FOTL Report - Alice

This casting wasn't easy. It took several hours to get through, and there were a bunch of people we really weren't sure about. I was pleased to see how much our hard work paid off. Many of you have Jared to thank. He took a lot care with this, and fought for a lot of castings that ended up working really well, such as Zachariah and Kevin. As in many such situations, we balanced each other fairly well-- he made sure I considered all the possibilities before making a choice, and I made sure we started nailing some possibilities down so we could move forward.

This is a fairly easy to run game. There isn't a huge amount that has to be adjudicated by GMs, so mostly jared and I got to run around and watch the awesome stuff you guys do as players. That's always a lot of fun. I apologize for the errors and typos in the sheets. I printed them over the last break when I was at home, and the Google doc versions were the only ones I had access to, and they were not the most up-to-date and perfect. What I need to do is check over the real versions and then copy them into every place I store them so they're all the same. Mostly this was just annoying; I worry it may have caused some trouble for twilighttremolo, and if so I profusely apologize, especially since I really liked how she acted that character.

As for the run itself, it was unlike either of the previous two in many ways. First of all, two of the major bodies making up significant parts of the Good and Evil sides (or, at least Less Evil and Evil sides) identified each other from very early on. In all previous, they seemed to guard their secret identities for much, much longer, until the last hour of the game. This makes a lot of difference, as it is to either of these two sides that the rest of the game is supposed to gravitate, which results in a huge polarization by the end of the game. This polarization both occurred earlier than expected and didn't coalesce as completely, so there were lots of clashes that couldn't exactly resolve since the killing mechanic kicked in after the two sides had identified each other. There have never been so many mass combats in one run as there were in this one. It resulted in the highest death toll we've ever had at nine characters, fully one third of the game. The good/less bad side seemed to have had the upper hand very early, but then swung in the bad guy's favor for nearly the rest of the game. Simultaneously, it seemed that the elements that would have finished things did not get together until extremely late. It didn't get really pulled out by Good until literally two minutes until I was going to call game wrap.
 
This run also highlighted how it common it is for it not to occur to players to interact with their environment. A number of pieces of information can only be gleaned by examining the particular features of Wonderland, and unfortunately not many of the characters who needed to gather information that way thought to do so. I've learned in my experience that if a GM takes the time to indicate the places in the world of the game, those places have some significance to them. The one player who really investigated things to his advantage was Zachariah Lieberman. I really enjoyed this guy, both as a larper and as a person; he really got into character and he was extremely friendly and enthusiastic about everything. I hope he comes around to events more often. 

Just some random observations follow. Thus far bronzite has played the big bad who came the closest to winning in the end. I gave him the role because the bad guys have yet to come out on top in this game, and I figured if anybody could do it, he could. I was really impressed with him, both his strategizing and his acting of the part. As he said, he and teenyweenyowen are war gamers by default, so in that respect it was quite the clash of the strategic titans. I was quite pleased with the characterization of elenuial, who very much nailed the spirit of the personality. Adina and Marissa did an amazing job was their characters, who have possibly the most difficult job in the game. Ryan played the main character, who we cast on a hunch that he'd be good at it and like it, since nobody else was really jumping out at us, and we really really glad. Other gamers who did cool, interesting things were Thorin, Shannon, Randy, and, well, pretty much everyone in the whole shebang.

By and large, Jared and I were incredibly happy with how the game ran. We're also very interested in hearing the story and opinions of the players, so don't hestitate to let us know how things were for you. This game is really my baby, and I'm so glad that it was enjoyed.

Next up: the Saturday morning run of Oz

FOTL Report - Oz

I'll be honest, I cast Oz mostly by feel; I checked the casting questionnaires mostly to make sure I wouldn't stick someone in a part they'd hate, and then went with my instincts. I think by and large it worked, at least with people I got a chance to talk to afterward. I took particular care with captainecchi, seeing as I screwed up casting her for Alice in the first run and gave her a character she couldn't play. Fortunately, Oz had somebody absolutely perfect for her, and I was very pleased with the way she played it. She had a tough job in game, and came very close to getting it done.

One thing I found and will have to modify for the next run is that there is such a thing as too much gamespace. As with Alice, I had the entire building of Golding, but unlike Alice, fifteen players do not fill space in the same way that twenty-seven do. The place felt strangely empty, and I was worried it meant that people weren't busy enough. It turned out that most people felt they did have enough to do; it was just that they were so spread out that not as much appeared to be going on. That will have to be remedied; I like the feeling of bustle.

The one thing I did find useful about the space was that there was an ampitheater classroom with a projector screen in it. I made this the window of the viewing deck on the Emerald Station and had a series of slides depicting space just outside. I liked it very much and thought it added a lot to things. The game, as was pointed out to me by the lovely v_cat, who was by the way excellent in her role, turned out to be very GM-heavy, which was not my intention, but she's right, that needs to be corrected. The trouble with most things in that vein was that while I did a good job hammering out the plot stuff, I ran out of time when it came to mechanics. The first editing job required will be the fix all the stuff that was in my head but I never managed to get on paper. I'm very grateful to Bernie, not only for helping me GM, but for helping as well as he did when I didn't have time to get him as well up to speed as I should have. Another mechanic that I borrowed from Lise and electric_d_monk-- who was, by the way, exactly what I pictured for his role-- I need to hammer out a little better as well, but I liked it very much in theory and think I can get it where it needs to be. The role that had the most to do with that mechanic was played by in_water_writ, for whom the personality is just amazingly perfect. 

By and large, I am pleased. Some editing I believe is all that is required to smooth out the mechanical issues. Also, there is the matter of all the people who didn't get in and would like the play. I would love to run this again as soon as possible, if there is some time and space before the end of the year.

Next-- Saturday afternoon run of Paranoia