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Christopher Tookey's lovechild.
 
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Hello everyone.
So, event review. I've never done one before, so this will probably be in my usual style (longwinded), unfettered by any useful plan.
Disclaimer: Firstly, this was only my second LARP event ever (the first was EOS, which I enjoyed immensely). It was also my first linear. Secondly, due to OOC difficulties I hadn't managed to read all the things I should have read before going (I'd only skimmed the game-worlds culture and missed most of the laws and religion). Obviously that was my fault and any problems resulting from it were mine, rather than the organisers. Finally, I am a picky bastard by nature and see the flaws in everything. I also see the good sides, but I tend to mention the flaws out loud while giving less time to the good things. It's a character flaw.
Website is here.
Structure:
Arrive in the morning. Have an adventure. Have lunch. Have another adventure. You will be monstering for one adventure and playing the other. Adventures are linear, and start basically after the party meets to answer a request for adventurers.
Cost:
First two are free. After that I don't know, but I think someone said £15. Apologies for being ineffectual here, but it wasn't urgent that I knew.
Site:
Some sort of walking/natural beauty spot out past Lodge Moor, near Sheffield. Accessible by bus from Sheffield, if you don't mind walking half a mile with your kit. You could almost certainly arrange a lift from the bus stop.
Rules in four lines:
Fest system - six locations. One hit per loc for normal humans. Armour is ablative, but can't be fixed during adventures. There are special damage calls but they don't extend as far as "double". You have to buy equipment with IC money which means starting characters have crap stuff. Magic does what it says on the tin - casting vocals should tell you what happens.
Starting problem:
Bearing in mind the disclaimer, it's also worth pointing out that the rules as laid out in the players guide are a) not organised as well as they could be, and b) horribly out of date.
What happened:
Morning:
Scenario - someone has been kidnapping mages. The players must find them and stop them.
I was monstering. The player party consisted of four mages (one of whom was the head of his order), one church guy (turned out to be the head of one of the churches), one dedicated elf scout, one newbie scout (the_shoveller, on here), one rangery looking dude who seemed to be a combat character, one newbie fighter (friend of ours) and a physician.
Encounters:
1) plot encounter with a madwoman. I wasn't involved.
2) plot/possible combat encounter with some goblins. We showed up as goblins and orcs, and the players decided to talk. Eventually one of them started saying strange things so we tried to hurt him (we had an IC loathing of riddles), and a mage cast spells to make us run away. As greenskins, there didn't seem to be any motivation to run back after the spell wore off, so that finished that one.
As an aside, you might like being a mage, and you might be desperate to get your spell off, but if your casting vocal sounds like "bemypurveyor" then you aren't really playing with the spirit of it, are you? I mean, I knew I was supposed to run because the other goblins did and it was recognisably the same mumble, but if it had hit me first it would have really broken the mood when I went "what?".
3) Hulk smash!
Combat encounter with "big uns" (trolls, ogres, etc).
This was the most fun fight I had all day. I was an ogre (four hits per loc, three magic resists. Nice!). Our brief was, hit them unless they run away. We got in there and violence started. I was facing one guy and a line of sorts was pushing past my flank, so I scored six hits on the flanking guys shoulder (it was the ranger-looking guy) because my opponent was engaging too cautiously to reach (much). This brings us to our first real problem - I scored six hits on the guy, and nothing happened. I mean, if the trolls and ogres are supposed to be a reasonably serious threat, and they have four hits per loc, then why does a guy who doesn't appear to be wearing armour take six hits and keep using his arm?
Anyway, the fight broke up into a mess as most of the party legged it (mages, remember), someone cast a spell at me, I resisted, and then I learned a rule. Apparently, when you resist, you have to shout "I resist that spell" while crossing your arms over your chest. That might be a thing that you as a player would like, but personally I think the use of a targets magic resistance as a tactical weapon "I'll cast a spell at him so he won't be able to parry!" is something to be discouraged.
Eventually all the monsters died or ran off, leading to encounter four.
4) It's always the guys in black:
We were drow with a grievance - some humans including mages had kidnapped one of our guys. Here were some humans with mages. There was going to be trouble.
