Intercon H review

[juldea]

I came, I saw, I LARPed.

Intercon H was my usual rollercoaster-ride weekend-long LARPing experience. (Hmm, maybe I should just start skipping Saturday night games?) However, as it goes, my rollercoaster ended on Sunday at the top of a hill, and therefore my Intercon is remembered pleasantly!

Last Stop was not quite finished, and I think my character is a bit bare on the plot side, but there was a bunch of emotional and internal characterization that I actually had a grasp of and was able to express in game to the GMs' enjoyment. It was exactly the right size. I was a little worried that one particular plot point was going to bone me crazily, but I managed to wheedle out of it; it would've been easier if I had known that I could plant clues on another character without actually having to plant them on the player, which it turns out is very hard. This ends up being both a light game and yet about serious topics and getting deeply emotional for some players; all in all I enjoyed it, which I generally don't say about non-push-button-get-cookie games.

I was very smart and skipped Saturday morning slots to get sleep. After the late night drinking at my birthday party (thank you, etherial!) this was the right choice.

Intercon Hz continues the tradition of involving fun mini-games that, if their topics drag, are still quickly over. Paranormal Zero offered me another actual role-playing and not cookie-chasing experience, where I actually felt the transition from happy-juldea to angsty-Whipporwill in my posture and body language, and I remain proud of that. There are a couple of characters that are too quick to decisions to make that game last long, though. Most of the time is used up in the initial information dump, and after that it's a bit of arguing before a few people make the decision for everyone else. It wouldn't grow past an hour. I skipped Klingon Group Therapy for a bit more downtime, as I just didn't see myself getting into it. Dead Man's Curve was quite enjoyable for a game all about a mechanic, plus I got to go, "Vroom vroom!" I found myself totally intimidated by flirting with the character I was supposed to flirt with, though, which was really odd. I didn't trust him to be a good enough gamer to know IC flirtation from OOC flirtation, I guess, as I'd never seen him before, and maybe that's a smart call to make and maybe not. It held me back from full roleplaying though. Choices II was fun and lighthearted, involved some great lines that I wish I had written down, and quite a bit of metaknowledge that we just passed over for the humor value. I ended Intercon Hz by volunteering to co-run next year's Z game with princess_muffin, which while not being my first GM experience at an Intercon will be the most I've done so far. Yay for being sucked deeper into larping.

Sassy Pirate Wenches on the Island of the Stern Viking Jarls... sigh. I hate, hate, hate saying it, but I just didn't have fun after the initial 15-30 minutes, and I really got soured on it during what little wrap-up there was. I had such high hopes from my character sheet, but it turns out that one side or the other in the writing/reading character sheet interaction went wrong, because apparently I was supposed to be doing something completely different with my time than I thought I was. I was 'graded' in a sense during the mini-wrap-up on a goal that I feel is only casually mentioned in the character sheet, with the emphasis that I got definitely being more on the romance-plot aspect of the game; romance-plotting which I also believed to be the main emphasis of the game and not just my character, and which (to my view) very, very few people were interested in engaging in at all. I think I steeled myself up sufficiently to not come across the kind of romance-plot character interactions that my character would've thrived on and wanted, but it turns out that nearly nothing romantic occurring, I had not readied myself for. The things that did occur seemed to be done on a metagame basis by people reading this post because they wanted to cheer me up and give me the experience I wanted, but sadly this is like londo 'surprising' me by me telling him exactly how to do what I want. If you've got to orchestrate it, it comes off false, and just grumpifies me more. I do appreciate your guys' thoughtfulness, though. ♥

As to my other goals, some of the specific bits of knowledge mentioned in my character sheet referred to terms or groups or people who were never mentioned in game and no one knew about even if I asked.

The secret crop my parents grew that only I knew the care of? Talked to a couple of people about them, which no one cared about.

My ex-fiance prince? We talked some, but he was interested in patching things up with his OTHER lover, so I helped him out with that.

The wizards who supposedly wanted me dead and maybe I could bargain with? Lots of people were looking for them, but they never showed up, never made themselves known to me. My only link to them died pre-game, and while I totally expected this to mean I would see her again in the game, when I did she was a mindless zombie unable of giving me any more information or even interacting.

My history including an engraved ring? Half an hour into game, someone gave me an information dump and pretty much answered all my questions. Nothing else needed. No more clues to follow up on.

My predilection for poison, and the 15 knives I had tucked into my costume? No combat ever occurred.

My friend's son that I was supposed to help? I found him, told him about history, and offered help... but he was also stymied in plots and didn't have anything to ask of me.

