All Eyes on Me

I want to wish a fantastic birthday to flyingstalins, not only a remarkable and amazing human being, but the wonderful friend who hooked me up with Muppety goodness! Hope you have a wonderful day! :-)

I just finished writing one of the two replacement characters I have been assigned for Labor Wars, and I'm feeling pretty good about it. Replacement characters are a tricky proposition, in my opinion, but I'm quite proud of the way we're handling them here. There's a lot to recommend using them, of course. The Labor Wars is a weekend-long game with at least some possibility of character death, and nobody wants to be cut out of the game way way early because they got killed. So replacement characters are a way of getting those players back in the game so they don't miss out. But they can have problems. They are often much thinner than full characters, so I've encountered people getting back in the game and finding that they don't have much to do with their new role. Depending on when the second-run character gets into the game, the plots they're supposed to follow may have already resolved, or gone on in such a way as to make it impossible for them to get into those plots. And you can never predict when someone's going to die, so you can't predict when the new character's going to get into the game. Another issue is with information/knowledge management. You might get a second run character who doesn't know things that you already knew in your first character, so you're put under enormous difficulty to not metagame.

In Labor Wars, however, we've done a lot of planning to circumvent these issues as best we can. We are writing the replacements to be each tailored to a particular first-run character. So, if you're cast as X and you get killed, your replacement character will always be Y, whereas if you were cast as A, your replacement will always be B. The replacement is designated as your first character's lieutenant, to whom you've been reporting the goings-on of the game, who is ready to step in for you in the event that something happens to you. This helps make the transition smooth from one, by making character goals stem from the same stuff (if not necessarily consistent!) and by giving a reason for in-game knowledge to be consistent. Your replacement knows everything your original character knew because they are understood to have been informed of everything you learned. And usually you can pick up some aspect of your old plots, if not exactly in the same way to allow you to still have plot when you re-enter the game. It's an incredibly clever design on the parts of emp42ress, natbudin, and simplewordsmith. In the past I have tended to not like replacement characters because of the issues stated above, but their implementation of the concept in this game makes me feel really good about them.

One more to go. Here's off to do it justice.

On Friday night I helped captainecchi and electric_d_monk run the fantastic League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students. I loved playing this game, and I only wish I'd had time to study everything more carefully. I read all the character sheets and the rules, but  I still wasn't quite familiar with the inner workings of the game to be all that useful as a GM. I mostly got answers from Matt and Lise and then passed them on to players. I was particularly proud of katiescarlett29, who stepped in as Irene Adler even though she wasn't totally confident about the improv part of larping, and of nennivian, who I always thought was a larper waiting to happen. By and large the run went very well, with lots of activity and engaged players, but I wish I'd been intimate enough with the game to be able to give better suggestions to the couple of (usually new) players that got stuck. I wanted to talk to them after the game, but I was so blasted by gamewrap that I had to drag myself home and sleep. I have been sleeping badly lately, and I had to get up for a 9AM game the next day.

Saturday morning that 9AM game was the fifth run of Oz. It was an excellent run, one of the best, with the capable assistance of Jared and Bernie as my fellow GMs. We were a little nervous about the casting in places, but it turned out that everyone had a part they enjoyed. Standout players include the awesome natbudin, who we initially wanted for EVERY ROLE IN THE GAME, but we finally settled into a part because he wanted to see him portray the personality-- which he did amazingly. Again, Charlotte was fantastic, showing so much talent for getting into and becoming characters. I was incredibly impressed with wired_lizard, who played the character the way I had always imagined it to be, and gave me a few new ideas on top of that. Zachariah came up with some fantastically clever stratagies for executing his fairly difficult plotline. Hell, pretty much everyone in the game did an excellent job. I should probably stop casting bronzite as my big bad, because I think people expect him to be the villain all the time, and so no one is inclined to trust him. In the previous run of Oz, Marc Blumberg as the villain did very well and in fact managed to achieve his goal of cataclysmic destruction, but it was more because the characters he was in opposition to made a fatal error that they could not fix. John actually pushed things farther along the doom track than anyone so far, but his opposition managed to repair it properly. I was immensely pleased with this run.

