Veni, vidi.
At the 4th Annual I was playing an Egyptian Champion with the Guardians of the Tombs.
Overall I found the ODC experience much better once I lowered my expectations completely (to 'I will not at any point have any effect on the game') and also made my goals entirely outside the game, modelling as if there would not be a larp running whilst I was at the event ('I have brought a drop spindle and this much fleece, can I spin it all in the weekend bearing in mind I might sometimes be interrupted by things going on. I have these drawing material, can I produce an ic drawing) - I wouldn't say that for most of the time I was actively *having fun* (though I was occasionally) but I also wasn't in screaming frustration like last time and was reasonably content - which was a big deal because at all previous PD events I've attended I have been ready to eat my own eyeballs in boredom after about six hours, and someone else's after ten.
Good points
- A well organised event - clean functional toilets, useable site, useable car parking, good caterers/bar and coffee van, nice to see the Empire tent, GOD worked and wasn't full, there seemed to be well-equipped First Aid. I had been repeatedly assured that arena safety had improved since event 2, hence deciding to come back to try the arena, and it did seem as safe as it could be and with attention being paid to that - so that was excellent to see (in fact our main fight on Saturday was delayed half an hour or so due to needing to find sufficient first aiders before we could begin, which was quite reassuring, although that was apparently because a first aider had got hurt. :/)
- I appreciated the player-led Olympian Games and the Carthaginian sash game as giving opportunities for 'things to do' that were IC (although I did not participate in either as OC I suspect my hard skills were not up to taking sashes by myself or being one of the best at the physical skills being tested - but that was up to me, I could have joined in had I wished to).
- There was a definite sense that stuff was regularly being put into the Egyptian game every hour or so, which the horoscope helped with, and whilst I still think there isn't anything near enough *to be able to be getting on with* actually related to game plot in ODC it was clear that the nation as a whole had a supernatural story arc unfolding during the event (both short and longer term) as well as the mortal discussions over battles and empowering for battles with philosophy which needed to be had. The philosophers all seemed busy, the Princes and Priests seemed to frequently have things to do.
- Everyone in Egypt seemed to work together quite well, which massively helped in keeping everyone on board with what was happening, and there was a pleasing lack of private meetings and info hoarding which could have made everything much duller for everyone.
- Because of the need to do philosophy right before the battle and the various ic cultural things which players have developed, waiting to enter the arena was quite engaging, which was a big coup for ODC as otherwise that could just be a huge faff of the worst kind.
- Dying in the arena and then being transported to the gate for disposal was fun.
Neutral points
- I find it really odd when there is socialising and mingling between nations because we are all there to kill each other and steal each other's land on the eve of an annual war, which is all international conflict and opportunity to please the gods distilled into two days. On the other hand, I guess it passes the time - and I can see a certain advantage wrt being able to count numbers and spy, and discuss strategy informally with people who might assume anything they know is not classified to other nations (rather than at formalised diplomatic contacts between princes to discuss alliances and strategy).
- I find it especially grating when mysteriously the people who make contact between nations are oc social groups - combined with the above it stretches credulity much further and also turns into just hanging out with the same old people as in any reality even though we are supposed to be mortal enemies here.
- I enjoyed the arena fight, although it was a lot more like a single linear encounter in TT or labyrinthe than I had been hoping (larger numbers on each side not mattering once you close as you are still only fighting a few individuals) and tbh I am not sure the one minute of combat was worth waiting 13 hours of uptime to get. I think the arena would be better with a lot more hits for everyone as then the fighting would last longer, given that the fights are supposed to be the highlight of the game (I also watched several fights of "was that it?").
- As the world forge was very well hidden and the Map Room didn't contain a map this time I was confused again about which tent was which and what I could go into as a priest, but not for long as another priest explained.
Bad points
- I still got bored and suffered a sense of humour failure ten hours into the event due to lack of agency (that co-incided with the novelty of a morning spinning in the stands whilst recording enemy group numbers finally wearing off) - but because I had at least been doing a named activity until then, a nap, food and a large amount of water largely restored me until we got our first fight at 4pm. However, this was partly bad luck in not having been scheduled for a morning fight and not being a priest etc who had had things to do sooner in the event.
- I found the roleplay at ODC very shallow - there are certainly a handful of individuals going to huge efforts to have a distinctive character and roleplay deeply but overall there seemed to be a major lack of individual personalities and characters caring about anything or having varying motivations or having outside lives past a one-line backstory or title. The overall feel was very much like being in a giant board game rather than a simalcrum of an ancient world. The arena stands were especially bad for people just dropping oc completely and chatting.
