Dia de los Sobres report

We ran Resonance first in the day. It was a decent run, though I think we had the slight problem of characters not knowing entirely what to do with themselves. The scenes seemed to go well and to engage everyone, but returning to the present situation I'm not sure everyone saw a clear direction for themselves. Because of that I have somewhat mixed feelings about how well it went. I hope the players enjoyed themselves, or at least found it an interesting experience.

One player was running late, and that was the first time we got to test the modularity of the game. In theory the game was supposed to be able to handle less than a full complement of players, but we'd never actually had that happen before. My first instinct was to go through and cut out one character from each round of scenes, which when I looked through them I was fairly certain could be done smoothly. But Jared was smarter than me and said, why doesn't a GM just NPC the extra character? That worked just fine, especially since we had a large number of GMs anyway, and allowed us to run the casting mechanic for that player until he showed. It was a shame he missed that part of it, and didn't actually get to select his character for himself, but it kept the game on track. 

I also decided, after watching Bernie work to throw one together during runtime, to see if I could put together an automated casting document to speed up the process. Basically we needed something that can assemble letters that each represent a casting marker into a two separate three-letter codes, then spit out which characters correspond with those codes. It took a lot of screwing around and learning new things about Excel, but after learning how to use the Concatenate and Lookup formulas, I put together something that I think works. It's a bit kludgey, like everything technological I do, but as long as you don't examine how it's put together it seems slick enough, and, more to the point, serves the purpose.

After running Resonance I played in Stars Over Atlantis. I really enjoyed this game, and found it to be as well-written as I hoped it to be. Let me say to everyone who was confused by the blurb (like I was) and slightly weirded out hearing about the BDSM club setting and the aggressive non-normativity (like I was), the story is really deep and fascinating and not hung up on the weird stuff. I absolutely loved the inner conceit of the plot, so unraveling it in all its complexity was a blast. One of my favorite things to do in a larp in figure out what went on with the story, and where it will go from here. 

One of the things that amused me most was how radically different my portrayal of my character became as compared to what I planned. I was playing a fantasy author meddling in things she was insatiably curious about but didn't really understand, and I had thought to behave as a smug but superificially pleasant jerk who thought she knew everything and of course could handle whatever she might dig up. Instead I found myself acting as a loud, self-absorbed wag nosing into everyone's business and mockingly shooting my mouth off. It worked, I think, but wow, was that a role that got away from me.

I also must commend morethings5* and lightgamer* for being particularly awesome in the game. Matt was crosscast in a fairly plot-significant and emotionally weighty role, and I was really impressed with how he carried it off. Kindness was in a role that had a lot to do with my part, and he is always a joy to interact with; he is one of the few people I will put down on my casting questionnaires as somebody with whom I'm comfortable having just about any kind of interaction, no matter how intense. Props also to pezzonovante* for just being great to larp with as well; we had some good conversations and he was wonderful to bounce ideas off of. And of course, thanks to wired_lizard* and mllelaurel*, the authors of this fabulous game. The concept is really cool and the writing is spectacular. I'm glad a got a chance to play, especially when it probably wasn't the sort of game I'd seek out in other circumstances.

"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.

Grateful

It is incredibly hard for me to ask for help, from anyone, with anything. I feel like if I have a problem, especially if it's my own fault I have that problem, it's my responsibility to fix it. I hate to be irresponsible, or weak, or incapable, and I hate to impose on or take anything from anyone else. I get ashamed when there are witnesses to my screwup, or worse, my inability to handle it myself. And even when seeking help is otherwise reasonable or acceptable in all other ways, there's always part of me that can't help but think, "Why would anyone want to help me?"

Bernie, Matt, and Jonathan dug my car out for me. It was an incredibly kind and loving thing to do, and it means more to me than I can say that they were willing to do it. I am inexpressibly grateful.

Thank you.

