All Hallows: A Reckoning - Event Review

[Victor]

Let's hear it for the finishing weekend event for 2016 season.  The good, the bad, the obscure and possibly delightful.

Big ol' thanks to the shapers and season NPCs I've been running with for the past few months.  It was fun and probably added a few grey hairs to all our heads.  Can't wait to experience next season as a PC alongside you all.

[Granyte the Ogre]

What an amazing event! Great wrap up to the season.

A wonderful balance of baddies, some being able to only be hurt by magic while others were going down with simple steel weapons. I don't think anyone got left out of the battles.

Pumpkins were amazing, and finding little treasure pumpkins was a nice addition. Was glad that not that many medical pumpkins were used! Yay for safety!

The fear element worked well, hiding Friday night and not being sure when a noise was wind or death coming lol.

A few small personal issues but that is to be expected lol

Only one criticism that I had for the whole weekend was a lack of feeling "Risk VS Reward". I understand that things are hectic and people have personal lives, but the Loot Bags felt sort of tossed together at the last minute and that was upsetting.

I would happily give this event a 9 / 10! See you all at High Winter

[crowles]

Man, did it feel good to be back. (Although I admit, I did sleep most of the time, and I did leave early, regardless.)

So, I'm not 100% sure what the event was about, but I wasn't really paying attention. All I know is I was allowed to play a lot of big scary demons, and I was able to wear my big fluffy parka while doing it.The latter has made me realize that large padded suits should be a requirement for any big boss fight.

I'd like to apologize for leaving early, and for the inevitable discovery of what I forgot on site. Truth was, is that the even wore me out, and I wanted to catch the wife before she headed off to work. 

So, onto the emotional stuff.
This event was my first underworld event where I didn't feel like an outsider. Which is nifty, between late night ramblings, parking-lot commiserations, and post-mod fatigue, I actually felt like part of the club, which isn't very common for me at larps. So, I'd like to thank everyone for that, it was rocky start. 


On to the review its self.

The Pros:

-Props out to the props department, all of the propping was hella wizard.
-The Plot team ran some awesome modules, that managed to challenge and excite the player base, while still killing plenty of people. 
-To the makeup team: Angela, Brittany, Julia, and any whom I may have left out. you all did a phenomenal job this weekend, your balance all of the NPC's who had glasses, and the demands of this event was just perfect. Your work really brought the event together. 
-Congrats to Dan and Ivanna for their first successful Halloween event!

The Cons:
I had a great time, I don't really like doing a Cons section, so I'll just do some simple stuff off the cuff. 

Ralinwood is a new club, and it is still trying to sort out just how it wants its monster camp to work. The pacing of modules can seem erratic, and it feels like there is a lack of filler content for NPC's while the shapers plan the next step. 

The new monster manual and rule-book have caused a lot of confusion; there isn't any easy way for players and shapers to reference the new rules, and without a third party to arbitrate or verify it sometimes seems like players and shapers are just angrily guessing and philophizing against each other, and just getting angry. 

"What-do-I-see"
I swear to god, if I hear that phrase one more time, I'll stat up some sort of blinding mirror creature. 
There is a difference between players requesting a visible description of a creature, which is reasonable ("is that a fire elemental, or a demon? there were both out today!"), and players using WDIS as a radar in the dark. While I'm never a fan of "You see what you see." because in my case, it's usually a 'fat, parka-clad, dude with some face-paint on,' and that is not quite as scary as the demons I am pretending to be, there are times when players do it and it completely breaks the immersion of the scene.

[Promises]

There was one con that comes to mind, but it's been discussed and I have faith it'll be handled and won't be an issue in the future.

That aside, I loved the rest of the weekend.

+ The NPCs were at the top of their game.
+ The shapers were being innovative.
+ The props. The long legged demon. The make-up level done for everyone. Wonderful.
+ Using the sins was neat. I liked that.
+ I'd like to give a special mention to the things that were scary, but not lethal. I think it's too easy for everything that's scary to come out with big numbers and turn town into a meat grinder, but a lot of the things that came out gave a sense of dread, or a quiet kind of unease, which was great. That kind of horror is harder to do, I think, but it was still there.
+ Attackgos or whatever they're called. Amazing. Best use of echo ever.

This was my favourite Hallows Event to date. I'm looking forward to the next one.

An extra thank you to everyone that went into making this event what it was. From the owners, to the shapers, to the season NPCs, the regular NPCs, and the players that come out. Hope to see as many of you as possible in High Winter.

[Maximus]

Pros:*Thinks stayed out of my camp *"I'might going to hit you with a stick till you talk right!" *henge was useful
Cons: *none for me

[Dr. Moran]

Woooo, first Hallows!

Pros:

• Lots of super amazing RP fun times around town (special thanks to Cat, Rebecca, Thomas, Rob and Breanna. you guys were great and made me feel a lot of feelings)
  
• I was well and truly terrified on friday night like holy heck I have never wanted to kill a PC for wearing rattly chainmail before this event. 
  
