[Editor's Note: the first of a new interview series focusing on event-holding experience, style, and advice from different EHs throughout the Realms. Enjoy!]
What events have you previously thrown? (include years)
I have been the Event Holder for Tournaments of Nadina II (2007), Festival of Nadina (2008), and the Ashen Bounty series (2012-2017), as well as being on the main staff for the Order of the List Invitational series (2011-2016).
What led you to start throwing events?
I was interested in having a say in the rules of the game, as well as wanted to give back to my community. I had done a lot of staffing and NPCing leading up to my first few events and I wanted to give it a try and see what it was like from the Event Holder perspective.
What would you like your events to be known for?
That is a tough question, and I think the vague answer would be “good.” I think that depending on the events you throw, you have different goals in mind, but the biggest consistency is that I think that the events should be a good quality. The specific aspect most important to me me, if I had to pick a single one, is being innovative and being able to try out new things.
What aspects of event holding do you consider most challenging?
When it comes to tournaments and feasts that I have participated in the staffing of, probably coordination is the most challenging. There is a lot of preparation into coordinating a good tournament event to make it run smoothly that isn’t always obvious. When it comes to questing I think the part I find hardest is writing engaging and innovative content that our player base will enjoy. It also have the biggest payoff when it works, which is a nice reward for a lot of hard work.
Tell us about an event moment you are particularly proud of?
This is a tough one, as I don’t know that I really have a single moment that stands out. Even small things like having the pacing of your event really work out and minimizing downtime is really exciting, or having a general mechanic work well over the whole weekend is something I tend to be most proud of. For me, throwing an event is more a marathon than a sprint, and having consistent good content from your grunt NPC grinds up to the final boss and equally important. Again, if I am to pick a specific moment, I would have to say any of our Ashen Bounty boss monster reveals. Our props team does such great work and it is always fun to watch the players react.
Tell us about something that went wrong and what you learned from it?
Well, my first two events pretty much went terribly wrong. It was my first time throwing an event, and I didn’t really seek out the support or guidance I should have had going in to them. I think the biggest learning moments I had there was that I needed to surround myself with a good team, and that I should take time to really learn from the events I enjoyed staff or NPC’d and take those lessons and apply them to my own event.
What do you think makes an event site “good” and how have you gone about locating sites?
Again, depends in part in what you are doing. Obviously a site like Hicks Arena at UCONN is great for a tournament like Order of the List Invitational, but wouldn’t be a great place to have a feast. I think for feast and tournaments, finding an affordable spot that suits your space needs are most important. When it comes to multi-day questing, that is a whole different story. If I am going to throw a multi-day quest, usually I require cabins for a site to be usable, as that seems to be appealing to a lot of players, and that it is somewhat centrally located. Anything within 45 mins of Worcester is a solid site location in my book.
Have you managed to maintain a balanced budget? Any advice for other event holders on doing that?
I can only speak to the Ashen Bounty series, which I can firmly say, no. However for me, throwing an event is a labor of love, and I want to make the event as accessible as possible, which means helping people out who may not have the cash to attend. I will say, for the most part over the six Ashen Bounty events we have thrown, our budget creeps ever closer to becoming balanced. Part of this is due to investment in props and equipment that we can reuse over time, borrowing props from other EHs that we don’t need to make ourselves, and planning better. I think that more EHs need to be a little more stringent on using expensive sites or overspending in certain areas if they really want to drive costs down. There are a lot of sites out there that we have not used that may be viable with a little more investigation. I think we as a player community also need to start doing a better job at registering (and reviewing!) for events, as a more accurate player count makes a big difference for an EH's ability to plan.
What staff positions do you feel are essential to running your events and what do you do to help empower and support them?
First let me say, I am immensely proud of the Event Holding team I have within the Ashenmark crew. No tasks is ever too big or too small for these guys and having such a great team is the foundation on which good events are built. If there is a single thing that I think can make and break an event, it is the quality of the crew behind the EH whose name is on the event. Specifically I think that having several key positions helps make throwing events much smoother:
A Den Mother - Something I learned from staffing Folkestone Questing over the year is that having someone at your NPC hut who knows where everything is, when those things need to go out and how they work is invaluable. Ashen Bounty 6 was the first year we implemented this (Pi Fisher) and it made a big difference, especially when it came to clean up.