I was supposed to desire to learn all sorts of magic from various factions of the world... who never showed in game. No wizards trying to kill me. No nuns with holy magic. No elves. No dragons. No ninjas. None of those subtypes showed up in the game that I saw at all. There were vikings with rune magic, and in fact that was part of my character, but I had trouble with players in getting that learned. So that whole 'learning magic' part of my plot kind of died at the starting line.

My supposedly dead uncle who might still be alive? No one gave a damn about him. I didn't even get a prop or card for the item in my character sheet that was supposed to allow me to control him if he showed up, but that's okay because he didn't.

So aside from all these things on my character sheet that I thought were plots I was supposed to pursue and either weren't or were otherwise derailed, there was also the unfortunate circumstances of the game setting. I totally understand the GMs' thinking in wanting to provide an immersive experience, but they did this by making the room the game was in (1) dark, in fact too dark to read character sheets (and, to my disappointment, too dark for the button I had custom-made for this game to be seen or read by anyone, not that it would have mattered in the end), and (2) cold, as in I'm pretty certain they had windows open to the freezing-level-temperatures outside, such that many players were incredibly miserable during the game and sat around having conversations about how they had costumed as a sassy pirate wench by showing some skin and were now extremely sorry that they had because they were cold enough to be completely distracted from their game and characters and just wanted to leave gamespace to warm up. I spent some time in the 'viking tent' with one of the fake animal skins that had been used as seat padding wrapped around me trying to warm up.

Finally, to wrap up, the fact that nothing was wrapped up probably sours this game the most for me - since it was in the room that the dance was supposed to be in immediately afterwards and we ran late, there was no time for actual wrap-up, only the 'judgment' bit which I've already complained about. I was able to briefly talk to a couple of co-players about plots, one of whom told me he expected us to have had serious plot together when his existence in game was something that obviously was added at the last minute, due to the fact it was an add-on slip in my character packet and not part of what I had originally been emailed and therefore expected to care about; the other of whom started saying things that made complete nonsense and when I expressed this to him, he looked surprised and revealed himself to be a character that would have mattered to me had I actually known it, but apparently it just never got around to me no matter that his name was one of the few that anyone in game should have been attaching to me.

In short, ARGH. After I left that gamespace I spent some alone time in my hotel room, then some couple time in the hotel room, then went back to Con Suite where I forbade anyone to talk about the game so that I didn't dwell on how much fun I didn't have and determine that I fail at LARPing and should quit doing it. (I am much less emo now, not being in the heat of the moment, and am not quitting LARPing.) Oh, but it was unfortunate because emo tends to exacerbate emo, and all my friends on Saturday night were busy being happy and silly with other friends and not me, so I went to bed sad that everyone hated me - not made better by the fact that apparently after I left, a group of people I liked congealed and sat in Con Suite until 5am. Obviously it was me keeping them all separate before then, right? (Not current serious thoughts, just descriptions of previous mental states.)

Then Sunday morning happened, and it was good that it did. Only Mighty Guests was a totally silly anime-style game where I got to dress as a Japanese schoolgirl superhero, silver magic wand and all. I got to play a total airhead obsessed with finding a boyfriend, and luckily found a few guys in game I was comfortable attaching myself to like that. Also, I got to do "SUPER-SPARKLY-GLITTER-HEALING-DANCE!" which was not at all a written game mechanic but something I made up on the spot. "Glomp" was an actual written game mechanic that I made use of a few times. This game recharged my silliness in a much-appreciated manner.

Ooh, and I got to be snarky at people I dislike at Closing Ceremonies. I failed to win any raffle prizes, because doompuppy is a dirty exploiter. I found out about a few nearby campaign games that I might want to try, and was reminded of the awesome larp cruise occurring later this year. Then there were not one but two nice low-key dead dogs with lots of friends old and new. I missed seeing some people then, but hopefully will have chances soon. Lunacon in two weeks, Brandeis Festival of the Larps in five!

Comments

[hazliya.livejournal.com]

I was a bit disappointed with the inability to follow plots, too (sorry to steal your romance plot!). I had this problem of seeking out a promising plot for an long while, with no success until the entire answer was dumped on me about an hour later. I also completely missed my major plot, which was to find my missing love who left blatant clues and names as to where to find him. He came up to me after the game (although we had no wrap up) and revealed his identity, at which time I wanted to choke someone.
I was also a professional zombie hunter, and got to kill nothing the entire game. But I did find some things to enjoy... mostly following some other people's plots, since those were guaranteed to be a challenge.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Heh. Eddie was the one who chatted with me after game about how he had expected to have romance plot with me and not you. One of my comments to this was about how his character wasn't argumentative and 'bad boy' enough for me anyway, and he said, "But you weren't the one arguing with me! SHE was!" which I guess was true. I had just determined from my sheet that I wanted a Real Viking (tm) and not him, and therefore I could at least help him patch things up with you so someone is happy. :P

[hazliya.livejournal.com]

What's funny is that neither of us wanted him, in the end! I was pining after Gray Jack (whose plot I didn't even touch), and Frydrych kept insulting me.
Also, I heard one of the Vikings in full gear say to one of the pirates that he appreciated the cold, since he was in mail and furs. It's too bad there was no middle ground temperature-wise. =/

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Gray Jack being the supposedly-dead uncle of mine who I never saw nor heard any reference to in game.

