Animal Lords, Altars and a Mummy Lord Curse
For the previous two Madrigal events I was unable to take time off from work. This meant that I had to drive the distance up and back solo, and I had to arrive Friday night well after game started. This was a considerable drag on those events and I was very much looking forward to taking this past Friday off and getting to the site and in game at a reasonable time once more.
The trip was pleasant and comfortable and I started the game in good spirits. I managed to keep it that way through the entire event. I did a fairly good job at staying dry and warm and never found myself miserably uncomfortable. I stayed fairly active and got involved in a relatively good amount of stuff. The story was fun and engaging and I liked all the new developments. So in general I was happy with the event.
Despite this I did manage to have a couple of bad moments for my character. I was rightly abused during the Mummy Lord fight and left that fiasco with a broken sword and yet another Inflict that I am going to have to deal with. I managed to get “myself” killed on the Fifth Temple battle, which sucked in that someone else (admittedly an NPC) is going to have to suffer that consequence. I also did very badly at meeting some goals I set for myself going in to the event. But these were all just character setbacks, and nothing that got in the way of me enjoying the event.
In terms of mods and encounters and fights I didn’t have any that I didn’t like, and several that I enjoyed a lot. I’m still a mediocre fighter, but I am now at the point where my stats and skills can carry me through a lot of battles where I do a lot of fighting, and this gives me a lot more flexibility and variety when it comes to doing mods and fights.
I saw a bunch of creative and imaginative mods and stories this time. I did some White Court stuff, I did some Pale stuff, I saw some difficult and challenging fights, I saw some crazy props and costumes. I loved the experience of the Fifth Temple mod and seeing all the stuff other players did and wore. I have nothing but praise for the NPC’s and staff.
I rather like the Frank A. Day campsite and in the past I’ve really liked the change of pace and scenery that it provides. This was the first event I’ve had there where some of its shortcomings started to get to me a little. Most of the plumbing in the bathrooms didn’t work. The lack of dining space meant meals were far less social and fun. The weather meant I just kept going back and forth between the same two mod spaces. On the upside though I was really happy with the buildings we got to use for Rosie's Tavern and also the lakeside building that was used for the trap mod.
This was the first event where I got to use my newly minted High Priest skills. This experience was somewhat mixed. I had a lot of fun with the “By your name…” skill and with playing around with the Firestorm spell. But I think my experience suffered a little bit from not being able to meet the expectations I had built in my head for the last three years that I have been dreaming about the day I would become an All Powerful High Priest. It also hurt a little bit that much of the coolness and cachet of the High Priest powers and skills were diluted by some Ascendant PC’s beating me to the punch in getting them.
One of the weird difficulties I often have with Madrigal events is that I socialize with some really amazing high achieving players. This often gives the weird result that I have fun at events, but afterwards when I hear other people’s war stories and read their livejournal recaps it seems like they had WAY more fun that I did and went on WAY cooler mods than me. This makes me feel like I had less fun.
I realize that a lot of this is a “grass is always greener…” sort of thing. I also know that you can take even a terrible event and make it sound awesome if you present it in bullet pointed highlights in a journal posting. But mostly I just have to tell myself that I am not in competition with those other people, and that LARP fun isn’t a zero sum game. I do a fairly good job at convincing myself of this.
One of the few things that happened at this event that has given me a lot of concern was learning how serious the possibility is that Madrigal will move some of its events to upper New Hampshire. I understand all the many very good reasons why this is being considered, but this could be a deal breaker for me and my friends. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens I guess.