NPC Information

Do you want to help make the world and people of Cottington Woods come alive? Do you not want to settle for just one story, but want to live out dozens? Do you want to entertain the players and help make this game be the best it can be? Then consider joining our Cast as an NPC or even Permanent NPC.

[ Preregister for an Event | Take our NPC Survey | Join our CastGoogleGroup | Submit your PEL ]

Jump right to the information you need:

Types of NPCs
CP Exchange
NPC PEL (Post Event Letter)
LARP Conflict Survey
Contact Us
FAQ
A Note About Perm NPCs

We have three "types" of NPCs in Cottington Woods:

Player-NPCs: These would be players who, for one reason or another, decide to NPC an event rather than play it. We will likely have a mechanism to allow PCs to take NPC shifts during an event if they would like, most likely hooked by Riding Hoods. If during an event this offered, we will explain the mechanism for signing up for shifts prior to the event.

NPCs/Cast: These are our Cast who join us at events to bring to life the world and its many people. They have access to information not available to Player-NPCs, and are able to play recurring NPC roles. Every NPC will have at least one "Townie" role that they can go into town as when not playing other roles. This Townie role must be approved by Staff.

Permanent NPCs/Cast - aka part of the "We are all mad here" crowd. The difference between Permanent NPC and regular NPC is that a Perm NPC has committed (see what we did here? Committed? Mad? Okay, so we thought it was funny.) to attend our 2 Weekend Events each year. You are automatically preregistered for each event, and only contact us to inform us if you cannot make an event. For that, we give them priority casting on prominent, recurring roles, and will assign a Townie role to them that either acts as plot hooks or has its own plotline (subject to Plot approval). We encourage our Perm NPCs to work with Plot Staff to create a Townie role that they will enjoy.

NPCs attend for free, and we provide free food and beverages all weekend long for our Cast. For more info, see our FAQ.

Join our GoogleGroup Cast List:

If you decide to join as a Cast Member (whether Permanent or not), we encourage you to join our Cast Member GoogleGroup here:
https://groups.google.com/d/forum/castcottingtonwoods

The Cast GoogleGroup is our primary means of communication with our NPCs. Please note that if you join the cast googlegroup, you cannot then join as a Player. Information will be shared on that list that are spoilers to players.

Once you join the GoogleGroup list, you will automatically have permission to the CAST WEBSITE here: [[TBD]]

Take our NPC Survey:

We want to know all about our NPCs, so that you enjoy the game as much as the players do. Please take a moment to fill out the survey, so we can understand what kinds of roles you do and do not enjoy, your preferences, what kind of involvement you'd like to have, whether you wish to join Permanent Cast, and also important things like what kind of snacks and food you'd like to see in Monster Camp.

Preregister to Attend an Event:

Please let us know if you are going to NPC an event for us! By preregistering, we are able to preassign you roles for the upcoming event.

CP Exchange:

By NPCing for Cottington Woods, you can also earn CP/XP for your character(s) in other LARPs with which we have an exchange.

Cottington Woods currently has a CP Exchange with all major Accelerant LARPs. These include, but are not limited to:

We also have a CP Exchange with a few other non-Accelerant games

If there is a LARP not listed that you would like us to contact about setting up an exchange, please send us an email with the name of the game, name of a contact, and their email address, and we will contact them to see if an exchange is possible.

To ensure you receive your CP when NPCing Cottington Woods, please preregister to attend an event, and then be certain to sign in when you arrive at Monster Camp. You also receive additional CP for assisting with setup/cleanup, and for writing a PEL.

To ensure you receive your CP when NPCing other LARPs, please be certain to sign-in at Monster Camp when you NPC, so that their staff knows you attended and sends us a list after the event is over. If you do not receive your CP, please let us know, but also please send a kind note to the game you NPCed and ask their staff to send an email to us at updates@cottingtonwoods.com to notify us that you NPCed and whether you submitted a PEL and assisted with cleanup/setup.

PEL (Post Event Letter) / Summary Letter

Remember that most games with which we have an exchange offer additonal CP for writing an NPC PEL. And they are important for us, as Staff, so we know what happened during roles, how plotlines moved along, and what follow-up the PCs might be expecting, as well as what roles you enjoyed and want to play again.

