Boffer Forge
Day Events.
Amtgard events in Tal Dagore are rarely less than a three day affair. This article will attempt to offer another option for those who are looking for a little adventure without spending a night or weekend committed fully to the game. While a single day or afternoon event works great for events such as a Dragon Master or a War Master, this article will focus instead on the Role-playing potential that such an event offers.

While it's true Amtgard isn't widely known for it's role-playing aspect, it is very popular in the Duchy of Tal Dagore. Knoblander attempts to tackle an elaborate plot line as possible for an audience of over 100 players, but it does so at the cost of a lighter plot thread and also lighter participation of the players in the "meat" of the story. The day event is the perfect solution to this problem.

Several LARPS that I've been lucky enough to play with often make use of the day event. A gathering of players from multiple groups in one location to tackle a specific agenda or story-line all in one day or afternoon. Usually one group (park, house or company) will sponsor or coordinate the entire event and ensure all the needs for the players are met. Typically this covers the logistical elements such as location, props, npc garb, snacks/lunch, water, etc. The only thing that remains for those wishing to participate from the outside location/group is to simply make the trip and show up ready for action. The article will examine ways for such groups to maximize the wealth of potential assistance already existing inside of the Duchy and maybe provide some insight into why some things provided for in the Corpora exist. It is written with the autocrat in mind and from a planning aspect. Hopefully, it will also spark some ideas for local governments in each park.


Getting Your Day Event Together

To get the most from your event you will want to make sure that nothing is left to chance. A good site that provides for every angle of what you are trying to do is important. While the city park is great for a fighter practice, it's probably not so great for allowing your players to really get into the game. Having to stop to explain why you are wearing all black face paint and a white wig is good for recruiting, but not so good for keeping the plot moving. More importantly, you can't necessarily build your Amt-Risk castle out of engineering tape and hay bales in the center of Phelps Grove Park without catching flack from the local boys in blue. So a good site will be required. This of course screams private land. If no one in the group owns any land, then there is most likely a large out of the way area in a State Park that would serve you well. For more involved sessions, someone's home would be the perfect place but for this article we'll keep with the idea that we will need acreage. 

Ok, we have our out of the way and discreet location found and a time/date set. Now we need to examine the finer points. What will the weather be like? What's the best way to provide for everyone's refreshment needs and reasonable comfort? Will everyone be able to park in a suitable area without causing anyone (read as "neighbors") any headaches. This is a great time to make use of the most un-tapped resource for such things in Amtgard. HOUSEHOLDS. Households should of course be about more than who's the Lord and Lady of the house and what cool design will they come up with (but now I'm getting into an entirely different article) and so this provides an outlet for them to get the word out about their cause and an opportunity to score some cash for their coffers. Rather than charging a gate fee for a simple one day, have a House sponsor an aspect of the event. You'll obviously need refreshments so why not have a group provide the food and drink by way of setting up a Bar-B-Q and charging for their goods? $2 for a hotdog, chips and pop will make for a nice lunchtime meal and if 20 people are attending maybe a ten spot on profit for the House. Every little bit counts when your saving up for that extra cool period pavilion displaying your House colors. Assuming the sponsoring group isn't a total bunch of wankers, they will most likely bring along some jugs of water and what not for those whom the $2 feast would break the bank for the weekend. The main point here is, the head-ache items are easily handled and can often be an opportunity to other members in your group.

So now we have our site, the "little things" are taken care of, so now we have to prepare for what we are doing there. Since this article is assuming we are running a Role-Playing event, we will have to make sure those ducks are in a row.


The Story

Many are the Amtgard Quest I have played (or suffered through depending on the quest) where a great idea is simply thrown in front of the players who are then expected to act out exactly what the organizer envisioned. I have yet to see that work. 

Once you have come up with your great idea, put it to paper and then run it past an objective person in your group and see if the idea would spark any interest. If it seems promising, attack it. If no one seems interested in "saving the world from yet another invasion of snakemen" spare your players and do something else.

I won't go into much more detail regarding the "hows" of making your plot-line as that would be yet another article, so I'll keep it short and end this section by saying the following. A good story must have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The players will have to be able to recognize the plot hooks and be agreeable to follow the steps in order to go through all three points. A story that requires your troupe of lawful types kidnapping and sacrificing a small child for the greater glory of Loki probably won't go very far. Unless your playing to a VERY specific audience, your story should appeal to widest possible audience. The drama guild would be a great place for the would be story-tellers to create a number of ready to run day events, or to hash out a continuing plot line for a specific time frame during the year. Does your park have one?


