Festival of Crows Review

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Dramm a'dan

Dramm a'dan

Scholar
Another year of the Festival of Crows has come and gone. Team Gold Leaf winning and taking home the grand prize.

I know several folks are chomping at the bit to post a view. Remember, 15 Goobies if you post a review, and please post a signature so we know who you are.

Here you can give us more of your favorite encounter as well as your least favorite. Let us know what you liked and disliked, and what we can improve on to make your game better.
 
I loved the level of costuming; players went above expectations in getting into gear that suspended disbelief, and staying in their costumes to to best of their abilities. Well done!
I also appreciated the commitment to staying in character. Some of the best times of the weekend were hanging out by the firepit, IN CHARACTER. So much more fun to tell stories, recall events and razz each other in character.
The committed level of play of the PCs inspired me to consider PCing again for the first time in years. Thanks for rekindling my love of the game, Breachers.

Two things I am looking to see more of; in-battle RP and player driven plot. I found that the high level of roleplaying was suspended as soon as the danger of battle loomed. Not that you cannot play a sneaky back-stabber, or taciturn, efficient warrior, but those types of character traits are lost if even the jolly Hobling or sleazy bard transform into silent killers the moment battle begins. If PCs take the time to step back and issues challenges, or taunts, or swing a flurry of sword work in the air before stepping back into the fray, I am certain the NPCs will give them that moment to shine, and the battle will be more fun and more memorable. Secondly, I dreaded the feeling that player were 'waiting for plot'.... if each PC came prepared with some sort of activity to fill those transitional lay-overs, the game would be more inclusive, vibrant and interactive. Bring a song or story for the firepit, bring a medieval board game, prepare some riddles and offer a reward for the first to solve it, bring a puzzle box and offer to split the treasure inside with anyone who can figure out how to open it, 'accidentally drop' your dagger in the woods somewhere and offer a reward if it is returned, craft a gift for another group in game and plan a ceremony to present it and reuest a boon from them, ... so many cool things we could do, and if everyone had just one in their back pocket, we would have people running all over the site doing cool stuff. And, cool stuff is cool.

Thanks to the teams for bringing some epic level pagaentry (and I loved eavesdropping on the various strategy discussions) and for being so generously inclusive to those who didn't have teams to compete with. Thanks to Abbey for herding the cats of Monster camp and keeping the complexities of plot on track. Thanks to the generous spirit of the NPCs for the willingness to do whatever was needed to make the game fun for the players (and other NPCs).

Sincerely, Paul 'Cynewulf' Beach, a.k.a. Bolli Braggason the dwarven merchant
 
Yay! An amazing event has come and gone, and though I am physically exhausted, I want to do another right away! Everyone was amazing! PC sharing in this game is on a much higher scale than that of other games I have played. I had two swords lent to me during the event, as well as a breastplate! I was not expecting that at all! Everyone is sort of family at this larp, and I loved the differences in reaction it created.

The NPC's were awesome too! From the little elf hat seemed to want to organizes every pine cone in the forest, to the adorable zombie, to the undead dog, that I really wished I could have had a proper go at... Everyone played their roles so well! It made me both hate, and love, some of you! I agree that there are times when we seem to 'wait for plot' though. I would love to see players more involved in grabbing their own story lines and incorporate them into the game. It would be great to see groups getting together, making plans, and acting on them when plot is off preparing. The lulls while plot was preparing were dull, and obviously we cant expect them to jump for us. We need to make fun ourselves!
I really hope we start using places like this more and more! I love the atmosphere it creates, and it's a lot of fun to explore a new place. Obviously we couldn't cover as much space as we'd like due to the floods and whatnot, but in future I'd love to see plot sending the pc's to places we'd never seen before to fight monsters, or just have fun. The new places make us work harder, and bring an atmosphere that is amazing. Hopefully next time we get to hunt for instamods too! If plot just puts them where they know we'll find them, there's not as much fun. Make us go for a walk to find them, everyone loves an Easter egg hunt!

Looking forward to next event! Loving the game guys!
Lizzie
 
I had a blast.

Troll ball was a lot of fun. I'll go with my suggestions for improvement first so that I can end on a good note.

