Two Tickets to Westerly (arc 374002) [Dr. Aeon's Second Challenge]

Here's my (first) stab at Dr. Aeon's Second Challenge. Looking for feedback, if anyone is interested in trying it. I'll post some design notes later. Heading to bed now.

Two Tickets to Westerly
Arc ID: 374002
Keywords: Solo Friendly, Romance
Morality: Heroic
Level range: 5-10
Warnings: none

While patrolling in King's Row, you see her. Trashy outfit, smeared makeup, unkempt hair; just another Skulls Girlfriend, you think. You're about to pass her by when she starts waving to you. "Please! I need help!" she pleads. "My boyfriend...I think he's in trouble."

I was the first person to play this arc and this info is intended for PW therefore loaded with spoilers!


Contact Name - Shouldn’t the contact have the name Nadya and explain that she is a Skull girlfriend?

M1 Briefing - 1 – Interesting hook.

M1 – Toothbreaker – Nice attack dialog.

B2 – Like the idea of the briefing a lot, but my motivation to help Nadya is a little thin.

M2 – I am guessing the mission is set to ramp up. On the map you used it worked out screwy.

M3 – Briefing – Maybe change accept text to something reassuring or comforting since the contact is crying.

M3 Busy test – Felt the $origin was wedged in.

M3 - “as Ms Chesterfield” Looses the “d’ in the target window. Maybe a shorter name?

M3 – Ah got the captive’s reference. I still don’t know the reason for the as “Ms Chesterfield”.

M4 – Briefing – Maybe add something implying you are not going to let him go off no matter what he says. As it stands now it seems nebulous.

M4 – Nadya was the last person I found so her warning was wasted on me. That was OK, but the fact that she just ran off while I had Ray there with me seemed out of character. Maybe give her a pipe wrench or something she could just find in the building and make her an ally to avoid this from happening?

Ending- Touching and ties it all up nicely.


Overall - Great arc challenge or not. I really loved the way you incorporated the parameters Dr. A. set for the challenge. It clearly fits the criteria. This arc sets the bar high.


WN

Design notes

* I've been wanting to attempt a "Romance" tagged story arc for awhile. This is an attempt at that. Thinking I may want to add "Magic" to the keywords too.

* The 5-10 level range dictated by the challenge motivated me to make this a very small-scale, street-level adventure. No alien invasions, dimension hopping, nothing like that. Just a boy and a girl ... and, okay, some bad guys doing bad stuff.

* The low level range also dictated some mission parameters. I tried to make all the maps pretty small, to match what lowbie missions look like; also, I forced myself to make the Big Bad a mere boss, though it was sorely tempting to go with an EB.

* I've never actually been to Rhode Island. I picked Westerly from a list of train stations and the town's description in Wikipedia.


Influences

* The Skulls Girlfriends you see in King's Row (well, obviously). I kinda wondered what sort of stories they might have to tell.

* The If you could redesign a canon faction thread on the City Life forum, where several players asked for more content about Skulls.

* A Shadowrun Missions module loosely based on West Side Story had me picturing starcrossed lovers longing to move out of town. Though truthfully that whole plotline might've been totally extemporized by the GM and not in the module at all. He's known to do that sort of thing.

* I re-read Job: A Comedy of Justice recently; this inspired me to make the girl's lifelong dream be opening a lunch counter.


Things I feel like I could use feedback on

* Is the final encounter too difficult? Too easy? In testing, my main character, a level 50 blaster with purple IOs, exemped to 10 smashes it flat with ease. On the other hand, my level 5 rad/storm corruptor with bad powerset synergy and no enhancements just barely won. Could use more input.

* Are the two "main" NPCs given enough personality to make the player care about what happens to them?

* Is the player given enough stuff to do that she feels like a part of the story?

* The first couple missions have the player mostly doing what the contact asks, but the last two missions have the player basically defying what the NPCs want, in order to do the "right" thing. Does this "work"? Or is this "powerposing"?

* Is there too much profanity? I was a little worried about this, but I picture most of the characters encountered during this story as being fairly salty, street gang types. A dozen times while writing this, I had to paraphrase or work around the profanity filter.

* Is the Big Bad's nickname too stupid? I wanted to make a custom Skulls boss, and after discovering the Aztec word for a skull trophy rack, I just had to use it as a name. But I just didn't picture the gang members being able to pronounce this name correctly, and thought a shorter nickname would be true to the genre.

* Do the various minor characters encountered make the arc more fun, or do they distract from the story?

* I just couldn't think of good titles and captions for the individual mission briefings. But I know a lot of people like them because it makes the briefing look more "polished". The adventure is a very small-scale one, though, so maybe it doesn't need them? Or if anyone has any suggestions, happy to take them.