The Production

NPC's and setting will be what brings your story to life for your players. The setting will be chosen based on factors that support this while the NPC's are a little more chaotic in the factoring of the success of your game. Props make all the difference between a good game and a great game. If you have a group of lizard-men as a core element to the story, provide some identifying garb that supports the Dor Un Avathar at the least. The more outlandish you go, the better off you are. Having "Jim" play a lizardman in his blue-jeans, sneakers, and Guns N Roses T-Shirt just isn't effective. Meeting "Jim" ten minutes later dressed in the same clothes, but now playing the role of the evil Wizard of the tower is even worse. This is where your local garbers guild can come into play, assuming your group has one. If your group doesn't, then this provides an opportunity to form one. NOTE: I'm going to risk getting a little side tracked here, but this seems to be a reoccurring theme in this article so I'm going to address it here. There are many guilds in Amtgard that chapters try to create because they read about it in the Corpora. Often times and especially true with young parks, groups will try and follow the letter of the Corpora and make guilds because they are listed. These often end up being "Bob is GM of this or that and Sue, you can be the GM of the other twelve". This is no good and NEVER has any staying power. These types of guilds exist in order to support activities like this article is describing and should be formed with specific goals in mind!. The GM of Monsters is a great example of this. Why do you need a GM of monsters? Well, to provide support to the production of a day event that is rp oriented and makes use of monsters of course! Too often they are used *ahem* for "submissions of new monsters (that usually suck and no one thinks is cool except the creator of the monster) and nothing else. An event organizer should be able to go to his local GM of monsters and come away knowing that his need for three NPC's who will know how to play lizard-men correctly will be met. The same is true for most every other type of Guild so make use of em' if your group is not already, and if you are one of those parks that has a GM for every type of guild but no-one knows why, this is it.

So now you have your site, your "little things" taken care of, and your monsters will be properly outfitted with some cool props like that wand of wonderous ice-balls. What's next? Well, you'll need players!


Recruiting

A Day Game rp session shouldn't involve too many people unless it's some sort of an epic ordeal. A nice number is between 10-25 people. With that number you can accomplish A LOT. Luckily we play in a LARP system that uses a Questor to Monster ratio that is provided for you in the Avathar. Balancing your game around this set of rules will take care of most of the hard part of this phase. One critical note to mention here is that often times in an Amtgard quest, it is the new players who end up providing the npc's and monsters. This could not be any worse of a way to do things. While new people will often feel more comfortable "in the background watching" as many of them put it their first few times out, you do not want them there. A flurb newbie tasked to handle your 1:10 Q:M monster will ensure that your monster or threat NPC will be WAY too underpowered. Ensure that the NPC cast for your event know what the hell they are doing. Again, your GM of monsters should have this taken care of for you if they are doing their job right, the garbers might have them costumed, and maybe the architects have some nifty props made.

Ok, now that you know how many of what type of which creature you need, its time to fill the roles. First, you'll need to know how many actual PC's you'll have. Here is another dangerous area. Everyone wants to play and no one wants to be the bad guy (see the above comments on flurb power for the exception to this rule). This is easily handled. Again, if you have a strong monsters guild, people should be trying to gain credits in the monster class. This provides an excellent opportunity. To make sure that this isn't a problem, entice people to want to be the bad guys by providing some serious fun as the NPC's of the game. I'm a firm believer in treating the NPC's of the game as if they are on the flip side of the story. While the PC's are playing themselves trying to accomplish their goals, set up your story where the NPC's are "guest staring" in a monster role. These critters and bad guys should be provided a set of goals and an agenda that will be the "motivation" for their temporary characters. Some players might even come to adopt an alternate persona of a monster who they will want to "star" as again and again down the road. Make it fun for everyone and they will come back for more. Besides, as a logistics member, you can brief a reluctant NPC monster till doomsday, and chances are that 1) they won't listen, or 2) they won't care because they have nothing at stake and so do their own thing regardless. 

Back to the actual recruiting and deciding who gets to be the PC's. This can be handled many, many ways. Perhaps this story is crafted especially for a particular household or company or group within your local government such as the Sheriffs garrison or merchant lords of the region. Maybe several freelance players have joined together to form a temporary adventuring party and are wanting to do this one day event to further their on-line rp sessions. For more general circumstances, you could always just hold a tourney of some sort to determine who gets the honor of the quest. Whatever the circumstance, the PC's will be easier to gather than the supporting cast. The important thing to remember here is, the pc's will be expecting you to cater to them so do it, but also arrange it that the NPC's will feel a bit special too.