First, in the rules write up on festival of crows, it states that each event is worth 5 points, but then it states that each item in the scavenger hunt is worth 5 points. This leads me to believe that regardless of placings in other events, that whoever dominates in the scavenger hunt, wins all. There is similar mention in the archery event. I'd like to see more even scoring system than that. - Clarified by Cory below. Thanks.

I like the large creature battles, but find that the call of massive damage from all it's limbs is a bit frusterating, I'd like to see more theatrical, played out, slower swings from creatures that do massive damage. I want massive damage to hurt, not kill people before they realize what's happened.

What was done very well was the organization of the festival itself. The events had good spacing (with the exception of the heros battle being directly after the mages battle - but I already know it was because we were behind schedule).

The NPCs were once again - fantastic. I know that I made extra effort to bow and show respect to the nobles this game, and in return received much more interaction than I had in the past.

All in all, I look forward to next time.

-Tammy / Raiedra
 
angilwingz said:
I had a blast.

Troll ball was a lot of fun. I'll go with my suggestions for improvement first so that I can end on a good note.

First, in the rules write up on festival of crows, it states that each event is worth 5 points, but then it states that each item in the scavenger hunt is worth 5 points. This leads me to believe that regardless of placings in other events, that whoever dominates in the scavenger hunt, wins all. There is similar mention in the archery event. I'd like to see more even scoring system than that.
- Raiedra
Click to expand...

The way the scavenger hunt works is for each item there are points given. Then we score the list and the team with the most points wins the event (they are given 5 points) second gets 4, then 3 etc. This works the same for the riddles.First team that brings the correct score gets 5 points and downwards. Team with the most points wins the event and then scores 5 points on the overall chart. There is a total of 10 categories so the absolute best a team could score is 50 points. Team Gold Leaf won with 39 points.

Let me know if that clears it up. :thumbsup:
 
It was a very solid weekend, I liked the atmosphere, I got a little too much sun and too many bugs for my liking but you gotta take the good with the bad.

It was great to see a variety of new players willing to get themselves in the game, and players willing to help them out within their many groups.
I loved having several Merchants, and one who doubled as a Bard. I FREAKING LOVE BARDS. Music pleases me so greatly especially in fantasy role-play.
The colours were fantastic, entertainment was great, the competitions were wonderful...

I had some hiccups with Troll Ball, I admit it is mostly due to my lack of field sports experience with rules like boundry lines, throwing backwards, etc.
The first game we played was obviously not one we really had a chance in at all, which albeit started my frustration.. but life isn't always fair. :)

I loved the dedication people had to costuming, being in character, and working hard at maintaining a very friendly, honourable ambiance even when
we had death and decay in our midst.. kudos to all.

See you all in the Breach!
 
the good: the npc team was extremely funny and fun to interact with. The teams had great dynamics among themselves and between each other. the camping was alot more fun than i expected and alot easier though i gotta remember to apply more sunscreen XD i also loved the red herrings just before the manticore fight that was a nice pun from plot.

the bad: I wasn't to fond of troll ball but i'm sure I'll like it better once i get abit more used too the rules :) the heat nearly got to me a couple times major thanks to mobious and a few others who helped me cool down. all in all it was a really tight weekend.

the ugly: the undead team ;) just kidding you guys where great
 
I had an absolute blast. The events were a ton of fun, the NPC's were amazing, and seeing the new players getting involved with the games and teams was great.

Highlights:

Saturday night, Dodger and Third were sitting at the fire, looking out through the gap in the trees over monster camp. watching the fire, watching the moon over the mountains, chatting, watching the fire, watching the moon.....Dodger pauses, looks at the moon. "****." I glance up. "Nice and round tonight, isn't it?.......Ah, could be rounder."

The chant of "Third! Third! Third!" then I was fighting Ryan in the Heroe's battle was seriously heartening.

The colors presentations for all three teams were amazing. I know how much work went into the Brotherhood's colors (A shitload), and I was still amazed at the other team's colors.

Troll ball was an absolute blast. I'll be disappointed if we don't play more back at the Breach. Watching people getting hit for 1 sleep, and just collapsing and tumbling because they went limp while at a full run was awesome. I gotta agree with what Cory said at sushi - I'd pay to watch that. As frustrated as I got with the undead playing troll ball (to the point of walking away until I could get myself under control), I almost, ALMOST wish they'd beaten us, because if they had, the Brotherhood was withdrawing from the festival and wiping them out.

