#backandfork

(also I'm currently doing celebrity culture in my French class, and had to write a mini essay about a celebrity, except all I could think of was the life series, so uhh yeah Martyn you're a celebrity who has won two gameshows [Limited Life, Past Life] and also is a famous and successful musician [Screw the nether], not complete lies but there was quite a bit of truth-stretching in my work, I will say. haha)

Yuppers! The hashtag is #backandfork

Since Martyn asked specifically for feedback I would like to mention a few things I picked up on myself (my credentials are: I've been playing dnd for at least 15 years and actively GMing and playing multiple campaigns and oneshots currently, though I have no experience with Daggerheart yet)

1. While difficult to balance and understandable from a content point of view, a few times it felt like martyn rushed the party forward to the next scene a bit too quickly without letting the characters play it out a bit more. An example was Cherri when they pointed out how she wanted to confront the party earlier but martyn had already gone ahead and described how they arrived in Hush.

2. This one I feel like is a bit of a ttrpg faux-pas but it can be done: I would suggest less talking for the players as their characters. a few times (once again I assume in the spirit of keeping the session within an allotted time frame) Martyn would say something in character for a player, and it felt like it was mostly Ren? (if this was something that was pre-discussed because ren or the players in general were a bit shy or worried about their RP obviously that's no issue and in fact a great solution) This can often end up taking some agency away from the players, even if it is most likely what they were gonna do. I would suggest going more along the route of describing the character's feelings or suspicions rather than voicing things for them, as it leaves room for them to add their own spin to what they say and do.

3. More of a tip than specific feedback but I think generally timing wise this ended up going quite well within an expected timeframe, but if you're doing more of a longer form campaign after this, it can be a bit easier to let go of the time pressure to finish the entire thing, I would just plan about 3 or 4 encounters (combat and non-combat included) ahead of where they currently are.

Other than that I would suggest not worrying about pre-writing specific descriptions of everything as that may just take up a lot of time which you can easily fill with your own improv and writing experience (of which Martyn has plenty)

Martyn also mentioned having to make his own maps in the future; I would suggest having a look at existing map libraries out there, there's a bunch of free ones or even cheap paid for ones. I personally am a huge fan of 2-minute tabletop, they do a massive range of pay-what-you-want maps with a lot of variants for the specific maps as well often. I also hear good things about Czepeku but I haven't personally used them yet.

All in all I think Martyn did an absolutely crack up job for his third time ever playing a ttrpg and first time ever GMing one, I know he has a good support group in this party as well with a lot of experience from owen and graecie at least it seems as well.

Here's a little bonus doodle!

He is a prince and she is the daughter of a family of servant working in his castle but also they are the most ride or die best friends

They trained to fight together (which i am kinda curious about how exactly that happened considering their status difference) and rendrago constantly puts tiptoe on his shoulder to both protect her and give her a better view

If you hurt rendrago, tiptoe will go in a murderous rage against you

Rendrago knows she has problems with focusing on tasks so he throws distractions (shiny forks) in the direction they are supposed to go

They support each other through everything and constantly give each other thumbs up

She is tiny and he is massive

He is the protector and she is the killer

tiptoe my beloved