Larps in the pipeline and on the horizon

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Thus far, we have only two sign ups for our larp at Intercon G, A Hot Tub Full o'Magic. I am signed up to play in the Girl Genius larp, where I successfully convinced the GM to cast me as Dingbot Prime! I've got a stuffed snuffeluphagus to represnt a mimoth, and a three legged massager that looks clank-like.

I am also signed up for The Other Other All Batman Game, which sounds right up my ally for silliness. Where Colonel Sebastian T. Rawhide's Circus of the Spectacular has the wonderful Rule of Melodrama -- Don't be smart. Be melodramatic. -- TOOABG has the Rule of Obliviousness, which is perfect for a Sunday morning.

Dark of the Moon is making progress in various directions. We are slowly developing world background and creating systems. I think I like the proposed magic system. Like the gadget system, it will probably use legos. Legos are good.

We have simplified the language system to "You all speak the same language." This is probably for the best, though there was a certain charm in the idea of having anyone speaking a different language hold up a large sign saying "I am speaking French" or "I am speaking Swahili" or "I am speaking %$&)(+".

Meanwhile, we're working on the teaser game for DotM, and I have set up a spreadsheet. We have to fill it in now. We have the list of characters down and the list of plots across.

In addition, we have been beginning to plan for the second Jamais Vue game, and have made some progress to boxing the first. zrealm says that it is currently in a form that his group can run, and crash_mccormick and I are finding ourselves wanting to go and help, or at least observe. I have standardized the skill cards and what the character sheets say, and I ought to do the same for the items, and also go through the printouts from the Intercon F run and confirm that they actually match the contents of the files.

zrealm would also like to run larps for the Columbia University crowd, and he has a couple that mnemex, crash_mccormick, and I haven't actually ever played -- the second Marie Celeste game and 10 Bad Larps in 100 Bad Minutes, which he assures me is frightfully offensive. And, if we could round up 8 folks, including me, and either trek out to zrealm's place, or convince crash_mccormick that he wants to play in the larp and use his living room for it, zrealm could run Plan 8 from Outer Space.

zrealm is differently mad from the rest of us. We like to write the occasional larp, run it, and then, when we've forgotten the painful parts (running around at the last minute because it's the first time or we've never actually boxed the game, i.e., made it a matter of printing and stuffing) doing it again. zrealm seems determined to run a larp at least once a month. He has often killed one printer per larp run.

He also asks useful questions.

zrealm: How do people in your amnesia larp get their memories back?

Us: Oh, there are a bunch of -- oh, right, we never actually wrote that down anywhere, did we?

And he's been reminding us -- us Kindly Kats, rather than us Straightjackets, as crash_mccormick already does this -- about how players can make a hash out of overly complicated or overly simplistic systems simply by, well, treating it like a game that they want to win. And reminding us of how valuable a commodity gm time is during a larp and how we will not, not, not have a gm dedicated to drawing art during the game.

Meanwhile, I sent two Dark of the Moon characters to osewalrus, each PCs we thought at one time he might play. He is not sure he will have time and interest. The first was based on a literary character.

osewalrus: Nope, that's completely the wrong feel. Note facts 1 and 2 about the PC.

Me: Hm, fact 1 actually solves a writing problem. Fact 2, hm, ponderponder.

osewalrus then emailed a rewrite of the issue involving fact 2. It's really, really good. I asked mnemex if maybe osewalrus could write all our characters, presuming the rest of the Kindly Kats agreed. Of course, osewalrus is far too busy for that, and he probably doesn't have the rapport with the other PCs.

Then, I asked Lee Gold about a book that two other PCs had read, and how to give it a name so that it's not the real book from our world, but anyone seeing it knows what book it's meant to be. She not only came up with a name, but quoted relevant sections from the book. These actually fit with the personalities of the PCs and may hold the key to the next rewrite of them. Amusingly, these are the PCs I'd first think of casting her and her husband as, though I'm not sure I'd do it.

zrealm agreed that I should add one particular PC who'd been in my NPC pile, and cut one very thin PC.

zrealm: That PC isn't even an item card! It's a petition.

We looked at a couple of identity questions and settled them nicely enough. I came up with an evil plot for another thin PC. Okay, it's a really stupid evil plot, but this is not a really smart PC to begin with, and hey -- it's more than I had a few months ago for the PC.

