Intercon L con report

Back from Intercon L, and although I am utterly exhausted, it was a heck of a lot of fun getting that way. I didn't prepare for the unusual schedule as well as I should have-- I'd stayed late to see the Titus naked tech on Wednesday, and I'd had two days this week when I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn't get back to sleep, so I went in with less reserve than I usually did. But even if I couldn't stay up late, I was determined to enjoy this special once-a-year occasion as much as I possibly could. Ahead is my non-spoilery review!

Friday night jhite1230* and I arrived at the con about an hour and a half in advance of games, allowing us to connect with Seamus, who was one of our gracious roommates, socialize a little, and prepare. Jared ran off to meet in their game space for House of the Rising Sun. I socialized a bit and dressed in the hotel room to play Ariadne in Feast of the Minotaur. I must mention again how much I love this dress and how pretty I felt in it. It's a brand-new couture piece I bought on eBay for a fraction of its retail price, made of this luxurious crinkled velvet and washed silk straps in a gorgeous berry color. It's rare that I get a pretty princess role, and I've been feeling like such a frump lately, so I really wanted to look good for this role, and I think I succeeded. Thanks to for taking this picture:

I bought some sea shell necklaces to wear around my neck and maybe like a circlet in my hair, but I decided I looked better without them. Showing cleavage is not my preferred form of sexy dressing, but given the style of the dress I figured what the hell, just this once. Might as well enjoy the one benefit of gaining weight. However, I discovered a dress that's held on only with tied ribbons is not the most stable, and I found myself adjusting it to preserve good taste quite a bit. I should probably look into some body tape for next time I wear it. I decided to wear my beloved Bast sandals with it, and was pleased that they remained comfortable for the entirety of the game. I must have gotten twenty compliments on the look and felt very good.

The game itself was wonderful, but in a very strange way. As I mentioned, when I read my character sheet there was next to nothing in it. Some personality, very little plot. I heard other players found the same in theirs. But when we got into game, it took a little digging and faking it until we made it, but there was quite a bit of plot that existed in the world-- it's just that very little of it got into the character sheets. It helped that it was very strongly based in Greek mythology that, being geeks, we were all pretty familiar with. But I had a wonderful time, particularly interacting with the other excellent larpers, without whom the game would not have worked at all-- it takes active, creating player to dig up plot out of the ether like that. Highlights included offside7* and a new larper named Kelly Morgan as my sisters who gave me dramatic conflict and support at the same time, morethings5* who had a note-perfect transformation partway through the game that would have been awesome if only for the look he gave me at one point, and Alex Pogue as my Theseus who made the romance plot so interesting and fun. There was also a particular twist that I thought was a very clever way to get a crucial element into the game. I got the feeling there were a handful of characters who didn't have enough to do, but for the most part the nebulous plot was available for everyone to seize on to. Still, if it were up to me I think that plot really needs to get put into sheets. I don't know if it was a stylistic choice or if the writers just ran out of time and had to fill the sheets with something. I highly recommend this in its current state, if only on the condition that you are an active, independent player, but I can honestly say this is the most enjoyable game I've ever played for which I would still recommend a total character sheet rewrite.

The other other game I played was as Irene Adler in An Evening Aboard the HMS Eden. I put together a costume I was very pleased with relatively inexpensively, including a thrift store prom dress with a corsety-looking bodice, a gauzy black blouse beneath it to give it sleeves, and a wide Kentucky Derby bonnet with ostrich feathers on it. But I'm sorry to say I was quite disappointed by this game. It had a very fun theme/set dressing, but the writing was, at least in my part of it, pretty lackluster. As I said to some people after the game, all the direction I had was ticky-box goals-- what boiled down to "Okay, go ring that bell over there!" and once you've run over and rung it, you're unsatisfied because there's no reason to have wanted it nor anything interesting that comes of it. Join that club that doesn't do anything, buy a bigger airship that you can't actually use in game, cure this disease that doesn't have any in-game effects so why waste the time, that sort of thing. The only things in my sheet that were like actual plots, the mystery of what was going on with my sister and what the deal with this item I had was, no one seemed to know anything about so I made no progress on them. Not everyone seemed to have unengaging plots, Jared had a pretty good time and a number of people seemed about to stay busy, but I got the impression that around a third to a half the game was in the same situation I was. It was just very amateurish larp-writing, and though the GMs I asked for help didn't really managed to point me in any useful direction, I will give the gentlemen credit for trying really, really hard. I worry I came across as a difficult player, for which I'm sorry, but I think I failed to convey, no, I don't want another ticky-box to check off, I want a plot thread, but given the writing in the game they may not have been able to understand the difference. I will be hesitant to sign up for any game by these authors again.

