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Nov. 9th, 2002 11:41 pmSo, I played in the Mary Celeste LARP today. Just about everyone I've talked to who's had any contact with the game has told me how amazingly good it was. And of course it has existed in its original form since... 1981? Something around then. Been run dozens of times, always to great acclaim. So why didn't I like it?
My overall impression is that it is a very well written LARP, with extensively thought out balancing between different characters and plots. In fact, the only potential flaw I found with it is somewhat of an isolationism. All the plots interact, but there are substantially fewer circumstantial forces driving people to work together in specific groups than in most modern LARPs. That's not really a flaw, either, fundamentally, because it in fact leaves the development of the plot very open and flexible, dependent upon the players to make their own alliances. That's probably even a strong part of why it has repeatability with interesting results. But...
The same flexibility that makes the game great for a great cast makes it mediocre for the wrong cast. Of course, any game can be horribly spoiled by a very bad set of players, but I think this particular game is slightly more tricky than most. You don't need a bad cast to make it come out middling, you just need the wrong cast. And in fact, I'm pretty sure that's what happened in this run. It wasn't a set of fundamentally bad players (well, for the most part), but I got the distinct impression throughout that people just weren't getting on the same wavelengths. Even at the very end of the game, very few people had managed to work with others, and as a result almost nobody got any major goals accomplished.
So I think if anyone asks I will tell them that I think it is an excellent game. It just demands excellent casting to be fully appreciated.
My overall impression is that it is a very well written LARP, with extensively thought out balancing between different characters and plots. In fact, the only potential flaw I found with it is somewhat of an isolationism. All the plots interact, but there are substantially fewer circumstantial forces driving people to work together in specific groups than in most modern LARPs. That's not really a flaw, either, fundamentally, because it in fact leaves the development of the plot very open and flexible, dependent upon the players to make their own alliances. That's probably even a strong part of why it has repeatability with interesting results. But...
The same flexibility that makes the game great for a great cast makes it mediocre for the wrong cast. Of course, any game can be horribly spoiled by a very bad set of players, but I think this particular game is slightly more tricky than most. You don't need a bad cast to make it come out middling, you just need the wrong cast. And in fact, I'm pretty sure that's what happened in this run. It wasn't a set of fundamentally bad players (well, for the most part), but I got the distinct impression throughout that people just weren't getting on the same wavelengths. Even at the very end of the game, very few people had managed to work with others, and as a result almost nobody got any major goals accomplished.
So I think if anyone asks I will tell them that I think it is an excellent game. It just demands excellent casting to be fully appreciated.
