November event

[celegar]

i dont think it was really upsetting, just more of a clusterfu*k.

[Zydana]

Chris, it was a really cool idea. Unfortuantly to work properly we might of had to call a 5 minute game stop to study our new paths in the rulebook.

[Samantha]

Rule book, schmule book! I've been off and on NPCing for ages now and I wouldn't know a rule if it kicked me in the shin. When in doubt, just make it up as you go along and fix the mistakes later!

[Zydana]

NPCs can get away with that attitude far better than any PC.

[Zeira]

All kinds of late with feedback...

The Good

- Getting pimp smacked by a giant bunny.
- Fear and a whispered Magic Fear from Abbadon
- Getting interrogated by Fiona
- Getting a cupcake afterwords from Ingram
- Sitting in the rain with Korrigan
- Getting naked for Dallid and Esmerelda
- Dancing and then sleeping with Calhoun
- Getting put to sleep by Azra and letting her have her way with me and Calhoun
- Losing all my money at the house of chance
- "Cluck like a chicken" call at chaos battle
- Zombies are always cool in my book.
- Spontaneous Combustion. I am so awesome the Gm's made me explode.
- The Bacon Cake Coalition. Beware all ye bar us from the cake. Your death shall be long and painful.

The Bad

- I didnt find my armor
- The rain
- Long drives home

It really was an awesome time. I cant wait to go to a Final Haven event when its not raining. See everybody next year!

[Dallid]

Just didn’t have fun this event.

Part II – seemed just about every plot had one. A problem would be introduced, but there was no point in trying to solve it. All efforts inevitably failed. Eventually an NPC would come by and tell you what had to be done, and then it’s just jumping through hoops. It was pointless to try to think your way through, or make any effort at all. If it involved a disease, Cure Disease was useless, same for poisons and Cure Poison, magic and Disenchant, undeath and Banish. Really felt useless. Could only wait until someone else moved the PC pawns around to get things done.

And then there were yet more demi-gods walking around using PCs as just that – pawns. Again, no thinking, no doing anything outside the box. Comply or die. It’s not fun being surrounded by beings so much more powerful than you. Chaos gods, Lady Death, Dragons, Strongman, treeman, Corbyn, etc. It’s just too much.

The battles were ridiculously difficult. Enemies who wouldn’t die, a house filled with top level warriors and mages. PC apathy didn’t help here. “The world needs saving again? Let someone else do it – I don’t feel like it right now.”

Can’t really blame them – tons of effort, zero reward. That’s how it always seems to be. Once again no resources, no money – nothing. Good guys just can’t prosper.

[GM-Mike]

I'm confused by a lot of this. I hesitate to even respond because I don't want to discourage negative feedback. In fact, I desire it. It's the only way to make the game better...But, I am confused.

What disease could not be cured? What poison could not be cured? Are you sure Banish didn't work? Banish does not guarantee a creature's death. I can guarantee that if it was undead then it hurt a hell of a lot. What magic was not disenchantable?

What demigods? No one tried to kill the chaos dude. He was VERY killable...With regular weapons in fact. Nothing fancy required whatsoever. Lady Death? She wasn't even an enemy. Strongman? Demigod? I actually find that funny. There was never a more killable villain, and he cannot come back without the help of others and by others I mean players, not invisible NPCs. Treeman? Again, not a villain but he also can be killed if you wanted and the solution is not even all that difficult. Corbyn?!@? That's all I will say about that.

The Dragons I will give you...Oh wait, you guys killed one...

I agree with the lack of rewards. We do in fact suck at that. This is something we need to address and is actually an organizational issue, not an intent issue. There was treasure though. In fact, it was just lying around in the house with all the tough NPCs. What made them tough? The fact they were in a house.

There were also a lot of plots that had potentially multiple parts but we never hold rigidly to the agenda and allow you guys to do quite a bit. Now, this event did deal with chaos and so many of your attempts did come up with misinformation or misleadign information and perhaps that was a mistake. We've never written a plot though that forces you as players to solve it in only one way. I am sorry if it felt that way.

Again, I'm glad to read the engative feedback, and I feel bad even responding ebcause I definitely do not want to discourage such posts in the future. I'm just confused is all.

Did other people feel as Doug did? If so, we definitely need to look into how we present things...

[celegar]

its true, i did loot a shield from that house.