Last thing I did this weekend was help natbudin*, emp42ress*, and simplewordsmith* run our game Resonance. By this point I was draggy and tired, but fortunately this run of Resonance mostly ran itself. We had a very good group of players who bought fully into the concept and were happy to ride the rails of the story we'd laid out. This game relies heavily on that willingness in order to work. We also implemented a new device in the third act to see if we could convince players to play it out the way we'd intended. In the first run, the third act didn't happen like it was supposed to at all, so we tried a subtle restructuring. It mostly worked if not entirely in the second run, and didn't really work at all in the third. So this time we basically put in a plot hammer. The hammer made it so the players had no choice but to do what we wanted them to. I think the players were fine with it, but seeing it in action I've decided from a writer's standpoint that I do not like the particular technique we chose. It is a kludge, and it's slightly off-tone in my opinion, but I will say that it works and players are okay with it, so ultimately it's an acceptable mechanism. I prefer the subtler one we implemented for the second and third runs, and I'm not really sure why it didn't work, but the fact of the matter is it didn't.

Also, one of my fellow GMs Danielle pointed out how susceptible this game is to becoming derailed by issues of Maslow's heirarchy of needs. We want the players to be thinking of higher-order issues, that's what the story's about, but the game's setting suggests threats to safety and physical well-being that human nature tends to want to attend to first because you can't do anything if you're dead. We need those threats to exist in a vague sense to maintain the atmosphere, but we really need to manage how pressing they are so as not to distract players from the real, emotional issues we want them to explore. We struck a good balance in this run, but I remember how previous runs have been stalled simply by questions of "But will we be safe if we do X?" that resulted in a reluctance to move forward into the unknown.

I left early on Sunday to catch the last show of Titus, which I'm glad I did, but still, I was sorry I couldn't spend more time socializing. Intercon is one of the most important moments of my year, and I love how it surrounds you with creative, interesting people. I was happy to hear that Jared and EB's game House of the Rising Sun ran great, as did The Prince Comes of Age by Kindness, Matt, and Bernie. Congratulations to everyone who brought their artistic labors, and thanks to everyone who helped make this con so wonderful.

Second-round Intercon signups tomorrow

Tomorrow at 7PM second-round Intercon signups open. My first round I signed up for Feast of the Minotaur because it looked to be filling fast, and I'm really glad I got in. It sounds like a fantastic game and there's lots of cool people in it, so it should be a fun time. I've decided that if I get cast as a slave girl, which is a possibility, I will wear the crinkly tan prisoner dress Steph wore when the Duchess of Gloucester was arrested in Margaret. Maybe I'll cut it to knee-length, we'll see. At any rate, I am really excited for that game.

That means I am booked for Friday night with that and Saturday night with running Resonance. This is the only game I've ever run at Intercon that has always filled first round! Yay for us. But that means I still have three slots open. I think this may finally be the year that I don't overload myself with games, so I think I will only sign up for one more thing. My first choice for the morning on Saturday was A Garden of Forking Paths, which also already filled-- congratulations, AE! --so I think I will be sleeping in for the first time in years. I never play Sunday games, so that leaves Saturday afternoon. I think it will be An Evening Aboard the HMS Eden for me. Jared and I like to try to have one game a con together, and we both thought this one sounded fun. I have a weaknesses for Victorian literary pastiches, and I have only ever played one other, LXHS. I think that will make for just the right amount of occupied time, and maybe I won't be so utterly blown by the end of the weekend.

Casting probably won't happen for a long time yet, but I would love it if this year I got to use some of the things I picked up just becuase "they're sure to make a good costume someday." My ballerina-like, peachy-pink pixie dress, for one. The real mink fur stole I found at Savers once. My cream and gold halter-style Cordelia dress. The old-fashioned ivory wedding dress I simply had to have when I found it in the course of shopping for Margaret. (Will have to post pictures of that one.) I even have a bustle I picked up for three dollars at the otherwise-disappointing Brandeis costume department sale. Probably out of luck for Feast of the Minotaur, which takes place in ancient Greece, but who knows, I could see any of these pieces being possibly useful for HMS Eden. I could get cast as Miss Havisham and get to swan around mournfully in the wedding gown, or something!

ninja_report* also sent out a call for registration to Festival of the Larps recently. Early registration helps give an idea of attendance, which helps estimate per-timeslot player counts, so it would help her out if you can indicate that you're coming now. I must say, all this thinking of Intercon and Festival makes me itch to get back to larp writing. I have purposefully held off working on my newest idea Imperium, a vaguely I, Claudius-inspired larp set in Ancient Rome, because I wanted to focus on schoolwork and playwrighting. But now that I've finished my last assignment for the semester, and classes don't start up again until January... I find myself tempted to switch gears, at least temporarily while school is not in session. I'd love to have a new game to debut at Festival. I guess I just worry that I won't have enough time to write that and the stuff school will require of me between now and April. But the temptation, she is strong... I guess I'll have to think about it and come to a decision sooner rather than later, so I leave myself enough time to write and bid if I end up doing the crazy thing...

Impressions of the Intercon L schedule

The schedule of games for Intercon L is now available for viewing. I'm on bid com, so I knew all of these things were going to run already, but now the schedule is available for everyone to see. As is my custom at this stage of con preparation, I will now go over my current thoughts for what my signup plan shall be.

Friday night I think my preference is for Feast of the Minotaur. It's written by Andandi Gandolfi, who has an excellent track record, and I like the Ancient Greek mythology setting based around the myth of Theseus. Also interesting to me is Colonel Sebastian T. Rawhide's Circus of the Spectacular, which is a classic I've heard very good things about. I've already played in House of the Rising Sun and I highly recommend it to those of you who are pondering your own options for Friday night. Venezia will probably have a test run at Brandeis before Intercon rolls around, and I will try it then.

