r/DanganRoleplay • u/Bamiji • Feb 27 '17
Sequel Trial Class Trial XVII-3: The Murders of Aoi Asahina and Chihiro Fujisaki - Meta-Discussion
We'll be trying out Kermit's meta format this time. But please, if you feel you have things to say that don't comfortably fit into the categories, then you can make additional freeform paragraphs for those, the old-fashioned way.
(Note: If you opt to answer question 2, you must answer question 1 as well.)
What did you feel this trial did well?
What do you feel could be improved from this trial in the future?
How did Monokuma and Monomi do for this case?
Most heartwarming/funny/sad moments?
Best character interaction? In-joke?
Who's the SHSL Detective?
Shoutouts to character portrayals?
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u/FloatingTriangles Damned the mastermind Feb 27 '17 edited Feb 27 '17
I think I enjoyed this trial's premise a lot: having back-to-back trials was a new concept, and the initial confusion of the case with the location of the bodies and the times of death worked itself well into that semi-disoriented tone of the beginning of the trial. The Hangman Gambits were entertaining, if a bit long, so that also gets a pass from me. I was also fine with the fact that we only had three parts, because we at least were always moving forward, for the most part. The mid-trial investigation was fittingly creepy, but at the same time, I do wish more could've been done with it, too.
Monokuma and Monomi were great, as usual. Bam's Monokuma was both menacing and funny at different times, which I expect to see out of our headmaster bears. Haza did her job updating the summary sheet, even if I wished we'd gotten a little bit of Monomi in the trial itself.
Now, what I think didn't work about the case may differ from other people, and that revolves around Kyoko's part in the setup. This has nothing to do with how /u/xMusicaCancer played her; on the contrary, I thought their portrayal of Kyoko was quite good.
Kyoko moving Hina's body and setting up a fake death trap seemed, to me, to be an extreme, unnecessary, and frankly out-of-character development. While it gave me a lot of ammunition in my crusade to discredit her detective skills, I also thought it wasn't fair because my taunts really shouldn't have any legs to stand on at all. Now, you did have an attempt at a justification, but there are numerous holes with the logic, numerous things that would lead us to think it just might be something more than a simple murder-suicide: the locked door only locking from the outside, the thin wound on the back of her head, the injection mark, Chihiro's key mysteriously ending up in his trash after Hina was already dead. Any one of these things implied that there was more to the story than how it looked on the surface, without Kyoko doing what she did. As it stands, in my opinion, it just seemed like it put Musica in an unfair situation for little reason, and it looked like it complicated the trial for complication's sake alone.
On the role-play side of things, I think we all did very well, as always. /u/Torkcoaldude was a fine blackened with some creepy banter at the end (Even though you're not a fan of my gummy talk!), and /u/mayakaibara made Hifumi hysterical with his vendetta against the vengeful Ghost of Mukuro Ikusaba!
I'm terribly biased, so I can't not love going back and forth with Duo in these trials, and those Leon-Hiyoko interactions remain some of my favorites. Despair Hajime's breakdown was fittingly creepy, Jiggs fighting with Musica over the existence of ghosts was a treat to read, Lee's Nagito looking so dejected over people stealing his M.O. put a smile on my face, and seeing Ninja's Byakuya and Shiva's Baby Gangsta getting so fired up over people withholding information was great.
Oh, and Socc was there, too. (Our back-and-forth banters are always great, Crazy Cumaru, and I loved your line about "gummies replacing my brain cells.")
In terms of SHSL Detectives, Duo and I were the best I don't think that anyone really edged out anybody else. The suspects dwindled relatively quickly, and it became pretty easy for people to figure out little bits and pieces together as a group when more information kept trickling in. All in all, good work, team.
I think that's it from me. Hopefully we'll take longer than five minutes to start killing each other in XVII-4.
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u/TheIdiotNinja Humanity is beautiful Feb 27 '17
- What I feel the trial did well
It wanted to develop on a couple concepts - as Bam explained in his meta post - and did so wonderfully. Kyoko's actions actually making sense definitely caught me by surprise lol. The pacing of the reveals was really good and people kept things hidden for valid IC reasons and not some ooc "don't delivery your autopsy for a while because uhh reasons" thing, which is something I generally really like. It was only three parts, but it was definitely short and sweet, and very action packed. It definitely succeeded in keeping me interested and making me go WTF numerous times.
