When a Knight's Weekend is over, everyone remembers the sessions they had and nobody remembers the people who made it all possible. Still, when I look back on these, when I talk about them, I try to keep them in mind.
The commission has little control over the actual content of the sessions and this one, in particular, struggled to get enough GMs (one of the members of the commission had to buckle down and run a game). Even so, they do control who ends up in one game, and that can matter a great deal. I heard no complaints about the games people ended up in. Instead, everyone seemed satisfied, which means the commission did a great job with matchmaking. Likewise, the LARP was well organized, with food available and scenery appropriately set.
Beyond the actual session, you need food and lodgings. We stayed at the same place we've been the previous two times, so everyone already knew what to do and where to go, so that was an easy choice for the commission (And the sessions, in particular, didn't really interfere with one another as they had in previous weekends, which is good). The food, in particular, was quite good. Friday's dinner was kind of lame, but Saturday's dinner was delicious enough that I wouldn't mind having the recipe. Xavier really knows his way around a kitchen, and I was pleased that they put me on cooking duty (in fact, most of the people who ended up cooking duty were people who actually loved cooking which is, once again, a sign for their eye to detail).
The organization was solid. Erik sent out helpful suggestions and checklists for things to bring which certainly helped me, and while Xavier got lost in the way there, this was my first time riding my bike to a weekend and I thought it went well overall (well, at least on the way back). The times for everything was clearly posted, as well as the locations for where people were gaming. In fact, Marco wanted to ensure that he and I were running our games in the same room, since both of us were using the battlemaps and needed to share pens, and there was no struggle, no kerfuffle about changing who was where.
This list probably sounds unimpressive. "Yeah, so, they didn't screw up." But really, putting a weekend together is harder than it sounds, and "not screwing up" is a sign of excellence. In particular, their skill was invisible and seamless. People never stopped and marveled at the fact that there was enough food for everyone and that it tasted good, or that the sessions went off without a hitch and that there was something to do at all times as well as some free time for people to work on sessions and relax and just chat. You couldn't see the work they did because they kept it behind the scenes and kept it out of the way of the players. That right there is the sign of masterful organization, where you put something together so well that it seems perfectly natural that it goes without a hitch.
We haven't had two successful weekends in a year in a very long time. And not only did both weekends go off with minimum problems, but they were both highly memorable, at least in my opinion. Well done, guys.
Showing posts with label Spring Weekend 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spring Weekend 2011. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Spring Weekend 2011 Part 3: Cherry Blossom Rain
Let me start, as all good articles should start, with a joke. When Rene finished writing his session last week, he posted to Facebook: Finished with session. Raoul responded: Will finish tomorrow. Bee then responded "Dan has been writing his one-shot since February and still isn't finished."
Alright, so that's less funny "ha ha" and more funny-sad. Still, it highlights how important this session was too me, though putting so much into it almost made me choke at the beginning (the players didn't sense how awkwardly I lurched into the game, but I could feel it). We got a late start (Jozef had to take some people home) and we finally bullied him into choosing his NPC (as the Daimyo of his clan, he had the choice between bringing his loud No-Dachi swordmaster and his elite samurai, his Machiavellian warlord and political advisor and his agile cavalry, or in bringing his sister, who wasn't particularly useful, but really, really, really wanted to come. He chose, to the approval of the other players, his sister). Then I described the kidnapping of the Imperial Princess, Kimiko, by some mysterious Yakuza soldier...
---
I introduced the players. First, Desiree met her samurai's father, who demanded to know why his son (Ren) had paid a king's ransom for her, who she was, and why Ren wanted to marry her, then we shifted her to another scene where the Witch of Jukai offered to curse Ren for her (less because she wanted to protect Yukiko and more because she wanted to harm Ren). Yukiko interfered and took the curse herself. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to hit her with said curse during the session.
Next, we had a scene where Jaap (Katsuro) had been arrested for bar-room brawling, and after revealing some of how the police worked, our noir detective Asano Makoto freed him in exchange for his services hunting down the Yakuza accused of kidnapping the princess, Taro, because he's tied into an investigation into who really killed the previous police captain (Detective Asano never accepted the official story that Taro did it: Too many holes).
Then we introduced Rene(Daisuke) and showed the players the muddy, cluttered, stinky side of Kamurocho. A beautiful Mizushima prince named Kaito gathered rest of the players together in a tea house (including Jozef as Kenta and Raymond as Hayate) where he explained the situation with the Imperial Princess, suggesting that if they rescued her, they could rescind the execution order against the Senshin and their allies (the whole point of the game). And so, they get ready to set out when Tsao Bei, arrogant Chinese Ambassador and Akiyama toady shows up with the Executioner (a terrifying Shinigami warrior) and Dark Shota (a mystical Kakashi seer with a special connection to ravens) and numerous soldiers. Violence erupts as Tsao Bei proclaims that the Akiyama will rescue Kimiko. The battle only lasted about 5-6 seconds, though it took about an hour to play out. Raymond had a nice duel with Shota (which he lost in a contest of wills, but still bravely sought to fight out), and after being frozen solid while watching a samurai cut down Kyo (only 7 damage, which is a pretty bad wound, but survivable), Jozef managed to actually rip through the Executioner's armor with his might blade (I spent an action point to turn it from 24 points of injury to 1 because I wanted to have a rematch later in the session, but still hats off. Man, I always underestimate Kenta), and Rene lost his sword to a beat from the Executioner, who also cut clean through Jaap's sword, hand-clap parried Tsao Bei's blade and tossed it to Jaap. Interrupting the fight, Ren (and Desiree) showed up with his dark and creep secret police and ended the battle, promising Tsao Bei to take the PCs into custody, which he promptly failed to do as soon as the Akiyama allies left.
The party split: Jaap and Raymond took the detective to a gambling den run by a Yakuza named Hachiro, who gambled with Raymond over who would help whom (actually gambled it out, Yakuza style, with two dice and a cup. Raymond lost every toss :( ) and so Hachiro persuaded Raymond to expand the Yakuza's power, in exchange for a meeting with the Oyabun. Meanwhile, it came out in other parts of the gambling den that the police captain had been trying to force a woman to be his lover, and that they suspected she might have been the one who really murdered the police chief, and also, that Taro was generally a really good guy.
