Musing on larps I could write

Harrumph. I know I'm not supposed to be focusing on this, but I am feeling frustrated and restless, so I welcome anything that might relieve it a bit, and right now, I want to muse about larps and larp writing.

Currently my name is listed as author for six larps. They are, in chronological order, Alice, Oz, Paranoia, The Labor Wars, Resonance, and The Stand. Alice, Oz, and The Stand I wrote alone. The other three I was a member of the writing team, The Labor Wars and Resonance with Alleged Entertainment, Paranoia with Bernie, Joe, lightgamer*, and witticaster*. I find I write best when there is a clear hierarchy of creative control in a game. It is not easy for me to collaborate well, so it helps if I don't see the project as "my idea" when I do. As a guest of Alleged's, fleshing out notions conceived by another person, I did not have the problem where I was so invested in the concept that didn't want to concede to someone else's idea. Paranoia was Bernie's baby, which also made it easier to step back. I'm not so good at working with others on projects that are MY idea unless there is a clear understanding that I get the final word.

Most of those larps have or will have been run quite a bit. Alice has run five times, Oz has run six. The Stand and Paranoia will have their third runs at Festival, while at Intercon Resonance will have its fourth. The Labor Wars has only run once, which I know I would like to put on again if time and my co-writers permit. I tend to be very concerned about whether or not a game has run too many times recently, as I have a fear of the larp not filling. That's why Alice has not come out in a couple years now, and I think Oz should not come out again anytime soon either. Which makes me itch for a new piece to debut. I love the feeling of people rushing to play in my larp, and I get a huge amount of validation for my work when players enjoy the piece.

I have several concepts for larps that I could write. Some of them have been rolling around in my head for several years and for some reason I just never got to them. It's worth mentioning that I thought of most of these considerably before The Stand, which had the weirdest genesis ever-- I just found myself bored at work one day thinking about how I liked cowboys, and would like to write a cowboy larp. I was suddenly jotting down ideas and becoming engaged, when I became struck with the desire to bid it for Intercon. It was that bidding that forced me to work on it as opposed to any other game, which is why it got finished while these others are still just ideas.

I know someday I must write that Peter Pan larp that I've always been talking about, to complete my planned triptych of larps based on what are most likely the three most iconic children's stories in the Western Canon. I will call the game simply Pan, both to fit with the punchiness of Alice and Oz, and to fit in with a notion I am adopting from the movie Hook that Pan is used as a title. The trouble is, while I have a few vague conceptual ideas, and I think I want to go with a kind of fairyland setting, I don't really know what the plot is. I went into writing most of my other games with an idea of that already, so I think that may be what's been stopping me from really digging into it.

Imperium has really been nagging at me. I love the Ancient Roman setting, and I am really enjoying the possibilities that are open to me because I have decided to have my characters be only vague analogues to figures from Roman history so I can deal with some of the same issues but take them in totally different directions. I've had a couple really exciting ideas in the last few days, which pull me more and more towards wanting to work on it, but as it's currently my newest idea, maybe it shouldn't get priority. I am amused by the fact that I seem to write "series" of games-- there's my children's-story-inspired triptych, and apparently there's also my pseudo-historical period games like this one and The Stand.

Jared and I have been working on and off for years on our New York Mafia game, Men of Respect. I love the transitional period in the history of Italian-American gangs, the time immediately post-World War II in which the Godfather is set, after the Golden Age was over but before things just devolved into plain old street crime. We have a lot of work done and a ton of good ideas, but probably because we've never set a work schedule for it we've only ever managed to chip away at it off and on. Maybe the time is approaching to set meetings for it and lay deadlines, because this I think has the potential to be a truly epic game. (I wonder if it counts among the "pseudo-historical" type.)

Then there's one that I have never talked about much because I'm not sure if it's a good or workable idea, but it's been kicking around in my head for several years now. It is tentatively called Jabberwocky, and would be designed as a sequel to my first game Alice. Suggested to me by Jared, it would be examining what happened to the state of Wonderland now that the Jabberwock is gone. I've always been unsure about it for several reasons. First, larp sequels are a tricky proposition. It's hard for them not to spoil the content of the previous game. Also, I'm concerned what the hook would be now that the one hopeful thread that had been in the storyline has by now left Wonderland to never come back. I don't think I want to just tell a story of lots of horrible people fighting to screw one another. But maybe the story can be that without the major suppressing force of hope there, there's a chance of people rising out of the despair that holds them there. Alice was a rather successful game, liked by the majority of its players, so maybe there is an audience for this one.

