Players: The quality of kit amongst the experienced players present was very good. Few fantasy looking weapons or out of place kit. The presence of stab safe spears, throwing javelins and flails made the combat very interesting. The lack of drum rolling dagger ninjas was very refreshing. Cooking was very cooperative and amicable once everyone settled in, with a communal stew serving throughout the weekend, along with french toast for the survivors of the saturday night seige! I'd certainly be happy to do another event with any of the PCs or monsters as they were universally pleasant company.

Location: Stock Wood is, in general, a very nice site with only the pre-fab type hall/admin area out of kilter with the look and feel of the iron age camp. I can not speak too highly of the staff, they were attentive, happy to help and pleasant throughout. No interruptions from passing walkers ect. Snow runoff however made certain areas pretty treacherous. Fighting in clay mud in the middle of the middle of the night, with no moon, is an interesting experience. The woods are very attractive and have nicely made facilities for monster buildings ect.

All in all a good event, if a slightly muddy one. I'm just glad that I was let out of the house for the weekend!

T

Telling storys about the Vik God's around the fire.

The peacefull druids and the violent end to that unpleasent saga.

Taking the gate by force of arms and coming back to find you had constructed a barricade!

The tasty pottage!

And that terrible fight back to the gate trying to fight of the pig Mourne.

Looking forward to the next one!

The Bad:
* The Crew who didn’t turn up. (This meant that key well-briefed crew-members were replaced at the last minute by guys who were just trying to muddle through.)
* The Combat. (On the Saturday, for every blow that was swung at me it felt like I had 2-3 verbals or command words to deal with. “Run towards fight and immediately get taken out by someone pointing their finger at me… again… and again” is not fun.)
* Lack of plot on Saturday. (Some of the players loved the wall-to-wall fighting. Personally, I’d rather have a balance, with more plot thrown in. Lots of interesting ideas from the Friday night went un-developed.)
* Lack of player cohesion. (A bit of PvP tension may be fun, but a total failure to communicate or cooperate isn’t.)

Overall: the Friday night was some of the best LRP I’ve done for ages; the Saturday was a real disappointment. If that sounds harsh, it isn’t meant to be. This event was in all ways superior to most of the LRP I’ve done in the last few years (names withheld to avoid causing offence!), and has some advantages over the systems that I tend to hold up as paragons – Dumnonni might have awesome visuals but it used to strike me as unfriendly and rather plot-light, the old Gall Saga had tons of plot but it became horribly cliquey and almost incomprehensibly complex, When Worlds Collide may (in my biased opinion) have great plot and solid visuals but for most people it’s a bit short on combat. FD is easy to get into, with a good mix of plot and combat, and has real potential.

This was my first FD event, and I’d certainly consider returning.

(Notes on the above, for anyone interested: Dumnonni = www.dumnonni.com . WWC = www.wwclrp.com . Fates Dawn =  http://fatesdawnlrp.webs.com/ .)

The Bad:
* The Crew who didn’t turn up. (This meant that key well-briefed crew-members were replaced at the last minute by guys who were just trying to muddle through.)

This is beggining to be an ongoing problem and we are working to get a cohesive and well briefed team that turn up for each event. Work in progress at the moment though.

* The Combat. (On the Saturday, for every blow that was swung at me it felt like I had 2-3 verbals or command words to deal with. “Run towards fight and immediately get taken out by someone pointing their finger at me… again… and again” is not fun.)

Yup I agree, not only where the Mourne a bad choice of villian in this context, but the spell system for them needs overhauling (and we are in the process of doing so). The guidlines put in place that would put a block on PC Mourne overusing there spells (The fact that it costs a Hero Point and thats you losing your bleedout time every time you cast) did not have any real hold over them as crew, as (probably due to poor breifing, I should know, I did it) they where happy to die.

* Lack of plot on Saturday. (Some of the players loved the wall-to-wall fighting. Personally, I’d rather have a balance, with more plot thrown in. Lots of interesting ideas from the Friday night went un-developed.)

Yeah, should have changed that about a bit. Saturday night was particularly bad as everything slowed *right* down. Though there was some tention between players.

* Lack of player cohesion. (A bit of PvP tension may be fun, but a total failure to communicate or cooperate isn’t.)

An issue with FatesDawn where so many races have a background that makes them diametricely opposed to other players and there where certain partys who's characters where attending to undermine others.

I am not really sure how to help with this, larger player groups would, I hope, create at least oasis of calm where you had allies etc. moving in the same direction and could all watch each others backs, but it is true that at the last event there was a lot of pvp violence or simple misscomunication.