(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

[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.