The Events of April

I have spent the last week reflecting on the events that transpired during the weekend, but more specifically what happened during Saturday night. I can safely say I am also disappointed with the final result, and while this does not serve as an excuse, I feel it is important to give some insight into what goes on behind the curtain, especially in this scenario, because of the circumstances.

To begin, my first mistake was not monitoring the NPC sign-ups at the beginning of the event to ensure that I had the appropriate number of NPCs to accomplish what I desired. The shift only ended up with 24 NPCs, which was only 10% of the total players at the event. A difficult task, but I still believed my plan of the full camp wide encounter was possible. I believed this because I had accomplished this exact model three times before. It was done previously in October 2016 with the Nighthaunt, April 2015 with the Knightmare, and June 2012 with the Gaaldron plague war. So I remained confident that I could accomplish something I had done successfully in the past. I broke the NPCs into smaller groups, while also requesting Matt as Magnus divide the town up to cover the most ground, which he did, and make this portion of the encounter go a little more quickly.

I will not further the spread of rumors, but I am aware something occurred during the encounter that caused a majority of players to miss interacting with or fighting any NPCs, as well as causing this portion to take longer than intended. By 10PM, the three major bosses for that portion were still not found and I was keenly aware of player frustration. I was running out of time at this point as I made a promise that the entirety of the finale would be finished by 10:30PM so that the memorial for a friend and fellow larper, Conrad, would be uninterrupted when it began at 11PM. So I made the decision to end that portion of the encounter early, by asking everyone to collect towards the Inn and simply move on with what was happening. The lantern was placed and the throne room revealed, but again my time was running shorter and shorter.

Frustration was building, miscommunication regarding the outside portion was still going on, and the scene began in the main hall and with only about 10 minutes remaining. We have done cut scenes before to great success and enjoyment by the payers, but ran into some problems with this one, which resulted in not everyone witnessing it, and most not hearing it in completion. Before I knew it, the scene was over, I witnessed many confusing reactions, played my recording, and witnessed some more confusing reactions. It was now 10:31 and I had to get to the memorial with about thirty other players.

You were meant to have a really good fight outside, defeat many of Necrophitus’s Generals and then after a long, fun and satisfying fight, several PCs were retiring their characters by activating the cut scene and causing the separation of Necrophitus from Malyc. Both elements ran into major problems. The NPCs you were fighting were too few, and a portion of them went missing, resulting in unsatisfying combat, and then it was followed with the cut scene suffering from some design flaws. You were never meant to fight Necrophitus, you were always meant to deal him a devastating blow by separating him from Malyc and thus making him a shadow of his former self. I think my biggest regret is that had I realized just how much you would have preferred to fight him specifically, I might have re-written the plot to allow for it. In fact had I not had to immediately leave the area for a very important reason, I might have had time to contemplate an on the spot change. What I did do before going to the lake was run to logistics and ask the MM to send out some heavy combat to try to make up for the disappointing combat in main mod.

I have spent a great deal thinking about what I could have done in hindsight if I had more time, or if other factors were different. Ultimately what happened was done, I am by no means pleased with it, but it is something I have to accept. James keeps assuring me that he is not disappointed in me, but I truly wish that out of all the events I have run, this was not the one that ran into so many problems at its culmination. I humbly take responsibility for the problems that occurred and vow to do better in the future.

Knowing the issues that occurred, I will not be running plot for at least the next two months. Instead I will be spending more time in Logistics, looking for ways to help them improve how it functions. This won’t be the end of my reflections on this weekend. There was a great deal to learn of the mistakes, failures, and even the successes that came from all of it. I will say that I am proud of all the players that put so much work and effort into both portions of the event. Costuming, role-play and effort was top notch from all of you NPCs and PCs alike, and I wish that I had given myself the forethought to avoid the problems that diminished the quality of the ending. I will continue to strive to improve by my own abilities, as well as the overall function of the game. Thank you for your understanding and I promise to work harder and smarter for you next time.