Bridgewater Larp Day concluded

Bridgewater Larp Day is accomplished. It turned out to be a pretty good event that I had a lot of fun with, despite the fact that I wasn't feeling particularly healthy or energetic. Congrats to EB for organizing it. Oz ran well, if a little on the quick side, lasting about three hours rather than four. I guess everyone pushed their plots very fast! Everyone did seem extremely busy, which is my usual marker of people enjoying their play experience. It would have been notable if for no other reason than katiescarlett29*, who has been trepidatious about larping, seemed to have a good time! She was cast as Dorothy, which tends to be a very good newbie role, and got into her plot and connected with the other larpers around her. I was also amused by how people seemed to be constantly putting the environmental cataclysm on the back burner; I'm very glad they were that engaged with their individual plots, but you'd expect a little more concern for the threat to the entirety of the universe. ;-)

After Oz, I finally got to play in House of the Rising Sun, which has been Jared and EB's project for the last year. I was very excited, and the game itself did not disappoint. House is a dark, angst-filled game, perfect for people who like emotional extremity and dramatic scenes in larps. I really enjoyed the presence of the ghosts, and the way the walls between their world and ours slowly broke down as the game went on. I was in a privileged position of being able to see the ghosts straight off, which made for some fun freaking out, and it gave me an interesting position to glimpse into the struggles and closet skeletons of everyone around me. I was also really luck to be in it with such a great group of players; morethings5*, captainecchi*, electric_d_monk*, wired_lizard*, mllelaurel*, April, Nick, vortexofchaos*, darkoni, kamianya*, Alison, and more. I have some minor criticisms about issues in certain characters' back stories, but they are mostly literary stylistic points that don't affect the thrust of the narrative too much. All in all, though, I highly recommend this game, as long as you're not bothered by dark content. I'm really proud of EB and Jared for putting this together. This is Jared's first finished four-hour larp, and I'm incredibly happy for him that it went so well. Well done, my love. :-)

Sick all week

This has been a real rough week for me, health-wise. First the migraines, then a jag of vomiting, now a run-of-the-mill achey sneezy cold. I suppose technically that means an improvement every day, but still, I'm sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. Normally I'm a very healthy person, so it's been very rare that I've ever had any extended period of being unwell. The worst of it is how low-energy I've been for productivity of any kind. I've struggled through, but it's been rough. Tomorrow I'm running Oz in Bridgewater and playing in the first run of Jared and EB's new game, House of the Rising Sun. I really hope I'm not dragging too badly. It's a good crowd in this run, and I've been looking forward to House for a while now. I really want to do it justice. I'll just have to get a good night's sleep tonight, maybe take a decongestant in the morning, and do the best that I can.

Status update

Finished my first blank verse assignment. Jesus Christ, that was hard. My brain felt like melted Jell-o by the time I was done with it. I can't put off starting on the next verse piece for too long or it will be harder than it has to be, but I definitely needed a mental rest after that.

Now I have started on a ten-minute play for my next regular drama assignment, which as I mentioned involves a PC and an NPC from The Stand. I am quite pleased with it so far; these were always some of my favorite characters in this game, and this is a dramatization of something that actually happened in the backstory of the larp, though I am considering changing the ending so that the scene ends on a more climactic note. I will post it here as I've been posting my other pieces, but it's a bit spoilery if you haven't played the game, so I may post it with the names changed so that people can read it even if they still want to play.

Oz has filled at Bridgewater Larp Day. Still awaiting a number of casting questionnaires, but it looks to be a good cast. I haven't run Oz in over a year now, but because it's relatively small at fifteen players even with five previous runs it didn't completely exhaust the player pool. Looking back over the materials, I am amused with the ways I emulated the novel's sense of slightly disjointed fantasy. I love, in particular, the weird and silly names I picked, like Dapperjohn Greatgourd and Glinda Aralinda. For some strange reason one of the most satisfying things I find about writing is to that when you come up with a name, people who read or perform or play your work will use it. So when people go around in my game calling each other Jubilation and Perpetua and Phineas because I chose those names, it gives me a real warm fuzzy.

