Allova's Amazing Wellington Adventure - Part 3
Saturday Night - The Larp: REUNION
From the Kapcon website:
"The Union of Planets prospered through a system of interstellar travel gates that allowed instantaneous passage between worlds. Reunion is set centuries after the disastrous shut down of the gates. The vast distances between worlds has prevented any contact, and over time each planet has evolved in strange and different ways. The gate on your home planet opened briefly and a messenger arrived looking for help in permanently reopening the gate network. How can the gates be reopened, should they be reopened, why were they shut down, what is in your (or your planets) best interest, how will you seize this opportunity to take your place in history?
When the larp was first announced, I was a little dubious because I'm not a huge sci-fi fan. Then I read up on it a bit more and really liked the look of the factions, especially that Victorian/steampunk looking one, so when I signed up, I put down that I'd like to be a part of that one especially. I had wanted to make a fabulous Victorian costume for the Great Exhibition but it turns out organising Chimera was, as always, a far bigger time suck than I remembered, I ended up having to borrow something rather than make the fabulous big blue affair I wanted to (it's still on my to-do list) So there was my motivation for wanting to be in Arboria, the excuse to wear a cool steampunk outfit. As we covered last entry, I got do have my fun with costuming, and now, for the actual event itself.
Note: Behind the cuts are SPOILERS for the larp. I'm hoping to rerun it in Auckland sometime next year, so if you think you want to play, you might be best avoiding reading it. Also, very very tl;dr. Be warned.
When I got my character blurb, I had something of a sinking feeling in my stomach as I read it. She was a really smart cookie, and a political savvy woman sent to represent the interests of New Berlin in the armistice with New London. It's not that I didn't like the character, I was just terrified that I was going to have again play a character that was smarter than me. That never goes well. In fact the last time I did it, I got killed by Al Capone. Then I found out who was playing my opposite, the king of New London, and then it really was like "awwww hell" - some poor hapless newbie I might stand a chance again, but a seasoned competent roleplayer? I already felt sorry for New Berlin and the way we were going to get owned by New London.
Nevertheless, I reminded myself that it wasn't about achieving your goals, it was about having fun (and looking fantastic) so who cares anyway about suceeding, just shut up and sew your costume. Besides, it really was going to be fun no matter what happened. Then when I got my character sheet a week before the game, I really got excited because it was obvious that there were so many cool plots and so many tensions ready to explode. This was just going to be awesome. And I had a love interest! I think I howled with laughter when I read who my love interest was- "Wait, wait," I asked my laptop screen. "You mean to tell me that my love interest is the illegitimate son of Alan Copeland XXV? Oh that is just GOLD. If my girl is even half as smart as this character sheet says she is, she would know waaaay better than to even think about going there!" Now I may have the political savvy of your average teaspoon but even I knew that trying to go there was going to be DISASTROUS. But the other 95% of me absolutely adores catastrophic drama in larp, and especially adores politically unsuitable relatinships and all the drama it brings, so I figured that for all that I could see disaster brewing on the horizon, I was probably going to run at it head first. So between all this, and the fact that Anthony (the guy playing my opposite) had been trying to psyche me out via gmail-chat for weeks, I was now absolutely certain that no matter the outcomes, this was going to be an evening of awesome.
So who was I? I was playing Vanessa Jackson, ambassador of New Berlin, come to negotiate the Armistice with the new king of New London, Alan Copeland XXVI. The last king had been killed recently in an attack I had ordered with the help of information from Black Widow, the New Berlin spy. I was a higher-up in the New Berlin intelligence, I was ambitious, I was clever, and I was passionate about my city. Also, I may have had a reluctant crush on Captain Jack Glover, the illegitimate son of Alan Copeland XXV ("I'm using him! I'm using him! I'm using him! I'm...awwww I like him...dammit!") I played her as genuinely wanting the best for Arboria, and prepared to do nasty things to achieve it. I don't know if this makes her evil, as such, I think it did make her "not nice", and I thoroughly enjoyed the character's internal conflict between the right thing and the expedient thing. But anyway. I'm getting ahead of myself.