Trip to King Richard's Faire

Saturday was a lovely trip to King Richard's Faire with Bernie and lightgamer*. I haven't been to a Renaissance Fair in years, so I was very excited to do this. I'm really glad we ended up doing it when we did, as the rest of my weekends are booked up until my death. ;-)

First of all, I like the atmosphere. I'm always so impressed to see the fairgrounds for these things. I love that they actually built permanent structures with neat pseudo-medieval appearences to house the works of the vendors and artisans. It makes it so much more immersive, and I'm pretty shocked that somebody was actually willing to front the cost for it! ANd we saw lots of people in garb of varying degrees of awesomeness. Favorites included a terryfingly badass looking pirate, an extremely complex gypsy outfit, and the man covered in green body paint apparently dressed as a troll. Least favorites as always include the sneakers worn with elaborate dresses, and the women who cram themselves into corsets such that their breasts resemble freshly risen pizza dough that is pinched in awkward ways. Is that supposed to be sexy? Meh.

I wanted to find a neat thing to buy while I was there, like a costume item or a neat piece of jewelry, and perhaps something as a present for Jared. But sadly everything that caught my eye was extremely expensive and nothing within my price range appealed to me enough to spend the money. I brought a hundred dollars with me to spend, and after purchasing fifteen dollars worth of food tickets (clever scam they've got going with that there), I ended up putting the rest back into my savings account. I must say, in the long run it's probably more satisfying to see that safely put away than blown on Renaissance memorabilia. Ah, well. Still no corset for me, I suppose.

As a side note, I am developing kind of a sour-grapes dislike of corsets. I want to like them, but I never can find one that looks good on me. My experiences with them tend to consist mostly of my torso being too narrow for the laces, thus in no way benefiting my waist, and my breasts just kind of slipping pathetically behind the bodice part, thus in no way benefiting my bust. I have about a twenty-five-inch waist, and according to the ladies who helped me try one on, I should be shooting for a size twenty-three corset, which they didn't have in stock because "All the tiny sizes sell out really quick." I was a little shocked to hear that, seeing as most people around my size tend to be fairly young, and young people don't tend to have the money to blow on expensive costume pieces like a corset, but maybe they just don't make many to begin with. Ah, well, I suppose it's good I didn't spend the money, as I am both young and not financially free. And to be honest I find the look rarely works quite the way I like it anyway. Girls with big racks all-too-often end up with the pizza dough problem, and girls with small racks end up looking kind of pitiful and meager all shoved up like that. I even saw some girls built similarly to me in corsets, and frankly the way the corset wasp-waisted them looked weirdly disproportionate, and their boobs were just sort of sad. To make matters worse, the corsets gave even these skinny little slips a hideous overflow of BACK FAT, and I would rather wear a burlap sack than a garment that inflicts that particular atrocity on me. *Sigh* I probably would have to have a custom-made one if ever I am to own one that actually fits and flatters, and that is certainly not in my budget right now.

My favorite part of any Renaissance Fair, though, is always the joust. I love watching the knights thunder around on their horses performing feats of martial skill, and I like the pagentry of the storyline that usually goes around it. This time there was a black knight, masked to conceal his identity, competing who turned out to be Sir Joseph, a knight of the court who was banished for a murder he claimed was actually committed by Sir James, the most psychotic of his jousting opponents. After literally reciting the Old Code from Dragonheart (squee!) they squared off in a duel to the death to restore the victor's honor. The knights were asked if they swore to adhere to the rules of chivalrous conduct. Quoth Sir Joseph: "I do." Quoth Sir James: "I'M GONNA KILL YOU!" Yes, clearly this man is absolutely incapable of committing murder. Their battle, though, was absolutely badass, with them getting knocked off their horses and going at it hand-to-hand.

