Most of what I wanted to say has already been said, so I'll just +1 Eski, Coco, Cappy, and Sipp's comments in particular to start with. I did have fun in Vices (my CR was great, the players are great, and the premise was good, even if it had flaws in its execution), and though there are some things that definitely frustrated and disappointed me, I'm not walking away from this angry or upset with anybody. Mistakes were made, but I think they were just that: mistakes. I don't think anybody was intentionally trying to upset or hurt anybody else and hopefully we can all just learn from this and move on.
But moving on to the actual feedback. As I said, most of the issues I wanted to address were already covered so I'm just going to say my piece about Jade and I's part in the plot, since it's another example of some of the same issues others had.
I'm not going to lie, we were pretty stoked when Anna handed us the betray button! Who wouldn't be? It's a murder game and everyone loves to betray in murder games, especially me. But that excitement wore off very, very quickly. From an IC perspective, I understand why Anna felt like she had to do something about the mole leak. It makes perfect sense that Katerina would have wanted to investigate that. But Jade and I were never asked for our input as to how to best achieve that with our characters (trying to convince the two of them that they were doing the right thing/she was a victim too would have worked much better than hostages, just ftr). We were never asked if we were still okay with getting a plot role. Hell, we weren't even told ooc'ly what we were getting into. We didn't find out until our characters did, which was halfway through the thread. I'm guessing Anna wanted it to be a fun surprise, and I appreciate that, but a little more transparency would have been nice. As it stands, we were railroaded into a subplot that we had no say in and given no direction or boundaries whatsoever to actually accomplish anything with it.
I get that this is a hobby and that people have rl obligations or just get busy and that's alright! It happens. But that initial thread should not have taken over a week to get to the point it did, especially since it just ended in a handwaved "what else would they ask? here's your answer". And then to make matters worse, literally EVERYTHING after it was handwaved and you just can't do something like that when the mastermind is one of the involved parties. Not with two of the most inquisitive characters in the game. Faize and Hinata had access to Katerina for WEEKS and were presumably conversing with her the whole time, but it was impossible to know how those conversations went, because Anna never had time to actually thread anything out. Which, we had the feeling would be the case from the start, since it was obvious at that point that the plot was already too much for one person to handle running alone. The radio silence from Anna that followed the initial PP only further proved that.
I tried. I tried my hardest with what I was given but nothing ever came of my attempts because...people were too busy?? I guess??? Which, again, I get. I get that people are busy and this is just a hobby. But even so, I was pretty supremely cheesed off when the mole reveal came out and it turned out that Break managed to get into the group because...otherwise he'd kill everyone? Meanwhile, my character, who was worked into the plot for precisely that purpose and given VERY strong impetus to do so, never actually got an answer on his request to join? And the mastermind just let that slide, apparently? Along with the fact that neither he nor his partner managed to get any info at all over the course of almost a month? I'm sorry for all the facetious question marks, but I'm trying to highlight just how much of a clusterfuck this subplot became on an ic level because of the lack of communication on an ooc level. Which was partially my fault, I'll admit. I probably should have said "hey so Faize is gonna do this thing" to Anna directly instead of just letting her to read the private convo with Inaba. But Len said she had to talk to some people about it, so I figured there wasn't much point since "some people" were presumably the rest of the mole group and Anna. I assumed I'd hear back from Anna, Len, or both. I never did. Even when I bugged Len about it, all I got was vague hand gestures and "I don't know, sorry". Again, my bad there because I probably should have bugged Anna, not Len.
tl;dr: Anna, if you ever mod again, you need to communicate better with your players. Like Coco said, utilize both them and the characters that they bring to your game. Let them help shape the plot. IC actions have IC consequences, and that's exactly what this subplot was (and Undyne's shounen death too)! Which was great! I might be a little salty about how it turned out, but I am glad that you didn't just let Inaba and Faize's mistakes slide. However, everything about how it was handled after that was basically a disaster. A disaster that easily could have been avoided if you'd just asked Jade and I for our input and told us what we were getting into. You also need to take care not to overload yourself, because that was obviously a factor here as well. And not just with this particular subplot, but the game as a whole suffered from this. I really think you ended up overestimating just how much you could handle on your own.