We gathered on the floor above the floor with the larp on it, and it was easy to spot who the Arborians were because we were the only ones not dressed like savages or refugees from the eighties. I was freaking out because the guy playing my bodyguard (the only other New Berlin-er apart from a spy I was supposedly meeting up with) was late and so I was thinking I had to go into the game by myself with no back up whatsoever. It was scary enough to go into it with only one other person on side, to go in with nobody at all would've been really hair-raising! Luckily, he turns up, and is an enthusiastic newbie. I take him aside for a quick pow-wow, which was both a game plan ("We have to watch ourselves! They're out to get us! We're the only New Berliners here! Most importantly, don't let New London kill me!") and a quick beginner's guide to larp ("Don't take anything personally, don't be afraid to do nasty things to people, don't be afraid to tell people your secrets, don't be afraid to do outlandish and wild things because it's only a game so go nuts, and watch your drinks, people might poison you. Okay? Let's go.") We took a few group photos, then our AI (Norm) arrived and we fell into a loose formation as we straggled after him, with Alan Copeland predictably at the front, and me sticking like glue next to my bodyguard. Then as we emerge from the elevator, we're in character and being led through to the decontamination chambers, past another group who was garishly dressed and called out "Oh who are these guys? Are you getting this on film? I'm LOVIN what they've got going on with those outfits. Hello! You guys are looking FABULOUS! We MUST talk later! Aren't they fabulous? They're fabulous!" babbled Tigger at us as his character, Chet Fillion, the bigshot movie producer from Eclatia, aka Planet Hollywood.
Then the noisy garish people get led away and Arboria stands in stony silence in the decontamination pen. Then the GM runs over to me and hands me a bit of paper, which I flick open and read. Muppet later informed me that the look on my face was priceless as I suddenly looked up at him, at my bit of paper, up at him, back at my bit of paper and then tried to look neutral and disinterested once more. The little bit of paper told me that I suddenly recognised McNabb's butler, Hubert Wadsworth, as a New Berlin man named Vincent Formosa. My ex-fiancé. Fancy seeing him here. I suddenly began to have an inkling who the New Berlin spy, "Black Widow", might be. Eventually we were let out of the quarantine, and we walked in to the main playing space, which was just...wow. I hope like hell there are photos because descriptions are not going to do it justice. It was all white fabric and white LEDs and UV lights and flashing things. It looked amazing! And the five other variedly dressed factions milling around inside it just totally made it, it looked like we were in some sort of intergalactic meeting point. It was stunning.
Somebody from our faction cleared one of the side rooms for Arboria, so King Alan Copeland strode on in there to set up his court. We were milling around setting up (and I was trying to get over the tongue-tiedness that hits me in the first ten minutes of every larp, where I can't seem to figure out what to say or how to say it) and we got called out for announcement by the AIs who welcomed us and from across the chamber comes a smattering of applause and I hear Tigger's character call out "Oh COME ON people, give the man applause. This is EXCITING. We love what you're doing here! Wooo!" Arboria exchanges glances amongst itself and makes no move for applause. Then the AIs tell us that some sort of scanning for compatibility was going to take place for something, and go through the rules, then the meeting is over and we traipse back into the room claimed by Arboria to begin the negotiations between New London and New Berlin.
Copeland and I sit down facing each other across a table. The butler bustles over, opens his brief case and reveals inside it everything necessary for tea, including actual china. We sort of watch quietly as he spreads a tablecloth, puts the china down infront me and Copeland, pulls out a teapot, puts tea in it, then hot water from a thermos, pulls out sugar and shortbread and teaspoons. Very quickly we find ourselves looking at perfect little cups of tea, not ten minutes after my speech to the newbie about watching out for being poisoned. From the way Copeland was looking down at his own cup of tea, I guess he was thinking something similar. I was the first one to drink about five minutes later, after much agonising, because I didn't want to look like a wuss or like I didn't trust Copeland. He told me later that he took a drink from his cup and then when I turned to check my bodyguard was still around, he spat it back in the cup because he was so suspicious.
The negotiations began. The scene was thoroughly delightful, we both sat there with friendly smiles and said nice things like how we wanted peace and how we were friends, we discussed how we wanted Arboria to go forward together, and I'm not entirely sure what he was doing with this conversation but I was very much trying to gauge him, what he wanted and how trustworthy he was. There was a wonderful sort of noxiousness to the exchange as we were both very careful and very calculating, and knowing we both know that we were measuring each other up, and that maybe we were being just a little false in our friendliness. Three important things came out of this conversation, the first of which was our agreement that Arboria must present a united front and news of our little disagreement should not be made public. Second was that New London was unwilling to take the blame for the war, as was New Berlin so I proposed that we call it a misunderstanding and be done with it, save face on all sides, which Copeland seemed reluctant to accept and was determined that New Berlin (entirely innocent!) was the one to blame. Thirdly, Copeland pointed out that New London (and ergo, he) had the gate, and I gathered a sort of implied threat therein, that if New Berlin did not fall in line under his rule, we would be denied access to the gate.
By this stage, the representatives of the other planets are clustering around the door wanting to speak to Copeland, so we wrap up our negotiations for the present time and I go out of the room to ponder my next move. I have a somewhat shy conversation with Captain Jack Glover who asks about the negotiations, and says he hopes we will make peace because he would like me to show him around New Berlin. I eagerly agree then reluctantly excuse myself from the conversation in order to try and do some politicking. I felt really intimidated staring out at a roomful of strangers who were all busy-looking but in the end, I reminded myself that my character was totally confident, so I just marched on up to a consultant from Bharat and asked to speak to their leader.
