The Fate of Sunday Gameplay

In our continuing effort to improve gameplay and operations here at KR, we hope to learn more about how you play our game and how you all feel about different aspects of our game. The subject of Sunday modules has long been a matter of discussion. There have been times where there have been great ones, times when they have not even existed, and our clean-up and departure time has slowly but surely crept later and later in the day Sunday over the years.

What are your thoughts? Is the Sunday module a highlight of your weekend? Would you prefer to have more time for cleaning so folks can get moving earlier on sunday and have more time to socialize? Please feel free to share your thoughts.

While I do enjoy sunday mods, I find that perhaps if we had a couple more hours friday night and shorter on sunday, that may improve the overall feel of the game. Maybe shift everything by 2 hours? start around 8 on friday night instead of 10 or 11? The only gripe I ever have about sunday is that a lot of people leave sunday morning or saturday night, and the biggest thing is I've found that sunday is more or less a day for rp. There has usually been one major mod, but the problem is, it rarely has something to do with future events, or even current events of that weekend. How about making sunday mod a prelude for events to come if that's even possible.

Did somwone say start earlier on Friday? 

I give a vote of take it or leave it due mostly to when the Sunday mod is an interesting one it's all the more worth it and I don't mind heading out a little later.  For instance, "The Chase for Birnum Pyre" a few months back on Sunday morning was, in my opinion, one of the best Sunday mornings I have experience at KR.  Everyone was involved and was excited to be involved.  It also had a large part in the over all goings on at KR making everyone wanting to know, "what is going to happen next?"

It is understandable the some people have long drives and a lot to pack up, but seeing cars on the camps early and people OOG socializing completely throws me out of the IG mentality.  Many times Sunday morning also seems to not have any real tie in to the story of the entire weekend, giving it a feeling of it is just "filler".

Again, this is just one opinion, and there are many things that can be done to make Sunday better and more fun.  I'd very much like to see Sunday become something more of a teaser leaving me with the "I can't wait for the next KR weekend" feeling.

So to sum it up, if Sunday morning is well laid out, involving, and interesting I am all for it, but if it's Sunday mod for the sake of having something to do on Sunday then it seems like a lot of time spent getting IG for very little, if any, IG growth or experience.

I'm going to echo some of what has already been said. sunday is fun, but I believe it could be better if the actual plot for the weekend wasnt always ended on Saturday night after main mod. Not saying like, shift everything around, or that every plot needs to keep going after Saturday night, but the occasional finishing on Sunday would be a good way to keep people occupied. Also an alternative, as was already said, use Sunday as maybe a preview or the like for the next plot thats coming, even if it doesnt seem like its tied to anything at the time.

Starting during daylight hours on friday I think would be in everyones wishes, but outside the realm of possibility.
Most of us work during the week and some of us drive 2-3 hours or more to make it to events after work/packing/preparing.

I think that Sunday mods typically degenerate into bumming around the Inn , learning skills and lots of goofball humor. I think the atmosphere goes from solid to shabby quickly on Sunday morning. Despite having had some fun times with individual players on Sundays I personally could see the advantages of making Sunday a day for the players and have certain elements of logistics and cleanup happening behind closed doors until the official hold.

Going back to what I began with; Friday is a day that is often wasted away trying to set things up and only those players which have the IC capacity to seek out specific  involvement can benefit from the Friday night mods which tend to have a dramatic impact on the weekend and involve more thought and less hacking and slashing than Main Mod.

I would like to see and in my own capacity would help with, the promotion of Friday afternoon/Night mods. Even if Sunday Mods had to be sacraficed. Even if only a small portion of the playerbase is at the camp and ready to go at 5pm Friday there should be something ready to run for them. The people who dont get to the camp until 10pm (such as myself) or later are simply arriving late to the barony and dont need to be waited around for.

Actuallý, starting early may be very beneficial to new players too. The one complaint I've heard the mosþ from new players is that they aren't familiar with the campground and nightime mods aren't really condusive to getting familiar. Daylight hours and mods might make it much easier on them as well.