Lastly, as I mentioned recently, I would love to write a small short game that I could put together quickly and easily just to have something new and fun to run. I am imagining it as a two-hour game where the players are explicitly confined to a tightly limited space with an interactive environment that facilitates the movement of the plot. The trouble is, I have no idea what the circumstance or the story should be. That's always my problem when I come up with the project without already having an idea for it. Somebody give me a scenario, and if I feel inspired by it, I would love to write a quick, short, fun larp for it.

Lovely weekend with Jared

Goodness me, wonderful weekend! Jared and I have been making the most of his visit, running around seeing friends and doing things. Saturday was mostly spent trying to hang out with people. We had a great lunch with a bunch of our undergrad friends in Usdan during the day, and a dinner with a different group at night. God, I wanted to invite everyone I knew to this dinner so they could hang with Jared, but sadly it's tough to host more than ten at a time at Elsinore. This is a primary reason I am endeavoring to have a rotating guest list. But being limited to ten was a real shame, especially because of how fantastic the dinner was.

Last week sometime, you see, I was struck with an idea of culinary genius. I would make a meal consisting entirely of different toppings for crostini. I would toast a big old basket of bread, and make three different kinds of spread to eat on top of it in whatever combination the guests pleased. I roasted eggplants for eggplant caviar with carmelized onion and toasted walnuts, I chopped up tomatoes, basil, and mozzarella cheese for a caprese, and sauteed mushrooms, leeks, and shallots in marsala wine for duxelles. I was particularly proud of the last one, because I changed the recipe I was using to include the marsala reduction, which I think improved it vastly, as well as pureeing it at the end. It's only recently that I've felt confident enough in my culinary knowledge to alter recipes, so I'm really pleased. Also, I tried a slightly experimental service option. I gathered up my rather large collection of ramekins (recently joined in the cabinet by a couple brought my Charlotte) and divided the various toppings between them, and had them placed one each of them at various intervals across the table. This made it so all the guests had easy access to a small amount of each spread, and everyone had knives and spoons with which to spread the deliciousness. The lovely guests brought amazing spreads as well-- garden-fresh-tomato puttanesca and roasted garlic and white bean from captainecchi* and electric_d_monk*, hummus from morethings5*, tapenade from in_water_writ*, and sweet potato-carrot from lightgamer*, all unique, all delicious. I am going to give this experimental dinner style a big thumbs up, and I will certainly be doing it again soon.

Sunday Jared and I went with April to acousticshadow2*'s new larp, Nepenthe a Surcease of Sorrow. It ran at WPI, and EB lent me a wedding dress for my costume. I painted my face with white greasepaint and wandered around with the air of a broken little girl whose sanity has gone just a little over the edge. The larp reminded me in many ways of Alice, a gothic game with strong literary roots-- as a big Poe fan, I was pleased by many of the references --but a lot of the darkness in it was kind of over-the-top, which gave the game much more of a "pulp" and "melodrama" feel as opposed to that of "tragedy." Given the connection with Poe, tonally that is fitting. We all had fun, and I encouraged EB to bid it for Festival this year.

Jared will be leaving this afternoon, leaving Boston and leaving me bereft. I am always so sorry to see the end of his visits, but as always I must just look forward to the next one. It's been wonderful having him here again, so I will try to let that carry my spirits.

Player scarcity musing

After a pleasant Easter vacation spent at home with my family, I am now back in town and glad to be here.

This week is going to be full for me. I'm working longer hours to make up for the ones I missed to go home. And I've got to get my two games printed and packed in preparation for Festival. I'm pleased to say that even after several drops and mixups, both Alice and Oz are full. NOBODY DROP NOW. Gah. I know captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* were having similar problems, even worse than mine, but it looks like the game is good to go now. I am happy to say that Steph is going to give larping a try, which brings the number of newbies I have directly or indirectly brought to Festival up to six!

One thing that's been on my mind is how tough it's been to get games to fill. Things look like they're going to go off okay for the con as a whole, but I know a couple of games have had to drop, and a few more may yet drop still. In the course of pondering the problem, I want to point out a few facts I noticed by comparing this Festival to last year's:

- Last year's Festevil had 118 attendees. This year's Vestival has 127.
- Festevil had 26 games on the schedule. Vestival has 20. I didn't bother counting the number of players per time slot.
- Festevil was 4 weeks after Intercon I. Vestival is 5 weeks after Intercon J.
- Only 1 game at Festevil was missing more than one player. 7 games at Vestival are missing more than one player.

