Offer Your Feedback About The Rise Of Rone Storyline
If you’ve got some feedback for GM Kenstrom about the recently concluded Rise Of Rone storyline, be sure to leave it in this thread at the officials:
Category: Towns
Topic: Wehnimer’s LandingDate: 04/14/2018 12:10 PM CDTFrom: LEAFIARASubj: Rise of Rone – FeedbackThis story was short enough (or at least would have been barring sicknesses) that I wasn’t sure if we’re getting a feedback thread, but I wanted to make one anyway. Using the same format as previous threads:1. What were some things you really enjoyed about Rise of Rone?
2. What were some things you did not really like about Rise of Rone?
3. Who was your favorite or most interesting NPC and why?
4. Did you like the pace of the storyline, or what would have been better?
5. Do you feel like you got involved in the storyline, or had the ability/chance to if you wanted to?
6. Do you have any other general comments or feedback on the storyline?1. What were some things you really enjoyed about Rise of Rone?
Absolutely everything! This was my favorite story of the three Leafi’s been in and it’s no contest–I even kept asking myself if anything will be able to top this.
To be more specific…
A – This story was heavy on action.
From slavers to Rooks to Rones to gigantic trolls to even more gigantic spiders, this story was packed with combat, which I do love–but my actual favorite parts of the “action” were the numerous chase scenes and struggling through Drangell’s hideout.
For the most part I cut these kinds of things from the logs because they’re difficult to present in an interesting way, but in the heat of the moment I always felt a sense of excitement and gravitas. And at least for me it was because…
B – This story was heavy on moral philosophy.
Even for an invasion lover like me, in some ways it’s tough to get too emotionally invested in just battling destructive forces–because we know the Landing isn’t actually going to be obliterated (or, even if it was, we’d find a way to reverse time and fix it in a week or something). Everything will pass, which I think is what some people (not all) were getting at during the climax when saying that soon it would be as if Rone never existed. Other than Murdos Burdos’ shop being scorched, there’s no physical trace of the story that’s visible to the day-to-day player who wasn’t there and doesn’t follow along with the wiki.
But what does (or at least can) affect the day-to-day player is the journeys our characters are on, the decisions they make, and any changes they underwent as a result. And in a story that’s about what justice means, what the law means, unintended consequences and accountability, utilitarianism and deontology, pragmatism and idealism, the extreme end of independence, etc., it’s a ripe ground for the kind of meaningful character change that will continue to affect off-hours RP.
At different points in the story Leafi wanted to get to Rone for different reasons, but a common thread was her ongoing curiosity about who would win and what each side was and wasn’t willing to do–because for her all but one of those subjects I just mentioned are unsettled debates. So the philosophy turned all those chase scenes into pursuits with a purpose. What was Rone going to do next? What would the many forces who were after him do next? And whose side would Leafi end up on? She had to get to the front line to find out.
Ironically, by the end of it she wasn’t particularly on any side. Despite ultimately helping to catch Rone, she didn’t have anything invested in stopping him, per se, but had an entirely different motivation. But not picking a side doesn’t mean it’s as if the story never happened. On the contrary…
C – This story was fantastic for off-hours conversation.
Like I (think I) said after Keeping Up With the Kestrels, who Leafi is and who she’ll become is just as influenced or possibly even more influenced by others than by me. To me the real character development happens in conversations when Kenstrom isn’t around, which is why I loved the moral philosophy component so much.
Honestly, seeing Evician’s posts lately makes me really want to carve out time to do something similar and capture snippets of past conversations that have brought Leafi to where she is now–because I owe so much to the players of Chaoswynd, Cruxophim, Irar, Khylynnia, Lornieh, Marijka, Severine, Shinann, Stonmel, Stormyrain, Ysharra, and probably still others I’m not remembering off the top of my head.
And I mean that even for things said well before this story; what might seem to one of those characters’ players like an offhand, meaningless comment from eighteen months ago might still be echoing through Leafi’s character development now. In Rise of Rone specifically, though, the entire philosophy was right in her wheelhouse. So I’m sure that things said to her during this story will resonate and come back for years to come, which is awesome.
2. What were some things you did not really like about Rise of Rone?
Well, I think it only wound up being this way because of real world troubles, so I can’t blame Kenstrom, but I’m super sad that no backlash came of Leafi helping Rone (other than Stonmel’s many criticisms). Trust me, I was pestering friends nonstop for two weeks with how excited I was that something might happen and speculating about different things it could be.
…but maybe another time!
Either way, I’m extremely glad that her helping him happened at all since I’d wanted something so questionable to happen for a while. I had an amazing time with the hours of conversations with Stonmel and got such a kick out of her being coy over it–I kept jokingly complaining to friends that it was so much more fun to be a bad girl than a good girl.
