All Eyes on Me

The process of reviewing games bid for Intercon has begun again, and as it always does, it makes me think about what I should be bidding to do my part for my beloved New England larp community. I've already bid Break a Leg, as it's easy and small and they always need Sunday morning games, so my comped membership has already been assured. But now I'm wondering if I should get a little more serious.

As I mentioned, now that I'm about finished with my graduate education (can almost taste that useless masters degree...) I am looking forward to returning to writing larps. And the one that I think will be my next solo project is Imperium, the one set in a fictionalized version of Ancient Rome. I'd love to have a new game to debut at Festival this year-- it's been a while since I've had a new "showpiece" to seriously contend for the-signup-everyone's-vying-for-first-round --and Intercon is just one month before. It woudn't be too hard to run another game along with something as simple as Break a Leg.

I don't have a blurb yet, I'd have to write one. And if I bid it, that means I'd be committing to getting on it and finishing it within the next year. But it's probably enough time to get it done. I haven't decided on my other upcoming projects (once I get out of just-fucking-finish-grad-school mode I will settle on what those will be for the near future) but that would have to be considered as a factor in budgeting my time for other enterprises. But I do miss writing a new larp and having lots of people clamoring to play it. So I may just have to get on it and bid so I can't weasel out. :-)

Despite the fact that it's the last thing I should be digging into now, all the excitement of Intercon sign ups has gotten me in a larpy mindset. It got me thinking about the larps I've had brewing in my head, the ones that I would someday like to write. There are quite a few of them at this point! And while I cannot commit to working on anything right now, I'm curious-- what, of my many ideas, would people be most interested in playing? Which one would you like to see come out next?

"Pan" - Completing the children's literature triptych, a retelling of the Peter Pan story, likely in a traditional fairyland context.

"Imperium" - A game set in Ancient Rome with original characters inspired by the famous historical figures of the time.

"Men of Respect" - A mafia game set in the "Godfather"-era transitional age of organized crime.

"Jabberwocky" - A sequel to Alice about what happens with both the greatest force of good and greatest force of evil are eliminated from Wonderland.

"Asylum" - A horror game set in a Catholic mental institution including both the psychological and the supernatural.

"The Brothers Grimm" - A dark stylized compilation of various famous fairy tales centering around an adventure undertaken by the pair of famous brothers.

"The Greatest Show on Earth" - Currently my least developed idea, but set in a PT Barnum-style big top circus, also likely including supernatural elements.

Harrumph. I know I'm not supposed to be focusing on this, but I am feeling frustrated and restless, so I welcome anything that might relieve it a bit, and right now, I want to muse about larps and larp writing.

Currently my name is listed as author for six larps. They are, in chronological order, Alice, Oz, Paranoia, The Labor Wars, Resonance, and The Stand. Alice, Oz, and The Stand I wrote alone. The other three I was a member of the writing team, The Labor Wars and Resonance with Alleged Entertainment, Paranoia with Bernie, Joe, lightgamer, and witticaster. I find I write best when there is a clear hierarchy of creative control in a game. It is not easy for me to collaborate well, so it helps if I don't see the project as "my idea" when I do. As a guest of Alleged's, fleshing out notions conceived by another person, I did not have the problem where I was so invested in the concept that didn't want to concede to someone else's idea. Paranoia was Bernie's baby, which also made it easier to step back. I'm not so good at working with others on projects that are MY idea unless there is a clear understanding that I get the final word.

Most of those larps have or will have been run quite a bit. Alice has run five times, Oz has run six. The Stand and Paranoia will have their third runs at Festival, while at Intercon Resonance will have its fourth. The Labor Wars has only run once, which I know I would like to put on again if time and my co-writers permit. I tend to be very concerned about whether or not a game has run too many times recently, as I have a fear of the larp not filling. That's why Alice has not come out in a couple years now, and I think Oz should not come out again anytime soon either. Which makes me itch for a new piece to debut. I love the feeling of people rushing to play in my larp, and I get a huge amount of validation for my work when players enjoy the piece.

I have several concepts for larps that I could write. Some of them have been rolling around in my head for several years and for some reason I just never got to them. It's worth mentioning that I thought of most of these considerably before The Stand, which had the weirdest genesis ever-- I just found myself bored at work one day thinking about how I liked cowboys, and would like to write a cowboy larp. I was suddenly jotting down ideas and becoming engaged, when I became struck with the desire to bid it for Intercon. It was that bidding that forced me to work on it as opposed to any other game, which is why it got finished while these others are still just ideas.

I know someday I must write that Peter Pan larp that I've always been talking about, to complete my planned triptych of larps based on what are most likely the three most iconic children's stories in the Western Canon. I will call the game simply Pan, both to fit with the punchiness of Alice and Oz, and to fit in with a notion I am adopting from the movie Hook that Pan is used as a title. The trouble is, while I have a few vague conceptual ideas, and I think I want to go with a kind of fairyland setting, I don't really know what the plot is. I went into writing most of my other games with an idea of that already, so I think that may be what's been stopping me from really digging into it.

