Greengrass pros and cons

[grivel]

To all who attended Greengrass,

We try to have a festival every year that will hold everyone's interest and be fun for all. I would like to know what you liked best and least about this years festival. We are always striving to make it better. This is a constructive thread so please be nice

[FlyingMidget]

In an effort to be completely honest I'll reply before I go get some sleep (I've been up way to long so while I don't mean to offend anyone I do apologize if I do).

I liked interacting with the sheer number of characters that turned up the most, with a second favourite thing being Bao's Bistro and the general placeable setup of the whole area.

I also rather liked the the play, the dunk tank and the fact people were having alot of fun in general.

The only thing I could state as really disliking is the archery contest not having anything to do with the archery skill of characters involved (levels, dexterity, bow related feats, classes even though I don't play an archer I expect an actual character that's good with a bow to well you know be far better with a bow then mine). It was more then alittle odd, shoot something five times then roll a d20, highest roll wins regardless of your characters skill and training with a bow compared to others (this isn't just my own concern either I received numerous tells about it IG from more then half a dozen players and I spoke to others to ask their thoughts on it). I love that it tried to be done fairly, but not all characters are specialized with a bow, a d20 for everyone represents none of their talents or skills to me when everybody gets the exact same roll and that ends up ruining such event as it takes away from the characters that actually dedicate themselves to that very talent. Sure everyone has a good day and a bad day, but you watch a complete novice shoot a bow and expect them to out shoot a master of the profession with twenty years of experience that understands how to adjust for wind and everything else and 99% of the time the expert is likely to do better.

The only other thing I even moderately disliked was everything was so secretive for a festival that was public, I'd nearly say you guys should consider approaching characters with your ideas and get their feed back IG in the months coming upto Greengrass and seeing what they might enjoy or what alternative ways you could do something that might prove more enjoyable for the majority.

Over all though? It was a massive undertaking that lasted the majority of a day, you all did amazing work, don't let my comment ruin your mood about it all, even with some things that we might not agree with you guys did good setting it all up and hosting it not just for a few hours but for the entire duration and keeping things running.

FM.

[Deleted]

I enjoyed it all thoroughly, especially the dunking of celebrities and the second raffle. (That wheel was so rigged!)

The only points of contention to my enjoyment of the day was the archery contests which FM has already eloquently stated, and there being no posted event schedule for the days proceedings. The event start time was 1am for me... Without advance considerations to what I'd possibly have been interested in I decided to sleep past the start so I'd be awake enough to play for the rest of the event, and just blindly hope I didn't miss anything too fun. (I missed the play )

[Deleted]

Rdiajs tonatend

[Deleted]

Dud ....!not atterfnnn...

[Deleted]

... Yep, that's a drunk Warlord making a wild appearance LOL!

[Deleted]

Porcliam becuae ot cast tomorrow

[Deleted]

I wasn't present for the entirety of the event so I can't comment on what I didn't see. But I arrived around the time the ranged competition was starting. I have to say that everything was enjoyable although my only complaint lies in the apple bobbing contest. Now, I won't try to sound like a sore loser as Dominique still got a reward at the end, but I felt that there was some slight oversight in the skill rolls used. One of the participants was rolling concentration instead of constitution, and I called it out, but it went ignored or else it was noticed by people involved and everyone just rolled with it as the contest was almost over. Still, I was slightly miffed about it and felt like Dominique should've come out on top, if those concentration rolls were reverted.

Overall, I had fun and thanks for all the hard work in arranging Greengrass this year!

[Animayhem]

Yes apologies about not posting an actual schedule.  Things were fluctuating in the planning stages and even up to today where dms had to set up which pushed things back a bit.  We ere unsure of how many of the Guardians were able to make it so we had to devise alternatives in case it was mainly Kali and Marister.   We ran everything through the dms.  Yes I can understand it is a public festival and we were hosts.  But Marister and others asked other characters if they would get involved and they did, Bao for instance and tailor's group. Vana offered to make posters.

We wanted to change things up a bit.  The archery we wanted to keep things simple and even across the board.  We wanted the feel to be Natural and Mundane.  Aside from some ooc views, I think the archery and melee contest in character showed  how people could achieve without all the bells and whistles.  Whether some characters take as a learning experience or not is up to them.

Much of the ideas behind the ranged competition, came from the experiences at shieldmeet where many were excluded due to the skill divisions and the times.  Greengrass was only one day. Sheildmeet was also public but opinions were not generally asked up front by to non-organizers.