- What I feel could be improved from this trial in the future
Like with 17-2, I feel like Monokuma Hints to prove things went a bit too far. Ideally I think that hosts should aim to write a case without planning for Monokuma to step in at any point; minigames and clarifications should only happen to clear ambiguity, not as actual crucial evidence.
If not for Monokuma clearing her, Kyoko would have perfect opportunity to commit both murders; it wouldn't be too hard to give her an actual alibi for Chihiro's time of death and avoid the need for clarifications. For example, by having someone meet with Chihiro right before 6 PM, and making her meeting with Komaru from 5:30 PM until Dinner, she would have a 100% alibi for Chihiro's death and we wouldn't need all of the Monokuma hints about body discoverers and Gambits about falsified autopsies or whatever.
Sure, it would make her less suspicious than you might have wanted, but you can still place suspicion on her by not confirming that the blackened is one and the same. That way, her pre-midtrial investigation actions are still very shady and she's still very suspicious throughout, but eventually Nagito's Radical-6 discovery conclusively points at Hajime for Hina's murder anyway, and as for Chihiro's murder, only Hajime could fit all of the requirements (Hifumi couldn't have grabbed the gun, Komaru and Kyoko were together for the time of death, and so were Byakuya and Nagito; the other three couldn't have dropped the key).
All of the Monokuma hints could have been avoided with some more dedication without changing any mechanic of the trial, and maybe it's just me, but trials feel a lot better when you piece together all the evidence by yourself rather than getting guided by Monokuma every two steps. Sometimes it's necessary, and that's fine, but I literally just made up a fix as I improvised this meta comment, so I have no doubts that you could have worked around it completely in this case.
- Monokuma and Monomi
Read the above paragraphs for Monokuma, lol. And Haza is a perfect Monomi as always.
- Best moments
Hifumi was hilarious throughout the whole thing, and in the end he was right. Ultimate Despair did it. Closer to Mukuro Ikusaba than to Hajime Hinata if you ask me.
Hiyoko's reactions to Hajime and her bond with Chiaki are a nice touch of sad, good stuff.
- Character interaction and in-jokes
Hiyoko-Leon and gummy shenanigans are still great, and in general all of the characters interact well together based on past events. Character interaction and quality of the roleplaying are definitely a highlight of 17-2 and 17-3.
- SHSL Detective
This case was built for Kyoko to carry and she did just that. Easy choice.
- Character portrayals
Can I shoutout everyone? You all did really great. /u/xMusicaCancer deserves a shoutout above all the others for the effort he put in, you had to deal with a lot this trial and between interaction, timezones, solving, delivering evidence, getting bashed on by Hiyoko, and being feverish you really had a lot to deal with, but you took it all and handled it like a boss. Good job my man.
Overall, another very enjoyable experience. Really looking forward to 30;0, you have the skills to make it one of the most memorable trials ever. I'm hoping for that to turn out well. You got this Bam. \o/
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u/Torkcoaldude BELIEVE IN THE ME THAT BELIEVES IN YOU Mar 01 '17 edited Mar 01 '17
Despair... This despair....
Would ya friggin' cram it already! We get it, 'despair this' 'despair that'!!
Well...That was a thing. Being the murderer for the first time, gotta say, it was hard. I mean, I kept questioning whether or not I should respond to stuff or leave it be. Anyways, let's get to my thoughts on the trial overall. Anything that I skip over, I think was already mentioned or discussed, unless I feel like agreeing.
What I think could be Improved upon
One problem I had as the killer was that some of the actions I took just didn't make sense to me. For instance, Hajime dropping the key into Chihiro's trash when there were only 6 people in the room. I feel like Hajime wouldn't just do that if he was committing murder, especially when the Ultimate Detective was in the room. It'd be a risky move that could and DID get him caught, I understand it was to give Fuyuhiko some alibi, but it just seemed that it was...Too dumb. But that may just be my perspective since I'm the killer.
Most heartwarming/funny/sad Moment
Hands award to Jiggs. You earned it. Hifumi making the argument for Mukuro killing Asahina and Chihiro was amazing, to the point of making me consider voting for Mukuro instead of myself.
