Long Write Up of Musical Larp, part two

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Sunday, amazingly, we were up in time to get down to the game area early. Sarah Brown was preparing for the revival meeting, and told Dolly about Schroder's donation. Dolly let her know that there might be, oh, a few weddings after the meeting.

Josh and I did a quick scene, working in Horace's proposal. Then, Dolly, Horace, and Ermengarde started "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", and I finally got to open my umbella-cum-parasol. Better still, Mayor Shinn's costume included an actual parasol.

The revival meeting took a while and several musical numbers. The Mission cleaned up in grands. Three and a half from Nicely-Nicely. One from Horace. One from Mayor Shinn. Half a grand from Big Jule. A quarter of a grand from Schroeder. And probably a bit more. Conrad Birdie sang "Jesus Flip". Reno Sweeney sang "Blow Gabriel Blow" and explained her dilemma. She needed to chose between Harry Dane and Nicely-Nicely Johnson. Nicely-Nicely sang "Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat." He'd been looking after Reno for a friend, but had fallen in love with her. He went down on one knee to propose.

Harry Dane said that he'd tried to reform for Reno, but had learned that one has to do that for oneself, not someone else. He told Reno to do what she had to do. Reno told Nicely-Nicely that he was a great guy, but chose Harry. I don't know if the Hearts system had anything to do with this or not.

Dolly announced the winner of the Ephraim Levi Grant. It had to be a child of good character, in need, who'd given something up. Randolph Shinn had disarmed a bomb. Linus van Pelt had confessed to breaking into WWW. If these had been the only two on the table, while I had a soft spot for Linus's choice, I thought the bomb trumped it. But, Schroeder had actually given up something tangible, a quarter of a grand, on behalf of Marcy Parks, who had seen Jesus. This was the best match for what Ephraim must have had in mind, and so Dolly awarded the grand to him, blissfully ignorant (as was I) that he was Big Jule's son.

Then, everyone got married, some with a one verse song. The three couples in the Dolly arc did a 3-for-1 to keep it short. But, Reno and Harry wed first, as did Finch and Rosemary. Rosie married her beau, and Nathan finally married Miss Adelaide. Sky and Sarah did not wed, having run out of time on the Hearts tasks, I gather. If I'd known, Dolly might have been able to help.

Harold Hill proposed to Marion, making Sarah cry. Sarah Brown was the elder sister of Charlie and Sally Brown, brought to the Big City by Hill years ago, and there abandoned by the con man. She was glad he was reforming, even if he was lost to her. Perhaps, someday, she and Sky Masterson would get together, but not today. I think the players ran out of time to complete enough tasks. If I'd known, I would have tried to help.

While not on the schedule, the WWW crew had a busy morning. Mr. Warbucks asked Dolly to check on the log book. It was still there, but it had been opened and relocked! Nothing was missing, but someone might have copied it.

The Chairman of the Board arrived, demanding to know what had caused the fiasco that had destroyed the offices -- even though it looked like a bunch of spunky kids had rebuilt them overnight. Finch took full responsibility for the idea of the treasure hunt, claiming it for his own. Mr. Warbucks admitted that he might have told Lois Lane where the treasure was. And, Finch made his plea for clemency with "Brotherhood of Man".

This went really well. I was smart enough to ask if the table could hold my weight before attempting to stand on it, and was told, emphatically, that it could not. Frump's player got me a chair, which we put behind the group, and on which I stood to sing my lines, the ones that had been worrying me the most.

Being on the chair made a huge difference. It probably did good things for my posture, and while I doubt I was entirely on key, I wasn't worried, just singing.

Inspired by Finch's song, Frump vowed to do things "The Company Way" from now on, something I'd guessed from the lyrics book. Earlier, Josh and I had suggested to Frump's player that Frump go into show business instead, and Mike had said that this would be fine, but the player decided to stick to the rails. But really, couldn't you just see Frump becoming a producer?

The elusive Mr. Franklin Hart, Jr. appeared, played by the incomparable Gordon Olmstead-Dean, who turned red with suppressed indignation as he was sent to Bolivia because of "his" success with the changes in his department. I'd love to know exactly how this arc worked. I'm guessing contingency envelopes, but what did they say?

The Chairman retired, and Finch became the new chairman. Horace decided he and Dolly would have a honeymoon abroad, something Dolly mentioned to the folks at WWW.

Finch: That's nice.

Rosemary: What's nice?

Finch: They're taking a honeymoon abroad.

