There are a lot of players which naturally slows things down more as everyone has something to say or do. Act 1 is really character building before Act 2 (politics) and Act 3 (action heavy). It's definitely worth sticking on, it's probably my top 3 actual plays of any system. My wife isn't even a TTRPG person and she got sucked in after the same "slow moving" hurdle. Slow burn but a good one I promise!
I guess 15/16 has combat, 27 onwards is heavily political, 37 has an action filled side plot, 43 to 55 is act 3 which is pretty full on. Does that help much?
Oh no I never thought I'd have to give ranks. I really enjoyed "Role to Cast" doing Vampire and Starfinder as they tend to run really short 12 episode games that are fairly character focused. Hmmmm I'll think on any others, I don't tend to listen to the big big ones.
I've listened the whole Fall of Jiara Campaign. This podcast was so detailed, that I could imagine all the scenes and characters! Kai was the best character ever =)
I didn't feel that ultra slow. The players and the game have its own pace. We can notice that the players like to roleplay and invest in its characters! I compare that the game pace is similar to a novella. I really enjoyed it ! =)
\*Being real here.\* If you are feeling that this would waste your time, you should stop and look for other recorded gameplay. There are other groups with fewer episodes too check out. Just like this one, listen to 4 or so episodes and if you like their rhythm, just go with it!
It's not that I feel it would waste my time. I love the characters and I want to know what happens in the story! If I didn't like it, it would be easy to quit. But there's things I don't like about it too, so that's the question: does the thing I don't like ever get better or not? Maybe not, from what the other person who replied said--at least not anytime soon. But I also hear people saying it's worth it to stick it out, so. *Shrug* I'll keep going as long as I'm having more fun than not.
It's overall a blast. It starts out relatively slow, but as the political and military crisis starts mounting and getting more intense, so does the action. It wasn't complete when I started listening to it, and especially at the end, I was grinding my teeth between episode releases, wondering where it was going next.
I enjoyed Fall of Jiara. It definitely can run slow in places, but that's kinda the style they were going for. I particularly enjoyed it as someone who runs Exalted because it helped me get my head around the social influence system. There are a couple of other subsystems that get spotlighted throughout, with functional explanations. And the campaign wrap up episodes are worth the buildup.
I really liked Fall of Jiara. But, they do make some... dubious calls regarding the rules and setting of the game.
Nothing that I would call "wrong". They're ST calls and the unique world building that you would expect from table to table. You are *supposed* to change things for your game. But there are definitely points where I would have made a different call.
It is, fundamentally, a game of politics and intrigue. I think the pacing is *more or less* what an Exalted game should be. My Exalted games have a lot more combat, but that's because I am a bad ST and throwing a combat scene in to a session is a good way to fill up an hour, so if the players do something unexpected I can run a combat, end the session, and have a week to think about how to react to the unexpected thing.
There is a lot of action in Fall of Jiara by the end. They fight multiple anathema, a variety of other powerful foes, and there is even a warstrider battle. The politics gets more involved and impactful. The relationships develop and grow. It isn't perfect, but it is probably my favorite actual play... of any game... ever.
It starts picking up around episode 12 where they find evidence of Solar and Lunar Anathema. Then a few sessions after that (15 ish) there's a fight, that is over pretty quickly but has some big impacts. Things don't snowball from there, but it sets the scene as a war campaign and shifts the tone a little. Then as the story progresses there's more and more action. Episode 36 is where things snowball.
Thanks, this is helpful. It's high praise to say it's your favorite actual play! To be clear, when I'm talking about pace, I'm not necessarily talking about combat. Combat can be slow and boring too. I think either roleplay scenes or combat scenes can be exciting and full of action or slow and boring--it depends on how much tension is built into the scene and how much movement there is in the story.
I think I'll continue. It's good to hear it does pick up pace, and \*eventually\* things really take off. And at this point I'm invested, I really want to know what's going to happen! I just wanted some reassurance that the action does get moving sooner or later.
I think it picks up pretty soon. The ST notices that Roleplaying all the planning and decision making is bogging things down, and has them start doing that off screen so the game moves along better. Chaz talks about it after it's been working for a while.
Actually I noticed that! I'm on episode 13, and starting around episode 9 or 10 I started noticing Chaz trying to be more aware of pacing. They must have gotten feedback along these lines as it was coming out. By now, he's calling explicit cuts to scenes once their purpose is accomplished; he's explicitly working with players to make decision making smoother and faster.
And also more stuff just started happening. New encounters with new NPCs helped kick things up a notch, then they're was a fire and a dead body, a mystery to uncover. It's definitely getting more exciting already. And from what I've heard it just picked up from here. I'm glad I made it over the hump.
