Specialized Quest at the RenFest?
August 31, 2015 8:41 AM Subscribe
My best friend and I are going to the Kansas City Renaissance Festival on Labor Day weekend.
I want to write up a quest/game for us to follow as a specialized gift. This would be basically a two-player LARP/cosplay day. We might accrue additional members to our party, but it would be a base of just the two of us.
I need to come up with some quest lines, quest prizes, and achievements for points earned!
My friend's getting awesome garb for this year's RenFest. She's describing the outfit as looking more like her rogue characters. I default into playing a healer, and am a nurse besides, so this would be a pretty organic casting of roles. We are two law-abiding thirty-something women. Our feet will tire, and it will be a long walk back to the car. We like to people-watch, and it will be dusty and/or muddy.
In previous years, I've spontaneously developed elaborate stories involving metallic statues of dragons and the like, but I want to have it more formal this year.
I don't want to buy too much to fuel this game, but am not ruling any options out. I want to have a kind of bingo/checklist of different performances to watch. That's about as far as I've got so far.
My friend's getting awesome garb for this year's RenFest. She's describing the outfit as looking more like her rogue characters. I default into playing a healer, and am a nurse besides, so this would be a pretty organic casting of roles. We are two law-abiding thirty-something women. Our feet will tire, and it will be a long walk back to the car. We like to people-watch, and it will be dusty and/or muddy.
In previous years, I've spontaneously developed elaborate stories involving metallic statues of dragons and the like, but I want to have it more formal this year.
I don't want to buy too much to fuel this game, but am not ruling any options out. I want to have a kind of bingo/checklist of different performances to watch. That's about as far as I've got so far.
Okay, I have never been to the Kansas City Ren Faire, or any Ren Faire at all in fact, so some of my suggestions are going to be rather off.
I would start by getting a map of the Ren Faire and making a list of places that you have to visit on your quest. For example, there is a Lost Children tent, a Wizards zip Line and various food concession stands. You mentioned performances. Make a list of performances. Put together some tokens and match them to the different locations or performances. The tokens are either things that you know you can purchase at the faire because they are standard souvenirs, or else are things that you have brought with you - a short length of ribbon, a set of bracelets purchased at the dollar store on Wednesday evening, a crow feather that you picked up a year ago and was tucked into a book, a kaleidoscope, a handful of hickory smoked almonds which you will call the Magic Beans of All Speech - all that kind of stuff, nothing at all expensive, just stuff you already have or can pick up in one trip to the dollar store.
With your partner I would begin by making this a perfectly ordinary trip to the faire, at which you have errands to run in keeping with an ordinary trip to the faire for your personas, such as picking up some fairings (souvenirs) for a short list of people.
Whatever your first stop is, is the location where you pick up the Desperate Plea for Help, previously carefully calligraphed in olde script by you on Thursday evening before the weekend. If possible figure out a way for your companion to find the note, such as by stuffing it into a belt pouch for her to steal, or sticking it between the slats of the bench you are both sitting on when she is not looking or anyway, try to get her to find the thing rather than just producing it, but if you have to, just produce it and claim it was sticking out of the bench.
Your Desperate Plea for Help will speak of five (or however many) tokens that must be retrieved to complete the quest. The clues where to find what will be in the Desperate Plea for Help. You will have paired off each token with the location where you can get it. The maiden's ribbon will be "found in the briars of Hunter's Glen" the crow feather is brought out or found on Cotswold common, and will give you both the power of flight to fly over the wizards zipline, where you get the magic beans, which if you eat them will enable you to speak the language of the mermaids and get the mermaid's bracelet which you can take to the Pirate Tavern to swap for the magic telescope which you can look through and see the Ghost of the Pathetically Murdered Child, who you believe wishes to be taken to the Lost Children's tent.
Basically link some junk items ahead of time with some of the locations on the map. Of course someone must be healed - perhaps a hapless individual in the stocks, if the Kansas City Ren Faire has stocks, or someone injured in a joust if their is a jousting field, or a duel if there is a dueling field. Better remember to bring some cobweb to staunch the bleeding, some elixir (Orange Crush in a vacuum flask?) to restore them, and maybe a strip or two of torn sheet for bandaging.
If at all possible enlist the assistance of an animator, performer, actor, friend or someone, anyone else who can wear a purse for your rogue friend to pick pocket or be dramatically wounded for you to heal, or better yet, both.
Before the Hue and Cry can he called you will both have to flee to Chapel Green because the church is where you get sanctuary, and there you finally lay to rest the Ghost of the Pathetically Murdered Child. The reward is whatever you can scare up that is nice enough to count as a reward, be it being allowed to partake of the King's Feast, or ride the King's Donkey Ride, or have your pictures taken with the Black Knight, or a pair of crystal goblets that were previously getting dusty in the back of your cupboard, or another calligraphed parchment thanking you for your services, or a whatever you can find, dream up, purchase or rummage out that is sufficiently impressive compared to a tatty crow feather, a bit of ribbon and a dollar store kaleidoscope.
For best results have a back up plan for if any one of the clues and tokens cannot be found or won, such as if the mermaids have been closed for the weekend. You will have to be prepared to wing it and have the bracelet be worn by a princess instead of the mermaids. The pirate's telescope might turn out to be the princess's telescope that she uses to watch from the tower for her prince, and the ribbon might have to be her hair ribbon. The plan doesn't have to be any more complicated than picking an alternative location and finding the quest token there.
