"Das schliesst dann aber mit ein das du am Eingang die Leute nach Hause schickst, die das ignoriert haben, oder? "

Ich persönlich hätte nichts gegen ein wenig Selektion (von mir aus auch an der Pforte), kann jedoch vollkommen verstehen, wenn von Seiten der Orga auf solch drastische Maßnahmen verzichtet wird, weswegen ich dies auch mit keiner Silbe gefordert habe.

"Sonst wird der Effekt naemlich null sein bei einer Veranstalltung dieser Groessenordnung."

Es ist bedauerlich, dass das anscheinend für dein Spielumfeld gilt (zumindest erlaube ich mir, dies aus deinen Aussagen zu deuten), jedoch bin ich mir recht sicher, dass sich mein Spielumfeld durchaus von solch einer Ansage beeinflussen lassen würde.

Beste Grüße

Christian

"Was ich meinte ist das auf den kleineren Cons auf denen ich war immer ca 5% Spieler da waren die nicht in das Setting passten"

Glaubt man dem persönlichen Empfinden zahlreicher Schreiber im Review-thread könnte man zu der Einsicht gelangen, dass nur 5% "Unpassende" geradezu traumhaft wären.

Wenn ich das auf die Größenordnung des CQ hochrechne wundert es mich nicht, das es sowas wie Regenbogengnome und Feen und Gobbos da gibt

Aufgrund der von mir bereits mehrfach angesprochenen Sachverhalte wundert mich das tatsächlich auch nicht. Und vielleicht sind derlei illustre Gestalten tatsächlich nicht wegzubekommen - aber vielleicht wenigstens zu minimieren.

"und ich persönlich denke auch das sie eine Darseinsberechtigung haben, denn wenn nicht auf dem CQ, dann vermutlich garnicht"

Ja, vermutlich gar nicht...

"Und gerade sowas wie ein Kender sucht doch geradezu bierernste Situationen, denn da werden sie am meisten gebraucht."

Will sagen: Da sie meisten Kender-Spieler, auf die ich in den letzten Jahren treffen durfte, bzgl. passender Situationen im Larp in etwa so viel Takt- und Feingefühl hatten wie eine freifallende Cluster-Bombe, brauche zumindest ich keine Nerv-Kender in meinem Larp (und scheinbar bin ich mit dieser Einstellung bei weitem nicht alleine). Erst recht nicht in bierernsten Situationen...

Ich hab bei uns ne Kenderin und ne Schelmin gehabt auf dem JdS.

Die Schelmin war wieder dabei, aber sie ist bei weitem keine nerv-schelmin, sondern jemand der immer versucht alles zum guten zu richten. Mein absolutes Lob an dich, Dudi. Dein Spiel hat meines immer bereichert und nie geschmälert.

Unsere Kenderin hat sich wegen des Settings einen anderen Charakter zugelegt, um ernsthafter aufs CoM einzugehen.

Ich persönlich fand das Setting kam leider nicht an, Plots fand glaube ich jeder genug, aber irgendwo waren alle von Anfang an zusehr in Siegesstimmung fand ich. Ich hatte trotz des Wetters ein trübsaliges und trauerndes Heer erwartet das bis zum letzten Atemzug kämpfen will. Mut der Verzweiflung, aber das habe ich weniger gefunden. Kann das wer anders berichten?

"Unsere Kenderin hat sich wegen des Settings einen anderen Charakter zugelegt, um ernsthafter aufs CoM einzugehen. "

Find ich gut und absolut lobenswert.

My apologies right away for my use of english.

I am an American living in the UK who attended CoM 2010 as part of a German larp holiday. The week prior I went to Drachenfest. These were my first experiences of larp on the continent but I have been larping, SCAing, airsofting and re-enacting for about 25 years in the US and UK. I have PC'd, NPC'd, and organised events in those years.

First off, Fabian I respect you making such a public admission. That takes courage mate. To admit 60% of a customer base is unsatisfied takes an enormous blow to someone's pride. But its only through honesty and reaction to feedback that any product or service can improve.

That said, I certainly didn't experience 60% of people being unhappy during the event. To put things from my perspective, I saw an amazingly well executed sand-box role play event. Huge player base, massive dedicated NPC population, excellent kit, prop and setting quality levels. Personally I had so much on offer to try that I could not find time to do everything.