* Is there too much text and exposition in clues? Or not enough?

* Anything else people want to comment on?

Thanks much.

Now that I see the questions you want answered, here are my answers to them:


Things I feel like I could use feedback on

* Is the final encounter too difficult? Too easy? In testing, my main character, a level 50 blaster with purple IOs, exemped to 10 smashes it flat with ease. On the other hand, my level 5 rad/storm corruptor with bad powerset synergy and no enhancements just barely won. Could use more input.

* Are the two "main" NPCs given enough personality to make the player care about what happens to them?

Yes.

* Is the player given enough stuff to do that she feels like a part of the story?

Yes.

* The first couple missions have the player mostly doing what the contact asks, but the last two missions have the player basically defying what the NPCs want, in order to do the "right" thing. Does this "work"? Or is this "powerposing"?

As I mentioned in my other post the last mission seems to just hang out there. Something along the lines of "Are you really going to let him go off alone?" or "You realize he has no chance of pulling this mission off without his powers."

* Is there too much profanity? I was a little worried about this, but I picture most of the characters encountered during this story as being fairly salty, street gang types. A dozen times while writing this, I had to paraphrase or work around the profanity filter.

I felt there was no issue with profanity.

* Is the Big Bad's nickname too stupid? I just didn't picture the gang members being able to pronounce the proper name correctly, and thought a shorter nickname would be true to the genre.

The name was fine, though I admit for a minute after I read her origin I thought she might be your contact (the girlfriend thing).

* Do the various minor characters encountered make the arc more fun, or do they distract from the story?

I would consider trimming the last mission's number of non- required or at the very least spreading them out (they were all in the last room making it packed to the gills.

* I just couldn't think of good titles and captions for the individual mission briefings. But I know a lot of people like them because it makes the briefing look more "polished". The adventure is a very small-scale one, though, so maybe it doesn't need them? Or if anyone has any suggestions, happy to take them.

I did not miss them being there, but you can always use them to inject more emotion or humor.

* Is there too much text and exposition in clues? Or not enough?

Some of the clues are packed, but the information in them are good so I would leave them as is.


WN

Thanks for trying this arc out, Tangler!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tangler it would be good to mix up more about their background. I think I heard the lines "they're highschool sweethearts who wanted to open an eatery" (paraphrasing) in at least 3 different instances.

I'm thinking you're right, this description got overused a bit. I'll try and mix it up a bit.

Quote:

I was so-so on Joe and his DnD references. Not saying they should be removed, but maybe less in your face.

Fair enough; it is perhaps a bit over the top. I'll tone it down some.

Quote:

I also thought that was a pretty silly reason to kick the girl out of the group, though knowing some players this may have actually happened in someone's group.

Yeah, it is a silly reason to kick Nadya out of their gaming group...and yet, I think some game groups would actually do that. I thought it would help foreshadow what kind of person Joe actually is.

Quote:

I think a little text to the effect of "you rescued the civilian!" whenever you complete one of the optional objectives would be nice. I think clue-wise you have a good balance on length to frequency.

Do you think a clue for each optional civilian wouldn't be too much? I don't mind adding a few more clues at all, but I also don't want to overload the player with too much text.

Quote:

Overall quite a nice short story, good luck on the comp!

Thanks much for the useful feedback! Definitely doing some editing when I get home tonight.

Just got back form soloing this on a lvl23 Defender, my forum namesake. Have to say, was a challenge. I am built more as a self healing Blaster, but can keep a party up effectively whilst cleaning up mobs.

Thoroughly enjoyed the story, kinda suited my character to take pity on Nadya and Rob. I liked the variety of the maps/spawns and had to take some tactile approaches, possibly the Life Mage LARPer (I lol'd hard at this one - being an ex-LARPer myself) giving me the most trouble, sleeping me constantly, but I whipped him eventually.

Overall it proabably took me between 45 minutes to an hour and I really enjoyed it.

Good job and thanks!

Changes made:

* Contact is now explicitly named Nadya. Her contact group is now Skulls Girlfriend.

* Added "Magic" keyword, making it now Solo Friendly, Magic, Romance.

* Extensive rewrite to mission 4 briefing and send-off messages to make it clearer that the player is worried that the depowered Roy is going to get himself killed, and the player won't allow that.

* Cut Toothbreaker Jones from mission 4. Moved Marrowsnap in mission 4 to a "front" spawn. (Both motivated by WN's comment that the final room was too crowded.)

* Changed all missions from "Staggered" to "Flat" spawning. (To address uneven spawn levels problem. Thinking about it, +1/-1 level is a much bigger swing at level 5 than at, say, level 40.)

