Intercon!

[letterblade]

So: Intercon.

Thursday night: Buzz over to the hotel to attend the Race In LARP panel, which I really wanted to go to, which was pretty awesome. Back home to work on game and barely sleep.

Friday afternoon: Attend three panels. The one on sets, because there's a game in my long-term plans which may require set work; and hey, the more immersive I can make our current games, the better. The one on pacing in LARPs, because that's one of those things that makes me flail. (Which also led to the Most Terrifying Moment of Friday; see below.) And the one on mental illness in LARPs, because that's a topic near and dear to my heart. Get talked into filling a last-minute drop in Stars of Al-Ashtara, which I really wanted to play in (as I had no Friday night game due to signing up for Interesting Times only thirty seconds after signups opened -.-;;;). Accept due to game squee, despite knowing that it would probably mean getting practically no sleep Friday night.

Friday evening: After frantically finishing game (go mllelaurel's mad last-minute writing skillz!), get to con late and find that my role in other-Stars (so-called to distinguish it from my-Stars) was filled by somebody else due to some weird-ass miscommunication. Evidently the gods have decreed that I shall sleep. Stuff game in hotel room; never thought I'd sink that low. Party just a little bit.

Friday night: The gods rescinded their decree. Due to the hotel's miserly failure to provide me with extra blankets for my airbed despite the RIDICULOUS rates (insert rant about Intercon website not informing us about early deadline for getting room block rate), I woke up every hour or so freezing cold to miserably scour the room for more things to pile on top of me. Finally got a bit of solid sleep after transforming myself into a horizontal coat-rack.

Saturday morning: GhostFu: The Jade Emperor's Celestial Tournament, as Scholar Crow Ren. First-off, this was a seriously awesome, incredibly involved game, with a bigger and more detailed economy than I've seen in any weekend-long I've played in, a giant mess of NPCs to enhance the world, and a fucking training montage mechanic. A game I was really looking forward to, but increasingly suspecting that I would not have the energy to pull off. And I was pretty much right in that. My character's function was sort of free-floating chaos, one of those with a ridiculous goal list that could not possibly be fulfilled in game, but trying would have interesting effects. I was quite stretch-cast (upon my request.) So I kind of fumbled around for most of the game, but managed to have some nifty roleplaying moments regardless. Also, so...many...ace...bandages. Was playing a eunuch, so I was trying extra-hard to not read female. Did get to righteously zorch an uppity Mongolian who insulted my manhood, and then even more righteously zorch the guy who killed me. Yay!

Saturday afternoon: The Stand, as Clarissa Dunn. This was a damn solid game, once things got into gear, and I got to be best friends with lightgamer, spent a goodly amount of time being mindfucked, and then was able to walk off having accomplished my main goal, taken a marvelous souvenir, and been on the receiving end of a wonderfully dramatic heroic sacrifice. There was a timeline quirk which prevented me from getting one of my many surprises, but that will be fixed in future runs. Also, horse wrangling mechanic. This seemed to be my con for games with nifty specialized mechanics. Had to bung out early on wrap due to badly, badly needing a nap. Must harass _dragonwolf_ for details I missed later, as I was very much on one end of the plot and not involved in other things.

Saturday night: Premiering Stars Over Atlantis, which was sort of a huge leap into the abyss for me, as I had no fucking clue how this game would run, how well it would run, and whether I'd get lynched by players for a very atypical structure that contained virtually no traditional LARP plot. (I'm pretty sure one or two people did get plot-screwed, part of which was in the writing, part of which was because two GMs are too few to keep up with this game; most plot is GM-dispensed.) The run tested, bent, but did not break the game, so it went far better than the worst-case scenario looming in my head. We managed to pretty much break one character, and severely dent some others, which was one of our goals (hey, it's a serious Paranoid & Crotchety game, we want to make people cry!) I heard a LOT of people raving about it afterwards. I think with some careful revisions, three or four GMs, and ideally a six-hour runtime slot, it will be a much more solid game, but it's clearly got potential, and both mllelaurel and I were totally high on game-squee afterwards.

