Event Review - Worse things Happen at Sea

[Lirianne]

Awesome game! This was my first time PCing in almost a year (not fighting to the death felt weird. There were a few times where I thought 'oh yeah, I'm actually allowed to get my damaged repaired!'). I'm really excited to see how the rest of the season unfolds.


Pros:
-that is the most loot I've ever gotten at a game. In fact, I don't remember the last time I went on a large mod and received anything. It was kind of refreshing to get something for once.
-People thought my spear was scary. Made me feel badass
-there were no super high level veterans there, which meant everyone could do something. It wasn't like 'oh, so and so level 15 character says this, and if you don't agree, you'll get ignored/killed'.
-NPC costumes and roles were really well done. Good job, guys!
-I actually like this site, because it's not a huge open space, like Jericho. We may see more rogue types in this location (which makes me OOG happy, IG scared)


Cons:
-Where were the Lords? Someone else mentioned there might be an IG reason for them not being around, but it felt kind of weird. They just trust a bunch of adventurers and criminals to do what they want them to?
- Huge lack of healers/ smiths. This is more of a player problem than a shaper problem, but I felt like it made certain mods a lot harder than they should have been.
-the lawnmower was annoying, but I don't know if we'll ever have control over that. Will we?

[Briar Toras]

I loved this event, I have never had this much fun.

Pros: -Everything flowed nicely, everything was well thought out and full of addictive insanity. NPCs, you guys, I can't thank you enough. Every role, in every mod, was wonderful.

- Final mod, oh my god... I just, I loved it. Getting dropped, healed, then dropped again only to finish the fight with a doctor bandaging my injuries? So amazing. It was one of the most balanced things I have seen in Underworld.

- The tavern, that stew was amazing, and the man running it sold me on it being an actual IG tavern.

Cons: -Nothing really leaps to mind except a seemingly excessive amount of hamstrings floating around.

- Honour system seemed to slip for a few people. It happens, all in all, I don't think I saw many instances of people flubbing things, but the whole massive damage thing? I doubt any of us have 15 body.


Now, here's for a special call out. I wanted this to be set aside just so I can explain how amazing it was.

Matt Flynn. You my friend, made my event. I went into a duel I couldn't win, and you knew it. You guys still humoured it. You let the Roleplay presented to you play out, and then when you went for the killing blow, which honestly? Beautiful. Then the whole of Ralinwood rushing you and being smithed, doctored, and cared for. You made my character become even more real.

All in all, 9/10, because AMAZING, but we always have room to improve.

[Shark]

I just have to say, amazing event. I am looking forward to being your Mirror Knight of the Light Gods. Or as others see me, the Order in the town of Anarchy.

Pros:
- The NPCs & Plot. You guys were fantastic. Between the variety of things and the intensity of combat, and how fast you guys got mods out after one was finished, I applaud you. I can't wait to see what you throw at us on the weekends.
- The PCs. You guys were just so into your characters. I loved interacting with you. And hearing so many different reasons as to why you where there... just leaves me with a huge smile on my face.
- Being able to form a camp. Matt Weaver and I planned on camping together due to our affinity to Roland... But grabbing all the people we did, and then finding the actual camp site we needed... I'm happy. Can't wait to camp with you all.
- The Gremmel. Being the only nice guy in the beginning paid off. How happy they were when I spoke to them, and then they came back out to assist. Makes me feel accomplished.
- WITCH!

Cons:
- N/A

Great game guys. You have a fantastic team of Shapers and NPCs. Can't wait to be Uther again.

[Doyly]

Pros
- As a new player and first time larper I didn't feel left out or an outcast not knowing really anyone. Everyone was very nice and helped me out where I didn't know what I was doing.
- The NPCs were awesome! They didn't feel like cardboard cutouts like with some RPG type games
- Talking with the PCs. Like I said I'm a first time larper so I've never experienced storylines that weren't made by the people running the game but they people playing it!
- The Goblin! That little goblin that was running around for what seemed like only to drop bombs, be skittish, and be neat!
- The puzzle! While Doyly in no way could have helped with the puzzle, the idea that if you fail it explodes, but if you succeed YOU FIGHT A MONSTER was a kinda lose-lose situation which was cool!
- That murder. When those 2 people got attacked it was a real curve ball! Some people saying it was the Ice Elf, some saying it was the Wood Fae, some saying one was framing the other, and the whole time having people hunt them down! I still don't know who did it!
- My inner conflict! Some many times Doyly did not want to kill anything but his friends kept either dragging him into fighting or they were in danger and he had to help! Doyly felt bad about killing a lot of things all day
- Having that scout. I was really nervous how we were going to start. I thought almost for sure it was going to be us getting off the boat and than just wondering in hopes of finding things. But having the Scout Daniel as a starting point was great.
- The tribes. Having the snake people The Rain Vines, the Wood Elves The Two Feathers, a mysterious Blood Moons and the seemingly evil mountain ocrs.. I love it all.

Cons
- Having to carry those bags all the time... I thought we'd be able to have a fire at some point some I brought pots and pans along with a bunch of food. Only learned that I couldn't with 2 hours left, and only then was I able to put it down in a safe place.
- I DIED! Haha but no really. I was killed in the fight to get the stones and laid there for a while before someone lifted me up and brought me to the healers, only for them to remember I am a Gargylen and need a blacksmith. Like i said I died. But when i got up to walk away we had a bunch of people who weren't healers back with them. If one of them came and picked me up in time... It was still fun dying i must say. But I was only 8 second into my death counter.

