Rumours of my death are... well-founded
Jan. 9th, 2007 12:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
king_pellinorI had great fun LARPing on Sunday. In the morning I died, and in the afternoon I killed another player by accident.
My death was a bit silly really. We were fighting a load of dark elves, and had chopped a couple down. I therefore relaxed a bit and went into mop-up mode, tackling someone who really is not cut out for fighting (she tends to wave a sword vaguely and smile in an embarrassed fashion). Being tooled up with lots of armour, shield and lots of weapons I didn't really want to just charge in and squish her brutally, so I started trying to let her die with dignity (ie have a bit of a fence first before killing her). After all, I had seen that the monster with the enchanted weapon was down, I had plenty of armour against non-enchanted weapons, and we were winning, so there was no risk.
I then felt a hit on my back and a cry of "enchanted" - while I was concentrating on fighting theatrically instead of properly someone had run around the outside of the fight. With an internal cry of "bugger" I went down, annoyed at missing the rest of the fight. A couple of minutes into the five-minute death count I started to get a bit worried by the sounds of the fight (another wave of monsters?). Four minutes in I was getting very worried by the fact that no-one had even checked on me (normally happens very quickly). At six minutes (ie one too late) people finally started to bustle around me. Cue tears, careful hands pulling my corpse into a dignified position with sword and shield on chest, arguments between the priests as to who would get the body ("He should go on to his rest!" "No, we can rebuild him!"), and great debate as to whether the party could possibly manage without me :-D
I later heard that the party had been reduced to two people of the original nine, one of whom had lost the use of both his arms and one leg (but still managed to get a healing potion by mouth!), so obviously the situation had been rather worse than I'd thought.
All is not doom and gloom, however: there is talk of having me resurrected. I find I really don't care either way: I have plans for this character, but I also have plans for my next one and so I'm happy to leave it in fate's hands. The next one will be a bit more likeable, though :-)
In the afternoon, I was monstering. The first proper encounter was meant to be displaced peasants turned to banditry: a total of eight of us, with daggers and a short swords between us, against a party of eleven. The place we decided to have the ambush in had a branch leaning against a tree, looking as if someone had just started a lean-to bivouac. Having nothing better to do, we started building it up with branches lying around (the Forestry Commission has recently devastated the site, with piles of logs, tracks churned into yard-deep mud, and puddles that turn out to be knee- rather than inches-deep (alas for my not-quite-to-the-knee boots!)). This then led to A Plan: we would pretend that one of us was ill and ask the party for help. On the signal "It's going to be a stormy night - a really stormy night" we would attack! Daggers against armour, spears and magic! We're Doomed But Desperate!
The party fell for it as if they'd walked off a cliff. They wandered off chatting, I persuaded several to head into the woods for firewood, the one or two cautious ones held themselves well back where they couldn't do a thing... and on the signal knives were ripped from belts and sank into bellies and backs. Half the party went down before they realised what was happening (a high proportion of unarmoured mages and the like) and the rest fled like rabbits.
They regrouped and dithered, and we suddenly realised that they weren't going to do anything: although they had bows and spells, and so could have picked us apart in a moment and then destroyed us one by one, but they just had no idea what to do! So we had to start looting the bodies - not for loot, but for healing to try and keep the party alive.
It was at this point that the rump of the party finally got their act together, and started half-heartedly attacking the people who were healing their friends - thus, of course, completely denying them any sort of healing by friend or by foe. If they'd moved a couple of minutes earlier they could have done the job themselves; a few minutes later it would have been done for them; they chose the perfect time to cock it up completely :-D
As it was only one died (he'd had a spear and no armour, and as I had a dagger and was inside his guard when the signal came he had no chance to defend himself), but I think several came tremendously close.
Alpha_Hannah, who wrote the adventure, was nearly in tears: her first act as a GM had been to destroy the party. This of course ignores the fact that the monsters had come up with a Really Cunning Plan, nothing to do with her, and the party had behaved like rabbits in headlights (which they really had no excuse for, with the players involved); the reputation should do her no harm, though ;-)
It was great :-D
My death was a bit silly really. We were fighting a load of dark elves, and had chopped a couple down. I therefore relaxed a bit and went into mop-up mode, tackling someone who really is not cut out for fighting (she tends to wave a sword vaguely and smile in an embarrassed fashion). Being tooled up with lots of armour, shield and lots of weapons I didn't really want to just charge in and squish her brutally, so I started trying to let her die with dignity (ie have a bit of a fence first before killing her). After all, I had seen that the monster with the enchanted weapon was down, I had plenty of armour against non-enchanted weapons, and we were winning, so there was no risk.