Meanwhile, the rest of the players took Kyo (and the barely wounded Jozef) to a doctor (Satomi, who happened to be a woman). Along the way, Rene confronted the fact that Desiree might be the daughter he never knew he had, the child of his one moment of passion with his beloved Aiko. While at the doctor's, discussion turned to Taro, and Desiree, thanks to her character's empathy, picked up on the powerful, romantic and guilty connection between Satomi and Taro, and was able to talk her into taking her to Taro (on the condition that they did it alone, leaving the dangerous Ren behind, whom Satomi worried might kill Taro. Desiree had forgotten that Ren was both very possessive/protective AND had an entire secret police force at his disposal, and had an appropriately chagrined expression on her face as I described black-clad samurai descending upon the city, tearing it apart to look for Ren's missing geisha).
They found Taro (by coincidence, also found by Raymond and Jaap), who agreed to bring them to the princess when Daisuke proved that he belong to the Shimada clan by drawing Legacy, the legendary Shimada blade. He explained that the Imperial Princess had never been kidnapped, but was hiding from the Akiyama and hoping to form an alliance with the Senshin, acting as their "hostage." He took them to the princess... only to discover that his Yakuza rival had gotten there first and snatched her out from under their nose. And there, the session ended.
---
How did it go? The battle flowed so much better than I expected. The players used their signature moves and my NPCs fought in a fascinating manner. The fight was messy and swift, just as it should be, and I think my NPCs (except for Tsao Bei, who came across as a bitch, which is probably appropriate for him) came across as suitably powerful. Raymond really connected with Shota, and the Executioner terrified people to an appropriate degree (Though I wish I hadn't needed to fudge that wound away like that. Must remember: Kenta is goddamn lethal. Should have learned that lesson when Raoul was playing him). I managed to show the players enough of the story that it made sense, and the story swept along rapidly, with every action, every step, leading to more story.
Desiree's response was very positive. She felt it was a shame that we "didn't have enough time," which Raymond agreed with. Given that the session lasted 5 hours, I took this as a good sign, because it meant that nobody had felt bored. Indeed, the system never intimidated Desiree, and when she was struggling to decide what to do, her Common Sense and Empathy kicked in, giving her plenty of things to do. And, in fact, she had quite a few opportunities to show off her "beautiful" skills, performing a tea ceremony for the players at the doctor's house. She was very interested in playing in the campaign (provided she had time, which she was doubtful of), and commented on how she could really see that it was a whole setting. Raymond echoed her sentiments, expressing interest in knowing more about Shota and certainly enjoyed how his character played out. He also spent half the session speculating on what was really going on, which means the mystery engaged him.
Rene left too quickly to comment (we really ended at the very last minute and it was "get out, get your stuff, leave"), but I think he enjoyed it.
Jaap likely enjoyed it too, but he found it hard to follow the names. My large NPC casts are difficult to follow at the best of times, but when Japanese names sound like gibberish, as they do to him, you can lose the thread completely. I had to stop and explain the social situation to the players a few times (Tokens for the win!), and I didn't mind that, but before the game I worried if Jaap and the setting would really fit one another, and I suspect that my worries were spot on. Likewise, Jozef seemed lost, less because of the setting, I think, and more because he was treading outside of his comfort zone. He's an experienced D&Der, and he wants to try other things, he wants to poke at romance and is certainly interested in politics, but joining my game was like jumping into the deep end of the pool, and I think he was a touch overwhelmed by it, though I bet if I asked him, he'd also say he enjoyed it.
But what about me? Just the other day, I was complaining about all the planning I did. In fact, we used almost none of my material. They didn't do any of the Yakuza quests, they found none of Kimiko's jewelry, and they didn't even really pursue Shinobu and deal with Goro. But, to my surprise, I didn't mind in the slightest. Whatever they did, I felt like I not only had the material to cover it, but I was excited to do so. I had so many ideas spilling out of me that, as far as I felt, literally every scene, every moment, was interesting. There was no lull, no boredom, and I was able to bring across the sense of the greater world around them. That's exactly what I wanted. So, yes, all that planning was worth it. This means, of course, that if I want to keep working this way with games like WotG, I need to settle down and start working on it for a week, an hour or two a day for about 4 days which, incidentally, advice I had given to another GM ages ago. Turns out to have been good advice.
I'm going to put CBR down for a bit, let it rest, but already, there are people asking about the campaign, so I think I'll try to kick that off in about a month. More on that later. For now, I'm going to bask in my success.
Alright, so that's less funny "ha ha" and more funny-sad. Still, it highlights how important this session was too me, though putting so much into it almost made me choke at the beginning (the players didn't sense how awkwardly I lurched into the game, but I could feel it). We got a late start (Jozef had to take some people home) and we finally bullied him into choosing his NPC (as the Daimyo of his clan, he had the choice between bringing his loud No-Dachi swordmaster and his elite samurai, his Machiavellian warlord and political advisor and his agile cavalry, or in bringing his sister, who wasn't particularly useful, but really, really, really wanted to come. He chose, to the approval of the other players, his sister). Then I described the kidnapping of the Imperial Princess, Kimiko, by some mysterious Yakuza soldier...
---
I introduced the players. First, Desiree met her samurai's father, who demanded to know why his son (Ren) had paid a king's ransom for her, who she was, and why Ren wanted to marry her, then we shifted her to another scene where the Witch of Jukai offered to curse Ren for her (less because she wanted to protect Yukiko and more because she wanted to harm Ren). Yukiko interfered and took the curse herself. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time to hit her with said curse during the session.
Next, we had a scene where Jaap (Katsuro) had been arrested for bar-room brawling, and after revealing some of how the police worked, our noir detective Asano Makoto freed him in exchange for his services hunting down the Yakuza accused of kidnapping the princess, Taro, because he's tied into an investigation into who really killed the previous police captain (Detective Asano never accepted the official story that Taro did it: Too many holes).