Now, I know this stuff is staged, and that somebody has to come up with what goes on in these shows. And apparently somebody was like, "Okay, armed combat is awesome, but you know what your average swordfight is missing? FIRE!" So Sir James attacked Sir Joseph with a flaming sword, and was literally SETTING everything on fire! He set Sir Joseph's clothes on fire! Sir Joseph grabbed a whip, and he set the whip on fire! Every time he cracked the whip, the flame flashed and burst! Let me tell you, nothing takes an awesome thing and makes it even more awesome like throwing some fire into the mix! By the end of this epic fire-soaked battle, Sir James as well as the knights' two seconds lay dead upon the sand. Yes, Sir Joseph, now that I have seen you bring about the deaths of three separate men, I now believe that you are not in fact a murderer. :-)

I wonder if I could get a job as a script writer for the Ren Fair. You don't even have to be historically accurate, just suitably dramatic. That would be awesome. Is there an application I can fill out?

Afterward, Bernie, Matt, and I came back and finished the evening with low-key chatting and playing of video games. It was a lovely day, all and all, and the company was excellent. I'd love to go back, perhaps in an even bigger group, but I think I may not have time before the end of the season. If you're thinking of going, I heartily recommed it.

Awesome Independence Day

Had a wonderful Fourth of July weekend. Went to a fantastic party with Bernie, lightgamer*, and morethings5*, who are some of my favorite people to do anything with, let alone going to fun parties. I had a blast at this same party last year, and so was really really looking forward to going to this year's. My excitement grew when shortly before the day, captainecchi* sent out an e-mail saying we could swim in the lake if we brought our swimsuits! I was so happy we did; that was the first time I'd been swimming in over a year, and it was a lot of fun. My poor bikini doesn't get to come out and play often enough! We swam and canoed and explored islands and I didn't get the whole story but I'm pretty sure Kindness beat a bear into submission with his bare fists. ;-) It was cool. Then we came back to the house where electric_d_monk* grilled up some fantastic burgers, hot dogs, and corn on the cob. I had made my "inaccessible rice," as some are wont to call it, with the golden raisins, pecans, mint, and scallions and brought it along. And because the beef in the burgers was locally grown, lightgamer* actually got to eat one! I was happy for him, since they were damn good burgers, and I am sorry when anyone can't enjoy deliciousness. Then there were board games, fantastic strawberry shortcake, and morethings5* sweetly offering to learn how to brush out my hair. The party was a blast, the food was excellent, the company was great, and it was also lovely getting to spend time with captainecchi* and electric_d_monk*. Thanks to our gracious hosts for having such a fun gathering!

Marissa moved into Elsinore on the Fourth as well. Unfortunately I was at the party when she got in, and due to feeling sick and gross with the heat the next day I did not so much welcome her as spend the day hiding from all human contact like a small wild animal. I shall have to rectify that soon. I may also have to take steps to rectify the intense heat situation in my bedroom. For some reason, no matter what the weather, my room is always the mostly extremely affected in the house, making it an icebox in winter and a blast furnace in summer. Climate control is expensive, but it's getting to the point of unbearableness.

"Sunnyside is a place of ruin and despair, ruled by an evil bear who smells of strawberries."

Oh, my God, did I love Toy Story 3. I saw it with Matt and Bernie last night and it was wonderful. You need to all go out and see it immediately, because it is at least as good as the first two and maybe even better. (CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD.)

Toy Story has always really appealed to me because I was one of those kids who was sure that her toys came to life when she wasn't looking. My favorite kind of toy was stuffed animals, and I had a ton of them that I assigned all different personalities to and though I had favorites, I tried to give equal attention to all of them so none of them would feel jealous or unloved. I recall that was one of the greater preoccupations of my early life. ;-) Most of my once enormous collection I donated over the years, though there are still a handful on the top shelf of my bedroom closet at home. I imagine I get their hopes up every time I visit and go into that closet for clothes.

It is amazingly tightly written. The writers of those comic book movies who pack their films full of recognizable characters they have no time to deal with should take a leaf out of this movie's book, which brilliantly managed and balanced the screen time of its enormous cast. None of our favorite characters were allowed to fall to the wayside, and it managed to incorporate a ton of new ones as well. It's also quite an impressive caper movie, with operations carried out with incredible precision and attention to detail; whoever planned out the various escapes and gambits in the film is a strategic as well as cinematic genius.

