[Spoilers] S1E03 "Twisted Past" - Player Reactions

[1001100x02]

Blurb:

You are tasked with exploring a world that appears earth-like, but from a part of its past. Can you infiltrate the culture and identify any allies, or will you make enemies that Stargate cannot afford?

 

Edited August 3, 2020 by 1001100x02

[1001100x02]

This felt like a benign version of the hoary old "an Enterprise crew encounter a godlike being" episode like that time Q stuck everyone in Robin Hood only without the benefit of any character exploration (because pit falls of writing episodes for randoms). I appreciate the desire behind the concept of episode 3 and the effort our GM made to run it, but this was just bad. Like alienatingly bad, and I say that as someone who got the whimsy of it.

NPCs feel like they're there just as road markers and nothing more, with little or no weight or impost within the plot or to the PCs. The thing with Chucky is so utterly random it's farcical, especially as Puck makes no mention of the party having potentially unleashed another Anubis on the galaxy; the reveal is a haha gotcha slap in the face. I'm not against wacky adventures having repercussions, but this is just poorly executed. Given this whole thing continually runs over an hour short by all reports, I think you could easily establish that characters and items either do or don't migrate between set-piece scenes and have Chucky do the opposite (my preference would be for Chucky to display ontological continuity, thus signposting he's a real monsterboy, thus giving the party a scene to realise something is wrong and potentially correct their mistake).

Speaking of poor design, a railroaded 80s nostalgia trip means nothing to people who weren't originally there for it (you're not going to remember the 80s unless you were born in the 70s), didn't care for it, or who are playing non-tau'ri characters and thus unable to bringing any of that fond familiarity into play without hugely metagaming. Everyone desperately rolling to try and figure out the Bowie song they play at the end was kinda excruciating. I mean, seriously, this is something that's being put out there as representative of a game that's already fighting almost 2 decades of lag between its setting and now in an attempt to appeal to new players? At the very least this mission should have been preluded with an 80s movie night in the SGP rec hall to give the alien characters -- who can potentially comprise an entire team -- and younger players some ground in the themes of the episode and some skin in the pop cultural game. Hell, given the module is using MGM properties -- certain time travellers illicitly appearing aside -- and the frivolous nature of the story I wonder if pre-circulating a youtube montage to that effect wouldn't be a wise step

Naming the power behind it almost immediately the characters exit the gate also blows pretty much all of what little mystery the episode holds -- Oh, it's the trickster fairy, which means its an ascended ancient because english mythology is their thing. I think the story could have gotten its desired wacky shenanigans mileage out of an honest riff or pastiche of Midsummer Night's Dream. Frivolous relationships, comical misunderstandings, competing desires. That's something everyone can get into and cut loose with, especially if you get Puck coming in to give the speech at the end.

On a final note, it might just be a personal thing, but I remain to be convinced of the place of "let's explore random new world" plots given the SGP comes across as being pitched as a semi-deniable special ops command designed to provide active support to ongoing anti-goa'uld efforts across the galaxy. Given the existence of cache worlds for Phoenix ops, I think if nothing else is changed about this ep, the reason for going through the gate needs to be recontextualised around that concept.

 

[Slyder128]

I enjoyed this one.  Sometimes a silly night of RP is just what the doctor ordered.  Some things we did that I will remember for years:

Chatted up several rock stars.

Released "Chucky" into the galaxy - what could go wrong.

Became a cartoon, and our party leveraged that - we ordered from ACME, we used Cartoon Physics and had a blast.

Spaceballs - "what's the matter Col. Sanders...."  So good...

Keep it up - felt like the humour of the Stargate fun episodes I liked so much...

 

If you are a super serious crunchy RPG player, I get this wasn't your deal - cool - maybe the next one will be 100 Jaffa and a system lord to fight...this one was just fun.

PS - the name for the fey creature being PUCK - come on - so good...