You also want to plan your trip according to your bladders, your feet, your stomachs and your tolerance for crowds and for ziplining. I'd make sure that a couple of quest stops make it convenient to take on food or drink or to sit down for awhile to watch performances that have seats to sit down on. If neither of you would dream of zip lining even to get out of rapidly sinking ship, then rather than a crow feather enabling you to fly, you might have to get the ticket than enables you to ride in the Ren Faire transportation system, whatever that is, if there is one.
For added intensity tie in something that happens periodically. Perhaps the dueling (fencing performance) takes place every two hours. In that case give yourself a deadline to find quest items. If you fail then the Prince Haunted by the Ghost of the Pathetically Murdered Child will have to fight for his life. But if you get the quest done on time and lay to rest the Ghost then that's not the Prince fighting for his life, it's just the fencing performance.
posted by Jane the Brown at 3:22 PM on September 1, 2015
I would start by getting a map of the Ren Faire and making a list of places that you have to visit on your quest. For example, there is a Lost Children tent, a Wizards zip Line and various food concession stands. You mentioned performances. Make a list of performances. Put together some tokens and match them to the different locations or performances. The tokens are either things that you know you can purchase at the faire because they are standard souvenirs, or else are things that you have brought with you - a short length of ribbon, a set of bracelets purchased at the dollar store on Wednesday evening, a crow feather that you picked up a year ago and was tucked into a book, a kaleidoscope, a handful of hickory smoked almonds which you will call the Magic Beans of All Speech - all that kind of stuff, nothing at all expensive, just stuff you already have or can pick up in one trip to the dollar store.
With your partner I would begin by making this a perfectly ordinary trip to the faire, at which you have errands to run in keeping with an ordinary trip to the faire for your personas, such as picking up some fairings (souvenirs) for a short list of people.
Whatever your first stop is, is the location where you pick up the Desperate Plea for Help, previously carefully calligraphed in olde script by you on Thursday evening before the weekend. If possible figure out a way for your companion to find the note, such as by stuffing it into a belt pouch for her to steal, or sticking it between the slats of the bench you are both sitting on when she is not looking or anyway, try to get her to find the thing rather than just producing it, but if you have to, just produce it and claim it was sticking out of the bench.
Your Desperate Plea for Help will speak of five (or however many) tokens that must be retrieved to complete the quest. The clues where to find what will be in the Desperate Plea for Help. You will have paired off each token with the location where you can get it. The maiden's ribbon will be "found in the briars of Hunter's Glen" the crow feather is brought out or found on Cotswold common, and will give you both the power of flight to fly over the wizards zipline, where you get the magic beans, which if you eat them will enable you to speak the language of the mermaids and get the mermaid's bracelet which you can take to the Pirate Tavern to swap for the magic telescope which you can look through and see the Ghost of the Pathetically Murdered Child, who you believe wishes to be taken to the Lost Children's tent.
Basically link some junk items ahead of time with some of the locations on the map. Of course someone must be healed - perhaps a hapless individual in the stocks, if the Kansas City Ren Faire has stocks, or someone injured in a joust if their is a jousting field, or a duel if there is a dueling field. Better remember to bring some cobweb to staunch the bleeding, some elixir (Orange Crush in a vacuum flask?) to restore them, and maybe a strip or two of torn sheet for bandaging.
If at all possible enlist the assistance of an animator, performer, actor, friend or someone, anyone else who can wear a purse for your rogue friend to pick pocket or be dramatically wounded for you to heal, or better yet, both.
Before the Hue and Cry can he called you will both have to flee to Chapel Green because the church is where you get sanctuary, and there you finally lay to rest the Ghost of the Pathetically Murdered Child. The reward is whatever you can scare up that is nice enough to count as a reward, be it being allowed to partake of the King's Feast, or ride the King's Donkey Ride, or have your pictures taken with the Black Knight, or a pair of crystal goblets that were previously getting dusty in the back of your cupboard, or another calligraphed parchment thanking you for your services, or a whatever you can find, dream up, purchase or rummage out that is sufficiently impressive compared to a tatty crow feather, a bit of ribbon and a dollar store kaleidoscope.
For best results have a back up plan for if any one of the clues and tokens cannot be found or won, such as if the mermaids have been closed for the weekend. You will have to be prepared to wing it and have the bracelet be worn by a princess instead of the mermaids. The pirate's telescope might turn out to be the princess's telescope that she uses to watch from the tower for her prince, and the ribbon might have to be her hair ribbon. The plan doesn't have to be any more complicated than picking an alternative location and finding the quest token there.
You also want to plan your trip according to your bladders, your feet, your stomachs and your tolerance for crowds and for ziplining. I'd make sure that a couple of quest stops make it convenient to take on food or drink or to sit down for awhile to watch performances that have seats to sit down on. If neither of you would dream of zip lining even to get out of rapidly sinking ship, then rather than a crow feather enabling you to fly, you might have to get the ticket than enables you to ride in the Ren Faire transportation system, whatever that is, if there is one.
For added intensity tie in something that happens periodically. Perhaps the dueling (fencing performance) takes place every two hours. In that case give yourself a deadline to find quest items. If you fail then the Prince Haunted by the Ghost of the Pathetically Murdered Child will have to fight for his life. But if you get the quest done on time and lay to rest the Ghost then that's not the Prince fighting for his life, it's just the fencing performance.
posted by Jane the Brown at 3:22 PM on September 1, 2015
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posted by S'Tella Fabula at 3:43 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]