Also, did anyone else find "Mr. Tortilla Head" to be unspeakably creepy? Jesus. And I totally didn't pick up on the fact that Sid was the garbage man. Thanks to lightgamer for pointing that out to me.

I have always loved Pixar's villain characters. Sid wasn't deep but he was fun, though the primary antagonist through most of that movie was Buzz and the conflict between him and Woody provided the most interesting struggle. I loved the Prospector in the second movie, how he infected Woody with his insidious cynicism and the way he used a deceptively logical and sympathetic argument to convince Woody that Andy didn't need him any more, and that he'd be better off in a museum under glass. And then Lotso in the third movie, with his affable facade masking his bitterness and trying to protect himself against any further rejection or loss. I love that the Prospector and Lotso acted the way they did because they were hurt-- the former because no child had ever loved him, and Lotso because he thought he'd been special to a child and was then replaced.

Lotso's story I found shockingly familiar. There was one I had one since I was a baby, a Swiftheart Rabbit Care Bear stuffed animal that was my favorite. Then I left him at my aunt's house and she gave him away to charity. Saddened, I found a new Swiftheart on eBay, a nicer one in much better condition than mine was, and loved him instead. But I remember feeling slightly guilty about it; I was old enough by that point that I was no longer worried that my stuffed animals got sad or jealous, but the thought did occur to me-- would it hurt my old Swiftheart's feelings that I replaced him with a newer model? I am not nearly as disturbed as I acted for humor's sake, but it was pretty surprising to see that as a plot element in the movie. I wonder if that happens often. And I must not wonder if my poor lost Swiftheart became an embittered prison warden ruling other toys with an iron fist.

I have very few criticisms. I dislike how frequently the character of Buzz is lost by "resetting him" to his Space Ranger defaults or whatever. Spanish mode was funny, but I wanted to see a little bit more of the dynamic between Woody and Buzz, one of my favorite elements of the series. They didn't have as much interplay as I would have hoped. But besides that and a few other tiny details, I was incredibly pleased and greatly enjoyed the film.

Go out and see this movie. It really does complete the natural arc of the story. And It says something about this movie that a person like me who hates attachment to physical things can sympathize with it all so deeply. :-)

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.

Yay, larp resumes!

I am enormously amused that a little list I started for a lark several years ago was rediscovered and now everybody's making one. :-D Yay, larp resumes!

To emulate the fun addition made by lightgamer* to the larp resume idea, I will include some interesting stats of my own:

Number of games played: 33
Number of games GMed: 13
Number of betrayers played: 8
Percentage of betrayers played: 24% (almost a quarter of all roles!)

I define betrayer as "character who is generally trusted at game start who secretly plans to screw you for their own ends." :-) Apparently I'm good at that. Good thing I started mentioning on my casting questionnaires, "No more betrayers! Nobody's trusting me anymore!" or I'd never play anything else.

I am also amused by the number of people who I have somehow drawn or coerced into getting LiveJournals in the last couple of months. Yay, more people to write entries for me to read as I compulsively refresh my friends page!

Eventful weekend, installment 3: Burn Notice on Sunday

Sunday Bernie was supposed to come home and I was going to pick him up at the airport, which I was excited for because I've missed him like crazy. But we got snow on Sunday, so he was forced to reschedule his flight for Monday evening. I was pretty disappointed, not only because I wanted to see him, but also because I was planning on running Burn Notice that night and he wasn't going to be able to be there. But I really wanted to go, so after some ideas from Bernie I decided to throw together an interstitial adventure for just Matt and Kindness's characters and sent Bernie's guy out of town on a family obligation. It activated a subplot for Kindness's character Gwen, which pleased me, and given I only had a day to put it together I think it turned out decently. Bernie videoconferenced in on Matt's computer, which worked well enough to have Donovan reachably only by phone, but unfortunately he couldn't hear us quite well enough to totally follow the action. Ah, well, it was nice to have him around at least. Now we have two threads of the story going at the same time; I'll have to decide what to do about that. Could lead to some interesting conflict. :-) That reminds me, I'll have to talk to Jared about building a particular NPC that will be needed in the near future. Given my shakiness with mechanics, the dear has kindly offered to help me construct a character that could give our PCs a run for their money!

