The Shattered City: OOC

[NeoTiamat]

Merry Christmas one and all!

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Merry Christmas, everybody!

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I hope all of our American constituents are doing alright, despite the snowy misery that's come over the U.S. of A.

[NeoTiamat]

Well. I'm alive, even if my back is still protesting from all the shoveling.

[The Whistler]

I'm fine, albeit hosting extended family at the moment! Ended up driving out on the highway last night, though, which was ridiculously ill-advised.

[NeoTiamat]

Good evening everyone. Or morning, perhaps.

It's been about six months since we last had a major discussion on the State of the Game here in the OOC thread, and about a month since we had some fairly heavy chat-based discussions. Since I think there are a few people I have not been able to track down and talk to, I'll summarize the situation.

The Problem: The basic problem is that the game is moving very slowly, and with I think one very vibrant exception, no one is really terribly enthused about the plot or the campaign as a whole. Now, I will say from the very start that this does not mean that I think that people hate the game. But I do think that we've lost that certain glimmer of enthusiasm, and that the game right now is just sort of limping along.

I did some number crunching, and I'll offer a few statistics for comparison between the Eye of Anubis and Shattered City (the lengths may be slightly off since Excel only uses exact 30-day months):

Length: EoA = ~589; SC = ~455
Total Posts: EoA = 6453; SC = 2934
Average Posts per Day: EoA = 10.95; SC = 6.44
Fastest Book (most Posts per Day): EoA Book 2 = 24.76; SC Book 2 = 10.11
Slowest Book (fewest Posts per Day): EoA Book 8 = 6.07; SC Book 4 = 4.69
Average Posts per Player per Day EoA = 1.46; SC = .71

By this point in the Eye of Anubis, in terms of time, the players were a third of the way through Book Ten. Essentially, Shattered City is going about half as fast and has covered half as much plot in what is really a rather significant period of time.

Book Four was originally intended to kick-start some interest in the game, untangle the plot some, and visit some more interesting locations. To an extent, it's been a success, and we've had some of the best set-pieces of the game (The Danse Macabre, the Midnight Market, the Train Battle). But the campaign hasn't really taken off.

Ultimately, there's a host of reasons for this. Some of it is the DMs fault, some of it is the PCs fault, some of it is Real Life mugging us in a dark alley. A significant part is probably a sort of vicious cycle developing between PC enthusiasm and DM enthusiasm (essentially, if the DMs come home and find that there have been ten posts in the past ten hours and stuff is happening, we want to post. If there've been three posts in the past three days, it's very easy to go 'It'll keep/we should wait for more players' and slack off. Which in turn leads to the PCs adopting the same attitude, and vice versa.)

Key point is that the game is sort of limping along. Everyone probably has their own theories why.

The Solution: So, talking things over a bit on AIM and so on, but I think it's best to have a big, group discussion. The way I see it, there's basically three ways we can go from here:

Status Quo: We keep doing what we're doing, the game continues for another 5-8 Chapters. We may all resolve to try harder, and the DMs will keep trying to find interesting plots, but essentially, we keep doing what we're doing.

Start Fresh: It is possible, with a bit of behind-the-scenes reshuffling and a few discreet retcons, to wrap up Shattered City's plot in the next Book. We do so, and then a little while later we start a new campaign, a sequel to Shattered City taking place some years down the line. The idea is that the change of scenery would instill some fresh life into the game, and also leave us without various plot-related baggage.

Draw a Curtain: We decide that between EoA and SC, we've been running one long campaign for about three years now, and that it has come to the end of its natural lifespan. As in the above, we wrap up in Book Five, and then call it a day. I am pretty sure no one actually wants this.

So, those are the three options as I see them. What do you think? Discuss.

[Nerit]

I've said a lot in chat and in private, so I would like to see input from others before I reiterate (or affect others with) my own feelings.

[The Whistler]

Same here, with the saying stuff! I'm okay with putting my vote out there preliminarily, though, if it helps: count me as a preference for "Start Fresh", though I'll happily go along with "Status Quo" if that ends up being the general consensus. I think a shot in the arm to the three-year metacampaign might help things, so long as the timeskip isn't ridiculously long--but whatever we decide, I'm in for the duration.

[Nathan of the FoS]

I am pretty content with any of the three, but for either of the latter two my own involvement is likely to be "Draw a Curtain". This isn't a sure thing, but I have enough new stuff going on that I will probably go that route.

[Rock of the Fraternity]

I'm mostly in favor of continuing, with starting fresh as second.

I loved EoA, I'm quite fond of SC despite the setbacks, and I just want to keep going if that is at all possible.

[lostboy]

I'd rather continue than anything, however I have to be realistic about real life and that means I'm not going to be posting every day. Still I love this game and don't want to see it just fade away, so either of the first two options work for me. If you pushed me though I,d go for status quo quite happily...

[yalenusveler]

I'm actually going to throw my hat in to the continue faction. Part of the problem is I think we haven't had an identifiable enemy. With things going as they are, I think we're about to get the smashable face. And that will be lovely. Plus I like the SC characters and the vibe, and things are finally sane enough that I can post six times a day again!

[Kaitou Kage]

I vote for continuing, mostly because I really, really like Rex and have plans and goals for him. The one big thing I think would help is if the chapters each had less going on in them. To me, anyway, it feels like each chapter has like fifty thousand things going on, while EoA was usually a pretty clear goal to follow. I think if we were on Chapter 8 now instead of 4, but were still at the same place in the story, we'd feel less like the game was dragging. Does that make sense?

[lostboy]

Happy new year everyone, may your 2011 be deliciously Gothic and misty..

[Rock of the Fraternity]

A happy and blessed New Year to one and all! ^^