The manticore fight was a lot of fun, also, even if it was just thrown together as an afterthought.

When the chancellor was making his closing speech, all the PC's were inching forward, slowly drawing weapons, waiting for him to officially end the festival, because those undead were going DOWN.

I liked the after-game wrap up chat, as things get mentioned there that are fresh in people's minds that would get forgotten a day or two later when we write our reviews.

It was good to actually see the King again, however briefly. After all the time and work we've put into rescuing and curing him, it's nice to finally see some results.

Low points:
I already mentioned my frustration with playing troll ball against the undead, but other than that, I honestly can't think of anything. I didn't even notice the lack of instamods and lairs until the endgame wrap-up.

The brotherhood's entertainment thing. *shakes fist at Dayna* That wasn't what we were going to do. Kerza and Croxsus were supposed to just straight-up fight blindfolded, at full or near-full speed. Oh well, I'm not too concerned. the Brotherhood won the events we really should have won - though the events we lost, we lost hard.
 
Things that I appreciated/liked at the event.

- A wake up horn. Not only does this call people to breakfast that are on the meal plan, but it also lets the players know that the game is getting back into swing on the monster camp side.

- Encounters with different friendliness/hostility levels to the PCs.

- The costume level and dedication to RP of the PCs and the NPCs.

- Magic items with durations (lasts until “x” month).

- Items handed out/looted that are needed and used that event.

- Skills taught to PCs by PCs being RPed out, instead of simply signing a tag and calling it done.

- Insect swarms at night. They looked awesome! I also assumed they were in response to the garbage and bottles left lying around.

- Glow sticks used to light obstructions rather than bright lights.

- Effort made to make OOG speech sound IG. For example going to the cars for items was “heading out to the caravan for supplies”.

- On a personal note: the begining sparks of PC on PC drama between my character and other characters. Just so happens to be my favourite aspect of larp.

- Play acted damage (when it happened).



Things that I think would improve the game.

- A receptacle away from monster camp for monster camp packets, even a throw down one at major encounter locations.

- A town crier that reports IG news, plot hooks, general setting information, and PC services offered by other PCs and NPCs. It could be done at the start of re-set (the second logistics). It would be a useful IG bit of RP, but would OOG announce just by its presence that the skill re-set had just occurred and that logistics was now open.

- Don’t attack town center (or in the camp site the central fire area) unless you want the whole player base to respond. Small encounters should be done away from the town proper, and it would not be unadvisable to have a marshal present to advise people if they could or could not intervene upon late arrival.

In other words train the PCs to ask a marshal if they are “close enough” to engage an encounter that is currently going on before rushing in. You could even get very elaborate with this giving them counts to go through before entering saying, “You see the fight in the distance but it will take you 5 minutes (a 300 count) to come to their aid, if you want to come from the woods on their flank it will take you 8 minutes (a 480 count) to sneak around and come from that side. You want to swim across the river to get to them faster? Take off your armour and then it will take you 2 minutes (a 120 count).

- Let people use their own bows during the archery challenge. I know a single bow is used to make things “fair”, but it actually isn’t since people that have used (or do use) the same type of bow in the challenge end up with a pretty substantial advantage. The players that won the challenge both years had spent time shooting with exactly the same style of bow used in the challenge.

I’m fairly competent with my own bow (which is an 18 pound draw), but I can’t hit the broad side of a barn with the bow supplied for the challenge.

- A black market box for selling items to logistics with the merchant skill. Just a simple locked wooden ballot style box with a sharpie marker on a string attached. PCs would take item tags (stolen or otherwise) and write their name, character name, and member number (much like a teacher tag) on the back of item tag and deposit it in the box. Next game the appropriate amount of coin would be in their envelope.

The box would be IG all the time (in a not so public area), but easily accessible, tags would have to be signed AT THE BOX before being deposited (not before), and people being observed using the box would be known to have had dealings with the black market though unless someone saw the tag being deposited they would not know what was sold. Players could (if they wished) attempt to guard or prevent people from using the box, “I don’t think I’ll let you go to the black market today, I suspect you have stolen goods”. The box also would obviously not be able to be stolen or lock picked since it is a network of illegal trade IG not a box.

