April 2016 feedback
Posted: Sun May 01, 2016 11:24 am
As one of the old fart folk I figured it would be cool to start the posts. I also like to do it in this order for maximum effect and input potential. I want to start by saying I had a lot of fun and despite the length of this and some of the criticisms I had a blast and totally intend to be at the next event. I simply feel it's best to give as much feedback as I can to allow the chance for staff to see what a noob even a born again noob sees.
Good: The best part is after taking off 5 years for RL stuff it was fantastic to see so many of my old OOG friends still playing, even if I did not know who they were now as new PC's. The combat was intense. Special thanks to the girl dwarf that npc'd. Sorry for the head shot/eye, I was sort of swinging down when you were grabbing your claw and and felt bad. That being said it's been a long time since I had someone jump on me when I tripped and try to chop me to bits! That was FANTASTIC! I still have no clue how I was able to jump to one knee while blocking and attacking and then spring back to my feet and continue fighting. One of the best parts of my event. Also special thanks to our bar maid for the hot food and drinks. Christen is awesome. I had a great time rp'ing with you and Brian and a few others.
The bad: that jerk face Mike throwing a packet from like 30 freaking yards and nailing me right in the dead center of the chest, missing my shield by an inch! That was one hell of a toss. I will be putting up targets in the back yard and practicing... and by targets I mean small children that run and scream and throw stuff back at me.
Then there was the rain and mud. Nothing you can do about that.
The very slowness of Saturday morning until nearly game break. It was super slow. I don't recall a plot hook coming in that wasn't for something later that night ie the mass battle. I tried to get in on a few quests, but they were non-starters. It almost seemed like you couldn't do a quest sometimes unless you absolutely had the skill set required. It seemed like it was a "this is the only way to do this / solve this." I am of course only seeing it from the PC side and maybe there were other ways, but the npc question wasn't what do you do, it was "what skills do you have" to use to start doing stuff.
I tend to npc/story tell a different way. I rarely make a skill required to start something. I don't know how to change that, and if that's how the system is set up as to require skills always be used so that the people with those skills can have their moment to shine, I will simply learn to play that way. It just seemed backwards. I've always believed in wits first and skills to supplement in that order. What do you do, where do you start this, here is who you see/what you see and finally and only when they seem stuck would I ask them what skills they are using.
NOTE: there was a massive suspicion on my part, at least, that the thing we were looking into was PVP and as such, I totally understand being difficult because then skills are required as skills were used.
Note 2: I also already understand you had very few npc's and half your gms were not able to make it out. So I understood the reasons for the slowness. But still felt the urge to point out, that some of us born again noobs spent a lot of time with nothing to do and we were all looking for stuff actively. Maybe kidnap people (like you were doing) and ask them to run a mod or a cave or something for other people and assign one GM to over see them.
Soak and damage: Wow some mobs have a crap load of soak and I didn't see a single one swing for 1. It was always 2 if not more. I get that with numbers of pc's to npc's to make it a challenge you need to adjust. BUT when it's three npc's and one pc... do they all need to swing 2 and have high level rogue and have 50 soak? A full path warrior with full discipline in combat and his back to a wall should have a chance.
Finally The Ugly: omg that was the worst check in I've ever seen and I've seen some bad ones. Like the days of carps where you had to stand in different lines based upon the tier of membership/donation you paid for and so if you got there at 6pm and were waiting until 8 pm and some a-hole with a plat membership walks up "cuts" in line to the plat line and goes before you crap. This beat them all. In 22 years of larping I've never been like, I've been standing here for 30 minutes and the same person is still setting there checking in. WOW. I spoke to a few GM's about it and offered some advice as to how our check in process runs. I pray that they take the tips I gave them and use the ones they like and implement them into a system that works. This did not. One man can not check in 30 people, let alone 50. You sir were brave and fearless. Break up the things that are done. Have one person only do down time. Have one person only hand out tags. Have one person take money. Make PC's send in sheets before the event. Have a person that checks and maintains the sheets on Google sheets. OR not and I'll just light rp until 1am and check in that then since it was close to that when I finally made it into game I think. I get it that the check in man wasn't there, but my mom always said only a noob puts all their eggs in one basket. Then she threw an egg at me.
I didn't want to, but I actually had one more ugly. An NPC needs to know the rules for the skills they are using. I had one scene where we had to have a game stop and had to be told I didn't know the rule, probably because they didn't recognize me and realize I wasn't actually a noob, and they were 100% wrong. And not a little wrong, but completely wrong and it wasn't a new rule, it was a skill that had been in game for as long as I could remember. We worked it out, but that was a massive break in my immersion and the npc should know what they are doing before just doing it.