We had one hit per loc and a natural resist. Obviously, as fierce warriors we went in unarmoured. As a result, we got creamed. Okay, it didn't help that one drow killed another, but seriously: duh.
5) peasants and more plot:
We had a nice little talky encounter with a peasant burial party where the players could have learned something useful. Instead they knocked out the lead, knifed a priest, and nearly started a mass burning. It didn't stop them from continuing down the slightly-windy path to the objective though.
6) plot encounter. I wasn't involved.
7) Sons of Kor!
Good name! Good background too - the Sons of Kor are loyal servants of the king, like magicand have no objection to nobility in principal. On the other hand, they hate the churches and want all priests to die in pain. They also use undead and magic.
Slight downside - as humans they have one hit per loc (and one floating hit due to a potion. Woo.).
Two of us newbies snuck around behind the party (a bit - they saw us but ignored us) while the talking was going on. Then when the violence kicked off we ran behind them and mugged the physician. This leads back to the serious power level problem - the 'defenceless' physician had the ability to blow up both our weapons, despite one of them being enchanted. As a result, I had to stab him with a three inch coreless knife. Good on him for roleplaying his effete unarmed character rather than powergaming it, but if he had been armed with a hefty stick he could have put both of us "warriors" down with little difficulty. If the encounters are so soft that the squishy party members can take them one on one then where is the difficulty?
Anyway, yeah. We nobbled the healer. Then we attempted to nobble the high primate of some church. Unfortunately since he had a long stick and we had tiny daggers, and he had more hits than us (I know, because I stabbed him in the chest) that didn't end well.
8) The actual bad guys:
The actual bad guys are a bunch of unarmoured humans. Obviously we therefore died very quickly, and ranger-boy once again failed to drop despite armour-piercing hits. There is the interesting question here - how exactly did unarmoured humans manage to kidnap anybody?
9) Revenge of the actual bad guys:
Four of us went in as a second wave. Amazingly, we managed to drop two players. One of them was a newbie though, so he doesn't count (no armour).
10) You can never just go home:
On the way back, the players meet a bunch of undead. Since undead are vulnerable to necromancers and priests, and they had the head of the necromancers guild with them, it was a bit easy for them. He mind-controlled the most powerful undead into destroying most of the rest of us.
So, to sum up the morning, the players had a nice little walk and had to swat some feeble monsters along the way. I got to spend all morning being beaten up by characters that were much harder than me.
The afternoon:
Scenario - hunt down the bandits and bring the bandit king to justice.
Player party:
The head of the Gryphon Order of knights. (grand high poo-bah in full plate with an oversized weapon because knights have extra-strong hands).
The possible head of a church of some god (an election was coming up).
The head of the guild of scouts.
An important priest of welsh extraction (must have been important, since he spoke to htem as equals)
A pirate! Well. Technically maybe a mercenary, but pistol crossbow plus pirate hat says pirate to me. Nice outfit, very friendly.
A templar of the order devoted to the god of death (note that he's a benign god. Think Morr from Warhammer).
A squire of the gryphon order (also a newbie, but on to a good thing).
Some scrote of a half-elf in crap armour with a short mace and a small shield (me).
Some random halfling with a bow and, wait for it, a knife. (Yep, a newbie. Ulfhednar, in fact.)
This party brings up two interesting points for me, both of which I perceive to be problems:
1) If one guy can take twelve hits on his armour, and newbies can take one, then how exactly are you going to pitch an encounter so it's a challenge for him without being impossible for the newbies?
2) Why exactly is the head of a knightly order chasing bandits? Shouldn't he be busy running the order? Couldn't he have just, oh, say, sent some knights to sort out this problem?
The second point comes up occaisonally in tabletop RPGs and also at re-enactment sometimes. Yes, it might be nice to dress as Queen Margaret, but do you have a retinue of ladies in waiting and your own corps of bodyguards? Also, why are you sleeping in a tent rather than the best local house? Or in tabletops, yes, it's great that you've advanced so much that your D&D character now owns a keep. On the other hand, landed nobility have a lot of things to keep them busy (like stopping their lands from being taken off them, and enjoying themselves) and they need to keep in with whoever is above them in the pecking order, so you don't really have time to go out and clean out a dungeon unless there's some sort of land-threatening evil supervillain at the bottom of it. Also, your character has basically achieved his victory conditions, so shouldn't he retire victorious?