We felt by putting the limitations as we did all levels were able to participate together without having to separate into character levels.  Yes the clothing requirements a twist but we felt we offered options  and kudos to those who went with it.

By dividing the ranged into three categories made it more even skill wise.

We introduced two new events and replaced the bard competition with a play.  We tired our best to have something for all timezones.

I respect all who came and the feedback in game and here feedback here.  You can not please everyone I hope everyone did enjoy some aspect.

IC as Marister I felt we did a good representation of Nature and honored His Goddess along with others.

[malclave]

Most of what I was going to say has already been said...

1. Scheduling, at least for the major events. This would help the people running the show as much as the participants. You've got half an hour before your next event? Log off and have a sandwich. If it turns out there's empty time, announce an "open mike" contest on stage or something... not everything needs a prize.

2. Announce event rules ahead of time.

3. Archery... if you're going to split it by type, combine crossbows with bows. I'd also encourage using the actual attack rolls instead of a straight d20. Maybe have "Regular" and "Masters" categories, using either level or BAB. Masters can have a nicer prize.

4. Raffle... 3 things. First, I know there's a desire to build up to a big prize, but that has the side effect of people who have won lesser prizes not being eligible for the Grand Prize. Maybe if a number comes up more than once, the winner can return the previous prize to claim the new one?

Second, Must Be Present To Win. Let someone else redeem a ticket for someone who's not there; real life happens (or so I'm told), and the player might have been able to be there to buy the ticket, but couldn't be on for the raffle itself. If necessary, make an OOC rule that a *player*, not just a character, can only buy one ticket, to stop altoholics like me from just cycling through all my characters to just buy a ticket and leave.

Third, the RNG was so flaky that this probably didn't matter, but 2d20 is not a linear distribution; with "fair" dice, rolling a 21 is 20 times more likely than rolling a 2 (or a 40).

Anyway, all of the above is just armchair quarterbacking. This was my first RP event since joining FRC, and I had a lot of fun. The players behind the festival, as well as builders and DMs involved, clearly put in a lot of work to make it fun, and it's appreciated.

[FlyingMidget]

Apr 29, 2017 23:02:00 GMT -5 Animayhem said:

We wanted to change things up a bit.  The archery we wanted to keep things simple and even across the board.  We wanted the feel to be Natural and Mundane.  Aside from some ooc views, I think the archery and melee contest in character
showed  how people could achieve without all the bells and whistles.  Whether some characters take as a learning experience or not is up to them.

I should have rolled a throwaway level 1 gnome barbarian that was half blind (8 wisdom as the ability associated with perception / spot / listen) and unable to really control feet/hands (8 dex as the hand eye coordination ability) and hoped for a high roll so said character could claim to be a better archer then any archer PC in Cormyr.  That is a problem, such a character shouldn't have the same chance actually dedicated highly trained characters possess.  What it shows is you were playing a game of dice in the dirt and the event maybe should have been renamed to "Dice Toss".  D&D isn't a world that is fair, no class is really the same or balanced and they shouldn't be, it's a world where characters are adventurers that often are at a disadvantage and vastly out classed (ever take a peek at the epic level handbooks monsters and you'll see just how badly) by threats all throughout the world and beyond into the planes, it's about making do with the skills your character has and proceeding forth as best they can with their friends at their side and having fun and excitement along the way.

This archery contest, I received tells about it from 6 different players, spoke to another bunch I'm on good terms with that I started (mostly because I was frustrated with it before the tells and suggesting that there was little that could be done other then keeping things IC and rolling with it), it is being considered an IC joke by a bunch because the archer characters choose to avoid it as they didn't want the above happening to their character if this RNG dice game didn't favour their actually talented archer, this was not an archery contest it had no representation of a persons skill at archery at all.  What it showed IC was that anyone can roll higher on a single dice then another person with no skill involved, that is literally all it showed because none of the characters skills at all were involved.  You guys wanted to make it fair, as an OOC thing and in doing so you killed immersion for a reasonable number and spat in the face of their character concept as being actually good archers by giving people that shouldn't even rank up as even remotely close to their skill as having a very high chance of beating them.

Maybe this was a tad bit too blunt, 3 hours sleep after a 32 hour awake basically, coming home from work and staying up for an event that started at 1am and went for nearly 12 hours is going to make anyone abit grumpy.  I'm off to work now, ya lot have fun, sorry in advance I fully expect this to come off worse then meant by showing why this was wrong but ehh thems the breaks sometimes, people knows I've been up too long.

FM.

