Well, Sunday's sim didn't really work out all that well. With me being in and out, confusion over what sim we were doing, and a rather large amount of people, it didn't turn out just a good as it could have been.

Discarding the fact that i was jumpy, and the confusion over what sim we were doing, how would you like large groups to be dealt with in the future. 13 people was quite a lot, even if not all were simming in the same agendas (Alpha and Kappa, and then Brain observing).

So, should we have pre-designated teams? Or maybe teams set up for certain situations, or is our current mostly random teams still a good idea? And maybe each officer has a fireteam to lead or something along those lines. :bomber:

Hmm, well, a number of suggestions.

1. The GM should be prepared. Needless to say, I was not, and it went to s***.

2. The GM should be dedicated. Not splitting his time between two seperate storyline threads and one character, not to mention getting into the various physics discussions...

3. I've spoken with a couple of folks regarding my expectations in-sim. As I mentioned, I expect something different from the gamers than preceding GMs, and that in itself was a source of confusion. Just so everyone is aware (and this is related to the next point), I'm very willing to let the players control where they want to go. This gives them another level of freedom, but another level of responsibility. For example, I was initially planning to have Kappa Team pass it's first real mission with flying colours, but the way the sim worked out, it didn't happen and we stumbled away with a marginal victory. I've had some good feedback, both positive and negative, on the issue, and am waiting to see how things turn out in future sims before making a decision as to whether to discard that method.

4. The new level of freedom means that the players need to be more controlled. This was the sticky part of the idea when we came up with it months ago. If the GM is not the commanding officer, how does the CO know where to go? It's pretty apparent now that work needs to be done on all sides to adapt to this method. Again, if things are otherwise, we may discard this method... However, since there are no alternatives...

5. Less OOC chatter. Channel 4 was registered for a reason - for people to use it. Less clutter (in both game channels) would have helped in a minor fashion to clear the situation.

6. Need one or two more GMs to do secondary work, not primary stuff. This will cease being a problem, if I can convince Ghost or Kevin to take it up - Kappa team has officially begun preparations to leave NAO.

That's about all I can see as issues right now. Any other comments?

I agree with just about everything Dragon Hawk has mentioned. Especially how a GM shouldn't be the Commanding officer at the same time. For the scant few of you that have participated in one of my saturday sims, I don't even roleplay while I GM. The GM must not only play as the environment, but also all the NPCs and the world physics. And if that GM takes the command chair, the sim becomes a bit of a farce, kinda like being dragged through a set story line if you will. And the extra effort of playing a unique character will cause the sim quality to degrade.

My recommendation, for all sims, is to have the GM and CO comepletely separate entities. It adds to the realism and in my opinion would also make things more enjoyable, as we know the Commander doesn't know what to expect around the next corner.

Also, Mouse has a good point about the teams. I think there should be more than just Alpha and Kappa. Or at least sub-divisions of the two. (I'm aware that this is stated in the Alpha squad plaque, but I've noticed we have yet to follow so much as a single one of the listed maneuvers. The loadout seems to be all people are looking at.) Alpha has too many members, maybe we could make another squad to thin them out?

I also noticed the unrealistic command order in the game. Despite being of a higher rank, characters like Ghost should not be able to command characters like Scott. As they are from completely different squads and are thusly in separate jurisdictons. (If that's the right word. >_<) Chain of command is limited to one's squad in real life, and it should be done this way in the sim under most circumstances. With the exception, of course, of the Commander and Colonol (which are technically not on any squad). I dunno if this'll fix anything, but it has been bothering me a bit.

A little something else I've noticed, that I've subtley complained about via roleplay, is that sometimes due to the preset story of a given sim often suggestions and actions made by players are almost blatantly ignored. Despite being perfectly rational and logical. I understand that in large sims a reaction or two can be missed in the flood of other's reactions, but I've encountered this a little more often in smaller sims with 5 or 6 people rather than a nosebleed inducing 13. GM's need to pay more attention to what the players are doing rather than their own sim storyline. After all, if everything must go in one linear direction I don't see the point in simming. I'd rather go off and play a console RPG. A sim needs to be EXTREMELY flexible. And have a limitless number of endings pending on what the squad chooses to do.

Well that's all I can think of right now. There's probably more to it than that, but I can't think of anything else.

Don't feel like reading the whole things so just a few pointers to add:

First of all part of the reason as to why this Sunday also went over the top was because I'm not feeling that much up for XCAS or anything artistic at ALL right now. I should've acted a lot more like the CO of my squad, but Mouse kept jumping in and out and this coupled with me already being in a soggy mood like I've been going through the last week or so only helped to speed up the decay of the sim in general. So....I apologize for that. Hopefully I'll be in a better mood this weekend though you shouldn't really count on it...

Secondly Bob. If you want the sim to be EXTREMELY flexible then try running it yourself. Heh, the main problem is that the entire XCAS character cast must get out of the place alive, and there are SO many things that can screw that necessary fact. Furthermore, if your Joseph Scott goes off running through the corridors into some seperate direction that seriously messes up our timetable. There is still a central script behind all sims you know...

