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LRP Review - BIF June 2009 |
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Written by Calliesky
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Monday, 15 June 2009 |
Hmmm, Camelot . . . .
Given the sheer amount of lore surrounding such a place and the
plethora of legends to draw from I felt this weekend was incredibly
light on storylines. Maybe we missed a whole bunch of stuff, but I must
agree that there was far more sitting around than actual activity this
time. Yes the weekend was set a few days from the castle and its
surrounds, still I had hoped for a slightly more engaging game. The
fact that until the week before most English characters had no idea
that BIF’s England was made up of three kingdoms made for a bit of
confusion—even by the end of the weekend some still had no idea where
their loyalties lay.
Friday night did begin with the normal catch-up
(after all we only get to see some people a couple of times a year),
but I think the few NPCs present outdid themselves as peasants,
especially given that it was the very first LARP for a couple of them.
Very entertaining and even confusing, and of course they provided the
info on what to look for the next day. As far as I’m aware there were
no actual events on this evening.
For the rest of the weekend there seemed to be only a few
tasks/stories to complete. Save the girl and some items from Redcaps,
find out (and subsequently defeat) the troubles at the lake, deal with
the ‘questing beast’, obtain some monster parts and make sure all items
ended up in the correct hands.
After taking a stab at the questing beast and deciding that was a
bad joke (and that it couldn’t reach us anyway) most of these stories
were wrapped up by sundown Saturday. By dinnertime I was trying to
imagine what the night-time events would entail . . . but by 11pm had
figured out there would be none. For the first time in many years
players were able to get to be before midnight and not feel that they
were missing any gameplay. After the frightening night events of the
last weekend or two this would have been a relief — had I felt
challenged by the story during the day. Dinner was good, much more
relaxed and actually tavern-like in comparison to recent weekends.
Would have loved to see and actual tavernkeep from Friday through
Sunday who we could pay and interact with, could have been a great role
for an NPC . . .
On Sunday only one task was left – defeat the beholder stalking
the Lake and return the mirror regained from the Redcaps to its
rightful owner. The Lady of the Lake, frozen in it by some great power
(hopefully the beholder or we had really missed something). I believe
working out how to take down the beholder was the greatest challenge of
the weekend, but with twenty odd players at the showdown and its
aftermath there wasn’t much room for more than standing around and
watching. Indeed one person was brave enough to bypass the beholder and
walk out onto the ice whilst the confrontation occurred behind them but
I think her foray was cut short by all the players descending on her in
the immediate aftermath.
This presented a great opportunity for characters to use several
skills that are rarely utilized in game and allow these background
characters to become involved. Balance is something that is logical to
used in walking on ice, is almost never used in the game and yet when
asked if needed this was dismissed by the GMs. As such every one
trooped out onto the ice, and the chance for some independent activity
was lost. And this is the reason I question why so many of the skills
are still present in the BIF system. If they are never to be used, why
should any person take them?
The one improvement I have to allow from this weekend was its
potential connection to the next weekend and by extension to past
events. The ongoing storyline of ‘the scarab’ was bought into the open
here and a direct request for help has given every PC a reason to
travel to the next few countries. This was great, and I hope that there
will be the same strong incentives given to those who were not present.
Many characters this weekend had absolutely no reason to be there, and
this is a constant key that seems to be missing from BIF weekends.
Given a character reason to attend, or even to not
attend, may improve player and NPC numbers. I have always NPCed
weekends where my character has no interest in going and given stronger
incentives I think this could be apply to all characters.
Overall this was certainly not the best weekend, indeed one of the
slowest I’ve attended. A few aspects that have been tried and failed in
the past and yet are re-used — in this case the magic gems in the
tavern. Given that these items protected the town and by extension the
party from the apparently unbeatable ‘Questing Beast’ (aka the yeti)
they had to be protected. There were several attempts made to steal the
gems which of course meant that they must be guarded. Which in turn
meant that only a couple of people were willing to sit still for the
whole weekend to do this.
I know the argument is “That’s a player’s choice”, but every
time that choice and sacrifice is made by the same few people. Players
do not pay for a weekend to come and sit by an important box or item
whilst everyone else goes off on adventures. And a roster of guards had
NEVER worked out on the various times is has been tried. This weekend
it took not the attacks and attempts at theft but an incursion by the
unbeatable beast for any other PC to pay attention to the items, and
even then only one person of the fifteen or so asked was willing to
take over responsibility for the gems. This is the third time at least
that such artefacts have been written into a game and each time whoever
has taken responsibility for such things has had their enjoyment of the
weekend derided by its necessity. Sure it’s the noble thing to do, and
yes such items might be easy to make a story of, but if by their very
creation you are going to ensure that someone/people are going to get
less out of the weekend then just leave them out!
Another difficulty was the crew. Yes there were not enough NPCs,
yet the few there were did well with the exceptional lack of roles
offered them. Across the whole weekend most of the acted only as
redcaps or peasants, with all major roles being played by GMs.
Seriously, LARPs need NPCs but if a person knows they will be outright
bored if they volunteer then there will be no one willing to do it. I
feel very sorry for those who did NPC this time, especially given that
two of them were first-timers. It really didn’t seem to be a good
introduction for them.
So, altogether somewhat of a disappointment. Very slow moving
story, little in the way of NPC variety to interact with, and
purposeful seclusion of PCs didn’t help at all. Maybe reintroduce a few
more static or puzzle encounters and create some story linked roles
NPCs can fall back into when not monstering. Setting (props and
costuming) were fine, not problems there. It doesn’t matter how many
props you have though, the NPCs are what make an atmosphere. They did
well with the little story available to them.
Again I rank weekends only by comparing them to each other. This
one would rank in the bottom five of all the BIF events I have attended
— around 4/15 I think.
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