Enjoyed Or Have A Favorite Type Of Player Run Event?
I'm looking for ideas that will bring players to a player run event. It seems to have become more challenging since the onset of EM events with their uber rewards for player events to be successful and feel like they were fun. If you have one that you think people would enjoy or went to one that was fun I'd appreciate it if you would share that.
Thank you and I ask that everyone please not negatively judge others responses. This thread isn't about what other people's opinions are about someone's idea. If you feel the need to express an opinion, explain a fun event you went to and express your opinion about that one. 
Thank you
Comments
1- we gather and form teams by rolling dice, picking captains or host selected parties.
2- rules and guidelines are made clear for all. Do not have to go in order, all teammates must make it to each location, any means of travel permited, screenshot sent to host, confirmed.
3- your team receives a book with numbered locations, phrases, hints, monsters, deco that must be located within the realm. No peaking at the clue book until the host declares the game has begun.
5- each player on your team must make it to said location and snap a screenshot that is sent to the host on discord. This confirms the clue, location, and team members present.
6- 1st team to get all the clues correct or the team with the most correct answers wins 1st place. 2nd and 3rd place finishes are noted as well. Prizes awarded for the top 3 teams.
Another player event we have seen this past year are the events the governor of Yew @Yeva on Pacific has set up. These are wears events, huge areas of yew were converted to pop up stop n shop events. Anyone was able to set up a booth and sell their crafts locally and not through a vendor. This allowed for interactions with the buyers and sellers being able to discuss the unique items that were present. Along with the tables, booths, vendors, there were raffles and giveaways throughout the event. Witnessed many one off interactions that happened that would not have been possible anywhere else. Roleplaying, real friends, toons helping toons.
Check in over on Pacific, the governors there have really been putting in a good deal of effort to get the entire shard involved in non EM events. Easter bunny rampage, fishing events, Cuthroat conney, museum stocking, reagent buying days.
there is one currently running now,
(Oh No! The Young Mage has vanished! King Blackthorn will be furious. Curious? Go to the Lycaeum in Moonglow and look for a clue to START your adventure!)
Oh yeah and boat races! That was fun and needed a GM to sort out in the end
Never be afraid to challenge the status quo
"Of course they won, they are in their guild!"
So the in-game mechanics which deliver clear, objective winners are better for some players events, especially the ones that offer desirable rewards.
Here's some examples of events I've seen or ran that felt successful:
Archery Contests
Archery buttes are cheap to get and can be placed in homes and found in the world. Determine a set number of shots and see who scores the highest. The trick here, however, is accounting for some quirks in the game design. Skilled archers will always beat out non-skilled archers, so you may want to do high skill and low skill bouts. Non-skilled human archers will always beat out non-skilled elves and gargoyles because of JOAT, so you may want to do a bout that is "lowest score" wins vs highest. Because players can all see who has the highest or lowest number, there is never confusion or accusations.
Rune Scavenger Hunts
This kind of an event favors the more patient player, but I've had a lot of engagement with it back when I still played Chesapeake. You determine a list of locations and mark them in your book, and then give those locations to your participants in the form of a list of clues. They go out and try and mark as many as correct as possible. When I did this, I would take the names of the people who got a book of correct entries and put their names into a RNG website. From there I let the RNG decide who wins the actual prize and provide proof. You could do this in-game, too, with the cup and dice if you're trying to keep everything within the system.
Map Making
Another form of the rune scavenger hunt is a map making contest. Same basic rules apply, except instead of marking a rune to a location players need to use the cartography skill and blank deeds to make a physical map in-game.
Bulletin Board Entries
The only system in-game which timestamps player written text is the bulletin board, which I've used for contest entries to determine who entered first. As the homeowner you CAN delete comments, of course, so it is on the event coordinator's honor not to. But, again, players can see when others have submitted providing a bit of objectivity.
Huntmaster's Champion
I haven't run this one personally but on Chesapeake a player runs a very successful contest where they give out a certain animal type and whomever returns a Huntmaster's Deed with the highest weight in stones wins. Again, it's a very objective system as they can prove who won simply by locking down the deeds.
Systems like bulletin boards, editable/leafable player-written books, mailboxes, dice and cups, ankh/serpent coins, buttes/dagger boards, etc are all fun ways to provide engagement and objectivity to events. There's probably more of these kinds of systems already in the game that I'm forgetting, but I'd call these critical roleplay mechanics. Mechanics which let us create our own content are always better than time-based, seasonal offerings.
However they did something so that people couldnt just drydock their ship and recall. I forget. Locked an item on the deck of the ship or something. Off the top of my head I'm not sure how to prevent cheating as just a player. The old way would have just been to provide all the ships, but no keys. Alas, the silly 1 ship rule ruined that.
Governor of Moonglow
Discord: txeggplant
maithceol@gmail.com