(no subject)

[learnedax]

So, thinking back over the couple of dozen LARPs I've played in the past sixish years, there really aren't that many which I both enjoyed and thought were well-written. Perhaps two or three, in fact. Frequently I run into what seem like the same problems repeatedly, particularly winding up locked out of the central action of the game, even when I am fairly certainI have done as much as possible to fix my inherent lack of plot by tying myself to others. I begin to wonder whether the problem here is, just possibly, that I'm not a good LARPer. Or at the very least not well-suited to the majority of games I have found.

Now, there have been perhaps half a dozen games where I was involved in major plots, and half of those I was happy because it seemed like everyone was involved in something, and they were good games all around. The remainder seemed to suffer from the usual swath of characters locked out of anything truly interesting, I just happened to be one of the few who got lucky. This does not make a very fun experience for me either, really.

In light of this it appears my odds of getting real enjoyment out of a (serious, at any rate) game are rather low. Maybe this is because most games are badly written from my perspective, or maybe I am not good enough to do anything useful if plot isn't handed to me on a platter. In either case it's very tempting to put a moratorium on my LARP involvement.

At the same time I'm having lots of interesting ideas and revelations about writing LARPs. And I feel a certain trepidation about becoming only a generator and not a consumer in the field. So I'm stuck then, I guess.

Comments

[laurion]

Well, there's a few other things to look at. First, if you are busy with plot, then it tends to look like everyone is busy with plot, mostly because they are never so unbusy as to be terribly convenient to your plot needs. On the other hand, if you are plot light, everyone will seem to be plot light because you can easily engage them in conversation. Naturally, however, they will be unlikely to share their plot with you, so they come across as plot light. It's a side effect of people playing their cards close to their chest. Busy people stay busy trying to find ways to get the info they need. Idle characters stay that way because they don't get any information to make them otherwise. Secondly, I found similar things happening to me at one point, and I realized it was partly my fault, in terms of how I apped. I know I'm flexible when it comes to roles, and have said so. Many of the GMs who have seen me know this too. So I end up apping myself in a way that makes it easy for them to set me aside for casting later, knowing that I'll readily take to any role they happen to have left at the end. So I've started to rethink how I app. Yes, flexibility is a good thing, but so is emphasizing experience, and capability to take roles that might need stronger players. Then I started to be more explicit in what _I_ wanted from a role, and I'm sure you know that GMs appreciate it when apps jump up and ask for something: it makes it much more likely that you'll try to give the player what they ask for.

I do tend to agree with the sentiment that the best games are ones where every player has a sensation that the game was about their plot. Otherwise, you really do have people who are in some way locked out of the game. This doesn't mean there can't be the big central plot, but it shouldn't prevent the rest of the game from happening.

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

mm, hadn't thought about the pre-app. I was a bit less flexible this time in my preapp, and I had fun with the character I got. I think it's not so much that it suited me especially as it helped give them something to help build the characters, as this LARP felt like it was, if not written from the apps, at least customized/tailored to the players in spots.

Kind of like as a GM I like to pride myself on being able to weave any set of characters together, but on the other hand the plot is so much better when people's characters have a life of their own that I can build the plot around.

[jducoeur]

I was a bit less flexible this time in my preapp, and I had fun with the character I got.

Yaas. Actually, one of the problems with Celebration was that, while the app asked a number of the right questions, it missed several of the basic ones, like Actor vs. Roleplayer vs. Problem-Solver. Many of the casting problems were due to missing that information.

I think it's not so much that it suited me especially as it helped give them something to help build the characters, as this LARP felt like it was, if not written from the apps, at least customized/tailored to the players in spots.

Yeah, well -- I can claim that that was a fine and intentional thing, but it was at least partly because I didn't actually write the damned character sheets until after we cast. Still, it did mean that I could do a bunch of subtle customization, which does usually make for a better player experience...