Late Saturday night: Despite having a splitting headache that did not respond to painkillers, being completely exhausted, barely able to walk, and barely able to form coherent sentences, it was Saturday night at Intercon and I wanted to PARTY. Which mostly translated to flopping around the con suite snuggling people and burbling incoherently about my-Stars. Also, Nat Budin and I have a pact that some day I shall run my-Stars when he can actually play, and he shall run Resonance when I can actually play. Perhaps sometime at Brandeis there shall be the Day of Envelopes.

Sunday: No games, because I've realized by now that Sunday morning games at Intercon are a bad idea for me. Sleep, pack up, hug all the LARPers, got home, and SLEEP MORE. *insert resounding THUD here*

The Most Terrifying Moment of Friday: Realizing that there are players out there who open all their contingency/recognition envelopes before start of game, to read them in advance. Terrifying because this would completely fucking break Stars Over Atlantis, especially if we'd handled things slightly differently than we did.

The Most Terrifying Moment of Saturday: captainecchi and Greg L. having a quiet conversation in a corner. (In character, that is. Out of character, they're both perfectly decent people, and I have no reason to expect either to plot world domination via unpleasant methods.)

The Most Terrifying Moment of Sunday: Realizing that I was so sleep-deprived I could barely talk or write in real English.

Short-term priorities: Relax for a bit, update the Paranoid & Crotchety website (long overdue), get the Festival run of Stars Over Atlantis cast, and whip up a player survey for folks who were in the Intercon run to get feedback for revisions. (Not that we'll be able to do any major revisions or change runtime, which was widely requested, until after Festival, but we can slate them while the game is fresh in players' minds.)

Long-term priorities: Do what revisions we want to do on Stars Over Atlantis. Get out sheets pleasantly before con. Write A Crown of Hearts, which is a solo project of mine, so oh god oh god I'm all gonna die. But I should be able to get it cast and get out costuming notes pretty quickly, at least.

Comments

[matt_doyle]

Man, and I thought *I* had an interesting LARPing weekend... if you;d be interested in talking more about either the games or the panels, I would be very interested in hearing more.

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Dude, I'm, like, always up to talking more about LARP. At least when I, y'know, have time. And I'd love to hear about your work to. Also: how the flying fuck do you get paid for this shit? That is unheard-of on this coast.

[matt_doyle]

Well, I'm getting paid about $20 + expenses, for the fourth LARP I have run for my alma mater's Gaming Club, for which the LARP (whoever runs it) has always been the main attraction of our yearly Con. And it wouldn't have happened except that one of the current students asked me to run a LARP outside of Con, and I explained that writing and then running a 20-30 person LARP is roughly 60 hours unpaid labor, which I simply cannot do more than once a year.

She relayed that conversation back to the rest of the Club. They offered me money. So, it's kind of a unique situation.

Though... she may be hiring me for her 21st birthday, if enough of her friends are interested in LARPing.

[matt_doyle]

Also, I expect my current blog series on the Lightning Age LARP will go on for quite some time, and your questions or feedback would be greatly appreciated. :-)

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

The Most Terrifying Moment of Saturday: [info]captainecchi and Greg L. having a quiet conversation in a corner

Ok, yeah, that is pretty darn terrifying! ;)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I had copypasted that sentence to make a similar comment, although I think I was going to say, "OH DEAR FUCK, RUN. RUN NOW."

wired_lizard: I hope my desires to stick my fingers in your, um, LARP pie (wait, when did this comment get sexual) are taken as they are meant: zomgwtfbbq that game was awesome and now I want to help it continue to be awesome so can I touch this and this and this and help with that toooooo?! :) That said, I wanna help cast and edit and DO ALL THE THINGS because the game is fucking amazing.

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

RUN AWAY.

Oh, baby baby. :D Seriously though: I admit to some sense of propriety about actual edits, but an extra brain to help with casting, nitpicking the game, etcetera, would be very welcome. (Oh, god, casting this run. x.x) Besides, you fulfill the primary criteria for being an honorary Paranoid & Crotchety member: you are a short fangirl. :P

[breakinglight11.livejournal.com]

Harass away, I'd love to answer any questions you may have.