Saturday morning, I'd go for Garden of Forking Paths. This is the work of my sometime coauthors emp42ress*, natbudin*, and simplewordsmith* taking the "your choices affect the nature of your game" concept touched on in Resonance to an even greater extreme, with simultaneous runs of the same scenario affecting where everyone else's scenario ends up. I'm not sure how it's going to work exactly, but I know this group does amazing, envelope-pushing work and I'm always game to play something they've written. Failing that, I still haven't gotten into a run of Concordance Station written by readerofposts*, or if all else fails I could always sleep in.

Saturday afternoon the options are not leaping out at me. I would probably go for An Evening Aboard the HMS Eden. It sounds interesting, being a pastiche of Victorian literary characters aboard a cruise ship, and even so Jared thinks he's going to sign up for it, and it would be nice for us to have a game together. I confess I'm curious about Nat and Vik's Harmony Quest, despite the fact that I've technically been spoiled on it and when I first heard about it I was certain it wouldn't be my kind of game. Still, there's a morbid streak in me that wants to know just how uncomfortable I'd be. Also I've heard it's well done for the style of game it is, and as was said by at least five members of bid com, I trust Nat. Probably won't go for it, but the thought has crossed my mind. I also have some curiosity as to how The Linfarn Run is, being an intimate Brit game, though I'm not really interested in Firefly.

Saturday evening I will be running Resonance with the aforementioned writers from Alleged Entertainment. We're quite proud of this unusual sort of game, so if you haven't played yet it might be worth your while. Of the games going up concurrently with it, I'm quite sorry I won't be able to play in Port Hidalgo, a well-regarded pirate adventure, and I've heard good things about Roanoke, a game about the Sir Walter Raleigh's colony in Virginia. I tend to like period games.

Sunday morning the only thing that particularly interested me I've already played (GM Space) and so will be observing my usual Sunday-of-the-con tradition of collapsing in an exhausted heap. I do recommend GM Space as probably the funniest larp I've ever played, however, so keep it in mind if you've never been in it.

And that's my plan. Not sure what my first signup will be; logic dictates that Garden, as the game with the fewest number of slots, should be my first choice, so probably I'll go for that. Feast is the other possibility, because although it's large I'm very excited to play it. First round signups open November 2nd, so put it on your calendars, everyone.

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.

Dia de los Sobres approaches

Coming up this weekend is Dia de los Sobres, or Day of the Envelopes, the Saturday where natbudin* and I run Resonance and wired_lizard* and mllelaurel* run Stars Over Atlantis back-to-back. We've got an excellent player group for both games, so I'm very excited both to run my larp and play in theirs.

I must say, Stars didn't immediately jump out at me. The blurb didn't give me a very good sense of it, and given that it takes place in a BDSM club I was concerned the subject matter might not be my cup of tea. But Tory and Lily are really good writers-- I thought The Sound of Drums was excellently written --so I wanted to give it a try. I just got my casting the other night, and from the looks of my character sheet there is something very interesting going on with the plot of this game, so I feel pretty good about it. I will be playing Rhiannon Sinclair, the author whose book reading all the characters are attending. Costuming shouldn't be hard, it's chic artsy-gothy, but I don't really own the pieces I'm picturing. I really wish I had a fitted v-neck blouse with drapey sleeves, because that would be perfect. Maybe I'll wear one of my scarves as a poncho over my mesh shirt. And then maybe my long black skirt I bought for Labor Wars on the bottom, with my black leather tall boots. That might work. I'll have to mess around, maybe give the Moody Street thrift store a quick look.

Jared and Bernie are going to be our AGMs for Resonance. Jared played the game at Festival and had a really good time, which pleased me to no end. Bernie will be in charge of the casting mechanic. We are running it very simply this time around, which was the original plan, but in previous runs there was a bit more managing and handling rather than just letting the data speak for itself. I think this way will make it go a little more quickly. Other than that, the previous run proved that the concept works quite well, and I think this group of players will be suited well enough to the material to give a very cool run.

It's nice to get some larping in the summer, which is typically a real dead season. Yay for roleplaying in my life again!

Doubleheader day of larp-- Dia de los Sobres!

Everybody knows that summertime is the dead season for larp. But it’s tough to go through all those months without a single packet to open. That, friends, is why Alleged Entertainment and Paranoid and Crotchety are teaming up to bring you Dia de los Sobres, or the Day of the Envelopes, a doubleheader production offering you two great packet-packed larps on the same day! Alleged’s RESONANCE and P&C’s STARS OVER ATLANTIS will run one after the other on Saturday, July 23rd in Fitchburg, MA.

