Running and Writing Larps

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Last weekend, mnemex helped as a GM in Foam Brain's run of the Dragaeran larp Dragon. He ran the war game, which he described as essentially a play by mail game. I was Game Mother, which meant that my game was the inverse of the usual GM's eye view. Where GMs usually look for crowds of people who might need a GM, being waylaid en route by individuals or small groups needing a GM call, whenever I saw a crowd, I went elsewhere. My job was not to make rulings, but to try to help people who were stuck.

Some people I helped. Some I could have helped better, and I made mental notes for how. But, mostly, people didn't need my help. Mostly, they were fine, or they needed a GM who could make rulings.

I have now been involved with four weekend long larps recently. These are:

Masks, as one of the GMs. I fell in love with that game while reading it. This gave me an understanding in ways I couldn't verbalize of why zrealm was right about something he'd said of the larp Kindly Cats has been writing for a long time, Dark of the Moon.

Lullaby of Broadway 1: Another Opening, Another Show, as a player. This was fun and different from most larps, not just because of the singing, but also because metagaming was actively encouraged.

Torch of Freedom, as a player. This made very clear to me just what mnemex wants Dark of the Moon to me, and showed me via experience that some more of what zrealm had said about stuff we wanted to do for Dark of the Moon was right. That doesn't mean we won't do it, but at least I'll know not to expect players to figure out things that are right on everyone's badge in plain English. What sort of things? Oh, last names indicating folks are related. Ages. Really obvious stuff that I missed more than once.

Dragon, as game mother. This is an old SILWest game, the sort of thing we initially wrote Dark of the Moon as. Dragon is not at all a bad game, and it has some very nice moving parts, like the war game, but it's clear to me that this isn't the sort of game we want Dark of the Moon to be. We're aiming more for Torch.

Meanwhile, ambug666 is working on Lullaby of Broadway 2: And All That Jazz. I'm on the writers' list, which is open to everyone in the game. This has given me an idea of how to get back on some kind of track with Dark of the Moon, and so I have hatched A Plan.

Step One: Get agreement on the new names for everyone and everything, as we file off the last serial numbers that need filing, and try to give the names the right feel. In progress.

Step Two: Back up the game wiki. Done!

Step Three: Work with mnemex to do the Great Name Swap on the wiki.

Step Four: Go over all the plots we have via email. Then, do the same with all of the characters. This is what ambug666 is doing in Lullaby. I am hoping that this will keep me from hitting one of two undesirable extremes, either writing the entire game myself or expecting the rest of the team to read a whole bunch of stuff Right Now. (Okay, in practice, the character sheets have been up on the wiki for at least a year, but given that we know everyone is not going to read everything on the wiki, there needs to be a way to get folks to read it without choking on the stuff.)

During all of this, I'm hoping folks can also nail down the rules, and that we can get various background bluesheets and GM information sheets written.

Running and Writing Larps

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Last weekend, mnemex helped as a GM in Foam Brain's run of the Dragaeran larp Dragon. He ran the war game, which he described as essentially a play by mail game. I was Game Mother, which meant that my game was the inverse of the usual GM's eye view. Where GMs usually look for crowds of people who might need a GM, being waylaid en route by individuals or small groups needing a GM call, whenever I saw a crowd, I went elsewhere. My job was not to make rulings, but to try to help people who were stuck.

Some people I helped. Some I could have helped better, and I made mental notes for how. But, mostly, people didn't need my help. Mostly, they were fine, or they needed a GM who could make rulings.

I have now been involved with four weekend long larps recently. These are:

Masks, as one of the GMs. I fell in love with that game while reading it. This gave me an understanding in ways I couldn't verbalize of why zrealm was right about something he'd said of the larp Kindly Cats has been writing for a long time, Dark of the Moon.

Lullaby of Broadway 1: Another Opening, Another Show, as a player. This was fun and different from most larps, not just because of the singing, but also because metagaming was actively encouraged.

