ZEITGEIST Zeitgeist on Roll20 progress

[Tormyr]

Hi everyone, I have had a major disruption in my life recently. We recently found out that we have to make an international move within a month, and it has thrown everything in chaos. I am still working on adventure 6 and will have an update as it is close to being released.

 

[Summorox]

Thanks for the update, Tormyr! Do you think an august release is still feasible?

 

[Tormyr]

Thanks for the update, Tormyr! Do you think an august release is still feasible?

I think so. It's going to be a busy month with preparations, but the rest of 6 should be completed sooner than September.

 

[MarkM]

Any updates? We did an unrelated 14 session mini campaign while waiting for 6 to come out, but are finished and hoping to get back into Zeitgeist next week.

 

[Tormyr]

wrapping it up. my life has been painting and sorting and showing the apartment for the last month.

 

[MarkM]

Thanks for keeping us updated. Is there anything that we can do to help put these back onto the original one-per-two-months schedule? Crowdsource some of the work? Chip in to hire you an assistant? I'm being serious, not flippant. I would be happy to volunteer to help, as it would be much less work for me to help than to do the entire Roll20 conversion myself.

 

[Tormyr]

Thanks for keeping us updated. Is there anything that we can do to help put these back onto the original one-per-two-months schedule? Crowdsource some of the work? Chip in to hire you an assistant? I'm being serious, not flippant. I would be happy to volunteer to help, as it would be much less work for me to help than to do the entire Roll20 conversion myself.

I'll get back to you about book 7.

 

[MarkM]

Thanks! The challenge for me is that it takes our group about 8-10 sessions (moving fairly slowly and deliberatively) per chapter and we play once per week. In ideal circumstances, that puts the length of the entire campaign at around 2.5 years -- a very long campaign taking the same characters from 1-20 (or 3-20). Since the first Zeitgeist chapter on Roll20 came out the additional modules have been coming about once every 4.5 months, that pushes the length of the whole campaign to 4.5 years, with 2.5 years of play and 2 years of stalling with filler material.

What makes it harder is the complexity of this story and campaign. If we take a 2-month break to play other characters or do an unrelated campaign between each chapter, it's difficult for my players to get right back into the story and to remember all the little details as they try to solve all the mysteries. This is getting worse, not better, as we continue to introduce the hundreds of npcs and multiple plot threads built into the story. I've thought about just pausing for a year or two to wait for more material, but I think that would make it even worse.

In another campaign I would just fill in with some homebrewed adventures while waiting for the next installment, but this story is already so long and has so many interconnected characters and stories. It also leads to the characters complaining (even more) that their characters don't level up enough -- doing 30 sessions or more over a period of 4 months at low levels and gaining only one level during that time is frustrating for players, but if you let them get ahead or accumulate extra magic items the rest of the adventures are not power-balanced properly. I've tried sending a PC B-team on side adventures, adding 3rd-party modules in the middle of a chapter, sending them through the vault of heresies (twice - once with characters 100 years in the past and a modified and updated version with the main PCs in present), and converting the new Zeitgeist adventure to put it back into the Adventures in Zeitgeist timeline, but we still have had to take long pauses waiting for the next release.

I'm not trying to complain (I completely understand that life throws unexpected challenges), just to explain the impact that the release schedule has on actual play, and hopefully to help with solutions.

 

[Crispy120286]

Thanks! The challenge for me is that it takes our group about 8-10 sessions (moving fairly slowly and deliberatively) per chapter and we play once per week.

For me this is how my group goes as well.

For my campaign,

• Module 1 ran for 5 sessions
• Module 2 ran for 7 sessions
• Module 3 ran for 8 sessions
• Module 4 ran for 9 sessions
• Module 5 ran for 11 sessions
• Module 6 ran for 12 sessions

We're only 1 session in module 7.

 

[Tormyr]

Thanks! The challenge for me is that it takes our group about 8-10 sessions (moving fairly slowly and deliberatively) per chapter and we play once per week. In ideal circumstances, that puts the length of the entire campaign at around 2.5 years -- a very long campaign taking the same characters from 1-20 (or 3-20). Since the first Zeitgeist chapter on Roll20 came out the additional modules have been coming about once every 4.5 months, that pushes the length of the whole campaign to 4.5 years, with 2.5 years of play and 2 years of stalling with filler material.

What makes it harder is the complexity of this story and campaign. If we take a 2-month break to play other characters or do an unrelated campaign between each chapter, it's difficult for my players to get right back into the story and to remember all the little details as they try to solve all the mysteries. This is getting worse, not better, as we continue to introduce the hundreds of npcs and multiple plot threads built into the story. I've thought about just pausing for a year or two to wait for more material, but I think that would make it even worse.

In another campaign I would just fill in with some homebrewed adventures while waiting for the next installment, but this story is already so long and has so many interconnected characters and stories. It also leads to the characters complaining (even more) that their characters don't level up enough -- doing 30 sessions or more over a period of 4 months at low levels and gaining only one level during that time is frustrating for players, but if you let them get ahead or accumulate extra magic items the rest of the adventures are not power-balanced properly. I've tried sending a PC B-team on side adventures, adding 3rd-party modules in the middle of a chapter, sending them through the vault of heresies (twice - once with characters 100 years in the past and a modified and updated version with the main PCs in present), and converting the new Zeitgeist adventure to put it back into the Adventures in Zeitgeist timeline, but we still have had to take long pauses waiting for the next release.

I'm not trying to complain (I completely understand that life throws unexpected challenges), just to explain the impact that the release schedule has on actual play, and hopefully to help with solutions.

I completely understand, and frankly, you have the right to complain here. I have been very unhappy that I have been so delayed on this. Once 6 is out the door, I will contact you regarding 7.