And yet was it even a bad thing to do? I don’t really think so, and nobody made much of it besides Stonmel. But I milked it for all it was worth anyway, and in a weird way it kinda reaffirmed for me why I don’t want Leafi to go bad (…not to say that that won’t happen). A true Levilara, as one of my friends dubbed her, would probably have covered up the incident and that would be that, but current Leafi could let it into the open as a talking point for everyone, which to me was more fun even though most opted to gloss over it–at least publicly.
3. Who was your favorite or most interesting NPC and why?
Malluch was the only major NPC and I’ve already said what I liked about him, so instead I’ll pick from the cameo roles (Alendrial, Stephos, Breshon, Renpaw, etc.) and say, on behalf of both Leafi and myself… Lheren. Even though he only had a couple conversations with us, I thought he came across with a commanding presence, a sort of low-key yet dignified aura that conveyed his importance and title.
As for Leafi, she already liked the guy from back when he took in spies to infiltrate the subjugated Hendoran outpost. And ever since Lheren told her not to assume things about what places he frequents, she was really pulling for him to either be Rone or be funding Rone. Actually, she kinda still is pulling for that (sorry Irar!) since she doesn’t get to read epilogues like me.
Honorable mention: the town clerk who gave out Move Over Melivn buttons!
4. Did you like the pace of the storyline, or what would have been better?
It was great, real world delays aside! Very fast-paced and yet with enough time for everything to sink in.
5. Do you feel like you got involved in the storyline, or had the ability/chance to if you wanted to?
Yes! This entire story seemed to me like nonstop involvement of everyone, which was the beauty of having so many chase scenes and investigations and mysteries to discuss. I actually liked this as a mystery story far more than Keeping Up with the Kestrels–because here we knew what was happening, so the discussion went to why it was happening, how it was happening, who Rone and the imitators were, and most importantly what our own characters thought of it all. The focus was more on our characters, which I liked.
6. Do you have any other general comments or feedback on the storyline?
Loved it.
The moral ambiguity and mystery intrigued me. Until the very end, I couldn’t totally be certain what Rone’s motivations were… I’m still not quite sure I got a satisfactory answer on that, other than he became vengeful and obsessed with justice after Lana’s death. It was hard to tell what was real and what was being fabricated- where Rone ended and the copycats began. It was difficult to ascertain just how much obfuscation was going on from all the parties involved and who you could trust was speaking the truth.
One thing I really enjoyed was the increasingly extreme methods people in town were pursuing to catch Rone- culminating finally in militia captains using their own blood in arcane rituals. To see the town descending (from Irar’s perspective) farther into darkness to catch a vigilante was fascinating and horrifying in equal measure… To see honorable people going further and further in pursuit of their sense of justice.
Finally, I think the players did a tremendous job generating their own stories in this one. Some of the after-event discussions were really insightful and tense at times, full of drama. Cruxophim, in particular, was brilliant during this one.
2. What were some things you did not really like about Rise of Rone?
Understandable that real-life responsibilities interfere with KST. Can’t fault someone for that, but it was difficult to follow a consistent schedule for this one and it seemed as if storyline stuff happened later and later… You couldn’t quite be sure at a certain point if anything was going to happen on the days we’d normally expect some action, so it wound up in a situation where folks would be up well into 1 EST on a week night. Again, it’s understandable that schedules don’t work out to our personal satisfaction, but I’d prefer less frequent storyline things over more consistent storyline things just to make it clearer when things will happen.
3. Who was your favorite or most interesting NPC and why?
Does Renpaw count? He’s one of my favorite NPCs overall. I love his constant stream of dad jokes (well, judge jokes).
I suppose that leaves Malluch/Rone due to the difficulty in fully grasping his motives or the method to his madness. I’d still like an answer about the “crimes” of the people he targeted!
4. Did you like the pace of the storyline, or what would have been better?
I like one that wraps up a little sooner, so this one was nice for me. More consistency is always welcome, but fine overall.
5. Do you feel like you got involved in the storyline, or had the ability/chance to if you wanted to?
I took a bit more of a back seat in this one as I wasn’t too actively taking part in the plans and preparations to catch Rone, but that was both my decision as a character and my own inability to make it to everything as a player. I do feel that I had every opportunity to become more involved, though I was certain that there was a fair amount of off-screen things happening that many of us weren’t privy to. And I noticed many people get involved and get recognized throughout. I think the players themselves did a nice job of involving as many as people as possible.
6. Do you have any other general comments or feedback on the storyline?
I’d like to see more morally ambiguous NPCs in the future. While I enjoyed the Eyes and Kestrels stories, I am a bit over the paradigm of “bad guy is bad go get em” and “seemingly good and helpful individual is super secret bad but not that secretly” and Rise of Rone has certainly shifted away from that. Although most everyone ended up on the same side during this one due to Rone’s rather brutal methods, habit of getting us killed, and breaking the laws of the Landing, it was a neat step in the direction of more complexity and nuance. I also like the uncertainty of not knowing the truth behind what’s actually going on- I’m still not so sure how innocent folks in the Landing really are and how much information, if it came out, would prove to be damning for a few characters. I hope we see a bit more of this in the future as well as explore the idea of adventurers versus townspeople when the townsfolk’s priorities conflict with our own moral and legal imperatives.
