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Squire
 
Group: Basic Members
Last Login: Yesterday @ 11:15 PM
Posts: 48,
Visits: 143
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5 Star Event. Bladelands do still need a few more players so if anyone would like to come and play I'd advise them to contact the refs through the website (www.bladelands.co.uk) or I'd be happy to make introductions so drop me a note here. The next game is 7th/8th/9th August at Stoke Wood in Glos (1.5hrs from Brum, 2.5hrs from London, 1hr from Bristol) or we're running at Consall Scout Camp near Stoke-on-Trent on the bank holiday at the end of August - so skip the LT and come to a proper game rather than a fair dressed up as a game. If you introduce someone you get money off the next game
Right well, up until quite recently young Joe was doing these but since he's decided to go slacking off for a while I thought I'd do a short review in the hope of provoking him to do it properly. Or something.
Anyway we have just had the second event of 2009 in Bladelands, and a lot of fun it was too. There was a change of rules early in the year; about two weeks to the previous event, leading to a number of questions and a lot of time spent discussing them, so really this event could be considered the first proper, full blown test.
The plot was, broadly, that as a part of an on-going war between the forces of life, death and unlife, a bunch of zealot mages had duped the local Keltoi tribes into helping them release hordes of undead and a powerful, and ancient, Lytch into the world. They did this by corrupting a holy place to the Keltoi, and using their bodies as convenient hosts for its minions. Q lots of frantic NPC on NPC fighting as the players turned up and then shambling undead mixed up with unbelievably hard skeletal knights, wraiths and other assorted bad guys. They butchered the players on first turning up, and continued to be a pain all weekend, inflicting several PC deaths on the Saturday. However a lot was achieved by the PCs, who uncovered the Lytch’s plan, broke into the workshop that he was using and generally cause a mountain of issues for the Lytch, coming very close to killing it outright several times before the end of the event. When things closed they hadn’t dealt with it and corruption was pouring out of the sacred circle, so unless it is closed next time there will be serious problems in the long term for the Fife of the Black Rose
I should start the actual review by saying that the previous event suffered from a lot of player faf, that there has been some concern around the way that the plot has developed. In addition there were significant ref cock ups at 2.7 that cause major issues, which although fixed, did cause some problems, as did massive over running (finishing at 4am is never good if you’ve got to be up and ready to play at 10am) This in turn had lead to lots of OC conversations and a general lack of immersion
The system works incredibly well, with good old fashioned (and highly original) hack n slash action, as well as non-combat action so it was really wonderful to see things going so well at this event. Players were IC throughout, they got up on time and in turn the ref finished on time. Encounters were TOUGH but highly enjoyable and the levels of focus, adrenalin and enjoyment were utterly fantastic. This was, quite literally, the best event I’ve played in any system at any time bar none. I was very, very, very impressed how smoothly things went. The monsters were properly carded with full stats so they could refer to them, Paul Cope set up a fantastic “void” encounter with flashing lights, smoke and UV, a wonderfully made up monster and a generally fantastic (but low combat) encounter.
Overall we lost a very high number of PCs (8 dead plus 3 rest out of 16) but at least 6 of these were preventable.....we need the priests and surgeons to examine the bodies for signs of spirit tethers or this will happen again and again.
Bladelands : Brother Glokta, Preist of Rhiannos
Insurrection : Crew "We Don't Need To Kill You, The Other PCs Will Do It For Us"
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