Then we introduced Rene(Daisuke) and showed the players the muddy, cluttered, stinky side of Kamurocho. A beautiful Mizushima prince named Kaito gathered rest of the players together in a tea house (including Jozef as Kenta and Raymond as Hayate) where he explained the situation with the Imperial Princess, suggesting that if they rescued her, they could rescind the execution order against the Senshin and their allies (the whole point of the game). And so, they get ready to set out when Tsao Bei, arrogant Chinese Ambassador and Akiyama toady shows up with the Executioner (a terrifying Shinigami warrior) and Dark Shota (a mystical Kakashi seer with a special connection to ravens) and numerous soldiers. Violence erupts as Tsao Bei proclaims that the Akiyama will rescue Kimiko. The battle only lasted about 5-6 seconds, though it took about an hour to play out. Raymond had a nice duel with Shota (which he lost in a contest of wills, but still bravely sought to fight out), and after being frozen solid while watching a samurai cut down Kyo (only 7 damage, which is a pretty bad wound, but survivable), Jozef managed to actually rip through the Executioner's armor with his might blade (I spent an action point to turn it from 24 points of injury to 1 because I wanted to have a rematch later in the session, but still hats off. Man, I always underestimate Kenta), and Rene lost his sword to a beat from the Executioner, who also cut clean through Jaap's sword, hand-clap parried Tsao Bei's blade and tossed it to Jaap. Interrupting the fight, Ren (and Desiree) showed up with his dark and creep secret police and ended the battle, promising Tsao Bei to take the PCs into custody, which he promptly failed to do as soon as the Akiyama allies left.
The party split: Jaap and Raymond took the detective to a gambling den run by a Yakuza named Hachiro, who gambled with Raymond over who would help whom (actually gambled it out, Yakuza style, with two dice and a cup. Raymond lost every toss :( ) and so Hachiro persuaded Raymond to expand the Yakuza's power, in exchange for a meeting with the Oyabun. Meanwhile, it came out in other parts of the gambling den that the police captain had been trying to force a woman to be his lover, and that they suspected she might have been the one who really murdered the police chief, and also, that Taro was generally a really good guy.
Meanwhile, the rest of the players took Kyo (and the barely wounded Jozef) to a doctor (Satomi, who happened to be a woman). Along the way, Rene confronted the fact that Desiree might be the daughter he never knew he had, the child of his one moment of passion with his beloved Aiko. While at the doctor's, discussion turned to Taro, and Desiree, thanks to her character's empathy, picked up on the powerful, romantic and guilty connection between Satomi and Taro, and was able to talk her into taking her to Taro (on the condition that they did it alone, leaving the dangerous Ren behind, whom Satomi worried might kill Taro. Desiree had forgotten that Ren was both very possessive/protective AND had an entire secret police force at his disposal, and had an appropriately chagrined expression on her face as I described black-clad samurai descending upon the city, tearing it apart to look for Ren's missing geisha).
They found Taro (by coincidence, also found by Raymond and Jaap), who agreed to bring them to the princess when Daisuke proved that he belong to the Shimada clan by drawing Legacy, the legendary Shimada blade. He explained that the Imperial Princess had never been kidnapped, but was hiding from the Akiyama and hoping to form an alliance with the Senshin, acting as their "hostage." He took them to the princess... only to discover that his Yakuza rival had gotten there first and snatched her out from under their nose. And there, the session ended.
---
How did it go? The battle flowed so much better than I expected. The players used their signature moves and my NPCs fought in a fascinating manner. The fight was messy and swift, just as it should be, and I think my NPCs (except for Tsao Bei, who came across as a bitch, which is probably appropriate for him) came across as suitably powerful. Raymond really connected with Shota, and the Executioner terrified people to an appropriate degree (Though I wish I hadn't needed to fudge that wound away like that. Must remember: Kenta is goddamn lethal. Should have learned that lesson when Raoul was playing him). I managed to show the players enough of the story that it made sense, and the story swept along rapidly, with every action, every step, leading to more story.
Desiree's response was very positive. She felt it was a shame that we "didn't have enough time," which Raymond agreed with. Given that the session lasted 5 hours, I took this as a good sign, because it meant that nobody had felt bored. Indeed, the system never intimidated Desiree, and when she was struggling to decide what to do, her Common Sense and Empathy kicked in, giving her plenty of things to do. And, in fact, she had quite a few opportunities to show off her "beautiful" skills, performing a tea ceremony for the players at the doctor's house. She was very interested in playing in the campaign (provided she had time, which she was doubtful of), and commented on how she could really see that it was a whole setting. Raymond echoed her sentiments, expressing interest in knowing more about Shota and certainly enjoyed how his character played out. He also spent half the session speculating on what was really going on, which means the mystery engaged him.
Rene left too quickly to comment (we really ended at the very last minute and it was "get out, get your stuff, leave"), but I think he enjoyed it.
Jaap likely enjoyed it too, but he found it hard to follow the names. My large NPC casts are difficult to follow at the best of times, but when Japanese names sound like gibberish, as they do to him, you can lose the thread completely. I had to stop and explain the social situation to the players a few times (Tokens for the win!), and I didn't mind that, but before the game I worried if Jaap and the setting would really fit one another, and I suspect that my worries were spot on. Likewise, Jozef seemed lost, less because of the setting, I think, and more because he was treading outside of his comfort zone. He's an experienced D&Der, and he wants to try other things, he wants to poke at romance and is certainly interested in politics, but joining my game was like jumping into the deep end of the pool, and I think he was a touch overwhelmed by it, though I bet if I asked him, he'd also say he enjoyed it.
But what about me? Just the other day, I was complaining about all the planning I did. In fact, we used almost none of my material. They didn't do any of the Yakuza quests, they found none of Kimiko's jewelry, and they didn't even really pursue Shinobu and deal with Goro. But, to my surprise, I didn't mind in the slightest. Whatever they did, I felt like I not only had the material to cover it, but I was excited to do so. I had so many ideas spilling out of me that, as far as I felt, literally every scene, every moment, was interesting. There was no lull, no boredom, and I was able to bring across the sense of the greater world around them. That's exactly what I wanted. So, yes, all that planning was worth it. This means, of course, that if I want to keep working this way with games like WotG, I need to settle down and start working on it for a week, an hour or two a day for about 4 days which, incidentally, advice I had given to another GM ages ago. Turns out to have been good advice.
I'm going to put CBR down for a bit, let it rest, but already, there are people asking about the campaign, so I think I'll try to kick that off in about a month. More on that later. For now, I'm going to bask in my success.
Spring Weekend 2011 Part 2: Tenneman's Will
After Houses of the Blooded, I decided that I needed to understand LARPs better. My offer to join the Eindhoven LARP as a moderator (an assistant to the GMs) was met with silence, so I, with reluctance, signed up for the Spring Weekend LARP, hoping against hope that I wouldn't find it terribly boring as I inevitably seemed to find LARPs.
