During my tenure as CT I tend to not get a lot of roleplay done as I've been favouring doing GM and answering tickets. The Red Forest allows me to participate as a participant which I'm thankful for considering the rarity nowadays. It's been a special boon to me seeing as I was able of roleplaying a Vortigaunt my favourite role in a HL2:RP setting.
At the start of the event I awaited several minutes in patience to see if the other Vortigaunt would return from themselves being AFK. As they went by; It looking like they weren't going to appear back from AFK status, I decided to poke my head out into the event proper itself. And I have to say the atmosphere was wonderfully bleak, a total contrast of what I had ever experienced here on Willard. Moving outwards I decided to do some scavenging roleplay, and was immediately oversighted by an administrator who created an atmospheric event within the little hovel that I was within.
The first few encounters that I had was on the belief that there would be antagonistic parties within the fog. To my surprise, none did. All were effectively tired people of different backgrounds banding together to bivouac the badlands and survive. It allowed for some notable interactions. One of which I've enjoyed was my Vortigaunt attempting to keep UNION-9, the functionary whose legs were blown off by a hunter's flechettes, alive. With the help of others we actually managed for a bit. Others that I also enjoyed interacting with at depth and length were the other Vortigaunts. I was incredibly happy to see other Vortigaunts and to roleplay with them on my own character.
I can't tell you how many times we were traveling around in circles repeatedly. Lost, and a bit confused, attempting to figure out when and where to go as groups emerged from the forest to aggregate into the blob of survivors. Sometimes splitting off and reemerging again for the same pattern. Everywhere that we went was covered by a thickening red fog, and I believe it did allow the atmosphere to slow down and for everyone to roleplay accordingly. The narrative was a bit confusing at first, not inherently knowing why we had to go into the bunker, but it's also the peculiarity of Garry's Mod Roleplay and centralized scenes which my character was not apart of due to my own decision making so it's on myself to admit that if I were there at the appropriate times something did happen I would've known what was happening. This was clarified up at the end where I actually was with the group and running around alongside them trying to figure out where to go in the last portion of the map. Then finding it.
My only real complaint is not inherent about the GM'ing of the event or its planning. Rather my focus is largely on a lot of the people whom seemed to repeatedly run around. To be frank, I did this too a bit. But people consistently moving made it hard to roleplay certain scenes which I had wanted to have greater length with. Though even then it was understandable from an OOC and IC PoV because the longer the event dragged onwards the more danger one faced; Believing that sanctuary was around the corner would incentivize them to keep moving.
I've got to commend you on the inclusion of players whose characters had died to keep them in the event as monstrous entities to lighten the load. It's pretty ingenious.
10/10