- Relatedly, I found it extremely hard to get into a vivid character because there was nothing happening which I could then have a position on, no arguments to take a side on, no plot to react to, no conflict to stir: everyone knew that the idea was to turn up, win as many fights as possible and do whatever the gods said and so there was no need for discussion on this, let alone disagreement. This mostly left 'repeating the brief to each other' and 'innuendo' as the conversation options, which is extremely tedious.
- I think the Geb 'plot' (Geb commands that you spend the evening drinking and fucking) was a big misfire. I came back to Egypt as a priestess after Egypt's fighting was finished for the day and so the big topic of conversation was plans for the evening. 80% of the people I spoke to told me that it was recently ordered by Geb (eg: pretty serious for a priestess) that a) if any egyptian didnt wake up with a sore head and no pants the next day the whole nation was going to be punished by Geb b) that the drinking was apparently much less important than the fucking for this c) that it was fine to go to other nations but egypt-on-egypt was better and d) that there were far more men than women in egypt. Given that I was playing a female priestess but ooc I really have no interest whatsoever in roleplaying having sex, let alone mass sex, let alone mass sex in a soaking wet field with lots of people I see frequently in my normal life and when few of us are really especially in character OR total strangers who I have no way of trusting oc, this rapidly started to feel like a hostile atmosphere to sit around in for the next 4 hours (though I did feel totally ooc safe in my own nation, I stress) and so in the end I left the site and went home rather than repeatedly having to come up with ic reasons why I was a fervent priest who also didnt feel like obeying the gods tonight despite that it might bring their wrath down on all of us.
- I can see that death audiences (specifically just the audience, not resurrection) are a large committment but they were a big informal selling point of the game (meet the gods! etc) and so when three of us died in the arena and were sent through the gate we were all rather taken aback to be walked to GOD and then dumped there to roll up a new PC, especially as the hooded figure walking us was explaining how we were going to meet Anubis and have our hearts weighed etc as if it was about to happen and it had in fact happened to one of us on a prior death in the same circumstance. It was then explained that you only now get a death audience if you are 'special' but otherwise not, which is a reasonable explanation from a game resource pov but does come over in that circumstance as 'your character that just died? no-one cares' - similarly we were each holding a handful of coin and quint for grave goods and had to call back the hooded man to ask him what to do with it, then he took all of it mixed together uncounted with a cheery 'oh yes, you dont get to keep that!', which also really gave the impression that all the ic discussion over our bodies of what grave goods to send/ensuring we had enough for the afterlife/getting a priest to do a ceremony to send it with us/etc was totally irrelevant (with also just an extra touch of maybe we'd have cheated and used it ic for new characters). I think that scrapping death audiences is fine as a Company Decision but if that is now the new policy it should be very clearly distributed to the playerbase to avoid confusion and disappointment.
Conclusion:
My initial win conditions for the event had been to go on one quest and be in two fights (seeing actual combat as opposed to sitting aside for a one-on-one, etc) as a champion, as at the previous ODC event I had made a vast effort to see/experience as many different aspects of the game as I could and arena combat was the main "selling point" of the game that I felt I hadn't tried at all. The other was meeting a god, but that seemed unrealistic to have as a condition as well, because I might survive the whole weekend and champions don't really have much chance to see gods.
Unfortunately, I died after my first fight rather than getting the second fight or quest.
Fortunately, this meant I could see a god too!
Unfortunately, no Gods for us.
Fortnuately, despite GOD giving the impression that getting to see a god with a new character at that point would be vanishingly unlikely, MattP reassured me in the Emipre tent that audiences for priests should continue throughout the whole event, so I went back in as a priest and in fact, got to meet Thoth very promptly as I co-incidentally arrived just when the horoscope was predicting an audience. Being a priest made me feel like there was stuff happening and I was part of it, and I enjoyed passing on what Thoth had said to the most appropriate people for an hour or so afterwards.
Unfortunately, I then hit the Geb issue above and decided that as I had seen all the aspects of ODC I had wanted to and it was now the night-time 'hospitality' (nothing except innuendo) period it was time to leave before my event took a turn for the worse again.
If I returned to ODC I think I would play a very fervent Egyptian priest of something (Thoth, Anubis) as it looks like there might be game there, although given that I tried that in Persia already and found it frustrating and did not get to meet a god at all I am not hugely enthused.
