All righty, review time. I'll try not to let too much of my stress from my car breaking down on the way home to colour anything in a wrong light.
My first time NPC'ing an event. It's pretty obvious to most my RP skills aren't at the same interest or level as some of the others like Kristin, Laurie, Dave to name only a small few. I took drama, but my interest in the game is the combat and the game itself. So while some of the regular NPC's really like being all the different characters, I often found myself wishing Garridan was with the others taking part of the story, instead of filling the story. That all said I really stand by the idea that everyone should NPC at least once in awhile to gain some perspective on what goes on. Case in point, I know that sometimes things that were carefully laid out by plot get completely missed by the players, or in worst case, the need for two planned mods gets thrown out the door and plot is left scrambling to fill some holes. But I think the team did a great job of working on the fly. And Abbey gets mad respect for what he goes through in a weekend and the weeks leading up to it. It's a full time job on it's own. No disrespect to anyone else on the core team.
So Friday night was good fun, though I skipped a page in the script. I think the pauses often went a little long, as it seems thepacing was a bit off, especially when I'm waiting to get to the next line, I felt it should have felt a little more conversational between the Hunter's voice and that of the narrator. Jordan did fantastic, though we were a little frustrated with Rory's "sneaky" enraged wolf.
Though the cold certainly didn't alleviate that feeling. More case of player's throwing a wrench into plot's carefully laid plans. The cracking plastic cups definately caused a few shudders. Later on that evening we came out as wolves and wandering gnolls to fill the lulls and Dayna, Philippe, Dave and I had a blast, and watching Dayna and Dave's puppy play was a blast.
Saturday was a blast as the Pantherghast. Calling people out in small groups or individually def was a good way of keeping things lively. And for someone who loves the fighting, it's great fun rather than heading out and RP'ing a mod. By lunchtime we had found out plot had no need for two mods and things had to be shuffled. Abbey and co did a great job of trying to fill the gaps with as much as possible. I've said it before sometimes you gotta roll with it. Wether it's dealing with NPC's trying to "spice things up", or players throwing a wrench in the mix, Abbey delt with it. I say I'm not big on RP, but I loved playing Jack the Pooper, and whn I saw the pudding for dessert I couldn't resist. I wanted to see where it would go but things were running long and I got sent for more dish soap. So Jack might be back.
Coming out as the skeletons was a blast as well, and we had a lot of fun just changing up our damage and HP to make things less boring and a little more fun. That's a case of us NPC's essing with Abbey though I think the player's enjoyed it. I know Cory and I had a few good boughts once I upped the damage and became a threat to those higher level players. I have a couple points I want to raise, as I know it was mentioned that one of the skeletons moved a little fast. I admit there were definitely times where I got sped up in a fight, because I was having fun and just got into it. Especially when I'm fighting against those I'm usually fighting along side. In addition to going fast I know I started going a little hard sometimes. I find in the thick of it, you tend to speed up a little and go harder as the adrenalin gets going. One of the things I noticed is that as a PC, it's not often you are outnumbered by the monsters in a battle, maybe once or twice, but as a monster you often have 2-4 PC's attacking you, and in the thick of it you go a little harder. It's not so bad when you're fighting the likes of Third, Hamish, Kroxis and Raedra, but when you spin around and smoke Nazrat or Marr 5-6 times, it's not quite the same. I klnow I just ignored some a few times and focused on others taking the hits and pushing after a target.
Which brings me to the bad part about going hard, that with any weapon it's gonna hurt. I know my arm is bruised pretty roughly today after getting smoked hard a number of times. I know Mike's sword was the cause of one of those. And Sam's boffer on another. But I'm not complaining, it happens. I just want to point out that it really doesn't matter, boffer, Epic, or Calimacil, they all hurt sometimes. In the end we're all hitting each other we should expect to get a few bruises. I know I earned mine this weekend.
Another thing I want to remind people of is "hooking". For those that don't know it's when you use a weapon to grab and push or pull your opponent's weapon out of the way. It's mostly used in two weapon fighting or shield work. It's not a legal tactic in our LARP though. It's often accidental but I ust want people to be aware that some weapons are definitely prone to it, like my staff, Thistle's Hammer and Boris' shield to name a few. I know I gave Sheena a good shove and a smack trying to free our weapons at one point, which I'm sure led to her not liking getting hit by that thing. The combination of her soft hammer head and the barbs on the staff mean we got hooked a lot.
And finally charging. It happens. I know I charged through Boris at one point because I was getting stuck between a bunch of them. I'm not gonna call anyone out in particular, just keep an eye on it everyone.
The Earth Weaver's mod. First off I was dying to use my Orc Ears and Goblin nose. Makes me wnat to play a green skin. Tactics. You hear plot bitch about it constantly, and I see why now. All the players needed to do was go into the room. The rear wave would have stayed out, they could have dealt with the inside. Instead they took their time and then got split apart and things started going wrong. The Chaos elemental didn't help when David rolled out and we had three sections of the party out there split up. A little more planning or command on that run might have helped. Buut command is always a prolem as no one wants people to feel like they are being ordered around. But in a fight it takes discipline and tactics.
Sunday was good too though a little less memorable. I though plot's plan of not having the big Sunday climax battle was a good change as player's have begun to expect it.
Overall I can't really think of any complaints, it was a blast as always, and since Jack the Pooper escaped don't be surprised if he shows up at a tavern on a cold winter night.