The deadline for PEL Submission is two weeks after an event.

NPC PEL
1. What happened in the roles you played?
2. Did anything happen that you believe requires follow-up? Is there a direction you would like to take that follow-up?
3. What, if any, are the goals or unfinished business of the NPCs you played, and what actions did you take towards those goals? What actions do you want to take?
4. Did you get enjoyable roles? Which were your most favorite? Are there any you'd like to recur?
5. Is there any kind of role you'd like more of or less of next event? (Specific types of roles, or a different balance of RP/combat, etc.)
6. Were there any roleplaying encounters/moments that you want to share with the Staff?
7. Any other comments or feedback?
8. Where would you like your CP to go?
9. Did you assist with cleanup? If yes, please describe what you did for cleanup.

Please send all PELs to PEL@cottingtonwoods.com.

LARP Conflict Survey

When scheduling our events, we'd like to know what other games our players, NPCs, and Staff are playing, so we can try our best to avoid major conflicts. In the end, however, we're at the mercy of site availability, and can absolutely make no promises that we won't conflict with a game you love out there. There are just too many LARPs running in New England to avoid conflicts, but we'll do our best within the site availability constraints to avoid major conflicts! So please fill out our LARP Conflict Survey to let us know which games you are involved in!

Contact us if you have questions:

NPCs can also email us directly at NPC@cottingtonwoods.com for questions related to NPC, or post the question to our Cast List.

We also have a few other places where we post information and updates, aside from the Cast Google Group, and where players ask questions and provide information. These are:

Cottington Woods Player List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/playercottingtonwoods (this is the main list for the game)
Facebook Private Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/402007979812326/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CottingtonWoods
Google+ Page: https://plus.google.com/100290594421236689424
Google+ Private Community: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107486907405192387340
LiveJournal: http://cottingtonwoods.livejournal.com

FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions):

Do you have to pay to NPC Cottington Woods?
NO! Our NPCs do not pay Annual Membership or Event Costs. It is always free to cast for Cottington Woods.

What about food?
We feed our NPCs. For full weekend events, we will provide Saturday Breakfast, Saturday Dinner, and Sunday Breakfast, as well as sandwiches and snacks for Friday Late Dinner and Saturday Lunch. We will also have snacks, beverages, water, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and possibly some quick hot meal type things, like oatmeal and noodles, in Monster Camp through the entire weekend.

What should I bring to an event?
At a minimum, you should bring your sleeping bag and pillow and your basic NPC costuming. In most games these are called your basic "blacks" - black pants or sweatpants, black t-shirt, black long-sleeved shirt. For cold events, be certain to bring layers and thermals. If you have them, we also ask that you bring basic "browns and greens," as well as at least one costume that you could use to portray a Townie with (general Fantasy or Medieval garb & costuming will work). Monster Camp will have some basic garb for your use, however. If you are cast as specific role, especially one that is recurring, we recommend bringing costuming specific to that role so that PCs will recognize you as that Role each time you come out. Finally, while we will have weapons in monster camp to be used, if you have your own weapons, we do ask that you bring them, as we only have so many to go around.

Do I have to preregister to NPC? Can I just show up?
Of course - if you decide you want to NPC last minute, please just come even if you haven't preregistered! We will have roles for you. Preregistering has a lot of benefits, however - for one thing, it means we know you are coming and can pre-cast you into roles for plotlines running at the event -- and ensure you get some roles of the types you enjoy. We do a lot of our critical casting of roles in advance when we create our schedule However, we will always have roles that will be cast onsite, and you can always just show up and still expect to be able to have some interesting roles to do. And of course, if you enjoy crunching, we will always have a need for that!

So, yes, we strongly encourage you to preregister as an NPC for an event, but it is not a requirement.

What if I just want to fight?
We have plenty of fighting roles! If your preference is to fight, then fight you will. It's another reason we suggest you preregister and fill out the NPC Survey - that way we know what your preferences are.
Cottington has many options for our NPCs. Those who only wish to roleplay will find many roles to allow them to do just that. If you wish to just fight, we will have plenty of roles for you as well. If you want to do a mix, we can arrange that as well.

