As a world background Bladelands is fairly classic. Rather than bore you to tears I'll let you research this for yourself, suffice to say that most every cliche you can think of is there for you to play.

The system it's self has recently gone through a bit of a review which seems to have roned out some of the kinks. The referee team are approachable so even if you encounter a kink that no one else has seen they are all open and honest enough to sit and talk it through with you.

Combat is your old faithful. Armour modifies, and there are spells and powers that give extra hits, or confer extra damage.

Magic seems to be very fluid. There are 'point and clink' BOOM magics, ritualistic magics and other bits and pieces that allow for a pretty detailed world background. That said i don't play a sorcerer so you'd have to ask one of them what actually playing one is like...

As for the event its self the plotline its self was the culmination of the second chapter. As such it might not make a great deal of sense... but there where three dragon spirits, and they had each possessed a person. These spirits where the dragon of life, death, and unlife. As I said, this is going to make little sense so there is little point going into too much depth. (Plus I don;t know all of whatwas happening!!)

Good points of the weekend;

The Combats - These where long, and very hard. In some cases we where pushed for what felt like hours. That said I was playing a starting character (having suffered Healer Death on Friday night - you know? when you go down in a fight and start your death count, only to be the last one the healers come to... either because they had forgotten about you, or did not now you where there!) so I was not expecting to be able to affect a great deal of things. There where lots of well experienced characters at the game with magical weapons and odd damage calls, but I was there with a sword and shield. That said, I seemed to be able to put stuff to the ground, even if the monster in question did not stay down it felt good to not be totally outclassed by line monsters. It is worth saying that because this was a finale event I think this explained the level of the combat.

The Banquet - My first LRP experience was F'n'H where in my day the weekend events always had a banquet. I like communal eating, especially when its well cooked and this meal was certainly excellent. My only regret about the banquet was that there is not the same culture of entertainment as I remember from F'n'H however since these Banquets are organised on a fairly Ad Hoc basis, and are massively dependent on the site we use (and on if we can convince the Mightly Sarlacc to cook for us!!) I figure that people haven't yet gotten into the mindset yet. I did a bit of story telling, and look forward to more in future!

The Linears - I had great fun out of the various linears I was on. I was nearly married off on one of them, which was something of a surprise. Crewing/playing is decided by the refs and you will be told when you are 'Out Patrolling' (IE crewing) so as to explain why you are not around when crewing. You can choose not to crew if you wish, by paying the refs more cash. Thats fine, but I like the old school nature of 'play/crew'.

Low points;

I thought that I was going to have a rubbish time given my fairly well established character died a very ignoble death, however I figure thems the dues so you can't really complain.

Other than that I struggle to think of any real low points. I mean, as with most games there are lulls in the flow of the game, and sometimes the crew seemed a little over stated (however at this point the fact that this was a finale event with some very hard experienced characters needs to be kept in mind. I was a starting character so a creature stat-ed as a challenge to a character thats been around for a about a year is going to make mincemeat out of me... again something I bear in mind!)

All in all, I had a really good event. I recommend Bladelands to people who want a old school LRP experience with lots of high intensity violence, daily linears, crew slots and classic Good Guy vs Bad Guy plotlines.

For me personally I had some of the best combats I have ever had in over 15 years of LRP, and over 20 years of roleplaying in general.

Easily a 10/10 for me.... others may disagree...

For people thinking of coming along to 3.1 (the event at the end of September) I'd firstly say that you should definitely try it!  Bladelands is a lot of good clean fun and we like it because of it.  It's unashamedly old-school and combat-driven and you should be prepared for that; make sure that you character has something to do during combats, because a lot of what happens during the event is combat and thus if you don't have anything to do (whether that's fighting or healing or casting spells or whatever) then you might get a bit bored.

I also can't emphasise enough the importance of buying Willpower 1 for any character, but that might just be a personal prejudice.

The two main ways to play combat characters would be as either a tankie-type or a skirmishers.  Skirmishers trade on mobility and the ability to escape, whereas tankies trade on being heavy hitters and heavily protected.  By and large, tankies are more successful than skirmishers, but that's not to say that there aren't successful skirmishing characters.

Sorcerers are pretty much always useful, but I wouldn't recommend a first-time player choosing a Xadamosian sorcerer as they are pretty much entirely bad guys (they are exempt from the normal rules prohibiting one PC killing another without prior ref permission -- anyone may kill a Xadamosian at any time for any reason.  This doesn't work in reverse!).

Religious types are almost always welcome; any character (except sorcerers or changelings) could benefit from True Faith, but it's particularly potent when combined with heavy combat skills.  The new rules setting out the ability for faithful types to call on a miracle really emphasise how helpful this can be.

The two other main character types to consider are thiefy/dodgy types (often best combined with being a skirmishy-type fighter to give you something else to do) and changelings (whose magical powers are best considered either as an additional string to your bow or as an adjunct to other stuff you want to be able to do).

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Joe Rooney - Battle Vegan

Insurrection LRP: high fantasy in a dystopian setting. Event Four is October 15th-17th 2010, at Consall Scout Camp Site, Staffs. Book now for a £10 discount!

Bladelands: Raoul Twice-Dead - all-round bad guy
EOS: staff - NPCing and fighting a specialty
Maelstrom: Carlito Rossini, Sol Igneus Co. - Flembic Weaverite explorer/adventurer/bailiff for hire
Odyssey: Mirrikh, Favoured Immortal of Shah Jalila of the Eyes of Darius. Died spilling Greek blood!

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