Rosemary: A what?

Finch: A honeymoon abroad.

Rosemary: That's a wonderful idea, Ponty!

Wow. Until the punchline, I had no idea she was setting that up. It's right out of the show, only there, it was lunch she tricked Finch into.

Harold Hill discussed the Union situation, and, in public, let Mr. Warbucks refuse the raise. He returned when Mr. Warbucks and Dolly were alone with his evidence that Mr. Warbucks had lied about not being able to afford the raise. Mr. Warbucks conceeded the round, and Dolly came clean to him about taking off the key at the dance.

Dolly asked Hill about ideas for the English office, but Mr. Warbucks decided to send Frump there. Dolly talked to Warbucks and Eliza, and arranged that Eliza would be Frump's secretary in England.

Lois Lane told Mr. Warbucks that there were orphans other than Annie, like her relative, Pepper, and that Mr. Warbucks was going to take care of Pepper.

Lois: Because I'm Lois, and I'm telling you to.

This was good enough for Mr. Warbucks, who assured her that all of the orphans would be provided for, and that Mrs. Hannigan was now working in the mail room of World Wide Wickets. Widow Paroo was running the orphanage. This, I gather, meant that Mrs. Hannigan would stop drinking, as she no longer had to take care of little girls. Perhaps if she cleans up her act enough, she might some day win Mr. Warbucks's heart? Probably not.

The opera house blew up again, this time for good, because Bialystock and Bloom got a professional to do it, Big Jule. Max was arrested and sang about his betrayal, while Frank Graham's company toured Europe, not only not losing money, but actually making half a grand. Schroeder told Horace that he'd heard Horace had never had a chance to play softball, and there happened to be an opening in the Little League game.

At first we thought this was on the team that was not the team Horace had sponsored, which would have been a delicious irony, but it turned out to be his team. This was also the team Colonel Buffalo Bill bet on. So, this team won, the Peanuts' team lost, and Colonel Buffalo Bill could pay off his marker to Horace without selling Annie Oakley's medals. As Josh knew they should, the medals were worth whatever the debt both Wild West shows had to pay off, but the folks running the shows didn't want Annie to have to sell them. Somehow, they got enough money to pull this off. Among other things, this involved Pawnee Bill blackmailing Lilly St. Regis, something he was later to think might have been a big mistake.

Bloom and Ulla returned for Max's trial, and Bloom and Bialystock were sentenced. Professor Hill was tracked down by an angry mob, but led the band, in full uniform. It sounded about as well as one would expect, and, after a couple of seconds, I delivered the obvious line.

Me: That's my boy!

This had the domino effect I'd hoped for.

Meanwhile, I asked Buffalo Bill's player if anyone had explained to Annie Oakley that she'd win Frank Butler's heart if she lost the shoot out. He told me to ask their players. Annie's player said that Dolly should go ahead and have that talk, as no one had, and no one had fixed the guns, for values of "fixed" that mean "tampered with them so that Annie will lose". They had, at that point, exchanged hearts, but, as with Dolly and Horace, the players figured that this didn't mean all problems vanished, at least, not until the dramatically appropriate moment.

Dolly explained about men being weak and needing to think that they were the best. Once Annie understood where Dolly was going, she was confused. Wasn't that like lying? Dolly assured her that it wasn't. She was shooting to miss, and if someone happened to interpret things differently, well, that wasn't her problem. Annie asked if Frank would want her to stop shooting, which would have been a dealbreaker. Dolly didn't see why he would. Annie didn't either, but then, Annie didn't see why he couldn't accept not being the best if he wasn't.

During the shooting contest, I was on the edge of my seat. Sure, I'd set things up, but I had no idea which way the players would take them. Would Annie decide to win the contest after all? Would the players go for the traditional ending, where Annie deliberately loses to Frank, or for a modern variation, where the contest ends in a tie?

Adding to the drama, the boffer pies were used as targets. This was a wonderful idea. Frank and Annie first separately shot down three pies, and then four. Five pies were launched for Annie, who shot down four of them. Five pies were launched for Frank who -- shot down four of them!

The contestants were asked if they wanted to stay at five or go up to six.

Frank: Go to six. Oh, and, let's both take our shots at the same time.

So, twelve pies were tossed into the air, and the players counted off their hits.

Annie and Frank (simultaneously): One! Two! Three! Four!

Frank: Five!

I gather that Annie's player wasn't sure what Frank's player was up to, as she'd expected Frank to hit all five pies in the earlier round.