Saturday afternoon, I went home to sleep. I think it helped a little, but I was still pretty draggy for the rest of the weekend.

Saturday night was the fifth run of Alice, again assisted by Jared and Bernie. I think it went well in that players had a good time, but this was the WEIRDEST RUN EVER. Though of course there have been variations, the previous four runs tended to follow some pretty clear trends. Basically, there is a pattern of connections that is supposed to get made, and with some variance in the order in previous runs they all came together, leading to an endgame scenario where two large groups are polarized against each other. A lot of those connections did not click this time around, and I'm not sure where the broken link was. The villain was vanquished again, but not by the person who is supposed to and always has in the past. In all the previous runs, either the core villain group acted so covertly that nobody knew who they were until the end of the game, or they formed a tight-knit group so cohesive that they just overwhelmed and crushed all opposition. I feel like they were more scattered and freewheeling this time around, which made them more obvious and less able to protect themselves should someone decide they were a target. There were still some fantastic performances-- I loved Lise's analytical approach to her character and she made amazing process putting together the pieces of her challenge. And April was excellent, not to mention wearing a fantastic costume. I guess any game where the players have fun is a success, but I was really shocked at how weirdly this run went.

Then I went home to sleep. Again, my sleep has not been terribly restful these days, so still. So. Draggy. Blah.

Sunday was Diamond Geezers, the only thing I played. I had a blast. I was playing an ex-military demolitions expert whose rough, ruthless, but not terribly malicious outlook I enjoyed. It was an interestingly set-up game, basically us in a confined space with a few story hooks built in but a plot that was more or less on rails. I wasn't exactly expecting that, but it was a really fun character game, involving yelling in Cockney accents and waving guns around. We experienced an odd phenomenon that I think was troubling Brad as GM that the only ones who were talking much, at least at first, were bleemoo, Charlotte, and myself, and everyone else was fairly quiet. I wonder if it was because the three of us were comfortable doing the accent and they felt slightly intimindated to speak if they couldn't. It's not like mine was any good at all, though Josh's and Charlotte's actually were. Josh was so much fun to play off of, and Charlotte continued to prove my theory that she has always been a larper, whether she knew it or not. Definitely recommend this game as a fun silly character experience.

Oh, as a side note, I was amused at usernamenumber pointing how at Brandeis, of course there was going to be less shooting and killing and more hand-holding and agreeing to work things out. :-) I have noticed this trend myself.

Next year I shall be con chair. I am looking forward to it. I am in the process of pondering a few thing to help optimize, which I will record when I have a better handle on my thoughts. Until then, thanks to everyone for making our very own con a fantastic experience again!

God, I cannot focus today. Had a ton of work waiting for me upon getting back from my trip home, and though I'm making myself get through it, the brain, she is not there. I am especially annoyed that in my absent state I forgot the tasty leftovers I was intending to have for lunch today on my desk at home, wrapped in their convenient travel-ready package. :-P Bernie and I made steaks for dinner last night using the Alton Brown method, which is unorthodox but quite good.

In regards to my musing about the problem of so many unfilled games at Festival-- in case you haven't seen it already, bronzite pointed out that this year's Festival has more quite a few more slots for players than the previous year's did. And while we managed to fill more than we did last year, there are just TOO MANY extra slots even for the increased number of players. Some numbers crunched by natbudin also indicate that while we are growing at least a bit every year, but have mostly leveled off. And the number of people who played the previous year but didn't this year lends some likelihood to the idea that there are no new games for them to play. I'm so lucky to have friends who are smarter than me and think to look at the metrics that matter. :-) Though to be honest I was inclined to look at those player counts myself, I just felt too guilty to spend the time on it when I had real work I was supposed to be doing. Anyway, this is good data to have for planning next year. Maybe shoot for a target number of slots somewhere a little higher than last year to account for a small amount of growth, but not quite so high as this year so as to be able to fill games.