[GM-Mike]

It's also true that most though not all of the players missed the buttload of coin lying on the ground

[celegar]

i think that may have been a problem with running that plot in npc camp, any pc's that saw coin might have thought it OOG, i think i remember seeing a few coins there, but i assumed they were accidentally there, not in game rewards.

[Eli]

I don't typically give feedback very often other than a line or two here or there about fun or still being tired, but I'll give it a go this time.

The Good:
I <3 Melisa and her girls for all their hard work keeping us fed. I always enjoy all the great food. They are great.

Plots:

I did have way more fun on the plots I was on this time, didn't feel left out like at the "games" where "magic" is evil. (thought again I did have fun making potions up and feeding them to Brad B. (Calhoon) ahh good times!)

The bunny suits were one of the funniest things Ive ever seen in a larp,
but will ever top the Giant Chicken chasing down Todd and his rubber chickens he was selling. Man that was priceless!

That one puzzle that I spent hours on was GREAT!!! I still don't see how Danny got it. I love that stuff.

I also once again made some fat loot at the House, those guys just love to give me money, I don't know how they stay open. I recommend all poeple go to them to make some gold. They practically give it away with their games.



Bad stuff:
I started to have this conversation with someone at the even and discovered it to be a poor place, so I saved it to post and took two months to post it so as to collect my thoughts correctly. Here goes:

I HATE MAGIC Immune Monsters! HATE HATE HATE! I am an Empath/Arcane. Monsters who take nothing and are not effected by Magic are pointless IMO (if you need to keep them up give them resist magic that costs a LP so at least I know they are taking 1! and yes lets also limit their life to a reasonable number like 20 or less!).

However, from time to time as a NPC I understand not wanting a monster that explodes upon first hit. So that's fine. I carry a sword and board just for those time as Eli. So what do I get, a monster that not only is Immune to Magic but also swings base 2 crush. WTF!? Seriously? Let me make sure I understand this. One I am worthless with both my path and my discipline against this monster, and two my OOG ability to fight is also pointless as it is kicking my butt with crush. To combine these powers into one monster is bad but hey sometimes as an NPC I want a monster to put fear into PC's. OK we have a bad ass monster here.

But wait, not only that, but lets give the thing basically unlimited LP! (Some may argue that this is untrue, but I personally hit it at least 50 times in 3 minutes, while using a hero point to swing for 2 aka at least 100 damage to it, instead of dropping it, it nearly killed me.)

Wow OK one kick butt monster, but that's not the end. It also continually regenerates. OK so I just stand over it and keep hitting it. You see in FH the rules state to use an ability you have to not be interrupted like I don't know getting hit. NOPE you see this monster takes 0 damage while it is regenerating until it is back to full LP, so no I can not even damage it while it is down.

WHAT? You mean I cannot magic it, can not out fight it (I believe it took like 5 people to take it down) cannot kill it once it is down, can not stop it from getting back up....

Oh but this monster was a boss right? Like a named NPC or the end guy on some massive quest? Nope. Just a random monster tossed at the PC's with the hoards of other monsters.

So when the Doug says un-killable monsters I understand that part without getting into details on some named NPC which for plot purposes I understand needs to be cooler than unnamed random monsters.


Then there is the Elves
I am still not sure why upon being an elf and a mage and an empath I wasn't killed by npc's just for being. Not saying I want to be killed, but the plots, including PC driven ones have basically taken arguably the most Noble race in 90% of RPG's and turned them into their dark skinned kin. Heck there is even a PC who is the product of elf rape!? I've never heard of such a thing. Humans taking an elf woman sure, but vis versa. I suppose it could happen but then I've always seen them as too civilized for that sort of behavior. Not to mention not being driven by sexual desires or even considering as a form of gaining power over another. Sort of like they don't really have base level crimes only major stuff like, idk genocide of all none elves. Basically Elves are now a mix of humans and dark elves, which is just weird to me. I heard in game this last event how dark elves were so much more trustworthy than light elves. I just cannot see Elves as the ultimate "evil" race in a game.

Un-curable disease

The only disease issue I had was the one from another game that crossed over into FH from WH. I came up with a great way to kill it and while I was told "that is a brilliant idea, that is by far the best idea in nearly 3 events it still doesn't work" No FH GM's were behind that.

Rewards:
I hate making up treasure tags. I hate trying to determine how much cash is right to hand out on my plots. Or balancing a magic item. I always think is this enough or way to much. I leave you at it to determine when and how much to give out.

Over all I have fun coming to FH. I love seeing people who I don't get to see but a couple times a year and I really enjoy the RPing parts of FH, a lot. It is that RPing that brings be back time and again.