One final song, "Happiness" was sung, ending a couple of verses early. As the cut verses were more specific to _You're a Good Man Charlie Brown_, this was a good decision.

We moved into game wrap, as folks determined who had won the gangster's Turf War. I didn't understand all of the rules, but it looked to me as if Big Jule was winning. Then, Nathan Detroit asked people to stand with him, and a lot of us did, not realizing that only some people had Influence to contrbute to the contest.

Then, Lilly St. Regis, Big Jule's girl, stood in the middle, calling for her own supporters. It seems that she could give a point of Influence to any woman who a) joined her gang and b) voted for her in the turf war.

Nathan and Nicely-Nicely considered the situation, then moved to back Lilly.

Big Jule: Now, I am regretting not bringing my guns. (to Lilly) Well, I will just say what I say behind closed doors to you. Boss, what do you want me to do?

Things got tense when Lilly said that she would be running the craps game. Nicely-Nicely said that he had lost everything but the game, and asked her to let him continue running it. Nathan supported him.

Nathan: Boss, you do not want the game. You know that it always ends in the sewer. (as Lilly acknowledges this point) And, you do not want to go into the sewer, boss. Not unless you are planning to change your foot gear.

Lilly St. Regis proved that she had read the Evil Overlord list by taking the advice of her lieutenants and lettling Nicely keep the game.

Pawnee Bill started to really regret having blackmailed her. I figure his best chance is to explain that he did it for another woman, so that she wouldn't have to give up all of the awards she'd won to pay off debts that she herself hadn't occurred. Lilly might be understanding.

Frank Butler retired as the Asp, but he had already started training a successor -- Charlie Brown!

Then, we helped with tear down and adjorned to the dead dog dinner. After that, Finch's player, Mike, drove Josh and me to BWI train station some hours before our train was due to leave.

Actually, it was many hours before our train was due to leave -- the date on the tickets was Monday's date. Josh corrected that, and we got on a 6:48 train. I gather that trains are not supposed to be oversold, but some other train, going to Chicago, had problems, so extra people were on this train. Nevertheless, Josh and I managed to find seats after about 10 minutes or so, thanks in part to luck, but more to Josh deciding that if two train staff members said that there were seats further back, they were more likely to be correct than the passengers who insisted that there weren't. It turned out that what had happened was that one car had mechanical difficulties that had just been fixed.

Issues I Noticed:

Friday:

The sound system was set up so that people by the stage singing could not hear the music that well, although people much further away could. The result of this is that I found trying to sing to the music threw me off. Shane is aware of the issues with the sound.

It would have been neat if the audience for the Wild West Show had sung their lines. As it was, we sang them. No big deal -- not suckage, just something that could have been even better than it was.

There needed to be some explanation of what the role of the law was in the game. What could and would the police actually do? Mr. Warbucks could get J. Edgar Hoover on the phone? That makes sense, given the source material, but what game effect does it have?

Saturday:

The business with "A Secretary Is Not A Toy". Easy fix: Make sure the participants know the script ahead of time. Seriously -- hand us script pages at the game if you can't get them to us in advance.

Not an issue, but giving Dolly, Warbucks, and Shinn a heads up on the memo contest might be useful. If one of us had gone out of game, overslept during the lunch break, or something, this would have shafted two players.

Outside of the Wealth and WWW Bureaucracy game, folks with Above Average scores seemed to me to be at an Above Average disadvantage. There were sufficient Excellent PCs at the dance that, short of the judges deciding to play favorites, no one with Above Average skill had a chance to win. I gather -- and I may be completely misunderstanding this -- that one's gambling skill was completely irrelevant if one wasn't Sky Masterson, for betting the way he did meant one won, and betting the other way meant one lost. If this is actually correct, it is in keeping with the source material, but it does mean that skill levels below Excellent probably don't matter.

WWW Bureaucracy avoided this problem because this was a game played in teams of up to three people against the impersonal forces of Bureaucracy.

Baseball Game: As I understand it, in isolation, the mechanic is fine. However, it took longer than expected, which meant that there were a lot of people one couldn't really interact with during the game.

Sunday:

Schedule: There were two songs that Mike wanted to fit in, "Brotherhood of Man" and "Company Way". He didn't have a set time in mind, just "After the revival meeting", as there was nothing that the WWW group had to attend at that point. That's fine, but I think these songs should be listed on the schedule, with "Time TBA". Also, while I went into Sunday knowing Mike's plan, I almost missed these songs. I'm glad I didn't, but I'm not sure what can be done for songs that don't have a set position on the schedule. I can certainly understand wanting to start them asap!

