So...the Gathering then....
In the traditionally accepted style....
Hot:
1) The 95th - what a truly superb bunch of roleplayers. I love you guys and gals to bits. Welcome and thanks also to the 3 new members who seemed to have caught the bug at their first LT event. You all did incredibly well, so welcome to Private Function, Private Party and Private Lapdance!
2) The Sunday battle against the Okari. Not playing a combat character, I didn't expect to enjoy this much - I wanted to take the field with the unit, but having a finite number of spells and one small dagger leaves very little to do! It was, however, a fantastic fight. Watching Andy's (very manly and heroic) frenetic combat in the way he did when we first met, combined with watching the newbies in their first big melee fight was a joy to watch, and I found plenty to do dragging out the wounded and generally keeping an eye out.
3) Doing my first ritual. I was utterly petrified! The quality of rituals in the faction is so high, that I couldn't help but be intimidated. It's a credit to all the ritualists in the faction offering help, support and advice without trying to take over or control it in any way that I felt able to get in the circle at all. However, the old hands who gave me advice were right, I loved it as soon as we got about a minute in, and it was a hell of a rush that hung about for hours afterwards. The contributors were fantastic, and we got a score that was above anything we were expecting, and a result in excess of what we were hoping for. This was helped no end by all the folk who came to watch and laughed themselves silly.
4) Rituals with the Faculty - especially 'Goblin Safari'. My left shoulder will take a while to stop hurting after carrying said goblin for a 'lap of honour', but it was worth it for the response from the audience.
5) The Vipers - yet again we were all made hugely welcome, involved from the get-go, and continue to develop some great friendships, both IC and OOC. Lesser people would have made jealous comments after the ritual results came in, but there wasn't a bit of it - only heartfelt happiness and congratulations.
6) Zombie lap dancing and all the other stuff that went on at the wake - Reece managed to break us with his character's dying wish, and the way he played it. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, and not in the way you'd commonly associate with character death!
7) Saving a tiny corner of Erdreja, and proving that even daft pixies can be useful sometimes - just ask the Scout's Guild!
8) Getting all of the skills sorted that I really wanted this year - even the tricky ones.
9) Getting back to campfire and tent singing. Now all we need are some 95th songs, which will be a job for the winter.
10) The baked potato place - they've filled the gap in the market for good hot food that isn't another bloody burger which was left by the departure of the Banqueting Club - does anyone know what happened to them?
Not:
1) The damned wind - which meant we couldn't use the extension tent for the alchemy lab/brothel/meeting room as we'd hoped. This put a bit of a dampener of some people's RP as we didn't have the space to run some of the activities.
2) The toilets. I've been coming to events for 10 years, and this was the worst I've ever seen the loos. The Vipers had a total of 3 toilets for the entire faction, and they were unusable for more than half the event as they were full. They were beyond digusting and into the realms of a serious health hazard.
3) Group packs consisting of a small amount of IC money pressed into group leaders' hands on the Monday morning. There were no lists of pre-books, so no-one knows if they have been correctly calculated. Pre-book deadline is almost 2 months before the event, so it's not like the LT are unaware of when the Gathering is or what the group packs should contain. This was dreadful organisation, and put the faction NPCs put in a ridiculous position, and does nothing to change the view that the LT doesn't care about quality any more. Group packs used to be available on the first day of the event. What are people supposed to do with them on the last day?
4) Having to return to event control 3 times to get correctly printed lammies following our ritual. Again, the quality of administration within the LT comes up, which appears to be on a very steep downward curve.
5) The premise for the Monday battle. None of us saw a need to go, and the LT's insistence on running a mass combat on the Monday regardless of whether there is any need for it is getting more trite and ridiculous by the year.
All in all, a really good event. I'm starting to see that both retiring House Soulsplitter and joining the Vipers was the best thing we could have done.
Hot:
1) The 95th - what a truly superb bunch of roleplayers. I love you guys and gals to bits. Welcome and thanks also to the 3 new members who seemed to have caught the bug at their first LT event. You all did incredibly well, so welcome to Private Function, Private Party and Private Lapdance!
2) The Sunday battle against the Okari. Not playing a combat character, I didn't expect to enjoy this much - I wanted to take the field with the unit, but having a finite number of spells and one small dagger leaves very little to do! It was, however, a fantastic fight. Watching Andy's (very manly and heroic) frenetic combat in the way he did when we first met, combined with watching the newbies in their first big melee fight was a joy to watch, and I found plenty to do dragging out the wounded and generally keeping an eye out.
3) Doing my first ritual. I was utterly petrified! The quality of rituals in the faction is so high, that I couldn't help but be intimidated. It's a credit to all the ritualists in the faction offering help, support and advice without trying to take over or control it in any way that I felt able to get in the circle at all. However, the old hands who gave me advice were right, I loved it as soon as we got about a minute in, and it was a hell of a rush that hung about for hours afterwards. The contributors were fantastic, and we got a score that was above anything we were expecting, and a result in excess of what we were hoping for. This was helped no end by all the folk who came to watch and laughed themselves silly.
4) Rituals with the Faculty - especially 'Goblin Safari'. My left shoulder will take a while to stop hurting after carrying said goblin for a 'lap of honour', but it was worth it for the response from the audience.
5) The Vipers - yet again we were all made hugely welcome, involved from the get-go, and continue to develop some great friendships, both IC and OOC. Lesser people would have made jealous comments after the ritual results came in, but there wasn't a bit of it - only heartfelt happiness and congratulations.
6) Zombie lap dancing and all the other stuff that went on at the wake - Reece managed to break us with his character's dying wish, and the way he played it. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, and not in the way you'd commonly associate with character death!
7) Saving a tiny corner of Erdreja, and proving that even daft pixies can be useful sometimes - just ask the Scout's Guild!
8) Getting all of the skills sorted that I really wanted this year - even the tricky ones.
9) Getting back to campfire and tent singing. Now all we need are some 95th songs, which will be a job for the winter.
10) The baked potato place - they've filled the gap in the market for good hot food that isn't another bloody burger which was left by the departure of the Banqueting Club - does anyone know what happened to them?
Not:
1) The damned wind - which meant we couldn't use the extension tent for the alchemy lab/brothel/meeting room as we'd hoped. This put a bit of a dampener of some people's RP as we didn't have the space to run some of the activities.
2) The toilets. I've been coming to events for 10 years, and this was the worst I've ever seen the loos. The Vipers had a total of 3 toilets for the entire faction, and they were unusable for more than half the event as they were full. They were beyond digusting and into the realms of a serious health hazard.
3) Group packs consisting of a small amount of IC money pressed into group leaders' hands on the Monday morning. There were no lists of pre-books, so no-one knows if they have been correctly calculated. Pre-book deadline is almost 2 months before the event, so it's not like the LT are unaware of when the Gathering is or what the group packs should contain. This was dreadful organisation, and put the faction NPCs put in a ridiculous position, and does nothing to change the view that the LT doesn't care about quality any more. Group packs used to be available on the first day of the event. What are people supposed to do with them on the last day?
4) Having to return to event control 3 times to get correctly printed lammies following our ritual. Again, the quality of administration within the LT comes up, which appears to be on a very steep downward curve.
5) The premise for the Monday battle. None of us saw a need to go, and the LT's insistence on running a mass combat on the Monday regardless of whether there is any need for it is getting more trite and ridiculous by the year.
All in all, a really good event. I'm starting to see that both retiring House Soulsplitter and joining the Vipers was the best thing we could have done.