[Onimaster]

Un-curable disease

The only disease issue I had was the one from another game that crossed over into FH from WH. I came up with a great way to kill it and while I was told "that is a brilliant idea, that is by far the best idea in nearly 3 events it still doesn't work" No FH GM's were behind that.

And did you get the clues to the mechanical solution to the cure puzzle you were supposed to get? If it as that brilliant there should have been some hefty ones.

My experiment failed and I admit it freely. People didn't like it, I got that three events ago. Now it's run it's course and is done. Everyone has bitched about that plot to the point that I will never use anything like it again, but most complaints have been about it being a sage or a healer thing or how powerless they were.

It was set up so anyone could help cure it with clues to the cure being handed out even for just role playing being sick with it, or if a warrior went on a quest to find information about it, or if a craftsman built a hospital. Have a diplomat talk to npcs from other cultures to help find rare treatments. ANYTHING..! And I told that to a lot of people. Hell I sent Shea and Dallid a detailed PM explaining how the whole thing worked at the beginning after the first infection.

I wanted to replicate a real epidemic with a real challenge to find a cure more realistically. But, any contribution would have helped decode the thing. And almost no one took an active role.

So my biggest failure there was assuming that people wouldn't just sit around and let themselves or their townspeople suffer and die waiting to find an easy magical answer handed to them.

[dier_cire]

I HATE MAGIC Immune Monsters! HATE HATE HATE! I am an Empath/Arcane. Monsters who take nothing and are not effected by Magic are pointless IMO (if you need to keep them up give them resist magic that costs a LP so at least I know they are taking 1! and yes lets also limit their life to a reasonable number like 20 or less!).

Now I threw a few magic immune monsters at you but I don't recall ever mixing it with crush or large HP. They were mostly just to mix up your strategies some and let the warriors have some fun too, plus I was alone. What time/night was this? I believe I know when it probably was but want to be sure. This shouldn't happen again.

Improv is cool but needs to be within certain bounds.

[Jaycen Blackhawk]

Un-curable disease

The only disease issue I had was the one from another game that crossed over into FH from WH. I came up with a great way to kill it and while I was told "that is a brilliant idea, that is by far the best idea in nearly 3 events it still doesn't work" No FH GM's were behind that.

And did you get the clues to the mechanical solution to the cure puzzle you were supposed to get? If it as that brilliant there should have been some hefty ones.

My experiment failed and I admit it freely. People didn't like it, I got that three events ago. Now it's run it's course and is done. Everyone has bitched about that plot to the point that I will never use anything like it again, but most complaints have been about it being a sage or a healer thing or how powerless they were.

It was set up so anyone could help cure it with clues to the cure being handed out even for just role playing being sick with it, or if a warrior went on a quest to find information about it, or if a craftsman built a hospital. Have a diplomat talk to npcs from other cultures to help find rare treatments. ANYTHING..! And I told that to a lot of people. Hell I sent Shea and Dallid a detailed PM explaining how the whole thing worked at the beginning after the first infection.

I wanted to replicate a real epidemic with a real challenge to find a cure more realistically. But, any contribution would have helped decode the thing. And almost no one took an active role.

So my biggest failure there was assuming that people wouldn't just sit around and let themselves or their townspeople suffer and die waiting to find an easy magical answer handed to them.

My only criticism of the Disease Plot actually wasn't anything you did. It was simply the fact that just as I started playing a new LARP it just so happened to have such a plot. In the previous LARP I had played there had been three separate disease plots over a four year period. So no fault of yours.

The clue/code thing actually was pretty cool, because it allowed anyone to try and help work on it. It just sucked to watch people slowly become more and more useless. But I will admit you did a great job awarding ANYBODY who tried. Surgery in the inn at 4am is always a good thing.

[GM_Chris]

I missed alot of events, but that does seem like a touch monster.


As for the elves. Yeah I am not an elf fan so when we wrote up the elves we took a lot from shadowbane the MMORPG that I was playing at the time. Those elves had a great quote that went something like "We measure time by what was lost"


The elves in our game have never been noble like the ones in LOTR for example. IN CARPS history they inslaved all other races. The burning ceremony's of the Gavyn had their roots in rising up against the elves.

The elves though do feel that they are noble and really the only ones suitable to govern all other races. I mean look at the mess everyone is doing. I can tell you right now Haven has never been a more peaceful place since the elves took over.