"We did acrobatic interpretations of Russian novels. I spent 7 hours on a trapeze in a overcoat."

The Burn Notice game went well last night. I felt especially good going into this one, partially because I was so excited to get back to this game, and partially because I was feeling very well-prepared. Jared and I had hammered out a particularly well-thought-out storyline this time around. While normally I do try to be very thorough, I usually have some gaps in what I've settled on that need to be filled in on the fly, but for this plot things were about as fleshed out as they possibly could be. I have Jared's help to thank for that.

Probably the thing I love best about this game is how the players play off of each other. The original three, Bernie, Matt, and Kindness, have established these awesome relationships between their characters that they roleplay so well together. And even better, before long Michael was clicking into it too, and I had an entire table to fun, funny, dynamic players who did interesting things, had fabulous interactions, and interspersed so much humor between the more serious plot moments of the game. Seeing as getting that going was my whole purpose in starting up the game, I am ridiculously pleased.

I still sometimes think I'm the world's lamest GM, given that I forget stuff like action dice and sometimes have to say, "Okay, GM break time," then go hide in the bathroom and rock back and forth muttering "What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?" But of course, there is no scenario you can entirely plan out, because players always always do things you don't necessarily expect. Still, I think I did a good job of expanding the concepts I already had to give responses to the actions they took. The one thing I'm a little disappointed with myself over is how I handled the investigation of the red herring in the plot. They were supposed to look into it and figure out that it wasn't actually the solution to the mystery, but unfortunately I couldn't find a way to tie in any actually useful clue into that investigation. I guess that's not unrealistic, but I didn't want the players to feel as if they'd wasted all that time. Not sure they did, but I think I could have handled it a little more skillfully.

What I want to do from here is activate more of the personal and meta-plots for the characters. I planted a couple of seeds for future things here and there, but they need to start factoring in. That will require a lot more planning on my part, but it will make the story and world so much richer.

My long important project list

There are so many things I need to get working on.

I want to get started with my schoolwork. The natural starting place seems to be to do the reading, but my teacher hasn't yet sent along the packet of ten-minute plays that I must respond to for my first assignment. I guess I can read the craft book I need to review; just ordered a copy of it now.

I need to finish planning the revival session of my Burn Notice game for this coming Tuesday. We will be joined by the fabulous Mr. Michael Hyde, who has graciously agreed to take on the role of Riker, the nerdy hacker who remade himself into the ultimate cool guy (or so he thinks.) He will be coming over for dinner tonight to discuss the particulars of the campaign and how best to fit into it. Hopefully it will inspire me a little. I like the sessions to be extensively planned out so there's a lot of detail and possibility, which requires a lot of forethought. I also like to emulate the way the show incorporate personal hooks for the characters into an otherwise caper-of-the-week plot structure, but that can be tough. No wonder I can't manage to run this as a weekly campaign; I could never churn out that level of work in that short a period.

I do, however, want to get serious about writing a ten-minute play a week. I think it would be beneficial to my development as a dramatist. The problem is right now I am totally stuck for an idea. I've always had this problem. When I have an idea, I've no trouble coming up with the project to match it, but when I know the project I need to do, I really suck a coming up with a fitting idea. I might have to cut it down to a ten-minute play every two weeks if it's going to be this tough to come up with something to write about. Suggestions welcome, I suppose.

I need to finish the final edit of Merely Players. The show is so close to being finalized it's painful, I just need to buckle down and make it work. I am endeavoring to add back in the stage manager character I had to cut for a lack of lines, but now I think I can include him if I make him a pantomime character who is totally silent for comedic effect. Also, I want to have an initial blocking plan made up to go into the process with. The show is supposed to be really funny, which the blocking must support, and is also intended to work outside the conventions of traditional theater. It has a cabaret sort of atmosphere, so the fourth wall is a lot less firm, for example, and the "actor's space" is not confined to a separate area understood to be the "stage." The blocking must take full advantage of that freedom, and be sufficiently unusual to create the proper effect.

I want to find a good beginner's sewing reference. I will be FINALLY getting my sewing machine at the end of the month, as that's when I will be next visiting home and my parents discovered the thing would be exorbitantly expensive to ship. In the meantime, I would like to cut out pattern pieces and study up to be ready for the machine. There's a lot about technique and terminology I am completely in the dark about, so might as well use the time before I can actually start sewing to read up on the matter and be prepared.

Sadly, I think I should probably be putting my new larp idea on hold. The Roman Empire game, which I am thinking I'm going to call Imperium, is very exciting to me right now, but sadly I think I need to be prioritizing dramatic writing and more immediately relevant writing instead. Of course, knowing me, I'll be struck by ideas for it anyway, which of course I will be obliged to record lest I forget them even if I'm not actively working on the project. Nice as it would be to have something new to debut at next Festival, I need to balance my love for larp writing with writing I can make greater use of in a career as a writer. I hate saying that, but my current portfolio is kind of unbalanced and that needs to be corrected.

So those are my major concerns right now. Looks like I have a lot of work ahead of me. Let's see what I can do. *cracks knuckles*

Larpercalia con report

Now for my actual reviews of my experience of Larpercalia as a participant rather than as con chair! Spoilers are minimal.

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!