Now addmitively I do my best to keep that script to be as flexible as I possibly can, but the truth is it has to be like that. I can't just make up a general sim setting and let every last troop run his own course! How'd you expect the team to get back together again realistically by the end? And what if everyone running his or her own direction prolongs the sim? I did a 2 hour 45 minute sim once and believe me you do NOT want the freaking headache that comes after it.

That's it really....I'll be lurking around and posting in the roleplays once in a while if anyone would like to start it up...

Bob, I think Alpha squad is a good size. The reason I don't encourage as many divisions as would be militarily reasonable is because our player base does not stay the same - we are volunteers. The eight man squad is there to cover for any other blunders in terms of people not making it.

What I do expect though is for Sergeants to take active control. I've already talked to Ong, Yorke, and Howardson about it, and they concur. As we discussed after the last sim, Yorke had some issues with his connection, but Howardson did a good job of keeping his team under control. The key here is to not get timid whenever someone of a higher rank is around.

With regards to the hierarchy of command, I believe anyone should be able to give a lower rank orders, if need be. However, as Bob says, Kacur should be taking care of his squad, while Ghost takes care of his. Not everything is perfect though, and because there is such a huge mesh of characters, it can't be. However, as Kappa is leaving soon, this will become less of an issue, as there will only be two officers left.

Loonie, the point I was getting at was that legit character reactions are often ignored. This causes sims to be one sided and linear. Sometimes it even becomes unrealistic, but I won't get into THAT.

For example, in the sim we had about a week ago, Howardson and I had both thrown grenades into a group of Ascadian bad guys. There was no action saying whether they exploded or not, the throwing of our grenades were completely ignored. Granted, you did make up for this by making one of Kacur's grenades a dud... But still, at least an action saying our grenades went off course would've been appreciated. Because of that I aired my frustration in the roleplays that very day.

And by the way Loonie, I don't remember if I've mentioned this before, I HAVE run an RPG like XCAS before. Granted it was less chaotic, but I wouldn't extend my criticism unless I knew there was at least some merit to it. Now, if Scott's running off is complicating things too much, I can easily settle down with that one. Although, I only recall Scott running off once (Could be wrong) and that wasn't really a big deal, it was just into another room we were going into anyway. Mostly I just have him contest a CO's decision and complain. Anyway, being in character is important to me, but not if it truly makes things so hard on the GM. And I know there's a central script, dude, but it shouldn't have to be followed to the very letter. A sim should not end the way a GM wants it to from the begining. -OR- The GM could at least come up with 3 or 4 different ending scenarios, pending on the performance of the team.

Players must be given a sense of importance, that their actions will affect the sim whether they're good moves or not. This is why I don't like big sims. If you've got a single Reaper rampaging towards a group of 12 soldiers, everyone's likely to respond with gunfire. A GM cannot give the results of every shot. Instead an action is given in the form of "The combined firepower of the team takes down the Reaper with ease." This makes things kinda boring, because each player knows that the action would've been the same regardless of whether they made a shot or not. Which, in time, causes people to crap out a bit.

That's why teams should be split into smaller groups and hosted by separate GMs whenever attendance soars like that, that way everything can be more personal to each individual player. Having two groups of six instead of one group of 12 reduces GM workload considerably. And characters like Scott can pull something stupid without it killing everyone.

DH: I guess you're right. But looking at the ratio of players... Alpha looks a lot bigger than Kappa. With a total of eight individual members compared to the scant three on Kappa, it just looked to me like another squadron would be a good idea. But oh wells.

Bob, I agree that there should be a split, but I don't think it's enough to warrant another squad designation. That would be bringing up the whole rank issue again, and that would be crap. My image of the LT is someone in command of twelve to thirty folks, with his sergeants and his corporals taking responsibility below him. Yes, it's not like that now, but I'd be damned if I didn't try.

The trick is getting people to GM. I've already said I'd stop playing to focus on GM, both publicly and privately, and I will hold that until those in power relieve me of that. Ideally, there would be another GM to take care of what I tihnk of as the second team - Howardson + 3 others. If Alpha gets bigger, make another Sergeant... Keep filling up teams of four, similar to Kappa, under what will then be Alpha Detachment. Maybe we'll decide every three teams requires another lieutenant, just for shits and giggles, who knows. Unless someone invests the power in me to make a decision on this though, I won't - it's Loonie's job to decide when the load is to big for him to handle for the team.

In short, I do agree with Bob, but my implementation of such a plan differs slightly. Hunt me down on ICQ or MSN and we can talk shop.

Well, after the sim i GMed last saturday, i do agree that its coming to the point that the GM and CO must be two different identities, heck, next time i GM you probably wont even be seeing howardson around!

A bit of free-formedness would be nice, im not asking for wing commander 1 freeformedness though, that would make things WAY to complicated. How about a system like this; the primary objective will most likely be achieved, but the secondary objective is accomplished based off the team's actions, not the GMs will. If the secondary objective is done right... something good happens. That, ro something bad happens if it isnt done . Nuff said.

Also, we need to work on preparedness of the missions. The beginning of last sim was admittedly a little chaotic. It got better later on IMO, but the beginning needed som planning.