Thanks to all three of you for the work you put into this game!
unscreen please!
But moving on to the actual feedback. As I said, most of the issues I wanted to address were already covered so I'm just going to say my piece about Jade and I's part in the plot, since it's another example of some of the same issues others had.
I'm not going to lie, we were pretty stoked when Anna handed us the betray button! Who wouldn't be? It's a murder game and everyone loves to betray in murder games, especially me. But that excitement wore off very, very quickly. From an IC perspective, I understand why Anna felt like she had to do something about the mole leak. It makes perfect sense that Katerina would have wanted to investigate that. But Jade and I were never asked for our input as to how to best achieve that with our characters (trying to convince the two of them that they were doing the right thing/she was a victim too would have worked much better than hostages, just ftr). We were never asked if we were still okay with getting a plot role. Hell, we weren't even told ooc'ly what we were getting into. We didn't find out until our characters did, which was halfway through the thread. I'm guessing Anna wanted it to be a fun surprise, and I appreciate that, but a little more transparency would have been nice. As it stands, we were railroaded into a subplot that we had no say in and given no direction or boundaries whatsoever to actually accomplish anything with it.
I get that this is a hobby and that people have rl obligations or just get busy and that's alright! It happens. But that initial thread should not have taken over a week to get to the point it did, especially since it just ended in a handwaved "what else would they ask? here's your answer". And then to make matters worse, literally EVERYTHING after it was handwaved and you just can't do something like that when the mastermind is one of the involved parties. Not with two of the most inquisitive characters in the game. Faize and Hinata had access to Katerina for WEEKS and were presumably conversing with her the whole time, but it was impossible to know how those conversations went, because Anna never had time to actually thread anything out. Which, we had the feeling would be the case from the start, since it was obvious at that point that the plot was already too much for one person to handle running alone. The radio silence from Anna that followed the initial PP only further proved that.
I tried. I tried my hardest with what I was given but nothing ever came of my attempts because...people were too busy?? I guess??? Which, again, I get. I get that people are busy and this is just a hobby. But even so, I was pretty supremely cheesed off when the mole reveal came out and it turned out that Break managed to get into the group because...otherwise he'd kill everyone? Meanwhile, my character, who was worked into the plot for precisely that purpose and given VERY strong impetus to do so, never actually got an answer on his request to join? And the mastermind just let that slide, apparently? Along with the fact that neither he nor his partner managed to get any info at all over the course of almost a month? I'm sorry for all the facetious question marks, but I'm trying to highlight just how much of a clusterfuck this subplot became on an ic level because of the lack of communication on an ooc level. Which was partially my fault, I'll admit. I probably should have said "hey so Faize is gonna do this thing" to Anna directly instead of just letting her to read the private convo with Inaba. But Len said she had to talk to some people about it, so I figured there wasn't much point since "some people" were presumably the rest of the mole group and Anna. I assumed I'd hear back from Anna, Len, or both. I never did. Even when I bugged Len about it, all I got was vague hand gestures and "I don't know, sorry". Again, my bad there because I probably should have bugged Anna, not Len.
tl;dr: Anna, if you ever mod again, you need to communicate better with your players. Like Coco said, utilize both them and the characters that they bring to your game. Let them help shape the plot. IC actions have IC consequences, and that's exactly what this subplot was (and Undyne's shounen death too)! Which was great! I might be a little salty about how it turned out, but I am glad that you didn't just let Inaba and Faize's mistakes slide. However, everything about how it was handled after that was basically a disaster. A disaster that easily could have been avoided if you'd just asked Jade and I for our input and told us what we were getting into. You also need to take care not to overload yourself, because that was obviously a factor here as well. And not just with this particular subplot, but the game as a whole suffered from this. I really think you ended up overestimating just how much you could handle on your own.
Thanks to all three of you for the work you put into this game!