In LARP terms I think the solution is to either stop characters from getting so powerful by setting up any politically sensitive positions as NPCs to start with, or to have them become NPCs or semi-NPCs after a certain point (so maybe the original player still plays their public appearances, and maybe the original player gets some input in the plot, but they don't keep going out and killing goblins).
Returning to the first point, my character is supposed to be a fighter. You'd imagine he'd be better at it than, say, a priest. However, the priest can wield weapons too, can afford better weapons than me, and can take more hits, so what exactly is the point in me being there?
Anyway, yes. The afternoon:
Encounter 1. Some plot:
Apparently there are bandits, and they steal cows. Tragically we didn't follow this up by finding out where the cows were hidden.
Encounter 2: Bandits at four o'clock:
We met some bandits. We fought them. I hit one a few times, but it was the rampantly powerful party members that did the killing, because I didn't want to get hit (crap roleplaying on my part, but I'd just found out that you couldn't repair armour in-game. The last surviving bandit gave us a "password".
Encounter 3. Get orf our laaand:
Some local militia don't want us to proceed with our great and noble quest. The pirate bribed them.
Encounter 4. In soviet russia, death becomes you:
We met a liche. A liche in this system is a practically unkillable monster that can summon other undead (if he's bored) or just kill you with a word (if he's in a hurry). Naturally one of the party attacked him (it was in character, we really should have restrained him. My excuse is that I didn't know better). He summoned a bunch of undead, one of whom was a Ghast. A ghast in this system is a practically unkillable monster (immune to normal, enchanted weapons merely stun it) that can paralyse with a touch (always hilarious). I hit the ghast, found out it was immune to damage, and then spent the entire fight paralysed. When the gloriously powerful party members had finished dealing with everything, we moved on.
Encounter 5 (and 6). Have you seen the bandit king? The bandit king? The bandit king?
While everyone else was interviewing some yokels, Ulfhednar walked off and tried the password on a bandit, who might or might not have been a greenskin. Naturally it failed utterly and he ended up on the ground. I noticed this, shouted, and ran off to save him. Since there were seven of them I ended up waiting for backup. Then we had a nice little fight, and I squard off with a troll. Happily the guy playing the troll had two daggers and wanted the troll to be slow-moving, because the damn thing was not vulnerable to being hit with a mace (it's always entertaining when everything you meet is invulnerable). I kept it busy until we were winning, and then someone else killed it for me. Nice of them.
Encounter 7. The final boss. And all his mates.
We met the bandit king. There was an odd little fight. I got drawn off fighting an orc (not a good plan per se, but he was tentative and on the flank, so it was follow up and try and kill him quickly or stand facing him and hope everyone else could handle the rest). During the fight, the guy leans forward, ducking his head towards me, while putting in a perfectly simple lateral to my left. Obviously I blocked with my shield and then riposte in the most natural blow which is a right-hand head shot. At this point we drop out of character while he explains to me that we aren't supposed to be doing head shots. At the time I thought I must have missed it in the rules, but I've been back and checked and it simply isn't there.
This is a personal bugbear - I don't like LARP systems that disallow head shots. I understand that there are people out there who can't stand them and wouldn't want to play with them, and so obviously there must be games that don't allow them, it's just that I don't want to play those games. I've only been two two events, but we've trained quite a bit with LARP weapons, and I've seen what happens when someone uses a reasonably large shield. Because the usual tricks either don't work or aren't allowed, you end up alternating between headshots and shin shots. It's less than ideal and makes shields rather too powerful compared with real life, but I can cope with that. Ban head shots though, and what happens? The guy with the big shield is invincible, unless you can get behind him.
Anyway, back to the game. While we were having this chat, two of the other bandits run past everyone else and close on my back. There's not any fault in this on their part, or on the part of the guy whose head I hit, but if we hadn't been chatting he'd have been down by then. I land a couple of blows but end up down. Fortunately the nice pirate is on hand to sto pme dying.
