OOC Chat

[Jiyo Sora]

Well, I intend to do the usual postgame AMA, but yeah, I was expecting worse meat grinder action and very pleased with what we got- especially since it let me get a handle on what Sora has become, as opposed to what he was at the end of the last game.

Turns out he might be the most purely heroic L5R character I've ever run, and as Saruko notes, with the state of things right now, it's nice to get to play that.

[Hantei Kinsen]

The best thing in having Koyama as a Dragon form is to finally be able to understand what he’s saying.

I might poll you in my Q&A who thought doing Scots instead of regular English was fun or annoying. For me it was a linguistic challenge to pull that off with any consistency.

Also, has it been revealed who Nanzi is?

I actually enjoyed it a lot. Got a couple of YouTube accent videos to be able to “decipher” some of the words. It was fun.

[Kyosei of the Isawa]

Kyosei is also a non-Daimyo/spouse, reprised from the first game. And, likely will be in the next, as well.

Good game, yes! Just sorry work kept coming up at the most inopportune times.

[Shinjo Miuna]

Yes! Great game. I was so nervous cause I've never done anything like this before but it was really fun!!

[Canary]

Yeah, under the circumstances, I didn't want to do a full on meat grinder... And honestly, I don't find meat grinders to be particularly fun, even when I'm playing in them. Players tend to get very stressed out and upset, and as the GM, that means they get stressed out and upset at me.

Besides that, I didn't really feel like a meat grinder was in-theme for the era. It's the age for mythic heroism more than a gritty death march.

Also-also real world issues are making the world stressful enough. It felt like a good time for a game for heroism spiced up with some dark moments and paranoia.

[Miyako]

Adding my voice to the chorus in thanking you for putting such a great game together considering the circumstances and all that is going on, and I'll thank everyone participating too for making it so enjoyable and being awesome and so on. Unfortunately my work situation ended up being a bit more up-and-down than I thought it would be but I still had a great time with what I could do and reading everyone else's doing things too.

[Nozomi]

I think you guys managed to get just enough serious combat mingled with high intensity and difficult circumstances of a variety of forms that everyone was able to participate in somehow and which logically fit the situation. There were spots for courtiers to shine, where they would usually feel left out in this game because... shadowlands. Just enough lore. Shugenja required events and a good smattering of classical and rather nasty creatures. And, while the intensity got pretty... intense right at the end, I have to admit afterwards that the feeling of not being 100% sure if we were going to win or die horribly right up until about midnight last night?

Hah, we're closing the portal of Jigoku. It shouldn't BE easy. We did get lucky and there was a lot of good cooperation making everyone have a hand in the victory. But the feeling that it was a fight to the last second I think is important here.

I feel strongly that the last couple games I've been in on fallenash have been successful and pleasant experiences, but I will also say this is one of the best I've had in recent memory. So, thank you for the effort.

[Nanzi]

Good times I already offered my feedback. I'll be back when you're ready to run the next one.

[Jin]

I would say Dawn and Volsung's Burning Sands have been my absolute favorite campaigns/settings to play in. Others have been great, don't get me wrong, but these are the two I would never want to miss out on. Fingers crossed we eventually get more of the latter and I can't wait for more Dawn even if Jin is being retired.

Amusingly my LBS character also hit the 'not coming back outside of special circumstances' point so the fact I'm desperate to dive back into both of these worlds even with all new characters says a lot.

[Togashi Saruko]

I would say Dawn and Volsung's Burning Sands have been my absolute favorite campaigns/settings to play in. Others have been great, don't get me wrong, but these are the two I would never want to miss out on. Fingers crossed we eventually get more of the latter and I can't wait for more Dawn even if Jin is being retired.

Amusingly my LBS character also hit the 'not coming back outside of special circumstances' point so the fact I'm desperate to dive back into both of these worlds even with all new characters says a lot.

Dawn with its timeskips also give a vibe of generational investment in a story, which I think is really nice. So it's not the same character being reprised again and again and again and again, but a good change of cast to make the world come alive.

(and also not having big disasters every year xD )

[Hantei Kinsen]

Dawn and HT are the ones I enjoy playing, and returning.

Awesome job once again!!!

Thanks for the fun!

[Seidou Satone]

I enjoyed the game. I feel bad that Satone was not well received/came off annoying at times as that certainly wasn't my intention, but I understand that the character concept didn't really fit in this game and would have been better in Dawn 1. Alas, I was not around for that, so I felt I could try to do it here. It just didn't work well. I'm hoping the growth over the game and reprising her for Dawn 3 goes better!

Thank you to everyone for the great threads!

To the GMs: You all did great work. It's very exciting to see what all this community builds for our brand new Rokugan, and what all you come up with as well. If you would like some feedback on things I might have done differently, I am happy to offer it, but I don't think anything needs to be said at all! I'm sorry if anything made it stressful for you!

[Canary]

I'm glad you've all had such good experiences here, even if a few things were rocky at times.

(snip)

I think high tension, and genuinely not knowing if things will go your way down to the last second, is important to that final catharsis of the happy ending. I think that's part of why some endings feel a little frivolous and some feel amazing. I wanted things to be tense down to the last second partly for that reason. All of my favorite anime have that feeling going for them, and it's one I wanted to give through this game.

Overall, I want to make a living world for everyone.

[Bayushi Umeno]

I support Birb games. They are birby fun~

[Seppun Dawei]

I support Birb games. They are birby fun~

Seconded.

[Jiyo Sora]

I support Birb games. They are birby fun~

QFT

[Ongaku no Ryoko]

I enjoyed the work of the GM team and many of those I RP'd with. So thanks for the game and I look forward to seeing the progression through Dawn 3. Any negative points are entirely unrelated to the GM team, so I'm excited to see the future for birbiverse.

[Nanzi]

Still my fave game and concept.

[Tyrus]

We don't do it for the praise but I'd be a liar if I didn't say it feels good but seriously through ups and downs, sleepless nights, running combat till 5am, seeing something just not work the way you want it to, and seeing happy accidents flourish into new story directions. Knowing that you all had fun is the biggest reason that everything is worth it. I feel very privileged to have run for you all, I took my first foray into building combats for this system and found it a confusing and nose bridge massaging feat but I learned a lot of lessons and can't wait to take those to become a better co-gm.

Thank you to Canary for giving me this opportunity and thank you players for engaging and building a story with us.

[Jin]

I'll admit that, were the world in a better state, I would have been proudly amused if we got to the end only to find there were never enough available purity points for the perfect ending.

But given how things are right now - yes, happy ending please.