Torch of Freedom, as a player. This made very clear to me just what mnemex wants Dark of the Moon to me, and showed me via experience that some more of what zrealm had said about stuff we wanted to do for Dark of the Moon was right. That doesn't mean we won't do it, but at least I'll know not to expect players to figure out things that are right on everyone's badge in plain English. What sort of things? Oh, last names indicating folks are related. Ages. Really obvious stuff that I missed more than once.

Dragon, as game mother. This is an old SILWest game, the sort of thing we initially wrote Dark of the Moon as. Dragon is not at all a bad game, and it has some very nice moving parts, like the war game, but it's clear to me that this isn't the sort of game we want Dark of the Moon to be. We're aiming more for Torch.

Meanwhile, ambug666 is working on Lullaby of Broadway 2: And All That Jazz. I'm on the writers' list, which is open to everyone in the game. This has given me an idea of how to get back on some kind of track with Dark of the Moon, and so I have hatched A Plan.

Step One: Get agreement on the new names for everyone and everything, as we file off the last serial numbers that need filing, and try to give the names the right feel. In progress.

Step Two: Back up the game wiki. Done!

Step Three: Work with mnemex to do the Great Name Swap on the wiki.

Step Four: Go over all the plots we have via email. Then, do the same with all of the characters. This is what ambug666 is doing in Lullaby. I am hoping that this will keep me from hitting one of two undesirable extremes, either writing the entire game myself or expecting the rest of the team to read a whole bunch of stuff Right Now. (Okay, in practice, the character sheets have been up on the wiki for at least a year, but given that we know everyone is not going to read everything on the wiki, there needs to be a way to get folks to read it without choking on the stuff.)

During all of this, I'm hoping folks can also nail down the rules, and that we can get various background bluesheets and GM information sheets written.

Game / Novel Analogy

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Okay. We all know that analogies can be taken too far, and that rpgs are not novels or comics or movies or television shows or quite a number of other things.

That said, analogies can be useful. I'm still mulling over the one mnemex just handed me.

I'm trying to plot an adventure that he and ebartley can play through, a face to face adventure for their older Cthulhupunk characters to have, as opposed to their younger characters in the Strange School play by email. And I keep hitting the wall, as I go round and round, saying to myself, "Okay, so there's this small war going on in the mystical realms, but the focus of the game is on the PCs. So, what is it that the PCs will be doing?"

mnemex told me to invert this. He said, "Okay, look at the novel about the war. Yes, I know that this is a novel that will never be written. That's all right. What is the shape of the novel? Once you know that, you can figure out what the PCs should be doing."

I don't know if this will help me break through the wall, but I think he's right. It's not that I want the focus anywhere other than the PCs. It's that in trying to focus the planning on the PCs, I'd forgotten that there's a reason for overviews. Many fine scenarios are written where the author says, "All right. Some group of players will have their PCs go through it as some GM runs it. I know none of these people, and that's all right. My job is to describe the situation, the characters, the setting, the plots, and the possible twists. From there, GMs can tweak things to their own groups."

Game / Novel Analogy

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Okay. We all know that analogies can be taken too far, and that rpgs are not novels or comics or movies or television shows or quite a number of other things.

That said, analogies can be useful. I'm still mulling over the one mnemex just handed me.

I'm trying to plot an adventure that he and ebartley can play through, a face to face adventure for their older Cthulhupunk characters to have, as opposed to their younger characters in the Strange School play by email. And I keep hitting the wall, as I go round and round, saying to myself, "Okay, so there's this small war going on in the mystical realms, but the focus of the game is on the PCs. So, what is it that the PCs will be doing?"

mnemex told me to invert this. He said, "Okay, look at the novel about the war. Yes, I know that this is a novel that will never be written. That's all right. What is the shape of the novel? Once you know that, you can figure out what the PCs should be doing."

