***The deadline to enter is Monday the 17th. By then send a note to Ishuli stating you want to join***.
***This is an IN CHARACTER 'Secret Santa' event. The details are below, but the main idea is that everyone will be assigned a random person to give a gift to. You should try to get them a 'fitting' gift without letting it be known that they are your recipient. If there are any extra questions, feel free to email me and I'll respond ASAP.***
***PLEASE DO NOT JOIN if you aren't going to be available to actually give the gifts. We're all busy during the holidays, so don't over-commit if you can't :) ***

Fri Dec 14 11:02:02 2018
From : Ishuli
To : all
Subject: Yuletide Secret Gift Exchange

Yuletide Secret Gift Exchange


In hopes of gaining knowledge as to the intricacies of gift-giving, I will
be hosting a unique gift exchange for those that decide to take part. The
details are as follows:

1) Those who join this event will be assigned another person partaking, and will
endeavor to gather a gift fit specifically for them. The recipient will not
know who gave the gift, and the giver will remain anonymous for most purposes.

2) The gift-giver must remain anonymous to the target. Aim to be subtle
if gathering information. If you broadcast your target, you will be
disqualified.

3) When a gift has been decided, it will be given to me (Ishuli) and I will
ensure its safe delivery to the target.

4) The recipient will then, based on the gift received, attempt to guess who
was assigned to them.

5) Only one entry per player, do not enter with multiple characters.

Special attention will be given to fitting gifts and successful guesses.
Everyone who takes part will both give a gift and receive a gift.

For those interested in the above, send me a note in response, simply telling
me that you are taking part. Assuming I get enough participants, I will send
a follow-up note to those who joined.

This event will proceed over the next week or two, so do consider that when
deciding whether or not you will be joining. Those who join, then fail to
follow through, will be appropriately punished by me.

Keep in mind, by joining you are committing.

I do hope you decide to participate.
The deadline for sending a note to Ishuli joining the event is:
Monday, December 17th

-Ishuli

The week-long event is over! I was crazy impressed with the sincerity and quality of a number of the gifts given, and that made this a lot of fun. I'll include a list of participants and their match-ups below, as I tracked them on excel, but I'm sure you'll be understanding as to why I blocked out the gifts and their descriptions. You can hang out with the people in game to find out :P.

As to what you see below, you'll find the giver, their target, and then the target's guess. Green means correct guess, orange/not-green means incorrect guess.



Some people did amazing gifts based on description, others on a history between characters, and others simply based on what seemed like a cool match up for their target. But all around, the gifts were pretty awesome, and I was impressed with the effort I saw people put into them.


Hopefully everyone had a fun time making history at the first CF-Secret-Santa (AKA Yuletide Secret Gift Exchange).

As to the event itself, I don't think I'll do it again. Or at least I won't do it as it is. Between some sparse logins, deletions, etc. it was definitely a strain given how much time I spent sitting around. If I do it again, I'd probably have something like "required check-ins" every day or two, at the risk of disqualification. But even then it's tough since this sort of event REQUIRES pairs. Still, lessons learned!

-Ish

Thanks for doing this! Appreciated the extra time and thought you put into this!

And thanks to everyone who took part. Everyone who stuck it out put in their time and effort :).


-Ish

But it's a fun and unique event, especially since you got a bunch of Imms to be involved also.

Hopefully, I hope you forget how painful it was and opt to do it again next year.

Only thing I wish is that the gift-opening was a live event where everyone could interact and guess publically. There's some really interesting matchups there that would've been fun to see play out.

But I imagine that's pretty close to impossible to do, since it takes so much coordination leading up to it, and there's no way to guarantee people could make it.

Seriously though, thanks for the sacrifice in putting this together.

But only like 2 mortals made it along with 3 or 4 immortals

Ish being the greatest of them all (except for Emnon, ofc) still stands.

Summary: GIFT DEADLINE Friday, December 21st, at 7PM System Time (8PM EST).

Everyone who sent me a note is in! We've got a decent number of participants, so on we go.

I'll send out a note to each person individually soon, telling them their recipient. So look out for the note!


Once you know your target, try to pick a fitting gift between your character and theirs. Don't let them know you're their gift-giver! In fact, don't tell anyone in general! It's supposed to be **secret** until the end of the event. So do your best to make sure nobody figures out which gift is/was yours!