I did this for three factions - Bharat, Cigani and Elcatia. Bharat had already heard of the conflict between New Berlin and New London which made me really suspicious of what Copeland's lackeys had been spreading around while we were in conference, but I did my best to convince them that our "war" was nothing more than a simple disagreement that would be behind us before the end of the night, as both myself and my friend and ally Alan Copeland were in one mind about this. The Cigani looked like all kinds of bad news from my conversation with the Count and Countess. From what they said, it sounded like they really didn't have enough food to eat and were very interested in coming to our planet. I quickly ended that discussion. amphigori" was playing the Countess and she looked all kinds of stunning in her fantastically blue outfit (for which she won Best Costume for, as we found out the next day at Prizegiving) I then met the leader of Eclatia, which was played by Tigger, and we negotiated an agreement for him to run a promotional cmapaign make New Berlin the figurehead of Arboria, and in exchange we'd let him use locations in Arboria for his films and nature documentaries.
As I left that interview I had the sinking realisation that no matter what deals I brokered, no matter the negotiations I reached with the other planets, it would all be fruitless without access to the gate. I had to get guaranteed access to the New London gate. At this point, the butler comes over to me and gives me a meaningful look. "I think we should talk," he says. I look around to check we weren't being watched, instruct my bodyguard to stay behind and headed off with the butler. Outside in an alcove, he says to me "I believe you know of me as Black Widow and have something for me." I pull the packet of information from literally up my sleeve and hand it over. "I didn't expect to see you here, Vincent. So you're Black Widow," I say. He nods. "Was it worth it, Vanessa? Was it really worth leaving what we had for your career?" I press my mouth into a tight, angry line. "Yes. I'm doing good things for New Berlin, for Arboria." An awkward silence as we look at each other. "We have business, Vincent. That was a long time ago." "Indeed," he replies and looks away. Another awkward silence.
I break the silence by explaining my conclusion regarding the gate and Alan Copeland to him. "We need to remove Alan Copeland," I conclude. "How?" he asks. "I have a plan. I know of an heir. Another son, an illegitimate son, of Alan Copeland XXV. He's a good man and...and I believe I could convince him to take the throne." "Is he your son?" he asks me. I have no idea what my face looked like at this point. I imagine it was some picture of disgust and horror and shock. "Vincent, seriously? No. No he is not my son. Ew. Just...ew." "Okay, fine," he replies defensively, "I think we'll go with that plan. I'll try and convince Captain McNabb to our side." I nodded. "I'll...talk to the heir." What I was thinking was, Men, honestly. He's still annoyed that I dumped him, and he thinks I ran off and shacked up with Alan Copeland XXV? Oh, ew. For goodness sake, what does he take me for?
We return surreptitiously to the main room, I meet up with my bodyguard again and seek out Captain Jack Glover. I sit him down away from the other Arborians and have a long, halting conversation with him, where I broach the concept of usurping the throne. Jack doesn't know he's the heir, and I don't tell him at this stage. Vanessa is very conflicted inside at this point, because she's trying to convince him and trying to not lie at the same time. She's got no proof this Alan Copeland is a bastard, she's just got her deep misgivings about him, and his chosen advisors - denounced evil doctors and war criminals dishonourably discharged. After much thought, Jack nods. "Is this...this heir, is he a good man?" he asked me. Vanessa tried to not let her feelings show on her face. "He...he is. He is a very good man, the very best of men, and I trust him absolutely to rule justly and well," she says with absolute, earnest sincerity. He nods, and agrees to support her if the King cannot be persuaded to peace.
It was about here-ish at some point that the AIs make another announcement, that six people will have to go into the Nexus to permanently keep the gates open, otherwise we will all die here tonight. Those who go into it will be immortal but also kind of not themselves, or something, and we’ve all been scanned for compatibility, so all those who were interested in a future as part of a machine as a gate sentinel or something, please go and inquire. I did not, as self-sacrifice didn’t seem to rank very high on my list of character traits. I did discover though that I had the second best level of compatibility, so did Jack Glover, and my body guard was the most compatible of all the Arborians. Vanessa really didn’t want to put her bodyguard in the machine, he was a good man, and I silenced the ruthless little voice in my head that spoke of the advantages of having a New Berlin representative inside the machine. Not yet. Last ditch measure.