This would not replace using the merchant skill at logistics. It would simply offer players another option for selling goods (merchant skill required), albeit a more devious one.
 
Alrighty, time for the reviews! The Festival of Crows I had been worried for with the fact of that ligament stretch that I seemed to do in the middle of the week right before it. However by the end my body allowed for a surprisingly active Sunday, and the results for Team Goldlead was a amusing one with most of us thinking we got second! (Iron Brotherhood leaves a good solid impression.)

That said, pros and cons!

Pros
-Big Monster are always a blast, and make up if there is a smaller lack of npcs, the Manticore and the look of several as they dodged that spiked tail was both exciting and hilarious.
-Damage was something that was a good wave of variety and types. I am curious if gas globes would have been critically effective against the swarms.
-The site was begging to be explored, and if it wasn't for that incessant swarm of bugs you could lose hours I'm thinking seeing the entire place out
-Unintentional advertising. There's something funny about watching folks fly by us wondering what the heck we're doing.
-Games came out fun as last year, and a good mix for both the scholarly and physical teams. The balance allowed for as before the difference of points being two a chance for anyone to win.
-Things were well balanced out for the most part from what was planned in getting compressed. While there was spaces in between it was something in the festival that was wanted, especially with the heat!
-Chancellor, well done on your starting and ending speeches, were a lot of fun ^_^
-Best Spellcaster Duel to date or any other type of spell fight. There was a miss-communication beforehand but overall it was a lot of fun in that gentlemanly way us three sort've fought dipped, dived and dodged the entire thing.

Cons
-Location: While the location was nice and the directions made sense. It was those last fatal two directions that killed from what I heard several players/npcs. If we do this again I'd like to see if nothing else just a sign at the entrance pointing it out. With this we can have just a confirmation it was the right road, as there was a road fifty yard down that looked about the same in direction and shape of the road we were supposed to be on.
-Mosquitos! Oh my goodness, those buggers ate quite a few of us alive x.x Not something we can fix, but it was rather infested when the sun was up.
-TrollBall: While playing with the players was all well and good, the Undead team did throw a few curve balls at the folks still trying to get used to all the rules, or rather where there wasn't restriction. Also there was confusion as to whether the sticks could actually waylay or not (I suspect you could.) Next time a printed copy just to have on hand to read might make this smoother.

Overall I've usually not been for camping LARPs simply because of the problems that can occur being caught between tents (strings for tents I had a tendency to trip on), bad backroads for driving or simply the simple lack of getting away from the mid-day sun briefly inside a closable building away from the bugs. This however was a lot of fun and nostalgic of a certain Camp Caroline's environment. Hope we do it again soon!
 
My review is going to be rather limited in scope, as I spent most of the evenings either sleeping or hiding from things I could not see in the dark.

Loved the costuming on the part of the NPC's I did see: local elves, merchants, nagas, the undead (tm) and Giovanni's troupe were great. (I think I might have passed near a blood orc or some such as well, but I honestly couldn't see by that time of night.) Found when folks were IG they were very IG but saw some slippage when there was rules confusion and a few times around the fire. (I was guilty of this as well, though I tried to white-headband in silence for things I needed to do OOG like finish my sewing.)

Beautiful site! I didn't get to explore much in the dark, but going to different spaces for the events during the day was great. I wish I had had better timing to see the red herrings, because the river space was lovely and the only other thing I had faced down there was the Nagas. I find I have the fortune/misfortune to go wandering and not encounter anyone most of the time.

Great range of events, for the most part. Loved the riddles, scavenger hunt, entertainment, archery, race and combat. My group had some confusion with the trap challenge, and I would love to face some more frequent lower-risk traps to practice my understanding of the rules/mechanics upon. (I think that in archery the one-bow-to-bind-them-all was pretty fair, and that teams should assemble/pick an archer with that consideration in mind.) I *loved* that the scavenger hunt was so open to interpretation, and I would like to see someone keep notes as to *how* people submitted some of the less defined items. Timing did seem quite tight, and in future years I could see maybe even bumping the colours to Friday after dinner to give everyone more time. I didn't record what happened when, but it seemed like a lot of the combat and troll ball happened at the hottest part of the day, and two of my team mates were having some trouble not getting heat stroke/exhaustion. Only subbing in outside players saved our team from being *physically* unable to finish the 3 on 3 combat.