[hazliya.livejournal.com]

...Are you serious?

Is there anyone in the game that I didn't have plot connections to? That's kinda... overwhelming. I wonder if everyone was like that.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Yep! Obviously you and I didn't have enough desperately-revealing-information-in-hopes-of-making-plot-happen time together, or that name would've come up and maybe something could've happened from it...

Makes me wonder if I should just go into games and immediately yell out all the key words on my character sheet, secrecy and intrigue be damned. It turns out trying to be secretive or protective just ends up with no plot happening, most of the time.

[hazliya.livejournal.com]

Oh, man. I would totally write a game with you where blatant obviousness is a game mechanic.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'd have to figure out how to write games, first.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

I did have to be a bit more loose with information than I would be in, say, a guild game, to get some of my plot moving. But I would have been okay if I hadn't been that loose, I guess. Figuring out my connection to Eddy was just pure ridiculousness and oversharing.

But I felt my character was confused enough by all this crazy shit and worried enough about the world ending that she was willing to take some chances like that. Especially when Trey was going to eat me if I didn't!

[juldea.livejournal.com]

The craziness about the world ending and time travel was why I let details slip to people in the first place, yeah, and even that I had to actively think, "Okay yes, so this is stupid because you're supposed to keep the fact that these people want to kill you SECRET, but let's see if we can get some plot going because there's no other way it will." It still didn't result in anything for me; that's just the roll of the dice on who I talk to, I guess.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

You have to kind of meta-think this. On the one hand, in Alice, I had started with a plot widget and no one asked me about it the whole game. On the other hand, if you analyze the tropes, you can sometimes find good people to reveal all your shit to.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I'm glad you feel confident enough in your knowledge of tropes to be able to do that in game. I don't.

My main focus is actor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory)-ing, and it seems like that rarely gets me anywhere.

[etherial.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's taken me years. And I'm still not all that great at it. The main problem I find with Actoring is that your character has a far better feel for the world than the player does.

[londo.livejournal.com]

I've considered this as a tactical option in almost every game I've ever played.

I've decided against it, because I think it would only "work" in a situation where the GM has written things well, and in that case, I'm being kind of rude to their quality writing.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

Most of your complaints seem valid, but if people were that cold and thought the GMs were doing it on purpose, someone should have *said something* to the GMs. I was only briefly cold, as my character wasn't showing so much skin, cause she really didn't give a damn about that. of course i wound up finding my feelings of love and sex in a necklace, but that was complicated.

Talking to GMs afterwards, there were saying that the name wound up leading to some unfortunate misconceptions about what the game would be based on the name. Before I got my packet I was expecting something SFYW-esque, but once I got it I saw there were some amusing similarities to my SFYW character, but that I had some serious time travel plot, and I was cool with that. I dunno, I need to sleep now. Sorry you didn't have fun there. :(

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I specifically told the GMs it was too cold twice, and was around to hear two other women say it as well, plus as part of a trio of women who were standing around complaining about the cold when a GM came by, and we all said it. The GMs' responses were generally cheerful, "Yep, it's cold, isn't it!" replies, because they enjoyed the immersive experience, even if we didn't.

Nothing in my character sheet indicated time travel occurred or was something to be expected. It was *very* oriented on boys, though.

[laura47.livejournal.com]

okay, that is officially for crap.

[gower.livejournal.com]

Oh well. Sorry you didn't have so much fun.

I'm sorry about the cold. I had nudged down the thermostat before game start (mostly because I was really warm in that room before). Man, I can't believe people were all shivering. I agree about the dark though. It was too dark. Atmospheric, but too dark.

All of your comments are good. I hate that you felt graded at the end (this is why I hate postgame in general, actually. It always feels evaluative.)

The crazy thing is that all of the stuff you mentioned as not seeing were in game, often multiple times. But the darkness and the sheer bigness of the game made that often impossible to do anything with. That's probably a bad thing.

