I'd thought I'd share my views on the subject and the event that took place.
First of all I'll tell something about my background. I've never PnPd, but I've roleplayed a lot. I started in NWN which has a great system as Archi said. I played on a server where we used rolls to determine the outcome and I've never had any complaints about it. Just make sure the rolls aren't DCed too high for some rather common stuff. We had some good GMs and nice events and usually they autorolled us players to determine various situations.
Anyways enough about that. I know GMing is probably very difficult. I haven't tried it, but I can imagine it's not easy especially if you want a fixed outcome. I would comment the event that took place to be entertaining and even if it was chaotic I enjoyed it. The thing that didn't go so well imo was that I didn't find all the actions plausible. This is just some constructive criticism, nothing more.
Here's my take on it:
Since this was a fixed event it shouldn't be dragged it out too much. A plausible situation needs to take place and make sure that players can't change the outcome too much. The leash should be very tight here. What I didn't find plausible about the event was that Talrion took way too much shit from the Thorn and he got too personal in running things himself. Especially himself taking the hostage and the bickering continuing left me pondering.
If we look at the basic situation... A messenger arrives informing the Thorn two of them have been taken hostage. Now here's us the good guys, who I think care enough of the two that we don't want to risk their lives and the bad guys who want to accomplish something. I think this part went well except maybe all the threatning was dragged out too much. It was an entertaining read though.
Now I don't know what the messenger told Sayvara, but apparently he was gonna take us to Talrion and he even unarmed most of us. At this point we should most certainly have known we'd be led into a situation where out bargaining skill is set to 0 vs 100 of the bad guys since it's 99% sure to be a trap with us being outnumbered. Okay so we get lead in and we meet Talrion. At this point the usual insulting begins and that's okay, but when the GM tells us we're surrounded by bandits. I mean Talrion could've probably have killed us all with the wave of a hand. All this seemed to have been forgotten in the event by us players and so the GM could've enforced this.
Since it's a fixed event (okay we did not know it at this point and that's why the emphasis could've been strengthened) it's not like we can beat Talrion now so we have to take his crap. Also do we really risk the lives of the two Thorns, by all this backtalk? Wouldn't we be more worried that he might just cut them up unless we obey? Talrion could've put more some more weight on his threats too in order to make sure he's in charge. He could've for example just told his lackeys to drag the two girls from behind the stone up on the slope and hold a knife on their throats and then tell Wulf to kneel. Now this would be a situation where Wulf is put up against the decision of having the death of one of them on his conscience or swallowing his pride. Would he have the balls to backtalk at this point? Talrion also took quite a lot of crap from Beo. At least if we're the good guys we should really do as he says here since well we can't really do anything else. In the end he could've killed one of them just being a mean bastard or to make a point. Now when he cut the elf, forgot the name sorry, can we really just start charging? Of course it's up to the individual character and how much they care about Kellidir, but remember we're surrounded by bandits/archers. Then Talrion could've made the Trade to Sayvara, sent her away, backed off and left us to hope he doesn't kill Kellidir. So okay he cuts her, rides away, the bandits back off and we rush to Kellidir which is a fire trap for us and so on..
Now this was just my view on how the event would've been more plausible. If it's fixed I think you need to make sure the players know their place so to say. Also you can discuss and remind in the chat how the situation really is. We're surrounded by bandits etc. I think the ignorance of the real situation dragged out the event unnecessarily and resulted in inplausibility. Also I think us players need to think what would our characters do. Even if we're heroes out there, in rp events we're mortals who can die from one arrow and should think if our actions are plausible. I think the esiest way to create a situation where all these actions players can take, but are not permitted, is to make sure they can't. In this case it was done by surrounding the whole bunch, but us players forgot this at times. Probably hard because all we saw was jovial hobbits dancing on a table enjoying ale.
As closing this was just my analysis. I liked the event and Sayvara pulled it off rather well given the circumstances and being a GM for the first time. Fixed events can be a bit tedious since we can't influence much and some characters might have the roll of a bystander which is why you should try to keep the event shorter (this could've probably been an hour shorter at least), but it's still a story that needs to be told to make for other events. I think Adjanah said it well in point 3.
Anyways looking forward to more events.
Oh and the storytelling (fixed event) / roleplay tag sounds good to me.