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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2018 22:36:12 GMT -5
My two cents on it as I couldnt join for various reasons. I think if your going to have a server wide gathering and have games with things like archery it should not go off of things that include lvl/build/a million gold worth of gear/etc. Sometimes you just have to enjoy the fun of it for what it is. Yes your lvl 20+ arcane elven archer is going to destroy a lvl 5 human archer. So what. Good job? How is that fun for anyone who would want to come and do it. Why would anyone go if they know so and so is going and they are going to smash the competition because they have +45 to attack. Leaving it up to a roll gives an actual enjoyment where people can lean forward and be excited to see what might actually happen. Otherwise it becomes who is the highest lvl here with the most expensive bow. In the end its a game at a make believe event in a make believe world where people are just trying to have fun. Sometimes the chance of not winning is better than knowing you will always win.
Edit to add: Enjoy that you are likely to have as a higher lvl a higher dex and or wis (zen archery) than your lower lvl compatriots. This allows you to have an edge with your wildly expensive gear where they are likely either making due with nothing or with some piddly first circle junk. The diffrence can be rather extreme. a 20 dex on a mid lvl character compared to a 36 dex on the higher lvl archer. A nice +8 in your favor.
-personally i think magical gear and bows shouldnt be used period in a competition.
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Post by elvishnation on Apr 28, 2018 23:06:16 GMT -5
I think what has been lost over the years is having competitions that are level specific. Let the 1-10 (ect) go against each other only give them a chance to use the skills they've focused on in rp building up play into it. Then you can have the lvl 10s have an off day and have a lower level beat them everyone has off days. That way it doesn't pin a lvl 1 that has never picked up a weapon or rarely used a weapon, rp wise has never trained in whatever ability is being used, suddenly beat a lvl 30, or whatever lvl, that's been around a few years rping and focusing on that ability or spent their entire adventuring lives working on such ability. It's very immersion breaking, and destructive to character's rp just doing 1d20 or what have you. Yes it's also rather unfair for a lvl 1 to go against an epic rp wise. Seen festivals in the past, many years ago, use the system of limiting by level grouping giving everyone a chance.
Edit: And yes should and used to always be basic unenchanted gear only.
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Post by malclave on Apr 28, 2018 23:27:55 GMT -5
((I was only there for a short time today, so my comments are generalizations))
I agree that contests of skill shouldn't include things like special gear, spells, bard song, etc, but a more skilled character SHOULD win. The top Archery prize is probably going to go to Robin Hood or William Tell, not Bob the pig farmer's son.
For example, there could be 3 divisions of competition. The lower 2 would each have a maximum attack bonus; a character exceeding the cap would have to go to the next division. The higher divisions should have better/ more prestigious awards. If a character wants to compete at a higher division he can, but he can only compete in one division.
That way, Robin Hood or William Tell is still most likely to win the Champion's Bow (or whatever the top tier prize is), though others in that division might still have an outside chance. Bob, on the other hand, would likely be shooting against other Novices for the first division's prize purse... and might win.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 29, 2018 0:40:46 GMT -5
I tend to agree with most thrown there above. Also my money's on Bob the pig farmers son. Likely good odds. *Waves small Bob the pig flag and munches popcorn in the stands* diff lvl events. Let the lowbies shine and let the high lvls split thier arrows in half. I wouldn't want to be the judge eyeing ten arrows sticking in a bullseye and trying to decide which one is more centered than the others. XD
Though this is of course more planning and likely difficult to fill the roster for competitors on three different lvls. And may likely extend the time it takes to get it done leaving less time for other events. Either way tho in a perfect world and time I tend to agree.
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Post by hellscream123 on Apr 29, 2018 1:06:47 GMT -5
Epic level archery should likely be near impossible targets rather than a simple standing target. Like flying, rotary, pinhole, log mounted down rapids. Ect.
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Post by mandene on Apr 29, 2018 3:47:43 GMT -5
As I said it last year, I'm going to repeat it this yeeas well.