Soon I am going to start taking an adult beginner ballet class. It was by blendedchaitea*'s suggestion, and I'm really excited. That's something I've always kind of wanted to do but never really had time for it, but now seems like the right time to work it in. I want to get more into dancing, as well as have an exercise habit I actually enjoy. And it will be fun to go to it with Rachel.

Also trying to get some household stuff accomplished. Yesterday I got a box with plastic dividers in it to hold all my various sewing odds and ends. So I organized my work table and got everything put away. Then I promptly messed up the space all over again working on some projects. It's funny how often I mess up my room because I'm busy doing something, then spend a day cleaning it up so I have space to start another project that messes everything up again.

Finally, yesterday my iPhone battery broke. It will work as long as it's plugged in, but it won't hold charge anymore. I'm going to have to go to the Apple Store today to get them to take a look at it. My mom mentioned my brother had sort of a similar problem with his, and when he took it in they just gave him a brand new replacement phone. His is newer than mine, though, I think, so mine may not be under warranty anymore. And I know we're getting to the point where we're all eligible for upgrades. So I'm not sure what the most efficient response to this is. God knows I rely on that damn thing for just about everything.

Bridgewater Larp Day

In case you haven't heard, acousticshadow2*  is organizing a larp day built around the introduction of the game that she and Jared have been writing, House of the Rising Sun, a mystery set in a haunted whorehouse in post-Emancipation New Orleans. The day is Sunday, September 25th, and it will be taking place in building belonging to a cafe in Bridgewater, Massachusetts that will be hosting the dead dog after. House of the Rising Sun will be running in the afternoon at 2:30, but beforehand Jared and I are going to be running my game Oz alongside Emillybeth's game Happily Ever After? in the morning at 10. So if you've been wanting to play Oz but never had the chance, here's a shot before it goes back into the Breaking Light vault for a little while more. And I have been excited to playtest House ever since I first heard they were writing it. 

Game signups are going to open by next weekend, so if you'd like to register for Bridgewater Larp Day, go here for the event page. I hope you'll come out for Oz, and for the maiden run of House of the Rising Sun!

Festival nerves

I was a bad thing Monday night, barely getting any writing done at all in favor of distractions, eating, and screwing around. I did do a couple of unrelated productive things at least, including washing and putting away all the clothes I own, assembling a few appropriate outfits for future events, and getting an actual hard workout in. Those were things that definitely needed to get done, but I was pissed at how shot my focus was. Tuesday was also a free night, and I made every effort to kick my lazy ass into gear. Now both my Resonance characters for this coming Monday's meeting are finished. That's a good chunk. I also even did some work on Merely Players and The Stand, though nothing concrete.

Still in a low-level state of neurosis regarding Festival games. I am considering my options about what to do if things actually do get desperate. (They're not yet, for the record, I'm just paranoid.) I am starting to send nudging e-mails to people I trust asking if they'd consider running something, even if it's someone else's game or something they've run before. Though my preference has been for new games, I am more than happy to consider older ones at this point. Maybe not ones that have had TEN MILLION runs (not Mary Celeste, maybe not Marin County) but I am not opposed to games with three or four goes under their belt.

One thing I am not eager to do, though it is a possibility, is run another thing myself. I am already running The Stand and Resonance and that feels like quite enough. I had planned on giving Oz a break for a year or so, but it's only fifteen players, which is the right size for what I need, so it would probably serve. Thing is, I had things I wanted to play that I wouldn't be able to in that case. I guess I could run it on Sunday, which isn't totally fitting since it's not an excessively light game, but that wouldn't be the end of the world. Or maybe I could let someone else run it. I still feel a bit weird about that idea. I do believe my ultimate goal is to become a well-liked-enough larp writer that my larps appeal to people in places I can't get to-- I like the idea of my larps being published works --but I'm still nervous about whether or not I could teach someone to run it right. Also, I would be kind of sad missing what happens in a run of my game. I may talk to Jared just to see what he thinks. Not settled yet, but we'll see.