Encounter 8. You really do never just go home:
On the way back we get waylaid by bandits. Understandably, for the last fight of the day the monster team had pulled out a load of enchanted weapons and were all there looking determined. Unfortunately, someone had lost their glasses, so our amazing knightly order man and the pirate were still looking for them. This meant we were basically down to one frontline fighter. Now, I can see why the monster team would just let rip anyway, but if the monster co-ordinator would have adjusted the level of the encounter, then it might have been a bit less silly. Hell, I was standing there with one hit on all my limbs and no reliable healing, and there were people hiding behind me. Then I fought a guy with an enchanted spear (would ignore what armour I did have), and I couldn't risk closing with him because he had two mates next to him who weren't advancing. Mmm, parrying practice! Naturally I ended up on the floor, and it was only due to the Pirate and her apparently never-ending supply of potions that my characters first outing didn't end up as his last ever walking experience.
Encounter 9. Are we nearly there yet?
We got distracted by someone hanging a hobbit. Why did they do that? I don't know. Why did we bother to stop? No idea. I manage to be completely ignorant both IC and OOC, for the fairly simple reason that IC I just didn't care. OOC I'm slightly curious, but more becasue I want to know why the encounter exists than anything else.
So, to sum up the afternoon: I split the time almost evenly between talky encounters that didn't actually do anything (summary: "they're over that way!"), combat encounters against invulnerable enemies, and combat encounters against enemies that only outclassed my character a little bit. I nearly died several times, and my primary contribution to the party was using up one-use healing gear. There was quite a bit of in-party politics, but it was basically between the experienced characters because a) they undertood what was going on, and b) they cared about that rather than focussing on the job at hand.
After it was over we apparently made some money. At a bit of an estimate, once I pay for armour repairs, replacement bandages, and guild membership, I'll have just enough left over to buy a dagger. Still, technically the character is in pocket, if I decide to play him again.
Learning points for me:
I don't like linears.
Pirates are lovely.
Pros:
Everyone was very nice, and happy to explain things to newbies.
The site is very pretty.
It's reasonably easy to get to from Sheffield.
Cons:
The players power-level split was annoying.
Poor monster power level choice (probably an impossible task based on player power-level split).
No toilets or water on site.
Rulebook really needs updating, or better yet, rewriting.
Implausibility of various character presences.
Newbies are basically dead weight.
No head shots. (might be a pro for other people)
Recommendation:
If you liked linears, and they wrote a newbie adventure, you'd probably like this. They could probably be persuaded on the second point.
------------------------------
Eos: Diego Gatito - the worst ninja in the world.
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Squire
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Smileyface (1/28/2008)
Learning points for me:
I don't like linears.
Pirates are lovely.
Pros:
Everyone was very nice, and happy to explain things to newbies.
The site is very pretty.
It's reasonably easy to get to from Sheffield.
Cons:
The players power-level split was annoying.
Poor monster power level choice (probably an impossible task based on player power-level split).
No toilets or water on site.
Rulebook really needs updating, or better yet, rewriting.
Implausibility of various character presences.
Newbies are basically dead weight.
No head shots. (might be a pro for other people)
Recommendation:
If you liked linears, and they wrote a newbie adventure, you'd probably like this. They could probably be persuaded on the second point.Lots of stuff cut because as you said was very long, and its above so people can read it Sorry it hear you didn't enjoy FnH I have been doing it now for 9ish years and still have fun. I will try and deal with your various cons listed. First off its one of the points in FnH that you only get one character at a time so the whole system is one of balance between levels of power. The longer you play the more powerful theoretically you can become with a ceiling generally of a year, after that additional power growth is quite limited. Facilities wise due to the nature of wanting an area with reduced public presence and free very few of the FnH locations have toilets etc. Other than those who start from pub car parks. However the fests etc generally take place on scout lands so are a little different. The players guide is horribly out of date I agree, the current version is in proof reading and printing stages as we type Character presence wise. The admin running of Churches Guilds and Knightly orders is indeed done by NPC however there is stuff in the background of the world that the figurehead leader of these groups must be an active adventurer to keep them in touch with the needs of Ithron. Yes newbies are dead weight but what would you expect for a someone fresh to adventuring. As a brand new "fighter" you haven't actually done any training particulally. Once you have made it through your first month then you would advance and learn skills to help you be more effective. As for headshots its a safety thing that I know a number of other systems use, sorry. I hope that answers some of your points, thanks for giving it a go but all systems are not for all people.
