Cucumber Festival Plotting Post!

[pumpkinhollow]

Hey all! This is just a quick little thing, but coming up in June our event will be the Marrow Isle Cucumber Festival, which is a callback to our very first TDM!

In our Discord there was some discussion of a player-led carnival for this event, so this post is a place to collect ideas for games, rides, and activities run by player characters! It'll be early summer and cucumber themed, but other than that, go wild!

Additionally I want to keep the tone of this event lighthearted so I'm also looking for suggestions on ways to make this event spooky in a fun and relatively harmless way, so please share if you have ideas. Thanks gang!

Comments

[pumpkinhollow]

Off the top of my own dome, a couple things I know I want to do are the cucumber judging for which of our farmers grew the biggest cuke, a cooking competition for cucumber dishes, and a turnip smash (also a reference to the TDM also). If anyone would like to participate in one of these, this post can serve as an RSVP!

[batteryacid]

A silly idea for the cucumber judging -- perhaps some NPC farmers argue about possible witchcraft used in getting such big cukes? As a little callback to the disgruntled witch that cursed the crop last year :3

[cacophonish]

For a small silly minorly spooky idea:

A steampunky whack a mole game that's possessed by disgruntled spirits who reveal a mix of secrets, gossip, and straight up lies about PCs and NPCs upon whacking.

[pumpkinhollow]

Oh perfect. Batya suggested something similar for another game so I think I'll just have a bunch of games haunted by prankster spirits. This one in particular is super brilliant.

[tehilim127_1]

A thought for some fun/relatively harmless spookiness: there's a put-out-the-candle-with-a-watergun booth, except some mischievous/disgruntled spirit keeps blowing out the candles before anyone can try.

[pumpkinhollow]

Oooh, I could potentially expand on this and make multiple games haunted by prankster ghosts!

[notinflictthem]

A couple of non-spooky fun ideas:

Water relay: like an egg and spoon race without wasting eggs. There's cups at the end of a small track, and a tin of water at the starting point. Egg and spoon race logic applies, carry a spoonful of water over as carefully and quickly as you can. First team to fill their cup to a certain amount wins!

Also tug of war and a regular running race, with proceeds from betting on all of the above going to the rebuilding the town fund thingie

[pumpkinhollow]

All these are delightful! Very silly and fun <3

[pineapplesalmon]

Okay so a lot of rides got their start at the turn of the century (1900s). HOWEVER. This is a magical world with fantasy races so I want to argue that it would push things forward a bit more that's how people can make money.

Also here is a good slideshow of ideas
I like Slide 7 especially:
1908: Devil's Wheel, Oktoberfest, Munich, Germany

Devil's Wheel rides have been used at Oktoberfest since the early 1900s, and the premise is simple: Riders sit in the middle of a revolving platform, which spins faster and faster until the riders are flung off to the side. (At an Oktoberfest? Where people have been drinking? No thank you.)
(There's also the reverse one that pins you inside the wheel as it spins rapidly.)

... also bumper cars. Magical bumper cars. Imagine bumpering with Aster.
Also obviously a haunted house. And a variety show. And also maybe contests for best animals, biggest fruits/veggies, crafts, and foods.
Also games of skill with some stupid big plush animals and also a goldfish equivalent that's not actually awful. Maybe strange plants that grow well indoors. Or other plotty things. IDK.
Also dunk tank raising money for orphans. Characters can volunteer.
And a raffle! Which can have a variety of things characters can offer (although this would be hard ICly to do without it taking forever, but bidding wars are always funny).

[pumpkinhollow]

These all sound like a BLAST! The variety show is a great way to expand on Lemon's strongman show idea. I also think a raffle could be accomplished pretty easily with a sign-up sheet and a random number generator.

[pineapplesalmon]

Honestly maybe just a little area where people can set up in general might also be good. That way, people can sign up for the variety show and/or have their own little area for a longer show. (Strongwoman Magne will be adorable, and a variety show act is too short for everyone's cool stuff.)

Oh right I was thinking auction instead of raffle for some reason, but typed raffle, which is honestly the better one to do. Get X number of tickets, put them in what you want. Easy peasy

[astrogator]

Hot air balloon rides, inspired by Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens - if you need a PC to run it, Ari would not come up with the idea but would definitely apply for the job!

Fancy illumination at night, either that newfangled electricity with colored bulbs, or something fun with oil lamps and magic.

I also like the idea of a 'wheel of chance' with prizes, the concept being that characters pay to play (handwavily) and everyone gets some sort of prize - items that are available in the setting, most of them fairly low-value with a few big ones to make it worth playing! I'd very happily run that OOCly with RNG prizes, or if people aren't keen on that idea it can just be there and they can decide what their own characters get.

[pumpkinhollow]

Oooh fun! Yeah the hot air balloons sound fun and Ari can definitely be a volunteer balloon operator. I like all of these suggestions! I'll definitely use them.

[astrogator]

Glad you like them!

It wouldn't be IC for Ari to do it unless she's being paid (handwavily works, doesn't have to be bankable!) but OOCly I don't mind how you do it, as she doesn't need to be involved. I just thought the idea was fun <3

[theresalwaystheview]

Non-spooky: STRONGMAN/WOMAN SHOW! Feats of strength by those that feel they can put on a fun show with it, including bringing up volunteers to be lifted and swung around as they please, with something of a "tip jar" for people's favorite performers.

Spooky: HALL OF MIRRORS where there's perhaps some illusion magic that makes your reflections behave differently from the person themself. Waving or pulling faces while they're watching, that kind of thing. Mostly harmless, generally a little bit nervewracking for the claustrophobic.

[pumpkinhollow]

The Hall of Mirrors is a bit too similar to the one we had during our Halloween event but I really like the Strongman show! It would function well with Jenn's variety show suggestion. Vaudeville!

[theresalwaystheview]

Ohh good point re: hall of mirrors. I'd only just come in at the time and totally forgot :'T The variety show will be fun though!