Detailed Civilian Review - Berget 13

Feedback and debriefings from Berget 13
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Arradin
Berget Crew & Site Admin
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Detailed Civilian Review - Berget 13

Post by Arradin » 30 Jun 2015, 00:09

WARNING - WALL OF TEXT!

SPECIAL CIVILIAN RULES:
Civilians dont respawn, when they die, they are dead and need to come back as a new character.
Civilians cannot be instantly killed by knifes.
Civilians have a 30 minute bleedout.
When shot, Civilians need to be stabilized by a medic or another civilian with a bandage. Once Stable, they have one hour to get to a hospital for treatment. once treated, they are to stay in the hospital for one full hour, and then they are fully healed.

Now, " coming back as a new character " may not sound bad to airsofters, but the only thing i can use as an example is your GEAR. What if all that fancy gear you come to berget with... What if you can't use that if you DIE once? Backup gear? Is that as much fun? i thought not.

Backstory, plannings and playing a Civilian on Berget Events 13 - 2015

During the booking of a ticket, it was said that i would get contacted by BE Crew by mail. So i was!
In Januari, the first mails was sent out with the information about different roles availible.
From there, it took another month, and i was asked to write a backstory for the character and how i intended to play him, so that missions and intrigues could be planned around my liking. I was really happy about this, as i felt that i had a chanse to play as i wanted, and make an impact of the game. As a i had a contact person within the crew early, i was able to give input and ideas thruout the plannings.

All in all, i felt well prepared coming to berget, and didnt really have any questionmarks that urgently needed answers to make or break my game.

PLANNING
POSITIVE: Everything. Early contact, ability to give input and ideas.
NEGATIVE: Nothing.
--

We had a early GAME-ON For Civilians at 19:00 ( GAME START 21:00 ) , where we got to intoduce ourselves amongst the civilians so that everyone knew what the others were playing as etc. We were also given out our missions , money, and game props. Berget events had done a HUGE amount of shopping for us , spending our ticket money well.

---
My overall mission for the game:

DR NAVID
You are also a psychiatrist! If someone seeks your help with “mental illness” you have to intervjue them and diagnose them. Then contact Civilian GM to find out what you need to cure them.

Main objective/Intrigue:
  • Stay alive
    Seek information about your family’s death. You need to know and get closure to be able to get on with your life.
    Find out more about the disease that your son suffered from, and if possible, find a cure. Your don´t want it happening to anyone elses child!
    Make money to build the future grand hospital
Daily tasks:
  • Aquire food to survive the day:
    2x Bread/day
    2x Potatoes/day
    1x Mineral water/day

    Visit church of Gabriël and attend at sermons
    Aquire medical resources to enable civilian treatment.
    -Xx syringe
    -Xx bandage roll (NOTE! not ordinary cloth bandages!)
    -Xx IV-bags
    Treat wounded civilians
Optional tasks
  • Treat wounded soldiers
    Apply for medical research funding and funding for your hospital from whoever is willing to contribute.
----

I had much planned with this, but once the game started, the amount of interractions with other Civilians but most importantly the military players, were so overwhelming that i quickly realised that i had to focus on one or two things.
So, My familys death ( Died when trying to cross border during coup, shot by soldiers ) will remains unsolved.

SADLY, the phsyciatrist part never happened. GMs were supposed to had out intrigues and small missions during the game , where we would suffer from pain or things like that, and needed to 'fix' it. I dont think this ever happened, i never saw any of it. But for the better, as i barely had time for what i had on my plate!

Preperation just before game start results:
POSITIVE: time to prepare. Early game start was VERY Good, the town was "alive" when first soldiers arrived at gameon.
NEGATIVE: PLEASE, BE CREW, don't promise more than you can keep. It's better to start early with less info , and build it up as time goes.

GAME ON!
We all started to use the props we just had been given to suit our roles, and it didnt take long until we noticed the first red heads starting to peek out behind buildings, and shortly after, convoys rolled into town. We were contacted with some shady guy who claimed to be PUBLIC RELATIONS officer of HP. But we all knew we can't trust the military. But what choise did we have?
The game rolled on for a few hours, and all were going good. The soldiers let us be, and we could live our lives.. Until..