Kicking Things Off

The first thirty minutes of the day event are the critical moments of the story. This is the time period when everyone should be focused and ready to go. A shoddy job on your end will quickly kill the fun on their end. Be prepared! A great trick to use is to have the background already prepared in the form of a handout that the party will receive (also have one for the NPC's explaining their end of things). This will cut out the dreaded, "ok, we begin somewhere in Barrow in the Two Copper Inn. Describe your characters.". Not only is this long and drawn out, it can easily kill the excitement. If the players can spend two minutes reading over a direct and concise document that sets the stage, fills in any foggy grey area, introduces all the players to each other, handles common knowledge and local rumors, all in one fell swoop, you are in business and so are they. This of course is a suggestion and only a suggestion. If you have some great way to make an explosive starting moment in the game, by all means do so. I hold this opinion because Knoblander was well known for the initial first opening scene, kind of like a James Bond movie. If tales are still being told of those types of opening acts, follow that lead and do what's been proven to work!


Maintaining the Pace

You will have to be constantly aware of the party's progress in the storyline for a one day event. With longer events, the party can drift here or there and try all sorts of crazy things, but for a one day game, you only have so much time for them to leave point A and reach point C. The party not living up to their own expectations can really hurt you here. Everyone likes to imagine their LARP character as being the ultimate bad ass in whatever class they play. When faced with a competent foe who lays the smack down on the entire group and then moves on to complete their own agenda, that bubble tends to get popped. This does provide for a greater sense of danger and ultimately greater reward, but you can't let this get out of control.

If your players are having a really rough time and getting discouraged you will need to step in. Your supporting NPC cast should be there to fill the gaps. Use them to handle those times where you are in a bad situation. A wandering healer can really boost the progress of a team of "not so great" adventurers. The opposite is also true if the party ends up walking all over your "flurb-dragon". A nice wandering monster encounter of a pop-goblin hoard can easily bring things back to earth. Again, use good judgement here. Perhaps a good defeat would make for a better story and as mentioned earlier, the NPC's should be "playing" as well. If done correctly, a fair loss should be as much fun as a fair win. An unbalanced or cheese win or loss will suck no matter what side of the game your on.


Bringing It Home

Now that you've done all of these great things, the party is focused and on track, they have hit every plot hook and are doing great, it's once again back onto your shoulders to provide that climax they are expecting. If you've done well up to this stage in the game, there is nothing left to tell you about. You have all the elements you need to wrap this up and send everyone home happy. If you are not having such a great time and everything has been a disaster, well, this is when you need some help. First off, if it has gotten to this point, you should have been more attentive to your players. They will no doubt whine if things are going too tough. Your job is to be able and recognize if what they are whining about is valid or if it's just whining. If it is a valid point by your estimates, simply halt the game and fix whats broken. This will screw up your carefully worked on plot, but once it picks up, it will be for the better and everyone will have much more fun in the end. Never be afraid to eat crow, it will make your "next time" much more likely than if you serve turd on a plate and insist it's steak.

For your big finish, go back and look at what you did for your big opening scene. Capture that kind of feeling and you'll be hailed as a great story-teller. For some people (the ones who this article is aimed at), the reward of providing a great time for your players is a thousand times more rewarding than actually slaying the dragon or what have you. I'm one of those people as are several others in Tal Dagore that come directly to mind. If your not, give it a go and I'm willing to bet you'll become one.


The After Action Review

If time permits, conduct an AAR. This will help out so many people that it's possibly the most important time throughout the entire day event session. Some players will no doubt have missed something. Gather everyone together (NPC's and PC's) in a relaxed location with refreshments if possible and go over step by step the basics of the entire plot. There might be IC things some characters do not want to mention for whatever reasons, but this should never be the case for an NCP unless it involves a future plotline. This way the PC's will get a good feel for all the important things that happened to them, and they will see what was going on in the "rest of the world" while they were busy championing justice. You will learn a lot about what worked and what did not. When the next time you go to work with your newest and greatest adventure, you'll know what to skip and what to revisit or expand. The hardest part with this is that the players will lose interest quickly unless the AAR is fun, so make it fun!


Conclusion

Hopefully this article will be well received and put to use. It's probably fair to say that this advice exists largely in the "in a perfect world" situation but as with the actual founding of Tal Dagore, why shoot for anything less? Putting on an event is the most daring thing a player can do in Amtgard. You are placing a lot of expectations squarely on your shoulders and make no mistake, if it sucks, you're the one responsible. Do not let this limit you or hold you back though, as with anything, if the risks of failure are big, imagine the pay-off.

  by Lord Will O'Wisp