If you’d like to sign up for one or both of these great larps, click on over to sign up at:
http://journeysurveys.com/answer/312

RESONANCE
By Nat Budin, Susan Weiner, Vito D’Agosta, and Phoebe Roberts
An amnesia and storytelling larp about tragedy, desperation, and the apocalypse.
11AM to 4PM

STARS OVER ATLANTIS
By Liliya Benderskaya and Tory Root
An amnesia LARP about tragedy, sacrifice, death, guilt, karma, love, sex, gender, and forgiveness.
5PM to 10PM

Larpercalia con report

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

Friday night was Prince Comes of Age, a game the production of which I had heard a great deal. It is, as you may know, set in the larger campaign setting made up by morethings5*, and in fact included larp versions of five PCs of a game he ran a few years ago. I had a blast in this one as a secretly scheming character who was playing several sides against one each other. One of my favorite things to do in a larp is weave an elaborate lie to achieve my ends that everyone buys into, and that is exactly what happened here. Great interactions included my drug-dealing ne'er-do-well date played by Michael Hyde, and speaking very very earnestly to hazliya* in ways that served me and actually did kind of help her despite the fact that I told many, many lies. :-) I highly recommend this game, written by Kindness, Bernie, and Matt to excellent collaborative effect. There is a lot going on and the writing is very well done, though I think the character sheets could stand some pruning-- there is a little over-enthusiastic background scene-setting that is a bit too verbose. And for those of you who were afraid everyone else would be supporting cast to the characters of that campaign's PCs, worry not, the storylines are well-balanced.

Here is me and my date, Ferlis, who spent most of the evening either high or facilitating the getting of others high.



Saturday morning was the second run of my newest solo game, The Stand. The game went well enough and pretty much everyone told me they had fun, but frankly I thought the Intercon run went better. The first time around nearly all the secrets came out except for maybe two, while in this there was a lot more plot that simply failed to materialize. I was especially disappointed that so little of the emotion-heavy plot that would have been bronzite* 's did not come to be, as it's some of my favorite in the game. One thing that may be to blame was that people seemed really low-energy, too tired from the late night before. Also, as solid as the game may be, I don't think anyone was really excited about the concept. They signed up for it because it sounded neat enough and probably on the strength of my name, as I've built up a pretty decent reputation by now. That's flattering, to be sure, but I don't think anyone really sunk their teeth into the concept. I confess I'm slightly disappointed, as the game is extremely full and well-constructed and I think really demonstrates how much I've grown as a larp writer, which I'm not sure really showed through in this run. Ah, well.

Saturday afternoon I played Ruins of Grandeur by Bernie, Matt, Kindness, and Michael, which I really wanted to like. Unfortunately my particular piece of it was fatally flawed in the design and could not function in the game. I'm really sorry I had such a low time, but all my tricks to get engaged failed me. I think by and large people enjoyed it, but my casting was so broken that I had very few hooks into the plot and literally zero power with which to make anything happen. I'm usually the kind of player who can make something up if her character is a little thin and find a way to have my own good time, but when I tried that absolutely no one really met me on anything I did. I wish I could speak to the overall story, but I saw so little of it that I'm afraid I can't give an opinion. I think most people really liked this game and had a good time, but my character must be completely overhauled before they ever run it again.

Saturday night I ran the most recent game I wrote with Alleged, the experimental larp Resonance, and this time it went amazing. At Intercon natbudin* and I were slightly disappointed with how things went-- we had a fairly gamist set of players who didn't seem to really get that the story is supposed to be allowed to unfold to make for an emotional experience, rather than a problem to be solved. This time we didn't have that problem at all. Our group here went with it smooth as you could be; I especially enjoyed their conversations sharing information and trying to speculate on what it meant. Among many others, in_water_writ* was amazing with a character completely against her type, and rigel* fascinatingly stepped into a leadership role. I spent much of the game watching Jared, curious for his reaction, and was pleased to see him leap into the concept wholeheartedly and beautifully act his parts. At the dead dog, bleemoo* gave us the great compliment of saying it may be the best game he's ever played. I am incredibly pleased with it this time around, and consider it proof that our concept is capable of working out the way we wanted it to.

Sunday afternoon I zonked around consuite and tried not to pass out. So, despite some ups and downs, I consider this to be a typically awesome Festival weekend, made even better by the knowledge that I put it all together. Hope you all had a great time, and will be joining us there next year!

Easy but accomplished weekend

Well, that was my first non-packed weekend in quite some time. Spent most of it doing chores, like cleaning the house, laundry, and grocery shopping for the week. It's good to have that all taken care of. It also granted me some much-needed sit on my butt time, which has been in woefully short supply lately.

Edited and sent out the character sheets for The Stand today. God, it is so satisfying to prepare an already-finished game. I have decided to permanently change the gender balance of the game after casting these last two runs. I had one character who I conceived of as male but decided was probably the only one in the game who could be flipped without altering the role too drastically. I had one more female in the first run who didn't want to be cross-cast than I had roles for, so I ended up making that "neutral" character female. In this run, it made sense to also cast that character as female. So I've just decided to keep the part that way. It makes for nine female parts in the game instead of only eight, which is good considering that the other sixteen roles are all pretty firmly masculine.

Also conferred with Nat last night about editing Resonance. We are considering this next run to be another test of the concept to see if the last group of players was the reason that things went differently than we expected they would. If it goes similarly this time, then we will know that the game needs to be altered in order to get it running the way we want. Still, my gut tells me that with a different group of players-- specifically people with a slightly less gamist approach who are willing to go with the flow of the story --things will go much more as we planned.