Before I talk about the LARP, I think I'm going to discuss the technical aspects of LARP design. I'm allowed to comment, of course, because I have at least one successful LARP under my belt ^_^ The LARP wasn't released until two days before the weekend which was very short notice indeed. Pim came to me and discussed the LARP design and said that he had wished he had started with it much sooner. I replied "That's why I started in August," which is true. You could certainly see the problems that their late start caused. For example, I received the character of Jopie, the youngest son of the late Gerrit Tenneman, a philosopher and an idealist. I had two children, about whom my sheet had very little and no comment about their mother, and I had some connection with Domingo (played by Marco) but there's literally nothing there, just a blank space. To learn about other characters, I had to talk to others (or, more specifically, they had to talk to me. Sabrina pounced me basically the day we received our characters, calling me "Jopie" and "Papa" and peppering me with in-character questions. Without realizing it, she did a lot to get me into character, to look at myself and see how I would interact with others. I think I really needed that). At the last minute, though, the final piece I really needed to make the character click came in the form of Alida: Raymond walked up to me and said that she was playing the mother of my children, and that she had left me when the children were 2 because of my lack of ambition and money, and that she'd written me a letter to say that she was coming to the reading of the will.
You'd think with these obvious holes, the LARP would have serious problems, and I'm not saying it didn't... but I am saying I had the most fun I've ever had playing in a LARP. I chose to play Jopie as an idealist, someone who was essentially useless because he pursued what amounted to a Liberal Arts degree and secretly expected the world to conform to his unrealistic ideals, but the world wasn't a place where someone earned lots of money or saved the world by sitting in coffee shops talking about feelings or the human condition, but by god, I was going to try! This contrasted with my sister and her husband, ruthless pragmatists who valued accomplishment over empty sentiment (something I, out of character, had a hard time arguing against, and I had to dig deep into feel-good TV cliches to combat). My goal was to keep the house and get enough money to pay off my debts and put my kids through school, as well as ensure that the cook and the butler got to stay on. Meanwhile, the woman who had broken my heart was awfully friendly with my brother and kept approaching my children. I pounced Karin (Alida), told her that she'd given up the right to be "their mother" when she left them, demanded to know where she had been, etc, and generally being a jerk while trying to hide my character's real feelings. She managed to persuade me to let her meet her children while not telling them who she was. We pretended she was only interested in them because of her real estate business, in what I felt was an emotionally charged and understated scene.
As the LARP progressed, Raymond and Pim read different parts of the will, which required different tasks from the players. The most interesting part for me came when we had to divide 20% of the company between the three family members and Christina, the 22 year-old widow of our father (his trophy wife, played by Desiree), and decide who would keep the house. Around then, Domingo told me of his dream to play football (soccer) pro and his father's disapproval (Jan, played by Arjen, the eldest son of Gerrit and my brother). I talked Jan into connecting again with his son, telling him what he told me, which was that he didn't disapprove of Domingo's desire to play soccer but that he felt Domingo should put his heart and soul into it. When they connected, it also meant that Jan and I connected too, so he was all too willing to go in with me on the house, to keep the butler and cook on. At the same time, Loese (played by Jasmine, her first LARP) revealed to us that she'd been having an affair, cheating on her husband. Pouncing on the first moment of vulnerability and emotion expressed by my "haughty" and "excessively practical" sister, I pushed her to divorce her husband and love-bombed her with all the moral support she needed, and so reconnected wit hher. We'd left out Christine, who wanted a single percent of the company, but she and I had been talking (She loved the house as much as I did, especially the piano room), and I felt 1% just wasn't enough, so I talked both of my siblings into giving up 1% each, to get her up to 3% (and in the final negotiation, it became 8% for Loese, and 4% for each of Jan, Christine and myself).
Around then, I decided that it was hypocritical to tell Loese to chase her passion and love while I was yelling at the love of my life, pretending I didn't care because I didn't want to get hurt. And so I swooped down on Karin and told her I had been a fool, confessed my feelings for her, and used the same idealism to break down her guard, to rebuild the family that had fallen apart.
I didn't learn until after I had done this that Christine had fallen in love with my character, and had been in love with him for quite some time. When Loese learned I was getting back together with the mother of my children, she objected ("She's been away for 14 years! She broke your heart! Why are you just telling us about this now! Christine loves you!") but she wanted me to be happy, so supported me if I went this route. Christine and I had a deliciously awkward scene as I implied to her that I knew she cared, but that I was going to get together with the mother of my children and "as my step mother and family" I hoped she approved. I also told Jan, who also had feelings for her, that he should tell her how he felt, because this would be his last chance. He proposed to her. She said she had to think about it. I decided to propose to her (Over the objections of Lysanne (Sabrina) who, when she was introduced to Karin for real, was skeptical and felt I should take this slow)
At the next reading, I was told I would earn a million dollars if I got engaged, which really harshed my mellow, since I totally intended to propose anyway, and so I fell to my knees before Karin while Christine stalked out, unable to watch. Karin said yes, and later, Desiree managed to actually squeeze out tears as she (Christine) told me that she had loved me for a long time and I could only awkwardly tell her that she was always welcome in the house ("Oh yeah," she later said "To watch how happy you are with another woman. Fun fun!") Christine ended the LARP with her eventual suicide, unable to bear her lonely future.
I'm only touching on some of the things that went on, because I was a busy bee, and you can see how involved I was in the game. At no moment was I bored or unable to find anything to do. Instead, I was constantly engaged, constantly surprised, constantly involved, constantly in character, and utterly wrapped up in the story. When I say "That's the most fun I've ever had playing in a LARP," I'm not being polite, I mean it. I think this LARP has shown me that I can, in fact, be a LARPer.