Sometime, i dont know when, i was told by a soldier that they had found a wounded civilian on the road leading out of town towards a Wind Turbine. I started heading in that general direction.. and.... NOTHING. I arrive at the Wind Turbine, and not a single person could be seen... when suddenly GCT Forces jumps out of nowhere and asks me why im there, and were the red troops are.. i just shake my head and started walking back towards town at a quick pace , just wanting to get away from the GCT soldiers, who i´ve been told are bad and will probably kill me. I turn around one bend in the road, and i look back to see if GCT players follow me. Doesnt seem so.. then i turn my head forward again, and i see a large groups of red soldiers walking straight at me. I keep walking, but i dont have time to take two or three steps until i hear people behind me open fire towards the red guys. Realising im in the middle of crossfire, i throw myself on the ground and run toward closest cover, where im stuck for what feels like Hours until red mechanised finally push towards the Wind turbine and help me escape the area, and i run back towards town.

I get to town checkpoint when i suddenly hear people shouting at me, telling me to get my hands up and get on the ground. next thing i know, im cuffed and thrown into jail with the local flowergirl. after 20 minutes of interrigation, flowergirl is released, while i am thrown into a car and sent off to Ikaros main base, where im questioned and interrigated. Or so i think. It turns out that Ikaros Coopreration want to Help me. all they want in return is my patient charts, and to use my hospital to set up a local health benifit program. What choise to i have, i agree. and im sent back to base..

Day two.
Sleeping the houses. it was REALLY cold, and i couldnt have slept much at all.
Civilians wake up to.... EMPTY TOWN?! Not a single military person can be found... What the hell is going on? Well, it didnt last long, and soon the town was flooded with reds, again.

I had just taken a very nice #2 in the local toilet facailities , when i was happily walking up towards the town. At the Checkpoint that HP had set up, a Humwee drove past me. One of the officers stopped me, and prompty told me to get into the car.
-What car, and why? i asked.
-Just get into the car! , he said and suddenly two people dragged me into the humwee that i didnt notice had stopped behind me. I heard Civilians rushing to my assistance, trying to stop them and ask where they were taking me and why. I only heard them mentioning that there had been an accident in the (ikaros) base, and they had to take me there. The driver of the humwee told the soldies to "secure" me. I was then knocked out.

[..]

I woke up laying in the backseat of the car. The car had stopped and there was noone in it, but since i didnt want to risk getting shot, i stayed down. Suddenly i hear a discussion outside the car:

(Officer) - Where the hell is the Doctor?
(Soldier) - He is laying in the backseat.
(Officer) - Why is he laying there?
(Soldier) - He's been knocked out...
(Officer) - YOU STUPID MOTHER FU***R, WE'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO FU***NG HURT HIM, HE IS OUR FRIEND!!!
(Soldier) - .....
(Officer) - Get him out of there, and make him happy! (To other officer), We need some money to make him happy!

During this time, im laying in the backseat laughing so much im almost crying listening to this conversation going on for a minute or two.

I got explained to me that a local Civilian known as "Flowergirl" had .. errr.. "accidently been shot" during interragitations, and that she needed medical treatment. I told officers that i needed my medical supplies or to get her to the hospital.. He asked me why i didnt bring them, and when i explained that i wasnt told what the matter was , just dragged into the car and knocked out, this officer teached me alot more curse words that i can't write here.

He stopped the closest soldier, a Swedish girl that had a crew with a pickup truck , and told them to drive me to the base and back as fast as they could, because at this time we only had 30 minutes before Flowergirl would die.

After a little bit of getting lost on the forest roads, we eventually got to the town of Kresnovo, i jumped out of the truck that barely had stopped and ran towards hospital, with the truck crew following me.... Thing was, the town was crowded with red troops at this time, and when i ran into the back of the houses, i heard alot of noise behind me, and i realised that most people thought i was trying to escape from them... I didnt realise how close i were to get shot, and that would have killed Flowergirl for sure.

We eventually got back to flowergirl with a couple of minutes to spare, and i was sent back into town on an ATV.

In the evening, when it started getting cold, we started the fire again. After a while, i went to get more wood from a pallet 5m away from the fire. I take two steps back with the wood towards the fire, when i suddenly hear gunfire behind me, and i hear a couple of bullets going past me, hitting the Hades Police officer standing by the fire. I throw myself at the ground and roll towards nearest cover, which is the curch.. No soldiers seen, Sniper attack? Calm again..