Larps in the pipeline and on the horizon

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Thus far, we have only two sign ups for our larp at Intercon G, A Hot Tub Full o'Magic. I am signed up to play in the Girl Genius larp, where I successfully convinced the GM to cast me as Dingbot Prime! I've got a stuffed snuffeluphagus to represnt a mimoth, and a three legged massager that looks clank-like.

I am also signed up for The Other Other All Batman Game, which sounds right up my ally for silliness. Where Colonel Sebastian T. Rawhide's Circus of the Spectacular has the wonderful Rule of Melodrama -- Don't be smart. Be melodramatic. -- TOOABG has the Rule of Obliviousness, which is perfect for a Sunday morning.

Dark of the Moon is making progress in various directions. We are slowly developing world background and creating systems. I think I like the proposed magic system. Like the gadget system, it will probably use legos. Legos are good.

We have simplified the language system to "You all speak the same language." This is probably for the best, though there was a certain charm in the idea of having anyone speaking a different language hold up a large sign saying "I am speaking French" or "I am speaking Swahili" or "I am speaking %$&)(+".

Meanwhile, we're working on the teaser game for DotM, and I have set up a spreadsheet. We have to fill it in now. We have the list of characters down and the list of plots across.

In addition, we have been beginning to plan for the second Jamais Vue game, and have made some progress to boxing the first. zrealm says that it is currently in a form that his group can run, and crash_mccormick and I are finding ourselves wanting to go and help, or at least observe. I have standardized the skill cards and what the character sheets say, and I ought to do the same for the items, and also go through the printouts from the Intercon F run and confirm that they actually match the contents of the files.

zrealm would also like to run larps for the Columbia University crowd, and he has a couple that mnemex, crash_mccormick, and I haven't actually ever played -- the second Marie Celeste game and 10 Bad Larps in 100 Bad Minutes, which he assures me is frightfully offensive. And, if we could round up 8 folks, including me, and either trek out to zrealm's place, or convince crash_mccormick that he wants to play in the larp and use his living room for it, zrealm could run Plan 8 from Outer Space.

zrealm is differently mad from the rest of us. We like to write the occasional larp, run it, and then, when we've forgotten the painful parts (running around at the last minute because it's the first time or we've never actually boxed the game, i.e., made it a matter of printing and stuffing) doing it again. zrealm seems determined to run a larp at least once a month. He has often killed one printer per larp run.

He also asks useful questions.

zrealm: How do people in your amnesia larp get their memories back?

Us: Oh, there are a bunch of -- oh, right, we never actually wrote that down anywhere, did we?

And he's been reminding us -- us Kindly Kats, rather than us Straightjackets, as crash_mccormick already does this -- about how players can make a hash out of overly complicated or overly simplistic systems simply by, well, treating it like a game that they want to win. And reminding us of how valuable a commodity gm time is during a larp and how we will not, not, not have a gm dedicated to drawing art during the game.

Meanwhile, I sent two Dark of the Moon characters to osewalrus, each PCs we thought at one time he might play. He is not sure he will have time and interest. The first was based on a literary character.

osewalrus: Nope, that's completely the wrong feel. Note facts 1 and 2 about the PC.

Me: Hm, fact 1 actually solves a writing problem. Fact 2, hm, ponderponder.

osewalrus then emailed a rewrite of the issue involving fact 2. It's really, really good. I asked mnemex if maybe osewalrus could write all our characters, presuming the rest of the Kindly Kats agreed. Of course, osewalrus is far too busy for that, and he probably doesn't have the rapport with the other PCs.

Then, I asked Lee Gold about a book that two other PCs had read, and how to give it a name so that it's not the real book from our world, but anyone seeing it knows what book it's meant to be. She not only came up with a name, but quoted relevant sections from the book. These actually fit with the personalities of the PCs and may hold the key to the next rewrite of them. Amusingly, these are the PCs I'd first think of casting her and her husband as, though I'm not sure I'd do it.

zrealm agreed that I should add one particular PC who'd been in my NPC pile, and cut one very thin PC.

zrealm: That PC isn't even an item card! It's a petition.

We looked at a couple of identity questions and settled them nicely enough. I came up with an evil plot for another thin PC. Okay, it's a really stupid evil plot, but this is not a really smart PC to begin with, and hey -- it's more than I had a few months ago for the PC.