My own personal opinion reflects many of the statements that have been already said, such as it would be well worth it if the quality of them where simply kept consistently up. I personally don't mind the "lazy" feel of Sunday, its a wind down time. Its a time, to relax in-game after a long weekend, learn some skills you forgot to learn during the weekend, and in-fact goof around in-game, but I don't see that as a negative myself, I see that as a good time. 

I do like the idea of having the occasional weekend plot that does not resolve until Sunday morning, I also like the idea of the occasional Sunday mod that pre-ludes the next event a bit, but baring those two things, the Sunday mod needs to be run well, by an experienced MM, who knows how to put together a final mod for the weekend, that players can enjoy, leaving them with a satisfied feeling.

Sunday mods are great when they work.  When they don't, the atmosphere does tend to degrade.

One of my first events, I was approached on Sunday by Celestine.  She asked me if I could help restore the healing nexus by telling my story while walking a certain path with a crystal.  I was then dominated to attack Celestine as soon as something went wrong.  That mod set a pretty high standard for Sunday mods for me.  It was also a really positive, fun experience.

The Dark Druid mod that ran several months ago, and before that the Grimdar mod, were some of my finest Kr moments ever.

Regarding Friday

I think everyone would love to be able to start earlier on Friday, but there are some logistical reasons why it doesn't happen:

1. Logistics is typically overwhelmed with sign-in, to the point that it would be difficult for a MM or other plot person to get set up and start preparing NPCs. It might be possible to change the location of sign-in or to have NPCs prep somewhere else for the first few hours; this would be much more feasible at Hickory Run than Sac.

2. Personnel availability. Not only do you need enough PCs to be ready early, you need a MM or plot person and some NPCs. It's pretty much impossible to ensure that we'd have the personnel needed to run a mod or encounter, short of some volunteers coordinating to be there ahead of time.

3. Atmosphere is difficult to achieve while the majority of players are arriving, driving around the camp, and settling in to their cabins/rooms.

4. Opening announcements - rules and plot often communicate important, event-specific information at lay-on, and the fewer people that are in attendance at lay-on, the less that information will get disseminated. We previously tried posting opening announcements on these forums, but found that few people were reading them before coming to the events and that our live announcements were still vital.

5. Miscellaneous other stuff - people frequently need to find x person or y person about a host of topics (in-between event activity, character card problems, etc.) before beginning play, and it's alot easier to do that when you can move about without disturbing gameplay, and when the lights are on in the inn, etc. Simply put, it's easier and less intrusive to find someone during OOG time than IG time.

I'm not saying that these problems could never be addressed with some creative solutions, just that heretofore we have not produced a creative solution for any of them, and therefore they are the major obstacles in the way of starting the game early. I can more easily see ways to solve any of the problems but the personnel problem. If we just instituted a pre-game period, for example, that ran from 5-9, after which the game went into hold and opening announcements were held, that would solve alot of problems - except the part about having a mod and some NPCs ready to run it at 5...

Regarding Sunday

My biggest concern with Sunday is that things run late enough as it is. If we put effort into running a serious mod, the event will run later still, and I just know cleanup will run even later than that as more people will cut and run rather than help out. If there's to be a Sunday mod I'd prefer it be no later than 10am, so that it resolves with enough time for some epilogue role-play and then a good start time for cleanup.

My overall preference, though, would be that Sunday be left as a volunteer zone for plot and NPCing. We need all the personnel we can get Friday night and Saturday, believe me. When we have alot of NPCs to work with, as we did this past event, it allows us to run more things at once, which in turn allows PCs to experience mods and encounters with better PC:NPC ratios. I think everyone will get greater enjoyment out of a wider variety of things happening for smaller groups of PCs than having another everyone-and-his-cousin mod on Sunday.

My character has only been around for two events, but both Sundays were fairly dull. I'd say that if you can get a couple of mods out there, low level, mid level, mage, druid etc, and make it interesting, that'd help

I also like the smaller amount of PCs on a mod. This past event we had a low level mod with only 5 pcs and 2 NPCs, it was one of the best mods I've been on. More mini mods like that would be awsome

Sunday mods are great when they work.

