Tales of the Travellers Event Review

[Buckley Stepp]

Despite the few years I have been larping I have never managed to go to an indoor event before, for the most part due to schedule conflicts, but after this event I am going to make a point of going to every indoor event from here on out because I had an absolute BLAST!

Pros:

+The RP. Never before have I played a game that was so RP heavy and fun for everyone! There weren't many treats or quests or what have you so it gave people time to actually sit and talk to one another,, PC and NPC alike. That fact that we had limited space also helped out with this fact. I had so much fun just talking to people and meeting new friends and acquaintances and just had some great fun all the way through doing so. Good job everyone!

+Plot and NPCs. You guys did an AMAZING job of putting all this together! There was always something to do, the NPCs were fun and interesting, and the event had big "story" implications that were surprising but awesome. Every time an NPC called for everyone's attention I was like "Oh shit what could this be about?!". You guys made my first indoor event incredible and very memorable in a very good way.

+The party itself. Though I do have one grievance about this, (which I will talk about in the Cons) the party had an energy that was simply captivating! I was surprised at the amount of stuff you could do to be honest. I didn't play all the games but had a lot of fun playing the ones I did, even though they caused me to go broke within 2 hours oh start. The combat area was just awesome to be at. Whether it was watching the tournaments and beast fights, or actually being a part of them, they were so much fun and a great addition to the event. But it was the fortune telling that was my favourite part surprisingly enough! They were done up in such a way that if you hit up all of them you started to actually get a good picture of things to come, and that was super fun doing. Also food and drinks.

+Chest shenanigans. That chest I got a hold of LEGITIMATELY has to have been a highlight for myself. I mean I find this key by complete happenstance outside only to go inside and find people starring at a lock chest that just happened to fit the key I found not 2 minutes earlier! And then there was fear of traps, the law got involved and I wasn't allowed to open it for a while, people kept asking about it, trying to buy it, trying to steal it, protecting it, actually finding the NPC it belonged to and having them say I can keep it, and to top it all off the payout at the end when I opened it! That whole thing was just hilarious and great.

+Aja fun. Number one best thing about this event is that it means more Aja and Aja stuff for Ralinwood. Aja are great. We needed more of them. That is all.

+PC stuff. The amount of stuff that was put on by the PCs themselves was awesome. I can't really say much about it because I wasn't very involved with much of it, but the fact it happened pleases me.

And now for;

Cons:

-Lack of merchants with the merchants. When I heard this was a party being thrown by Ajaunti merchants I couldn't wait to get into character and start making deals, sadly this wasn't the case. No one was selling tags. It was awesome that we had vendors selling real physical things and PC peddling their wares , but I was looking forward to to talking with NPC merchants who were new to town and trying to strike deals, make trade arrangements and possible business opportunities! I know some (if not most) of that may not have been possible, but I would have loved to RP and try all that. With all that said though; PLOT TWIST HERE'S A PRO WITHIN A CON! I am excited to get the chance to do all that and more now that these Aja are here.

-Sitting down to eat. The dinner, whilst delicious, was a bit unorganized. The announcement was little more than "Hey food", some people took multiple trips leaving it harder for some people without dinner, and dealing with seating and tables was a bit of a mess. I know it's not a big complaint and I normally don't like to be nitpicky, but for an event that was being hyped as a feast, I feel the actually feast part could have been handled a bit better. Keep in mind this is coming from a guy who has grown up around restaurants and kitchens so I might just be projecting personal/professional standards here...

All and all this event was actually one of my favourite events I have ever been to and it has me way more than hyped for this up coming season and whatever our fantastic plot team has in store for us!