The last thing of note that I did this weekend was had a really good Midsummer dance rehearsal. I felt like it went really well, like I'd made some real improvement in my dancing, and I had a lot of fun. I've been practicing, so it feels good to know that it paid off a little. I like the piece so much and I really want to do Charlotte's fantastic choreography justice. I also really enjoy having Plesser as my partner for most of my pieces; he's always fun and great to work with. The way you can see him acting the character of Bottom while dancing is awesome. I need to focus more on that myself, I'm still a little too focused on getting through the steps. I intend to practice a little more every night until the performance in hopes that it will become smooth and instinctive, and I can try to bring a little of Titania's personality into it as well.

Intercon K report

Friday night I played Clockwork Cafe. It took me a while to get into it, as my brain was still stuck on my GMing concerns, but once I did I really enjoyed it. I sort of have to make my own direction for a lot of it, but there was enough plot that would be interesting to Madame Xuan to give me enough to do. The highlight of the game was getting to interact with electric_d_monk*, who I always love larping with, who played another third of the unique little trio in black, white, and gray. I wore the gray Chinese dress I ordered from eBay (which fits me just perfectly, I cannot gain an ounce or it's out of the question), my silver pashmina, and absolutely the wrong shoes. The total lack of arch support started my feet off on an uncomfortable state of affairs that unfortunately lasted the whole weekend. As soon as Intercon was over, I threw them straight away. :-P This was also the only fun costume I got to wear for the weekend, as street clothes were appropriate for everything else.

Saturday morning was Snaf University. I signed up for this one because it's a Brandeis classic that I'd never played before, so I thought it was time. I actually really enjoyed the particular challenge of my character, solving a mystery with limitations on my ability to get information from other players. It helped my way of thinking that the mechanic for validating your progress is based on sharing your reasoning with the GMs, and when you're on the right track your capabilities progress. I am proud to say I have now joined captainecchi* as the only other person to get all the way through this character's plot. :-) I like mysteries and information puzzles in larps. The one major complaint I had with the game is the name badges. Most only had numbers on them, and since I had limited ability to ask other players their names and didn't have much of a Who You Know sheet, it was maddeningly difficult to keep track of certain characters. Other than that, though, an interesting and solid game. I'm glad to have finally played, though I am sorry I missed my other choice for that slot, Never, Never Again, based on all the good things I heard about it.

And finally, on Saturday afternoon came The Stand. This was was what I'd been working and waiting for. And I am happy to say it ran very, very well. It seemed like there was more than enough plot for every single character in the game (my primary personal measure of what makes a strong larp) that kept everyone engaged and interacting with each other. (If my observation on that front was incorrect, somebody please tell me which character needs me so I can fix them.) To my pleasure, all but one or two of the dramatic secrets came out as I planned them to in game, and when one didn't the player released it in an appropriate manner. Still, I plan to tweak things to make sure everything comes out naturally like they're supposed to. The map, the thing I was most worried about, mostly worked, with the exception of the travel mechanic. My fear was that players would just systematically check every square on the map if they didn't have any limitations on their interaction with it, so I stupidly imposed time investments necessary to every exploration. That took people out of the game too much. Instead, I think am going by the suggestion made by several players and make it so you can explore a set number of squares every X minutes, not exactly sure how many, but something like that. Hopefully that will expedite the process without taking people out of the game quite so much. Also, it is clear that the map needs a full-time GM, so I'm glad I assigned Bernie to that. It runs well enough with only just one floor GM, but another certainly could not hurt, so I am glad Jared will be helping to run come Festival. All in all, I am quite proud of the game and pleased that so many people enjoyed it. Players, your feedback is much appreciated, so feel free to tell me your impressions or ask any questions you may have.

Saturday night was Resonance, the other thing I was anxious about. The structure worked, and most of the players enjoyed it, but the majority of them interpreted the scenario differently than we expected them to. A few I think never really got the concept. It was pointed out that the game is kind of a backwards larp-- where most give you a fixed beginning and the players decide how it ends, in Resonance you are given a fixed ending, and it is player choice that figures out where it begins. That, I think, is a useful way for players to think about it to understand how it's going to work. I think we could stand to make it explicit that the game is pretty much a railroad the point of which is to watch unfold and understand the truth of and react to, so people shouldn't expecting to change the ending trajectory, and that it is intended mostly as an emotional exercise rather than as an opportunity for players to expend agency. Still, most of the players really had fun, and I do believe it to be a very good game. I think we just need to prepare players for the game a little more directly so that they understand what sort of thing they're getting into. Especially looking at the cast list for Festival, I have a feeling that the next run is going to work just fine.

In regards to the hotel, which I didn't stay at and did not end up spending a dime at, I was fine with it. The only things I experienced were the positives, such as the close location that enabled me to drive in and the beautiful and useful function space, or the minor negatives, such as the slightly decentralized social space. One thing I have to say is while, yes, the hotel's concessions prices were absolutely absurd, I don't know why anyone was surprised by them. That's pretty standard for a hotel of that caliber. It certainly wasn't any worse than what I was expecting, which is while I packed food for the weekend. Needless to say, I am very pleased with that decision. Especially if things don't improve on the cost front, next year, I plan to do the same for L.