Bernie gets in tonight, so here's going to get him take two. We're going to hang out this evening, and I think we're on for dinner tomorrow night too, since I'll be leaving Wednesday. It'll be nice to have him back, if only for a bit until I get back myself.

Dinner for GURPS players

Feeling much better today. The lack of sliding on the road on the way to work this morning helped. Last night Jared and I were going to cook, but he also wanted to talk to his fellows involved in Matt's four-color supers game about his character, so we decided we'd have the GM and the other players over for dinner. I was in the mood to make a lot, so I did the Rachael Ray apricot and cippolini braised chicken, my mom's complicated wild rice dish, steamed broccoli, and a yellow cake, graciously frosted by Matt. Other than the cake being a bit dry-- I had one fewer egg than I needed, and I think I left it in the oven a bit long --it came out very nicely. The wild rice is pretty much the only rice dish my family makes (we're not really rice eaters) and I like it's because it's complex and sophisticated, but I'm always afraid that all the different flavors make it tough to gauge whether it will suit someone's tastes or not. There's mint, orange, scallion, toasted pecan, golden raisin-- I think it all goes very well together, giving it a nice fresh taste, but there's no accounting for what people like. Jared, for example, tends to be hot and cold on it, depending on how it goes with what it's being served with. Fortunately it went over pretty well last night, and I will have the leftovers for lunch today.

Talk over dinner ran very hard to GURPS in general and this game in particular, as it was designed to, which meant I didn't have much to add. But actually I was pleased by that; it was pleasant to let the conversation of my guests wash over me while I made myself comfortable and enjoyed my food and let my mind wander. For some reason I didn't have it in me to be terribly engaging or engaged, so just being present without having to be anything in particular was nice. I enjoyed the company, and being able to kind of be alone while in it. I know Jared definately was happy to spend the evening with friends and get to talk out what he was thinking for his character. And I like to think Bernie, after being trapped in his last for two or three days straight, appreciated the dinner and the chance to hang out with friends.

Home from WPI

I ran Oz with Jared, Bernie, and Joe sticking around as an AGM. I wouldn't have thought so much help would have been strictly necessary from previous runs, as I've run it with just one other GM in the past, but I was incredibly glad to have them all for this one. I suppose it had slipped my mind that WPI and RPI larpers tend to be a lot more intensely goal-oriented than those of us at Brandeis, but I was definitely reminded by this run. Personally I prefer a bit more balance between plot advancement and character development, but I guess that's a matter of taste. I was very pleased to see that my measures to fix Ryan's character (also played by simplewordsmith*and Kevin Munn) so that he wasn't too brokenly able to tip the scales of the game actually did work. Also improved the workings of the character previously played by beholdsa*, usernamenumber*, and most recently ultimatepsi*. I think pretty much everyone had fun, which is the true measure of how well the game went.

Saturday I rose early to take Ryan and Tegan to their morning game, then immediately turned around to hit Somerville to collect in_water_writ*. I was happy to help her out and get to spend that extra time with her, but the extra driving was tough on me physically. I'm not used to driving for long stretches of time, and my back and tailbone were killing me by the end of it. Still, we got there in plenty of time for her to buy me a nice lunch (thanks so much, love!) and we got to our first game of the day, Bard of Avalon.

I really enjoyed Bard, and I was especially glad since I'd been looking forward to it for so long. It was really a well-written game, so props to yunafonfabre*, and something really funny happened. The game is inspired by the characters of Shakespeare, and I found myself stalking around reverting to my Hamlet persona. And I was like, "Why am I doing this? This character is not Hamlet. I should be capable of doing something other than Hamlet!" And then I found out at the end of game, I actually was Hamlet and my instincts were right! It just wasn't directed at my own family, if that makes any sense. Oh, I love being the Hamlet character. :-) Though it wasn't really part of any of my goals, I ended up becoming the lord of two duchies and the king of the realm, so heh. I made out like a bandit! But I had to be married to Goneril, so maybe those things didn't balance out. And, incidentally, my character was technically an amalgamation of Hamlet and Tybalt, so I was actually playing, well, Frances. :-D That delights me.

