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Okay… so I said I’d NEVER play Vaun in the summer, and now I understand why! However, amazingly, I didn’t die. I also didn’t sleep. That’s prolly the first time I’ve done that since the old days, which means that this event was just that awesome. I will admit that I was a little… apprehensive about going to this event in the first place. It sounded like it was going to be a slaughter fest, and I’ve survived enough of them not to find them fun. However, everything was wonderfully balanced on the NPC side. All of the battles were a challenge, driving us to near despair. Yet, we won the day, and it was that much more compelling a victory because of that. Awesome job.

The role playing this event was the best I think that I have ever seen. It was Vaun’s first real chance to see most of the FH folks since… that night… and as a character she was not sure how to feel about it. There was tension, reconciliation, and some very powerful scenes. I loved all of my wry joking with Esmeralda… and the hug about killed me. *laugh* I love my boys, Fin and Fell… a squishy could not ask for two more amazing defenders. Torn – holy crap, man, we make a nice team. Korrigan… you scheming bastard. You’re too much like me for my comfort. TREE MAN! OMG loved tree man and a HUGE thanks to Chris for rolling with my role playing. You know that stuff makes my event, and makes this character work. Gabrial – I hate to say it, but I owe you one. It was a great scene. Thanks. Stark – I had a really great time actually getting to know your character, and now can’t wait till WH when we can continue the role playing. We had some wonderful scenes and discussions, and I’m excited to see where this goes.

And… the House of Chance folks. I really have to thank you guys for making my event. I had so much fun with Abadon and our Valkin’vi talk, as well as being the Empath shotgun. It was also interesting to learn that Vaun is just a female Ingram. Even though you never actually do anything bad, nor plot to harm anyone, they still always think the worst of you and plot your death. I feel ya, man, I really do. You guys made my weekend, and I can’t thank you enough.

The plot stuff was fantastic, and even though the heat was killer and I didn’t sleep, I have to say that this was probably my favorite FH event in years. It gave me new hope for the direction of the game, and I look forward to the rest of the season very much. ^_^

Also, a special thanks to Mike for listening. We appreciate all you do. Thanks.

Oh god was it hot. My only complaint about wearing makeup in the summer is not from sweat, it's from not being able to properly swat a mosquito that lands on your face.

Getting there as late as we did kinda sucked, but worth it for the OOG reasons we were late. By the time we got geared up, found the other PC's and made it back to the cabin, it was way late.. or way early. Then there was a lot of OOG chatter and I don't think anyone in the cabin slept Friday night.

My one big beef for the event was the amount of OOG chatter going on in our cabin. Saturday, it felt like we were OOG 99% of the time and only forced into character if a NPC or a PC not of our cabin came along. Granted, I could of said something, but I didn't. For the most part, I'm going to blame our lack of sleep and the heat. So getting out of the cabin and walking around in the hot hot sun to go roleplay was fun.

I agree with Chris. The fireflies while walking the trails were just plain awesome!

I hate being a nay-sayer, but I personally didn't have a very good time at this event. I've been doing this LARP for a full year now this month, and I think this one was at the bottom of them all so far. Especially because of Friday night. I've never seen NPC's cut loose and try to kill PC's as much as that before. At one point when running for the x-roads, I had an infected sprint up and dual-wield 5 Crush on my back as I carried Arjan. Then on Saturday right after waking up after game-break I had to solo fight an infected with a shield who never did anything but just lightly tap my sword for a 3 crush EVERY time I tried to get around it; never going for my body until I finally went to run, then he chased me and went to town on my back with 1's. I mean, really, c'mon.

Also, this was the first event I had to go out of game because of the game getting dangerous. During the run through the woods on Fri for the "first crossroads", I actually had another PC literally shove me three feet into the bushes to get past me to save themselves. I took a pretty hefty branch to the face that hurt even through my mask.

Saturday was pretty good, although the distance between cabins and the player-run nature of the event hurt the flow badly for me. I was rapidly getting tired of hiking to a cabin (don't even mention going to NPC camp, shudder) to try to roleplay my character that was made for just such things only to find out that everyone had 'just left' on a quest. It felt like there were four or five seperate groups that all had seperate goals and never communicated. The Saturday battle was really cool, though (apart from several obvious instances where apparantly suicidal NPC's should have been called out for charging), and Todd's ongoing golem fluff was quite awesome.

I'm glad this wasn't my first event getting into LARPing, though. It quite likely might have really turned me off from any more events, and I KNOW if it would have been Dani's it would have done so for her. It felt like the video game you sometimes get- it's not all that great, and you know it could have been better, but you might as well grit your teeth and play whatever you can, because you paid the money for it.

(For the record, last year's July event in Ionia, with the indestructible giant, was my first LARPing game ever, and it quite literally was pure awesome fun from beginning to end.)

just so everyone knows please post the bad so we can correct, when you were hit with the two weapons for 5 crush they were suposed too, the were not duel weilding but hiting you with both weapons for 1 amount, but it can be crazy in the middle of battle, i dont know if anybody was duel weilding that battle though.

and about the saturday night fight, what do you mean about charging, do you mean times, or do you mean pushing our way into you guys?

By charging they mean pushing your way to us. There was some of that going on as well as Friday night running us into unsafe areas like backs of trees and all during the fray.