RL: Woody
SG: Lucky
PD: Michael De Winter
FnH: Jon Oak
LoD: Cub
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Knight
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| Just a couple of points i'd like to add, i dont do f&h now but did for a number of years, however i doubt i would go back for it as it no longer suits my larp needs. From how it was explained to me by an old time player it was designed as a uni system for students, hence why everyone starts with very little kit and progresses in kit slowly. To people who do other systems where you can have as much kit as you can phys-rep this seems strange. Having an extra weapon/armour is part of your character advancement. Every character in f&h can be killed, you can make yourself immune to normal weapons for a short period but its also fairly easy to get weapons enchanted for a short period. Game balance wise its better than some other systems where people do become invincible. The branches i was involved with would generally do newbies/fresher adventure each year or if new people were starting. Its a good system if your short of cash and like linears/fighting but if like me you dont fit in that category its probally not for you.
PD - Baron Louis VonRichter Mill-en Summer court -- EOS - Jorik Duyven Argen Druid
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Squire
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| Hi, I'm a current F&H player and Ref. The other situation with FnH is that, unlike a fest system, a person can play almost every Sunday (somewhere) and at least a good few branches run on a Saturday. As the game plays on such a stunningly frequent basis, it is fairly easy to get hold of the "money" to purchase equipment (if you play very regularly) Still there are minor balance issues with this. With the game now well in its 25th year the player age range is quite wide, meaning people can bring differing quality of kit into the game. In the years I've been playing, I've seen kit standards rise slowly, and as a Ref I occasionally kindly nudge people in the right direction who need to improve their kit. As for stating encounters/adventures. Frankly it IS hard, and generally requires the Ref to think on their feet to balance an encounter. So what often happens is a few one-hit monsters get thrown in, to judge the party strength. However combat comes straight down to Player skill for the most part, there are no damage modifiers as part of the skill system. The only real damage modifier being the spell of enchant weapon (for dealing with your invunrable monsters) For me FnH is a regular LARP fix. Fests are all well and good, but I need to LARP at least once / twice a month. Its sort of "The LARP you can play between Fests without ruining your Appetite" 
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Prodigal
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| Interesting review. I cut my LRP teeth on F&H, going back *ahem, mutter, mutter* years. About 7 years ago I went to summerfest. This turned out to be a mistake for reasons I wont go into here, some were OC and site based, some were event and system based. Anyway, it seems to me that things havent changed much in the last few years. There are still some flaws with F&H, and that money based advancement system is one of them IMO - because armour repair was so damned expensive. However, I think F&H's strength is its simplicity. It is very easy for someone entirely new to LRP to get the hang of it. Unfortunately it has always suffered from 'hidden rule' syndrome. Whereas there is nothing wrong with some specialist and advanced rules being kept to those who need them, it can go too far. Sheffield branch used to be very good, going back some of those *ahem, mutter, mutter* years.
_____________________________________________________ It is not a competition. It is a web forum.
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Squire
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| There is a push for a more skills orientated character advancement system, and certainly two of the character types in the game have such a proto-skills system. However, while the game many play very rapidly, rules changes occur more akin to an Oil Tanker turning. Still, it is a very good system, its just not a Fest system. As for the Summerfest site, well, we use a new site these days (silkstone scouts camp).
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Christopher Tookey's lovechild.
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Woody (1/30/2008)
Sorry it hear you didn't enjoy FnH I have been doing it now for 9ish years and still have fun.
I wouldn't go so far as to say I didn't enjoy it at all - after all, I got to run around in the woods and hit people with foam weapons  It's just that various things kept springing up, and each one made me a little bit irritable, until by the end of the day I'd stopped seeing the point, both OOC and IC.
Most of what I consider cons are just the flavour of the game - I like it a bit more low fantasy/realistic, I suppose. In particular:
Woody | | | |