That seems like a really open-ended sentence, but IMO it encompasses everything. Sunday morning only works when we want Sunday morning to work. It starts at the MM and the NPC's and filters right down to us, the players. If it's a great mod put together by a good MM with NPC's who put forth a good effort Sunday mornings can be great. This then allows the player base to latch on to the well constructed mod, and have a good time. It has to start from the top. The MM has to care more about Sunday, so the NPC's can care more, so the players will begin to care more about Sunday. Sunday has become what Sunday is because the mods are usually throw away mods with very little thought put into them, so no one really cares about them. Sunday's can be fixed over time if we all put more effort into them and not completely shut down as players once main mod is over.

Gimdar...'nuff said.

Maybe if Sunday mod somehow "led in" to the next event, giving it a sort of continuity? You know, like a cliff hanger.

I always saw Sundays mod as a opening for the next event, kinda like a preview. I also think its cool for the simple fact that you can pop a skill that you might not have been able to for the weekend so you have one last chance to do it. RP on Sundays is also fun, i too enjoy the lazy laid back settings, we always have a good amount of laughs.

Here's an idea for the pre-game anouncements. What about an in game board? Like a cork board with letters, announcements, whatever the case may be. You can put rumors up there, people can leave notes for each other, and even oog announcments if the case may be. Almost like a physical representation of the dragon's claw inn boards?

Personally Sundays are one of the rare times when I'm not doing something and I can actually teach/learn, also I like to get up a little later on Sunday, then pack up a bit before heading up to the Inn.  However, (like everyone else) there have been some great sunday mods.

I think that every once in a while have Sundays be 'interesting mod day', perhaps a segment of a over arching plot, maybe sometimes something a little silly like the Chaos Warriors (For Chaos!), sometimes a prelude of the the next event, occasionally a "hey! We still exist" day where random NPCs that the town interacted with come back, maybe angry, maybe thankful, what ever... perhaps that guy who keeps asking "who's with me?" from the rumors shows up...

However, I think the time slot should be time conscious, relatively short, and be understanding that Sunday is largely a learning time for many people.

Sundays I find are a great time to wrap things up RP wise.  I think a once in awhile heavy mod is ok.  Though speaking as someone taking the long haul to games, an earlier start time on Fridays and a wrap up earlier on Sunday would be nice.

in refrence to a 2nd spot for logistics & sign in, the spot we usually have the forge @ (at camp Sac @ least) would make a good spot for it.  which would allow for minimal disruption of "ig atmosphere" and allow npc camp to be used for corraling the first lot of NPCs. as for starting earlier.. i do not see why if people are showing up at 9 am on friday it would be so difficult to start game @ 7 or 8 pm. this past event the set up was DONE by 4 and then it was (or at least felt like) 6 hours of nothing before announcements and game on. and as for sunday i've seen ones that had nothing and ones that were fun.  at a previous larp I've been to they did not have the saturday night main mod be the "end" of the weekend plot.. they planned one final mod for sunday morning to be the ACTUAL resolution of the weekend's plot.  which would also give those higher lvl characters with stuff like slay and what not, an opportunity to use those skills that they are always itching to use sunday morning

One word: GRIMDAR.

i do not see why if people are showing up at 9 am on friday it would be so difficult to start game @ 7 or 8 pm. this past event the set up was DONE by 4 and then it was (or at least felt like) 6 hours of nothing before announcements and game on.

Alex,

Most of us work, or attend school, or both. The ones who are able to show up at 9 am to set up are the privilaged ones. While I agree with starting earlier, I also understand the argument against it, because at 7 or 8, the majority of our players are showing up. Someone else made a point that most of us also drive either 2 hours or more to get to the event, so while getting NPCs corralled and started early would be nice, it just would not be feasible.

Why not allow those able to start early?  No mods, no monsters.  Maybe a hook or RP types of NPCs.

Would love the opportunity to RP for a few hours, with no "distractions."

It worked in other Larps in which I played.