Civilians get really angry with the hades police harassing us all the time. We have a town meeting where we decide that we wont follow thier rules any longer. We set up our benches in the middle of the road creating a roadblock JUST as red mechanised rolls in. We demand that the flowergirl get released , and she promtly is. Yay.

Next evening, huge GCT attack on town all civlians hiding in the church in a firefight that seemed to go on for hours, ended up with 3 wounded Civilians, shot by GCT forces. one GCT Douchebag put his weapon thru holes in the wall and shot the local herbalist girl in the face with full out from like 3m, which gave her two nasty marks in the face. Oh well.

Next day, we are on a pilgrim mission to spread the ashes of a civilians father by the Wrath of Gabriel. after ... Err.. getting lost a couple of times, we end up at the right place. when heading back, we stumble upon a Demitri research facility. We take many pictures for our local newspaper and head back towards town. close to ikaros base we get stopped by Ikaros troopes which LUCKILY didnt search us.. so we could get the pictures back to base and for the paper to write the blockbuster story.

This evening the first artillery shells fell over town.

FRIDAY, our leader, the matriarch visit the town. she is given a tour of the town, and while waiting for her helicopter to arrive we wait in the local church. There, the local HP Judge, open fire on the Matriarch and one of our clan elders, wounding them both before being shot himself. I patch them both up, and we make the decision to quickly evacuate the Matriarch by ATV towards helicopter. i jump on the back of it behind her, and on the small road town towards helicopter bad, i was shot in the back , fell off the ATV, and later wake up in the hospital. At the helicopter bad, more Ikaros troops open fire on the matriarch and the civilians. She gets into the helicopter, but dies on the way to hospital.
late same evening, around midnight, we are all hiding in the local bar, whilst GCT forces are attacking the base. When they breach the mansion, 6 Civilians including myself are wounded, but all lives.

I woke up in the middle of the night by someone knocking me on the shoulder and telling me he knifekilled me and that im dead... Even thought the town was offgame ( i know it was, we didnt go to sleep until 4am..., and could only sleep during offgame hours ) .. Oh well, i didnt really want to argue, so i kept quiet and went back to sleep, letting him have his fun!

SATURDAY. Woken up by alot of gunfire. The GCT had armed the civilians. many Civilians wounded. firefights going on for hours. The local flowergirl, that has been missing for DAYS turns up.... AS A GCT SOLDIER.... Sighs! a spy she was! all along! i try to heal her, when i get shot by ikaros player and dragged into the woods. Dr Navid is now missing, assumed dead.


---

These are only SOME of the highlight, it really happened stuff ALL the time, and i cant write it all down here, it would take HOURS!

GAME REVIEW, CIVILIAN PoV:
POSITIVE: All you players. Thank you from the bottom of my hearth, you made this game insanely fun.
NEGATIVE: Game balance. Something really need to be done about Red vs Blue ratio. i really wanted to see more of GCT, but never had the chanse.

To you reading this that consider playing as a Civilian on Berget. DO IT! You will have the time of your life, larping in a game with over 1500 people , out of where 99.9% interract with you and follow the LARP rules and regulations, and they all want you there! Contact me if you have any questions!

To you reading this that might have friends who want to join as a Civilian, please show them around the forum, and tell them to contact me ( or give me thier contact info ) and i will gladly answer any concerns/questions.

Every single civilian i talked to after the game had an absolute blas this year. Hope to see you all and alot more people NEXT YEAR! Much love!

:team:

And here is an excellent photo of an Ikaros player trying to calm me down after i confront them with injured Civilian information. Photo by Fotograf Lasse Näsström
Image
Please send ticket & payment questions to:

payment@berget-events.com

Sivert
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Joined: 29 Jun 2014, 20:20

Re: Detailed Civilian Review - Berget 13

Post by Sivert » 30 Jun 2015, 18:50

This year I was a civilian at Berget. Last year I attended Berget with some friends for the first time as PMC and that was not that great. This year a close friend of mine and I wanted to try out playing as Civilian, to get a perspective of how it was like.

The Radio Station
Our idea for what to do on Berget as civilian was having a radio station, and in December we came in contact with the BE crew on email where the response for the radio station idea was "Yes!!! Radio station is a go! Do it!". I liked the encouraging and enthusiastic response. To get this from an idea to an actual station I planned to use a mobile amateur radio station to transmit on UHF. That way, everyone bringing with them proper UHF comms would be able to listen to it.