Saturday evening was Chateau Ennui, a game that I am still pondering my feelings about. The premise is brilliant, and I had a character that was both interesting and very well suited to me. But there were some real structural issues that needed to be sorted out, and I'm trying to put my finger on exactly how that should be done. I'm thinking the trouble is that so many plots depended on pursuing mysteries, and while plots can still function if the mystery is not solved, it needs to be possible in game to access the information necessary to make any progress on that front. Mysteries are hard to write in games, because it isn't always easy to leave truly useful clues in game, but I think if some real effort is put into including real accessible helpful clues, that would go along way toward helping plots move. So I had fun during the game, but I think it needs some real fixing.

Sunday then was our second run of Paranoia. I must say, our GMing team worked our asses off editing this thing, and I am immensively proud of what we produced. The first run went really well and players had a lot of fun, but it needed tightening and fleshing out in a lot of places. The game as it stands right now is incredibly well-rounded, and the job we did during actual runtime was excellent. We quantified the NPCs and cast them-- Bernie as Friend Computer, Joe as the wandering janitor bot, Matt as the mech bay bot, Mac as the doc bot, and myself as the vending machine, plus stellar performances from Jared as both the High Programmer Acc-U-Men and HK-47 and 1/2, the warbot brain stuck in the storage bay computer, and Ryan as the poor frightened Friendly Luggage Bot. Also, none of the players seemed bored at any point during the game, which pleased me immensely. There may still be some minor kinks to work out, but overall the thing is extremely solid, and good fun to players whether you're a Paranoia fan or not. Also interestingly of note-- I think we had eight drops over the course of signups for this game, and we still ran with a full complement. Yay for us!

We all went back to my place afterward and had a really nice, low-key chat that included Jared, Bernie, Joe, Matt, and myself. I enjoyed this until I fell asleep. Now that weekend, the preparing for which has dominated my life lately, is passed. Physically, I feel okay but off in small ways. I got a good night's sleep last night, which helps. Body is still a little stiff from the unusual amount of driving I had to do on Saturday-- knees feel tight, lower back is still a bit tender. Also woke up with a slightly sore throat, which worries me I'm going to get sick. Don't really have time for that right now, so God, I hope not.

A Team Fortress 2 Halloween

Halloween yesterday was wonderful, surrounded by friends in excellent costumes. Best evening I've had in a long time. Perhaps the most notable part of the evening were the five members of Team Fortress 2 that got together a fantastic group costume that yielded some great pictures. It was actually initially Jared's idea a month or so ago; he's recently gotten very into the game and thought it would be a fun and funny idea for a big group to do together. Several people expressed interest, but I think Jared and Bernie kind of didn't think anybody else would actually do it, so kind of felt like it couldn't happen. It took Matt actually getting together costume pieces to get things going; when I saw he was into it I started getting after Bernie and Jared, who got back into it when they thought there would be a real group. Jared was the Sniper, Bernie was the Engineer, and Matt was the Scout, all of which were remarkably well-cast in my opinion. Ryan and Kindness were pulled in at the last minute as the Spy and the Medic respectively, which worked out pretty well too! We took some fantastic pictures, which will soon be on Facebook. In the meantime, here's a sampling:



The Medic, the Spy, the Sniper, the Engineer, and the Scout.



I think this was supposed to be a RED Team versus BLU Team picture, but it looks more like everybody wants to get the Blue Spy.



This fantastic picture is of the team playing poker for the Intelligence Case. It's now the background on my phone. Cute details include the Spy cheating and the Sniper reaching for his mug but probably heading for his pee jar.