[mandene]

Why was only the archery contest to be "fair", and without any skill involved? (And secondly, why strip if you only use d20? No items in game affect simple dice rolls)

The melee competition favored high level and brute force (number of attacks per round, high AB and high damage). And since participants where whacking at dummies, nobody with sneak attacks could have a chance to win. But more important question is, why wasn't this competition settled up with just a d20? Whack a dummy 5 times and roll a d20 would at least make it more fair to the archery contest.

Even bobbing apples and dunking tank had some type of skill involved, and nobody had to undress from their nice skill/Stat enhancing items.

All of the things above made archery contest a joke.

If you wanted something to be "fairer" you should have chosen another competition than archery. I'm sorry to say that, but it was an affront to actual archers.

Another nitpick is for the raffle. It would have been nice if you guys showed what items we were raffling for, before the raffle itself. It made me buy a raffle where I didn't really care for any of the items.

Otherwise, you guys did great!!! Everyone had a lot of fun. It was a huge rp fest for hours on end.

If I wasn't super tired, Ari would have ended up drunk on Bao's new wonderful cocktails.

[Nicoen]

First off I want to say that I really enjoyed the event. Most of the challenges and competitions were entertaining and different from each other. Very good job and thank you to all who made it happen.


With that said, I have to agree with many of the others in this thread. The archery competition was a disaster. My biggest problem with it was that having it just be about a d20 roll, was a huge immersion killer as it makes no sense in game that archery is 100% chance. I was very surprised that no DM stepped in and pointed this out, or that the hosts didn't reconsider after the feedback(at least for the second round of competition). It seemed like a case where OOC inclusion was more important than IC sense and reality. I'm all for prioritizing OOC inclusion, but then it should not have been an archery competition, but rather something that actually makes sense being totally random, so as not to break in game concepts as well as making characters who actually would excel at such competitions, choose to stay out due to the random nature of the game, which again breaks immersion for many of these players.

Also a bit more preparation and thought given to the actual processes of the different events would help you guys out in the future. There was some confusion about the wheel of fortune(as explained by malclave) and how to do the apple bopping in practice(this turned out great after some feedback from the participants).

Don't let this feedback take anything away from you guys though, I enjoyed myself tremendously despite these hiccups. I hope to participate again next year.

[FlyingMidget]

I just wanted to post a reminder that we did have fun and are trying to provide constructive feedback as requested to hopefully improve future Green grass events as well as perhaps future events as a whole(i know two or three people this inspired to run something similar if little more limited in scope). None of what is posted here is meant as a dig at those that hosted or designed the events themselves.

I has coffee now so I wanted to make sure everyone knows that I wasn't intending to insult/upset/hurt anyone merely hoping to bring light to what I personally liked and disliked as well as what some people expressed to my self as having disliked.

PS formatting on a phone is a pain in the arsenal but didn't want to run my work PC through my home vpn even if I can.

[Calliope]

I had a blast XD,

I feel kinda bad though about murdering literally -all- the animals at greengrass... not! lol.. Erm, trying to be more serious though I really enjoyed the event and I know a lot of people are saying they didn't like the archery event but I actually liked the fairness of it. Poor Heather was trying her best event after event only to get showed up by other people higher level or more geared out then her.

Here's my suggestions for future events though! ^_^

1. Please make a sign or drop a paper that has the OOC rules of a game listed on it. This makes it so you don't have to keep repeating yourself, it takes away a lot of the OOC talking, and it helps make things much more clear. We had people breaking rules several times without even knowing it because they simply missed part of the rules or didn't understand them.

2. Prize options, I'd love if there was like, 2-3 different prizes for people to pick between. Heather won a golden egg which I love and will cherish and keep forever but sadly I wont get hardly any use out of because I'm a druid and can already cast barkskin and can actually cast it much better the the egg does. Barkskin is pretty useful for most people though and all around I think it was a great item to win.

Anywho that's all I had for potential changes. I really enjoyed myself as a whole. I'm glad that even though I was busy most the day doing things IRL I was still able to participate in 90% of greengrass. Just sat afk and waited for DM shouts. Thanks for all the DM shouts ^_^.

<3
-Calliope

[mandene]

I can fully understand you like that there was one competition that was "fair".

But it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair because there "are" actual archers. And it wasn't fair even more, because no other competitions were "fair" the same way.
If they all were just d20 rolls, then maybe.. maybe.. the entire thing wouldn't stand out like a sore thumb.

