Event Review - Heavy Handed

[Dan Finn]

P.S. you guys were 15 seconds away from having one hell of a hallows. The Saturday mod was designed to be failable, as are most of my mods because I know what this player base is capable of. I am both proud and annoyed, proud that you rose to the occasion as characters, proud that our npc team executed one of the most complicated mods we have made this season and annoyed that ya'll foiled my highly dangerous probably insane plans to become the avatar.

[Olo Dinglesroot]

Pros: Brought in my new Ralinwood character!

Cons: Took a nap after game started. Woke up at 2:30am in the morning to a flooded tent, and I was sleeping on the floor. Packed up and gone by 3:30 am. Was not happy.

[Ebon Shadowmane]

Oh boy, where to even begin?!

I love coming to Ralinwood. I can't say it enough. Playing all these other larps and doing a whole year at Jericho i had lost all hope for a good roleplay experience, then some little birdy tells me to transfer over and give it another shot and Ive been nothing less then excited and happy to larp. Yall are amazing, everything you oull off and do excites me and I cant praise yall enough. I cant wait to see what comes next!

Pros this event in random order;
I loved the smoke/flares entrance of the elemental lords. I watched as a handful of people collectively shat their pants only for it to not be what they all expected.

I love love loved the monster hunter fight against the Rainbow Wyvern. It felt cinematic as fuck and just the way the mechincs worked out it felt like i was playing the video game but real life. It had a great entry, the big moment at the beginning where Crankshaft did his thing made it feel so impressive when the wyvern remained standing. The use of the physical rebuke and getting thrown back and seeing like 4 or 5 of the pcs all land in "super hero" poses only to take a breath and run back in and re-engage the fight. The way that npc actually acted out gettjng dirt in the eyed and its reaction to the slay I threw just to blow me away ahhhhhh. Outside i was giving off confidence and being super ebon, but inside i was squeeeeeing like a little girl. I was super super super glad I got to go on this mod, after watching crankshaft try and fail for so long to convince these higher level specific players to help him and him failing at it only for a table of under level 5s to go "hey we will help ya out" made the victory all that much sweeter for me. Cant count out us lowbees Xd

I was so hype to just be apart of the final Shaman training thing. Experiencing that moment from the outside was kind of nice. My swashbuckler training felt so real and intense and seeing these 2 guys finishing off their training and gettng to be apart of it. Ahhhhhh. Thanks guy <3

The super late night underwater pirate ship mod we did Saterday night.....felt amazing and impressive. That breach and clear and general teamwork of the 9 people that went blew me away. The sneaky silent kills, the drowing of the pirates, the way that last npc came threw that final door only to get dirt in the eyed, then sapped, then garrotted holy shit was amazing. Thank you super late night npc team for letting us do that mod. I really hope the group of 9 of us get to do another one next month. Even with the conclusion Sunday morning of the boat being impounded after, it was the fun of the mod and the experience that I enjoyed the most.

Everyone being super supportive this game of my stupid wrist. I was trying so hard to be careful and left hand fight or super slow fight with the bad wrist. It went super super well until i did the stupid sunday morning. I got really into being rabid wolven ebon and went to screw around with my buddy and wasnt thinking and totally pushed him with my bad band and it was like slow motion as it went pop and the pain began. Luckily i had a bucket of ice and some heckin good medication and friends and fixed myself up enough to get threw the rest of the morning snd home. Thanks to Yusha for helping me wrap it up with the little bit of tensor bandages i had stashed in my oog backpack.

Cons in no order;

Please please no more of the bell. As someone who worked at summer camps for kids and lived on sites like these it literally kept sending me into a panic oog. Most sites those bells are used for emergencys only. And it kept going off. At one point i ran to the tavern npc table just to make sure everything was okay. Ahhhh maybe next game if your going to be doing the bells thing announce so before game so I can save myself the heart attack.

 I know its something probably uncontrollavlble but holy shit is there a lot of fire crap in this port city. And as a wolven i watch as the rest of the wolven are pretty much taken out of game by it all. Mod after mod of fire elemental swinging enemies. I know i picked this super heavy make up race with this super bad downside(because the buyable skills were so good before we got nerfed into the ground and now i personally dont think its even at all). But watching them being so fearful and then hearing other players complain that the wolven arnt participating in much combat pissed me off. Like we cant control that the plot is all fire elemental swinging spellstrikers. We dont want to waste 90 life spells as we are literally just a liability. At one point i just went fuck it and ran at the fire. Screw acting out my character downside, i wanted to participate in a way that wasnt sitting out like i was being punished for being me. So far every single game this year has things swinging spellstrike elemental fire. Lets change it up abit please.