Troll ball: While troll ball may be fun in the future, being new to the rules *and* facing the undead at the same time was really frustrating. (I also found it more than slightly dangerous, being a physical game on uneven ground.) It was suggested to me that we could unmagic the boffers and hit for normal, and I briefly thought it was part of a larger plot to damage the undead. My team discussed that if we injured the undead that they would have to stay wounded because necromany to heal them would have been *illegal*. While I didn't witness the judgement personally, the call of "just don't do necromancy around us" from the judges disgusted Kai and confused me. Possibly this call was made OOG because plot didn't have a back-up plan for if the undead were killed off early during the combat events, or maybe there is more about the undead going on IG than I personally understand- either way it was *very* jarring.

Other points: with this being a camping event it would be nice if we could organize some way of doing a communal gatorade/hot chocolate station in the day/evening, though I'm not sure on the logistics of this. There seem to be confusion about PC/NPC folks sharing tents so I think folks offering to share tent space should clarify whether it's an NPC or PC space. Also, I was confused (and, honestly disappointed) at the end of the festival that only one team received cash winnings, when the rules say "each point is worth 4 silver pieces per team".

I think that concludes my review..
 
I had a great time yet again though exhausted beyond Liked the undead team surprise. Added a interesting spark and created some ig interactions with them. Adding in troll ball was fun though tiring. Thankfully we could sub out people from other team or non team people. In the future perhaps maybe make it 3 or 4 points instead of 5 to win before 15 minutes. One thing I was surprised that did happen was the that the 2nd, 3rd place teams (undead don't need coin)didn't get coin like last year. Can't wait for next event

Brian
 
Had a lot of fun this weekend! The site was beautiful and filled with so many hidden gems. If we could only get the beautiful streams and islands without the bugs...

It was fun being an NPC as I got to enjoy all the colours and pageantry! Hats off to all the teams. You guys pulled it off with style and grace :0)

I love the props! The stories, singing and dancing... What can I say, I like musicals. I like the symbolism of a Dark Elf giving his race's training secret to an other Elf. All of it!

Troll ball looks fun but there should be more bribes! Not a single player tried to bribe my assistant character (and as far as I know Keith's character)to make a bad call. Come on guys! I expected more from the PCs. And yes, I am looking at you scoundrel!

Anyways, can't wait for the next game!
 
All in all I had a great time at the festival if crows. I thought the npcs did a great job with both there portrayals and costumes ( the undead pimp squad was great ) The events were great and other then some confusions with troll ball and being the first vrs the undead ( and almost dropping due to heat exhaustion lol ) I thought it went pretty smoothly. My favourite part of all was watching brunors first one on one fight and how close it ended up.

For my very first festival it was a blast and look forward to the next one
 
First time larping in 6 months and you made it amazing.
My favorite things; an actual in game economy is a really big thing for my character;many people going out of their way to include me and get me into the game; big monsters like the manticore, massive is scarey and i think it suits them; the npc costuming and level of rp was fantastic; there were many more things but those were the big ones for me.

Possible areas for improvement; none that I can currently think of, I believe the game was very well organized.
 
By now, most of what I want to say has been said. I agree that the NPC's were great and kept us on our toes. I also liked the variety of terrain for the different encounters, poor Celestial's having to hike all the way across the field :) (As well as the encounters by the river, which were some of my favorites) My biggest complaints all weekend were about items we had no control of (too dark Friday night, and voracious blood sucking mosquitoes)

My all time favorite line from the weekend, was from after Vaegar was resurrected after dying in the Mage duel. When he sat up and said, "Did I win?".

Troll Ball
- Started off rough, but by the time we figured out how the rules worked, I had a blast! Maybe next time a new game is introduced, have a demonstration match so that we can see how the rule translate from paper to action.
- One suggestion would be to have water available by the Troll Ball field next time. All that running around in the heat really did a few of the players in.

Hope this review is helpful
 
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