Intercon N con report, part I

[breakinglight11]

Friday night Bernie and I arrived at the con early to make sure we had plenty of time to settle in, see people, and get ready for Friday games. For me, that was A Turn on the Radiance Rose, a Brit game set on a train ride from New York to Chicago in 1920s, where I played a medium of the Spiritualist movement. I took a lot of time on my makeup, taking some effort to emulate actual twenties styles of fresh, peachy tones that actually coordinated with my peach and turquoise dress. My hair was a bit of a lost cause, I tried to figure out how to put it up in a faux bob, but it looked stupid, and I'm vain enough that I'd prefer to look pretty and out of the period than the reverse. I had been worried my tiara wouldn't come in in time, but it thankfully arrived on Thursday. I wasn't having a lot of success pinning it to my hair, so I glued it to a headband about the same color as my hair and that worked well enough, though it was a touch too uncomfortable to wear for the full four hours. I even managed to find these nude Mary Janes with wooden heels that were ugly in just the right way to look period-- perhaps a touch more '30s or '40s, but serviceable enough for the 1920s. I'm sure I'll wear them with costumes again.

I really loved this game. The game is brilliantly designed, both from a play standpoint and a narrative standpoint. My character, Eleanor the medium who was running the seance, had an arc worthy of a film or novel, and it was wonderful to explore along it. I am a hard-core narrativist with a side of actor in my play style, which means I care about telling a compelling story and exploring an interesting character, and while you can often find that in larps, rarely do they facilitate an arc so full and well-paced. Somebody practically could have plotted it out for a book or a play. Eleanor has the rugged pulled out from under her in a really dramatically interesting way, and I chose to interpret it in a way that made me actually struggle a bit as to what the most emotionally honest to the character. I think I hit it, but it gave me some problematic implications that actually made it more interesting and human. The production values were excellent, and they transformed a suite or two into a train car set up for a seance so beautifully. This is a small game, so casting matters, and even with several drops filled with random players, I was lucky enough to work all with phenomenal people who did excellent work. My favorite game I played, and definitely in my top ten of all time. I highly, highly recommend this larp if you ever have a chance to play. In fact, I wonder if they're amenable to other people running it!

Also, I have quoted C.S. Lewis in so many larps at this point, and making his insights seem like my characters' have made them seem shockingly deep on a number of occasions. ;-)

More to come later!