The Fate of Sunday Gameplay

Actuallý, starting early may be very beneficial to new players too. The one complaint I've heard the mosþ from new players is that they aren't familiar with the campground and nightime mods aren't really condusive to getting familiar. Daylight hours and mods might make it much easier on them as well.

My own personal opinion reflects many of the statements that have been already said, such as it would be well worth it if the quality of them where simply kept consistently up. I personally don't mind the "lazy" feel of Sunday, its a wind down time. Its a time, to relax in-game after a long weekend, learn some skills you forgot to learn during the weekend, and in-fact goof around in-game, but I don't see that as a negative myself, I see that as a good time. 

I do like the idea of having the occasional weekend plot that does not resolve until Sunday morning, I also like the idea of the occasional Sunday mod that pre-ludes the next event a bit, but baring those two things, the Sunday mod needs to be run well, by an experienced MM, who knows how to put together a final mod for the weekend, that players can enjoy, leaving them with a satisfied feeling.

Sunday mods are great when they work.  When they don't, the atmosphere does tend to degrade.

One of my first events, I was approached on Sunday by Celestine.  She asked me if I could help restore the healing nexus by telling my story while walking a certain path with a crystal.  I was then dominated to attack Celestine as soon as something went wrong.  That mod set a pretty high standard for Sunday mods for me.  It was also a really positive, fun experience.

The Dark Druid mod that ran several months ago, and before that the Grimdar mod, were some of my finest Kr moments ever.

Regarding Friday

I think everyone would love to be able to start earlier on Friday, but there are some logistical reasons why it doesn't happen:

1. Logistics is typically overwhelmed with sign-in, to the point that it would be difficult for a MM or other plot person to get set up and start preparing NPCs. It might be possible to change the location of sign-in or to have NPCs prep somewhere else for the first few hours; this would be much more feasible at Hickory Run than Sac.

2. Personnel availability. Not only do you need enough PCs to be ready early, you need a MM or plot person and some NPCs. It's pretty much impossible to ensure that we'd have the personnel needed to run a mod or encounter, short of some volunteers coordinating to be there ahead of time.

3. Atmosphere is difficult to achieve while the majority of players are arriving, driving around the camp, and settling in to their cabins/rooms.

4. Opening announcements - rules and plot often communicate important, event-specific information at lay-on, and the fewer people that are in attendance at lay-on, the less that information will get disseminated. We previously tried posting opening announcements on these forums, but found that few people were reading them before coming to the events and that our live announcements were still vital.

5. Miscellaneous other stuff - people frequently need to find x person or y person about a host of topics (in-between event activity, character card problems, etc.) before beginning play, and it's alot easier to do that when you can move about without disturbing gameplay, and when the lights are on in the inn, etc. Simply put, it's easier and less intrusive to find someone during OOG time than IG time.

I'm not saying that these problems could never be addressed with some creative solutions, just that heretofore we have not produced a creative solution for any of them, and therefore they are the major obstacles in the way of starting the game early. I can more easily see ways to solve any of the problems but the personnel problem. If we just instituted a pre-game period, for example, that ran from 5-9, after which the game went into hold and opening announcements were held, that would solve alot of problems - except the part about having a mod and some NPCs ready to run it at 5...

Regarding Sunday

My biggest concern with Sunday is that things run late enough as it is. If we put effort into running a serious mod, the event will run later still, and I just know cleanup will run even later than that as more people will cut and run rather than help out. If there's to be a Sunday mod I'd prefer it be no later than 10am, so that it resolves with enough time for some epilogue role-play and then a good start time for cleanup.

My overall preference, though, would be that Sunday be left as a volunteer zone for plot and NPCing. We need all the personnel we can get Friday night and Saturday, believe me. When we have alot of NPCs to work with, as we did this past event, it allows us to run more things at once, which in turn allows PCs to experience mods and encounters with better PC:NPC ratios. I think everyone will get greater enjoyment out of a wider variety of things happening for smaller groups of PCs than having another everyone-and-his-cousin mod on Sunday.

My character has only been around for two events, but both Sundays were fairly dull. I'd say that if you can get a couple of mods out there, low level, mid level, mage, druid etc, and make it interesting, that'd help

I also like the smaller amount of PCs on a mod. This past event we had a low level mod with only 5 pcs and 2 NPCs, it was one of the best mods I've been on. More mini mods like that would be awsome

Sunday mods are great when they work.

That seems like a really open-ended sentence, but IMO it encompasses everything. Sunday morning only works when we want Sunday morning to work. It starts at the MM and the NPC's and filters right down to us, the players. If it's a great mod put together by a good MM with NPC's who put forth a good effort Sunday mornings can be great. This then allows the player base to latch on to the well constructed mod, and have a good time. It has to start from the top. The MM has to care more about Sunday, so the NPC's can care more, so the players will begin to care more about Sunday. Sunday has become what Sunday is because the mods are usually throw away mods with very little thought put into them, so no one really cares about them. Sunday's can be fixed over time if we all put more effort into them and not completely shut down as players once main mod is over.

Gimdar...'nuff said.