Casting questionnaires

Last night Bernie, Matt, and I got together for dinner to discuss plans for editing Paranoia in preparation for the upcoming WPI run. The most important thing we accomplished was to go over the casting questionnaire and the world bluesheet and get them sent out to players; I've very pleased with the edits we made. We've even got three of them back already, a most excellent start. There's a good bit more to do, of course, but that got the ball rolling.

It occurs to me, having filled out a couple of other people's casting questionnaires lately, that mine are probably frustrating to read because I very rarely have any strong demands on them. I know that if the GM casting doesn't know the player this can make them not terribly useful, but what I'm trying to go for as a player these days is "That really good larper who I can put wherever I need because they will make the most of any role I give them." It's like a personal acting challenge, to see if I can get into and make something no matter what kind of character I'm in. So, GMs who read my perhaps infuriatingly noncomittal questionnaires, know that need not worry; you may do with me what you will. I am yours. Use me. :-)

Episode guide

Finally got myself a Gmail account-- breakinglight11 like the name of the banner under which I run my larps --in preparation for the time when my Brandeis account finally expires. It probably won't anytime in the very near future, but it's good to be ready. Otherwise it doesn't really matter which of my addresses you use, I have them all sent to the same place.

I think I would like to write up a record of what goes on in my Burn Notice game, an episode guide, if you will. I know when Kindness was running the saga of the Fairview Five, Matt would recap each session in his LiveJournal as a way of preserving the story. I always liked this idea, as it is a way of holding on to a story that you wrote that is told in a medium as ephemeral as the roleplaying game. As I'm trying to make it feel as much like a TV show as possible, I'm considering the story in the units of "episodes"-- not necessarily sessions, but the complete self-contained story that a single episode of a show would contain. In the four sessions we've had so far, there have been three episodes, begun if not completed. The pilot to our "show" was the two-parter getting Donovan knocked out of the field and stumbling back to Miami as a burned spy, combining the attempt on his life signaling the burn, his awkward return to his hometown and all the baggage he left behind, and the first job he would go on as part of Bruce's investigation team. Now we're onto the second episode, with another job and introducing some of the ongoing elements of the story. When I write them up, I'll also give them titles like real episodes. Now that I think about it, if I recall correctly the Buffy system is designed to function like seasons of a TV show-- is there any tangible effect of that on the way the game is run, or is it just flavor? Regardless, I like it, and want something similar for my game.

A Midsummer Night and the Living is Easy

At long last I'm going to get to play in the Iron GM-winning game written by bronzite, londo, elenuial, and Eager Mike, (am I forgetting anyone? nyren?) A Midsummer Night and the Living is Easy. I've wanted to play in this game ever since the contest when they wrote it; I love the premise, and I have since heard so many good reviews from players that I am crazy excited. It's going to be running late on Friday night of WPI's Gaming Weekend, and thus far lightgamer has agreed to make a trip of it with me. I'm trying to get jh1230 to come as well, and Ryan or linearequation if they can make it, and make a little Brandeis contingent of it. I don't love the timeslot of 11PM to 1AM, especially since it's a forty-five minute drive to get there, but with a group I won't mind. I've been running so much lately it feels like I haven't played in a larp in forever, so that'll be a nice change of pace.

I am excited to see what Midsummer elements have gotten into the game. As you know I just played Puck, so I have an affinity for that character, but they'd probably cast a guy as Puck anyway if he's in there. I don't know if they're casting at the door or what, but if that's the case, given the film-noir aesthetic I know what I'm going to wear-- black cocktail dress that I wore as Wendy Noyes in the MCR2K, elbow-length black gloves (wanted opera-length, couldn't find them), black stockings with garters, and if I can get a hold of a cigarette holder, so much the better. Hmm. I feel like I need a diaphanous wrap or something, preferably in white for accent but black would work too. Wonder if I could find one on short notice.

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.

Happy birthday!

A very happy birthday to everyone's favorite Stetson-wear, lightgamer!

I love parties...