* Changed mission 3's accept message to "Don't give up yet, Nadya. Maybe I can help." (Rewrote to be more sympathetic to Nadya's reaction to mission 2.)

* Slightly rephrased mission 3's busy message; got rid of extraneous $origin reference.

* Put both optional hostages in mission 3 into the "Missing Person" group (formerly was using their default captive group, whatever that was). Also added "You've rescued a missing person!" to each one as "Release Captive Completed Text" (at Tangler's suggestion). Also changed Janet's model to avoid the weird mob rank problem.

* Changed Nadya in mission 4 to be a noncombat ally instead of a hostage (so she will follow now, instead of running away).

* Rewrote Roy and Nadya's biographies to be more distinct from each other. Roy's now talks more about why he got into the Skulls and what he's doing to get out. Nadya-the-contact has the same bio as before, while Nadya-the-hostage has some info about how she got captured and reinforcing some of the story learned in the mission 3 clue.

* Rewrote Tzompantli's biography to reduce possibility for confusion with Nadya's back story.

* Reduced some of Joe's fantasy RPG references; he no longer calls for a cleric when injured, no longer gets called chaotic evil in a clue.

* Corrected punctuation: King's Row -> Kings Row (in every place I could find)



Thanks a ton for all the helpful feedback so far!

I played this, and sent a PM. Good luck with the contest!

Arc: 379017: Outbroken See all your old friends in the Outbreak Tutorial sequel!
Arc: Coming Soon: The Incarnate Shadow Shard of Fire and Ice Mender Rednem needs you!
Massively.com opinion poll: Please Help Save CoH!

I just played this arc and I really enjoyed it! My favorite 2 favorite things about it are the initial contact dialog which drew me right in to the story and the last line of the souvenir which made me smile

Below are the areas that you said you wanted feedback on and my responses:

* Is the final encounter too difficult? Too easy? In testing, my main character, a level 50 blaster with purple IOs, exemped to 10 smashes it flat with ease. On the other hand, my level 5 rad/storm corruptor with bad powerset synergy and no enhancements just barely won. Could use more input.

The final encounter was fine for me. For me the entry to mission 3 with the hostage was perhaps a little bit too hard.

* Are the two "main" NPCs given enough personality to make the player care about what happens to them?

Yes, I loved how you portrayed them!

* Is the player given enough stuff to do that she feels like a part of the story?

Yes, I felt like a key part of the story.

* The first couple missions have the player mostly doing what the contact asks, but the last two missions have the player basically defying what the NPCs want, in order to do the "right" thing. Does this "work"? Or is this "powerposing"?

This worked fine for me because as I came to care about the 2 main characters, as a hero I chose to help them despite their requests not to.

* Is there too much profanity? I was a little worried about this, but I picture most of the characters encountered during this story as being fairly salty, street gang types. A dozen times while writing this, I had to paraphrase or work around the profanity filter.

Not for me, because it fits with the story but for some there might be.

* Is the Big Bad's nickname too stupid? I wanted to make a custom Skulls boss, and after discovering the Aztec word for a skull trophy rack, I just had to use it as a name. But I just didn't picture the gang members being able to pronounce this name correctly, and thought a shorter nickname would be true to the genre.

The shorter name fits and the meaning behind the longer name makes it a great choice.

* Do the various minor characters encountered make the arc more fun, or do they distract from the story?

They make it more fun.

* I just couldn't think of good titles and captions for the individual mission briefings. But I know a lot of people like them because it makes the briefing look more "polished". The adventure is a very small-scale one, though, so maybe it doesn't need them? Or if anyone has any suggestions, happy to take them.

Though I like them, I never noticed they were missing, so that makes it fine as it is. I think because I was drawn in by the NPC dialog, they are not needed in this case.

* Is there too much text and exposition in clues? Or not enough?

As usual the clues were great.

* Anything else people want to comment on?

You might consider giving Toothbreaker Jones and Marrowsnap custom bios. I know I have encounterd Marrowsnap in game but I don't think I have ever seen Toothbreaker.

This was a really nice arc that I enjoyed playing a lot. As usual it was full of detail. I love how you mix humor with drama.

Great job

Two Tickets to Westerly #374002

I really liked this story. It's one of the few romance stories I've seen that doesn't come off as junior high school emo. I especially liked the fact that the arc has only four missions. I think that too many authors use all five missions simply because they can, regardless of whether the story really needs to have five missions or not.

I liked the references to roleplaying games in mission 2. I knew that Joarxes was Joe as soon as he yelled out, " These new powers are great! I AM THE ARCH-MAGE OF AWESOME!!" I also liked the optional captives in mission 3. It gives the impression that I'm actually in a Circle of Thorns base, and that they're busy doing what they do. I was a bit surprised to see the Skulls following a leader named Panty, but it made sense in the end. It was a nice little detail.