And that was my Intercon. Don't think it's necessary to detail how I spent Sunday, which was in a pit of blackness brought on by my own inability to be a human being lately. The con itself was good.

DREAM PLOT

I had a dream about running The Stand last night. Only, as it always is when I dream about running larps, it wasn't exactly The Stand as it was supposed to be. I must have conflated it with Resonance in my subconscious, because I remember natbudin* was helping me run it, and I was being worried that certain characters didn't have enough to do because other characters they needed to interact with weren't among the fifteen that ended up in the game, which would only happen if you mixed the two game formats.

I remember Dream-Nat having to NPC a giant, and run an expedition into a dungeon. Don't know where that stuff came from. Also, laurion* was there, and though he was playing the character he is in fact cast as for the upcoming run, it... wasn't the character as written, so much. If I recall, Dream-Chad had gathered together a secret society and was trying to summon a demon. I don't believe it spoils anything to tell you that sort of thing just doesn't happen in this game. I mean, I guess anybody could TRY to gather a secret society and summon a demon in The Stand, but... ain't nothing going happen, partners. Ain't no vampires, aliens, superheroes, or time travelers in this here larp.

But what was interesting is that not all the dream-Stand was totally whacked. In fact, it contained at least one thing that wasn't in the game but actually was totally useable in it. The moment I woke up I knew the answer to something I hadn't quite figured out for a certain character. A plot came to me through the dream and I AM TOTALLY USING IT. That's pretty awesome. :-)

Just nine to go

I have only nine sheets left to write for The Stand. I'm finally down into single digits, which is encouraging, but that's still a lot to do by the time I wanted to have them done. I may be a day or two late, but I'm going to try my damnedest. And I still need to write up the rule sheet. It's pretty much standard Breaking Light system stuff, so it shouldn't be too complicated, except for the Horse Wrangling and Cattle Rustling minigames I'm still working the kinks out of. Also, I should probably give a rundown of how the map works. As for Resonance, I believe as of this weekend I have completed all my responsibilities for the game outside of packet stuffing and runtime GMing.

This past weekend was a full one, packed with writing, costume shopping, recording, and cooking. Went to the Garment District with a nice friendly contingent containing ninja_report*, laurion*, lightgamer*, and kamianya* in visiting on break from New York. I didn't need anything really, but there was a storewide fifty-percent-off sale and I had a Groupon, so I thought it might be fun. I hate to say it, but I am never as impressed with the thrift store section of the place as I expect to be. If you're looking for something from a recent decade (like the eighties, for example) with really iconic styling you're set, but if you're just a shopper there's a bit too much that looks just plain dated. It's way better for targeted costume shopping, in my experience. Still, I found a nice navy pinstripe blazer from Kenneth Cole that fit well, though I wish it didn't have the four close-set buttons down the front that make it seem every so slightly passe. I also picked up a printed gold- and rust-tone silk Brooks Brothers pocket square. I love the color and the old fashioned patterned, though I'm not exactly sure how to wear a square scarf of this size. Today I decided to try rolling it into a band and tying it around my neck in a plain knot. I think I like it, but I'm not totally sure it doesn't look affected. You be the judge.

Does it work, or do I look like Fred from Scooby Doo? Also not sure the blouse collar doesn't interfere with it too much.

Thanks for the Hebrew translation

I would just like to take a moment thank Jonathan Plesser for being a good friend, an obliging Hebrew translator, and a talented actor. He just very kindly recorded a piece that will be one of the finishing touches on Resonance, and I'm pretty pleased with how it came out. And I know he is just going to be the best damn Steamthello and most hard-core steam-powered master carp Hold Thy Peace could ask for.

Writing stuff

Officially hit the halfway point with sheets in The Stand. Not bad, but given how little time I've got left, I've really got to ramp up production. I like what I have so far-- I like really plot heavy games, and so far I have yet to write a sheet that I am concerned will not give a character enough to do. This weekend I am basically installing myself at my desk with the goal of getting more than one sheet a day finished. I will accept no fewer than four sheets accomplished at the end of that period, though I will be shooting more for six. That will give my schedule a bit of a boost. I also should probably write up a rules sheet to send out sooner rather than later. The rules aren't complicated for the game, but they still should have some explanation beforehand.

Resonance is so very, very close to being done. We really are down to the loose ends at this point, and some finishing touches that will give the game that little extra something. I just wrote two pieces of my final assignment, have two more pieces to do, one of which is arranging with a certain Jonathan Plesser to contribute a voice. I am enlisting his acting (and language) talents to record a little piece for the project. :-)

In neat news, I got my first paycheck from Examiner.com! I am ridiculously pleased. On a per-article basis, it's a pretty small payout, but still! I made money off writing something! That's kind of a thrill. Not as cool as the time I was paid to run Alice in Chicago, but really cool all the same.

Current status regarding Intercon things

The drop in The Stand was filled! Yay, that's a weight off my mind. I am pleased to report that this new player even likes the character she will be stepping into. So the game is full again, and I can only hope there will be no more drops between now and the time of the con.