Festival report

On Friday night I helped captainecchi* and electric_d_monk* run the fantastic League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students. I loved playing this game, and I only wish I'd had time to study everything more carefully. I read all the character sheets and the rules, but I still wasn't quite familiar with the inner workings of the game to be all that useful as a GM. I mostly got answers from Matt and Lise and then passed them on to players. I was particularly proud of katiescarlett29*, who stepped in as Irene Adler even though she wasn't totally confident about the improv part of larping, and of nennivian*, who I always thought was a larper waiting to happen. By and large the run went very well, with lots of activity and engaged players, but I wish I'd been intimate enough with the game to be able to give better suggestions to the couple of (usually new) players that got stuck. I wanted to talk to them after the game, but I was so blasted by gamewrap that I had to drag myself home and sleep. I have been sleeping badly lately, and I had to get up for a 9AM game the next day.

Saturday morning that 9AM game was the fifth run of Oz. It was an excellent run, one of the best, with the capable assistance of Jared and Bernie as my fellow GMs. We were a little nervous about the casting in places, but it turned out that everyone had a part they enjoyed. Standout players include the awesome natbudin*, who we initially wanted for EVERY ROLE IN THE GAME, but we finally settled into a part because he wanted to see him portray the personality-- which he did amazingly. Again, Charlotte was fantastic, showing so much talent for getting into and becoming characters. I was incredibly impressed with wired_lizard*, who played the character the way I had always imagined it to be, and gave me a few new ideas on top of that. Zachariah came up with some fantastically clever stratagies for executing his fairly difficult plotline. Hell, pretty much everyone in the game did an excellent job. I should probably stop casting bronzite* as my big bad, because I think people expect him to be the villain all the time, and so no one is inclined to trust him. In the previous run of Oz, Marc Blumberg as the villain did very well and in fact managed to achieve his goal of cataclysmic destruction, but it was more because the characters he was in opposition to made a fatal error that they could not fix. John actually pushed things farther along the doom track than anyone so far, but his opposition managed to repair it properly. I was immensely pleased with this run.

Saturday afternoon, I went home to sleep. I think it helped a little, but I was still pretty draggy for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday night was the fifth run of Alice, again assisted by Jared and Bernie. I think it went well in that players had a good time, but this was the WEIRDEST RUN EVER. Though of course there have been variations, the previous four runs tended to follow some pretty clear trends. Basically, there is a pattern of connections that is supposed to get made, and with some variance in the order in previous runs they all came together, leading to an endgame scenario where two large groups are polarized against each other. A lot of those connections did not click this time around, and I'm not sure where the broken link was. The villain was vanquished again, but not by the person who is supposed to and always has in the past. In all the previous runs, either the core villain group acted so covertly that nobody knew who they were until the end of the game, or they formed a tight-knit group so cohesive that they just overwhelmed and crushed all opposition. I feel like they were more scattered and freewheeling this time around, which made them more obvious and less able to protect themselves should someone decide they were a target. There were still some fantastic performances-- I loved Lise's analytical approach to her character and she made amazing process putting together the pieces of her challenge. And April was excellent, not to mention wearing a fantastic costume. I guess any game where the players have fun is a success, but I was really shocked at how weirdly this run went.

Then I went home to sleep. Again, my sleep has not been terribly restful these days, so still. So. Draggy. Blah.

Sunday was Diamond Geezers, the only thing I played. I had a blast. I was playing an ex-military demolitions expert whose rough, ruthless, but not terribly malicious outlook I enjoyed. It was an interestingly set-up game, basically us in a confined space with a few story hooks built in but a plot that was more or less on rails. I wasn't exactly expecting that, but it was a really fun character game, involving yelling in Cockney accents and waving guns around. We experienced an odd phenomenon that I think was troubling Brad as GM that the only ones who were talking much, at least at first, were bleemoo*, Charlotte, and myself, and everyone else was fairly quiet. I wonder if it was because the three of us were comfortable doing the accent and they felt slightly intimindated to speak if they couldn't. It's not like mine was any good at all, though Josh's and Charlotte's actually were. Josh was so much fun to play off of, and Charlotte continued to prove my theory that she has always been a larper, whether she knew it or not. Definitely recommend this game as a fun silly character experience.

Oh, as a side note, I was amused at usernamenumber pointing how at Brandeis, of course there was going to be less shooting and killing and more hand-holding and agreeing to work things out. :-) I have noticed this trend myself.