TL;DR: over all I had a blast. Work on npc training & logistics. See you in June bitches.
Good: The best part is after taking off 5 years for RL stuff it was fantastic to see so many of my old OOG friends still playing, even if I did not know who they were now as new PC's. The combat was intense. Special thanks to the girl dwarf that npc'd. Sorry for the head shot/eye, I was sort of swinging down when you were grabbing your claw and and felt bad. That being said it's been a long time since I had someone jump on me when I tripped and try to chop me to bits! That was FANTASTIC! I still have no clue how I was able to jump to one knee while blocking and attacking and then spring back to my feet and continue fighting. One of the best parts of my event. Also special thanks to our bar maid for the hot food and drinks. Christen is awesome. I had a great time rp'ing with you and Brian and a few others.
The bad: that jerk face Mike throwing a packet from like 30 freaking yards and nailing me right in the dead center of the chest, missing my shield by an inch! That was one hell of a toss. I will be putting up targets in the back yard and practicing... and by targets I mean small children that run and scream and throw stuff back at me.
Then there was the rain and mud. Nothing you can do about that.
The very slowness of Saturday morning until nearly game break. It was super slow. I don't recall a plot hook coming in that wasn't for something later that night ie the mass battle. I tried to get in on a few quests, but they were non-starters. It almost seemed like you couldn't do a quest sometimes unless you absolutely had the skill set required. It seemed like it was a "this is the only way to do this / solve this." I am of course only seeing it from the PC side and maybe there were other ways, but the npc question wasn't what do you do, it was "what skills do you have" to use to start doing stuff.
I tend to npc/story tell a different way. I rarely make a skill required to start something. I don't know how to change that, and if that's how the system is set up as to require skills always be used so that the people with those skills can have their moment to shine, I will simply learn to play that way. It just seemed backwards. I've always believed in wits first and skills to supplement in that order. What do you do, where do you start this, here is who you see/what you see and finally and only when they seem stuck would I ask them what skills they are using.
NOTE: there was a massive suspicion on my part, at least, that the thing we were looking into was PVP and as such, I totally understand being difficult because then skills are required as skills were used.
Note 2: I also already understand you had very few npc's and half your gms were not able to make it out. So I understood the reasons for the slowness. But still felt the urge to point out, that some of us born again noobs spent a lot of time with nothing to do and we were all looking for stuff actively. Maybe kidnap people (like you were doing) and ask them to run a mod or a cave or something for other people and assign one GM to over see them.
Soak and damage: Wow some mobs have a crap load of soak and I didn't see a single one swing for 1. It was always 2 if not more. I get that with numbers of pc's to npc's to make it a challenge you need to adjust. BUT when it's three npc's and one pc... do they all need to swing 2 and have high level rogue and have 50 soak? A full path warrior with full discipline in combat and his back to a wall should have a chance.
Finally The Ugly: omg that was the worst check in I've ever seen and I've seen some bad ones. Like the days of carps where you had to stand in different lines based upon the tier of membership/donation you paid for and so if you got there at 6pm and were waiting until 8 pm and some a-hole with a plat membership walks up "cuts" in line to the plat line and goes before you crap. This beat them all. In 22 years of larping I've never been like, I've been standing here for 30 minutes and the same person is still setting there checking in. WOW. I spoke to a few GM's about it and offered some advice as to how our check in process runs. I pray that they take the tips I gave them and use the ones they like and implement them into a system that works. This did not. One man can not check in 30 people, let alone 50. You sir were brave and fearless. Break up the things that are done. Have one person only do down time. Have one person only hand out tags. Have one person take money. Make PC's send in sheets before the event. Have a person that checks and maintains the sheets on Google sheets. OR not and I'll just light rp until 1am and check in that then since it was close to that when I finally made it into game I think. I get it that the check in man wasn't there, but my mom always said only a noob puts all their eggs in one basket. Then she threw an egg at me.
I didn't want to, but I actually had one more ugly. An NPC needs to know the rules for the skills they are using. I had one scene where we had to have a game stop and had to be told I didn't know the rule, probably because they didn't recognize me and realize I wasn't actually a noob, and they were 100% wrong. And not a little wrong, but completely wrong and it wasn't a new rule, it was a skill that had been in game for as long as I could remember. We worked it out, but that was a massive break in my immersion and the npc should know what they are doing before just doing it.
TL;DR: over all I had a blast. Work on npc training & logistics. See you in June bitches.