Props Team - I think another thing that is great is having an individual or small group of people who are skilled at making props. Every single person on the Ashenmark EHing team helps to make all sorts of props, but when it comes to specialty props that need to be detailed we have a group of go to people (Kyle Yazinka, Paul Tilton, Nataliya Kostenko, Keith Tatarczuk) with a diverse skill set that make amazing props.
Writing Team - While we always like to try and incorporate as many people's ideas as we can in the group, sometimes having fewer voices helps to create a more clear narrative. We have had a lot of people fill this role in the past (Steven Yazinka, Paul Tilton) and more recently, a great new team of writers whose keen minds have brought you our most recent Imperium plot (Alyssa Lee, Nick Quadrini, Pi Fisher, Nataliya Kostenko).
Beyond that, having solid NPCs you can trust to staff your events and be flexible both in the role playing and combat aspect is very important. A couple bad NPCs more concerned about flaunting their fighting skills and winning over making sure the players are enjoying the quests can really cause problems and affect player enjoyment.
What advice do you have for other Event Holders?
Try new things, but not all at once. One of the things that is great about Realms is the room for an EH to innovate. I love trying out new mechanics each year and hearing the feedback on it. However, if you do try to innovate too much at a single event, sometimes it is hard for people to decide what they did or did not like about those mechanics, especially if there is overlap. If you are an aspiring EH, I STRONGLY recommend seeking out some guidance for your first event or two. It will certainly help make your event more fun for players, because you won’t have to make the same mistakes that a lot of EHs have already made for you, and learned from.
What can we look forward to seeing from you in the foreseeable future?
Ashen Bounty will continue to be a staple event for me on a yearly basis, and I think the split format dungeon crawl we tried out last year at Imperium March is probably here to stay as long as we have player interest. I would also like to do a Convergences style quest with the Adventurers Guild team if there is enough player interest, so if you are a player let us know if and what you're interested in!
What led you to start throwing events?
I was interested in having a say in the rules of the game, as well as wanted to give back to my community. I had done a lot of staffing and NPCing leading up to my first few events and I wanted to give it a try and see what it was like from the Event Holder perspective.
What would you like your events to be known for?
That is a tough question, and I think the vague answer would be “good.” I think that depending on the events you throw, you have different goals in mind, but the biggest consistency is that I think that the events should be a good quality. The specific aspect most important to me me, if I had to pick a single one, is being innovative and being able to try out new things.
What aspects of event holding do you consider most challenging?
When it comes to tournaments and feasts that I have participated in the staffing of, probably coordination is the most challenging. There is a lot of preparation into coordinating a good tournament event to make it run smoothly that isn’t always obvious. When it comes to questing I think the part I find hardest is writing engaging and innovative content that our player base will enjoy. It also have the biggest payoff when it works, which is a nice reward for a lot of hard work.
Tell us about an event moment you are particularly proud of?
This is a tough one, as I don’t know that I really have a single moment that stands out. Even small things like having the pacing of your event really work out and minimizing downtime is really exciting, or having a general mechanic work well over the whole weekend is something I tend to be most proud of. For me, throwing an event is more a marathon than a sprint, and having consistent good content from your grunt NPC grinds up to the final boss and equally important. Again, if I am to pick a specific moment, I would have to say any of our Ashen Bounty boss monster reveals. Our props team does such great work and it is always fun to watch the players react.
Tell us about something that went wrong and what you learned from it?
Well, my first two events pretty much went terribly wrong. It was my first time throwing an event, and I didn’t really seek out the support or guidance I should have had going in to them. I think the biggest learning moments I had there was that I needed to surround myself with a good team, and that I should take time to really learn from the events I enjoyed staff or NPC’d and take those lessons and apply them to my own event.