No other comments available at the current moment.

Edit: I also might try making my own campaign at one point if i'd be allowed too. I could keep it unnofficial if needed, but t'would be fun to make it official

Granted, Howardson will be out of the picture for that one.

With smaller sims, CO and GM can be one person, but larger sims, the GM needs to be fully concentrating on what is happening.

However, the problematic thing with them being seperare entities, is, as DH says, how does the CO know what direction the sim needs to be going in? The CO and GM thus need to be in constant contact, and the CO thus loses out on simming time and enjoyment.

How does this differ when the CO is the GM as well? He still loses sim time and if he's there for RPing, then he loses enjoyment as well. If the CO is in contact with the GM so heavily, the CO may as well be doing all the GM work as well.

The idea, as Bob and Howardson have said, is to be able to make a decision based on what you can see. So, there are two parts. First, you have to be able to see something - settings and actions will need to be more descriptive. Second, someone has to make a decision, whether a macro-level decision by officers or a deployment decision by sergeants, it doesn't matter. If the CO is the GM, there are no choices to make - they've all been pre-made. With a seperate GM, the CO is now actually part of the sim, and no different from anyone else.

What I meant by my previous statement is that it is problematic now, but it's an area for us to improve on, not one for us to ignore.

I don't see why a CO needs to have any more contact with a GM than the rest of the team. If a CO actually needs to have his hand held by a GM, then his command should be questioned.

If a CO lead his squad to a fork in a corridor, thus raising the question of left or right, why would the CO need assistance from a GM? At the very most he should be able to consult other squad members for suggestions. Do they go left or right? Or do they split up into both directions? The GM should not be able to determine this. That's why we have COs, right? Otherwise their purpose is void.

Heh I guess I'm guilty for starting the physics discussion in the kappa channel!

Anyway, there's a good reason to separate GMs and COs. This was already discussed after Sunday's sim so I'm just restating our views. As Mouse had posted, the CO won't know what direction the sim is heading if he's not the GM but that can be a good thing as well since it encourages the CO to think creatively instead of following a set path. Of course this might inconvenience the GM because he'll need to do improvisations whenever the CO decides to take a different approach but I think this will make the sims more interesting. I think everyone is getting sick of all the cookie cutter sims (go in, blow everyone to hell, get overwhelmed by the enemy, run away )

For example in the kappa sim, (Oh I don't mean kappa is better than alpha, I'm just using this as an example ) the GM decides to fail the mission because I mentioned that the enemy might notice the water puddles on the floor from our wet suits. (at least I think that's why he failed the mission :dontgetit: ) My point is, the GM didn't plan the sim to progress that way and instead relies on the simmers to take a more active role in determining the storyline.

Technically, the sergeants will end up as secondary GMs though they don't necessarily need to post actions and settings. The GM will take care of the strategic (long term) aspect of the sim while the sergeants will take care of the tactics (short term) involved in accomplishing the objectives. I believe that this way, the sims will be more creative and fun. I say this because we managed to hold a sim using this concept for four to five hours between three people and yet we still had fun throughout the entire sim. (or maybe we're just lame geeks! )

Okay I've posted my lame opinion, now I need to hide before you guys decide to throw rotten vegetables at me.

Damn, I've read the previous posts and I noticed that I'm just repeating what you guys have already posted. Bad me!

And double postage too?! Bad Saber! ::Throws rotten veggies::

But I must comment yet again, a sim shouldn't go in any one way. That's why it's a bad idea for a GM to have direct influence on a CO's decision. (Something subtle, like blowing up an optional corridor to restrict movement is more acceptable. ) Like I already said, if we all just followed what the GM ordered things get dull and boring. That's why I'm also recommending that the CO and GM be separate even for smaller sims.

I also must say, that improvisations are part of the job of being a GM. I've been Mastering p&p RPGs since I was twelve, I know the difference between good and bad GMing (Granted, XCAS is a little different than most table top RPGs.). And good GMing can only come with good improvisation skills. It's a way to prepare for unexpected actions a player will sometimes take, and can also make a sim much more interesting. No improv = A preset drag-along sim. I've seen Loonie do pretty good with this, I don't see how it could be a bad thing.

Let me add that simmers should always try to put more stuff in their posts. Not only that it makes the sim more interesting, it also allows the GM to find something to respond to. However, the only way for this to work is to slow the pace down so everyone can read the posts and put appropriate response. There won't be any problems if everyone take their time to put in nice, creative and long posts.

P.S. On a side note, if Scott decides to pull off another one of his crazy stunts again, I swear I'm going to crash our only Avenger transport and leave the team stranded behind enemy lines. (or at least I'm going to whine to the GM until he does it) :devil: Don't think that I don't like the stunts though, it kinda gives Scott a unique character but at least do some research on aerodynamic physics before doing it!

Hey, i was planning just the thing, but only if he gets too out of line

It'll be worth getting scott permanently grounded... mwahaha!

Oh don't worry, Weindhoven will be keelhauling Scott if he tries more stunts

You fellas better hope Atzel's flying this Sunday. :devil: Heh heh heh...

I'll shoot you before we crash if that's the case