Overall it was one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life! Getting to BE a character, if only for a few hours, was awesome. Everyone who had done it before talked about all these other characters and other larps very casually. But to someone who had never done anything like that before... I'm sold on being a larper for life now!

[Sierra Katrian]

Am i correct to assume that the Lake, i recall seeing, is on the other side of the road? That makes me sad.

There is a lake on site. A real one. But for the purposes of this event we used the road as the waterfront just so we did have to walk all the way to the lake, and then all the way back just to begin the adventure.

I believe in future, weekend events the really-real lake will be the waterfront.

[Ludvic]

I thoroughly enjoyed myself regardless of what was happening. I would hear of people dying and then see people wondering alone just wondering if I would see them every again. I'm not sure how I became Town Crier but I'm sure Elewyn is mostly to blame. I think I swung my weapon at 2 things the whole event and it wasn't until the last mod that people started to understand what class I was playing.

Congrats to the people who were prepared for fighting and scored lots of loots. People whined about people with Garotes and I was more afraid of dying from a drive by hamstring which is enough to put 1/3 of the level 1 classes to 0 hp. I expected very little healing and wasn't surprised by the amount of deaths that happened.

The Npc's and shapers ran from mod to mod keeping the level of engagement high. You all did fabulous! I was happy to be able to return the favor and entertain you back while you were waiting to spawn. Many of you fought hard to keep a straight face but I was the stronger!

As many of us who were there can't pc this year in Jericho we were all very happy to take a break and move to the pc side. Thank you for putting the time into Londerworld!

[Valkez]

Gotta echo what everyone else is saying and say event was absolute fantastic! I had a great time playing a role completely outside of my comfort zone! The NPC's were fantastic and played their roles perfectly. The plot was interesting, made sense, and was engaging in many different forms. Very awesome final mod and fun way to include a bunch of Mages in town. Moon LOVED being part of a powerful ritual to help the town even if he didn't have any clue what was going on. Truly a fantastic job all around!

I also have to give a proper shout out to a lot of the players. This is my first time playing a character remotely like this and so heavily roleplay oriented. I was a bit afraid how people would react and how many might want to kill me but you were all so much fun to interact with! Everyone had an interesting story to tell and I was laughing inside and out the whole event from all the ridiculous conversations and interactions with people!

Thank you players, plot, and NPCs, for such an amazing day! Very much looking forward to more Ralinwood games!

Moon loves you all!

[Aelin]

So this was the first time I had ever larped at all, and I have to say that it was amazing.

The immersion was pretty good (other than me needing to go OOC to ask questions about how things worked because I was so new at it), and the combat was much better than I had been afraid it would be. On a personal note, I was really happy that I actually got the chance to use my bow! I had figured that most fights would be so much of a screw around that everyone would be in the way (and this did happen a few times), but generally when I started to line up a shot, people got out of the way to give me the chance.

The NPC's were really great! They were so good natured for spending the whole day getting beaten on, and the different characters we got to interact with were pretty fun!

Also, as someone who got to be possessed at the final ritual and be a bad guy for a few minutes, that was awesome fun too! Great game mechanic!

(Also, WITCH FOR MAYOR!)

I think the only con I noticed is that we had the forty minute break for supper...but the tavern was out of everything but snacks. Would have been nice to have some more real food there if we knew we were going to be running into the evening. I know this won't be an issue for weekend events, so it's almost not worth bringing up.

Overall, great time! I can't wait to do it again!

[Branya]

There is a lake on site. A real one. But for the purposes of this event we used the road as the waterfront just so we did have to walk all the way to the lake, and then all the way back just to begin the adventure.

I believe in future, weekend events the really-real lake will be the waterfront.

This is correct! Sometime later this week when I've processed all the frags, deaths, plot notes and the rest, I'll post an OOG map for you folks with some more detailed info so that anybody who didn't find it will know where to go next time.

[Zshlwre]

Pros:
The social dynamics of Ralinwood are pretty different to Jericho's in many ways and I find that fascinating and interesting.
Lots of interesting RP between different and potentially rival groups, I am dying to see how this played out.
Suiciding against a bunch of wolves on principle, then being robbed of my items was pretty hilarious.
I really liked how most npcs played their characters true to their role, the massive damage boss at the end was scary but was played really well, as were the plants and spiders.
The mods had a really good amount of variety, allowing players of all types to have fun.

Cons:
Having mods going on in placed where there are large solid stumps i.e last mod can be pretty dangerous. It would be best if it were moved into an area with more clear terrain.

Lots of bad rule calls made, for example no PC in ralinwood is killing blow active at the moment, as per the rulebook, but I saw many of those come out. (See page 16 of Rulebook 5.4.4, Killing Blow Delivery, Last Sentence)

I also saw someone call magic shield against massive damage, which had me genuinely lost. Since first of all that spell does not in any way have anything to do with blocking damage and secondly, as far as I recall it wasn't mentioned that that massive damage also bypasses battle magic protections (page 81)

The cons aren't necessarily a con of the game, but I would like to see more strict adherence to rules, a problem that was also made evident in the wolf den. As someone who died this game due to keeping true to the rules, I would like it if everyone else did so as well.

All in all however, I had a tremendous amount of fun at this event, and although I went in thinking it would be my first and last game at Ralinwood (only because of the time I put into Celeb) after having played I must admit I can't resist it. I will definitely be back as Thorgrim and look forward to exploring the wonderful world you've created.

Humorous aside: Someone literally took their phone out and started texting while sitting in front of the skein gate during the puzzle mod. I don't know what kind of infernal demon doing that will summon, but damn it I want to see it.