I don't know if this will help me break through the wall, but I think he's right. It's not that I want the focus anywhere other than the PCs. It's that in trying to focus the planning on the PCs, I'd forgotten that there's a reason for overviews. Many fine scenarios are written where the author says, "All right. Some group of players will have their PCs go through it as some GM runs it. I know none of these people, and that's all right. My job is to describe the situation, the characters, the setting, the plots, and the possible twists. From there, GMs can tweak things to their own groups."

Time to Reread Reign

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

As I was going through and commenting this month's issue of Alarums and Excursions, I saw in Michael Cule's zine that there was an introductory Reign adventure, "Imperial Harlots". I did a web search and discovered that this was in the tenth supplement for the game.

For anyone reading this who doesn't already know, Reign is an rpg written by Greg Stolze. The game is for sale. The supplements are released ransom style, which means that the first twelve are now available for free download on Greg Stolze's website. I've downloaded them all, but haven't read them all yet.

So, Friday, I read the tenth supplement, discovering that Greg practically dedicated it to me. I'd asked him the same question I'd heard many times, to wit: What sort of sessions does one run with Reign? It is, after all, a game that operates on both the level of individual player characters and the level of Companies, which can be anything from one's personal band of (NPC) retainers to a fleet of pirates to an entire country.

Between this supplement and Michael Cule's thread on his Reign campaign, I think I'm beginning to get the idea. I'll need to do a little rereading, of course, but it no longer looks like a trackless wilderness out there.

I'm wondering if I could apply the Company rules to a couple of things I'm trying to run. There's an adventure I want to run for mnemex and ebartley set in the Lovecraftian Dreamlands and surrounding areas, only I've been having trouble figuring out what the adventure should be about. mnemex suggested I step back and look at the big picture, which, in Reign terms, would be a war between Companies.

Then, there's the Strange School play by email. In the weird world of 2036, the Microsoft Corporation just got caught doing bad. There's going to be fallout. While the focus of the game is not about how fictional Microsoft gets smacked down, it might an interesting thought experiment to stat the company out as a Company, and do the same for its more important enemies. I'm not sure how easy it is to apply Company rules to a modern or vaguely futuristic setting, but it should be doable.

Time to Reread Reign

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

As I was going through and commenting this month's issue of Alarums and Excursions, I saw in Michael Cule's zine that there was an introductory Reign adventure, "Imperial Harlots". I did a web search and discovered that this was in the tenth supplement for the game.

For anyone reading this who doesn't already know, Reign is an rpg written by Greg Stolze. The game is for sale. The supplements are released ransom style, which means that the first twelve are now available for free download on Greg Stolze's website. I've downloaded them all, but haven't read them all yet.

So, Friday, I read the tenth supplement, discovering that Greg practically dedicated it to me. I'd asked him the same question I'd heard many times, to wit: What sort of sessions does one run with Reign? It is, after all, a game that operates on both the level of individual player characters and the level of Companies, which can be anything from one's personal band of (NPC) retainers to a fleet of pirates to an entire country.

Between this supplement and Michael Cule's thread on his Reign campaign, I think I'm beginning to get the idea. I'll need to do a little rereading, of course, but it no longer looks like a trackless wilderness out there.

I'm wondering if I could apply the Company rules to a couple of things I'm trying to run. There's an adventure I want to run for mnemex and ebartley set in the Lovecraftian Dreamlands and surrounding areas, only I've been having trouble figuring out what the adventure should be about. mnemex suggested I step back and look at the big picture, which, in Reign terms, would be a war between Companies.

Then, there's the Strange School play by email. In the weird world of 2036, the Microsoft Corporation just got caught doing bad. There's going to be fallout. While the focus of the game is not about how fictional Microsoft gets smacked down, it might an interesting thought experiment to stat the company out as a Company, and do the same for its more important enemies. I'm not sure how easy it is to apply Company rules to a modern or vaguely futuristic setting, but it should be doable.