Like, Intercon

[learnedax]

I only played three games this year, but I should still really have skipped at least one. I was trying to cover ops in all the odd times, but it turned out that the times I was free were the times the rest of the con was free, and so Saturday was held down by a few quite overworked people. Particular thanks to umbran and buddhagrrl for working much longer than you should have had to. Anyway, the games.

A Night of Elizabethan Intrigue was not bad, although it seemed to be divided into cocktail party for half the players, and completely random weirdness for the others. Mine was the cocktail party. I realized about an hour in that my character was shafted in every axis, though, so I spent most of the game playing up the whipping boy bad guy. I enjoyed myself, but I would say due to the players more than the game.

A Chrysanthemum in Winter was... interesting. The character creation process was aleatoric, and although the game was atmospheric there just wasn't much there. Again, the players brought their own characterization, which created the majority of any enjoyable bits in the game. To an extent you could say that's true of all larps, but I think a good one should shape the runtime, rather than hand a setting over and throw up its hands. That said, I don't think the experiment in forcing players to invent their own motivations was completely unsuccessful, just ultimately flat. The presentation of the process was, well, deeply pretentious, and although it wasn't terrible I will definitely not play in the other three planned games in the series.

Her Majesty's Parlour Adventurers Present: The Matter of Britain was a lot of fun. I was initially dubious about my role, but as soon as the game started I was completely into it. Just fabulous. I will play in the next one (Jules Verne based, perhaps...?).

My game, Endgame, was rough on us, and if/when we run it next changes in runtime coordination will be needed to keep the GMs from running ragged. Most of the players seem to have had a pretty good time, however.

Sunday morning I helped tpau GM two runs of Prawn, which is a fun silly game (that I wouldn't like, but the players enjoyed). After doing some breakdown (and coming up with a conspiracy for the Conchair's death) I went and sat through closing ceremonies/the raffle. Bleh. I should have dealt with cleanup stuff and not wasted my time. I never have particular fun with the raffle (though I was amused to hear that we'd given stuff to the raffle, since it had slipped my mind. See? I do so much for Intercon I can't remember it all), but the shameless plugs were funny two years ago when I saw them (and were supposed to be pretty good last year, when I was tending ops). Not so this year. drdt's was the only plug which was not long, boring, and mostly unrelated to the actual thing being plugged. I would rather have been working.

Also, important dead dog lessons: don't go to that restaurant, and go someplace with a smaller group of people, since you'll only be interacting with a small group anyway.

Overall, a pretty fun con, better than last year, but maybe not as fun as the year before. Not sure. Having my fingers in every part of its operation made the feel of it so different I can't really compare. I did get a lot of good opportunities to chat up interesting people about the nature of larp and whether they'd like to write a game for me next year, however. My plan was to be more laid back this year than last year, and I think I succeeded as a player, and failed as a GM and outside of games, where I barely ever relaxed. Oh well, I'll try again next year.

Comments

[siriel.livejournal.com]

Your comments on Chrysanthemum are pretty well representative of my own feelings. It depended entirely on what the players brought to the experience and could easily have been miserable. I think Intercon should have someone lead stretching each morning, though. I enjoyed that part.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Volunteering at the "odd" hours doesn't really help insure good coverage. Not only at Ops but especially at Con Suite. You have to decide to skip one of the major game periods to really contribute and insure smooth and consistent coverage. (umbran and buddhagirl both did an incredible amount of extra work and I'm grateful to them, too. I hope they were recognized at closing--I couldn't hear from the back of the room.) That's the big reason why I deliberately didn't sign up for any games at all at 'D until a few weeks before the con when Impunity really needed a few more people. And even then, coverage was stretched because there were no "key" volunteers for that night. I really did not want to run Dustpan on Sunday this year, either, since I intended to spend that whole day working, but I got outvoted.

[patrissimo.livejournal.com]

omfg i cant believe i didnt know the word aleatory b4. good stuff!