GM Confidence: 3.5/5. Better than “meh” but not quite “good.” Some good stuff happened—maybe more than I give it credit—but it was messy…too messy, from my perspective, at least. But some of my best efforts have gotten off to a rocky start, so it’s not necessarily a bad omen.

What Went (Mostly) Right

• I normally dislike “X Time Earlier” beginnings, but I thought it was imperative to let the players know this was a no-win-situation, because I know that, without such warning, it can be extremely frustrating for them. I feel like this achieved its purpose.
• Once again I’ve taken some lessons from Youtube screenwriting advice/critiques. I gave Constable Hunt—changed from Sheriff after some research revealed there wasn’t one in La Plata county at the time—some personality, in an effort to make him seem likeable and important, before killing him off, to give his sudden death some “impact.”
• I’m starting a new thing I’m referring to as the “Big Q.” That is: taking a deliberate break in the narrative to go to each player in turn and have them answer a question like how the character feels or perceives what’s going on, or what their immediate intentions or expectations are. The idea is to give players an opportunity to reveal what the character is thinking/feeling that might normally be overlooked or difficult to work into the narrative otherwise. This felt like it was working for me, but the next session or two will really settle it.
• Based on previous experience, I was on the lookout for what I’m now referring to as “Plot Landmines.” And I successfully spotted one during the preparations: the potential for PC(s) to decide to wander away from the church looking for threats and walk right into the trenches, starting the fight prematurely—the goal was to have them find the girl before things kicked off. I sorted that out by having the Constable give them some “flanking” instructions that would lead them toward the cellar first-thing. It turned out to not be necessary, in the end—they mostly followed the Constable inside—but I expect it would have worked. Unfortunately, the players found another Landmine when Al decided to split off on his own. I was fortunate he didn’t step on it, in that (a) he started circling in the direction away from the ambush (or near enough I could reasonably adjust to), and (b) he was looking “down” for tracks when the ambush kicked off, and (c) he decided to run back to the church when it started, rather than picking off the ambushers one-by-one at range (like I probably would have done—he could have done quite a lot of damage that way).
• The ambush itself was a bit of an experiment, and I feel like it worked pretty well. I managed to pull off a battle consisting of around 42 characters in about two hours of real-time, with minimal fuss, thumb-twiddling, or confusion (as far as I could tell). As with Redacted, “Surprise” was, once again, a relentless killer—the friendly NPCs were all gone by round two. Also like the pool-deck fight in Redacted, I completely forgot about the sniper by the time things got going. I gave the PCs Bad Luck to facilitate the deliberate TPK, but I only ended up using it once—I probably could have sped things up a little by taking a couple more opportunities I overlooked. I forgot to deal with the gunsmoke, but the fire worked out (nevermind some technical issues). My main complaint, overall, was that I didn’t have a real plan for the “pauses,” so they felt a little awkward to me. And finally, there was Manny’s-player’s idea to “narrate his own death,” which in retrospect, should have been my idea—ah, well.

What Went (Nearly) Wrong

• A really dumb mistake I made was not having some kind of scripted introduction to the overall campaign. The players were all aware (or were they?), but viewers had no idea whatsoever. So, I’m going to have to do that retroactively, to the extent it makes sense, in the next session.
• Some of the exposition regarding places and events should have been written down and read off. Passing from my mind to my mouth without some kind of guidelines usually results in garbling the intended message.
• The geography around the church, and the approach to it, really needed some visual definition. As it was, I felt like the players didn’t really understand the terrain, and weren’t sure what to do when they got there. Distances, in particular, are important when dealing with spotting and potential long-range shooting—even if there isn’t going to be any shooting at that point, the players need to think there might be. This is a situation where having a non-combat map and portrait-tokens to organize who’s going where would have been very helpful—like I commonly do when I’ve thought things through properly. 😛

Miscellaneous

• We had some weird technical issues at the beginning, which cleared as we went along, but it kinda threw me off my rhythm.
• I forgot to show the PC character pics during their introductions.
• Since I didn’t create them myself, I’m having to learn the PCs as we go. Ulysses is going to be the “tactics guy”—I had no idea what to do with that when it came up. Al is going to wander off on his own—see “Landmines” above.
• I missed a couple of dumb image issues, like time-of-day lighting on the church, or the roads on the tracking shot—because the players always, always, always focus on those things. 😛
• I forgot there was a lit stove in the middle of the church; could’ve been knocked over or shot, or even somehow used by the defenders.