This year we have more attendees, fewer games, more time to prepare and solicit signups, and yet this year more games are not full? What is the problem here?

Well, several theories have been put forth. The first and probably most likely reason is that I don't think there is a single new game running this year. Most of the games on the schedule are excellent, tried-and-true larps that have been well-received, highly recommended, and already have been played by lots of the community. I know I have played a fairly large percentage already, and many of the ones that I haven't conflict with games I'm running. So I'm only available as a player in one slot, and have a number of games already discounted for me. I know a lot of us more experienced people are in the same boat.

The other thing is, I wonder if we should have started solicting people to sign up for Festival earlier than we did. It basically seemed to start just after Intercon, and although Intercon is a big deal and takes focus away from later events, it was farther away from Festival this year. Looking back through the entries of my LiveJournal, which is how I measure the progression of my life, I notice that Festival was a presence in my mind a lot farther before the date of the con last year than it was this year. It may be because I was in the process of writing two new larps for it, so I had a lot more prep work to do and therefore was planning much farther ahead. But perhaps we need to start pushing it earlier so people can block off the time on their schedules.

Something to think about in preparation for next year. I know that, as pleased as I am that Alice and Oz are both full for their fifth runs when other games have had a tough time of it, they will not be bid for next year, and probably will not be bid again at Festival for a while. I guess Intercon remains a possibility, as there are more non-local larpers, but I think they have hit, as Matt put it, market saturation. For next Festival we need to shot, I think, for more new games, to get the easy filling and high participation rate we got at last year's. Maybe I can do something to contribute to that effort.

Easter is here!

I just ate a fantastic piece of white chocolate almond bark to celebrate the end of Lent. It's not the chocolate-covered roast suckling pig I've been longing for, but it'll do.

How is it that the month I give up sugar and butter in everything is the month I get fat?

Oh, also, Christ is risen. He is truly risen. :-)

Kept Jared and Bernie up way too late last night finishing the casting for Alice and Oz. It took several hours, but I think we did a good job. At this point I've only sent out costuming hints. The only copies of the sheet I have access to at home are the ones on Google docs, and I'm not a hundred percent sure they're the most recent ones, so I didn't want to send out whole sheets without checking them first. Hopefully I will get them out by the end of today.

The parents and I will be going out to a late Easter brunch today. In the time I'm home from that in which I am not sleeping off the massive quantity of fantastically trayf pork products I intend to consume, I will finish checking over those sheets. God, I missed pig.

Happy Easter, my lovelies.

Home for Easter

Yesterday I got back to Allentown for Easter, but it turned out to be more complicated than I thought. My train got cancelled due to flooding in Rhode Island, so at the last minute my dad got me on a flight that was technically full. I begged a ride early the same morning to the airport from the wonderful bronzite*, to which I am very grateful for going out of his way. I managed to get home, had a lovely and enormous meal with my parents, and went to bed at around 10PM. Travel always takes it out of me.

Tomorrow we will be going out to an Easter brunch, but today will just be low-key. I have to arrange a time to sit down with Jared (though it will have to be over the phone) to cast Alice and Oz. I want to get the sheets out as soon as possible-- it seemed like the whole process of Festival this year started a lot closer to the date of the con, so I don't want to lose any more time.

Alice has filled!

I just noticed that Alice filled at Festival! Huzzah! We were missing one player for, like, two weeks. You don't know how pleased and proud I am by the fact that it's a large game that has had four previous runs, and it still fucking fills.

Mike Hyde gets the award for most entertaining casting questionnaires. I am also amused by how many questionnaires list that they would prefer not to have plots involving a specific despicable thing, like rape or psychological torture, but then follow up with something along the lines of "But you probably don't have anything like that in this game." Heh. To give you an idea of the nature of the story, I began my writing process by making a list of all the horrible things I could think of to see what among them I could turn into plots. ALICE IS THE GAME OF HORRIBLE THINGS.

I have also agreed to help run LXHS with captainecchi* and electric_d_monk*, about which I'm very excited. I loved playing that game and am very happy to help them. There are still a a handful of spots left for gentleman or those ladies willing to play as gentleman, so if you haven't already, I suggest you check out this excellent game!

