labcats | And then there were seven,.. and maybe a new team member?

Okay, I have posted the parrot to the wiki and am working on the last of the cats. After that, the dog and the leopard, I think.

I finally have a handle on Godfrey, though he may Need More Plots.

See, plots aren't what the PC Must Do. Plots are, "Okay, you aren't sure what to do? Here's something that should lead to coolstuff." Only, of course, it's all a bit hit or miss, so more plots is good. You're into romance, but your opposite number is ill, out of character? Or wrapped in a different plot? Then, you need to find something else to do, and, hopefully, we will have made that easier by giving you ideas.

Oh, you can find your own. That's cool.

crash_mccormick assigned himself a goal when we ran Colonel Sebastian T. Rawhide's Circus of the Spectacular, and it was a goal guaranteed to keep him busy and to help other players and PCs.

The thing a gm needs to look out for is the player who gets bored and doesn't know how to enhance the larp experience for self and others. That's the player who might decide to have the PC go on a killing spree, just to keep busy -- I'm not talking about players who want to cause trouble, just to cause trouble, but players who want to make something, anything happen, because things are too slow. Granted, there are times and places where that is actually appropriate, but usually, it means that the gms have failed to keep things sufficiently fun for the player.

Oh yes, in the rewrites, I've been changing stuff like "You would never" to "You have never". It is not for me to say what your larp PC will or won't do. Yes, there are mechanics that sometimes do control a PC's actions regardless of player wishes in some larps, probably even including this one when we get done with it, but minimize this stuff. And don't hardwire it into character description. Except when that's appropriate -- like any other kind of writing, every principle I come up with has exceptions. In the first larp we ran, one player asked, "Hey, would my character accept help for Goal X or insist on doing it himself?" We knew, having talked to the author, that the answer was "insist on doing it himself", and we passed this on to the player. It's the right call. But, you know, if the PC accepted help, that would not be a Bad Thing. We'd sigh in our gmly way, shrug, and roll with it.

For writing, to make it clearer, I'd say, "You have decided that you will do this all by yourself." I think -- ask me tomorrow, and I might phrase it better. But, this way has two advantages. It makes the intentions of the author clear. It states the present situation -- the player is perfectly free to decide that whatever happens in the game will cause the PC to change his mind.

And, most stuff shouldn't be that definite, I suspect.

So, seven PCs to go. And blue sheets, and sections that all character sheets will probably have -- GM notes, people the PC knows, and so on.

mnemex is also on my case to go through senses.

Character A: What can be seen, heard, smelled, and, if appropriate, tasted or felt about her for all other PCs. What can be sensed in various combinations for PCs with better senses.

Yes, yes, all this needs to be done. But not right now, not for me. I want to nail my first drafts.

And I want to write out more backstory, as I find this helps me tweak the characters so they are meatier and more comprehensible to people who've not been staring at this stuff for nigh on a decade now.

Trouble is, this is designed as a 58 player larp. Anyone we rope in to help we exclude from the player pool. But, we need fresh blood.

Our team consists of:

Me. I'm doing the first draft (well, I call it that. mnemex insists it's really a third draft), because no one else will. Everyone except mnemex admitted as much. mnemex did the PCs I asked hi to, but my reaction was, "No, that's not sufficient for a first draft."

mnemex. I think he's our best editor on the team. He helped smooth out a lot of the stuff from Jamais Vue between the first run (where he played) and the second.

batyatoon. If she were to say, "I can give you X chunk of time," I'd say, "Spend it drawing." She's been doing wonderful pictures of the characters, and she's the only one on the team who's artistically talented enough for that.

ladymondegreen. She's kind of bogged down. I think, if she had X chunk of time, I'd put her on editor duty or blue sheet duty.

akawil. His only commitment was to techie things, involving servers and stuff, and he's been doing that. We've since moved away into wiki-land, but he made no promises to do editing or writing, and is likewise bogged down.

sdelmonte. He made no promises to do anything other than provide general moral support. Anyway, he earned his keep (such as it was, considering he was co-hosting that meeting) with one suggestion at one of meetings that changed how we looked at one PC, and tightened things up nicely.

mnemex has suggested

zrealm. This could work. I also thought of

jlighton, but in both cases, the question is whether the person is more valuable on the team or in the player pool. zrealm says he's willing, and he's had more floor time running larps than, well, all of us put together, especially as "us" does not include crash_mccormick.

mnemex sent him a typed-while-walking bit of copy text describing the game. zrealm gave him extra points for not using the phrase "Something strange is happening".

Back to the cat.