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Roa’ters gonna roa’ter.
1. What were some things you really enjoyed about Rise of Rone?
I enjoyed having a good guy character enforcing a righteous doctrine while having an unconvincing level of remorse for the hypocrisy or consequences of his own actions. I think I know the specific motivating reasons for each of the player character targets he named, why those ones (plus Marijka) rose above the background level of “conspired with the Kestrels.” I kept asking myself why he is not trying to murder Lylia, even when he is alone with her, and how he can possibly claim the election was a turn in the right direction when he is disdainfully complaining about necromancers and Xorus is her shadow government. It seemed to me for a while there was a hidden dimension going on with Stephos and the Krolvin that has not been explained, which I assume will turn out to be related to who is supplying him and maybe clarify his choice of sinners.
I particularly like being able to look at things and figure out what is going on, and see through it in advance somewhat based on its internal logic. The possibility space collapsed down as events unfolded. It was going to be in the orbit of Malluch, Granthem, Breshon, or Lheren, unless an Octaven level twist happened. Breshon and Lheren became of dismissable relevance fairly quickly. The possibility of being a non-corporeal manifestation went away when he got bled. There were clearly two NPC “Rones” plus the PC impersonator(s), and I decided that Real Rone was most likely Malluch at least two months before the mask came off. I allowed the possibility of it being Rysus.
The best candidate for the flesh pillar Rone is sleep-walking Granthem, but who knows how that will actually turn out. It was just a question if there was going to be some kind of interaction / connection between them. Malluch having his head screwed with without knowing it, or Granthem unknowingly going out butchering things, or Rone being some composite monstrosity of them all like Vinswith. With a Rysus twist it would have been him trying to trick us while really being about Stephos and maybe about Naimorai.
2. What were some things you did not really like about Rise of Rone?
The obvious thing would be Rone being unrealistically difficult to track down and kill. He was certainly doomed the instant he left his blood all over the ground. He would have been taken out by the blood mage necromancer types long before he was captured. We haven’t done anything yet with trying to find the Evil Rone, who was clearly someone else using dark magic, so vigilante-wise the story is only half finished. Maybe that body transplanted acolyte will show up again and we’ll find out what’s going on.
I’m assuming those people helping Malluch will turn out to be members of some group, possibly splintered off from a known group in the documentation, rather than irate townsfolk and paid actors. That would explain that lack of missing persons. I’d still like to know what the hell that crystal was that Stephos used and where it came from.
3. Who was your favorite or most interesting NPC and why?
It would have to be Rone just because he was really the only major NPC. It was very dumb of him to go after the most dangerous people in the Landing relying solely on gadgets to protect him, and I would expect something horrible to eventually happen to Malluch in his jail cell. With Xorus it was a matter of him believing it was Malluch for months, but adopting a watch-and-see what happens attitude to try to observe “what is really going on” in both the surface and more esoteric senses.
He was content to just watch to see what he could learn while in that temporal rift. Fascinated by this guy so nihilistically throwing his life away over some dead girl. If he was actually concerned with being on the hit list of this kid, he would have done something brutal to Malluch just to test if that makes Rone stop appearing. They had that secret corrupt arrangement, which was amusingly ironic. He figured Malluch was somewhat white washing Lylia for being Order of Voln, or maybe he like likes her…
4. Did you like the pace of the storyline, or what would have been better?
The sicknesses followed by the mayoral election obviously screwed up the timing of this by over a month. It would have been better for it to have finished before the election. We ended up with a situation of a political terrorist complaining about corruption, meanwhile an election where one candidate is accused of aiding him as a sympathizer, and the other who actually did conspire with him having one of his targets as her campaign manager. But the NPC could not interact with that, and we had to keep our hands off what we would logically do in this situation. Like stage things making it look like Rone is trying to rig the election. I imagine this overlap was not supposed to happen.
5. Do you feel like you got involved in the storyline, or had the ability/chance to if you wanted to?
Yep. Named target. Contributed methods and plans for capturing him. Xorus dresses up as Rone and does some of his tricks, Rone turns around and does some Xorus tricks with the glyph trap. It was like a buddy movie with mass murder and explosions. The later time of KST isn’t a problem for me, but I know it is for others.
6. Do you have any other general comments or feedback on the storyline?
I will like to see how the as-yet-unexplained stuff in the story ends up feeding into the future storyline events, and maybe knowing for sure which specific things motivated who was targeted. I hope we get to do something truly horrible and poetic to Malluch, seems like he will otherwise escape or get freed by conspirators at some point.
– Xorus’ player
Wehnimer’s Landing Town Halls, Now With Authentic Frontier Gibberish: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5Mr5eCF2U