Festival status

So I went with my gut and only signed up for Diamond Geezers. I'm glad I nabbed it so fast, as it was the first thing to fill! Brit games always do, I guess. Which leaves poor Oz in only second place this time around. ;-) Alice is up to seventeen out of twenty-five, which isn't bad for a large game with four previous runs on only the second day of open signups. But rest assured, I shall be poking anyone and everyone I know who hasn't played yet to get in the game!

People have noted that games seem to be filling more slowly this time around. I think it's because there really isn't anything brand-new on the schedule this year, so many of the games have less of a problem about stirring up interest than they have with finding enough people who haven't played. But of course it's only the second day signups have been opened, so there's no cause to worry yet.

My plan for Festival

Have a number of things to say about this weekend, but I'll start with my Festival musing.

I have played in or am running... nine out of twenty-two games on the schedule. Okay, that's not as many as I thought, but it still limits my options. Friday night, the slot I care most about having filled, unfortunately has only two games I haven't played, but unfortunately neither of them really appeal to me. I can't tell if Three Nations is supposed to be silly politics-themed or more straight-up politics, a genre of larp I'm not very good at. The other is Kind Friends Together, which despite the good reviews, is not my kind of game. I may go for Three Nations just to have something to play that night, but I haven't decided yet.

Saturday morning I'm running Oz. Sign up if you haven't played! It's a good game, and I'm probably not going to run it again for a while. Not retiring it forever, of course, but I think after this run, market saturation will have hit until I let some time pass.

Saturday afternoon I think I'm going to have to leave free. I have resolved to not pack my schedule as tightly as I did last year, or this past Intercon. The downtime will do me good, I think.

Saturday evening I'm running Alice. Again, sign up if you haven't played! Also like Oz, it is a great game that needs a little cooldown period before it comes out again, so this may be your last chance for a while. Certainly not forever, but like Oz it needs a bit of a rest.

Sunday morning I may actually break my rule and play a game. Partially because they don't start very early in the morning, and partially because I really want to play DIamond Geezers. It's a Brit game, which tend to be uniformly good, and I've heard some excellent reviews.

So... that is roughly my plan. Here's hoping things work out.

Bids accepted, whee!

Suddenly remembered I had a silver polishing cloth that I got with that bird brooch, and decided to see if it could do any good to my slightly tarnished silver pieces. I was shocked at how much tarnish came off into the cloth on some of them, like my infinity earrings which didn't even look very dull. I had no idea coming into contact with me could cause such corruption. ;-) The piece that really needs it is my silver-set amber necklace, though as much is coming off into the cloth the metal didn't seem to get much shinier. Maybe it just needs a lot more work than I had time to do before needing to leave this morning. Perhaps I'll give it a shot this afternoon.

In pleasing news, our wonderful bid chair (possibly all of bid comm?) bleemoo* just informed me that Alice and Oz have been accepted and will be running this April at Festival of the Larps. Now I may commence bullying everyone I know who hasn't played into signing up. Though there are certainly more than a few experienced larpers I've yet to wrangle into my worlds, my first thoughts are April, nennivian*, and blendedchaitea*, all of whom have expressed at least mild interest. I know katiescarlett29* has reservations about trying larping, but she is of course welcome and encouraged as well.

Now that bids are getting approved, I am now intensely curious as to what else is going to be running. We're probably a ways away from a schedule being put together yet, but I'm still very interested at what the list currently looks like. I remember captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* telling me they were rerunning the awesome League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students (with some additions that sound absolutely fantastic) and lightgamer* was looking in the gamebank for something to bid. If anyone else threw something out there, I'd love to know what it is.

Sometimes, you have to please yourself. :-)

For some reason my brain keeps thinking that this week looks like the week directly after Intercon, so I keep thinking I have events over the next couple days that aren't until after the con. So, for example, no Julius Caesar coffeehouse tonight but rather exactly seven days from tonight. This week is actually shockingly light for me until we leave for Chelmsford. The only things on my calendar in the evenings are a game Jared's in and BSCF. I like this, having the freedom to decide if I want to just stay free and the flexibility to do stuff if it strikes my fancy. We'll see what I do with it.

In other news, I went ahead and bid Alice and Oz for Festival. Screw weighing this factor and that, I would be happy and have fun running those games, so damn it, I'm going to run them. Oz is for the people who keep missing the chance to play, (bronzite* and Zachariah, for instance) and Alice is for my enjoyment and for the new people I'm hoping to bring in to larping. Alice is a freaking great game, and they should have a chance to play.

:-D I feel good about this. Sometimes, you have to please yourself.