The rage, she is dealt with. I am myself again. :-)

I have had a lovely, action-packed weekend. Fourth of July was spent at the excellent gathering of captainecchi and electric_d_monk. A combination of good company, good food, and lovely hosts made for a wonderful time for me. Many thanks to them. I went with lightgamer and morethings5, who could not have been more fun to be with. It's funny, everytime I go to a party I think, "I love parties! I should throw more of them." So I have gatherings, and they're fun and I'm glad I did them, but they're kind of expensive and labor-intensive, so I say, "Okay, no more hosting for a while." Then I go to another good party and think "I love parties! I should throw more of them." :-) The next day was spent hanging out with Marissa, then an impromptu cookout with her, Kindness, Matt, and the Daves, and later Kindness showed a strange Swedish movie about twelve-year-old vampires. It was interesting and cool; I love weird stuff.

Had my first rehearsal for Macbeth last night. It was nice, we read through the script and met each other. Everyone seemed really nice and talented, and I think I'm going to enjoy working with them. I'm the only one who was cross-cast out of everyone, which I find interesting. I have another rehearsal Thursday night, which makes me sad because if there's BSCF I'll miss it, but whatever.

I should really throw a party... :-)

Alice picture

So I want to generate a really good photo of "Alice" to use as pretty much the only physical prop that's actually in the game. Alice, as many of you are aware, is intended to be NPCed by the lead female GM-- that is to say, until I allow anyone else to run it, me, making the corresponding photo of the same. Alice is intentionally a prop-light game, but this one was always supposed to be included. I never managed to get around to taking an Alice photo for the first or even the second run. By the third run Jared decided enough was enough and that we just needed to take a goddamn picture to give to the character who was supposed to have it. This fact inspired the following amusing conversation tonight, from two of the players that previous had the character who possessed it:

zapf: "What prop? I spent that game staring longingly at an index card."
lightgamer: "Same here."

At any rate, we snapped one in five minutes the afternoon before the game, printed it out on an index card, and handed it personally to Ryan, who was the player in question for that run. I was glad to finally have one in the game like there was supposed to be. Up until that point I had simply been relying on selectively giving out her character number to indicate whether people in the game knew her by sight. In larps, I use character numbers to indicate the recognizable "face" of the character-- that is, if you know a character's number, that means that you recognize what they look like. If you knew that Alice's character number was #XX, then you knew her face.

At any rate, however, I was not really satisfied with the picture taken. I have a tendency to never like photos taken of me-- while I like how I look in the mirror, I never feel like photos ever really represent me the way I see myself. There's always something wrong with them, like my hair looks flat or my skin looks terrible or there's something off about my mouth or nose or ears or SOMETHING. I keep telling myself it's okay if I don't look supermodel-gorgeous in the picture because Alice is not supposed to be all that pretty and it's okay if the pictures don't look exactly like me because they're not supposed to be of me but of Alice. Still, I wonder if I could do better. I would really love to just set aside time to get into costume and character and take a million pictures until I was finally satisfied. It may be that I have a very firm image in my head of what it's supposed to look like, and I really would like to achieve that. I'm just concerned that I'll be too self-conscious about not looking beautiful in the photograph that I'll portray Alice as this pretty little girl that I want to look like rather than the way the character actually looks.

Feeling better

Feeling in better sorts after some time without the press of too many other people. Did some studying, did some chores, went out to a nice dinner with bronzite, and came back and chatted with lightgamer a little after the Buffy game. Sleep was welcome and appreciated afterward.

Today is my last day to study for my last final, so that will take priority. Also, my parents will be in town to help my brother pack up his stuff from his room for the end of the year, so I need to be available to see them for a minute. Also, tonight Kindness has very kindly offered to take Marissa and I out to dinner in thanks for modeling for his paintings. As to this, my attitude is "You want to feed me as a thanks for... flattering my vanity? Suuuuuure." :-) He's a very sweet young man.

Also, tomorrow Jared's parents will be here to help him pack up, and I have offered to make dinner for them in the evening. I am in the process of planning the menu, and a trip to the kosher market to buy meat. I am also endeavoring to not stress myself out like crazy for this, as I just want it to be a nice evening. I have a tendency to panic over the impression I'm making.