Feedback - May Event

dier_cire · Post by **dier_cire** » Tue May 12, 2009 1:24 pm

Sorry I missed it but travel plus car engine going poof = no FH for me.

Kalphoenix · Post by **Kalphoenix** » Tue May 12, 2009 1:34 pm

I was just on the border of the Ice spell so decided I was probably in the area of attack. I was so sad when someone yelled "Help our friends!" and then they ran past me while I was crouching on the ground, hehe.

Dallid · Post by **Dallid** » Tue May 12, 2009 2:06 pm

A lot of ups and downs, but overall I had a great time. Even though I went into this event planning not to be very proactive (only went on one general scouting mission), I was still extremely busy. Have to thank Peace for much of that. She kept goading me on with ‘Don’t you think we should look into this? Don’t you think we should go do that?’. While OOG I was thinking ‘It’s pointless! We won’t be able to progress further until the next part of the plot is introduced!’, in-game I had to admit it’d be foolish not to make the effort. Thanks for keeping me honest and more in-character. Some of that effort I believe even paid off, and in the end I was thankful of any moment I could find of downtime to rest (pant pant).

But I like to be kept busy, and had a good time racing all over the place.

Finally having a live Elven prisoner provided a font of information that helped to tie the whole event together. Being able to better understand what was happening helped make the event fun.

There were a few downers, but the worst of them turned out to just be a communication problem. At one point, the people in the Inn were forcibly and irresistibly transported to another realm where they faced powerful monsters that quickly overwhelmed them and administered killing blows to their fallen bodies. However, the death blows were not supposed to have happened (administered as a ‘joke’ by a player temporarily recruited as an NPC), and the PCs couldn’t actually die in that realm (fallen PCs just hadn’t been told not to do their ‘death count’ while lying in negatives). In the proper context, the abduction, smackage, and subsequent rescue by other PCs was very entertaining – and proceeded to be once everything was explained.

Of course, losing the battle for the Death Stone sucked big time, but I realize we were supposed to in order to further the story. While victory was technically possible, we’d have to have performed perfectly and been incredibly lucky to defeat the small army of Elves and numberless random creatures and find the object no one could see or touch while at the same time protecting Gol from spirits no one could see or touch. Still, failure sucks.

Azra · Post by **Azra** » Tue May 12, 2009 3:10 pm

I am so sad I missed it!

Happy Windfall · Post by **Happy Windfall** » Tue May 12, 2009 3:36 pm

Still, failure sucks.

Mmm, yes, but it also makes the victories you have all the sweeter, ne? Not to mention more realistic.

As I was NPCing the event, I'll keep most of the details to myself (wouldn't want to give much away now, would I?) but even as an NPC I had a blast, though during events like this I often feel as if I'm playing a fast, switching string of PCs rather than NPCs.

*pets Zeira* Hee, I had fun playing your wife, even if only for a couple hours (and Korrigan's refusal to give you any edge in which to announce the mutual decision of a divorce was awesome).

Angie sorry I hit you in the face with a sleep, Happy, Your awesome, but I hate your fairies (I was forced to sing and dance, I forgot half the words to drunken sailor, and my little jig during old brown mare left much to be desired)

*hugs you* Thanks, and I'm sorry if the fairies put you on the spot, but really, all considered you performed wonderfully!

Korrigan, thanks for letting me borrow your sword for a bit, I just walked in, saw it, and had a random idea that worked beautifully.

Atrum! You bad young man, scaring a poor old woman like that. *tsks and waves a finger at you*

And lastly, I'm still having problems believing I went through a whole bucket of packets during the big elven/monster battle Saturday night. Though it was sort of awe-inspiring as one elven mage standing on a log with a big ball of magic in the air, and the heroes in a line right in front of her hanging back, just waiting for a chance to get at her.

Woden · Post by **Woden** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:20 pm

Dallid wrote:Of course, losing the battle for the Death Stone sucked big time, but I realize we were supposed to in order to further the story. While victory was technically possible, we’d have to have performed perfectly and been incredibly lucky to defeat the small army of Elves and numberless random creatures and find the object no one could see or touch while at the same time protecting Gol from spirits no one could see or touch. Still, failure sucks.

I know its always easier to see things from NPC camp, but I have to say that this is another one of those things that always gets mistaken.
It was designed to be tough, but believe it or not it had built in continencies and several ways to succeed, and fact if the PCs would have taken advantage of ALL the things we gave them 2 people could have walked in alone and taken the Death Stone all by them selves.
But lucky for us the PCs love to do things the hard way.

Rhul · Post by **Rhul** » Tue May 12, 2009 5:27 pm

I also loved the looks on Esmerelda and Fionna's faces when a rift in the air opened up outside the inn and Rhul came hurtling out, only to ask, "Oh, hello. Everyones dead...... I'm going to need some help", and then led the dive back into the portal.

And the NPC's didn't do their jobs well enough. I never lost my voice from raging, like at the Winter One day. Because it's fun to rage as Rhul.

celegar · Post by **celegar** » Tue May 12, 2009 6:57 pm

trusk sad dat trusk missed it, trusk NEVER going to chose sharded over final haven again, SOO MUCH DRAMA!!!

also, trusk did no get to give ingram tips on defending himself from vaun rape(but at least its vaun so you get a sexy murderous lady going at your soft bits(wink(ps. wana rut next ruttin season(cat noises)))

Dallid · Post by **Dallid** » Wed May 13, 2009 1:46 pm

But lucky for us the PCs love to do things the hard way.

