“They’re limited and laughably the same, just like everything I’ve seen before” –A Former Avalon Player, on the races
The races for this game are, more or less, like every Tolkien fantasy race ever. You’ve got all your standard fantasy races all here: Wood elves and High elves, Halflings and Trolls and so on. Sure, there are some non-standard races here, like Tieflings Sunder. The problem with the races of this game is that there’s nothing new here. You’ve seen this all before if you’ve ever played D&D. The game also suffers from the “Re-naming everything because that makes it different, right?” problem. Sure, the elves of the game aren’t called elves, but guess what? If it’s got pointy ears and likes trees, it’s an elf. No amount of renaming is going to change that. Same goes for this game’s version of Halflings. In this world, they’re kind of like bee-people, which I guess is sort of cool, but in practice it doesn’t really impact the game at all. At the end of the day, the setting’s races are nothing new or interesting, just the same old recycled D&D races with different names.
“After thirteen years, they’re just now branching out of the one continent, 5 kingdoms world map, and nothing is detailed.” –A Former Avalon Player, on the world map
The world setting doesn’t fare much better, either. To this day, I’m still not sure what thematic elements the creators were going for. It seems like there were “too many cooks in the kitchen” when it came to actually building the world, because there’s just too much stuff going on here. I can understand wanting to build an expansive world for your players to adventure in, that makes sense. While you can throw everything you can think of into a game just because you can, the result isn’t going to be pretty. Combine this with the fact that there’s no real written history of the game that players can peruse, all you end up with is a convoluted mess of vastly different ideas. There’s also a lot of “borrowed” (I use that term loosely, as stolen is probably more accurate) material here too. For instance, there is a group in the game called the Cult of the Blood Moon, which sounds a lot like Legend of the Five Rings’ Cult of the Blood Red Moon. There’s also a place called Atreyu, which I’m going to assume is where Falcor lives or maybe a terrible scene-metal band. Not to mention the “Phoenix down revive”, and all the stuff taken from Dragon Age (I’m looking at you, Brood Mother). It’s fine if you want to pay homage to one of your favorite games, hell, I do it all the time, but at least change the name to something else or try to make it different somehow.
“Do you have a masters in mathematics?” –A Former Avalon Player, on the combat damage
“The system as is, is designed for more experienced players and makes it nearly impossible for a new player to create an effective character.” –A Former Avalon Player, on character building
“Wait, you’re not talking about NERO?” –A Former Avalon Player, being an asshole
The biggest issue with the game is that the rules are just simply a mess. Most LARPs, usually, are very rules light, with low damage calls to avoid having to do calculus in your head, and simple magic systems. Avalon has neither. Damage calls in this game get really absurd at times, and I’m not really sure anyone other than math professors could actually calculate all of that in their head. With damage values being in the double digits most of the time, there’s really no difference between dealing fifty damage and calling an effect that instantly kills someone. As the average starting hit points are about twelve, you begin to see the problems here. Their answer to the high damage numbers has been to slow down combat by adding “kata” maneuvers. A kata is basically a certain way you have to swing your sword before you can do a certain kind of hit. This is further complicated by the fact that you can’t even use certain types of weapons, like spears, flails, bearded weapons or staves. At the end of the day, none of this really serves to make combat better, just a little clunkier.
“ugh” –A Former Avalon Player, on magic
The magic system is even worse, as you have to memorize six different “incants”, with each being about five to ten words long (not including the actual effect of the spell). You also have to move your arms around in a gesture while saying the incant, all the while keeping track of how much mana you have left. I felt bad for the people who played mages, as they had a tendency to just get beaten down before they could really do anything. The actual delivery system for the spells is done by throwing a packet of bird seed or airsoft pellets, but since the rules only allow them to carry certain number of packets, you’ll usually run out of packets before you run out of mana, and then you become a sitting duck for anything trying to kill you. Certainly, you can pick up your spell packets that you just threw, but try actually doing that in the middle of the pitch black woods while being attacked by monsters. It just doesn’t work.
“What costumes? When you’re wearing a pair of jeans and trench coat and you think you’re a bad ass, you might be an Avalon player” –A Former Avalon Player, on costuming
I’m not exactly sure what this game’s rules on costuming are, because the costumes I’ve seen there run the gamut of awesome to awful. You are just as likely to see someone in crucial looking plate mail as you are to see a guy wearing his bathrobe as a wizard’s robe. The terrible thing about this is that, normally, you’d expect to see the higher level PC’s with great costumes, and the lower level PC’s with not-so-great costumes. It doesn’t really work out that way. Some of the highest level PC’s in the game walk around in what amounts to sweatpants and t-shirts. I’ve been told by former players that there are costume requirements, but nobody seems to know exactly what those are. I understand if you’re trying LARPing for the first time, and you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on something you may not even like, but if you’ve been playing for years, I expect you to have a good costume. At the very least something that’s decent.
At the risk of sounding like an old man, I want to talk about the “age appropriateness” of the game. You see, Avalon is a member of the Boy Scouts of America as a venture crew. I’m fairly certain this is due to insurance reasons, but I don’t really know. So my problem here is that you have a LARP affiliated with a Christian organization. I don’t have a problem with this on a theological basis, as the BSA does a lot of good work that I can respect. The problem really is that it limits what staff can make their game about or, at least, is supposed to. There’s no Gods to be found in this setting, and the same goes for demons, however, they are there, just with different names. Instead of Gods they have the elemental dragons, and instead of demons, they have things called voidlings.
“Oh god, I have invested way too much money on that game” –A Former Avalon Player, on the price
“If I were to go to two chapters a year every month, it would cost at least 1200 dollars. Not including costuming, traveling expenses, and no fun.” –A Former Avalon Player, on the price
The above aside, when you get down to brass tacks, the price is what really gets me. While your first event is free, you are going to pay at least fifty dollars per event. Lord help you if it’s a convention event, because you’re going to pay even more money, upwards of a hundred dollars, actually. Combine this with the money you spent on costuming and foam/latex weapons, you’re going to end up spending a lot of your money on something that isn’t all that great. The cost to fun ratio just doesn’t work out here and taking into account that every other LARP in this area is cheaper, I don’t think that this game has real sustainability for long term players. From this reviewer to you, I would say avoid this game like the plague, a game like this just isn’t worth it. To people who are trying to start their own LARP, I would suggest giving Avalon a try, that way you can learn what not to do and how not to run a game.
Read the full review at http://roleplayerhater.blogspot.com/