Writing is coming well to varying degrees on both games I will be running. We are in the last round of writing assignments for Resonance, which means by the next meeting all written content for the game should be generated. Yay us! I am so excited to see how that game, with is highly unusual structure, will play out. As for The Stand, writing is coming a little more slowly. The character sheets are not short, there are a lot of them, and I am the only writer for the game. I have put myself on a strict schedule that I am confident will allow me to get things done in reasonable time, it's going to be a lot of work and ask a lot of discipline of me. I will be very, very pleased with myself when it's finished.

Of the two games I am playing, I still have only my character for Clockwork Cafe. Unfortunately upon getting my costume hint my entire plan for costuming was forced to change; apparently the color I am wearing is extremely important, and what I had planned wasn't it. Fortunately I have already found something nice and not terribly expensive to use instead. I bought it off of eBay yesterday and it should be in within the next week or two. Haven't gotten my Snaf U character yet, but I know and trust the GMs so I'm not bothered. I also don't think I'll need a ton of time to figure out costuming for that one, since I believe it takes place in the modern era.

So, lot of work ahead, but I'm not in a bad place. Wish me luck getting this writing for The Stand done so the game is as good as I know it has the potential to be!

My personal Larpercalia plans

So, in the midst of this depression, let's try to focus on something positive. The Festival schedule is up and looks absolutely gorgeous, thanks to our wonderful GMs for bidding so many fantastic games. It's going to be a really good con. We currently have seventy-one people already signed up. That's less than I am expecting in total, which ultimately is around a hundred, but I'm uncertain of whether or not everyone usually signs up in advance, or whether they wait until they can actually sign up for games, or whether we'll get many people late rather than early in the process. Still, I expect a full complement of attendees by April.

Now! My personal plans for the con. As I said, there are so many good games, but alas, I have two slots taken by what I am running, and even then great games had to run opposite each other. Alas, there is nothing for it. Here is what I have elected to settle upon:

Friday night I am excited to play in The Prince Comes of Age. It looks very fun, and I am delighted to support the writing team, which is headed by morethings5*, who now holds the title of newest larp writer to come out of Brandeis. A Crown of Hearts also looks fantastic, but I will have to wait to play that one later, as I am already promised to Prince. :-)

Saturday morning I will be running The Stand, my newest solo project. It's shaping up to be one hell of a game, and since this will be the second run, hopefully by then it will be totally-fine tuned. Hope you'll consider playing, if you weren't among those kind enough to go for the Intercon run!

Saturday afternoon I have also promised to play in Epoch's Waning, Chapter 1: Ruins of Grandeur. Frankly I hate the title, but I am interested in the setting and tone of the game. Again I want to support the writing team, and since this is Bernie's baby, I have agreed to play and give what suggestions I have.

Saturday night I am running Resonance, the experimental brainchild of natbudin*, emp42ress*, and simplewordsmith* that they have graciously asked me to help write. It should be intense and novel, not to mention with a really unique structure, so if you're in the mood for something weird and deep, give it a try! I'm sorry to miss Better Off Dead and the others, but them's the breaks sometimes.

Sunday morning I will probably sleep like the dead, like usual. Still, all the games look pretty fun. Might have to break my no-Sunday-games rule, but we'll see.

So. What are you all playing in?

Writing progress, writing projects

Though yesterday was not as productive as I hoped it would be-- I ended up taking a long nap, which I needed, but it ate up more time than I would have liked --still I have accomplished a lot lately. I finished brushing up my old cut of Othello, a play so long it simply does not do to perform it unedited anymore, and passed it along to Jane and Emily for them to work on over winter break. I am making lots of progress on The Stand, a game I am trying a new style of work on, that of holding off writing character sheets until I have totally hammered out the plot. Normally I just write as it occurs to me, and the sheets end up taking forever. I think this method may make the process go more smoothly once I finally get down to it. I've gotten one out of three characters done for the next Resonance meeting. I have kept up with my every-other-weekday posting schedule for my Examiner.com articles. And, in a department that has frustrated and demoralized me a lot recently, I finally got back on the horse and gave another shot. I won't say any more about it in case it doesn't turn out, but failure and not trying have the same end result, so I figure the only way to have a better outcome than that is to give it another shot. We'll see what happens, I guess.

Still, there is a lot to go. Those two other Resonance characters have to be done by the meeting this coming Sunday. I need to get to the point where I actually can start breezing through those Stand character sheets like I hope I will. And over the next month, the script for Merely Players needs to be finished. That's not a small amount of work right there. But I am pleased with the projects I'm working on; I'm proud to be part of them and though sometimes I just want to lay in a lump and whine, "I don't waaaaaaaaaant to write anything!" it is always worth pushing myself in the end. ;-)

Today-- work

Today is for getting things done. I have a number of writing projects that I need to buckle down on, and the good start I got yesterday makes me all the more keen to make a dent in them. I finished my Resonance characters and brought them to the meeting, and today I was struck with an idea for another that I can do for the next meeting. I wrote it just now, and I can cross off one of my three. Yay! Heh, I have a funny tendnecy to write one of my assignments immediately after the previous meeting and forget to do my other assignments until the day before the next one. *eye roll*