You should either make all skill-based competitions d20, or none. And if you want one to be fair, choose one that isn't an actual skill that other characters excel at and train for.

Instead, IC they made it look like all the skill archers possess is in the clothes and items they wear. Because once you take out the ooc out of it, that's what it looked like - if you strip, then you're "equal" levels and skill be damned.


So, please, please please, next time - choose something else for the "equal" "skill-less" "fair" competition (and by else, I don't mean choose melee - choose something that doesn't require trained skill). Or have them ALL that way. You could have had  the competition divided as in RL, junior archers, senior archers, archery leagues based on level/AB/Dexterity... everything but a square d20 would have been more fair.

Heck you should probably make all event-competitions league-based, so that not only high levels win.

[appleseedy]

My two cents. skip archery/melee competitions in favour of sheep dog trials or something else silly. invite none guardians to get involved

[maeglhachel]

Apr 30, 2017 7:17:22 GMT -5 appleseedy said:

My two cents. skip archery/melee competitions in favour of sheep dog trials or something else silly. invite none guardians to get involved

Yay .. herding adventurers contests !!!

[grivel]

Thank you all for the constructive comments so far. Keep them coming.

[appleseedy]

frolicking contest?

[styxxbone1]

I liked the Holance/ Evil Holance named Twin Field Mice.

Gripe Section.

One of the commodes should have been missing it's door, as Bent-in uses it for a shield.

Placing the Medics Tent way too far away from the Orcish Fast Food Stand and up a steep hill. How are those afflicted by food poisoning/ dysentery expected to crawl that far uphill?

Actually that could be made into an Event. Contestants would have to eat spoiled food then run a lap around the grounds before being able to unload in the commode shacks. First one to make it without filling his/her/it's boots, wins!


styxx

[Deleted]

For the dunk tank, I would suggest to move the tank closer to where the archers are stationed.
For the egg hunt, I would say add two more forest areas.

Less generic competitions (Melee & Ranged) and more Druidic/Nature themed competitions instead.

[malclave]

Apr 30, 2017 14:31:25 GMT -5 @styrjarlshall said:

 more Druidic/Nature themed competitions instead.

Like a petting zoo!

[Spirit of a Phoenix]

I'm not sure if it would be helpful to post the game rules in advance or not, but otherwise I have no critiques from what I observed. Everyone involved did an amazing job, and I'm really glad I was able to attend.

It was a really well planned and coordinated event, and the set up was beautiful. The bobbing for apples event was probably my favorite one.

I snatched a couple treehugger cupcakes as a souvenir.

[Animayhem]

Posting approximate event times does make sense. Dms do announce too. Rules maybe for the static events like the egg hunt,apple bobbing and raffle. Some surprises need to be left. However many people do not read forums so rules wind up being explained in game anyway.

[lucid]

Rather than just PvP, take a page from the Romans and send in the lions (or from the Goblet of Fire, Rhodesian Ridgeback anyone?)

If everyone fights the same kind of monster, the judgement is based on some combination of How Many Rounds, How Hurt Did You Get, and Points For Style.

(Also a bit of Fridge Logic: the island of Rhodes is 541 square miles. How the -hell- is there an entire species of dragon living on that island?)

[malclave]

May 1, 2017 8:43:15 GMT -5 lucid said:

(Also a bit of Fridge Logic: the island of Rhodes is 541 square miles. How the -hell- is there an entire species of dragon living on that island?)

I think you mean Norwegian Ridgeback. Rhodesian Ridgeback is a breed of dog from Africa (Zimbabwe used to be called Rhodesia).

[lucid]

D'awww...well I lose 4 dork points.

Also you gain 50xp for killing my joke.

[Fluffy the Mad]

Thread necromancy considering the date- rather than make a new one for this year's event, I'll hijack this thread.

1) For future 'raffle' events, I'd suggest noting who buys numbers and writing them down with their number. Then you can use a pseudorandom number generator up to the number submitted instead of relying on dice rolls. Not only does it mean there will be no unused numbers, but there's a guarantee that there's no bias based on the number of die rolled.

2) Firm rules on contests where magic is involved- if there are spells to be disallowed, make a full list of those allowed/banned. Same with class or feat-based abilities.

[malclave]

And speaking of the raffle, if you want to use a linear roll up to 35, you can do that by rolling 2d6. Subtract 1 from the first die, multiply by 6, and add the second die (reroll on a pair of 6s, or "house wins" if you want to do it roulette wheel style).

2d20-5 will cluster around 16; it's 20 times more likely to roll a 16 than a 35.