Just throwing this out to all you programmery-types out there who build and maintain larp web sites (which may just be natbudin, but to any possible others there may be):

Is there any particular reason why players aren't allowed to see the lists of everyone who's signed up for each game? I know I'm always interested to see who else will be playing in the games I'm in, and it might even help me decide which one to choose if I know lots of fun people will be in one but not another. Players shouldn't have access to GM-only functions relating to sign up lists, like changing role gender or anything like that, but I don't think it would hurt if they could at least SEE who's in. I know I would like that. Is that possible to do?

Gah, busy weekend. Jared and I tried to go to a Red Sox game Friday night with Steph and Walter, but it was unfortunately rained out. I actually did enjoy the trip and the company, so it wasn't a total loss, but I am kind of disappointed about the fifty bucks I spent on the ticket.

Saturday was helping laurion move furniture to his new place. I really enjoyed this day, as it was spent doing helpful productive things that were incidentally also good exercise with lots of people I wanted to hang out with. I also spoke to Nat about the game he is working on with Susan and Vito, and agreed to be part of the writing team. I'm incredibly flattered to be asked; I think this could be a really great learning experience to try working in a group of people who have lots experience working this way and generated a lot of good games with it. We are working on scheduling a meeting. I must get myself up to speed on all the materials now.

Sunday was spent about half moping and feeling yucky and half solidifying the session of Burn Notice I would be running that evening. I actually really love the plot for this "episode" that we're going through now. My GMing style is to do as much prep work ahead of time as possible, so I'm not scrambling to come up with things, and I am always able to keep the story moving. I know as a player I strongly dislike when the action drags and the players just sort of don't do anything because there's nowhere to go. So I always try to keep things as fleshed out as possible beforehand, so the players always have something to move toward. I think it's worked pretty well so far.

Also, the working scripts my brother got me from the Burn Notice set arrived in the mail. One of them was to the third season premiere, which was pretty damn cool. The second one, however, is from an episode that HASN'T EVEN AIRED YET. How awesome is that? Thanks to Casey doing me a favor, I got a sneak preview of a brand-new Burn Notice! It's a pretty good one, too. I'm having him over for dinner tomorrow, and now I am especially happy to feed him in thanks.

My goodness, this was quite a busy weekend for me. I spent most of Friday doing chores, cleaning and running errands. In the evening Jared and I attended the birthday party of the lovely rigel, which was one of the most pleasant social gatherings I've been at in quite some time. I had some really nice conversations, particularly those with natbudin and usernamenumber, people whose company I always enjoy but just haven't seemed to have a chance to chat with in a while. Jared and I hada really nice time, thanks to all the good company we hung out with. So, happy birthday to Rigel, and thanks to her for throwing a really great party.

Saturday was spent doing homework, and planning a dinner for the evening. I made chicken marbella, which is an elegant chicken dish that must marinate overnight in the fridge in a mixture of prunes, Spanish olives, garlic, redwine vinegar, olive oil, and capers, then is baked in white wine and brown sugar. I was very pleased with how it came out. I also mde a complicated, kind of sophisticated rice dish of wild rice, mint, orange, scallion, pecan, and sunshine raisins. I don't really eat rice so I've never cooked it before, and I overdid it so that it was mushier than it was supposed to be, but the flavor combination was still nice. At night we went out to Rocky Horror in Cambridge. I gotta say, I was kind of disappointed. It wasn't a fantastic show, even though it had the highest production values of any Rocky I'd ever been to, and the techies were obtrusive and obnoxious. We didn't get back till extremely late, and we ended up getting up extremely late the next today, which I wasn't terribly pleased about.

Today we spent doing homework. I finished the assignment I needed to for tomorrow, and now may relax a little. We're going to go to campus for dinner, and then Jared has some more stuff to try and get through. I believe I will take a shower and make a plan for handling things for the rest of the week. I've got a pretty decent amount of work to get through, and making a schedule helps me a lot.