I plan on PCing Cottington Woods, but didn't make it into the One-Day Event. Can I NPC the event and then PC the next one?
Yes. Presently, our policy is that you can NPC even if you are a Player, though we will ask you to alert Staff whenever you are sitting in Monster Camp by shouting "PC in Camp!" so that we don't talk any Plot secrets in front of you and spoil the fun. (We are planning on having a "Council Room" for any plot discussions that need to happen during the course of the event when all of you zany PCs inevitable through a monkey wrench into our expectations of what you will do, so we should minimize the chances of anything you hearing spoiling things for you).

Further, we ask you abide by this rule: Anything you hear or learn while an NPC, your character does not know. You cannot take that knowledge into game. If you repeatedly abuse this, we will ask you to either NPC or PC, but not allow you to go back and forth.

If I'm a PC who will be NPCing an event, should I fill out the NPC Survey?
Yes! We would like to be able to cast you into roles you would enjoy, and that will help us to know what you like and do not like to do.
If you are planning to NPC Cottington Woods, please take a moment to fill out our NPC Survey.

A note about Permanent NPC Cast:
-- If you join the Permanent NPC Cast, you are committing to attending at 2 weekend events held each year
-- You will automatically be preregistered for an event. Please inform us if you CANNOT make an event, but otherwise you don't need to preregister every event. We will likely reach out to reconfirm a month or so before the event.
-- Our goal is to assign very important roles to as many of our Permanent NPC base as we can, and to provide them with enjoyable, recurring roles.
-- Our Permanent NPCs will get priority when it comes to casting roles for an event. That's not to say that non-Permanent staff won't get cool roles, of course, because you will! Just that Perm NPCs receive priority in casting to ensure they have roles assigned in an event.
-- All NPCs, permanent or not, will have a "Townie Role" or two, but Permanent Staff will have "Townies" that will be plot hooks and/or with their own story arc and/or minor plotline. We encourage Permanent NPCs to suggest ideas they might have for their Townie roles, though please understand that all such concepts need to be approved by Plot and we cannot guarantee that your concept as suggested will be approved for play. We also have a number of existing Townie roles that we would love to assign to our Permanent NPC cast members!