Related to Festival, I'm curious if the talk last year about instituting Intercon-style round signups this time around has come to anything. As happy as I was that Oz filled within, like, twelve seconds, I felt bad for the people who logged on at 7:02 rather than 7:00.000001 and found all the games they wanted full. Would it be possible to do what Intercon does and let people sign up for one game, then two games, then as many as they wanted? I would very much be in favor of that.

Current state of my larpy life

So with Intercon now officially one week away, I take stock my of position in regards to my larp life.

In pretty decent shape for Intercon given the amount of time that remains. All my costumes are assembled; I even printed out my chest symbol for my Super Villain outfit. Yesterday I packed away as many items as I could that I would need to take but wouldn't need to use before then. I have arranged the ride situation for my merry band of intrepid congoers. All that is in fairly good order, or as good as it can be right now.

Yesterday I also took stock of what needed to be bought in order to pack and print Oz and GM Space. Most of the GM Space cards were left over from the last run, so I just printed out the handful of missing ones here and there. Now all cards are printed, though I will leave the packing to Jared as I'm not sure where everything goes. I didn't print any full sheets either; again he can cover that. As for Oz, I am mostly out of the supplies I need. I have a handful of white index cards left, but I'll almost certainly have to buy more. As for playing cards and nametags, I'm certain I've got enough of those left over, and the sheets themselves I printed at work. That leaves only the index cards, and of course folders to pack them in. Today I think a Staples run may be in order, or at least hitting the dollar store.

So Intercon is pretty much set. That means that now I should start looking ahead to Festival. I think, like many people, I've been caught in the "Oh, Festival is forever away, I don't need to think about that yet," but at least point I think we've only got five weeks. Which means I've got to decide what to run. I've got a number of possibilities here, and a number of concerns to think about. I have had requests from people to run both Alice and Oz. I am totally willing to do either, or both. I spoke to Jared, and he is willing to help both either or both. So, in all likelihood, is Bernie. I have concerns about both, though.

First let's deal with Oz. The advantage of Oz is that, as a fifteen-player game, it's pretty easy to fill. But Oz has run A LOT recently-- with Intercon it will have had four runs within the first year of its existence --such that I'm concerned people may be a bit glutted on it. And I've run it so many times over such a short period I think I'm more interested in running something that I hadn't put on as recently. Don't get me wrong, there are people who told me they want it to play at Festival and I certainly love GMing it, but a fifth run at this point doesn't feel like a big personal priority right now.

Now there's Alice. I am finding myself wanting very much to run this again-- for all that it was my first, it's still the game I love best and am most proud of. As with Oz, there have been requests to rerun it, and I haven't put it on since last August in Chicago, so I've been itchy. My worry here is that it is a large game that has had two previous Brandeis runs. Ever since Chicago, I have been terribly gunshy about the game not filling. I'm thinking of cutting two characters that I've never quite managed to be satisfied with, at least until I figure out how to fix them. That brings the total down from twenty-seven to twenty-five-- not much different, but some.

Still. It might not be too hard. Fortunately for me my games, particularly Alice, have been blessed with excellent word of mouth. I remember when I went to WPI for SLAW in November, I was recognized by name alone as the author of Alice. :-) I know WPI has a ton who haven't played, and I know I can think of a number of people off the top of my head that I'd like to bully into playing (natbudin* , pezzonovante* , londo*, ultimatepsi*,juldea*, mllelaurel*...) Hell, I think captainecchi* has forgotten enough by this point to actually play. And I have a couple of friends new to larping, like April and nennivian*, who might be persuaded.

I'm also concerned that Bernie will want to rerun Paranoia, which honestly I would be happy to do if I wouldn't rather run Alice and Oz and I'm not certain I want to run a third thing. I'd like to have a little more flexibility in my schedule, to have more options for what I'm able to play this time around. It wouldn't be the end of the world if I ran three things, and it would certainly be easier this time since all those games are actually finished in advance, but it'd be nice to have a little choice of what to play.

What does everyone think? Any opinions or insights you can share to help me figure this out would be very welcome and appreciated.

BPAL review: The Unicorn

I'm probably the only person in the world selecting a scent to wear to run her campaign.

As a side note, the Unicorn is a character in Alice. His scent would be cool and crisp, which honestly reminds me more of the White Rabbit BPAL.

The Unicorn
From the Mad Tea Party Collection
A misty, almost luminous perfume: wispy linden blossoms, white flowers, and a touch of sweet herbs.