Also, this game needs more sex and violence.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I can't believe people were all shivering.
People have different temperature levels. My office is normally kept between 77-80; my home is kept at 65 and I am normally wearing a bathrobe or sweats. I am used to the fact that other people like it colder in the rest of the world, but whatever the temperature of that room was, I wasn't expecting it and it was actually physically discomforting to the point of distraction.

Rune-ing the game

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

Near the end, I was collecting rune readings, but getting just enough information to misunderstand them entirely.

My mistake was not recognizing that my major goal could have me talking with everyone and anyone. In hindsight, I should have had a laundry list of things to ask about. Next year I am going to put details down on index cards.

Does that seem like a great idea or obsessive-compulsive behavior gone crazy?

Re: Rune-ing the game

[juldea.livejournal.com]

It seems like a great idea for getting plot done, but really ridiculous when you think about things in the manner of, "What would a viking runemaster do?" It goes with my above comment where I wonder aloud if the way to achieve goals in game is to walk in and start yelling out key words, waiting for someone to run up to you recognizing one.

Re: Rune-ing the game

[shadowravyn.livejournal.com]

You can actually blame cristovau for the whole teem-thing. I talked to you immediately after talking to him about becoming the Goddess of Love/Lust, and he told me to do what I do best"--which, for the purposes of the game--was either have sex with people, or get other people to have sex. And, remember, long before I talked to you about that, I had citabria away in the woods, banging Olaf. I'd've tried to hook more people up, but I had just found Hammer/Thorin, and was busy fightening him into marrying me. I spent most of the game waffling between whether I wanted to be Queen of the Vikings which was pretty much a Sure Thing(tm) or if I wanted to become a goddess, which meant that I had to let Ragnarok happen.

I admit, I came up with the idea because I wanted to "help", but I didn't actually do anything about it until I realized that it would probably help me in my quest to become a goddess. So, I don't know if this makes you feel better at all, but while I conceived of the idea for meta-reasons, I acted on the idea only because it suited my in-game purposes.

*sulky face* I really wanted to become a goddess.

Re: Rune-ing the game

[juldea.livejournal.com]

And, remember, long before I talked to you about that, I had citabria away in the woods, banging Olaf.

Can't remember what I didn't know!

I do know it helped you with your plot. And I've already said I'm not upset with you for it. *smooch*

Re: Rune-ing the game

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Had I known about the darkness in the game room, I would have written key things down (in large print) on index cards. Like, the various incarnations that we had intended to find suitable people for as part of Our Grand Master Plan^TM that sorta fizzled. I have taken a crib sheet into some games when it was clear that I had a set of interlinked goals to achieve.

gower said in his journal that part of the goal of the darkness was to remove the crutch (my word, not his) of referencing character sheets from the players but I don't think it worked well with the rich backgrounds we had. (Or, maybe it could have had we known in advance that we would be in mostly artificial moonlight.)

Re: Rune-ing the game

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Yeah, removing the crutch of character sheets is awesome - if the players know to expect it. We are unfortunately used to having our char sheets available and therefore not memorizing information. No one was prepared to have their crutches removed out from under them - and let me tell you, that's unpleasant! ;)

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Your character...um, um, what was her name again?...wanted to learn magic? That's not what I was told! :-D

(Although, Slegper was looking for a strong wench woman to be his mate, not one who might be a magical rival.)

[gower.livejournal.com]

Yes--the "avarice" of Jill was the desire to obtain lots of types of magic--not for cash money.

And making the choice (or simply not getting the opportunity to) learn magic was just one of the things that was tallied up in the Ragnorak score at the end. Either way is a valid choice/outcome--but I think I made it seem like there was a "successful" and "unsuccessful" way to go.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

We made good magic together, though! *wink*

[gower.livejournal.com]

>I was able to briefly talk to a couple of co-players about plots, one of >whom told me he expected us to have had serious plot together when his >existence in game was something that obviously was added at the last minute.

Which character was that? We didn't add any characters at the last minute, so that makes me curious.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I slightly said that wrong - the player of Fredrych was the one who spoke to me about that, and the 'you recognize this person' blurb for Fredrych was a cut-out thrown in my character packet in a way that indicated aftersight, unlike all the other 'people you know' blurbs that were printed out on the char sheet I got weeks before game. I parsed this as the character just being cast/written. I was possibly influenced by the fact that I know you've added characters to a game before so that I could play them! :)

[gower.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. That was a function of Eric and I doing stuff a little differently. I tend to add "reactions" to people you didn't expect to be there right onto the character sheet with the note to act surprised when you see them.

Eric tends to like to add them in separate notes given right before the game, to actually surprise the player.

That's what those little slips of paper were about. They reminded me of those little slips they put into your program to tell you that "the role of Macbeth will not be played by Patrick Stewart tonight, but instead will be played by Joe Anonymous."