	NPC Information Do you want to help make the world and people of Cottington Woods come alive? Do you not want to settle for just one story, but want to live out dozens? Do you want to entertain the players and help make this game be the best it can be? Then consider joining our Cast as an NPC or even Permanent NPC. [ Preregister for an Event \| Take our NPC Survey \| Join our CastGoogleGroup \| Submit your PEL ] Jump right to the information you need: Types of NPCs CP Exchange NPC PEL (Post Event Letter) LARP Conflict Survey Contact Us FAQ A Note About Perm NPCs We have three "types" of NPCs in Cottington Woods: Player-NPCs: These would be players who, for one reason or another, decide to NPC an event rather than play it. We will likely have a mechanism to allow PCs to take NPC shifts during an event if they would like, most likely hooked by Riding Hoods. If during an event this offered, we will explain the mechanism for signing up for shifts prior to the event. NPCs/Cast: These are our Cast who join us at events to bring to life the world and its many people. They have access to information not available to Player-NPCs, and are able to play recurring NPC roles. Every NPC will have at least one "Townie" role that they can go into town as when not playing other roles. This Townie role must be approved by Staff. Permanent NPCs/Cast - aka part of the "We are all mad here" crowd. The difference between Permanent NPC and regular NPC is that a Perm NPC has committed (see what we did here? Committed? Mad? Okay, so we thought it was funny.) to attend our 2 Weekend Events each year. You are automatically preregistered for each event, and only contact us to inform us if you cannot make an event. For that, we give them priority casting on prominent, recurring roles, and will assign a Townie role to them that either acts as plot hooks or has its own plotline (subject to Plot approval). We encourage our Perm NPCs to work with Plot Staff to create a Townie role that they will enjoy. NPCs attend for free, and we provide free food and beverages all weekend long for our Cast. For more info, see our FAQ. Join our GoogleGroup Cast List: If you decide to join as a Cast Member (whether Permanent or not), we encourage you to join our Cast Member GoogleGroup here: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/castcottingtonwoods The Cast GoogleGroup is our primary means of communication with our NPCs. Please note that if you join the cast googlegroup, you cannot then join as a Player. Information will be shared on that list that are spoilers to players. Once you join the GoogleGroup list, you will automatically have permission to the CAST WEBSITE here: [[TBD]] Take our NPC Survey: We want to know all about our NPCs, so that you enjoy the game as much as the players do. Please take a moment to fill out the survey, so we can understand what kinds of roles you do and do not enjoy, your preferences, what kind of involvement you'd like to have, whether you wish to join Permanent Cast, and also important things like what kind of snacks and food you'd like to see in Monster Camp. Preregister to Attend an Event: Please let us know if you are going to NPC an event for us! By preregistering, we are able to preassign you roles for the upcoming event. CP Exchange: By NPCing for Cottington Woods, you can also earn CP/XP for your character(s) in other LARPs with which we have an exchange. Cottington Woods currently has a CP Exchange with all major Accelerant LARPs. These include, but are not limited to: After Dark Aralis Ascendant Clockwork Skies Crossover LARP Draconis Fifth Gate Ink LARP Isles LIONE Madrigal Numina Occam's Razor Shadowvale Threshold We also have a CP Exchange with a few other non-Accelerant games Future Imperfect NERO: Fables of Fenorra NERO Volta Campaign If there is a LARP not listed that you would like us to contact about setting up an exchange, please send us an email with the name of the game, name of a contact, and their email address, and we will contact them to see if an exchange is possible. To ensure you receive your CP when NPCing Cottington Woods, please preregister to attend an event, and then be certain to sign in when you arrive at Monster Camp. You also receive additional CP for assisting with setup/cleanup, and for writing a PEL. To ensure you receive your CP when NPCing other LARPs, please be certain to sign-in at Monster Camp when you NPC, so that their staff knows you attended and sends us a list after the event is over. If you do not receive your CP, please let us know, but also please send a kind note to the game you NPCed and ask their staff to send an email to us at updates@cottingtonwoods.com to notify us that you NPCed and whether you submitted a PEL and assisted with cleanup/setup. PEL (Post Event Letter) / Summary Letter Remember that most games with which we have an exchange offer additonal CP for writing an NPC PEL. And they are important for us, as Staff, so we know what happened during roles, how plotlines moved along, and what follow-up the PCs might be expecting, as well as what roles you enjoyed and want to play again. The deadline for PEL Submission is two weeks after an event. NPC PEL 1. What happened in the roles you played? 2. Did anything happen that you believe requires follow-up? Is there a direction you would like to take that follow-up? 3. What, if any, are the goals or unfinished business of the NPCs you played, and what actions did you take towards those goals? What actions do you want to take? 4. Did you get enjoyable roles? Which were your most favorite? Are there any you'd like to recur? 5. Is there any kind of role you'd like more of or less of next event? (Specific types of roles, or a different balance of RP/combat, etc.) 6. Were there any roleplaying encounters/moments that you want to share with the Staff? 7. Any other comments or feedback? 