For this plan to have worked, all that BE would have had do is allocate a frequency in their channel plan for the radio station. I asked for the frequency I would be transmitting the radio on in early December. And I figured I would do the preparations and buy in the gear for the radio when they get the frequency sorted. Reasoning this decision that until I know that the radio will be possible at all, it would be a waste to make elaborate preparations and acquire gear that I can't know is usable.

After a month without hearing anything about the frequency for the radio, I stopped thinking about the radio or Berget altogether. Another 4 months later, in late May, I'm contacted because I haven't made a character sheet for the civilian I will be playing. I bring up the question about the station and the frequency again, to which the answer is that it still hasn't been sorted out. The mood at that time for the station can be summed up with BE crew saying "The radiostation idéa that you presented has been in our minds since you brought it up.".

The game date closed up fast, and a week before the game I still haven't received a frequency to transmit on, and I still haven't obtained any gear to transmit the radio with. I tell that to BE crew on email, and part of the answer I get is "[...] our radio guy Sonny had something in mind". Which I interpret as the radio station still something that BE crew is trying to sort out. I gathered together equipment needed to make the station audio: A laptop, a hand held microphone with built in recording capability, and some royalty free music.

We got there, still not knowing what frequency the radio would be transmitted on, and played out as if the radio station actually was a thing. On the second day of the game, after many inquiries, BE crew was finally able to provide an answer for the frequency the station would be transmitted on. None. Zip. No frequency had been allocated and the player comms had been programmed with each team had their own frequencies. So even if we had a transmitted for the right frequency with us, only one team would have been able to hear it at a time. Well f*** you BE crew. You had two hundred days to sort this out. But even with that much time, you couldn't get your inveterate ass off the chair and say that the station wouldn't be possible before the 2nd day of the game.

Still a good time
The radio station didn't happen. We think that it would have been nothing short of awesome had it worked out as anyone out in the field would have gotten first hand accounts of the events going on in the city. There would have been music, interviews, news, whether reports, radio shows, and propaganda paid by both sides. But, once the situation become known, there wasn't anything we could do about it.

I ended up taking the role as the villager in the background that nobody really knows. Some time later I worked as a freelancer journalist for the local newspaper, Krasonovo Prag. The main case I worked on was the harassment, imprisoning and dubious interrogations of the villagers by the military forces in the town. Hades Police saw my list and jailed me for "gathering intel of important targets of the Hades Police". I also wrote an article about a fictitious theme park opening, and sold advertisements.

The amount of events going on was crazy. Townsfolk being harassed, robbed and taken captive by Hades Police. Demeter doing dubious things in the hospital. The protest where we blocked the road for IKRANOS mech. The last stand in the Bar with Demeter forces on our side against both IKRANOS and GCT. The matriarch being assassinated. It goes on and on. And so the lack of the radio station didn't make the experience bad in any way.

There's so much that can be said about the experience, but it would just go on and on and on and never finish, so I'll cut off here.

The Civilian Rules
There are two things that I think made the game much, much better for civilians. Death being permanent, and guns being very hard to obtain. The death thing makes the dynamics of play very interesting as civilians act more civilian, and the lack of guns makes it much less likely that one will end up a gunfight, or try to do an armed rebellion. With the amount of soldiers in and around the town, the only way that could end is with civilian losses. (But we still tried!)

I liked these rules. The civilians ended up caring a lot for each other, and when I was taken out by air strike on the top of the bar roof no time nor manpower was spared rushing me to the hospital. Being the second time I was being treated and not having paid the doctor the first time, I owed a hundred dollars for the treatment. Playing wounded I groaned and was about to pick out the money from my pocket, but before I could do that the bank man had thrown a hundred dollars on the doctor.

But. It's pretty clear that these rules don't work for playing airsoft. The last day, the town was under siege from the morning and until the game ended. GCT had dropped guns and so all the civilians could take arms. Yet there wasn't much to accomplish, you could go out and shot some. And perhaps you'd hit a few or hold a building for a few minutes. Only to have a hundred more soldiers come in as reinforcements and crush you. Not that it mattered much, the experience as a civilian not carrying arms was more than enough.

