longer.blue

//MENHIRS FATE// WELP! I have resettled in my nest so now have a moment to write a bit about the event! I am going to preface this by saying Empire and Menhirs are very different beasts. Menhirs isn't replacing Empire and Empire isn't a bigger more established version of Menhirs. They are not in my mind competing systems and I genuinely believe they offer very different types of fun. So this will not be a comparison post and I will not appreciate anyone slating either systems on my posts. Overall I had an excellent event! I went with a game plan that meant my group relied on nothing beyond the world existing, and players to play with so it was going to hard to fail, but the system itself was thankfully pretty awesome, there were logistal issues but I can't remember a first larp event that hasn't had those let alone a first fest larp. The biggest feedback I can give here is SPREAD MORE INFORMATION. A sticking point for me from the lead up to the event was being left in the dark about logistical things from being ask about tents but then not having a camp plan, to certain details about getting to site only being announced on the discord and nowhere else - this is an easy fix but one that I think made a lot of people nervous. My own body was my biggest let down and I will note for anyone who may have similar issues to myself the site is fairly flat but there is a slight incline to the entire thing mixed with very knobbly ground, so for me the micro adjustments I was having to make with every step meant I was fully hobbling with back twinges by the end of each day, and anyone prone to ankle rolling needs to be very careful. --- Some specifics from my experience: 💜 There are GUILDS! I wasn't sure how these would be in play and as far as groups go we weren't set up to really engage with them a lot but what we did engage in was ace. They all existed in seperate large tents with various set dressing and were well manned by crew throughout the weekend. Whilst we only really engaged with one actual 'guild contract', unlike in other systems I have played the guild npc's very much were there to enable other play outside of their specific roles too! We got hired for our personal services to harass other guilds on their behalf! It was a very fun and interpersonal setting. 💜 The weather was pretty excellent, it stayed dry and sunny through all the daytimes. Evenings were chilly as fuck but that's what you get for cloudless skys and early in the year! I will say the site is really open so be prepared for wind if you attend! 💙 Site crew were a bit touch and go. I may have been spoilt by the fast reponse red caps that span the Empire field which is why I felt this way. The site set up was lovely and I really enjoyed the layout but it seemed like the response to issues occuring were a little muddled and at one point I was stood for 15+ minutes helping to hold up several panels of a metal fence that had fallen blocking the main set of toilets in the ic field with other players whilst hoping the site crew were coming. This is one of those 'early logistics things' that I think will absolutely smooth out over time. Fests larps are hard. 💜 Nation support were EXCELLENT! I only really strongly engaged with a handful of nations support teams but everyone I met on them were delightful and actively encouraged our ridiculous clowning! Including but not limited to: Delivering rocks with added clowning service, singing happy birthday to the same person 9 times in 4 hours, and being given a whistle to make extra sounds! 💜/ 💙 BANKING! So this one is a highs and lows situation. Personally my experience of the banking system was broadly positive. I love that it is an IC situation where you walk up and do the transactions primarily as your character with a bit of admin and that you don't have to go oc to deposit/withdraw etc, and them handling contracts for building porjects and similar really streamlined crowdsourcing HOWEVER there were clearly a few teething problems. Firstly the bank primarily for obvious reasons didn't open until 6pm for most people arriving on site Friday afternoon, which meant if you wanted to grab those initial characte resources for your pack to go play you were now in a long queue at time in to start collecting, or if you were like our group and went in at a later point there was a laevel of confusion as how to engage, we entered and saw I 'you need your character passport to use the bank' side the information we missed was 'you can pick up your character passport at the bank' which lead to some amusing intial confusement about how to use the system. 💜 CAMP ATTACKS! This was a resounding WIN for me! As a general disabled non com player camp attacks make me incredibly nervous and the lack of camp plan prior to the event doubled down on that. However in play IT WAS GREAT. The way the camps are laid out means they spider web out from the central npc area where the guilds and menhir stones are and most camp attack come from the far edge of that web so tents for accesibility/non comm were placed further in so that they could reach fights easily but fights rarely if ever came to their doorstep. This was incredibly important to me and I think is an excellent safety choice that I wish I saw more! ---