8. Where would you like your CP to go? 9. Did you assist with cleanup? If yes, please describe what you did for cleanup. Please send all PELs to PEL@cottingtonwoods.com. LARP Conflict Survey When scheduling our events, we'd like to know what other games our players, NPCs, and Staff are playing, so we can try our best to avoid major conflicts. In the end, however, we're at the mercy of site availability, and can absolutely make no promises that we won't conflict with a game you love out there. There are just too many LARPs running in New England to avoid conflicts, but we'll do our best within the site availability constraints to avoid major conflicts! So please fill out our LARP Conflict Survey to let us know which games you are involved in! Contact us if you have questions: NPCs can also email us directly at NPC@cottingtonwoods.com for questions related to NPC, or post the question to our Cast List. We also have a few other places where we post information and updates, aside from the Cast Google Group, and where players ask questions and provide information. These are: Cottington Woods Player List: https://groups.google.com/d/forum/playercottingtonwoods (this is the main list for the game) Facebook Private Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/402007979812326/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/CottingtonWoods Google+ Page: https://plus.google.com/100290594421236689424 Google+ Private Community: https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/107486907405192387340 LiveJournal: http://cottingtonwoods.livejournal.com FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions): Do you have to pay to NPC Cottington Woods? NO! Our NPCs do not pay Annual Membership or Event Costs. It is always free to cast for Cottington Woods. What about food? We feed our NPCs. For full weekend events, we will provide Saturday Breakfast, Saturday Dinner, and Sunday Breakfast, as well as sandwiches and snacks for Friday Late Dinner and Saturday Lunch. We will also have snacks, beverages, water, coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and possibly some quick hot meal type things, like oatmeal and noodles, in Monster Camp through the entire weekend. What should I bring to an event? At a minimum, you should bring your sleeping bag and pillow and your basic NPC costuming. In most games these are called your basic "blacks" - black pants or sweatpants, black t-shirt, black long-sleeved shirt. For cold events, be certain to bring layers and thermals. If you have them, we also ask that you bring basic "browns and greens," as well as at least one costume that you could use to portray a Townie with (general Fantasy or Medieval garb & costuming will work). Monster Camp will have some basic garb for your use, however. If you are cast as specific role, especially one that is recurring, we recommend bringing costuming specific to that role so that PCs will recognize you as that Role each time you come out. Finally, while we will have weapons in monster camp to be used, if you have your own weapons, we do ask that you bring them, as we only have so many to go around. Do I have to preregister to NPC? Can I just show up? Of course - if you decide you want to NPC last minute, please just come even if you haven't preregistered! We will have roles for you. Preregistering has a lot of benefits, however - for one thing, it means we know you are coming and can pre-cast you into roles for plotlines running at the event -- and ensure you get some roles of the types you enjoy. We do a lot of our critical casting of roles in advance when we create our schedule However, we will always have roles that will be cast onsite, and you can always just show up and still expect to be able to have some interesting roles to do. And of course, if you enjoy crunching, we will always have a need for that! So, yes, we strongly encourage you to preregister as an NPC for an event, but it is not a requirement. What if I just want to fight? We have plenty of fighting roles! If your preference is to fight, then fight you will. It's another reason we suggest you preregister and fill out the NPC Survey - that way we know what your preferences are. Cottington has many options for our NPCs. Those who only wish to roleplay will find many roles to allow them to do just that. If you wish to just fight, we will have plenty of roles for you as well. If you want to do a mix, we can arrange that as well. I plan on PCing Cottington Woods, but didn't make it into the One-Day Event. Can I NPC the event and then PC the next one? Yes. Presently, our policy is that you can NPC even if you are a Player, though we will ask you to alert Staff whenever you are sitting in Monster Camp by shouting "PC in Camp!" so that we don't talk any Plot secrets in front of you and spoil the fun. (We are planning on having a "Council Room" for any plot discussions that need to happen during the course of the event when all of you zany PCs inevitable through a monkey wrench into our expectations of what you will do, so we should minimize the chances of anything you hearing spoiling things for you). Further, we ask you abide by this rule: Anything you hear or learn while an NPC, your character does not know. You cannot take that knowledge into game. If you repeatedly abuse this, we will ask you to either NPC or PC, but not allow you to go back and forth. If I'm a PC who will be NPCing an event, should I fill out the NPC Survey? Yes! We would like to be able to cast you into roles you would enjoy, and that will help us to know what you like and do not like to do. If you are planning to NPC Cottington Woods, please take a moment to fill out our NPC Survey. A note about Permanent NPC Cast: -- If you join the Permanent NPC Cast, you are committing to attending at 2 weekend events held each year -- You will automatically be preregistered for an event. Please inform us if you CANNOT make an event, but otherwise you don't need to preregister every event. We will likely reach out to reconfirm a month or so before the event. -- Our goal is to assign very important roles to as many of our Permanent NPC base as we can, and to provide them with enjoyable, recurring roles. -- Our Permanent NPCs will get priority when it comes to casting roles for an event. That's not to say that non-Permanent staff won't get cool roles, of course, because you will! Just that Perm NPCs receive priority in casting to ensure they have roles assigned in an event. -- All NPCs, permanent or not, will have a "Townie Role" or two, but Permanent Staff will have "Townies" that will be plot hooks and/or with their own story arc and/or minor plotline. We encourage Permanent NPCs to suggest ideas they might have for their Townie roles, though please understand that all such concepts need to be approved by Plot and we cannot guarantee that your concept as suggested will be approved for play. We also have a number of existing Townie roles that we would love to assign to our Permanent NPC cast members!


Cottington Woods © Copyright 2012 Designed by Jonathan Heard