Why was the archery the ONE thing considered "unfair" for low levels that it was borked into d20-rolls?
Why has NOBODY so far complained about the melee contest? The low levels have no chance whatsoever? Not only that, only a certain build of melee canwin. It's all about high AB, high Strength and the amount of attacks.
This has been the main thing for me in this whole debate.
What is it about archery, that it was OK to screw the entire group that roleplays archers, but "melee" is somehow untouchable?
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Post by malclave on Apr 29, 2018 4:48:15 GMT -5
I haven't seen the melee so I don't know how it was done. But now I'm thinking of trying to find my old Pendragon rulebooks to see how they did tournaments. The classic archery contest has the advantage of simplicity... it all comes down to the to hit roll. Melee would be more complex. Maybe level-restricted "Grand Melees" with clerics on hand to patch up the participants?
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Post by PhatDorf on Apr 29, 2018 4:52:43 GMT -5
Yknow, it's unfair. It's D&D though. It's built from the ground up to be like that. The point of competitions are training and getting good at something. Things like Greengrass aren't that serious, and are intended as fun more than anything else. You see characters BAD at events participating - Lyn Silverquick Vs the Combat Dummy, this time around as an example. With wins and losses, there's an inherent touch on emotion, you feel good winning, you feel bad losing. People deal with it in different ways and have different priorites, depends how seriously you take it. For my personal experience, I'll say this - Dreshae joins in on strength contests often enough, over the years. She likes the unmagical raw test, but moreover the challenge. They're almost always dominated by Dragon Disciples, who have amazing raw strength unbuffed. People are aware of that, and there have been times where RDDs competing have incured a negative modifier due to thier advantage. There have been times they haven't. It's fun for me to go up against someone in a friendly manner, and see how well I can do. Dreshae's come joint 2nd, and 1st place before, and she's got fairly average strength. If I go into an event, knowing I'm not the best at it, I don't expect to do well. Even if I am good at it, I don't expect to win. There's always someone else with probably a more efficient build, at least compared to my goofy paladin. The fun of winning is from overcoming challenges, and trying despite that. I got a character with flaws, and strengths. I try not to fret over the numbers on the character sheet, or other people's ones. Dresh'll try anyway. Same goes for pvp and level differences While it's not fun getting trounced over and over, fair play to someone if they're really good at that thing. But... If you DO win, it's a greater victory.
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Post by mandene on Apr 29, 2018 5:00:45 GMT -5
I haven't seen the melee so I don't know how it was done. But now I'm thinking of trying to find my old Pendragon rulebooks to see how they did tournaments. The classic archery contest has the advantage of simplicity... it all comes down to the to hit roll. Melee would be more complex. Maybe level-restricted "Grand Melees" with clerics on hand to patch up the participants? The melees I've seen are basically whack-the-dummy contest. The first dummy that breaks makes the winner. There's no duels and no risk getting hurt. But all about the attack and damage - do a lot of damage quickly. Also: Well said Creasus.
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Post by Warlord on Apr 29, 2018 8:14:12 GMT -5
I liked the simulation-attempt at the eating of pies. The designers concluded waiting 2 minutes before another constitution roll was requested. I think this did help generate more RP during the nomfest and it certainly made me have to think things through to contribute. The devil is in the details and that was a unique detail.
I really wanted Helga to win the pie eating contest so she could opt-out of the other contest she participated in. But then Shamoke sat down...Statistically, I still had a chance to beat Shamoke, but let's face it: dude knows how to eat pie.
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Post by lucid on Apr 29, 2018 9:12:44 GMT -5
Are people really complaining that carnival games are unfair? You may want to avoid a real carnival, then, those people will rip you of left and right. Three dollars for a chance to win a pencil eraser by throwing a hyperinflated basketball through an smooshed oval of a basket?? My whole world is undone....man, if you can't trust Carnies, who CAN you trust?
J/K I know that's not what you guys mean but man that was funny!
