Musings on Festival of the Larps

Still have larping very much on the brain-- more so than usual, even. :-) I want to get to work writing more games, and I want to make plans to run more games. As I mentioned, I finally got Oz bid for Intercon, which I'd been meaning to do for a while. So naturally that got me thinking about other cons, which turned my thoughts to Festival of the Larps.

I'm incredibly proud of the Brandeis community for putting on its own larp con. First of all, let me say I think everyone involved puts up a fantastic show. It's well-organized, well-put together, and well-run, such that I feel that we impress and show a good time to anyone who attends wherever they're from. I even feel like quality has increased along with the number attendees, which is pretty awesome if you think about it. Festival con com, you guys are fantastic and you knock it out of the park every time. And more than that, Festival, beyond just being the con we host, is our con. For me, that means I feel like I am welcome and encouraged to be involved. I know a new game I want to debut will be welcome. I will have plenty of my people there that I want to share the experience with, people whose games I want to be in and who want to be in mine. "You wrote a new game? I want to play in it. I care that it does well." It really means a lot to me that people have signed up for my games just because I wrote them-- some because they care about me and want my games to go well for my sake, and some because my name was enough of an indication to them that it would be a game worth playing. Those are both really great things that you get most easily at a con made up of your people that feels like your own.

One thing that's always made me smile is that people are so encouraging of the emergence of new larp writers from the Brandeis community. I was introduced to larping by zapf*, for which I am forever in his debt, and at that time, he was the newest writer to come out on the Brandeis scene. When I came out with Alice, that title passed to me, and I think it was mine for quite a long time. It was finally claimed by jh1230* and kamianya* when they debuted GM Space. If I've got the current state of things, it now belongs to Bernie, lightgamer*, and witticaster* for their work on Paranoia: Research and Dismemberment. And now morethings5* has an idea for a game in the works, and when it comes out, the title will go to him. I like this sense of, I don't know, congratulation there is for people who actually go for it and get into writing larps for the first time. I feel like the fact that we have Festival as such a willing host for our new games really contributes to this.

I kind of wish I had more to do with the putting on of the con, but to be honest, the contribution I really want to make is the bringing of games. I want to bring lots of good games to Festival and run them so that people who come to the con get the experience they came for. :-) I really really love Festival, you know.