[metahacker.livejournal.com]

I think you are pushing the LARPs to somehow magically MAKE you have fun. I've only been in, what, 6 LARPS? but I enjoyed all of them, despite having a wide variety of characters (from central to extremely peripheral); I think a large part of this is attitude and how I related to semi-strangers.

You might investigate what it is that you didn't like about *playing* the LARP, rather than about "The LARP" as some sort of seperate platonic entity. Talking about a LARP without talking about the players in it is pretty senseless. What do you want to be, and be doing, in a LARP you think you'd enjoy? Figure that out first, and then figure out how it was lacking from the LARP-instantiations (larp+players) you've been in...?

e.g. you seem to be unhappy if you don't know what your character is supposed to be working toward at any particular time. Is that true? (This was obviously very noticable with Prasad) What else?

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

I don't want it to MAKE me have fun, but I want it to be a fun-enhancer. I am coupling together my personal experience of a game and my global judgment of it because I want the game itself to be interesting, as well as for me to be able to get something out of it. Getting specific, Broadway on the Rocks handed me one of the most central and involved characters, but I felt bad throughout the game that if you weren't in that clique you were bored.

Of course I see the players as a major factor, but they are one which is difficult to control, and what can be done I already mostly do. Breakdowns happen. My run of Mary Celeste was weak because of player interaction, but it's a very well-written game.

What do I want out of a role? I want interactive literature. I want to be writing the story with the other players. On the Acting-Roleplaying-Problemsolving triangle I am more or less right between Roleplaying and Problemsolving. That doesn't necessarily mean I want to be figuring out puzzles, but I want my character to have challenges and conflict which need to be resolved; that's what makes this an interesting story and not just a character study. In anything I regard as a serious game I do not want to be Acting - I've got actual acting to fulfill that need.

I can thrive in a character without explicit goals (it's not a question of wanting to be told what to do), but giving a character no goals and more importantly no connection to other peoples' goals is ruinous.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I think that LARPs are like any other art form, in that a large percentage are mediocre, and that no one game is going to be perfect for everyone. It took me the better part of a decade in the hobby to figure out exactly what to look for in a game, exactly what to ask the GM's for, and what to bring to the game (psychologically and expectation-wise) in order to have the best possible experience.

The problem you're describing, of not having a tie-in to the central plots, is a common one, especially with less-experienced writers and shorter games (less time to work your way into plots once they've started). There are a lot of ways to deal with it, though. You can push your way into plots, in or out of character; you can adapt to playing more character-driven, less plot-driven characters; you can address the GM's before game-start and request more intensely plotted characters; you can build your own plots sometimes.

Try out different writers, different character and plot types. Try a weekend-long game - I think the pacing might really suit your style of play and plot preferences. Or, if you really think it suits you better, there's nothing wrong with becoming more of a writer. We need people at both ends of the spectrum.... god knows I never have and never will write a game, and someone needs to balance me. :)

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

It's all down to practice, eh?

You're probably right that I should be doing more myself to fix these problems. I ought to try talking to the GMs about it, I just always feel like a prima donna doing that (when I even get my character info sufficiently in advance for that to be viable). When I have no plot I will be character-driven, but it's not really what I'm looking for. I have tried pushing myself into plots with varying degrees of success, but in a four-hour game it can be very hard to dig your nails into plots before everything gets bogged down in secret meetings. Conversely, I've only played two weekend games (and they were by drdt and kviri, so that's really not a large sample set), but I have run into somewhat the same problems. The scale gives me more to work with, and I tend to like the feel of them more, but e.g. after 48 hours of furious work winding my totally-shafted character into half the plots in Six By Nine I still wound up locked out in the end because the main characters had gone off into a locked room. At least I was in good company that time: half the game sat around playing poker for the last two hours because there was literally nothing to do.

I thought you cowrote a BYOG at one point...? Maybe I'll try to drag you into a writing team at some point.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

As a general comment - there's Sturgeon's Law: 90% of everything is crud. While perhaps not literally true, the tendency for the greater part of all things to be mediocre at best. This especially goes for first-run games, games by new writers, short games, and games created by a small writing staff.

