Earthdawn Eastmarches
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An online Earthdawn game in the Westmarches style, played over Discord and Roll20, with a focus on community building and player rights.
 
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 Difficulty for Thread missions

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Shaalwyd




Posts : 70
Join date : 2017-09-29

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PostSubject: Difficulty for Thread missions   Difficulty for Thread missions I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 16, 2017 4:55 pm

Thread missions - both those to acquire a thread item and those to unlock key knowledges - have a reward for the requesting character that is not covered by the ordinary mission rewards, which is only available on successful completion of the mission.

Currently, it is possible for a 3rd Circle character to pop up their thread mission as a 2 Easy, virtually guaranteeing success, and removing some of the triumph and heroism for what feels like it should be a major milestone in the character's legend.

Should thread missions have a required difficulty level, and if so, what should the restrictions be?
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Smyandl




Posts : 132
Join date : 2017-09-28

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PostSubject: Re: Difficulty for Thread missions   Difficulty for Thread missions I_icon_minitimeThu Nov 16, 2017 10:21 pm

I think they should be current circle Average or harder. Thread Items are something special and VERY game changing. I do not think getting them should be a trivial thing.
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emeketos




Posts : 94
Join date : 2017-09-29

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PostSubject: Re: Difficulty for Thread missions   Difficulty for Thread missions I_icon_minitimeFri Nov 17, 2017 8:00 am

4A missions are at the moment insanely hard, and we don't have enough people to qualify to do a 5A.(2) I know Heartscry has enough LP to be 6th circle at present same with mooooooore should they be allowed on a 5A? mission which none of have ever tried.

doing a 3H while your 3 isn't a problem doing a 3H when you are 2 is survivable. but once you cross the circle 5 threshold I am not sure what the correct answer is here.

I do agree Thread item missions should be much more challenging than normal missions. A solution might be to make them 2 part missions (2 4hr games) with no returning to town. It might be an alternate solution rather than raising the difficulty, make it longer.

tbh when I started this post I was going to say they should all be Hard missions. But as I typed I realized 4+ there is a giant change in difficulty. ie a 4A from a 3H
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Shaalwyd




Posts : 70
Join date : 2017-09-29

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PostSubject: Re: Difficulty for Thread missions   Difficulty for Thread missions I_icon_minitimeFri Nov 17, 2017 8:49 pm

I believe we should draw a distinction between the two different types of thread missions: the ones to acquire a thread item, and the ones to unlock key knowledges.

It makes sense to me that acquiring the thread item should be a legendary experience. RAW, however, key knowledges could have been unlocked during downtime, as all they take is Item History and Research. By requiring a mission for each, we have already added a layer of difficulty/complication. I do not believe that finding the answers to key knowledges needs to be made any more difficult than that.

Our current restrictions on thread items include:
  • When you can get them and how many you can have. We require players to earn threadcount by going on missions.
  • What the item is/can do. Players can exert some degree of control over this through Research, which for most characters is a significant cost in silver.
  • The rate at which the item's threads can be unlocked and woven. We have already said that dedicated missions are required for each key knowledge; it cannot be tacked on to someone else's mission. The real-world exigencies of scheduling make this more of a delay than it looks on paper. Heartscry, for example, acquired the Emerald Crown of Enoi Gaen in A Recipe for Destruction, which was the tenth mission we ran; the first key knowledge I unlocked for any item was twelve missions later, and the first key knowledge for that particular item won't be until tomorrow, which will be the 24th mission run on Eastmarches. This delay was most definitely not because Heartscry didn't have enough legend points to weave the threads, but rather that other people had missions they wanted to do which filled up the schedule.
I feel like this topic came up because the mission I did to find the key knowledge for Heartscry's Novice-tier thread item was a 3A; Heartscry was, at the time, a 4th Circle character. I also titled the mission Living the Cliche, with the answer to the key knowledge discovered off-screen. Is it possible that these things were as influential in making it feel trivial as the difficulty of the mission? (It's worth mentioning that the mission was not easy for our group - there was a while with the t'skrang pirates that I seriously thought we were going to party wipe!)

This brings me back to the difference between acquiring a thread item and finding the answer to a key knowledge. Acquiring a thread item usually has the sort of hook that is interesting to everyone, but for the most part the key knowledge missions have been "looking for a journal". At worst they've been like Mavarre's Mansion, where the hook really wasn't interesting to anyone other than T'rask. If what we want is to make thread items feel special, I feel like a better place to start would be concentrating on making the missions related to them more interesting and more relevant.

The GMs know the story of an item, to greater or lesser degree. Perhaps when unlocking thread knowledges, the player should say to a GM, "I want a mission to answer this question," and the GM should come up with the hook, with the intention of making the mission interesting and engaging, but most importantly relating to the history of the item. If the thread item is front and center for the mission rather than, "Oh, and you also find a journal with the answer you want," they should feel more special and less trivial.

Thus far, I think Crystals of Caldor has been the most interesting and successful key knowledge mission, and Twin Troubles the most interesting and successful thread item acquisition mission. Perhaps looking at what made our favourite missions so good would help us figure out what needs to be done to bring up the quality of the others?
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PostSubject: Re: Difficulty for Thread missions   Difficulty for Thread missions I_icon_minitime

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