This past weekend I attended my third Endgame event as an NPC. For the first time I had someone to share the ride with, and that made a world of difference. The ride up was quite long, and made longer by the fact we made a few wrong turns and got a bit lost towards the end because of a screwup I made with the directions. We also took a small detour in CT to hook up with kumir_k9 for dinner. That was a pleasant break in the trip


As we were zipping around the back roads of NH trying to find the campsite I stupidly sped past a cop going 21 mph over the speed limit. What started to look like a really awful stroke of luck ended up being quite fortunate. Not only did he let me off with a warning, he escorted us to the campsite so we could find it.

The event itself is still just a bit of a happy hazy blur to me. This time I had no real roleplaying or acting roles to speak of. It was just one crunchie shift after another. In order to get any sort of roleplaying role assigned to me I know I need to work with the staff well before the event. As it was I wasn't entirely sure I was going to go until a week or so before the event when burkefireguy11 agreed to ride with me.

But even though I stuck to crunchie roles I think I did a fairly good job of it. I was only scolded (politely) by staff once for sloppy NPC'ing. I'm getting to know several of the other NPC's better, and I even got to spend time with some of the folks from my Madrigal team who were also there NPC'ing. I brought a ton of costuming I never used, but I was able to bail out two modules by providing extension cords and rope lights. That felt kind of nice.

Several of the modules were quite interesting, and I got to see a bunch of really cool props and costumes. The final mod on Saturday night was probably the most enjoyable. It had an extremely elaborate setup and script and a ton of giant paper mache organs that had to be assembled and manipulated in a ritual. I was just playing generic skeleton on the module, but at one point the ritual called for someone or something to be sacrificed. I was amused when the PC's decided to use my NPC for the sacrifice.

Once again they had an in character Rave at the event put on by some ghost raver chick. I participated as one of the ghosts and that was about as close as I got to a roleplaying part. I flopped around the dance floor and occasionally chatted with some of the PC's, but didn't really interact in any meaningful fashion. I'm no dancer and going to something like that tends to bring back all those painful memories of standing against the wall at high school dances and such. Ironically, burkefireguy11 got himself a fairly elaborate character assigned to him at the dance that was an uptight stick in the mud who didn't want to dance. burkefireguy11 though is a great dancer and used to attend raves all the time. So he was frustrated at the rave be not being able to dance.

The event had a number of things working against it. One of the key plot running NPC's had car trouble and only made it to the event on Saturday afternoon. Another key NPC who was running a lot of plot got sick and left the event before Saturday. This resulted in a lot of tension in monster camp and a ton of on the fly rewriting of plot and mods.

The first time I attended Endgame everything was bright and shiny and new and I loved it. The next time I got a few small roleplaying roles and I contributed a tons of props for a really neat mod. This time I did neither, and it left me feeling a lot less invested in the game. I think I've gotten to the point where I need to get more involved if this game is going to hold my interest.

I don't mind crunching, but playing the same zombie card nearly solidly for 3 straight days does get old. I tried to speak up and offer some suggestions and participate in monster camp when the plot folks were trying to re-write mods or come up with different costumes and such, and I'm pretty sure all that did was annoy the crap out of people. And I can understand where they were coming from.

So next time, and I'm pretty sure there will be a next time, I'll make certain to get with some staff folks beforehand and see if I can either make some more props or invent some sort of role or maybe even run a small repeater mod or something similar. That is likely to be in October, so I have fair amount of time to think up some stuff.

I wonder how giant mutant mushrooms would play in Endgame?