Holidays!

[Dice]

Holiday proposal:

I'd like to change our holidays so we can get at least an IC week for all of
the big holidays, and downplay the less important ones - this makes us a lot
more likely to actually celebrate the ones worth celebrating, I think, and
gives people multiple ideas for different events around any given holiday
by combining various specific ones.

Here's what I'm thinking right now:

Main holidays to go on the calendar and be reported in code -

NEW YEAR (JAN 1): A single day, not much pomp or anything. Good day to go
to Church, though, to confess all the excess of the Yule season and prepare
for a return to more somber life.

SPRING AWAKENING (APRIL 1-14th): A two-week-long festival that
celebrates the renewal of the world and the idea of re-dedicating yourself anew
to the faith. I'm seeing combining Wine Festival, Spring Awakening and Chalice
Rising all into one, honestly, because they're pretty similar. Also, since
this holiday is so long, it allows for space to include activities from any
of those three holidays.

MIDSUMMER WEEK (JUNE 19-25): The week around the Summer Solstice. For merriment,
games, appreciation of Lithmore's brief period of good weather. Could
easily roll the Hunting Festival into this week if anybody wants to run it.

KISSING FESTIVAL (AUGUST 1-8): A traditional period for people to begin
Courtships, especially among the lower classes, culminating in the actual
Kissing Festival near the end of the week.

MAGEBANE (OCTOBER 24-31): The week surrounding the three days of
traditional Magebane. Vigilance required before/after for the lingering
plots of those tricksy wicked witches.
YULE (DEC 16-30): Same as before, but runs right from mid-December into
the New Year. The actual celebration tends to be nearer to the end, but
citizens engage in small Yule parties and gatherings at any time during
the season that's most convenient - and typically every night during
Yule involves a nicer meal, an extra bottle of wine, etc. for those who
can afford it.

Minor holidays to remain in-theme and in help holidays but not in code
or in the help holiday holidays file:

Great Charalin Race, June 1st

The Calm, Quintilis 16th

Turkey Calling Trials, Nov. 18th

Holidays to nix:

Roll the Wine Festival/Chalice Rising into Spring Awakening
Remove the Queen's Birthday
Roll the Hunting Festival into Midsummer Week
Remove Autumn's End

[Inertia]

I don't really have any problem with extending a few major holidays to include week-long festivities. But I think it's an OOC tweak that's not really necessary, as players who want to have an IC celebration don't have to do it on the coded days. Most events are held on OOC weekends already, because that's more convenient for the majority.

If the celebration itself makes sense to be expanded to cover a week, I'm totally fine with it, though with a party day AND a rest day every week already I start to wonder how Lithmore ever gets anything done.

That said: Why remove less common holidays from the code (I'm assuming this means the alert of upcoming holidays in time)?

I'd actually love to see more special days described, with more active events than days of quiet contemplation. I think they're great flavor, and having better help files for them will create a lot more opportunities for observing cultural highlights or, if nothing else, encouraging players to read a help file or two and learn something they probably wouldn't have without the notification in time.

I'd love to see MORE notifications on the schedule. I liked the saint help files when they described the date of birth and death. Setting a PC's birthday to one of those days was a really simple but fun way to invest a little bit more into the story by highlighting and appreciating the significance of some historical event.

Anyhow. I don't think every holiday needs to be RPed every time it rolls by IC. With the 4:1 time ratio I already tend to feel a little burnt out on Yule and wouldn't mind letting it pass as a background thing now and again - especially knowing that another major holiday's going to be here in another month or two.

Tl;DR: Sure, combine similar holidays into one but DON'T remove lesser holidays from the code schedule. Instead, rewrite ALL the holiday helpfiles to describe more interesting, Urth-unique events that can be fun to RP out, if and when the pbase chooses to, as other game events allow.

[Applesauce]

Sure, combine similar holidays into one but DON'T remove lesser holidays from the code schedule.

Agreed. Look at RL, literally EVERY day has a thing, and every month has a thing: https://www.daysoftheyear.com/days/2014/10/

If nothing else, they provide recurring RP hooks ("oh hey, today's Clerk Day, I'll go thank a Reeve") and if someone comes up with a creative way to observe it, it might be remembered each year when that holiday comes back around.