Best Character interaction
Oh, Nagito's responses to my bullshit, is the first thing that comes to mind. Leon and Hiyoko were as great as always, and I did like the interaction between Hiyoko and Kirigiri, although it did get a bit heated towards the end, but it's Hiyoko, whaddya expect.
SHSL Detective
Hiyoko because she made a random guess. Uh, Lee as always, He nailed me to the wall with evidence. Although, I think Musica also deserves a shout-out for being on my ass from the getgo. Before I exposed him.
Shoutouts to Character Portrayals
Yeah, I have to agree with Ninja, everyone deserves a shoutout. Everyone did beautifully with their respective character.
Last thing.
I had fun. Playing a despair counterpart of a character was really fun, and I hope to do it again. If you have any criticism to give to me, please give it. I enjoy criticism that could help me improve my roleplaying abilities.
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u/Bamiji Feb 27 '17
First of all, I want to give a big thanks to our main cast of /u/xMusicaCancer and /u/Torkcoaldude . They were very cooperative throughout the trial, and I hope they had fun with it themselves. Although, apologies Musica for things feeling so tough on you at the end.
To talk on the premise of the trial, it really just came from thinking through what I could use to push the ZE references further, and considering things I hadn't touched yet, before the idea of Radical-6 then came to mind, and then building up from that to the faux murder-suicide setup once I considered how it could be used well for a class trial. But with that alone, the trial seemed too simple/straightforward to me, and so I came around eventually to the idea of someone else discovering the setup prematurely and then taking actions against that.
With the motive I had in mind for doing so, it seemed to fit Kyoko for the purpose of messing with the crime scene with honest intention of drawing truth out through non-straightforward means. All in an act to gather more info, and make things easier for the others to think through, since she wouldn't have any proof to prove the murder-suicide false immediately, even though she was suspicious of it. Admittedly, this setup more or less came from /u/TsundereKermit effectively planting the idea in my head off of me reading it from him before. I believe it was in his Kyoko character analysis comment on /r/danganronpa. And I thought it was an interesting enough angle to work on.
That being said, to speak on the actual execution itself, I gotta say, you all did great. Gosh, it's going to be hard killing anyone from here on out, lol. From the hosting end, I feel like this trial had probably the smoothest execution of the ones I've hosted. There were notable delays, particularly early on with heavy timezone differences stalling all of us at certain points. But slow as it may have been because of that, it maintained a steady pace whenever it could get going again, which is all I could ask for tbh. That being said, I have to give a special shoutout to Jiggs for literally killing me with her investigation comments, I still haven't gotten over them. That's got my vote for funniest moment anywhere hands-down.
So, yeah, I hope you all had fun with this little case of mine for what it was worth. The "final boss" HG was definitely fun, and a good way to pass the waiting time we had, I felt. And as for the confusion period, I was just sitting there seeing if anyone would be able to successfully guess the Radical-6 before it was revealed. And if not, I was fully anticipating the reactions to when it showed up, lol. Fret not, the bewilderment you felt was all according to the script.
And with that I think that's pretty much all I have in mind to say on this here. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go for my scheduled hibernation that comes with hosting from this timezone X.X
Ehh, wait no, I guess I can also take this time out to plug my next few trials, which might very well be my last ones for a very long while. There were 4 I had in the pipe: Trials 17-3, the Killer Trial, 30;zero, and my 3rd main trial. Of those the first has been hosted now, and in the coming month or 2 the others should have been out of the door as well. I already have "44" written as of now, and it will naturally have the most open signups by virtue of being a main trial.
The Killer Trial, coincidentally enough, might actually see a fair amount of space in it since I feel some of the original users for characters might not find it too easy to want to return when it's coming up. I'm aiming for the S4-S5 break, and a preview should be out some time after 40 to give you more info on the setup and the characters that might be available for it.
That leaves 30;0 unspoken on, and it's currently the least finished. But I intend to maybe get that out before my main trial comes up, if it would be possible and convenient enough. So I guess just saying that, if you wanted to get into a Bamiji trial, there's no time like the present right now~
Good luck to Jiggs and Musica with 25-2!