In the imp: Very sweet, a very clean, light floral scent. The sort of scent one might like walking into a clean room after a long day. As someone comforted by clean smells, I like it.

Wet: Less sweet now, more delicately floral. I think the herbs make it just a little spicy. Very nice.

Dry: Subtle, pretty, floral, herbaceous. I find that, unlike many BPAL users, the scents do not change much on my skin, nor do notes disappear or reappear in the process, they just mellow with time.

The verdict: A relaxing scent, very gentle and pleasant. Not my favorite, but there is something comforting about how clean and delicate it is.

Halloween this year

I just found out I have Columbus Day off. Cool. Brandeis and it's ultra-PC "Columbus is responsible for the destruction of native lives and culture" stance on not celebrating the holiday has made me forget that normal people don't have to work that day.

Now that I have given myself a reason to dress up, I need to figure out a Halloween costume for this year. The last time I wore anything was two years ago when I was directing Hamlet, and since we had to have rehearsal that evening, I had people come dressed up. I wore the costume Frances would be wearing in the show, so I was basically her Hamlet for Halloween. :-) This year I'm not sure what to do, though. The easiest thing to do would be to just goth it up and dress slutty, but that's gotten to be kind of my standby and I don't want to become boring and predictable. I may still do that if I can't figure out anything else, but I'm going to try to be a little more original. It occurred to me that I could be Alice, but Christ, that's not exactly a separation from the goth thing, and talk about the laziest costuming ever. So, no. It might amuse me if someone else was Alice, heh, but not me. Any suggestions are welcome.

I am so very popular lately

So, as it turns out, I am in demand for more than just WPI Live Action Weekend. I got contacted by Nick Milano from RPI last night asking if I would bring games to the weekend he's trying to put together in Troy, exactly one week after the one at WPI. I am quite flattered to be asked, and I'm tentatively interested, but there's a couple of things I'd have to figure out before I agree.

First of all there's the time committment. Two larping weekends in a row is pretty intense. I think my schedule personally could handle it, but I'd be concerned about people like Jared, who I would want to help me run my games, but has too much work to neglect it for two entire weekend. He's already agreed to come out to at least part of WPI weekend to help run Oz, so that's already a chunk of his time committed. Also there's the travel involved. I have a car, but it's a long way and basically we're committed to be there for the entire time. For WPI at least Jared could come out for one of the days but not for the others because we'd just drive there and back; if he needed to stay home one day, he could. For RPI we'd have to go out to New York and crash there. I suppose we could just find him someplace to work when he needed to, but that's something to consider.

Also, there's the matter of what games I would bring. Nick says there's a ton of people out there who haven't played any of my games, which is good to know, but I wonder if there's anything to know about what kind of games are good to bring to RPI. Nick says they're looking for anything, but still. Also, what makes sense from a logistical standpoint? As I mentioned, just the week before I will be running Oz and Paranoia. Oz is a good possibility because it's easy to fill, but Oz will also be running at Intercon in the fall, so will an addition run so close together be super-saturating people with it? Paranoia is probably not feasible, as it is contingent on enough GMs being able to spend the weekend in Troy. What about Alice? I'd be willing to bring Alice, but would we be able to fill it? How big is the weekend's attendance supposed to be? If Jared can't come, he might not be happy if I ran it without him, and I don't think I want to do it without him anyway.

Ahhh, so many variables. Any insight, suggestions, or input would be very much appreciated.

Bids in

I have now bid Oz and Paranoia for WPI Live Action Weekend, as I believe it is officially called. After serious consideration, I have decided against bringing Alice. As much as I want to run it again for the people who've missed it, I don't think this is a good venue for it. As a GM I can see the preliminary schedule for the weekend, and there are already several games with twenty-plus slots running; Paranoia is one of them. I'm considering Paranoia to be my priority because it's only had one previous run, and I think the WPI crowd will really appreciate it. This weekend is not projected to be as highly attended as something like Festival, so they will probably not be able to support many large games. Alice, being twenty-seven players and with four previous runs, might have trouble finding enough new people for a small venue. So I am ultimately deciding to hold off on bringing my baby out again until I'm certain I have a place for her. :-) Sorry to those of you who would like a run in the near future. I'm always on the lookout for chances.

So basically all of you need to put WPI Live Action Weekend on your calendar-- November 13th-15th at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and get ready to play Oz and Paranoia, if you haven't already, and tell all your friends to come play them too. :-) And hey, this time around I'm not packing the weekend solid with my own games, so I'll be able to play in some things as well! Yay!