But the LARP was far from flawless. In addition to the problems mentioned above, some other problems became obvious as I talked to other people. There was another part of the LARP, the business side, which never seemed to interact with the family side. It was like there were two LARPS going on at the same time. While games should have many stories, I think those stories should interact, and I felt these two stories did so to a too limited degree. Moreover, while I was constantly busy, other people weren't. For example, Erik was the cook, and his only goal, his only story element, was to stay on at the house... which I arranged for him. He literally had to do nothing for the entire LARP. I saw him and a several other people just swinging on the swings or lazing in the grass, bored and with nothing to do. There were many peripheral characters who had no reason to be there, nothing to do, beyond a single element in the will. Finally, the coolest things that happened to me in the LARP had little to do with what Pim and Raymond had written. In fact, the players basically subverted the entire thing. Alida was supposed to play her character as a gold-digger, but couldn't bear it with my puppy-eyes looking down at her. Jasmine was supposed to be the evil sister, but was instead fascinated by Erik's suggestion of her having an affair (he intended it as blackmail, but instead it turned into a reason for her to connect with my character and to chase her long stagnant romantic feelings while divorcing her husband), and Desiree had no story, apparently, beyond "You're lonely and bored," and so falling in love with my character was entirely her idea. Now, LARPs are supposed to be chaotic and unpredictable, but this basically means the story I was playing was only loosely inspired by what Raymond and Pim were writing. I was really playing with Erik and Desiree and Alida's story. As a result, this was the happiest, fluffiest LARP ever, where everyone got what they wanted... except for Christine, which means Desiree got what she wanted (Tragedy! I told her later "Revenge! You killed my character last night, and I killed yours today")
So what's my final verdict on the LARP? The game was technically sloppy, and the fun I had was more the result of the other players than the GMs, who didn't prepare nearly as much as they really should have. But, ultimately, only a single measure of a game's success exists: Did you have fun? Yes, I had fun. Lots and lots of fun. So, it's a success (at least for me). Preparation isn't about turning a game from a failure to a success, it's about improving the chances that it'll be a success. Ultimately, the writer of a LARP has little control of whether that LARP works, as it's always in the hands of the player. When I wrote HotB, I gave my players as much to work with as I could, so nobody lacked inspiration. Here, Raymond and Pim gave us very little to work with, but very talented people turned it into quite a LARP.
I think they knew where they went wrong. Pim says if he'd ever do this again, he'd put much more work, more time, into it, but I think ultimately, their LARP was successful for the same reason my LARP was successful. We both grasped the ultimate truth of a LARP: LARPs are all about the players. You can give them lots of ideas, or a few ideas and lots of room to maneuver in, but you have to let them play, rather than try to control them. Both LARPs wrote up plenty of material and created goals, and then stepped back and let them do what they pleased. As a result, the LARP worked... mostly.
Personally, I loved it. I think next time, they should put more work into peripheral characters, suggest more options to characters in general, and think through the consequences of the goals they offer to players (too often, they amounted to "If you do X, you win!" with little potential fallout. Getting the house was too easy for my character, and there was no consequence to that action. Contrast this with my romance, where choosing one character killed the other. Ouch! More of the latter, less of the former), but I think they absolutely had their heart in the right place, and they showed that a very simple LARP can still be a lot of fun. They received well-deserved praise at the end, and I salute them.
Before I talk about the LARP, I think I'm going to discuss the technical aspects of LARP design. I'm allowed to comment, of course, because I have at least one successful LARP under my belt ^_^ The LARP wasn't released until two days before the weekend which was very short notice indeed. Pim came to me and discussed the LARP design and said that he had wished he had started with it much sooner. I replied "That's why I started in August," which is true. You could certainly see the problems that their late start caused. For example, I received the character of Jopie, the youngest son of the late Gerrit Tenneman, a philosopher and an idealist. I had two children, about whom my sheet had very little and no comment about their mother, and I had some connection with Domingo (played by Marco) but there's literally nothing there, just a blank space. To learn about other characters, I had to talk to others (or, more specifically, they had to talk to me. Sabrina pounced me basically the day we received our characters, calling me "Jopie" and "Papa" and peppering me with in-character questions. Without realizing it, she did a lot to get me into character, to look at myself and see how I would interact with others. I think I really needed that). At the last minute, though, the final piece I really needed to make the character click came in the form of Alida: Raymond walked up to me and said that she was playing the mother of my children, and that she had left me when the children were 2 because of my lack of ambition and money, and that she'd written me a letter to say that she was coming to the reading of the will.
You'd think with these obvious holes, the LARP would have serious problems, and I'm not saying it didn't... but I am saying I had the most fun I've ever had playing in a LARP. I chose to play Jopie as an idealist, someone who was essentially useless because he pursued what amounted to a Liberal Arts degree and secretly expected the world to conform to his unrealistic ideals, but the world wasn't a place where someone earned lots of money or saved the world by sitting in coffee shops talking about feelings or the human condition, but by god, I was going to try! This contrasted with my sister and her husband, ruthless pragmatists who valued accomplishment over empty sentiment (something I, out of character, had a hard time arguing against, and I had to dig deep into feel-good TV cliches to combat). My goal was to keep the house and get enough money to pay off my debts and put my kids through school, as well as ensure that the cook and the butler got to stay on. Meanwhile, the woman who had broken my heart was awfully friendly with my brother and kept approaching my children. I pounced Karin (Alida), told her that she'd given up the right to be "their mother" when she left them, demanded to know where she had been, etc, and generally being a jerk while trying to hide my character's real feelings. She managed to persuade me to let her meet her children while not telling them who she was. We pretended she was only interested in them because of her real estate business, in what I felt was an emotionally charged and understated scene.
As the LARP progressed, Raymond and Pim read different parts of the will, which required different tasks from the players. The most interesting part for me came when we had to divide 20% of the company between the three family members and Christina, the 22 year-old widow of our father (his trophy wife, played by Desiree), and decide who would keep the house. Around then, Domingo told me of his dream to play football (soccer) pro and his father's disapproval (Jan, played by Arjen, the eldest son of Gerrit and my brother). I talked Jan into connecting again with his son, telling him what he told me, which was that he didn't disapprove of Domingo's desire to play soccer but that he felt Domingo should put his heart and soul into it. When they connected, it also meant that Jan and I connected too, so he was all too willing to go in with me on the house, to keep the butler and cook on. At the same time, Loese (played by Jasmine, her first LARP) revealed to us that she'd been having an affair, cheating on her husband. Pouncing on the first moment of vulnerability and emotion expressed by my "haughty" and "excessively practical" sister, I pushed her to divorce her husband and love-bombed her with all the moral support she needed, and so reconnected wit hher. We'd left out Christine, who wanted a single percent of the company, but she and I had been talking (She loved the house as much as I did, especially the piano room), and I felt 1% just wasn't enough, so I talked both of my siblings into giving up 1% each, to get her up to 3% (and in the final negotiation, it became 8% for Loese, and 4% for each of Jan, Christine and myself).