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Probably next time I see you. :) I do better with face-to-face discussions, and it's not like you're not local. Will totally take you up on that!

(That's probably the first time I've had to actually leave wrap early, so discounting the rare GMs like Eric-Kreg-Cameron who don't do normal wraps, it's the only game where I haven't known what's going on afterwards. It's messing with me!)

[natbudin.livejournal.com]

As I understand it, the hotel might be able to fix things for you if you thought you should have been getting a reduced rate and didn't. Contact dkapell for details.

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Well, at the point I booked, the hotel informed me I was not on the Intercon block, due to being almost a month late for it, and I understood and accepted that.

[laurion]

"The Most Terrifying Moment of Friday: Realizing that there are players out there who open all their contingency/recognition envelopes before start of game, to read them in advance. Terrifying because this would completely fucking break Stars Over Atlantis, especially if we'd handled things slightly differently than we did."

The mind boggles. excuse me while I pick up my jaw off the floor.
Part of me wants to say that it makes no sense 'breaking the rules' like that, because it takes away much of the fun of the game, but then I realized I know people who are willing and able to break the rules if it means they 'win'. Someone should tell them there's no 'winning' in larping.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

In this particular case, it was not a matter of winning. The larper in question said that she hated having to read a reaction envelope in mid-conversation and then try to figure out where to pick up from there.

Now, I disagree with her tactic, and there are jerks out there who will read ahead to "win". And, this means GMs may find themselves tweaking games for that, which really sucks.

That said, the larper in question would, I think, self-select herself out of Stars Over Atlantis. I don't think it is her kind of game. I think the jerks who want to win would also do that. At least, I hope so, because it's not a game I would want to play with folks not buying into the kind of larp it is.

As for the question of having a conversation interrupted by new information, mnemex said that the obvious thing to do is: Finish your conversation. Then open the envelope.

But, honestly? While I am annoyed by people who say, "Yes, I will break this rule, yes, even if you say it will break the game, because I am convinced that I cannot larp any other way, and I will be very annoyed if you cleverly work around this" (*), this bothers me less than the jerks, because, well, yes, motive matters.

(*) The usual way is by doing contingency envelopes as "Give this envelope to Character Y".

But, it does remain an issue either way.

[mneme]

Thank you so much for playing in Ghost Fu; even with you off your game you were still fun to watch!

Regarding envelopes, I wouldn't design to prevent cheaters. I mean, ok, I have done designs involving cheat-prevention (like having you hold envelopes that you hand/show to other people and NEVER LOOK AT YOURSELF (which doesn't prevent cheating, but at least incentivize it a lot less than trad contingency envelopes), and it's always nice to have a little bit of verifiability when it doesn't cost you much.

But in the end, if someone's going to cheat (and either straight-out break the game, or manage player/character separation so well that you can't tell, not that that's possible in Stars (if the game is at maximal vulnerability, anyway, which mostly wasn't how you were running it)), ok, they're going to cheat. Most players aren't, and 99% of the time (or better) there isn't going to be someone like that in the game at all.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Depends on the venue, honestly. At Intercon, I'm going to be willing to go higher trust with my players.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

May I ask what are these other venues, so I can be forewarned before I run my games that rely on not opening packets early in such places?

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Tricky to quantify. Okay, these are venues where either:

1. You don't know the turf and the players. Example: Running at a general sf con where you aren't even casting in advance. You don't even know if you'll get enough players, or, if you do, if some will wander out. zrealm correctly pegged which two players would wander out in the 8 person run of Jamais Vu at Lunacon, a game which can indeed be run with 8, but was intended for 15-24.

2. You happen to know in advance that there will be, ah, issues. This could mean "Okay, in West Bumblebee, the larpers regularly ignore gm pleas not to share casting information." It could mean "This particular player will use out of character information."

I'm sorry this isn't more helpful. Usually, I rely on the honor system, try to make it easy for players not to cheat by accident, and pray a lot.

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Thanks! It was a super-fun game. I spent some time just kind of hovering and watching other people's training montages and such, and that was fun in itself.

