Regarding Battle Interactives…

I very much appreciate your perspective Matt. BIs used to strike fear in the player base and did have that real sense of mortality around it. I still remember the Battle of Enpebyn where the entire room of ~120 players was 1 or 2 tables away from a entire room kill. That was intense.

There are various factors at play, so let me list the key ones that come to mind and brainstorm a bit on how to deal with them. Players often

1. want to be involved in special events and feel like their character’s actions matter.
2. want to maximize their XP with a single character
3. expect their character should survive or be able to be brought back

Ideas to ponder
1. One way to potentially deal with the maximum XP issue would be to have two separate events that are mutually exclusive. A character who is participating in the BI can’t do this other mod or special event because they’re taking place at the same time. This wouldn’t physically have to take place at the same time, but could. If the XP thing effectively washes out between those who partake in the battle and those who don’t that could lessen the “I’m playing this with an inappropriate character” scenarios.

2. Put out lots of disclaimers that the lethality of the event is expected to go up and that 19 point shots for example aren’t going away. Expect to die if you don’t bring a character that’s appropriate. With this, provide pregens that would fit with the BI experience for people who need one at the door.

3. Have a “next of kin” cert or something similar to provide some benefit to another character if the primary one bites it. Rewards wouldn’t be as good as having survived, but could lessen the blow slightly for a player that loses their character.

More thoughts later, need to run for now.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul

I don’t think less combat-intensive should equate to fewer rewards. Otherwise, it gives the tables that play together year after year and are higher rank a substantive bonus beyond just having an easier BI/event.

I did really enjoy the way the ArcaniCon event ran where you could choose a different goal each slot. I thought that was a nice change from the typical BI where every table does the same thing most slots.

Being locationally remote from the majority of the Arcanis player pool, I have only had the opportunity to run/play the BIs in the module released format.

Recently I ran the Jappa BI for the home group and we held strictly to the time limits.

I also announced before hand if the scene was lethality-TPK

My players loved it. The first scene they would have been (by my estimate ) 2 minutes of gaming to complete but alarm went off.

However twice they completed the scene’s completion criteria literally less than 30 seconds before time. (I even showed them my tracking so they knew it was not fudged.)

Not knowing what the BIs are like live, but going on the experienced we have had, they are a blast.

Just my thoughts. And drop me a line if you need help stating for the next one

Cheers

BIs and Minions are one reason all my characters have some way to hit multiple opponents at once, be it with a Castigate spell or Sweeping Strike martial technique. If you can’t get rid of minions in a hurry combat get significantly deadlier and longer (which increases the chance for critical hits/wounds). I was at your table last year Eric and thought you did an excellent job keeping us on our toes. I judged all but the first BI in the 3.5 campaign I know how much work that is. The trick is taking players to the edge of death but trying not to kill them (unless they want to be bravely stupid or it’s storyline appropriate). I recall one player died at the Sicaris BI holding a bridge as it was demolished out from under him. I overheard two of the PCI staff discussing it. They thought it was one of the coolest things they had seen. So yeah losing a character sucks but the trick is to die well, to make “such an end as to be worthy of remembrance.”

You know one thing that could make a character death really cool at a BI would be a special cert celebrating the sacrifice. Doesn’t even have to have an in game benefit, but it’d be sort of a paper version of a stone memorial erected on site. The sort of things they do on battlefields to remember the sacrifice of units or soldiers. I know I would get a kick out of it. Maybe give them out in a ceremony at the end of the BI to recognize the “honored dead.” Then we could toast them like they did in King Theoden’s hall after the Battle of Helm’s Deep. Something like that would lessen the sting of losing a beloved character. Something to think about.

To be clear to everyone, I did not start this thread to seek praise, appreciation, etc. Nor did I do it to call anyone out or make them feel bad. I did it because I want everyone to have a fun time at BIs and I often think that certain assumptions/expectations can come into conflict to what is actually intended, thus causing distress.

@Eric…what you have described, I would not call going “off-script”. That would be ad-libbing a line here or there. For example, in that same encounter, my table attempted to move/force push one of the large “roadblock” creatures off the walkway. That was something I had not even considered when writing the stats. I, on the fly, gave the critter Relentless to prevent it because I knew to allow otherwise would 1) cause a 45min scene to be done in less than 10minutes (since the goal was to cross the board, not kill opposition) and 2) would mean that the “special” table comprised of people knocked off the ledge would be short a man…and I knew what they were going to have to face. To me, off-script is doing something completely against the intended fight design. (off the top of my head: switching the minion crossbowmen to casters and dropping AoE spells, or significantly changing the amount of foes faced)

I have said it before, and I think it bears repeating. Fights are not just intersting combat diversions in the middle of a story. Fights ARE story. They are a tool for illiciting drama, joy, sorrow, and self reflection of a character. Yes, stat blocks are a mechanical breakdown of an obstacle. But (at least when I build them), they are also a reflection of that NPC. Weapon choice, maneuvers, fighting style, etc are as much a part of that persona as is speech pattern, vocabulary, and personality.
Paul’s example proves the point perfectly. How long ago (in real time) was the Epebyn BI? and yet, for those of us that played then, we remember the climactic moment where the ground opened up and we were all caught in a collective nest of il-huan. It was not a question of if your Hero would survive, it was a question of how long could you survive their mental onslaught…and it was glorious.

To be honest, I do like the idea of a “Next of Kin” cert which allows you to make a character at -5 ranks or something below your present character. I think a modification of this could be done for “Special Tables”, such as the one which attempted to penetrate the Citadel of Nier/The Silence where it was pretty much a suicide mission going in, where the players get a special cert allowing for special characters (like the “Black Vals” or val’Vasik from the Kickstarter, or like the val’Hamen from “Shadows of a Forsaken Past” when a Dark-kin is killed).

As for notes about how deadly Battle Interactives are. . . I’m sorry to sound heartless but I do not see how ANYONE could view a BATTLE as anything but a bunch of lethal fights?! To think anything else is ludicrous. That said, I understand why players would throw their character in regardless of any martial skills, because BI’s grant 500+ XP and that is simply too much to give up because your character wouldn’t be interested in risking their life. To that end, I personally would prefer fewer BI encounters with more variety (similar to this year’s Savona Interactive) with missions for Stealth, Heavy Combat, and even come combat engineering stuff rather than “Well, I guess you all have to deal with Infernals raining from the sky. . .” I would also love to see more “ArcaniCon-style” Interactives and LARPs at Origins, but as someone who has helped with the last two, I know how much of a pain that is to pull off.

I agree with Cody. BIs are meant to be lethal and there should be a ‘play at your own risk’ element to it.

Agreed. I think this needs to be called out more explicitly as I think Matt is correct and the player base generally speaking doesn’t have this mindset.

I would not expect a player of a val’Mehan Emissary, for example, to be in the front lines of such a combat and not come out like a walking pin cushion. However, it would be nice if there were encounters between such combat action where characters like that can shine (negotiating POW exchanges, interrogating prisoners which can influence upcoming missions, stealth missions, etc.).

And here’s where the “Yes, but…” comes in. Either the event supports the character throughout or it doesn’t. As I mentioned before, I like the idea of different type activities during the same round to mix things up and play to different players strengths. The only other idea that comes to mind is for players being able to bring a second character along with the expectation that if they use different characters for different missions, the rewards get split between the characters as well. This is probably more headache than it’s worth though.

With a sweep of his hat,

Paul