Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Caege was a success

While I wasn't attending this event I've heard that it was considered a success by all who attended.
Although there were some minor moments: e.g. the dreaded Saturday afternoon dip that all Belgian Larps know.
But it seems that the overall event was well liked by those who attended.

Reports like this make me sad that I have such a busy agenda. If I could I'd attend all the larps that I want, but sadly real-life is taking more of my time meaning less time for larps.

Anyway, congrats to the Caege team.

Wednesday, October 07, 2009

Calam was a great success!

Well it's a long time since I last blogged so let's give you guys and girls some updates :-)

Calam was a success
This time I'll not use my own words, I'll let the participants speak:
"To say it with the words of Saturday evenging: fracking awesome
Oh ja, the demons are sissies, if I could do all that I'd dare it too Very Happy "

"Calam was an enjoyable experience
from the point of view of an NPC it was a wonderfull interaction between players and npcs
it always made me more anxious to stay more IC when seeing the other participants
I really loved the quote "that's no metal sir, it's vulcanic glass, that's something completely different"
I'd say, all join for good rpg and athmosphere"

"I can only agree, Calam is so much more than other Larp's.
With the limited amount of participants it looked like a peronal LARP Very Happy
I'd say, join us if you like some decent roleplaying"

"Calam II was super. I really enjoyed my time there. The location was beautiful (ok, at night "a little bit cold", but still beautifull). I really enjoyed the story, the just enough story and just enough fights
so congratulations to the crew, to the npcs and to anyone who cooked this weekend"

"Thank you, to those who organised it, for the memorable event, and all the effort being put in. And thank you to the playerbase, who made the great moments all the more fun, and with whom I had some hilarious OOC moments as well."

"First of all I would like to thank everybody for the great weekend. Special thanks to the crew that spend a lot of time in scouting for a location, preparing and organising the event. Special thanks to Jeremy, Steven and Chris for making it actually work."

"You can be sure we'll be back.
Thx to the crew, it was really great.
Special thx to Steven and his Defender (you saved us a LOT of trips)."
As you can read it was a success. I'm rather proud of my crew to help me pull it off and make Calam achieve the goal I was aiming for.

No more Caege for me
It's not that I don't like Caege, I actually LOVE the world and there are some really good roleplayers there. But for Elves there's not really much to do.
Oh, I hear ya telling me to stop playing an Elf, but if the organisation doesn't provide things to do for Elves then they just shouldn't let players allow to choose an Elf as race.
I did enjoy myself last time, but that was because I made my own game. And frankly, if I have to make my own game in order to have a great time, then I believe 105 euro's is far too high participation fee. I have nothing against a Larp asking players to make their own game, but then the price should be accordingly.
I stop with Caege with pain in my heart, as it's the only larp I'd consider playing an Elf (and no, I won't consider Poort, as Poort is too old-school for me and I only hear negative feedback from friends who play/npc there). But with my diminished time schedule for larps I need to cut somewhere and Caege had enough reason for me to send it to the chopping block.

How much money is a larp worth?
Well in the previous topic I stated that 105 euro is too much for a larp where I need to make my own game in order to enjoy it. So what are the items that make me decide if a larp is too expensive or not?
Well I'll try to set up a list of things that I take into account when I choose a larp:
  • game world
  • rules system
  • food/drinks included
  • rpg standards
  • visual realism
  • amount of scenario
  • amount of fighting
  • distance from my home
Game world
That's an easy one: if the game world intrigues me I'm already with half a foot in.

Rules system
Well this is more complicated. Sometimes I'm all in for a complicated system, while I personnaly prefer the free-form system (like Calam and Dragonbane has).
I think it mostly boils down that if the system is too complex or leaves the game wide open for abuse I might not participate in that larp.

Food/drinks included
If food/drinks are included in the fee I would be ok to pay a bit more for the game. But since I organise larps where we include food and drinks I know how much it all costs. So you need to provide some pretty good food/drinks to make me pay say 40 euro's more for a larp :-).

Costume&rpg standards + visual realism
I'm grouping these threee as for me they are the main deciding factor to participate in a larp.
If a larp would allow US type of weapons, I'm out. If they allow sneakers, jeans and tshirts I'm also out. If there's too much suspension of debelief needed (aka visual realism sucks) then that's not a larp for me.
I also hate the fact when people talk too much OOC. I have no problem with a little OOC talk (I'm guilty as charged), but I still remember a larp when we were in a high tense moment, ready to kill the first who would blink in the wrong way and suddenly the main person said: "Hey, 5 minutes ago, did you ask if I had object X IC or OOC", the guy said "IC of course...", and then she would reply "Oh, but then I didn't say IC that I had it, I thought you asked it OOC". I mean, that's the worst roleplay I ever encountered. Larps where such things happen on a regular basis (people dropping in and out of the game at regular intervals) I leave aside.

Amount of scenario/fighting
If there's too much brainless fighting I won't participate. Also if there's little scenario then I won't participate if the price it too high (too high is subjective to the other items here)

Distance from my home
Well this one is easy. The further away a larp is the higher quality it must have. As I need to take into account the higher traveling costs.
For example Outlore cost me around 200 euro's but it was worth every single cent. I almost believed I was really in that game world and that's already worth some extra money :-)
The price was also high because I had to do a last minute booking of the eurotunnel and that I was alone in the car. I believe I can bring the total cost of Outlore down to 120-150 euro if I book on time and have someone along in the car to share transport costs.

Till next time