Protection Racket: This is fairly complicated, and I'm not sure it's an issue with the game, rather than botched communication between Tony and Josh.

After the game, Tony asked if there were anything he could have done to get Horace to sign the protection agreement. As far as we could tell, the answer was, "Yes, but it would have required telepathy." Neither Horace nor Warbucks could be bullied with Abilities. Horace had one skill, Stubborn. After Big Jule's initial threatening approach, Horace had no intent of signing on with him.

Horace: I want protection. Not from Big Jule, but from Big Jule.

I've been reading about the things Big Jule did for people who had signed, and if he and Harry the Horse had said, "We can do things to help you" instead of "Sign and your problems will be gone" (strongly implied: The problems that we caused), it would have been different. There were things Horace wanted. He and Fred Graham were having a dispute over the price of sundries. Horace was running for mayor. If Jule could have gotten him elected, his signature would have been doubly valuable. Horaced wanted to get Ermingarde into show business, and Jule had great connections.

But, Tony had absolutely no way of knowing about any of this. And any plan that begins: "Step One: Read the other player's mind" is a sign that something's not clicking.

If Mayor Shinn had asked Horace to sign, as a favor, before Horace had found out she'd signed and been unpleasantly surprised by this, that might have worked. It would also have required telepathy.

If Big Jule had kidnapped or threatened Ermingarde or Dolly, it would have worked, though at the cost of reducing Josh's fun, and possibly the other players's in the Dolly arc as well. Kudos to Tony for not trying this, though, as Josh notes, we would have rolled with it.

A couple of days after the game, now no longer focused and sleep deprived, Josh realized that there were two things he could have done to make it possible for Big Jule to get Horace's signature, and that it really was encumbent upon him to have done one of these, as he was the one who had the information.

1. Horace should have made it clear to Big Jule that he'd do -anything- to help Ermingarde's comeback in show business. He'd sign in a heartbeat if it meant Ermingarde getting Lilli Vanessi's roll in Kiss Me Kate.

2. Horace loved a good bargain. So, when he found out that Jule paid out to George Marcellus because the livery stables caught fire despite the protection agreement, Horace should have gone into bargain mode and invented insurance, giving Jule a list of fees for failed protection. If he'd really been on the ball, he should've done this as a song.

So, yes, Big Jule could have gotten Horace's signature, and the onus was on Josh to make this possible.

But, what about Mr. Warbucks's signature? Was this ever possible? Was it intended to be possible?

Horace would have signed Nathan Detroit's protection agreement if Nathan had asked, partly because of Big Jule's threats, and partly because he owed Nathan a debt of honor for protecting Ermingarde before the game. If that had happened, I don't think that there would have been any way to "unsign".

But, Nathan never asked anyone to sign. In character, this simply isn't how Nathan and his boys do things. It very much is how Big Jule does things.

Out of character, Nathan's and Nicely's players looked at the list of required signatures, and their mental processes went like this: "Mr. Warbucks?? Ah, this is an impossible task. There is no partial credit, and it is only worth one Influence point. This is not worth the effort. On to better things."

None of the above issues was that big a deal. We had a blast, and the end game flowed well. This is something I find can be especially tricky in any larp, regardless of length. I often find that there's, say, a half hour at the end of a four hour larp where I've completed everything I can, and it feels like I'm marking time while a few other players go off on some bizarre tangent that has nothing to do with -me-. I didn't find this to be a problem here, and I think this is partly due to the schedule. I knew how to pace myself mentally because I could see what was going to happen.

I did have the occasional dead patch, but only rarely. and only for a couple of minutes at a time. I really appreciated having the 2 hour lunch and dinner breaks, and I think that this may be why there was so little dead time. I napped during the lunch break, which I really needed to do.

I'm very much looking forward to the second musical larp, although I'm not quite sure where I'd best fit in. I want to dance a lot and chew scenery. I'm sure there's a good role that will let me do these things.

Comments

[chemicalpipit.livejournal.com]

Hay!! I don't have horrible table manners!

..okay... there was that one thing about the salad fork.......

*sorry!*

:P

~*Eliza Doolittle :)

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

Dolly never actually saw Eliza's table manners. She never learned that Eliza wasn't a duchess. I think she just assumed that maybe duchesses can eat any way they want to, because they're duchesses.