Overall I found the ODC experience much better once I lowered my expectations completely (to 'I will not at any point have any effect on the game') and also made my goals entirely outside the game, modelling as if there would not be a larp running whilst I was at the event ('I have brought a drop spindle and this much fleece, can I spin it all in the weekend bearing in mind I might sometimes be interrupted by things going on. I have these drawing material, can I produce an ic drawing) - I wouldn't say that for most of the time I was actively *having fun* (though I was occasionally) but I also wasn't in screaming frustration like last time and was reasonably content - which was a big deal because at all previous PD events I've attended I have been ready to eat my own eyeballs in boredom after about six hours, and someone else's after ten.
Good points
- A well organised event - clean functional toilets, useable site, useable car parking, good caterers/bar and coffee van, nice to see the Empire tent, GOD worked and wasn't full, there seemed to be well-equipped First Aid. I had been repeatedly assured that arena safety had improved since event 2, hence deciding to come back to try the arena, and it did seem as safe as it could be and with attention being paid to that - so that was excellent to see (in fact our main fight on Saturday was delayed half an hour or so due to needing to find sufficient first aiders before we could begin, which was quite reassuring, although that was apparently because a first aider had got hurt. :/)
- I appreciated the player-led Olympian Games and the Carthaginian sash game as giving opportunities for 'things to do' that were IC (although I did not participate in either as OC I suspect my hard skills were not up to taking sashes by myself or being one of the best at the physical skills being tested - but that was up to me, I could have joined in had I wished to).
- There was a definite sense that stuff was regularly being put into the Egyptian game every hour or so, which the horoscope helped with, and whilst I still think there isn't anything near enough *to be able to be getting on with* actually related to game plot in ODC it was clear that the nation as a whole had a supernatural story arc unfolding during the event (both short and longer term) as well as the mortal discussions over battles and empowering for battles with philosophy which needed to be had. The philosophers all seemed busy, the Princes and Priests seemed to frequently have things to do.
- Everyone in Egypt seemed to work together quite well, which massively helped in keeping everyone on board with what was happening, and there was a pleasing lack of private meetings and info hoarding which could have made everything much duller for everyone.
- Because of the need to do philosophy right before the battle and the various ic cultural things which players have developed, waiting to enter the arena was quite engaging, which was a big coup for ODC as otherwise that could just be a huge faff of the worst kind.
- Dying in the arena and then being transported to the gate for disposal was fun.
Neutral points
- I find it really odd when there is socialising and mingling between nations because we are all there to kill each other and steal each other's land on the eve of an annual war, which is all international conflict and opportunity to please the gods distilled into two days. On the other hand, I guess it passes the time - and I can see a certain advantage wrt being able to count numbers and spy, and discuss strategy informally with people who might assume anything they know is not classified to other nations (rather than at formalised diplomatic contacts between princes to discuss alliances and strategy).
- I find it especially grating when mysteriously the people who make contact between nations are oc social groups - combined with the above it stretches credulity much further and also turns into just hanging out with the same old people as in any reality even though we are supposed to be mortal enemies here.
- I enjoyed the arena fight, although it was a lot more like a single linear encounter in TT or labyrinthe than I had been hoping (larger numbers on each side not mattering once you close as you are still only fighting a few individuals) and tbh I am not sure the one minute of combat was worth waiting 13 hours of uptime to get. I think the arena would be better with a lot more hits for everyone as then the fighting would last longer, given that the fights are supposed to be the highlight of the game (I also watched several fights of "was that it?").
- As the world forge was very well hidden and the Map Room didn't contain a map this time I was confused again about which tent was which and what I could go into as a priest, but not for long as another priest explained.
Bad points
- I still got bored and suffered a sense of humour failure ten hours into the event due to lack of agency (that co-incided with the novelty of a morning spinning in the stands whilst recording enemy group numbers finally wearing off) - but because I had at least been doing a named activity until then, a nap, food and a large amount of water largely restored me until we got our first fight at 4pm. However, this was partly bad luck in not having been scheduled for a morning fight and not being a priest etc who had had things to do sooner in the event.
- I found the roleplay at ODC very shallow - there are certainly a handful of individuals going to huge efforts to have a distinctive character and roleplay deeply but overall there seemed to be a major lack of individual personalities and characters caring about anything or having varying motivations or having outside lives past a one-line backstory or title. The overall feel was very much like being in a giant board game rather than a simalcrum of an ancient world. The arena stands were especially bad for people just dropping oc completely and chatting.