I can understand being chased through the trail friday, but i dont belive we ever charged you guys the last battle, we stayed around your perimiter, or do you mean the empaths that ran through doing 2 magic lash

I didn't get shoved off to the side on Saturday but I did hear it was going on on the other side. I'm just reporting what I heard.

There was definilty some NPC wierdness which was a combination of darkness, instructional errors, and batter fevor.

yeah that night run down the trail was dangerous, and overgrown, thats why we moved, but i was asking about the saturday night fight

There was some charging going on Saturday night that I witnessed. We will attempt to correct this in the future. Some of the problems was having a large NPC group. This happened once before and we were not prepared for it either time, and communication was lacking, especially on Friday night. I felt we corrected the communication problem by the time the event ended, which is why some of you may have felt the obvious difference in game enjoyment from one night to the next.

The power level at this event was intentionally high for a couple of reasons. We wanted an impossible feel at the beginning that would begi to alleviate as you tapped into the An'Dar technology and uber good guy NPCs that would ultimately help you win, which you did. We knew, however, that people would fall on Friday prior to getting these items and these people/machines, which is why you didn't actually die, you became zombies which was curable.

I am telling you this NOT because I think you don't have a legitimate gripe. In fact, i think your criticisim is spot on, and I appreciate you voicing what many felt. I just wanted to explain the thinking on our end a little bit and to let you know that we did in fact see where our errors were during the event and made every effort to correct them, which again, is why Saturday went much better.

We were hoping the monorail system would alleviate the walk problem, but in retrospect probably should have pushed the plot harder first thing (point in fact, that was the first plot given, aside from the corpse in the road), but it was agreed by the players to continue the walk instead of tinkering a bit more.

Please continue the positive and especially the negative feedback. We were attepmting a new plot format this time and so feedback is especially important. Also, if there are more comments on the advanced skills, please do so in a separate topic. Thanks!

Incidentally, I had a great time, especially on Saturday. Thanks for all the great moments!

Mike

NPC's : grrrrrrrr
Mike : DIE! DIE!

and die they did

CAM was the MAN

Oh and that Llyshon thing ROCKED too....

That Scene with CAM was GREAT!!

I want to know where I can get myself a CAM for my house....fixes fights learns languages!!

Between Friday night and Saturday night, for me it was 2 totally different games. As far as Friday goes, I would agree with CJ- in fact I called it "The worst game of FH I have ever been to" in my 2 years of playing. Between the heat, the non stop running and continuous combat and not being allowed the opportunity for any sleep, I was seriously ill by Saturday morning and was ready to pack everything up and drive the 5 hours home. So thank you to Brad for allowing me a cool bug free place to take a shower and catch some much needed sleep. I also didn't appreciate when I brought up the safety issue of combat in the cabins with glass and fire for light sources being blown off by the NPC I addressed the issue with. I do appreciate GMs listening to me when I brought up my concern again.

Saturday was an entirely different game once I returned in much better condition than I left in the morning. Bacon Burger Dogs were fun to cook, and it was much fun for everyone who participated in the meal plan at cabin 2. And after game break, Esmerelda had to flex her diplomacy skills to the fullest, because it seemed like every time she turned around someone was either misconstruing what another PC was saying and misinforming someone about what was going on. So lots of trips between cabins 2 and 4, communicating what was really going on and smoothing ruffled feathers. He big speech to the town before the big battle was a turning point to her, so thanks to all that listened. (Es is still amazed that everyone did) And intereacting with Llyshon was awesome as well- a legend from her kingdom in person! Wayne, that puzzle was evil, thanks for not putting in the second part- it was hard enough as is! That battle rocked, everyone did such a great job and Fin made an excellent leader. Although asking every other minute how the puzzle is going does not make it solve itself any faster!

And there were some great character interactions as well- Calhoun shoving the brownies in his mouth while glaring defiantly at Vaun, watching Vaun's amusement as Esmerelda's somewhat naieve and carefree attitudes, and realzing mroe and more with every interaction that she's growing to really like Ingram and hating herself every moment for it. And the innuendo with Es and Malahim was hilarious.

So a HUGE THANK YOU to everyone who redeemed the game for me, it made me very glad we didn't go home Saturday morning!

when you were hit with the two weapons for 5 crush they were suposed too, the were not duel weilding but hiting you with both weapons for 1 amount

No, I actually heard the person distinctly go, "5 Crush, 5 Crush" as they hit me, as if they had ambidexterity.

It also sucked like hell when exiting the cabin (alone!) with two NPC's each poised to swung a 5 Crush and they did so, like a pair of doors closing on me. It was like I was having to endure some horrible paddle ritual trying to get into the zombie fraternity, lol.

Especially since it was ruled that as a Beastman (and immune to disease), if I got into negatives I wouldn't get the nominal benefit of becoming stable, I would just simply bleed out, so I could have truly died and noone would have ever come back for me. With the situation Fri, it's quite possible I could have "laid" there dead for several hours, if I had in fact fallen (thank god for 20 soak so I ended up at zero). It would effectively been a "no chance" perma-death when factoring in the chip draws per hour dead.


Also, super-soakers in the PC's hands are a recipe for disaster, even if they are good for fun moments. I actually got with Dani after she had a bad experience Friday night (coupled with being ill and stuck out in the field at 4AM) and tried to come up with a roleplaying instance to keep her gaming where she was one of the 'pacifist' infected, and even after explaining that as I brought her in as a captive, she was simply shot out of hand, and told, "Well, your dead now", and then that ended up turning into a perma-death. Really pissed me off.