Around then, I decided that it was hypocritical to tell Loese to chase her passion and love while I was yelling at the love of my life, pretending I didn't care because I didn't want to get hurt. And so I swooped down on Karin and told her I had been a fool, confessed my feelings for her, and used the same idealism to break down her guard, to rebuild the family that had fallen apart.
I didn't learn until after I had done this that Christine had fallen in love with my character, and had been in love with him for quite some time. When Loese learned I was getting back together with the mother of my children, she objected ("She's been away for 14 years! She broke your heart! Why are you just telling us about this now! Christine loves you!") but she wanted me to be happy, so supported me if I went this route. Christine and I had a deliciously awkward scene as I implied to her that I knew she cared, but that I was going to get together with the mother of my children and "as my step mother and family" I hoped she approved. I also told Jan, who also had feelings for her, that he should tell her how he felt, because this would be his last chance. He proposed to her. She said she had to think about it. I decided to propose to her (Over the objections of Lysanne (Sabrina) who, when she was introduced to Karin for real, was skeptical and felt I should take this slow)
At the next reading, I was told I would earn a million dollars if I got engaged, which really harshed my mellow, since I totally intended to propose anyway, and so I fell to my knees before Karin while Christine stalked out, unable to watch. Karin said yes, and later, Desiree managed to actually squeeze out tears as she (Christine) told me that she had loved me for a long time and I could only awkwardly tell her that she was always welcome in the house ("Oh yeah," she later said "To watch how happy you are with another woman. Fun fun!") Christine ended the LARP with her eventual suicide, unable to bear her lonely future.
I'm only touching on some of the things that went on, because I was a busy bee, and you can see how involved I was in the game. At no moment was I bored or unable to find anything to do. Instead, I was constantly engaged, constantly surprised, constantly involved, constantly in character, and utterly wrapped up in the story. When I say "That's the most fun I've ever had playing in a LARP," I'm not being polite, I mean it. I think this LARP has shown me that I can, in fact, be a LARPer.
But the LARP was far from flawless. In addition to the problems mentioned above, some other problems became obvious as I talked to other people. There was another part of the LARP, the business side, which never seemed to interact with the family side. It was like there were two LARPS going on at the same time. While games should have many stories, I think those stories should interact, and I felt these two stories did so to a too limited degree. Moreover, while I was constantly busy, other people weren't. For example, Erik was the cook, and his only goal, his only story element, was to stay on at the house... which I arranged for him. He literally had to do nothing for the entire LARP. I saw him and a several other people just swinging on the swings or lazing in the grass, bored and with nothing to do. There were many peripheral characters who had no reason to be there, nothing to do, beyond a single element in the will. Finally, the coolest things that happened to me in the LARP had little to do with what Pim and Raymond had written. In fact, the players basically subverted the entire thing. Alida was supposed to play her character as a gold-digger, but couldn't bear it with my puppy-eyes looking down at her. Jasmine was supposed to be the evil sister, but was instead fascinated by Erik's suggestion of her having an affair (he intended it as blackmail, but instead it turned into a reason for her to connect with my character and to chase her long stagnant romantic feelings while divorcing her husband), and Desiree had no story, apparently, beyond "You're lonely and bored," and so falling in love with my character was entirely her idea. Now, LARPs are supposed to be chaotic and unpredictable, but this basically means the story I was playing was only loosely inspired by what Raymond and Pim were writing. I was really playing with Erik and Desiree and Alida's story. As a result, this was the happiest, fluffiest LARP ever, where everyone got what they wanted... except for Christine, which means Desiree got what she wanted (Tragedy! I told her later "Revenge! You killed my character last night, and I killed yours today")
So what's my final verdict on the LARP? The game was technically sloppy, and the fun I had was more the result of the other players than the GMs, who didn't prepare nearly as much as they really should have. But, ultimately, only a single measure of a game's success exists: Did you have fun? Yes, I had fun. Lots and lots of fun. So, it's a success (at least for me). Preparation isn't about turning a game from a failure to a success, it's about improving the chances that it'll be a success. Ultimately, the writer of a LARP has little control of whether that LARP works, as it's always in the hands of the player. When I wrote HotB, I gave my players as much to work with as I could, so nobody lacked inspiration. Here, Raymond and Pim gave us very little to work with, but very talented people turned it into quite a LARP.
I think they knew where they went wrong. Pim says if he'd ever do this again, he'd put much more work, more time, into it, but I think ultimately, their LARP was successful for the same reason my LARP was successful. We both grasped the ultimate truth of a LARP: LARPs are all about the players. You can give them lots of ideas, or a few ideas and lots of room to maneuver in, but you have to let them play, rather than try to control them. Both LARPs wrote up plenty of material and created goals, and then stepped back and let them do what they pleased. As a result, the LARP worked... mostly.
Personally, I loved it. I think next time, they should put more work into peripheral characters, suggest more options to characters in general, and think through the consequences of the goals they offer to players (too often, they amounted to "If you do X, you win!" with little potential fallout. Getting the house was too easy for my character, and there was no consequence to that action. Contrast this with my romance, where choosing one character killed the other. Ouch! More of the latter, less of the former), but I think they absolutely had their heart in the right place, and they showed that a very simple LARP can still be a lot of fun. They received well-deserved praise at the end, and I salute them.
Spring Weekend 2011 Part 1: Steampunk Gypsies
Bee couldn't take me this time, nor join me, so I was as close to being "on my own" for this weekend as I ever was (She did have time to bring some of my stuff, bless her). I showed up almost too late, forgot too many things, couldn't find other things, and barely made it... but I DID make it. So after getting lost on the bike ride over there, I had finally arrived at my first KotK weekend alone.
After a quick dinner, we jumped straight into our first session, in this case, Desiree's Steampunk Gypsy game, mentioned in the previous blog post. Desiree chose to use no system (though I introduced one halfway into the game that was well received ;) ), so our characters amounted to a description and a picture. I arrived a touch late, so everyone had already picked their character, leaving me with Carlos, a very conservative gypsy concerned with the fading of his culture and owner of the last gypsy horse. The others offered to trade with me, but I honestly thought he was a perfect fit for me, so everyone was happy.
