Domm'd

Played in Leash this past Saturday. I must say, though I had my reservations, I ended up really enjoying it. My character had a strong BDSM element to it, and while I was not bothered by that fact, I knew it was going to take some boldness on my part to be able to act like that toward other people in public without feeling totally embarrassed. But I relished the acting challenge of contrasting that part of the character with her normal quiet, more goody-goody personality, so I figured there was no point in doing it if I didn't do it all the way. Jared helped me make a costume that would be easily hidden under my big old rust-colored suede blazer (really need to get that thing tailored), and I decided that it would be best if I arranged with someone who I was comfortable with and vice versa to have a little scene. I settled on morethings5 as a personal who fit that bill, and would make the scene interesting. So, though I had a wee bit of trepidation, in the end I just went for it.

Looks like I got over my reservations, I guess. :-) And Jonathan was an excellent scene partner. Thank you, dear, for rolling with me! I also ended up going off on bleemoo*, with whom I did NOT confer beforehand, but I think that turned out okay as well! Again, thanks for being such a good sport!

Beyond that, the game is good overall, with good plot and lots of reasons for characters to interact. I like how the powers and mechanics were just very flowy, and yet did not interfere too much with each other. I liked it very much and would recommend it, provided you're comfortable with dark and mature themes. There was more intense stuff than just my character's, and a lot of it was kind of twisted, but I enjoy that stuff so it didn't bother me. So my compliments, hazliya* and elenuial*! I am suddenly now particularly interested in Better Off Dead when it runs at Festival, but I doubt I will have time for it with all my other committments. :-(

Also, on Sunday I played in Lise's FantasyCraft game. The mystery is really starting to emerge, and I think the plot she designed is really very clever. I love being Ophelia and getting to say inappropriate things. I also am really happy about the company being who it is, which makes the game even better. Jared tagged along to the game this time and then we all went out to dinner afterward, which was lovely. All in all, this was a fantastic weekend full of lovely lovely gaming.

Stage kitten

So all the week I've been helping out backstage for the Wrathskeller, the Boston Babydolls Halloween production at the Cambridge YMCA. It's a really fun show, and I am happy that laurion* asked if I wanted to help with it. He's a very good stage manager, and a fun part of the show itself as well. I am being what is known as the stage kitten, the person who collects all the shed costume pieces between the acts. Though I am enjoying the experience, I have most definitely decided I like being onstage far more than I like teching. Stage crew specifically does not suit my skill set. As an actor, I have developed the tendency to focus strictly on bearing my part of the show, getting my cues right, minding my own timing, doing whatever little responsibilities have been closely assigned to me. If actors worry too much about whether or not other show things are being done, they get distracted and miss their cues, so they are encouraged to just trust the techies and the other actors and do their own parts. But as a techie you have to be aware of everything that's going on in order to time your stuff right, and to be able to provide the most support to everyone else. It's been a tough mentality shift. Also, being slightly nightblind, doing things in the dark isn't my strong suit, and hunting across the stage for lost pieces of clothing and then collecting them all as quickly as is necessary is not the easiest thing in the world for me. I am doing a passable but not great job of it. I probably would be doing better if I'd been able to be there for more rehearsals, but I imagine even with practice I can never be more than a strictly average stage tech.

But I got to wear a neat costume. I wore the neat bodice I found with the red corduroy side out over this gauzy black blouse I have that is a fantastic psuedo-period costume piece because it is ruffly, and a floppy enough fabric that I can get it to drape pretty much however I want, in this case off my shoulders. On the bottom I wore a full black skirt with flounces in it, graciously lent to me by blendedchaitea*. I was pleased because it suited the show's overall aesthetic, but wasn't so flashy that I drew unnecessary attention to myself. I ran into in_water_writ* and bleemoo* afterwards, and had a lovely time chatting with them for a bit. It was nice to see them, it felt like it had been a long time. Jenn was nice enough to snap a couple of pictures of me. Pardon the lousy lighting and low quality, it was just on my iPhone after all.

The show itself is really cool. It has this very 20's aesthetic to it, and tells a creepy story in a seedy cabaret setting with a great gothic atmosphere. The dancing is excellent, and the costumes are really fantastic to look at. And though I confess I personally don't find it all that hot (I've learned I find pasties and g-strings more absurd-looking than sexy, plus none of the ladies are my type) they are certainly experts at the art of burlesque. It's going on now through Halloween, so there's still time to check it out.

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!

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.

Lovely dinner and stand-in Riker

Dinner with rigel* and bleemoo* was lovely last night; they were excellent company and wonderful dinner guests. I shall have to have them over to cook for more often. The apple cider chicken came out well; it's basically a sauteed chicken dish in a thick, coarsely pureed sauce made of carrots, onions, cider, heavy cream, and apple vinegar, topped with a garnish of a sauteed apple slice in butter. I thought all the vegetable flavors worked well together. Having made it once I think I can do it without the cream, but it would take away from the richness of the puree. Rigel suggested trying almond milk, which might be a non-dairy way of keeping it creamy. I like that idea; I've never had almond milk before, but I've always wanted to try it.

Joe is coming to visit today for the rest of the week, along with his girlfriend and another friend of theirs. I'm excited to see him. He's going to be filling in as Riker in the Burn Notice session I'll be running this weekend. That promises to be interesting; I'm really looking forward to seeing what he'll do with the character. At the moment there are two storylines active in the campaign-- one a job for a friend of Donovan's mother that involves busting up an underground boxing ring, the other about Gwen's brother and ex-fiancee coming from Ireland to warn her that someone's trying to frame her --so I've got to sort out how those two will interact in this session. I guess I could put one on hold for the other, just so one has a chance of getting resolved sooner rather than later, or I could just let them follow whichever thread they prefer at the moment. That probably will require even more planning on my part-- I like an extremely well-planned out campaign --so I'm going to have to buckle down.

