Friday night was Prince Comes of Age, a game the production of which I had heard a great deal. It is, as you may know, set in the larger campaign setting made up by morethings5*, and in fact included larp versions of five PCs of a game he ran a few years ago. I had a blast in this one as a secretly scheming character who was playing several sides against one each other. One of my favorite things to do in a larp is weave an elaborate lie to achieve my ends that everyone buys into, and that is exactly what happened here. Great interactions included my drug-dealing ne'er-do-well date played by Michael Hyde, and speaking very very earnestly to hazliya* in ways that served me and actually did kind of help her despite the fact that I told many, many lies. :-) I highly recommend this game, written by Kindness, Bernie, and Matt to excellent collaborative effect. There is a lot going on and the writing is very well done, though I think the character sheets could stand some pruning-- there is a little over-enthusiastic background scene-setting that is a bit too verbose. And for those of you who were afraid everyone else would be supporting cast to the characters of that campaign's PCs, worry not, the storylines are well-balanced.
Here is me and my date, Ferlis, who spent most of the evening either high or facilitating the getting of others high.
Saturday morning was the second run of my newest solo game, The Stand. The game went well enough and pretty much everyone told me they had fun, but frankly I thought the Intercon run went better. The first time around nearly all the secrets came out except for maybe two, while in this there was a lot more plot that simply failed to materialize. I was especially disappointed that so little of the emotion-heavy plot that would have been bronzite* 's did not come to be, as it's some of my favorite in the game. One thing that may be to blame was that people seemed really low-energy, too tired from the late night before. Also, as solid as the game may be, I don't think anyone was really excited about the concept. They signed up for it because it sounded neat enough and probably on the strength of my name, as I've built up a pretty decent reputation by now. That's flattering, to be sure, but I don't think anyone really sunk their teeth into the concept. I confess I'm slightly disappointed, as the game is extremely full and well-constructed and I think really demonstrates how much I've grown as a larp writer, which I'm not sure really showed through in this run. Ah, well. Saturday afternoon I played Ruins of Grandeur by Bernie, Matt, Kindness, and Michael, which I really wanted to like. Unfortunately my particular piece of it was fatally flawed in the design and could not function in the game. I'm really sorry I had such a low time, but all my tricks to get engaged failed me. I think by and large people enjoyed it, but my casting was so broken that I had very few hooks into the plot and literally zero power with which to make anything happen. I'm usually the kind of player who can make something up if her character is a little thin and find a way to have my own good time, but when I tried that absolutely no one really met me on anything I did. I wish I could speak to the overall story, but I saw so little of it that I'm afraid I can't give an opinion. I think most people really liked this game and had a good time, but my character must be completely overhauled before they ever run it again.
Saturday night I ran the most recent game I wrote with Alleged, the experimental larp Resonance, and this time it went amazing. At Intercon natbudin* and I were slightly disappointed with how things went-- we had a fairly gamist set of players who didn't seem to really get that the story is supposed to be allowed to unfold to make for an emotional experience, rather than a problem to be solved. This time we didn't have that problem at all. Our group here went with it smooth as you could be; I especially enjoyed their conversations sharing information and trying to speculate on what it meant. Among many others, in_water_writ* was amazing with a character completely against her type, and rigel* fascinatingly stepped into a leadership role. I spent much of the game watching Jared, curious for his reaction, and was pleased to see him leap into the concept wholeheartedly and beautifully act his parts. At the dead dog, bleemoo* gave us the great compliment of saying it may be the best game he's ever played. I am incredibly pleased with it this time around, and consider it proof that our concept is capable of working out the way we wanted it to.
Sunday afternoon I zonked around consuite and tried not to pass out. So, despite some ups and downs, I consider this to be a typically awesome Festival weekend, made even better by the knowledge that I put it all together. Hope you all had a great time, and will be joining us there next year!
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