What do you think makes an event site “good” and how have you gone about locating sites?
Again, depends in part in what you are doing. Obviously a site like Hicks Arena at UCONN is great for a tournament like Order of the List Invitational, but wouldn’t be a great place to have a feast. I think for feast and tournaments, finding an affordable spot that suits your space needs are most important. When it comes to multi-day questing, that is a whole different story. If I am going to throw a multi-day quest, usually I require cabins for a site to be usable, as that seems to be appealing to a lot of players, and that it is somewhat centrally located. Anything within 45 mins of Worcester is a solid site location in my book.
Have you managed to maintain a balanced budget? Any advice for other event holders on doing that?
I can only speak to the Ashen Bounty series, which I can firmly say, no. However for me, throwing an event is a labor of love, and I want to make the event as accessible as possible, which means helping people out who may not have the cash to attend. I will say, for the most part over the six Ashen Bounty events we have thrown, our budget creeps ever closer to becoming balanced. Part of this is due to investment in props and equipment that we can reuse over time, borrowing props from other EHs that we don’t need to make ourselves, and planning better. I think that more EHs need to be a little more stringent on using expensive sites or overspending in certain areas if they really want to drive costs down. There are a lot of sites out there that we have not used that may be viable with a little more investigation. I think we as a player community also need to start doing a better job at registering (and reviewing!) for events, as a more accurate player count makes a big difference for an EH's ability to plan.
What staff positions do you feel are essential to running your events and what do you do to help empower and support them?
First let me say, I am immensely proud of the Event Holding team I have within the Ashenmark crew. No tasks is ever too big or too small for these guys and having such a great team is the foundation on which good events are built. If there is a single thing that I think can make and break an event, it is the quality of the crew behind the EH whose name is on the event. Specifically I think that having several key positions helps make throwing events much smoother:
A Den Mother - Something I learned from staffing Folkestone Questing over the year is that having someone at your NPC hut who knows where everything is, when those things need to go out and how they work is invaluable. Ashen Bounty 6 was the first year we implemented this (Pi Fisher) and it made a big difference, especially when it came to clean up.
Props Team - I think another thing that is great is having an individual or small group of people who are skilled at making props. Every single person on the Ashenmark EHing team helps to make all sorts of props, but when it comes to specialty props that need to be detailed we have a group of go to people (Kyle Yazinka, Paul Tilton, Nataliya Kostenko, Keith Tatarczuk) with a diverse skill set that make amazing props.
Writing Team - While we always like to try and incorporate as many people's ideas as we can in the group, sometimes having fewer voices helps to create a more clear narrative. We have had a lot of people fill this role in the past (Steven Yazinka, Paul Tilton) and more recently, a great new team of writers whose keen minds have brought you our most recent Imperium plot (Alyssa Lee, Nick Quadrini, Pi Fisher, Nataliya Kostenko).
Beyond that, having solid NPCs you can trust to staff your events and be flexible both in the role playing and combat aspect is very important. A couple bad NPCs more concerned about flaunting their fighting skills and winning over making sure the players are enjoying the quests can really cause problems and affect player enjoyment.
What advice do you have for other Event Holders?
Try new things, but not all at once. One of the things that is great about Realms is the room for an EH to innovate. I love trying out new mechanics each year and hearing the feedback on it. However, if you do try to innovate too much at a single event, sometimes it is hard for people to decide what they did or did not like about those mechanics, especially if there is overlap. If you are an aspiring EH, I STRONGLY recommend seeking out some guidance for your first event or two. It will certainly help make your event more fun for players, because you won’t have to make the same mistakes that a lot of EHs have already made for you, and learned from.
What can we look forward to seeing from you in the foreseeable future?
Ashen Bounty will continue to be a staple event for me on a yearly basis, and I think the split format dungeon crawl we tried out last year at Imperium March is probably here to stay as long as we have player interest. I would also like to do a Convergences style quest with the Adventurers Guild team if there is enough player interest, so if you are a player let us know if and what you're interested in!