Lucky for us most PCs don't like to metagame. Yes, I know Peace was somehow able to see the Death Stone, but her character didn't know that, so that's the way she played it. She never went off actively looking for the Death Stone, and Gol got it before she ever saw it.

That's a GM perspective that's always irked me. GMs assume the PCs are just plain stupid, when the truth is they're usually all sorts of awesome. Because of Role-play, they don't always do the perfect solution.

Kalphoenix · Post by **Kalphoenix** » Wed May 13, 2009 1:54 pm

Dallid wrote:Lucky for us most PCs don't like to metagame. Yes, I know Peace was somehow able to see the Death Stone, but her character didn't know that, so that's the way she played it. She never went off actively looking for the Death Stone, and Gol got it before she ever saw it.

That's a GM perspective that's always irked me. GMs assume the PCs are just plain stupid, when the truth is they're usually all sorts of awesome. Because of Role-play, they don't always do the perfect solution.

YES. YES. YES.

FULL...OF...AWESOME!!!

Post by **GM_Chris** » Wed May 13, 2009 1:57 pm

Oh time to clear something up

Honestly we think the PC's are awesome. We think, and have spoken out loud to each other that we believe we have one of the best player bases in the LARP'ing universe.

We come up with hard plots and refuse to spoon feed because we believe in your awesomeness.

I have always felt this way. It was not me at carps walking around with the clue by 4.

The GM's can get a little testy though when the PC's assume that there is no solution or that the only solution is to fight. I do not mean this as in character but out of character. It is when the PC's think we are trying to screw them with purpose and Malise that we get defensive and point out that there were several opporunities for the players but the players choose a different path.

Does this make sense?

Post by **GM_Chris** » Wed May 13, 2009 2:18 pm

Actually this got me to thinking so maybe someone can clear it up.

I know we have done piss poor on informing players what their reward for a plot is. A lot of the time when the players "win" they don’t realize it because "winning" forced us to take out agenda items/ For example we might have a plot where person X was going to attack the town on Saturday. On Friday the players save person X's grandma. The result is we don’t attack on Saturday. What we have failed to do though is communicate this to you over the long years of FH and CARPS. We are trying very hard this year to fix that problem as well as to give more tangible rewards.

Besides that though I feel some players think we are just after them; that we don't want them to win and design plots to screw over players. We never create Kobayashi Maru plots...EVER, unless we plan on resurrecting everyone! In fact in all of the years we have run plots (CARPS and FH) we have never allowed the player base as a whole to lose. We have recently decided that we need to stick to our guns more and allow the players to lose if they screw up or the game will not be fun.

On a personal note I feel I have gotten a reputation as a GM who guns for players yet I don’t think I have ever perma killed anyone. In fact the first time Dallid died you came to me and asked if you could just poof away and I said you could RP it any way you would like. Then on the walk back you commented that you still had Hero points and forgot to use them and I told you we could reverse the scene or have you materialize somewhere since you should have never died and you are the one who choose to die.

That is just an example

I am just trying to figure out if I have an incorrect assumption of how some people view us, or if we need to work harder in our communication as I want people to have the best experience possible.

Dallid · Post by **Dallid** » Wed May 13, 2009 4:37 pm

Whoa! Apparently you believe I think you are personally gunning for me, Chris, and that I’m accusing you specifically as someone who strives to undermine players. Please explain how you came to these conclusions. I certainly have no memory problems regarding Dallid’s death, in-game or out-of-game, and have no issues with it. As such, I have no idea why you would even bring that up.

Post by **GM_Chris** » Wed May 13, 2009 4:49 pm

No not nessissarily you, it was just an example, as I feel there are people who think I am gunning for them, or that we as GM's are against the players. We want the players to win as that is fun.

Atrum Draconus · Post by **Atrum Draconus** » Wed May 13, 2009 5:09 pm

I didn't get there til sat in the middle of game break but I had a lot of fun. As such I really only got to be a part of a few plots after that. But all those were pretty damn fun. I love the role-playing with both PC's and NPC's, but I think that the oog talk has gotten worse and worse over the past couple of years. It used to be that I didn't hear any or very little talk about WoW, or whatever the latest nerd movie is but it seems that if you are around the Inn you will be inundated with OOG talk. That's really something we as players have to police, I don't think anyone is going to flip out if you ask them what this strange "WoW" or "Star Trek" is. It gets the point across and does it in a non threatening and jovial manner.

I'm not sure about the new political system, but I only read a portion of it and only got to see part of it in action. I REALLY don't like the one person paying for everyone aspect. It takes starving out of the game, or makes it so that everyone suffers. And walking around with Esmerelda felt FAR too much like sitting down with Donovan and going through the permutations of who needed to go where, I though the point was that it would be simpler and quicker not shift the difficulty and time to a different area. Not to mention what do you do about people that leave on Sat night or before you go around to collect from everyone? Now you have to do accounting between games and keep a journal of who has paid what and when, doesn't sound very fun to me. But like I said, I didn't read all of it so maybe I'll do that and reserve judgement until I see it once it gets rolling.