Next year I shall be con chair. I am looking forward to it. I am in the process of pondering a few thing to help optimize, which I will record when I have a better handle on my thoughts. Until then, thanks to everyone for making our very own con a fantastic experience again!

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.

Happy Easter

Had a very nice Easter yesterday, if a little more work-intensive and annoyance-riddled than I would have expected. My family and I went out to a lovely Easter dinner at this beautiful inn in town called the Glasbern. It is a converted farm with lovely old farm buildings like barns and stables converted into dining rooms and lodgings, with gorgeous landscaping and actually raises a lot of its own livestock on sight. Homegrown chicken is very tasty, it turns out. I also ran into an old friend, a girl, Debbie, working there who went to my old high school, and in fact played Selene in the very first production of To Think of Nothing four years ago. I told her that I got a chance to direct it for myself just recently, and she said she loved the role and had very good memories of putting on the play.

The only problem was that I got quickly and inexplicably carsick on both the drive there and the drive home. Fortunately it wore off by the time dinner arrived, but I was really angry. There was no reason for me to get sick; the trip was short and over easy roads. I'm kind of afraid to get into a car again.

Fighting a very mild remnant of nausea for the rest of the night, I finally checked over and sent out all forty character sheets for my two games. It took hours, and feeling slightly sick did not help. And we had a drop in Oz RIGHT AFTER I sent out all the sheets. We had someone on the waitlist, but if that drop had occurred just a little earlier we could have redone the casting. The character that had to be filled is extremely well-suited to a particular kind of player, and I can think of others who probably would have enjoyed it. Ah, well. It will be fine, and I'm just grateful that the games are still full.

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.

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.

Intercon J weekend report

Wow. What a con.

Back from Intercon now and back to the grind of regular life. I am happy, exhausted, and very thoughtful.

Friday night was Shadow Over Babylon. Not my favorite game of the weekend, but I certainly had a good time. There were lots of fun people in it to play with, which I enjoyed. One thing that occurred to me is that, having played in quite a few Cthulhu games by now, it's getting a little tougher to not metagame when playing a character who doesn't necessarily know about any of the mythos who is confronted by signs of their activity that are easily recognizable by me, the player. For example, if I see someone with clammy skin and a fishy expression, Phoebe knows right away-- Innsmouth look! There are Deep Ones around! But my character usually wouldn't have any idea, so I need to find a way to acquire that knowledge legitimately in game. I'm pretty good at waiting to use that information until I learn it in-character, but I never really thought about how, with the frequency of Cthulhu games, this is an increasingly common situation for me.

Stayed up way too late hanging with people Friday night. I think this con I felt slightly shier than normal. It may have been my imagination, but there seemed to be a fairly high number of people who I met through events like this but don't really see elsewhere whom, when I greeted them, didn't particularly seem to recognize me. Not everyone, of course, but enough. That made me feel kind of awkward about trying to talk to anyone whom I didn't have a definite preestablished relationship with, which made me kind of sad. But I enjoyed the company of those I did get to spend time with immensely.


Dragged myself out of bed early Saturday morning to play Super Villain Academy. Jared talked that game up to me after playing it last year, so I was very excited. It definitely lived up to the hype. It is a fun, silly melodrama in a comic booky context, very clever and very funny. I had kind of a tough job of trying to find people but not let on to why I wanted to know, so I had to come up with clever ways to introduce my interests for reasons unrelated to my real ends. I love plotting, so I spent a lot of time sitting in the chair thinking, then running off to try my plan, then running back to think some more, then trying my new plan. I found all of my targets, due to my clever plans, and never got caught! I was proud of myself. I also thought my costume worked out fantastically. I highly recommend this game if you ever get the chance.