New NPC camp. At first i hated it. I had lost the little cooldown zone I used all the previous games. Where i could sit and rp in a tavern under a giant fan and cool off. Its understandable tho as you npcers need a cooler place aswell. I was thinking and being mad for personal reasons. I soon got used to it though and eventually didnt care. Though i have 3 huge gripes about it.
1: theres a giant window on the north side of the building where a giant bright light shines out. If npc camp is going ti be there id really appreciate if this one window was garbage bagged taped up. Anyone walking into site from the car park loses all night vision  because of this light. If you need volunteers to climb up and do this job I will volunteer to do it. And ill bring the garbage bags and donate them and the tape to do it. It was never a problem before as the tavern was closed down by the time it got dark enough for this to be a problem.
2: its super super hard not to meta over hearing things. Your npc camp is now right beside where pcs hang out and sit during the day maybe police keeping the chatter and noise down from in there. At the tables, in the grass between the two buildings we can hear...everything.
3: You all should not be using that back door where you need to walk threw the kitchen. As someone who works in a professional kitchen that place will lose its green certification instantly if they saw this happening. Its a health concern for people to be trampsing in and threw an active kitchen without hairnets ectect. And it is an active kitchen as you all cook there and charge customers for its items via the tavern. Maybe some work around can be made for this if your going to continue using this building. 
Tho if the pros outweigh the cons that npc camp was heckin nice and set up really well. If it was heat as the issue(and not just the space) i can donate a huge air conditioner if thatll alleviate the problem. Only issue with that would be getting to and from site. As its HUGE

Anyways super super fun game. I cant wait to see what you all pull off next. I had so much fun just getting to roleplay as Ebon. Ahhh. You all are amazing <3

[Alistair Smith-Son]

PROS:

-Being part of what is clearly a bigger plot thing with the wytches and the demons and the orks and the things! I'm glad my (IC) suffering was not for nothing. The roleplay that came with that hex was pretty great, too.

-The chair mimic was the funniest thing I've seen for awhile, as was seeing the Crossroads folk eat it later on.

-The shadow beast arena! Fighting two shadow beasts one-on-one made me (and Alistair) feel much better about my combat abilities. Also hyped as hell for the big nasty next month that we were preparing for! (Also: KRONG! KRONG! KRONG! KRONG!)

-The Elemental Lords mod on Saturday night was a lot of fun. Defending Cat as the Lord of Fire with just one useful arm and a bastard sword was pretty intense, especially when we accomplished our goal with less than 10 seconds on the clock!

-Hanging out with the Crossroads at night telling jokes was a blast. Always love hanging out with you guys.

-The ghosts! I love Exposition Bird and the Nefarious Narrator. Got real spooked when Exposition Bird knew about what was going on with me, but I like seeing them pop up now and again. Good ol' NN still has it out for me.

CONS:

-Not having the tavern available to hang out in kinda sucked.

-Not having the lights in the church did, too.

[Zii Rha aka 'Jingles']

As my second event ever, I have to say this was Awesome!

I did not enjoy dying, though I dont recall it at all I was told it was pretty lucky my staff n bag were not burnt to a crisp with all those Fire Elementals wandering around! Thank you to the Wood Elf (Sorry I suck at names!) who recognized my staff n grabbed my stuff! Lifesaver! Well, sorta, I mean, an Aja doesnt have much, so....

Aside from that, I enjoyed the bell tolling the hour, but the half too? Maybe just stick to the hour toll? That way its far less confusing for us poor folk trying to hear over battle for what bell was that.

KRONG HAS BEES! Ancestors, I laughed far too hard at that! 

Crossroads continues to be a great place for any Aja to stop by and enjoy a good campfire an food with good friends! Thank you all there! I really liked our late night storytelling circle, though I do agree that battles are important too...

As for battles, this bunch of em were hard for a lil Aja new to the town, thats for sure! First night out and I got killed by Fire Elementals, and all because I could not hobble away fast enough. Maybe experience will treat me better on the next encounter, I definitely plan on having armour ready for then. I just felt it was very very hard for any new character to be able to get in on any fights because nothing was really 'baby sized' this round sadly. If there was, I definitely didnt find them... Good thing Im a very versatile gossipper?

