Special Events

Alongside our standard monthly gatherings, we run a variety of special events through the year. Some are yearly traditions; others only come around every few years.

Yearly

Feb Feast (OOC Event)

Held over the winter break, Feb Feast is our big out-of-character social event where the community gathers and gets to know each other away from the game. While traditionally it has always been held in February (thus the name), it is sometimes held at the end of January.

During each Feb Feast we also auction, raffle and sell a variety of special items created by the Rules Comittee to raise funds for the game.

This is a wet event (alcohol permitted), which means it cannot be held at Camp Kingsley. Generally, a hotel or similar venue will be booked for it. That means pre-registration is required for catering, and the registration fee runs higher than a normal event depending on the venue. The date is announced the preceding November or December.

Founder's Feast

The only on-site event in March, when the game site is often snowy and icy. To work around the weather, it's trimmed to two shifts: cleanup takes what would normally be third shift, and an in-character feast replaces fourth. For first and second shift players PC/NPC as normal, with a special shift balance built by Logistics just for the event. Turnout tends to be lower (not everyone loves the cold), which lets Game Masters focus on the players who do come.

March is also our home for silly plots. Getting the joke plots out of the way in March means GMs can launch their first-half-of-the-year storylines in April without them being mistaken for a joke plot, and it gives players a gentler, more relaxed return to game after the winter break before the year's plots ramp up. Serious stories still run in March, and the occasional joke plot appears in other months too, but this is when you'll see the best of them. In recent years there's been an effort to keep fourth-wall-breaking joke plots to a minimum, though they still surface now and then.

Julybilee (OOC Event)

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This event is organized by the Player Outreach and Education staff and also hosts an auction and raffle,raffle with items created by the Rules Comittee, much like Feb Feast. Expect event details to be announced for this around April of each year, or earlier if we expect issues with booking. 

Harvest Fest (August Event)

At Harvest Fest, third and fourth shift are given over to everyone playing their own player character; players who don't have a character yet can play townsfolk and join the festivities. Once held in the fall, it now runs in August to make the hottest month a little more relaxed.

Player groups each volunteer to run a carnival-style game with prizes for the winners. Past games have included trivia, Simon Says, archery, tag-bag throwing, and obstacle courses, really anything with a clear winner that wraps in about 30 minutes. There's also a fighter's tournament each year with custom rules to level the field so everyone can take part. Prizes are epic items whose magic lasts a single year.

For first and second shift players PC/NPC as normal, with a special shift balance built by Logistics just for the event. Harvest Fest kicks off once the logistics building is cleaned up, much like Founder's Feast. 

Seasonal Notes

A couple months carry seasonal quirks worth knowing, even though they run as standard events:

Halloween (November) Events 

Every year Halloween is a great source of new props for our game. The Props Marshals will typically put out a want list of things they are hoping to acquire on sale from Halloween vendors during post Halloween clearance sales. It is also very common for there to be double experience value for cash donations made between October and November to help us take advantage of these sales.

While there is no in-game tradition to run anything specific for Halloween, many Game Masters do take the opportunity to flex their creativity and do something unusual or spooky with things they find because of the season.

December Events 

As the last event of the year, which is then followed by a 2-4 month break, many Game Masters will wrap up some of their ongoing plots. There's nothing sadder than seeing a plot people are engaged with wither and die because everyone forgot the details over Winter break. Not every plot will be wrapped up at this time, but generally smaller ones that are unlikely to be recalled will end by this month at the latest.

If you don't think your adventuring group is going to continue to stay together over the winter break, it's a good idea to let any Game Masters running ongoing plots for you know this so that they can wrap them up accordingly.

Periodic

These larger events run only every few years — partly to keep them special, partly because they're a great deal of extra work and expense to stage. Both typically replace the September or October event, usually require pre-registration, and may carry a higher fee to cover setup. The two rarely happen in the same year.

Dungeon Crawl

Players explore a dungeon full of monsters and traps in groups of around ten; anyone who normally plays independently joins a group for the event. The dungeon's physical layout stays static as it's demanding to build, but the narrative and the monsters inside change from group to group.

Castle Siege

We rent a different site (such as a paintball park) and use the structures built there to tell a story built around large-scale mass combat.