Yes, there was a definite festival atmosphere. More so than I think the average "seige" would entail. That is down to the players though. Its a sand-box. You set things up and the players decide how to play with it.

Being more familiar with british larp I was at first stunned by the quality of the costumes and camps. But I was then stunned by the lack of coordination and teamwork between the various player groups. I kept thinking to myself, "How have these people managed to struggle through battles like this all these years?" I know larpers can be real individualists but so see so little communication between the various PC leadership was frustrating for me to no end.

And that I think is the real point of it all. When you get 7000 players together, without some really dynamic leadership in place (and by dynamic I mean downright ruthless dictatorship) you are going to suffer chaos.

Players do what players want to do. They get comfortable and dont like to get pushed outside their comfort zone. I recall someone on the forums asking players to refrain from using wood to make player camp defenses and focus on using the wood for seige equipment and seigeworks around the castle. This was ignored by just about every camp to differing degrees, but what we didnt end up with was any seigeworks. Oh sure we had some seige weapons, but where were the defensive breastworks the players could man to keep the NPC's from rushing out in sorties to cause havoc?

And why were so few people in the fortress each evening, resulting in it being retaken by the npcs each morning? (on this note I would suggest it might have helped to have made some things in the castle to make it easier for players to stay there in the evening ie somewhere warm and dry to get a nap). Why were the people who did stay in the fortress more focused on drinking than on being in the moment of being in a life or death seige?

Having very little german language skills, I am sure I missed out on a lot of the plot but even with just english I managed to find enough plot to keep me occupied so there is no excuse for people to say there wasn't plot. And there was certainly LOADS of things to do. No reason what so ever for anyone to be bored. I mean, you didn't even have to look that hard. Just sitting in town having a beer I could see things evolving around me with the "gangs from new york"-looking lot and the militia.

Which brings up the point of people talking about festival costumes. Steampunk is on the rise. I like steampunk, but time and place matters. At first I was keen on the idea of steampunk and gunpowder weapons in my fantasy larp but at the event being a heavy armoured shield wall fighter I found pirates with pistols doing repeated "gusts of wind" quite frustrating. With the plot the way its going at mythodea, I suspect there will soon be a big steampunk reveal. Which is a good thing for some, not so good for others I suspect.

The more groups you try to include, the more tastes you try to cater for, the more folks will be turned off. Its the nature of the beast.

Personally I think CoM 2010 was a success. I had a great time, despite getting so sick I was stuck in my bed almost a whole day, blisters so bad I had to see the paramedics twice, not understanding all the big speeches, and being on a somewhat limited budget. The people were great, the food/drink was great, the costumes/props/locations were great.

Its easy to take for granted what is going right. There were plenty of toilets, showers, food, water, and medical support. Setting up and take down were relatively smooth. There was more hay then we made use of (I will remember that next year!!). Booking in, character generation, weapons "check" were all smooth. I saw great heroic fighting with properly swung weapons(although I do wonder how so many folks in pirate shirts can take as many hits as knights in platemail).

One thing that did strike me was the lack of a real sense of "fear". I was taken down by the NPCs at one point, thought my character was dead for sure but was healed and taken over by the NPCS which was interesting the one time....but I kept hearing how everyone I thought who had died had the same thing happen. Between that and the lack of player versus player combat (no brigands in the woods at night?!) I sort of got the feeling it was like World of Warcraft more than EVE if I can use an MMO analogy. Lack of a feeling of risk makes any gain feel less valued.

This is different from my experiences with british larp, where one battle I NPC'd in after CoM resulted in something like 50% of the players being killed. Fear of permanent player death does make the heart race.

That said, when I spoke with my german friends and british friends about larp it seemed to be the difference was quite fundamental. the germans larp as a friendly non-competitive game. The british larp as a more competitive (in a good way) game. Thats why when I mentioned the suggestion that british larp look at the german example of buying coin physreps with OOC money the british larp community was up in arms about it. Coins represent "points scored" to many british players.

The reason I bring this all up is that I really hope to get more british players over to see german larp. I have yet to meet a single british player who has attended the big german larps and not been impressed. We have so much to learn here....and I would suggest Fabian and all of you reading this to take an honest look at your larping. Dont beat yourselves up too much. Organisers keep making the sand-box. Players, challenge yourselves to go find the game you want. Dont expect organisers to spoon feed you.

Great posting!

This should be the end for this topic, but I'm sure it isn't.

I really like your positive thinking. =)