After a quick lunch Saturday afternoon, I threw on my civilian clothes and ran to my gamespace to set up for Oz with Jared. I really liked the space they gave us, two small adjoining rooms with appropriate features to represent the space station. The group of players was fantastic, including a number of awesome Chicago larpers. Many plots were advanced further and many nuances came out in this run that never progressed so far before. And it's always interesting to see how people of different larp cultures approach a given material. I was surprised that many did not seem to understand the significance of character numbers-- as in, that they were something to be taken note of because they were meaningful. I use them as representative of a character's appearence; if you know a character's number, then you recognize their face. I'm including a note in the rules about that. The game ended with the galaxy blowing up. I was sorry for most of the players who did such an excellent job playing out their stories to have it all end like that, but I was impressed that the villain managed to win for once. I guess that's just Marc Blumberg for you. :-) All in all, Jared and I were quite pleased.


Saturday evening was The Last Seder. This was the game I'd been anticipating forever. I wasn't sure what I was going to think of it going in, but I knew I had to experience it. The format is unlike any I'd ever played before, alternating between a conversation game around a dinner table and a storytelling game with mini-characters you switch into the act out smaller tales. It is beautifully written and ingeniously designed. I was also impressed with the respect and reverence with which the religious material was approached, making it an interesting and enjoyable cultural experience as well. I'm not certain however that the structure really worked for me. It was really cool to have these stories inform the direction of the game, but having to march into another room and play out another character for a moment kind of broke the flow for me. The fact that I was incredibly tired by this point, which I think inclined my roleplaying to be sadder than I might have otherwise, may have contributed to my dislike of the interruption. Jared actually suggested that it might be less flow-breaking if one set of players played the main characters and another set of players made up a horde that performed the stories for them. I find that an interesting idea that I would probably prefer from a cast-character-player and presentation standpoint, but from a larp standpoint you'd probably end up with a horde that was bored during the conversation bits. Not to mention you might lose the significance of when the cast characters actually appear in the stories. Overall, an excellent, beautifully written game in an unconventional style that may not be to everyone's taste and may not even be to mine, but one I am very glad to have played and experienced at least this once.

I went to bed pretty much right after game wrap. So very, very tired. I'm sorry I missed the social time, but I was collapsing. I'm just not the sort of person who can get by without sleep, especially when I can't have my typical source of caffeine.


Sunday morning I got up as early as I could and helped Jared do some last minute prep for GM Space. I was going to play, but they turned out to have enough players after all, and I was still not terribly well-rested, so I jumped in for a sec and then left. I had to take care of getting us checked out of the hotel room anyway. Luckily I ran into our roommate oakenguy* as he was getting ready to leave, so I gave him a hug and thanked him for being so much fun to hang around with. Seriously, we were lucky to room with him. I made sure everyone was set, then got things taken care of at the front desk, which was a load off my mind. GM Space had some issues with personality conflicts and differences with player expectations, which Jared worried over, but most of them had a good silly time and none of the issues were his fault, or anything he could do anything about, so I told him not to worry about just be pleased that so many enjoyed his game.

All in all, it was a lovely weekend that I enjoyed immensely. The negatives were only very minor. I discovered when I arrived I didn't pack quite as well as I thought I did; there were a bunch of little things I forgot to take into account, like making sure I was wearing the right underwear to be able to change in front of roommates if necessary, or having at least one pair of flat shoes so my feet could have a break from heels. I'm pretty disappointed with myself for that, especially since I thought I'd been so careful. I should write myself a packing list now to use every year so I don't make those stupid mistakes again.

Also, I have concluded from this Intercon is that I cannot cram my schedule with as much as I did this weekend and maintain an acceptable level of energy. I played in three and a half games (played in GM Space until they had enough to be up and running) in addition to GMing Oz, and all that on top of how little sleep I got, I was so very, very draggy through much of the time there. Last Festival I did something in every slot, running four things and playing one, and as exhausted as I was by the end of it, it was a little easier on me because I've always found running less intense and demanding than playing, and because for that con I was allowed to have Coke with its lovely boost of caffiene. I imagine Anna Bradley at the end of this con was like, "WHY do we have so much extra Coke left over?" because it's still Lent, which means I'm still not allowed to have sugar, which means I couldn't go through the typical six liters or so that normally support my energy level over the course of Intercon. Unfortunately I can't abide the taste of coffee, so it wasn't available as a substitute. My ideal weekend schedule is playing two things and running one, I think. I can stand running more, but I can definitely play in no more than three events, and if I'm playing in three, then I'm not sure I want to add anything else by running. Does anyone else find that being the GM is easier than being a player? Or is it vice versa for you? I think for me, it's because being a player is active-- you have to take initiative and figure out what to do yourself --but being a GM is reactive-- you wait for the players to come to you, and everything else have already been figured out in advance.