I agree with charlie. Maybe an early start time, simply rp based, no mods would be nice. If that is the case, you really don't need an exorbitant amount of npc, or any at all for that matter.

Although it sounds simple enough, having some players start early, it's not as easy as you think.

There could be issues with the camp, announcements to be made, plots to kick off at opening ceremonies, etc.
What if we need to make announcements at 8:00, but a group of players already started and are off in the woods?
There are a number of other things that I won't go into now.

Sunday mods can be saved for great weather days, when most are in no hurry and the camp isn't kicking us out. Otherwise, most of what James and others already pointed out seem the best to me.

Also keep in mind that many IG areas (especially at Hickory Run) are set up by players who don't arrive until shortly before lay-on.  Any early gameplay that had started would have to be interrupted for set-up then interrupted again for lay-on announcements.  The entire IG atmosphere of the early gameplay gets lost in the process.

As much as I like the idea of having an IG message board up at the event I doubt most people would stop to read the safety and/or restrictions information each and every event.

While I like the idea of an early start time on Friday, it would be hard.  I, personally have a long set up time with Gwynedd's shop.  Sometimes I can be ready early but most of the time I am done after it gets dark.  I know other people are also into making their cabins and other spaces more IG. 

Sunday though,  I would like a low to mid level mod to do.  It doesn't necessarily have to be about monsters.  It can be a lot of rp.  Especially, rp that preludes into the next event.  Maybe someone meets a travelling stranger with something unique to sell.  The people talk about it for a bit and then decide to put it off until the next feast.  Or just helping a stranger and get a small reward. Or some residual monsters who don't know the fight is over. 

I also like the learning time that happens on Sunday.  Sometimes it is the only time I can find my teachers.  Also, you can find out all that happened over the weekend.  That is nice.

 

And really, there's nothing stopping you from RPing from the moment you get there.  If you and a group of people are standing around, I don't think anyone would have a problem if you RPed amongst yourselves, taught each other skills, etc.  Just make sure you're around for lay-on.  Also, really, there are going to be more "distractions" during this time than any other, because as it's been stressed by others already, not everyone has the luxury of getting there early.  So even if there were NPCs to send out during that time, the mood would be constantly interupted by people walking / driving OOG to get set up.

As far as Sundays go, real life has prevented me from being around for a Sunday mod in years.  However, to be quite honest, when I used to be around on Sundays, I rarely could be bothered to go on Sunday mod.  More often than not, I was a) too tired and b) too busy trying to get all my stuff packed up to go home to take the time to go on a mod that really wasn't very appealing.  While I think it'd be great for there to be a purpose to the mod (ie. cliff hanger for next event), this is rarely practical.  I mean, if you look at it from an IG perspective, how often does a weekend mod have a hook that can be thrown out there the event before and have people's characters go "Eh, we'll deal with that problem in a month.  I'm going home."

I think that the best we can realistically ask for is that the mods be something interesting, possibly even planned out ahead of time, that would give people a reason to want to go.  Personally, if the only point is to "use up some skills", then it's not really worth it.  If it's something that has a cool story behind it, or a serious purpose, then I think it would be appealing to everyone.

--Skimmel

<<What if we need to make announcements at 8:00, but a group of players already started and are off in the woods?>>

An excellent point, but it would not be any worse than the usual occurrance when some show up late.  Plus,if its all RP, most will hang out somewhere near the Inn.

I do not think that any teaching should go on except within the parameters of the official lay-on on friday and the hold on sunday.  It just leads to bad mojo.

I agree with Mike about the no teaching/learning before/after lay-on/game end on friday night/sunday morning. howeve i still do not see why we could not have opening announcements, lay-on, Logistics at 7 or 8 pm since some people dont show up til after layon and opening announcements anyways

I said it before, and I guess I'll have to say it again, isn't 7-8 the time when the majority of the players arrive and set up?

With all this arguing, I say we just leave Lay-on at it's normal time, 10 pm. It'll save a lot of grief, I don't know about you guys, but I kind of feel like we're beating a dead horse and have strayed off topic of the Sunday morning game play

But that's just me