Now, let me just preface this next bit with "I do not actually care but I am a math nerd and cannot be silent when math cries out in pain." For fairness I would caution about the method used for number generation in the raffle. 2d20 creates a bell curve. If that makes you hear a ringing tone instead of seeing a graph, I'm saying it because that creates unfair conditions.
Possible combinations to make certain tickets:
#2: 1+1...that's all. #12: 1+11, 2+10, 3+9, 4+8, 5+7, 6+6, 7+5, 8+4, 9+3, 10+2, 11+1 #21: 1+20, 2+19, 3+18, 4+17, 5+16, 6+15, etc...there are 20 different ways to roll this
Odds displayed are 1/400, 11/400, and 20/400...put my money on 21, please! Worth saying, 21 did not win, but 18, 19, 23, and 25 did, IIRC. The clustering in the middle is the effect of the bell curve.
You'd be better off rolling d100 and scrapping high rolls. Or taking a cue from the P&P d100, and get a d40 by first rolling a d4-1 for the 10's digit, then a d10 for the ones digit.
Also:
EGG HUNT WAS AWESOME
I would do that again every single time. That was SO MUCH FUN! Serious props to whoever set that up, really nicely done!
And last...
ARENA WITH BEASTS A 20-headed hydra. An Epic Displacer Beast. A 40x40 gelatinous cube. Sky's the limit, man! Everybody jump in there and smack the thing! Have a panel of judges who watch and vote on who beat up the beast the most, who was Most Daring, etc. Audience gets a vote, majority counts as 1 vote for that participant.
Could be done in real-time with log review after, or could be done in Bullet Time as 10 heroes going at one poor beasty probably wouldn't last more than a couple rounds anyway.
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Post by grivel on Apr 29, 2018 9:26:24 GMT -5
Thank you Fluffy for resurrecting this post from last year. I was going to start a new one anyway. While I appreciate all the constructive criticism, I would like it to be just about this year's festival. We made changes due to your suggestions from last year. Many complained about the archery, but there was no archery this year. Please respond to this thread only if you attended this year and have something to say about this year's events. We are always looking to make things better, but you can't please everyone.
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Post by Spirit of a Phoenix on Apr 29, 2018 10:12:51 GMT -5
You guys did great, and like you said, you aren't going to please everyone. I wouldn't take any of the suggestions about splitting events up by level bracket, because you already were jumping from one event to the other. Having three separate brackets just leaves you less time for more events. So I can't see it working. Leaving the events to a modifier usage, still gives certain characters an advantage, while still leaving luck as an influence of who wins. It's fun having a little unpredictability in the mix because otherwise, we all know which characters will win each competition. If a character loses, they can always RP it as bad luck or that they got nervous and it threw their game off. Personally, I like seeing the variety of events. I would suggest posting the event rules early on. You probably will need to repeat the instructions in game, but the advantage is that more people will understand what to expect beforehand, and any confusion can be addressed early on rather than at the moment of the event. This also means less green text clutter in your chat box with questions about the rules. This is something that has helped me during the events I would hold, but admittedly I'm also not the best multi-tasker and I can't always follow the green text I get and all the mini-conversations around me very easily. You both might be better at it than I am. For the Wack-A-Dummy event, I would recommend away from attack rolls, just so players have more opportunity to RP their actions for crowd reactions during the event. I would recommend using the 1d20 or 1d10 and adding the strength modifier. Maybe do it by rounds like the pie eating contest, and use the roll each round to add to a total hp score to totally destroy the dummy. Each dummy's total would be something like 150 HP, and each roll takes away from the dummy's durability. Round One, the PC rolls a 1d20 and gets an 11 then adds their 5 modifier to deal 16 damage to the dummy that round. Or if you want to take it a step further, you could give each contestant a chance to roll or use the raffle system to get initiative regarding who picks their dummy, and each dummy can have a mystery durability. One might have 110, durability another might have 160 to add even more suspense and surprise to the event. Hopefully, this makes sense. My last suggestion is to bring back the bobbing for apples event. That was a fun one! If you both want to add an event to your yearly amount, a harvest festival in the fall would also be a lot of fun. Again, thanks to everyone involved in setting this event up for the community. Your efforts were definitely appreciated, thank you!
