- The atmosphere – for most of the early book, the atmosphere was very haunting and chilling. After meeting Marchosias for the first time, the spookiness kind of faded, but I tack that down to knowing the source of the problem. After all, when you know what it is that’s going bump in the night, it’s often less frightening.
- The ending – It felt great to get a real, complete victory again. We haven’t had one since Book Three, and after the frustration at the end of Book Four, this was a good conclusion to the next Book. We won, we know we won, and that is a real boost. Also, despite some of the issues we discussed, I think you wrapped this Book up very, very well.
- Marchosias was well-played. And he looked good, too. I don’t think I need say any more there. >)
- The fight with Ishmael, as you know, really had me going. I’ll leave that as it is.
- The hook getting us into the keep was great. If not for something like that forcing us to stop, we probably would’ve just tried to get through the storm gap.
- I really liked having another self-contained Book, much like Book Three. No recurring villain this time (I think we have enough recurring haunts, spooks, and baddies for now), and it was good to be able to come and deal with this guy and wrap up the plot arc all at once.
- The storytelling was excellent. The background for the keep was well-done and well-developed. It just needed to be tied into our concerns a little more strongly and directly, I think (see below). You're good at creating and telling stories.
The Bad:
- Pacing – As Nathan mentioned, this isn’t really one person’s fault. It was just bad timing. Finals right in the middle of the book, people leaving for vacations or having to go away for one reason or another. I don’t know that I’d really call most of this a bad so much as a “couldn’t be helped.”
- That being said, I agree with Whistler that some areas could have been tightened up more. I think from this Book, you’ve learned three things. First is that a “dungeon crawl” sort of experience takes a LOT longer than it should in PbP. As DocBeard stated, most of our exploring would’ve been finished in a half an hour to an hour max if this were tabletop. I think one period of exploration instead of two, as well as one visit with the fiend instead of two or more would’ve helped shorten matters considerably.
- Second is that when you want to do a mystery and investigation story, you really have to beat your players upside the head with the clues. I forget who, but someone else already said the same thing, so I won’t go into much more detail. But I do agree with everyone else that I expected the four elements of the poem to somehow be connected to what happened to this Keep. It made a lot more sense that way. On the other hand, like I said above, you did a really good job of scrapping things together when you felt like we wanted to blow up the book. I loved the backstory, but I couldn’t figure out the relevance other than “Oh, you’re in this keep, here’s what happened.” Would’ve worked a lot better if you had tied that directly into our goals more.
- And third, DM-ing is a thankless job that requires a lot of compromise for the players’ sake. It’s not like writing a story – it’s an awful lot more than that.
Summary: I overreacted to you on some parts throughout the Book.
The character sympathy rebuild will be helpful for many people. Not sure how I’m going to make use of it yet, but if you and I chat about it, I’ll figure something out. Anyway, don’t give up on the “investigation” style of Book yet, just learn how to pull it together more and make it tighter. This style of play is fun, but you as a DM can’t afford to be vague. The resolution of the Sefer Raziel would’ve been better if it’d been more directly woven into the Keep’s background and been a plot more contained in the scope of the Book. However, I think you did an admirable job of enabling us to finish this plot and defeat Marchosias once and for all.