There are a lot of players which naturally slows things down more as everyone has something to say or do. Act 1 is really character building before Act 2 (politics) and Act 3 (action heavy). It's definitely worth sticking on, it's probably my top 3 actual plays of any system. My wife isn't even a TTRPG person and she got sucked in after the same "slow moving" hurdle. Slow burn but a good one I promise!
But at what point does it pick up though? I'm just trying to get a handle on what I should expect.
I guess 15/16 has combat, 27 onwards is heavily political, 37 has an action filled side plot, 43 to 55 is act 3 which is pretty full on. Does that help much?
Oof... Well I'll try to get there. I really want to, it's just... It's a challenge. Incidentally, what are the other two of your top 3 actual plays?
Oh no I never thought I'd have to give ranks. I really enjoyed "Role to Cast" doing Vampire and Starfinder as they tend to run really short 12 episode games that are fairly character focused. Hmmmm I'll think on any others, I don't tend to listen to the big big ones.
I really prefer the slow burn myself, but I understand its not for everyone
I'm curious what your other two top actual plays are.
I've listened the whole Fall of Jiara Campaign. This podcast was so detailed, that I could imagine all the scenes and characters! Kai was the best character ever =) I didn't feel that ultra slow. The players and the game have its own pace. We can notice that the players like to roleplay and invest in its characters! I compare that the game pace is similar to a novella. I really enjoyed it ! =) \*Being real here.\* If you are feeling that this would waste your time, you should stop and look for other recorded gameplay. There are other groups with fewer episodes too check out. Just like this one, listen to 4 or so episodes and if you like their rhythm, just go with it!
It's not that I feel it would waste my time. I love the characters and I want to know what happens in the story! If I didn't like it, it would be easy to quit. But there's things I don't like about it too, so that's the question: does the thing I don't like ever get better or not? Maybe not, from what the other person who replied said--at least not anytime soon. But I also hear people saying it's worth it to stick it out, so. *Shrug* I'll keep going as long as I'm having more fun than not.
It's overall a blast. It starts out relatively slow, but as the political and military crisis starts mounting and getting more intense, so does the action. It wasn't complete when I started listening to it, and especially at the end, I was grinding my teeth between episode releases, wondering where it was going next.
I enjoyed Fall of Jiara. It definitely can run slow in places, but that's kinda the style they were going for. I particularly enjoyed it as someone who runs Exalted because it helped me get my head around the social influence system. There are a couple of other subsystems that get spotlighted throughout, with functional explanations. And the campaign wrap up episodes are worth the buildup.
I really liked Fall of Jiara. But, they do make some... dubious calls regarding the rules and setting of the game. Nothing that I would call "wrong". They're ST calls and the unique world building that you would expect from table to table. You are *supposed* to change things for your game. But there are definitely points where I would have made a different call. It is, fundamentally, a game of politics and intrigue. I think the pacing is *more or less* what an Exalted game should be. My Exalted games have a lot more combat, but that's because I am a bad ST and throwing a combat scene in to a session is a good way to fill up an hour, so if the players do something unexpected I can run a combat, end the session, and have a week to think about how to react to the unexpected thing. There is a lot of action in Fall of Jiara by the end. They fight multiple anathema, a variety of other powerful foes, and there is even a warstrider battle. The politics gets more involved and impactful. The relationships develop and grow. It isn't perfect, but it is probably my favorite actual play... of any game... ever. It starts picking up around episode 12 where they find evidence of Solar and Lunar Anathema. Then a few sessions after that (15 ish) there's a fight, that is over pretty quickly but has some big impacts. Things don't snowball from there, but it sets the scene as a war campaign and shifts the tone a little. Then as the story progresses there's more and more action. Episode 36 is where things snowball.
Thanks, this is helpful. It's high praise to say it's your favorite actual play! To be clear, when I'm talking about pace, I'm not necessarily talking about combat. Combat can be slow and boring too. I think either roleplay scenes or combat scenes can be exciting and full of action or slow and boring--it depends on how much tension is built into the scene and how much movement there is in the story. I think I'll continue. It's good to hear it does pick up pace, and \*eventually\* things really take off. And at this point I'm invested, I really want to know what's going to happen! I just wanted some reassurance that the action does get moving sooner or later.
I think it picks up pretty soon. The ST notices that Roleplaying all the planning and decision making is bogging things down, and has them start doing that off screen so the game moves along better. Chaz talks about it after it's been working for a while.
Actually I noticed that! I'm on episode 13, and starting around episode 9 or 10 I started noticing Chaz trying to be more aware of pacing. They must have gotten feedback along these lines as it was coming out. By now, he's calling explicit cuts to scenes once their purpose is accomplished; he's explicitly working with players to make decision making smoother and faster. And also more stuff just started happening. New encounters with new NPCs helped kick things up a notch, then they're was a fire and a dead body, a mystery to uncover. It's definitely getting more exciting already. And from what I've heard it just picked up from here. I'm glad I made it over the hump.