I could only find a few things to mention, and they are admittedly all minor nits.

The accept mission text for missions 1 and 2 do not have periods at the end of the sentences, while the ones for 3 and 4 do. I recommend changing them to keep them all consistent.

The Nav text for missions 1 and 2 are given as directives - Find someone who knows where Roy is & Search the Steam Tunnels. But the Nav text for missions 3 and 4 are written like story or chapter titles - Decent into the Depths & Against the Death Cult. Once again I think that you should change either the first two or the last two so that they are all written in the same style. Also it's descent, not decent.

I was a little disappointed to encounter Marrowsnap again without explanation in Mission 4. Man did he make bail fast! I was also a bit surprised to see the Skulls using a burning building as their HQ.

Like I said, minor nits were all I could find. That fact, plus the good story and inclusion of neat little details here and there are why I gave it five stars. Good luck in the competition!

Nickname that boss!

I really like the name Tzompantli for the custom Skulls boss in the final mission, as it's a cool word with appropriate meaning for a Skulls leader.

However, I'm convinced that gang members would never call anyone that (it's just too long and unpronounceable) so she needs a nickname. I currently have the other Skulls calling her "Panty" for short, but am somewhat aware that sounds silly. I've rationalized that the silly nickname is a good contrast with the very morbid meaning of the full name, but have gotten enough mixed feedback on the nickname that I'm considering changing it.

Consequently, I'll put it up for a vote! Using the original nickname and all the ones suggested by Stratonexus:

VOTE FOR ONE OF:
1. Panty
2. Pants
3. Pantly
4. Zomp
5. Zompa
6. TZ (TeeZee)
7. Tiz
8. Tizzie
9. Pan
10. Panny
11+. <write in your own!>


I'll set a deadline of midnight EST on Sunday 2/21. Each poster can vote once for one name by posting in this thread.

Since I've already named her Panty, I'll count myself as one vote for #1. Additionally, any poster who has posted above an answer of NO to "Is the Big Bad's nickname too stupid?" but doesn't cast a vote will add one vote for #1, while anyone who answered YES to that question but doesn't cast a vote will subtract one vote for #1. Even if you've previously answered this question, however, you can cast a vote for a different name, which will then override your previous answer.

This may stack things slightly towards answer #1, but since that's also the least effort for me, I'm okay with that.

After the deadline I'll count up the votes (if any) and use whichever name gets the most votes (breaking ties by author fiat as needed, and reserving the right to reject any really ludicrous write-ins).

11. Zompy.

You should call her Pantsu.

...Tze works as well I guess.

"Yo! TZ wants we should bust up some cars in Kings Row. Better get a move on!"

"Hey man, T-Z, she ain't gonna be happy we let one slip away."

"TeeZee got a nasty streak, and its about to slash your way!"

#6

Changes made

1. Added a period at the end of the mission accept message for missions 1 and 2. (To be consistent with missions 3 and 4.)

2. Retitled mission 3 to "Descend into the Depths" and mission 4 to "Battle the Death Cult". (Makes them start with a verb, more consistent with missions 1 and 2.)

3. Added unaware dialog for Marrowsnap:

Marrowsnap: That hero got me with a cheap shot. Yeah, I hadta get my girl to bail me out; didn't seem smart to bug Panty, she's in one of her god-touched moods.

(To explain why Marrowsnap appears; another Skulls girlfriend reference to continue that theme; more foreshadowing for the big bad.)


Vote tally so far on boss nickname

Panty: 1
Zompy: 1
Pantsu: 1
TZ: 1

....well that's really decisive pesky democracy!

I ran this arc again just a few minutes ago. I noticed the changes you made, and a couple of other things.

In "Roy's Story" (the clue you get from him in the third mission), and in Marrowsnap's dialogue in mission four, you wrote "hadto." Is that deliberate? Like street slang or an accent or something? If it's not deliberate then shouldn't it be "had to"?

Also, I noticed that everyone has a story in the form of a clue. Marrowsnap, Roy, Nadya, Joarxes... everyone except for Tzompantli. Perhaps you might consider writing one for her too. Sure it'd have nothing to do with the plot, but I don't have to tell you that those extra details make a difference. You pretty much have her background covered in her info, so maybe her explanation about what she's been trying to do with the Skulls, or what she was going to do with Roy. I know that I'm not being much help here.

And I think that T Z (pronounced Tee Zee) is the best choice. Zompy might fly, but Konshu is right, the rest of the options sound like feminine hygiene products.