• demons and other monsters were really cool and I liked that a lot of them had RP components so those who were weak and missing all their gear could still help out (AKA me). Special effects were also on point (those fireworks to rep what I assume was canon fire on friday were great)
  
• This is the first event I felt like I was able to contribute something and that made me all warm and fuzzy inside
  

Cons/Suggestions:

• anything well and truly negative this event was all IG drama so nothing that really needs to be addressed
  
• actually there is one tiny thing: if a shaper/NPC is staying in a cabin that's totally cool and I respect that but maybe tie a white cloth to the bunk so I can tell if the demon teddy is waiting to do horrible things to me or if the poor guy who was wearing that getup all night just passed out for some well-deserved rest. Cause I experienced both.
  

Favourite Memories (we still doing this?) :

• being Lilith's handmaiden AKA suddenly knowing what's going on half the time (also constantly getting ropes draped on my for auguries was fun)
  
• that beautiful conversation with Neviah during which I ran around in circles with no armour trying to sweet talk her while Orokgrim saved my sorry hide from a few wandering undead that kept interrupting us
  
• A fabulously kind wilder (played by Shoshana I believe) gave me some armour after I died and got looted by somebody and that basically kept me in the game. Thank you so much again. Also Mintha/Jada gave me a sword that I shall fucking treasure THANK YOU BOTH FOR YOUR KINDNESS.
  

All in all a very stressful but fun event. Looking forward to being on the other side of things next year.

[Shoshana]

Haven't changed the account name yet *sob* rip Silvie.
Anyways, I played my Jericho chracter the wild elf Aurora Starflower, rather than someone brand new who'd only be there for a game than disappear when I go to NPC :p

This was a super fun event. It was scary but not overly lethal, although I do have a couple concerns.
Pros first:
+ blacksmith then more blacksmith and getting to watch Roland blacksmith, so cool. You guys need to pay him more (Roland) he seemed genuinely suprised when I handed him materials for fixing armour.
+makeup level! Holy shit the makeup an costuming was on point, the masks, the gowns, the horns! So amazing.
+pumpkin rule seemed awesome, a way to keep the danger but keep people safe too, although I didn't actually have to use it.
+making use of lots of skills! I've never felt so useful as a physician than cutting out a daemon heart, and chilling whole the alchemists slaved over a cauldron to get it all set up.
+scarecrows didn't come alive and try and kill us

Cons
-scarecrows didn't come alive an try and kill us. Come on it's hallows! What else to scarecrows do! (Kidding, such a relief)
-this was my first game all season because I injured myself then lost my job, and I didn't want to play a lvl 2 for hallows, so perhaps it's my fault for not being around, but a lot of people were very rude (IG) because I was playing a Jericho character, which was very disheartening. It was even more frustrating because at one point I was even called over to help with something, then when I asked what was going on I was told "you're not from here, go away". Not a lot of fun.
-loot balance. A banshee, screaming wail of death at me, has 3s worth of mr while a random imp had 1g. I know everyone is running around busy and such, but this isn't about "not enough loot", it's about risk vs. reward. On a related note, the big bosses had too much loot compared to the minions, which means very few people got anything worth much at all, especially when those few things were so powerful. Ratios.

*insert undead hunter grumbling about not enough undead here*
I don't get to use my new skill! Although since I also never had to use my death ward that's probably for the best.


Favourite memories (?)
Mintha and shamus trying to adopt riven and little rock on Sunday morning.
Sevlion. I regret nothing.
Alchemy with my new dark elf friend, and trying to translate hand signals for a muted goblin!

Good game everyone!

[Dan Finn]

The scarecrow got garrote blocked by early bedtime on saturday
The banshees had more loot then that if thays all they had they probably lost it clawing their way through the woods and dragging back half a forest to npc camp with them.
The limited undead actually has to do with the heroics of last years hallows adventurers binding many of the regions undead for a time. Notable exceptions being undead that came from some where other than ralinwood. Try next year! We had absolutely no undead stopping plot attempts *sinister laugh*

[Bart Schmied]

Silvie I walked around as a Scarecrow for over an hour, ran into 1 person the entire time (while on the ourskirts of town, within visible distance of at least 10-15 people usually).

[Sigurd Vask]

I had an amazing time, it was great to finally make it back out again and be accepted as an outside Character but seen as valuable.

Pros: My biggest highlight is the end of game, I haven't had Roleplay like that in a long time where no one got upset oog or took it personally. Instead it felt epic, it felt REAL. There are times where you lose yourself to the game and the convictions of your character, for me that was what happened. Sevatar deserves so much praise for that scene alone.

I genuinely enjoyed that I could talk my way out of most problems because I didn't bring a large weapon with me so was relying on being a support and a lone dagger.

The playerbase has really grown, I remember when this started and I could count on my fingers the people that didn't play in Jericho. Now there are so many Ralinwood players that are keeping up and growing in power, great to see.

Cons: Nothing leaps to mind here really. I think the loot might have been a bit randomized, but whatever. My only real con is I never got a loot bag.

That and the FREAKING COLD PEELED GLUE OFF OF EVERYTHING! Holy crap. My boot's glue gave up the ghost, some headbands and such as well. Been doing those things for 3 years, never had this problem before. T-T