TL;DR: We had a great time as civilian not carrying arms. Much better than PMC last year. There were tones of action going on all the time.

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Robin-Hood
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Re: Detailed Civilian Review - Berget 13

Post by Robin-Hood » 30 Jun 2015, 23:34

That radio station idea sounds awesome! I'd love to see that become a thing as it would allow the players to see the 'grand scheme of things' a lot better! That would be super fun.
Founder of Scimitar MILSIM Team

Berget History:
  • Berget 9 - Poldavian
    Berget 10 - Poldavian
    Berget 11 - GCT Taskforce

talqari
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Re: Detailed Civilian Review - Berget 13

Post by talqari » 01 Jul 2015, 12:21

This was my second time at berget, last year I played as the deputy sheriff in the village (really uc GCT).

I enjoyed my time a lot, and so did my crew. Our idea of mc gang was visualized just on the trip home from B12. Still we had some ball tossing what to play and how. First our goal was to get the police role in village, since I enjoyed it much last year. This role was occupied at the moment, so we flew with the mc. And it flew well, even tough we did not manage to get real mopeds/bikes around. We had an idea of having atv + 2 mopeds with us, but this went south. So we had the atv + killer goped (kickboard with 70cc engine).

Living in village

This was a blast. Huge thank to all the people that participated and interacted with civilians. Specially the shady PR guy, you played well and it was a joy to chat with you. And what comes to other fellow civilians. You were amazing. I never tought that the village could be so lively and real like. But we all made it happen. I sincerely hope that this attitude that civilians had this year will continue in the future.

From game wise the vilage was a bit dull. It was flooded with Hades, and few times with GCT. And the Hades did never check me or my crew, not a single time. And we tried to look as shady and quilty as we could just to provoke some action towards us. But nope nothing happened. So this could be one thing to take care of in future. BE and/or comanders make clear rules or a framework how and what can be done with civilian players.

One of the best moments that I had in the game was when I and Mr. Brown got hit. Mr. Brown was bleeding badly and his time was running out. I and Mr. White tought that maybe a bit of cocaine could extend his time. And at that moment, Mr. White went to our stash and snatched a package of coke, wich I brought to the hospital. All bursted to laughter when I presented the coke. All survived and everyone was happy. Then we had a rave with music and lights and everything.

What did I like that needs to mentioned

The new rule regarding civilian death, bleedout time and knife killing.

Taking our weapons for real.

Civilians, real civilians in the village + some other nice fellows from Ikaros and GCT that had a chat with us.

And the negative things that needs to be fixed

Open the forums much much more earlier. Maybe open the civilian forums at the first ticket launch. This way we could start chatting with all other civilian players, what are they doing and what should I do.

Take the weapons, but don't make us come to get them from such an obvious locations that it was this year. Maybe BE could arrange a car that drives to a location I want the weapon change to happen.

The fact that other players maybe do not understand the fact that when I'm dead, I'm dead for real, no respawning to the same character. Make this clear next year. This year I got speedballed to death buy some douche that I was trying to surrender myself. Ok this was 3 hours, before game off so this was not a big deal.

The ticket price, reduce it, or offer this 1+1 that was tried this year. I would say that 20-30% off is enough.

1 GM at the village all the time. Now when a clan elder was needed there was only GM's and vice versa.

Make a clear patch/armband on civilian players that tells everyone else that this one is playing larp in hc mode. This individual can be searched without extra questions.

Conclusion

I had fun. And I will return as a civilian next year. And yes, we have already an idea what we could be in B14.

Small minor chages are needed, but this civilian concept was a huge improvement to the last year.

Huge thank+hug to Matte and Johan, all civilians and all players.


-Mr. Red
B12 - GCT : Deputy sheriff of Dolina - "Do you have a license for that?"
B13 - Civilian : President of Sons of matriarch - "I don't give a flying --- SPAM !!! ---!"
B14 - Civilian : Chief Executive Janitor of Nordmark Sinecure Department - "I have some work not to be done!"

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Goggan
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Re: Detailed Civilian Review - Berget 13

Post by Goggan » 02 Aug 2015, 10:56

KSI CROW
#"Peace in my sight"
B7 Civ Agent BC
B8 Civ Hunter
B9 Pol 3rd
B10 civ Hunter
B11 UA17
B12 civ Undertaker
B13 Hades police
B14 walk over

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