Your deadline for giving me your gift is Friday, December 21st, at 7PM System Time (8PM EST).

If you're confused as to how to deliver the gift, just use 'who' and look for Ishuli. Send me a tell and I'll come pick it up. Otherwise, you can PRAY to get my attention. I'll hopefully have some christmas elves helping out to pick things up when I can't ;). Remember, don't hand them your gift on your own, you want to keep your identity a secret!

And just to reiterate for people who love details - the goal is to pick a clever/fitting gift for your target. So have fun with it!


The in game note is below:


From : Ishuli
To : all
Subject: Yuletide Secret Gift Exchange

**No more entries into the Yuletide Secret Gift Exchange will be accepted.**

Everyone who sent me a note stating their intent is taking part.

I will be sending each participant the name of their target shortly.

Brief review of the rules:

Find a TANGIBLE gift for your target. The ones that are clever, the best fit,
or are exceptional in other ways will be recognized.

Keep your target a **SECRET**.

Give your gift to Ishuli for safe-keeping and delivery and tell Ishuli the
recipient. I will aim to be available for everyone in question, and will
gladly respond to prayers. Gifts will be accepted all week.

The deadline for gift giving and receiving is:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21ST by 7PM System Time (8PM EST).

I will be taking seat in the Eternal Star around the deadline, for those
who wish to sit and discuss their gifts. Do still keep your targets secret,
though, as the guessing game will take place thereafter.

Do feel free to ask if you have any questions.

-Ishuli

Mon Dec 17 14:54:33 2018
From : Ishuli
To : All
Subject: Yuletide Secret Gift Exchange

All participants should have received their target.
Remember, keep it a secret.
You can research them, perhaps in subtle fashion, to assist in finding a fitting gift.


If any participant did NOT properly receive a target, please let me know.

-Ishuli

For those keeping up with the event, it is going well so far.

Out of 20 participants, 8 have submitted their gifts, and 6 have received theirs.

So far the gifts have all been a lot of fun, so thumbs up to everyone taking part!


For those who haven't yet submitted their gifts (or who haven't been online to receive theirs), remember the deadline!


The deadline for gift giving and receiving is:
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 21ST by 7PM System Time (8PM EST).


-Ish

Any prizes for best gift?

Everyone who took part got a prize, with more intense ones for those who did the coolest stuff!

-Ish

n/t

Everyone won.

But some people won more than others :P.

Everyone who took part got a little something, but the folks who did the most neat stuff (I, the arbitrary tyrant, decide that) got the best rewards.

-Ish

If so, do we know what time it'll actually happen?

Or will we just get and give the gifts whenever available during that timeframe? If the latter, what's the timeframe?

Also, you say it's in-character. Does that mean the gifts should be IC? For instance, if I'm playing an Acolyte and get matched up with a Scarab.. I probably don't want to give them something they actually want/need from an IC perspective. Is a lump of coal an acceptable gift in that case, or are we trying to ensure they're actual valuable gifts?

Either way, sounds like an awesome event.. thanks for putting it on.

Not live, since I'm trying to make it so people can be on whenever during the holidays.

The idea is that, IF I get enough people joining, I'll then send (by note) each person their assigned target. They then have a week to give the gift to me (Ishuli) and I'll keep an eye out for the recipient and hand it off to them.

So timeline wise, probably about a full week long once we get enough participants.

In character does mean in character, so it would be funky for an Acolyte to give a Scarab a +5 Axe of Innocent-Killing. Coal would be fine, or anything else clever you can think of (use the pen skill and write them a note about not killing people, and give them mittens). Edited to add, almost every event allows a bit more leeway than normal IC stuff. IE: Any event where good and evil even STAND near each other without killing each other. So instead just use your char to put a flavorful spin on the gift!

Gifts don't have to be valuable, they're being rated based on cleverness, if they 'fit' between the two chars, and just how plain cool they can be. All gifts should be TANGIBLE though. Something you can give me to give the person. Feel free to put a note with your gift, and throw both into a sack or something if you want.

I hope it'll be fun. It's sort of a test run, and if this goes well, maybe we'll do it again next year.

:D

-Ish