Feasts represent a great time to exercise social skills, woo ladies, and generally provide some cool "game within a game" fun. My question is how often do y'all typically run one? The calendar dates that seem like no brainers include:

Easter
Pentecost
Christmas

In addition, anytime the GPC calls for one (as a reward from Earl Roderick for example) is a no brainer. So that may be 4-5 feasts every year. How many do you typically run, or is this one of those things that entirely up to the GM and his players' appetite for such things (sorry about the pun)? What's your favorite sub-games for running a feast, I've seen 2-3 floating around...


Thanks,


T.

I definitively think that there is no such thing as i "right" amount of feast; this each group has to decide, based on campaign focus, player interest and time per session.

I try to keep the one year, one session formula, so I really can't have several feasts each year; it would take all time (and become boring, I would say). Hence, less is more is my credo in this aspect. I try to run a feast every second to third year, but then let it take some time, and prepare a lot of role playing situations, Trait and Skill rolls, descriptions of food, perhaps even some drama. Ideally, the feast should also move the story forward in some sense; and thus be about something important: a wedding, an alliance, a significant event at Court, that sort of thing.

I aspire to one session one game year... :D

Our games are only of a short duration and are relatively infrequent, and so we don't tend to have too many feast set pieces, and only game feasts in any detail if the campaign calls for it - such as a significant wedding or the like. These then do become the feature of the gaming for an evening and I prepare them as I would a normal session. For other occasions, when an impromptu feast is called for, I have a set of index cards with generic feast type events written on. Rather than spending al evening on the feast, each player draws a card to see one thing that might occur for their character and we tailor it to the story. These feasts we move on through fairly quickly. One thing I have found though, is that such feasts will bring into the story say 5 or 6 NPCs (I would quickly write down their name and what happens on an index card along with pertinent stats I assign them) who you can then use at later points in the story where they are now known and of more interest than another generic NPC.

Man, I don't know how you guys can do one year per session. By the time you go adventurin', then the Winter Phase, I can see each year taking 3 sessions easy. Then again, my sessions are typically only about three hours...

Thanks for the advice! If anyone else wants to weigh in, I'd love to hear how you handle feasts. I have Sir Pramalot's feast cards, and I have the TALES OF MYSTIC TOURNAMENTS book. Are there any other sources I should mine for feasts?


T.

Man, I don't know how you guys can do one year per session. By the time you go adventurin', then the Winter Phase. I can search each year taking 3 sessions easy. Then again, my sessions are typically only about three hours...

I find that with focus and good planning, I can complete an ordinary year in five to six hours of gaming. I do this by deciding a focus for each year: there is either an adventure, a battle, a court OR a tournament, possibly with a feast, a Quick Tournament or some other minor event. Everything else that year is just hinted at (there is several courts, but none that is important, several hunts, but nothing significant happens, etc). If I didn't do this, a year would take 10 to 20 hours to play through.

I play the year 565 Sunday next week. This method works! And its very satisfying to see the (game) years go by.

I found myself running at least one feast per year: The Pentecost Tournament.

To me: it's the big tournament event and Arthur's big party. In many ways it became the first big event after the winter round up of the previous year. After a player got to the finals of the jousting (no fudges, honest !) but lost, then this was the event that my players wanted to play out every year. They would spend money on dresses for their wife (rare enough - the new fashion skill/challenge would have pushed them even more - wife's were there to breed and could have worn sackcloth for all most players cared.... ), look to ensure that their warhorses and armour were up to date, and want to go party. And the jousting and Grand Melee was the big event. They wanted to win, or be on the winning team. As one player said, "who came second in the tournament in 539?" - I'd have to research the exact date but I'm sure you follow the sentiments.

You're moving into wider "how do I run campaigns" territory, but I tended to run the Pentecost Tournament and one other adventure (kill the Dragon etc) as a minimum per year, but probably 2-3 adventures which may include feast elements.

Chris