WPI Larp Weekend?

So I recently recieved an e-mail from nyren about the idea of a larp weekend along the lines of Festival of the Larps at WPI this coming November. I for one would be really happy to have another larping event to attend, particularly one that's a lot sooner than Festival and Intercon. It sounds as if this one would be a lot smaller scale-- after all, it can take a few years to really build attendance to a larp weekend, as we learned with Festival --so any games there would be more of the focal point of the event than at larger ones. I've already bid Oz, as a fifteen-player game that's only run twice before I figure that's a good choice. I am debating whether or not to bid Alice as well; I know there are people, at WPI and elsewhere, who still want to play it, but it's a twenty-seven-player game and what with four previous runs I'm not sure a smaller weekend is going to be able to fill it. I'll ask around and see what people think; I'd be more than happy to bring it if people believe there will be enough interest.

The really interesting proposition, however, is if we should bring Paranoia. As Nyren pointed out, at WPI Paranoia games go over really well, so perhaps this would be a golden opportunity to rerun Research and Dismemberment for a really enthusiastic audience. I will have to talk to my co-GMs. The game went pretty well the first time but it needs a significant amount of editing, so we'd have to commit to undertaking that before we could bid it. I would be up for it, any of you guys who are reading this-- let me know your feelings as well. But the weekend would be November 13th-15th, so we'd have to decide fast and get to work.

Oz bid for Intercon

Getting back from the most recent run of Alice has galvanized me for larp running. I shamelessly plugged Intercon while I was there, a con that a handful of them go to regularly but many did not know much about. I said if they enjoyed Alice, they should come play Oz, which I want to run there at J. And then it occurred to me that I never actually got around to bidding it yet. :-) So I just did. This game has yet to leave Brandeis, and given how positive this experience of taking Alice to Chicago was, I am interested in expanding my player base as much as possible. This is actually part of the beauty of Intercon-- the whole reason Alice got invited out to Chicago was because people from far away had a chance to play it at Intercon that they normally wouldn't have. And they went home and told their friends about it, and their enjoyment lead to this opportunity.

I also took a look at the other games that have already been approved. The ones I am currently most interested in include The Last Seder and Survivors of the Naronic. I've wanted to play The Last Seder ever since AE wrote it, but I seem to miss it due to another committment every goddamn times it runs. With my luck it'll go up during Oz. Ah, well, here's hoping. As for Survivors, it's a Brit game. I loved both Railways and Respectability and All's Well That Ends, so I'm inclined to expect good things from this one. I could really go for a good Steampunk game. Apparently its sequel, Ghosts of Urquhart, is also running, but I'd rather play the original first. There is also a Jungle Book-themed game-- the third installment of Will Wagner's Grimm Tales series --and I'm a huge Kipling fan, but honestly the little information there is about it doesn't wow me. I have a preference for doing filling three slots a con and leaving the rest of my time free, so if I could get into Last Seder, Survivors, and run Oz, that might just be perfect.

Midwest success

Well, I am back from Chicago, and I am well pleased. I am delighted to report that the fourth run of Alice went beautifully, and we met some great people who were both nice and interesting as well as fantastic roleplayers. The summary is that the game was well-recieved, well-played, and I feel very good about it.

The gaming culture out there in the Chicago area is a little different, I've discovered. For example, they believe that the less you need to involve the GM in the running of the game, the better. Fortunately Alice is meant to basically run itself, but Jared and I spent even less time than usual running around to answer player needs. It was slightly disconcerting, but it did allow Jared to play his NPC with less interruption, and me more time to watch all the lovely goings-on. :-) Also, they have a sensibility of it being slightly bad form to check one's character sheet during the game. They like to make miniature cheat sheets that they can tuck into their pockets, or inside a book or a hat, so that they break the immersion as little as possible. It's interesting to learn these things.