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Post by malclave on Apr 29, 2018 10:48:41 GMT -5
Please respond to this thread only if you attended this year and have something to say about this year's events. Zen Archery should let you use WIS instead of DEX at the dunk tank. Although to be honest, I was kind of hoping to roll a 1 so I could bean someone behind me with a DEX roll of 0.
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Post by goldenhearts on Apr 29, 2018 11:10:57 GMT -5
Festival events are never going to be fair, and have always excluded some classes because of some warped rules. Allowing weapon masters to use their favoured weapons, knockdowns, expertise all allowed and bards disallowed from using bard song and spells. Point is, it's always going to be unbalanced. I never took part in any event other than the last raffle, which was....how can I put it. Badly done (No offence intended) but 2d20 -5 is a bit of a long shot for any lower or higher number as was mentioned by others.
Putting a finesse fighter against a strength fighter to bash a dummy, odds are the strength fighter will always win. Putting a normal archer against a arcane archer, odds are the arcane will always win. In truth, if you want real balance, the easiest way is items with a minus on the highest stat to equal the playing field.
For instance, fighter A has 30 strength, fighter B has 10, simply use a -20 item to balance that dummy bashing exercise and they both use the same type of unfavoured weapon. As for archery, everyone uses a crossbow with rapid reload on it, with the stats being equalized once again.
Will this happen?
Probably not, as who needs fair in a fair game?
In the end many classes lose what makes them special, sneak attacks are lost, magic arrows are lost, bard song gone, no cleric buffs and so on. Either way, each game always favours one or two classes no matter what. My best advice is, don't take part when the rules seem to favour specific classes.
I'm not griping as I never took part, however there have been other festival events (not just greengrass) I avoided due to how the rules excluded some players.
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Post by Divinity on Apr 29, 2018 11:29:11 GMT -5
I enjoyed the event. I do have a pet peeve towards throwing, and hitting that doesn't use throwing or hitting rolls though, for many of the reasons above. I'm glad the dummy competition was as it was; I wouldn't have entered were it d20 rolls. If you want combat and archery that is more 'fair', my suggestion to bridge the gap between the two are to offer both. An 'amateur competition' that breaks things down to be enjoyable and more fairly balanced, and a 'professional competition' that uses real attack and throw rolls so players that have spent time building a character with feats and skills, etc can show it. As much fun as it is for Bob the Farmer to beat Alice the Arcane Archer, Alice may have had that much less fun being gimped by strange rules. An archery competition should be archery. If you don't want an archery competition, then pick a different game, like tossing rings on bottles, balls into baskets, or other carnival-like games. Were it my event, I'd have archery that was real archery and then a separate 'dex-based event' that uses d20 rolls. A combat event that uses real combat and then a separate 'strength-based event' that uses d20 rolls. With some creativity, you can create very unique events that include the chance for any characters to win without infringing on the natural nature of events that characters are literally built around (like archery and combat). This also allows those that won't win combat-based events to feel like they can still compete and win without it having to be in one of those events. In any case, thank you for hosting the event. I was able to get a player that hasn't played in many many years ( mebriellz ) to get back on to RP and I had a great time.
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Post by Aoi on Apr 29, 2018 11:49:41 GMT -5
goldenheartsLong time no see in game! I can't fully sign this. I remember the first event I took part. It wasn't Greengrass but shield meet. I was a bit disappointed as in a bard contest a monk was the winner. I still wear the belt Davina got from Keth nonetheless. But I don't think that all events favour certain classes. Shield meet proved that. All in all I wouldn't say Greengrass should be removed or something. Some contests and rules could be changed if necessary. I was there without taking part in the games as I didn't have enough time. But I still had fun with performing and all that.