Imperium has really been nagging at me. I love the Ancient Roman setting, and I am really enjoying the possibilities that are open to me because I have decided to have my characters be only vague analogues to figures from Roman history so I can deal with some of the same issues but take them in totally different directions. I've had a couple really exciting ideas in the last few days, which pull me more and more towards wanting to work on it, but as it's currently my newest idea, maybe it shouldn't get priority. I am amused by the fact that I seem to write "series" of games-- there's my children's-story-inspired triptych, and apparently there's also my pseudo-historical period games like this one and The Stand.

Jared and I have been working on and off for years on our New York Mafia game, Men of Respect. I love the transitional period in the history of Italian-American gangs, the time immediately post-World War II in which the Godfather is set, after the Golden Age was over but before things just devolved into plain old street crime. We have a lot of work done and a ton of good ideas, but probably because we've never set a work schedule for it we've only ever managed to chip away at it off and on. Maybe the time is approaching to set meetings for it and lay deadlines, because this I think has the potential to be a truly epic game. (I wonder if it counts among the "pseudo-historical" type.)

Then there's one that I have never talked about much because I'm not sure if it's a good or workable idea, but it's been kicking around in my head for several years now. It is tentatively called Jabberwocky, and would be designed as a sequel to my first game Alice. Suggested to me by Jared, it would be examining what happened to the state of Wonderland now that the Jabberwock is gone. I've always been unsure about it for several reasons. First, larp sequels are a tricky proposition. It's hard for them not to spoil the content of the previous game. Also, I'm concerned what the hook would be now that the one hopeful thread that had been in the storyline has by now left Wonderland to never come back. I don't think I want to just tell a story of lots of horrible people fighting to screw one another. But maybe the story can be that without the major suppressing force of hope there, there's a chance of people rising out of the despair that holds them there. Alice was a rather successful game, liked by the majority of its players, so maybe there is an audience for this one.

Lastly, as I mentioned recently, I would love to write a small short game that I could put together quickly and easily just to have something new and fun to run. I am imagining it as a two-hour game where the players are explicitly confined to a tightly limited space with an interactive environment that facilitates the movement of the plot. The trouble is, I have no idea what the circumstance or the story should be. That's always my problem when I come up with the project without already having an idea for it. Somebody give me a scenario, and if I feel inspired by it, I would love to write a quick, short, fun larp for it.

Whenever I have a number of projects going at once-- which for me is most of the time --I always want to work most on the one that is the lowest priority at the given time, and usually have zero motivation to get going on the one that I should be focusing on. When I first conceived of my idea for Just So, the funny short play based on that episode of Frasier, I was raring to go on it, but I should have been devoting my energy to the verse piece that was due sooner. Then later, when Just So's deadline was looming, I could not think of anything I wanted to work on less. Right now I should be thinking about homework, but all I want to do is work on things I can't hand in. I want to brainstorm for Imperium, the idea I had for a larp set in Ancient Rome, even though I have promised myself that I am putting larp writing on hold for the moment in favor of dramatic writing. I want to work on Sundan, the grand, Shakespeare-style tragedy I have conceived of where, in the course of trying to destroy a man who has stolen away the woman he loves, our hero destroys himself. Or maybe Mrs. Hawking, a Holmes and Watson type story, where a working class girl finds a calling through an unlikely partnership with a frustrated-genius high-class lady who she teaches to be a little more human. But neither of those projects satisfy the assignments I've been given, so they can't be used for school. Thus, of course, is my piglike nature, that I never want to do anything that I should be doing, and indeed, even if I used to want to do it, as soon as it becomes priority one I'd rather be doing anything else.

Lise once described to me the condition she refers to as being "haunted by ideas," her brain filled up ideas for all the cool things she could do and make. I think that's a perfect way to describe it, and upon reflection I think I often feel that way myself. Here are some of the things currently haunting my brain.

I want to restart my Burn Notice campaign. I want to keep it an intermittent thing, maybe around once a month at the most, but it hasn't happened in quite some time now and I miss running it. I like my player group a lot (no surprise given it's made up of some of my favorite roleplayers/people) and since it's the dead season for larps right now, a chance to roleplay would be very welcome right now. Taking steps now to see if I can get things organized.

I have an idea for another larp, this one set in ancient Rome. I've always loved that period, and always thought that my favorite book I, Claudius would provide an excellent setting for a game. I wouldn't actually want to make a Claudius larp, though, as history and the book itself would make it thoroughly spoilered. So I find myself dreaming up original Romans in the style of the characters in the novel with new family drama and politics and conflicts and secrets to populate the story. I think it could be a lot of fun. Not sure if it's what I should be concentrating on right now, but this is definitely an idea I'll pursue at some point. It might be nice to have a new thing to debut at next year's Festival.

And of course, school starts in three days. Excited for that, but also nervous. That means that soon I will have to begin playwrighting in earnest. I have, as I've mentioned, several ideas, and I wonder which to begin with. Maybe I should start setting aside time in my weekly schedule as "play writing time" and get in the habit of making serious progress.