I then felt a hit on my back and a cry of "enchanted" - while I was concentrating on fighting theatrically instead of properly someone had run around the outside of the fight. With an internal cry of "bugger" I went down, annoyed at missing the rest of the fight. A couple of minutes into the five-minute death count I started to get a bit worried by the sounds of the fight (another wave of monsters?). Four minutes in I was getting very worried by the fact that no-one had even checked on me (normally happens very quickly). At six minutes (ie one too late) people finally started to bustle around me. Cue tears, careful hands pulling my corpse into a dignified position with sword and shield on chest, arguments between the priests as to who would get the body ("He should go on to his rest!" "No, we can rebuild him!"), and great debate as to whether the party could possibly manage without me :-D
I later heard that the party had been reduced to two people of the original nine, one of whom had lost the use of both his arms and one leg (but still managed to get a healing potion by mouth!), so obviously the situation had been rather worse than I'd thought.
All is not doom and gloom, however: there is talk of having me resurrected. I find I really don't care either way: I have plans for this character, but I also have plans for my next one and so I'm happy to leave it in fate's hands. The next one will be a bit more likeable, though :-)
In the afternoon, I was monstering. The first proper encounter was meant to be displaced peasants turned to banditry: a total of eight of us, with daggers and a short swords between us, against a party of eleven. The place we decided to have the ambush in had a branch leaning against a tree, looking as if someone had just started a lean-to bivouac. Having nothing better to do, we started building it up with branches lying around (the Forestry Commission has recently devastated the site, with piles of logs, tracks churned into yard-deep mud, and puddles that turn out to be knee- rather than inches-deep (alas for my not-quite-to-the-knee boots!)). This then led to A Plan: we would pretend that one of us was ill and ask the party for help. On the signal "It's going to be a stormy night - a really stormy night" we would attack! Daggers against armour, spears and magic! We're Doomed But Desperate!
The party fell for it as if they'd walked off a cliff. They wandered off chatting, I persuaded several to head into the woods for firewood, the one or two cautious ones held themselves well back where they couldn't do a thing... and on the signal knives were ripped from belts and sank into bellies and backs. Half the party went down before they realised what was happening (a high proportion of unarmoured mages and the like) and the rest fled like rabbits.
They regrouped and dithered, and we suddenly realised that they weren't going to do anything: although they had bows and spells, and so could have picked us apart in a moment and then destroyed us one by one, but they just had no idea what to do! So we had to start looting the bodies - not for loot, but for healing to try and keep the party alive.
It was at this point that the rump of the party finally got their act together, and started half-heartedly attacking the people who were healing their friends - thus, of course, completely denying them any sort of healing by friend or by foe. If they'd moved a couple of minutes earlier they could have done the job themselves; a few minutes later it would have been done for them; they chose the perfect time to cock it up completely :-D
As it was only one died (he'd had a spear and no armour, and as I had a dagger and was inside his guard when the signal came he had no chance to defend himself), but I think several came tremendously close.
Alpha_Hannah, who wrote the adventure, was nearly in tears: her first act as a GM had been to destroy the party. This of course ignores the fact that the monsters had come up with a Really Cunning Plan, nothing to do with her, and the party had behaved like rabbits in headlights (which they really had no excuse for, with the players involved); the reputation should do her no harm, though ;-)
It was great :-D
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Date: 2007-03-21 04:30 pm (UTC)It was super day :D
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Date: 2007-03-21 04:30 pm (UTC)It was a super day.
Geez.
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Date: 2007-03-21 04:34 pm (UTC)It reminds me, though -I was going to do more of these to remind me of plot and exciting stuff. I must catch up with that sort of thing.
Maybe if I take the laptop with me I can do it on the ferry on the way home... hmmm....