Exiles - A PC Perspective

This past weekend I went and played Exiles, which is a wild-west Larp centered in Ohio that has a healthy dose of steampunk and fantasy thrown in for good measure.  You get to use rubberband guns, costuming can be easy and simple (or elaborate) to put together.  Also, when you die, you are DEAD DEAD, as in go start a new character, so it adds a nice level of fear.  Everyone is super friendly and willing to lend a hand.  This past event was the first event since the campaign event closer last year (helping Angels defend against the rampaging demons - HELLA fun) and revolved returning to Redemption Hills, once the morality star of the West, but since the Great War it has fallen back to lawlessness.  Land titles up for grab, strange creatures that required investigation, and of course, the dreaded Wastelands creeping ever closer.

This is a PC Perspective of the last event, I'm sure my husband, Bill, will do a Plot perspective once he gets back from traveling (as he is plot for Exiles).
The Pro's:
- Multiple Plot Teams - For this event, there were three plot teams who worked in shifts.  It was the first time they tried this and I thought it went surprisingly well.  Despite a few hiccups, there wasn't really a discernible break in the flow of the event as the teams switched and the same plot lines were visible throughout.  As in it didn't feel like three different plot teams running plot-wise.

- Mod Mechanics - something Exiles does really really well is they have mod mechanics, even if it is a small one, on nearly every single mod.  Many allow pc's to have "hero" moments, which I am a big fan of (like harvesting insectoid specimens - the doc's got to use syringes to pour water on styrene to reveal the "insect" inside (small pipe cleaners) and we had to collect so many of them).  They also have large mod mechanics - like having to keep a rope moving with a hanger on it to rep fixing an airship engine - or - having ropes we had to shimmy up and down one at a time while gangs of bandits used other ropes to "fly" out and attack us.  Bill ran one, I think, that involved riding horses to overtake a wagon.  The people in the wagon rolled barrels at us.  It led to a lot of hilarity.

- Roleplay - There is a good bit of atmosphere in the tavern, with Learnin' (XP) rewards for contributing to it by setting up a table.  I play a Spiritualist that can channel spirits and read tarot cards, and there was some fun rp with that.  J, who plays Marcus, had a great Alchemist table set up.  The entire open air tavern had cloth strung around it for walls, which always has a great feel.  The PC's roleplay was a lot of fun - especially hearing Lynch's background story.  Fun!

- Story - The stories over the course of the event were visible and clear.  The "paper" put out every event helps with that and has a super cool ingame feel to it.  It also lets you read something and discuss it during downtime.  Automatic topics of conversation that require no effort on the part of plot during the game itself.  PC's shared a lot of information and in such a small game everyone that wanted to got to take part (there is a 25 PC cap atm).

The So-So
- Roleplay - For some reason this event it seemed like PC's were more out of game than usual and at strange times.  I was guilty of it myself.  Quite a lot actually and it made the game less immersion-oriented.

- NPC's and Wait Times - Most of the wait times for mods were excellent - one wait time was an hour and a half.  Not sure what the hold up was, my guess is lack of NPC's, though some did volunteer to double hook for it.  Exiles has a "contribution" policy PC's have to NPC for a two hour shift or help for two meals in the kitchen.  PC's tended to go and double-hook in clumps and the evening shift kinda hurt from that as everyone went, for the most part, earlier in the day.  I think maybe a sign up sheet at check-in for NPC shift sign-up's would help with this dramatically - it would help even out who heads to the shack when and lets the plot team know when they are going to have that extra help showing up.

- The Deadliness Factor - On a scale of 1-10 I would probably give the deadliness factor of this event a 3-4.  I can't imagine the headache the plot teams ran in to with three people in the shack vs. 18 or so PC's.  Makes having a high deadliness factor, without ramping up the NPC levels to level ridiculousness, difficult to say the least.  One of the other big issues is there are few doctors (healers), I think there were two, and sometimes I think plot holds back a little on directly attacking them so they don't wipe the entire group in a game where when you are dead you are dead.  That has to be a horrifying nightmare - accidentally wiping a group of 15 pc's (most of your town) and then you are left with 15 totally dead pc's.  Ouch!  People dropped a good bit, but there wasn't really a fear of dying or of losing the mod.  There was really no pre-mod organization on the parts of the pc's.  I don't think I heard once "Alright, weapon-users in front, gunslingers shoot over them, gentlemen and doctors in the middle, be sure to protect them!"  Most of the time it was walk in, everyone scatters and does their own thing, and still win. 

All in all, it was a great event.  Exiles is always a fun game, with lots to get involved in.  As a smaller, capped event, it really lets everyone get involved and get some fun stuff from plot.  The classes and hidden skills really let you specialize and focus on the roleplay oriented with that particular class.  I've been playing Exiles for a number of years and love the genre, the feel, the people that run it, and the PC's that partake of it.

I would totally recommend it and will, of course, continue to go to future events.

Did you attend the event? What were your highs and so-so's? What other events went on this past weekend and what did you think?