Dead dog could have gone a little more smoothly, but concerning that I must say only that captainecchi*, electric_d_monk*, and laurion* are amazing and I thank them for how sweet they were. Tiredness and unnecessary struggles got to Jared and I by the end of it, but still, we loved the con, we loved the company, and we're excited, as always, for next year.

Next year in the Waltham Westin!

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.

Nearly done with Oz prep

Another source for stress reared its ugly head this weekend, but at the same time life finally lifted one of its heavier burdens. That balances out, I suppose, with the positive over the negative.

Got a pretty significant chunk of Intercon prep accomplished yesterday. Only a few more printing and packing tasks remain for Oz. I really need to reorder my file with all the cards in it. I'm thinking it might be easier to check whether everything is properly placed if I made separate files for each grouping of cards: one each for the cards in each character's packet, one for cards that the GMs hold onto at game start, et cetera. I think I'll make those separate files today when I print out the few missing pieces. Since the printing's mostly done it won't be super-helpful with that, but it will make it easier to double-check that I've got everything where it needs to be. GM Space is also in pretty good shape; Jared only has to sort the item cards into their proper places and make sure all the full sheets are printed.

I want us to be as ready as possible by the end of this weekend. The more buffer time I have between finishing my prep and Intercon, the better. The one other thing I need to figure out is the view screen for Oz. There is supposed to be a computer screen set up with a slide show of images meant to represent what you see out the big window in the viewing deck on the station. I'm a little afraid I won't be able to properly set up such a thing. I may just print out the images and put them up on the wall;; it's not as slick a solution, but I'm concerned that I'm not tech-savvy enough to troubleshoot properly if something went wrong.

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.

Intercon castings!

I have received the first of my castings at Intercon! I now have my Last Seder character, and since I am told this is not a game about secrets and big reveals, I feel comfortable sharing my name for those who have already played. I am to be Andrea Skala, and I believe I shall enjoy it. Lovely friendy people who are also in this game, who might you have been cast as? I'd be very interested to know. I think I know what my costuming will be-- it's a dressy dinner for a religious gathering, so I think I will wear my black skirt, sheer black stockings, black heeled sandals, and my silky red button-up blouse. That's kind of my go-to outfit for nice evenings out, so it should work just fine.

I have also sent out all the Oz castings today. By and large this was a remarkably easy cast to pin down, but Jared and I are a bit anxious to see how one or two in particular pan out. There were also a couple of gender swaps that could prove interesting. Haven't heard back from any of the players, but I hope they read and are pleased. I know several of the Chicago larpers have signed up on the strength of our last game, so I really don't want to disappoint.

*victory dance*

I got into Shadow Over Babylon! I got into Shadow Over Babylon! Huzzah! I got into a cool game and now I have a game to play in on Friday night! Yay! I had pretty much despaired of my chances at this point. I think witticaster* was the one on the waitlist before me, so she probably got in too. So that makes at least two fun people, her and jh1230*, in that game with me. :-) Yay!

I wonder who dropped, and why. The schedule is so packed as it is, there isn't much chance of them getting into another game. Maybe they dropped the con entirely. Ah, well, their loss is my gain. I wonder if at this late point I'll get a casting questionnaire or if I will just be put into the role of the lost player. Either way, I'm just incredibly happy to have gotten into a Friday night slot. I would have been very disappointed if I had no game to be in the night I got there.

On another Intercon note, Jared and I cast Oz last night. A lot of players just leaped off the page for us to receive particular roles, so while not everyone was an easy place, it was one of the most straightforward casting sessions yet. We should be sending out costume hints today, with full character sheets to follow shortly after. We just wanted to sleep on things and recheck them in the morning. There's at least one interesting character gender switch, as most parts are technically neutral, that I'm looking forward to seeing how it plays. We're also lucky enough to have some really cool players signed up, it'll be so exciting to see what they do.

Suddenly my Intercon is looking way, way up. :-D

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.