As I said, Desiree used no system, but after watching people toy with cards and dice, I suddenly suggested that we should play it like Calvin Ball, but, and I'm not kidding here, they had no idea what I was talking about (and it's not like Dutch people have no exposure to Calvin and Hobbes: Raoul knew exactly what I was talking about when I described the situation to him later on). So, after I explained the utterly arbitrary and ineffable and chaotic rules of Calvin Ball, they thought it was great fun, and our "system" devolved into people knocking over cans, drawing cards into weird patterns, rolling dice and then placing them on cards, connecting cards with forks, and positioning jewelry in odd configurations. In short, fun was had by all while onlookers couldn't figure out what the hell we were doing. Desiree declared it the most fun system she'd ever played with. I like to think she was making a statement against the arbitrary cargo cults that follow many more complex games (especially D&D), but I suspect she might have simply enjoyed the purity of Calvin Ball ^_^
To return to the story, Desiree began the game by introducing us to the courtship rituals of Gypsies: If a boy Gypsy and a girl Gypsie liked one another very much and her parents agreed to the match, the boy Gypsie "kidnapped" the girl Gyspe. And so, the tone was set: This was to be a game about romancing Gypsie girls! And so, our Gypsie family set out for the grand meeting of all the Gypsies in the area which, because of cultural and actual attrition, consisted of one single other family, who was the rival of ours. The other players had their own little stories, such as Erik playing Pedro as a dancing, womanizing fool, or Frank playing Gomez, a hunter and my younger brother who craved to be seen as my equal, Marco playing as Alejandro, a Gypsy inventor with a crazy steam car (and my rival), and Myrthe, playing Mariposa, an equally technologically-fascinated Gypsy girl from our rival family (they were a match made in heaven).
I think Desiree really liked how I played Carlos. I instantly had a connection with Allegria, the dancing daughter of the rival family (She found my storm-grey horse, Dancer fascinating. When she reached up to touch his nose, I asked if she knew how to ride. When she shyly confessed she didn't, I told her all Gypsies should know how to ride. She commented on the impracticality of this, but I only scowled, unwilling to admit she was right, and took her for a ride), but I never admitted it, never came out and said it. In my opinion, that's rule #1 about a good romance: Imply all feelings, don't state them outright until the climax or until they impossible to fulfill, if you state them at all (I think the Taming of the Shrew is a better romance than Romeo and Juliet). Instead, he played his guitar and tried to arrange marriages for the rest of his family, while struggling to pretend that Allegria's sensuous dance with Gomez didn't affect him, or that he was willing to give up everything to keep her safe.
At some point, I made the "mistake" of telling Allegria that I had a dream of finding a mare for Dancer, my horse, and breeding a new herd that I would use to rekindle the horse population of (wherever we were). Desiree instantly hit upon the idea of making me choose between Dancer and Allegria. I don't think she expected the choice I made, but was pleased with it nonetheless. First, Dancer wandered off, so I went looking for him while a storm brewed. I found him across a river eating some tasty but highly poisonous plants. I was able to force him to vomit up the plants, but problems mounted as I brought him back to the river. Before I could cross with Dancer, I saw Allegria (who had followed after me, worried about why I was gone for so long) falling into the river. Now, the storm grew close, and Desiree made it clear that if I chose to move my horse across the river first, that Allegria would die, but if I rescued Allegria, I might miss my chance to get my sick horse across the river. Of course, I saved Allegria.
After a tense scene where we worked to save Allegria's life, I was assured that she would be safe. Rain poured down outside, and still, I gathered my coat and left. The river had swollen too large for me to safely cross, and my horse stood shivering on the other side. By then, Gomez and Pedro had arrived and, Gomez being an excellent outdoorsman, had rope with them. So, I tied the rope to myself and struggled to cross the river (in retrospect, it probably would have made more sense to have Gomez cross, but I think Carlos was the kind of guy who took the weight of the world on his shoulders), where I covered my horse with my coat, intending to wait out the storm. However, Desiree stated that he looked very ill and probably wouldn't make it through the storm. So I tied the rope to the horse and tried to cross with him, swimming beside Dancer. I was, of course, going for broke: Rescue BOTH the girl AND the horse, because heroes don't quit just because of a little rain! However, I could tell Desiree wanted to exact a price: I couldn't save everyone, I had to be willing to give up something, and so she told me that I could tell that Pedro and Gomez were losing strength and that they couldn't draw us both across... and so I did the only thing I really could do (especially with the horse tied to the rope): I let go.
And so, long story short, Carlos died, but Dancer lived on.
The story ended, I believe, with Allegria wearing black and becoming a very conservative Gypsy herself who, nonetheless helped raise an entire herd of horses. Alejandro and Mariposa married, I believe, Gomez sort of took over as leader of the family, and I don't remember what happened to Pedro (it's possible he married Adelyne, the other, shy, young sister, but I'm not sure it worked out between them).
The death of my character provoked a discussion. I suggested two alternative paths: if she had intended to make me choose between my horse and Allegria, she could have simply taken Dancer from me when I chose Allegria. Alternatively, my arm had been mangled during my rescue attempts, so if she simply wanted to exact a price, she could have taken my arm. However, especially given it's one-shot nature, I didn't feel the death of Carlos was inappropriate. The only thing it cut short was the romance with Allegria, which was left unresolved, but I think Desiree wanted and/or enjoyed that ending, and I felt it was very in character for Carlos, who was willing to sacrifice everything for the safety of his culture and ideals. Raoul, upon observing the entire situation, commented on how GMing by fiat as Desiree was doing opened on up to criticism for "killing off a PC," and that chance-based systems provided a GM with cover. If we had been playing D&D, for example, then Desiree would have simply called for a Fortitude save, and if I failed my roll, well, it was out of her hands. I thought that was an interesting observation.
All in all, a very good game. A very different game from what you generally see the knights run. It was very laid back and reminded me of playing House with girls when I was a little boy, but it wasn't slow, it wasn't boring. Personally, I found it a much more satisfying game than Grimm (it certainly had better chemistry among the players_, and it gave me a lot to think about. All in all, I would call it a success, and a good one at that.
After a quick dinner, we jumped straight into our first session, in this case, Desiree's Steampunk Gypsy game, mentioned in the previous blog post. Desiree chose to use no system (though I introduced one halfway into the game that was well received ;) ), so our characters amounted to a description and a picture. I arrived a touch late, so everyone had already picked their character, leaving me with Carlos, a very conservative gypsy concerned with the fading of his culture and owner of the last gypsy horse. The others offered to trade with me, but I honestly thought he was a perfect fit for me, so everyone was happy.