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Post by Fluffy the Mad on Apr 29, 2018 13:16:15 GMT -5
Now, let me just preface this next bit with "I do not actually care but I am a math nerd and cannot be silent when math cries out in pain." For fairness I would caution about the method used for number generation in the raffle. 2d20 creates a bell curve. If that makes you hear a ringing tone instead of seeing a graph, I'm saying it because that creates unfair conditions. Possible combinations to make certain tickets: #2: 1+1...that's all. #12: 1+11, 2+10, 3+9, 4+8, 5+7, 6+6, 7+5, 8+4, 9+3, 10+2, 11+1 #21: 1+20, 2+19, 3+18, 4+17, 5+16, 6+15, etc...there are 20 different ways to roll this Odds displayed are 1/400, 11/400, and 20/400...put my money on 21, please! Worth saying, 21 did not win, but 18, 19, 23, and 25 did, IIRC. The clustering in the middle is the effect of the bell curve. You'd be better off rolling d100 and scrapping high rolls. Or taking a cue from the P&P d100, and get a d40 by first rolling a d4-1 for the 10's digit, then a d10 for the ones digit. This was why I suggested a PRNG. They're easy to find and someone running windowed mode can just pop out a random number each time- no throwing out numbers required. If someone absolutely must have a diceroll, a d100 will work, but it's inefficient. The second method of rolling for 10s and 1s places is better.
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Post by Animayhem on Apr 29, 2018 14:54:49 GMT -5
Thanks for the feedback so far. Greengrass Festival is mainly for fun, For people to meet new acquaintances or renew old ones. You need to remember, unlike shield meet, which is over a few days, we only have the one day. We try are best to coordinate and have events scheduled for time zones.
This year the melee we divided it into two mundane and magic. Both were funny as hell, the mundane especially, powerful people couldn't destroy the dummy first hit either mundane or magic.
Yes for spell casting, I agree a more active listing. It was the first time we tried the event.
I agree an easier way for raffle numbers to be called.
I think over all this year we did have more early information out front.
This year I saw more player rp and participate than the years before.
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Post by Razgriz on Apr 29, 2018 17:15:12 GMT -5
My only complaint is that during the first non-magical melee, there was only one mundane longsword.
Though at the same time, that is ok. Dual wielding two medium weapons is somewhat silly, even if it looks cool.
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Post by grivel on Apr 29, 2018 20:22:29 GMT -5
I found a random sequence generator online that i think will be perfect for the next raffle. It will randomly pick a list of numbers from 1-35 without duplicating. Thanks for the idea.
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Post by lucid on Apr 30, 2018 17:03:34 GMT -5
I found a random sequence generator online that i think will be perfect for the next raffle. It will randomly pick a list of numbers from 1-35 without duplicating. Thanks for the idea. Not to suggest I don’t trust you but using an engine we can all watch simultaneously as it happens is kind of a big deal...10*(d4-1) + d10 is prob best
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Post by Animayhem on Apr 30, 2018 17:35:08 GMT -5
Thank you for the feed back so far. This year Grivel and myself had to actually buy the food and weapons. We will try and make sure we have enough next time. Some have mentioned it is like a carnival in a way it is. In a throwing contest at a carnival everyone uses the same darts. Some may be an athlete and have natural skill but can still miss while someone who does not hits I could see the dunk tank rather than a dex roll just a basic 1d roll which levels the playing field more. We do not charge for admission or food. The event fees are quite reasonable. No one was obligated to join in anything. It s meant to be a social event and indeed many who did not join in events were able to enjoy the surroundings. Rules are a bit tricky. We tried to wait while the majority is around. DM Hawk Pandora could it be possible to have the rules posted at event sites like the job postings in Greatgaunt et al? That would help. If those who participated in the event do not object, in a separate thread I would like to post a transcript of the events. Some really great rp was had and it might give a better perspective of what we were trying to accomplish. If anyone objects send me in a pm. I will eventually posting screen shots as well.
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