I ought to try talking to the GMs about it, I just always feel like a prima donna doing that

I'm not a big writer of larps, but I've helped run my share of them. The GM's whole purpose is to help you have a good time. You are not being a prima donna for giving them what they need to do their job.

It is wonderful when a game can run as initially written without any GM intervention other than rules ajudication, but few games are that perfect. A good GM knows that a little "lubrication" is sometimes required, and that an occasional nudge to keep things rolling for everyone may be necessary. But their ability to guess or or see what needs nudging is limited - there are many players and only a few GMs in most games. So, a GM rather depends upon the players to let them know what's up.

Longer games certainly do have their advantages - with more time, more mixing is likely to happen. With more convoluted plots, more mixing is likely to happen. But sometimes the "secret meeting syndrome" does still develop. Part of that is a player problem, and part of it is a GM and game structure problem.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I ought to try talking to the GMs about it, I just always feel like a prima donna doing that

Don't do that. Feel that way, I mean.

A well written LARP should have plenty of things to do for all of the player characters that if not directly addressing the main plotline at least keep you busy. One trick in writing a good LARP is to make sure that some of the characters don't become a tremendous focus. ("Elfwhere II" springs to mind: the PCs are almost all faeries attending a masked ball in Auberon's court. Everyone of course must pay fealty to the Summer King at some point but the majority of the faeries running around have their own reasons for being there and, in truth, probably wouldn't want his attention.) We've left ideas on the shelf when we couldn't break this problem.

Talk to a GM. Briefly, of course, but let him know that you're wandering aimlessly or (pre-game) that you don't see what you should be doing. The GM knows all of the plots and may be able to adjust things that are keeping you from your plot, give you an idea about what he saw as something you should do as your character, nudge you into looking at something that really hadn't been well investigated yet to give you a new sub-plot to work with or even just hint that if you wait ten more minutes something interesting will happen involving you.

You are providing important feedback for the GMs as well since the majority of them lack a dozen eyes to keep track of everything. You would make my day with such feedback.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

I did help write a BYOG, but I attribute that decision to severe sleep-dep, and will go to great lengths to avoid it again. I'm okay at writing character sheet, but my grasp of plot, balance, interaction, and what other people want is lousy.

Learning to tell the GM's what you want, and when you're having trouble, is a difficult thing. It's hard not to feel like a whiny self-centered prima donna, but... it's necessary, it's not self-centered, and it works. A game is a collaboration between the players and the GM's, and you won't get what you want without asking.

As for seeing the same problems in weekend-long games... they do have problems, yes, but the more you play, the more you learn how to predict the good games. And, overall, I do like the pacing better on longer games. I think you and I have a lot of the same interests and issues in gaming, and I'd love to work with you at some point - if there's ever a weekend-long game around here, would you want to try to get cast together?

[jducoeur]

I'm okay at writing character sheet, but my grasp of plot, balance, interaction, and what other people want is lousy.

Hmm. This indicates to me that maybe you shouldn't write characters alone. OTOH, you are quite good at the kind of evocative prose that can help the player get into their character's head. So you might be a real boon working with a game writer who is good at the mechanical stuff, but not so hot at the emotional level. (Which is actually more common in my experience.)

Plot, interaction and stuff like that are the essence of character design. But skill at prose is the heart of actually writing a good character sheet. I suspect you'd do well at the latter, if you were working with someone who is good at the former...

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

But.... what about the fact that I don't *LIKE* writing games?

I like playing. Writing means you don't get to play. I'm happy enough helping run games that I've already played, since I don't really miss anything that way, and I'm more than willing to help rewrite (like I've offered with Celebration - I'd love to pretty up some of the sheets for that).... but outside of those situations, writing a game would feel like a chore for me and a punishment for the players.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

if there's ever a weekend-long game around here, would you want to try to get cast together?

Sounds like a good idea. Just probably not a love plot, for tpau's sake. Maybe we should try to get a decent weekend to run, there haven't been many of late.