Productive day

I am pleased to report that yesterday was a productive day. Got a good chunk of work done on the Labor Wars character sheet that is due for our next meeting, though I'm not quite finished with her yet. I like this character; I think she's the sort I'd be happy to play. I hope I'm doing her justice.

Also, made a little progress on acquiring set pieces for To Think of Nothing. I accompanied Bernie to Staples and happened to find a stack of desk blotters, a number of which were out of their packaging and somewhat damaged. The new ones were forty dollars, significantly more than I was willing to spend on such a thing, but it occurred to me to ask if I could buy the messed up ones at a discount. They let me have it for three dollars plus tax! It's not even all that damaged; I think with a little repair and polish I can get it looking good as new. :-)

We also went to Home Depot, where I asked about changing the color of the Ikea shelf. The guy told me it would take a lot of luck, skill, time, effort, and tools to get that thing to look halfway decent, and I probably wouldn't have any success with anything that would make it look like wood. I also would probably end up spending so much on the necessary paint and tools that I should probably just buy a new cheap shelf in the color I wanted. Well, not what I wanted to hear, but okay. On to plan B. So I did. I got a new shelf about six feet tall and two-and-some feet across in a much darker wood color that looks significantly less cheap and tacky for about thirty dollars. Not bad for how much nicer it looks than it is. I think I will keep it myself after we use it for the show and not ask for reimbursement. I'm a bit disappointed my five-dollar, perfectly-sized find didn't work out, but no matter. I can always just sell it to somebody for what I paid for it. :-) Certainly somebody can use a perfectly good bookshelf.

Tonight I will be having rigel* and bleemoo* come over for dinner. I'm really looking forward to it, I've never gotten the chance to cook for them before. I'm going to try an apple cider chicken recipe that I've never gotten to make before because I don't know what to substitute for the heavy cream in the sauce. Should be a tasty meal, with very lovely company.

Really good BSCF

I really had a good time at last night's BSCF. It was really interesting to have that interviewer there; I'm sorry I didn't get a chance to talk to her. But I got a serious case of the warm fuzzies when I happened to be walking by Matt's interview and the interviewer asked him about his favorite combat system in a larp, and he mentioned the one in Alice! Thank you, Matt, you're very kind, and it means a lot to hear you say that. Though, for the record, it was technically Jared who designed it. I told him I wanted a system that combined random and deterministic elements, so that the stronger character would usually win but the weaker one still had a chance, that somehow involved playing cards. He took those requirements and made the incredibly easy, effective system that I plan on using for all my games. :-D We're such a good team.

Then Sheena ran Unconventional Odyssey for a really fun group. I confess, I was not totally sure I'd enjoy it because I'd heard reports that it was really random and zany-- I thought it was just going to be a lot of random weird things thrown together. That can be fun, but it's not always to my taste, so I just had to trust Sheena that this game would work for me. Sure enough, I was pleasantly surprised to find that all the crazy elements were actually quite well thought out, and planned in such a way that the craziness steadily climbed rather than just be all over the place. The Vampire parody aspect of it was spot-on, so nicely done that I was a little disappointed that the game wasn't all that conducive to actually playing your character's Vampire character. It was have been interesting to see how the parody actually played. I was in the cast role of Jessie, who I joked to Sheena was a mean casting because it made fun of me. In reality she actually is just incredibly fragile and particular to the point of being too prissy to live. I think I may have interpreted that a little too far into bitchiness territory, which may not have been exactly the right note, but it more or less worked and I had a fun time doing it. I got punched out byrigel so I must have been doing something right!

The horde for this game did a fantastic job too. It had a significant number of newer larpers in it who weren't really familiar with the experience of horde, but they all just jumped in and came up with some really great performances. Also, bleemoo was hilarious as the phone player, and I was cracking up over the various phone calls he came up with. I kept wanting to call him with stuff, but the horde kept us so busy there was just no time. Jared ended up as horde as well. In the past he's always expressed a slight trepidation with horde, as he was never sure he'd be good enough at creating multiple characterizations to really enjoy the experience. That is the challenge of the horde from the actor's perspective, and I myself often force myself to ask for horde just to give myself some practice at being very different people. It's quite hard, really. But Jared didn't have to worry; I was really impressed by how varied and strong all his various roles ended up being! It makes me kind of sad I've never seen him in a significantly different double casting on stage; I know he can absolutely embody two separate people at once. I asked him not to try to make Claudius and the Ghost all that different in Hamlet, in the service of making a point, but now that I know how well he can do it, I want to put it to good theatrical use!

Afterward, there were lots of good conversations. I always like talking about larping in a theoretical sense with laurion. He has some really interesting insight, and I remember him giving me a couple of the most helpful pieces of advice when I was writing Alice-- most of all, he clued me into the all-important idea that if you want something to happen in a larp, you need to make the characters want it to happen.

There was a bit of negative business happening as well that I got tangled up in, but I like to think I helped a little bit of resolution happen, so it ended more of less okay. I hate it when two people who I both really care about are just so different that they piss each other off without meaning to by not understanding how the other interprets things. This is complicated when one of the parties is not inclined to acknowledge that they've done anything wrong. For those of you who witnessed this behavior, I will say in that person's defense that they are not trying to be pushy and dickish, they're just not very good at picking up on the fact that people are made uncomfortable by that sort of behavior, and don't understand why people are suddenly angry at them, and so gets angry at that. I think it's okay now, and I hope everyone can forgive and let it go, but that was the one dark spot of the evening. Still, overall, I had a fantastic time with my fantastic hobby with my fantastic friends.