I've considered doing the holding-other-people's-envelopes thing for other games, actually, less in the context of cheat prevention (because I didn't realize until then that people did that*) and more in the context of metagame/surprise management. Because one complaint I've heard about envelopes is that having them on hand can influence who you talk to. The "oh, I have a recog envelope for X, I should talk to them" thing. But building in an envelope trade only sort of solves that, because then it gets reciprocal, and so on.

And there are so goddamn many envelopes in Stars that it's bad enough as is; adding anything else would just bog that down further.

I was originally thinking of having *all* material in envelopes (the rest of it on timers), but honestly, I think it worked better as it was. We could be a little more flexible with how we handled that aspect of things (being deliberately vague here), and the players wouldn't have to be constantly checking their watches.


* I've had kind of a charmed life as a GM, of which I'm well aware. I've never had a cheater (that I've known of) or a high-drama player, and only a few cases where somebody had major problems with a game. *knocks wood* It might just be a player group thing; I usually wind up running games for people I know in this crowd, who tend to be players very compatible with my writing style.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

It was great having you in Ghost Fu! I am sorry I didn't get to see you deal with the uppity Mongol.

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

Thanks for running such an entertaining game! :D

I got to expound dramatically upon elemental powers. 'Twas fun.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Cool!

Have started commenting on Stars Over Atlantis. Is my email getting through?

[laura47.livejournal.com]

"The Most Terrifying Moment of Friday: Realizing that there are players out there who open all their contingency/recognition envelopes before start of game, to read them in advance. Terrifying because this would completely fucking break Stars Over Atlantis, especially if we'd handled things slightly differently than we did."

WHAT? I... can not even respond coherently to that. I try to not get angry at players ever, but if I found one of my players doing that, I would have trouble not flipping my shit. In my book, that is BREAKING THE RULES and straight up CHEATING and I would want to kick such a person out of my game for cheating. It never occurred to me that I need to specify to my players that they need to follow the rules, even with memory packets, so I guess I'll do that. It would also totally ruin Sky No Longer Blue.

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Players fall into a few categories:

1. Those who play fair and know what they should and shouldn't do.

2. Those who play fair, but occasionally get confused or forget something. This is why you should make the obvious announcements -- these players are good players, but sometimes drop one of their balls in the air. I'm in this category. I have often misread something that is really frickin' obvious.

These two are your biggest categories, honestly.

3. Those who cheat for the reasons given at the panel -- not to be a jerk, but out of a genuine belief that they will play better, that the rule doesn't apply to them. I don't know how big this category is. I suspect it is actually the smallest.

4. Those who are jerks. I don't know what to tell you here. They will ignore what you say.

[lisefrac.livejournal.com]

The Most Terrifying Moment of Saturday: [info]captainecchi and Greg L. having a quiet conversation in a corner. (In character, that is. Out of character, they're both perfectly decent people, and I have no reason to expect either to plot world domination via unpleasant methods.)

Hee! I have a reputation to live up to, I see.

Another terrifying thought for you: me and bronzite having a quiet conversation in a corner :)

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

You totally do. :D

...OH GOD. *hides*

[laura47.livejournal.com]

I think with some careful revisions, three or four GMs, and ideally a six-hour runtime slot, it will be a much more solid game, but it's clearly got potential, and both mllelaurel and I were totally high on game-squee afterwards.

eep! any possibility of extending the length at larpercalia? i have a two hour dinner break, and i would be happy to give up most of it, or only have half an hour for lunch. i would be happy to coordinate making food happen for all the players if that would let game be longer, as i am not GMing anything and will have time. i am VERY PSYCHED you see!

[wired-lizard.livejournal.com]

I'll talk with players about this. I could see it being a problem for those who might be running games in the evening, or playing in Resonance or Sex & Drugs & RocknRoll. (At least none of the GMs for those two games are in Stars; that would probably make any schedule expansion downright impossible.)

Food coordination might well help, if you'd be willing to pitch in there. My instinct would simply be the usual "order pizza, everybody bring five bucks, pray nobody's Celiac or vegan here." But I have the food-organizational skills of a trout.