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Don't worry, I do play more than just romance plots. :) They're my favorite for acting, but they're generally not enough to carry a game. Besides, somehow they don't strike me as the sort of plot that you'd truly adore.

As for getting a good weekend-long game to run.... I'm honestly not a big fan of reruns, so it would be more an issue of finding people to write a good weekend-long game. If you do, let me know.

[jducoeur]

I ought to try talking to the GMs about it, I just always feel like a prima donna doing that

I agree with the others -- it's never wrong to tell the GMs if you've hit a dead end, or even just a slow bit. They may or may not be able to help, but it's useful information to them, beyond even the fact that you are getting bored: it can indicate that plots aren't materializing, and that things need to be finessed.

A good example is this past weekend: I actually had no idea that you'd hit a slowdown. There were players I was concerned about, and was trying to help a little, but I really hadn't realized that you were snagged, and it would actually have been useful to know. (It was closely tied into the Sarah plot not going quite as I'd expected.)

So do tell the GMs, although be understanding if they come up blank on how to help at just that moment. They're often pretty clueless about how the game is really going, and additional information can frequently help a lot.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Alright, alright, I bow to consensus, I will feel freer to complain (not a usual problem for me).

As I said elsewhere, the main reason I didn't talk to y'all on Saturday was because it was a four-hour game. On that small a scale things happen too fast to easily correct, if I don't have much to do I can still Act (which is largely what I did), and if I *really* have nothing to do it will be over soon.

As an aside, I really do think Celebration worked out well for all but a very few, probably much better than average player satisfaction. It's just that I had some bad casting karma.

[jducoeur]

It's just that I had some bad casting karma.

Ah, well -- a bit of bad casting always happens. For what it's worth, you were a hell of a lot of fun to watch and listen to. (Your bit in the play was the one point during the game that finally got me into helpless giggles...)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

You were missed tonight.

[learnedax.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, family generally trumps other social occasions. Even y'all.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

It took me a while to discover that I'm more of a roleplayer and a little bit of an actor instead of a problem solver. I'd much rather slip into character (and costume) and enjoy the role playing experience. I also don't mind being set up to fail, i.e., being the villain. But it took a while and there were several games that I didn't enjoy because I was really cast in a role that didn't fit me. A good game will have many different kinds of roles to fit different types of players.

There's nothing particularly wrong with only writing, by the way.

[siderea]

There's nothing wrong with specializing in writing. I quickly figured out I vastly prefer GMing to playing. I think you're right to want to avoid only producing without experiencing other people's work as GMs, for the same reason I think bandleaders should learn to dance. :) Actually, that's a good analogy. I really don't feel there's any moral difference in specializing in being a musician to play for dancers (instead of specializing in dancing) and specializing in being a GM to run games for gamers (instead of specializing in playing them). I got very similar things out of both. I really enjoyed crafting experiences which are so compelling they really transport people.

[jducoeur]

Okay, I have to chime in all over this thread, I'm afraid, since I still seem to have a bad case of LARPbrain from the weekend...

The remainder seemed to suffer from the usual swath of characters locked out of anything truly interesting

Generally a sign that the game has design problems. It's a common problem -- heaven knows, Celebration suffered from it, which I didn't realize until too late -- but it's still a problem. Better games try harder to avoid Main Plot Syndrome, or at least to have enough other major plots that no one feels left out.

One of the tricks that both runs of Tabula Rasa have managed is that, while they do have a "main" plot, that ultimately isn't the *important* plot for anyone. (Or at least, not to more than a few people.) That is, the amnesia is central to the game, but is really just a detail that is in the way of the numerous real plots that most players are dealing with.

And I feel a certain trepidation about becoming only a generator and not a consumer in the field.

While I'd recommend keeping a toe in the "consumer" field, just so you keep new ideas flowing in, there's nothing wrong with focusing on the writing side. You'll note that I only play 2-3 games a year on average, and write 1, which seems to be an entirely workable ratio...