So last Friday had a whopping two people appear due to a range of reasons. Mitch was moving, Curtis was snowed in, Celeste's reliance on my mom to watch the kids fell through, and Alex simply didn't show up, and didn't text, call or even send a raven.
I wanted to end the campaign for the sake of the new players I'm bringing aboard. Newbies that they are to the 5th edition system, I feel it's a wise move; also, the players were clearly losing interest in the characters they'd played for the last eight months(ish).
The end of "season 1" meant the players ran off after Myrkhul at the behest of the gods. With some new armour.
So what's next? What do I do now that I've had 20th level characters chasing gods in their magically empowered airships?
Back to basics!
I've spent all weekend writing this Friday's game and I feel confident that the session will renew and remind the players of what it is that drives the love of the game. I intend to keep hands on throughout the progression as well, as opposed to providing the players with too much choice as is often my curse as a DM.
Viewer Interaction
I'm still playing with this idea and how best to maintain a viewer interaction at low level. I'm thinking of implementing a simple multiplier to control the balance of XP use without having to change pricing.
For example, there are 20 levels, and I could operate on a percentile with 20 being 100%
So level * 5% * xp spent? And turning off direct gifts until they reach level 10.
While I appreciate that viewer interaction is a big part of the gameplay, and I am a proponent of it, it's my fiduciary duty to provide a fun game to the players and that starts with a balanced experience between them and the viewers.
XP Fairy improvements
I haven't had a moment to put into the fairy, but sufficed to say, it's on my docket.
The first thing I'll be doing is adding a feature to the award comand that allows users to provide each other with XP.
The other thing I should do is wire an automatic hosting reward.
Big shout out to Johnny_Speed for all the new love he's bringing the channel. As I heard another streamer say of him, "Everywhere I go on Twitch, there's Johnny." You're awesome, thank you for all the suggestions.
To all my regulars who have become my regulars, thank you for your viewership; I do this for the love of the game, but knowing folks enjoy watching and listening makes it that much better. As always, if you have questions, comments, criticism or suggestions don't hesitate to email or post to the site :)