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Origins Missions Review!

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Bull

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« on: <06-27-11/1946:27> »
If you played in a Missions event at Origins and would like to review, comment on, criticize, praise, or otherwise discuss the adventures you played in, here's the thread to do it!  The writers love feedback on their work, as do I (as Missions developer), as feedback lets us improve future product!

Bull

Onion Man

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« Reply #1 on: <06-27-11/2009:25> »
Ancient Pawns was a laugh riot from start to finish.  We actually got to make good use of a CS grenade to embarrass Humanis, all the NPCs were interesting and high flavored, and there was something for everyone to do.  Some of the missions seemed to be all legwork or low on tech that some of the runners weren't really able to be involved in large sections of it, but Ancient Pawns was fast paced, diverse, and a ton of fun.

Edit: I was just looking at my calendar and saw that Ancient Pawns wasn't actually in missions, but the comment above stands unchanged.  It was a ton of fun.

Addition: Rally Cry was incredible, I know mind control is going the way of the dodo in missions, but forcing the congressman to to give a "Seattle Without Tusks" speech while drinking LAES wine goes in my top 10 roleplaying moments without a doubt.  Smuggler's Blues was fantastic too, with enough legwork to keep us occupied early on, a killer encounter with the raptor, and having my possessing spirit banished, it was absolutely worth having my Ares Civic-Humvee riddled with bullet-holes.

I'd sort of like to play through the missions again with a runner that isn't a possession tradition or mind controller in the group to get a better picture of how the earlier missions would feel without being too much of a match for a stock mission.  Possession traditions are definitely more appropriate for a home game with custom runs than for at cons, in hindsight.
« Last Edit: <06-27-11/2049:56> by Onion Man »
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Text over commlinkOrson "Pig" Fletcher

Critias

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« Reply #2 on: <06-28-11/1539:49> »
Ancient Pawns was a laugh riot from start to finish.  We actually got to make good use of a CS grenade to embarrass Humanis, all the NPCs were interesting and high flavored, and there was something for everyone to do.  Some of the missions seemed to be all legwork or low on tech that some of the runners weren't really able to be involved in large sections of it, but Ancient Pawns was fast paced, diverse, and a ton of fun.
8)  I'm psyched that folks seem to be enjoying it.  It was my first written adventure so I felt like I was shoving a baby bird from the nest when I sent the final files in to Bull -- my own personal GMing style involves so much on-the-fly changing, etc, that I wasn't sure how me writing a full adventure would go.  GMs and players are having fun with it, though, and that means it's mission accomplished.

Plus it's a CMP adventure, so "Missions" is still in the name somewhere.  Close enough!
« Last Edit: <06-28-11/1655:21> by Critias »



StarManta

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« Reply #5 on: <06-30-11/0027:53> »
Ancient Pawns was a laugh riot from start to finish.

I was in that game, and yes it was a blast. As for me, I finally had proof that the rework of my character Daelyn (who had previously not been all that useful) turned out to be as handy as he did. My only suggestion for AP is that the adventure clearly isn't designed to have a character with a dice pool of ~20 for driving (not to mention an air spirit and its "make things go faster" ability), and because we could cut down driving time so much we were able to get more sidequests done than expected. Perhaps some more obstacles that the GM has the option to throw our way if we slam down the first couple of quests?

Other Missions.... (incidentally, this being my first gaming convention as well as my first Missions, I haphazardly drifted between tables as the module names struck a chord with me.)
CMP 2010-05 Lost Islands Found
A fun and interesting run. The professor was an entertaining NPC and the whole story kept me intrigued. I'm not sure if there is a followup that delves more into what happens with the character or the island, but if there is I'd like to play it.

CMP 2010-02 Copycat Killer
What I learned from this run: the team you're with is actually kind of important. This run is full of legwork in the Ork Underground concluded by a single combat at the end. Our team consisted of NO orks (funny how that worked out) and nearly all combat characters. Because we did not have the skills or contacts necessary to do the legwork quickly, we were edging up against the 4 hour limit when the combat finally arrived and had to rush to the point of essentially not getting to fight at all. Because of this, it was the one I enjoyed the least.

CMP 2011-04 Ancient Pawns
Already discussed.

SRM 04-04 Smuggler's Blues
I had a lot of fun in this game, but I don't feel it was the module's goodness that caused it. Most of the module was fairly humdrum as runs go, not bad, but not really memorable in any way either.
(How do I shot spoiler tags?)
When it came time for the last meeting/ambush was when it got fun. One of our party smelled something fishy about the meetup and we were able to turn the ambush around on them. By this time we'd breezed through the module in about 2 hours and this was the final combat, so we took plenty of time to coordinate an elaborate attack plan on the warehouse. I'll just say, they were not expecting me to remote-drive my car at 60mph INTO the warehouse, nor were they expecting a troll to step out of it and take a bullet to the chest without a scratch.
(/spoiler)
It was a fun fight. Point is, it certainly wasn't as written in the adventure, and it was the best part of the run by far.

Overall, I look forward to playing more SRM in the future.
« Last Edit: <06-30-11/0045:27> by StarManta »

Crimsondude

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« Reply #6 on: <06-30-11/0059:03> »
Some weirdo recorded a very short video of Critias summing up his goal in writing Ancient Pawns a month ago.

And, BTW, Bull ... What the Hell? You had a very good story structure for Burn Notice already.