But now I shall move on to other things. I have a lot of stuff on my list right now, because idle hands are the devil's blah blah blah. My plan is to go home, cook myself a big tasty pot of cream of broccoli soup, and munch this warming brew all day while getting my writing done. My list as it currently stands:

- Work on The Stand
- Write at least 2 more sheets for Resonance by the next meeting on 12/12
- Finish going over my cut of Othello to give to aurora_knight* so that if her proposal goes through she can work with it over the break
- Work on putting together a script for a cabaret-style Shakespeare revue performance put on by a fictional Shakespeare troupe, because HTP seems interested in doing another side project this coming semester

A restful, if unproductive, Thanksgiving

I have been a bad blogger, not writing a single entry over my Thanksgiving break. But the break was so pleasantly low-key and relaxing I just didn't have the drive to do it. After the insanely busy three previous weeks I've had, doing nothing but hanging with my parents, cooking, eating, sleeping, and playing with the dog was all I wanted to do. It was very restful, though, so I hope I can proceed more energetically and productively from here. Merlin is a lovely dog, very gentle and sweet. He was a bit nervous when we first arrived, clutching his little armadillo baby and pacing around, but he calmed down quickly and became our friend. It was very good to have a dog around the house again.

Home, and the ritual of Thanksgiving, is much the same as it ever was-- there was something very comforting about the holiday being the exact same kind of nice as I remember it --except that my dad's beer brewing hobby has taken over large chunks of the space. The basement, which is finished and like another room of the house, was filled with huge cookpots and bags of grain and complicated rig used for boiling the water and transferring it from pot to pot. Werts in glass carboys sat in various locations around the house in plastic tubs with labels on them, covered by cardboard boxes to keep out the light. Dad has something like thirty gallons of beer going, and is really excited to talk about and show people what he's done.

As much as I enjoyed hanging around with the family, there were a number of things I meant to get done, and I didn't work on any of them. The first priority is getting the characters I owe for tonight's Resonance meeting written up. I've got two of my required three finished, but I'm not sure what to do about the last one. I also need to get cracking on The Stand. I got a few casting questionnaires back already, which pleases me immensely, and I hope that now that the holiday is over people will have time for them. But the upshot is I have a lot of writing to do, and I'm slightly annoyed with myself that I didn't use my time off more efficiently. Ah, well, nothing to do from here but go forward, and buckle down.

Getting going on larps



Wrote my first Resonance character yesterday. I feel like I came up with a clever way to represent the concept I chose from the concept list, so I'm pretty pleased with it. My one concern is I'm uncertain whether or not the sheet contains a little more information than is supposed to be revealed at the part of the game when this sheet would be read. I guess I'll find out at the next meeting. I need to write at least two more before then. They're short sheets, so once I have an idea there's no problem, but I need to have sufficiently clever character ideas before I can get started.

I just noticed two more people signed up for The Stand! That brings us up to six men and one woman. I am very pleased by the presence of the names I recognize. Final round of signups for Intercon go live tonight. That means you can sign up for as many remaining games as you want. I am finished signing up for things, as I am already playing two and then GMing too, but I will be interested to see and hear what other people do. Resonance filled up first round (wow, yay!) but I'm excited to see who's going to end up going for The Stand. I think it won't have any trouble filling once things open. Jared thinks he's going to be one of them, so he can help me GM it at Festival.

Which reminds me. I will be making an official announcement about this soon, but I'll give early warning to all of you that I have decided I would like to have a schedule up for Festival of the Larps by the first week or so of January. That means between now and then you should be sending in your game bids through the Festival website. Over the next month and a half I will be assembling the team to evaluate bids, which gives you all plenty of time and yet still gets the schedule up way in advance. So think about your bids, and get them before January!

First Resonance meeting

For the first time in days, today I woke feeling somewhat refreshed. I don't know if I actually slept better or if I'm finally catching back up, but it's good to not get up feeling almost as exhausted as I was when I went to sleep. Still, I plan on taking it easy today. My only responsibility is to see that Jared gets to the airport okay. It was a lovely visit, and so nice to have him around for the show. I'm very pleased with how well we used our time together, him being helpful and supportive when I had to be at the show, and spending quality time together when I didn't. He even helped me with all the chores I neglected in favor of build and rehearsals this past week, so now I am almost caught back up. With any luck he will be back again soon, so I am in a fairly positive mood.

Had my first meeting with the Resonance team last night. I was given the whole rundown of the game and how it works, and I am very impressed with the concept. It was described by emp42ress* as a "choose-your-own-character amnesia game," which means that we won't know what kinds of characters will end up being in the game until the players choose them, and then "remember" more and more about who they are as they make their choices. And in addition to being experimental, it's going to be intense-- the storyline is a real emotional wringer. As always, I am honored to be asked to work with them-- they are such talented larp writers, and they encourage me to expand my horizons into nontraditional, experimental styles that I probably would not have attempted on my own. The writing process for this game is different than any previous one, so I'm excited to try my hand at it and see how I do.