As I said, Desiree used no system, but after watching people toy with cards and dice, I suddenly suggested that we should play it like Calvin Ball, but, and I'm not kidding here, they had no idea what I was talking about (and it's not like Dutch people have no exposure to Calvin and Hobbes: Raoul knew exactly what I was talking about when I described the situation to him later on). So, after I explained the utterly arbitrary and ineffable and chaotic rules of Calvin Ball, they thought it was great fun, and our "system" devolved into people knocking over cans, drawing cards into weird patterns, rolling dice and then placing them on cards, connecting cards with forks, and positioning jewelry in odd configurations. In short, fun was had by all while onlookers couldn't figure out what the hell we were doing. Desiree declared it the most fun system she'd ever played with. I like to think she was making a statement against the arbitrary cargo cults that follow many more complex games (especially D&D), but I suspect she might have simply enjoyed the purity of Calvin Ball ^_^
To return to the story, Desiree began the game by introducing us to the courtship rituals of Gypsies: If a boy Gypsy and a girl Gypsie liked one another very much and her parents agreed to the match, the boy Gypsie "kidnapped" the girl Gyspe. And so, the tone was set: This was to be a game about romancing Gypsie girls! And so, our Gypsie family set out for the grand meeting of all the Gypsies in the area which, because of cultural and actual attrition, consisted of one single other family, who was the rival of ours. The other players had their own little stories, such as Erik playing Pedro as a dancing, womanizing fool, or Frank playing Gomez, a hunter and my younger brother who craved to be seen as my equal, Marco playing as Alejandro, a Gypsy inventor with a crazy steam car (and my rival), and Myrthe, playing Mariposa, an equally technologically-fascinated Gypsy girl from our rival family (they were a match made in heaven).
I think Desiree really liked how I played Carlos. I instantly had a connection with Allegria, the dancing daughter of the rival family (She found my storm-grey horse, Dancer fascinating. When she reached up to touch his nose, I asked if she knew how to ride. When she shyly confessed she didn't, I told her all Gypsies should know how to ride. She commented on the impracticality of this, but I only scowled, unwilling to admit she was right, and took her for a ride), but I never admitted it, never came out and said it. In my opinion, that's rule #1 about a good romance: Imply all feelings, don't state them outright until the climax or until they impossible to fulfill, if you state them at all (I think the Taming of the Shrew is a better romance than Romeo and Juliet). Instead, he played his guitar and tried to arrange marriages for the rest of his family, while struggling to pretend that Allegria's sensuous dance with Gomez didn't affect him, or that he was willing to give up everything to keep her safe.
At some point, I made the "mistake" of telling Allegria that I had a dream of finding a mare for Dancer, my horse, and breeding a new herd that I would use to rekindle the horse population of (wherever we were). Desiree instantly hit upon the idea of making me choose between Dancer and Allegria. I don't think she expected the choice I made, but was pleased with it nonetheless. First, Dancer wandered off, so I went looking for him while a storm brewed. I found him across a river eating some tasty but highly poisonous plants. I was able to force him to vomit up the plants, but problems mounted as I brought him back to the river. Before I could cross with Dancer, I saw Allegria (who had followed after me, worried about why I was gone for so long) falling into the river. Now, the storm grew close, and Desiree made it clear that if I chose to move my horse across the river first, that Allegria would die, but if I rescued Allegria, I might miss my chance to get my sick horse across the river. Of course, I saved Allegria.
After a tense scene where we worked to save Allegria's life, I was assured that she would be safe. Rain poured down outside, and still, I gathered my coat and left. The river had swollen too large for me to safely cross, and my horse stood shivering on the other side. By then, Gomez and Pedro had arrived and, Gomez being an excellent outdoorsman, had rope with them. So, I tied the rope to myself and struggled to cross the river (in retrospect, it probably would have made more sense to have Gomez cross, but I think Carlos was the kind of guy who took the weight of the world on his shoulders), where I covered my horse with my coat, intending to wait out the storm. However, Desiree stated that he looked very ill and probably wouldn't make it through the storm. So I tied the rope to the horse and tried to cross with him, swimming beside Dancer. I was, of course, going for broke: Rescue BOTH the girl AND the horse, because heroes don't quit just because of a little rain! However, I could tell Desiree wanted to exact a price: I couldn't save everyone, I had to be willing to give up something, and so she told me that I could tell that Pedro and Gomez were losing strength and that they couldn't draw us both across... and so I did the only thing I really could do (especially with the horse tied to the rope): I let go.
And so, long story short, Carlos died, but Dancer lived on.
The story ended, I believe, with Allegria wearing black and becoming a very conservative Gypsy herself who, nonetheless helped raise an entire herd of horses. Alejandro and Mariposa married, I believe, Gomez sort of took over as leader of the family, and I don't remember what happened to Pedro (it's possible he married Adelyne, the other, shy, young sister, but I'm not sure it worked out between them).
The death of my character provoked a discussion. I suggested two alternative paths: if she had intended to make me choose between my horse and Allegria, she could have simply taken Dancer from me when I chose Allegria. Alternatively, my arm had been mangled during my rescue attempts, so if she simply wanted to exact a price, she could have taken my arm. However, especially given it's one-shot nature, I didn't feel the death of Carlos was inappropriate. The only thing it cut short was the romance with Allegria, which was left unresolved, but I think Desiree wanted and/or enjoyed that ending, and I felt it was very in character for Carlos, who was willing to sacrifice everything for the safety of his culture and ideals. Raoul, upon observing the entire situation, commented on how GMing by fiat as Desiree was doing opened on up to criticism for "killing off a PC," and that chance-based systems provided a GM with cover. If we had been playing D&D, for example, then Desiree would have simply called for a Fortitude save, and if I failed my roll, well, it was out of her hands. I thought that was an interesting observation.
All in all, a very good game. A very different game from what you generally see the knights run. It was very laid back and reminded me of playing House with girls when I was a little boy, but it wasn't slow, it wasn't boring. Personally, I found it a much more satisfying game than Grimm (it certainly had better chemistry among the players_, and it gave me a lot to think about. All in all, I would call it a success, and a good one at that.
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