Thank you again for everyones hard work and skills that saved my jingle butt! Also, thanks to friends in the House of I for helping this lil Aja survive the rest of that hell of Elemental nastiness. Sorry I didnt hear you get dismembered! The pros of living in the tiniest tent ever.

[Oliver Freki]

"The Ship"

[Bikar Borba]

Pros
- I really liked the bell, its great to know what time it is and not have to rely on potentially infernal things to do so. Although at one point I think it was 14 o'clock.
- I found the pacing of the event to be alot better then the previous ones, lots of things to do and go on, with a solid amount of down time for RP and rest, great work.
- NPC's seemed well stat'd and were very good at knowing what effects they were taking
- I know the team was short staffed but did really well with what they had.
- The Elemental lords were awesome, that whole mod was cool. I seriously thought the small remants of the town was going to die as we stood between a wall of elements and our home. Vidars opening long shot into the dark hitting the fire lord seeing the lights flicker, hearing 'no effect' I was then sure we would likely die there. The build up and then them speaking and what followed.
- The super Avatar ritual, I get it was cramped and dark and it sucked for me to fight there as much as anyone else (shouldnt have brought a spear) but that added to the mod, not everything takes place in a nice big safe field. Also, I need to bring a latern around.
- The mechanics and intensity of that mod was great, I stayed in the back line and did my best to people manage, getting key people in the right spots to solve problems was very gratifying and seeing first hand the amount of resources that mod was burning off all of us.
- Begging to get more information on what was going on around town and seeing alot of things all come together was nice.
- From what I have seen in terms of merchant stuff (plot) I am very excited and engaged.

Neutral
- Elementals and Undead errywhere, this is a neutral because its a fault of build and not plot in that I am pretty much useless. But it did mean that when I got to throw some Alchemy around I got to go ham about it, was awesome to see a few globes change the tide of some of the combats in the orc and greater undead fight.
- There seems to be a general lack of leadership and centralized guidance in the town, I can see why this would be a deliberate choice as it hopefully drives us PC's to figure it out on our own.
- Saw some people being dicks to the Tavern staff, this is neutral for me because in game is in game and can be delt with as such.

Cons
- NPC camp in the tavern, lots of people have mentioned their issues with it. My personal one was on sunday, not being able to sleep I got up and went for a walk early in the morning, got to the pavillions and there was trash everywhere (this is mostly PC fault) however if it was windy or stormy that shit would have been all over the fields. (I cleaned it up, if I can so can you guys)
- There seemed to be alot of discrepancy in terms of NPC mechanics. Some taking certain things while others didnt, or saying their skills worked one way then being told by another somthing different.

Highlights
- Will A, the man is a gem for all kinds of reasons amazing NPC's and attention to detail. Putting on Old man make up and going all out for a simple sit down. Really made things feel immersive.
- Watching Vidar complete his Archer training.
- Beginning to see a trail of bread crumbs that I think leads to something much bigger.
- Our meeting with Horrick, I look forward to the future
- Picking up our first legit contract for the Ragaire
- Warden Skorpa is hilarious
- 'Genie' it was awesome to get to play with one of my close friends again after a year, thought it might be weird as different characters but it turned out well and really felt like he was some strange creature that could do things I did not even close to understand.

See you all next game

[Promises]

+ Boat
+ Elemental Lords costuming
+ Will A's short scene at the docks was good
+ 'Did you just kill that guy?' '...No?' 'You would know I guess'

[Galawyn]

Pros
+ Lots to do this game! I felt satisfied with the amount of things going on and was grateful for the downtime for rp.
+ Elemental lords mod was equally terrifying and fun. Costumes, entrance, and the speech were all great and had me ready to fight for my life.
+ Enjoyed collecting info on current events. Helped knowing what we were fighting instead of blindly going into battles.
+ Avatar ritual seemed to be stat'd well and the lights were cool.

Cons
- Garbage. I know that it was windy and rainy but some areas had garbage out on the tables and ground overnight. I also noticed garbage on the path at the last mod site. As players we should all try to keep things clean.
- There seemed to be some confusion with npcs taking certain effects while others did not.
- Staying in game. I think the bathrooms are still in game spaces and I'm finding they are not being treated as such. Sometimes its a matter of finding less infernal terms for infernal conversations which would be greatly appreciated.

Best moments
+ "summoning" the "Genie"
+ Vidar completing his archer training
+ Skorpa the Warden
?Death flower? "Don't touch it" .... *touches it*
+ Antimus the giant ant
+ interacting with some of the crossroads orcs
+ getting cookies from strawberry <3