go back and listen. I just think like a director's cut. Actually, a lot of those guys. Can we give you maybe a little bit more insight to- It's not to be edited, though, which is- You guys- There's still stuff we've got. We've got- Yeah, I do it. Okay. I wouldn't listen to it. I don't listen to it now. I'm taking small little bits and put them in on edit and then showing the edited version, but it's rare. And it's just- Yeah, a little bit. Well, that's about how mad he is at us. And through here, let's do that. The game ended in media race. It's nothing else. The perfect cliffhanger. The game ended in what? Yeah, well, let me ask you- I'm sorry. Sorry. That's just a Latin term I believe for- I'm not sure that's how it's really pronounced. It's devastating. Me, the artist. Artis. Artis. But- I've never taken a lot of those. No, I'm gonna have to listen to it. Great. London's back. Tom and Mordecan. Tom and Mordecan. Tom and Mordecan. Is that how you pronounce it? He said that. I don't use them. I don't even know what they are. I don't even know what they are. Tom and Mordecan. Is that a verb or- It's London, right? Is that a verb or a noun? He has to pronounce it. Just go- It was Facebook I cut and pasted it and word converted it to- Oh, oh. It was actually a tongue of art. It was literally a tongue of art. Literally a tongue of art. Okay, so then- Cool on P. Let's see if you can roll it. It's social combat all over again. Let's see what he does. It takes all of them. Exactly. That's your father's. Not your father's right there. It is. I just bought some of that. That's quite stylish. It is awesome. It's my favorite. It is awesome. Alcoholic repair. It's actually real beer. It tastes like- I was going to bring some, but- It didn't stop them. It's gross. Mmm. Nice. That would be a- Mmm. Do you see that? Or are you a fan? Or are you a fan? I'm wanting it. Yeah. It's fine. I know. So, it's interesting because it truly does taste like repair. It's kind of a beer to after taste though, but- The after taste is beer-y. Yeah. I don't know if I can pound these for an evening, but they have one as part of a dinner for the flavor. Right. Yeah. Not sure you're getting drunk beer. I know. Probably not, but it is, um, that's good. Putting in the plastic. That's why I like it. That's why I like it. I have one of these. It is. It is. So, do you drink to get- Why do you drink to get drunk? The liquor. We did have glass glasses out there that you could have used as opposed to the plastic. Well, I didn't- He's a fan of the plastic. He's a fan of the plastic. He's a fan of the- Oh, a fan of the plastic. He's a fan of the plastic. He's a fan of the plastic. Yeah, he asked for a plastic one, I don't know. I just said do you have- I went like this. Are you worried about breaking? I didn't mean to start a whole thing here. No. It's perfectly fine. Any feedback? Feedback. Feedback. I would wrap it up and say that we jumped around through the questions and- If we accidentally left somebody's eye, we apologize. We even tried to cover them all. to cover them all.