- Relatedly, I found it extremely hard to get into a vivid character because there was nothing happening which I could then have a position on, no arguments to take a side on, no plot to react to, no conflict to stir: everyone knew that the idea was to turn up, win as many fights as possible and do whatever the gods said and so there was no need for discussion on this, let alone disagreement. This mostly left 'repeating the brief to each other' and 'innuendo' as the conversation options, which is extremely tedious.
- I think the Geb 'plot' (Geb commands that you spend the evening drinking and fucking) was a big misfire. I came back to Egypt as a priestess after Egypt's fighting was finished for the day and so the big topic of conversation was plans for the evening. 80% of the people I spoke to told me that it was recently ordered by Geb (eg: pretty serious for a priestess) that a) if any egyptian didnt wake up with a sore head and no pants the next day the whole nation was going to be punished by Geb b) that the drinking was apparently much less important than the fucking for this c) that it was fine to go to other nations but egypt-on-egypt was better and d) that there were far more men than women in egypt. Given that I was playing a female priestess but ooc I really have no interest whatsoever in roleplaying having sex, let alone mass sex, let alone mass sex in a soaking wet field with lots of people I see frequently in my normal life and when few of us are really especially in character OR total strangers who I have no way of trusting oc, this rapidly started to feel like a hostile atmosphere to sit around in for the next 4 hours (though I did feel totally ooc safe in my own nation, I stress) and so in the end I left the site and went home rather than repeatedly having to come up with ic reasons why I was a fervent priest who also didnt feel like obeying the gods tonight despite that it might bring their wrath down on all of us.
- I can see that death audiences (specifically just the audience, not resurrection) are a large committment but they were a big informal selling point of the game (meet the gods! etc) and so when three of us died in the arena and were sent through the gate we were all rather taken aback to be walked to GOD and then dumped there to roll up a new PC, especially as the hooded figure walking us was explaining how we were going to meet Anubis and have our hearts weighed etc as if it was about to happen and it had in fact happened to one of us on a prior death in the same circumstance. It was then explained that you only now get a death audience if you are 'special' but otherwise not, which is a reasonable explanation from a game resource pov but does come over in that circumstance as 'your character that just died? no-one cares' - similarly we were each holding a handful of coin and quint for grave goods and had to call back the hooded man to ask him what to do with it, then he took all of it mixed together uncounted with a cheery 'oh yes, you dont get to keep that!', which also really gave the impression that all the ic discussion over our bodies of what grave goods to send/ensuring we had enough for the afterlife/getting a priest to do a ceremony to send it with us/etc was totally irrelevant (with also just an extra touch of maybe we'd have cheated and used it ic for new characters). I think that scrapping death audiences is fine as a Company Decision but if that is now the new policy it should be very clearly distributed to the playerbase to avoid confusion and disappointment.
Conclusion:
My initial win conditions for the event had been to go on one quest and be in two fights (seeing actual combat as opposed to sitting aside for a one-on-one, etc) as a champion, as at the previous ODC event I had made a vast effort to see/experience as many different aspects of the game as I could and arena combat was the main "selling point" of the game that I felt I hadn't tried at all. The other was meeting a god, but that seemed unrealistic to have as a condition as well, because I might survive the whole weekend and champions don't really have much chance to see gods.
Unfortunately, I died after my first fight rather than getting the second fight or quest.
Fortunately, this meant I could see a god too!
Unfortunately, no Gods for us.
Fortnuately, despite GOD giving the impression that getting to see a god with a new character at that point would be vanishingly unlikely, MattP reassured me in the Emipre tent that audiences for priests should continue throughout the whole event, so I went back in as a priest and in fact, got to meet Thoth very promptly as I co-incidentally arrived just when the horoscope was predicting an audience. Being a priest made me feel like there was stuff happening and I was part of it, and I enjoyed passing on what Thoth had said to the most appropriate people for an hour or so afterwards.
Unfortunately, I then hit the Geb issue above and decided that as I had seen all the aspects of ODC I had wanted to and it was now the night-time 'hospitality' (nothing except innuendo) period it was time to leave before my event took a turn for the worse again.
If I returned to ODC I think I would play a very fervent Egyptian priest of something (Thoth, Anubis) as it looks like there might be game there, although given that I tried that in Persia already and found it frustrating and did not get to meet a god at all I am not hugely enthused.