As for what happened, these are clearly some smart and talented people. I love when they surprise me, whether it's coming up with new interpretation of their characters, or trying unexpected ways of accomplishing their goals. This was also the first time I cast a Charlie I didn't already know. But this guy, Rex Balboa, really understood the character and did a fantastic job. JR Cillian Green, the guy who played the Dodo, was fantastic as well, translating the character's bitterness into a fantastic sarcasm and ironic cynicism. He also gets bonus points for his describing Wonderland as "a Mobius strip of stupid" and calling another character "pants-on-head retarded." For a Yahtzee-ism, he had to get a hug. Anandi Gandolfi as the Queen of Hearts was great, nailing the character with just the right intensity-- and she not only actually made sex happen in the game, she had a threesome and an orgy! I salute you, my lady. Kelly O'Donoghue played the Mock Turtle in a completely unexpected way, trying to protect herself by making herself useful to everyone with power she could find. That is a fun lady right there, full of personality and incredibly interesting to talk to. I'd love to have her in a game again. Hell, pretty much everyone I'd love to have in a game again. And hey, the Lion survived! He's never done that before. :-) The Jabberwock still, however, has yet to get out of a run alive.

I confess, I had moments where I was watching an interaction while giggling in the corner, to the point where I had to tell the amused players, "Ignore the giggling GM! She and her giggling aren't here!"

Doug and Gail, the couple who facilitated everything, were fantastic hosts. Doug also told me about a theory of casting I'd never heard before that actually seems really useful to the process. I thought he was referring to the Gamer-Narrativist-Simulationist theory, but this is something even more basic that is helpful for figuring out how to cast the people you've got signed up. He said people fall somewhere within the boundaries of the Roleplayer-Actor-Problem Solver triangle. He used a murder mystery context as the example. The Roleplayer as the murderer isn't going to want to get caught, because of course the character wouldn't. The Actor as the murderer wants to get caught, so he can play out that confrontation as a dramatic scene. The Problem Solver would rather be the detective all together so he can work out the mystery. Most players are some combination of all three with leanings toward one side or another. I would say I'm mostly an Actor, but there's definately indications of Roleplayer and Problem Solver in me. I may use this in the future when the casting gets tough, as so often lately it does.

So, all in all, a most excellent experience. And one I'm very proud to say I have had.

Alice, about to go Midwest

I have inadvertently started Facebook-stalking Banquo. At least, his photo albums. The guy is ridulously attractive.

Speaking of attractive people, this coming weekend I go to Chicago to be with Jared and to run Alice for the local larping community. Let me tell you, preparing for that has been a learning experience-- specifically a lesson in humility and persistence.

As arrogant as it sounds, I am accustomed to my games filling up immediately, enthusiastically, with a waitlist well over capacity. For the first three runs, people fought to get into Alice, and any dropped place was instantly taken over by someone delighted to have it. Hell, I think at one point the Festival run of Oz had enough people waitlisted for an entire second game. I don't know if it's because I have plenty of kind and willing friends, or if my name is enough at this point to convince people that they're going to have a good time. This, by contrast, was a lot less easy. This will be the first run of Alice to run under maximum. Two characters had to be cut, while two more will be NPCed. Only recently did we even hit minimum. I can tell you, that was certainly a depressing feeling. I felt like I'd failed, like my game wasn't so welcome and well-recieved after all, like I wasn't ready to step out onto a larger stage than just my local community, and I was worried that I'd have to cancel it and lose the whole experience entirely. Fortunately we've got enough to run, and I have figured out the way to make it work with fewer than twenty-seven characters. It was tough, and it doesn't feel as good as I want it to, but I fixed it.

As bad as I felt, this is a good experience for me. Now I know that I have to work harder in a place where I don't have credit already built up. I have to step it up if I'm going to be a presence in bigger ponds than the one I come from. Also, this will teach me to be flexible, to find ways to make games work and work well in less than ideal situations. I have adjusted Alice to function under the current set of circumstances, and I think it's going to come out just fine. My records don't like gaps the player shortage puts in them, but that I'll just have to get over. In the end, I will be a better GM for it.

And who knows? If this goes well, perhaps I'll be invited back, whether to run Alice again or to bring other games. And maybe then the people who liked this first one will tell everyone that the experience is good, and so more people will be more enthusiastic about playing in my games. And then I won't have to run under maximum anymore.

So this is a positive experience. I should be making the most of it, even if it's not exactly what I wanted.

Alice goes Midwest?

So I finally screwed up the courage to call the lady in Chicago who is evidently the person to talk to about running larps for that local gaming community. She heard from David Cave and Marc Blumberg, two great players from the second run of Alice at Intercon H, that it's a pretty half-decent game, and there might be a way for Jared and I to bring it out there to run. I'm expecting a call from her later this evening, and I'll hear about scheduling possibilities. I plan on just gathering data for now and then reporting it back to Jared.

It's really flattering to know that people enjoyed my game enough to want me to COME SOMEWHERE specifically to run it.