Around this point I discovered the bar, which was a small side room completely papered in black paper and painted in neon paints which glowed in the black lights that lit the place. There was a shelf of bottles, all covered in glow sticks, and the entire place was surreal and smoky and neon bright. It is here that Captain McNabb approached me to discuss treason, prompted by his butler. We were both very carefully in what we said, where we discussed the situation of the war, and the unfortunate advisors the king has chosen, and our good wishes for the future of Arboria. At the end though, all the careful talk in the world led to the same awkward question: “Will you help me overthrow the king and put his illegitimate half brother on the throne?” A long pause, a heavy sigh and a quiet, “Yes.” I explained that it was Captain Glover who was the heir but did not know. And we also discussed the more difficult question of how to eliminate the king. Captain Glover walks in at this point so we include him in the discussion, once more omitting the very pivotal role he is to play.
The rest of the game gets a little blurry at this point. For about the next forty minutes, I spend a lot of time in assorted discussions with other planets, and the treason plots starts to heat up and I have a lot of hushed discussion with my bodyguard and Captain McNabb plotting just how we were going to put our treasonous-with-the-best-of-intentions plans into motion.
I had an interesting discussion with Sylvester Wagner, the creepy war criminal advisor to the king, who much to my immense surprise seemed to be trying to feel out the potential for a rebellion. “Mister Wagner, what you are saying to me here is sounding very close to…” “…treason?” “Indeed.” I couldn’t fathom a reason as to why Wagner would be defecting from Copeland so I figured that Copeland must have suspected something was up and sent Wagner to feel it out. So I pretended to be offended by the very notion of treason and started walking away when he called out after me “Oh, Ambassador?” “Yes?” “I haven’t seen your bodyguard for sometime,” he said in a complete deadpan, “I haven’t seen him near you for quite some time.” For some reason, the way he said this caused me to completely panic, imagining that they killed my bodyguard. I backed away in horror, then turned and sprinted around the main room, looking for my bodyguard, feeling like I was going to cry because the idea that they had killed my bodyguard felt so personal and somehow it seemed worse than an attack on me. Luckily I found my bodyguard safe and sound, chatting it up with the Chaparal. We discovered at this point that his sister and mother had been kidnapped, ended up in Project Daedalus, and when they destroyed it, she had fallen to the ground…where we discovered lived the Chaparal! My bodyguard was building a wonderful rapport with them which I thought was all kinds of useful, given that if my coup was successful we’d probably have to negotiate something with them, now that it transpired we lived on the same planet.
I had a wonderful conversation with the Chapparal story teller named Truth. Imagine this man, covered in leather and feathers, with tribal tattoos and big stick, looking pretty savage. He introduces himself as Truth, the Storyteller and asks if I am a warchief. I explain that I’m more of a storyteller myself, and then he asks about my necklaces. “This one is a device that tells me the time and this one is a device that tells me the temperature,” I said slowly and loudly as though speaking to a simple person. Truth gives me a confused look (ah, poor savage!) and reaches into his leather pouches and produces a palm pilot. “I have a computer that does those things,” he says looking at me like I’m simple. “You’re telling me you have a watch and a temperature gauge?”
I sort of stood there flabbergasted for a few moments. Upstaged by a savage in feathers, how embarrassing. This was my favourite moment in the larp.
The game was beginning to draw to an end, which is good because I’m running out of steam for this write up. I sent my bodyguard to forge relationships with the Chapparel and me, I went to talk to Alan Copeland. The discussion wasn’t much to note. He accused me of buying weapons of Bharat and telling them about our conflict, I accused him of the same. I told him about Chapparel. Then his doctor called him away for his “medicine” and then he gets really cagey. Then the noises start from outside, the countdown is on the wall and there are only five out of six people for the Nexus.
Captain Glover comes up to me. “I’ll do it,” he says to me, “I’m going into the Nexus. I’ll be the sixth person.” Captain McNabb and I exchange horrified glances. Panic wells internally - oddly, not for the safety of my planned revolution but absolute horror at having him sacrifice himself. “No!” I told him, “you can’t, you mustn’t.” He nods firmly. “I must. I must do it. For our planet. For peace. To stop that annoying noise.” Captain McNabb puts his hand on his shoulder. “Son, there are better things you can do for our planet than throw your life away.” “Like what?” Captain Glover exclaims. The countdown is rolling over impossibly fast. “You’re the heir,” I blurt out, grabbing his arm. He stares at me. “You’re the heir. It’s you. I want to put you on the throne, please, you can’t go into the Nexus, I need you to be king.”
He looks away and at McNabb, who nods. He looks into empty space, mulling it over. “Wow,” he says at last. “I guess I really can’t do it. But who - ” and then McNabb turns to me and says, “Your bodyguard.” “I cannot ask my man to do something I will not do myself,” I said, a little more choked up than I realised. “I know,” said Captain McNabb, putting his hand on my shoulder. “That is why I will be the one asking him, man to man, soldier to soldier.” He walked off. I looked Jack. “Will you do it?” I asked earnestly. “Will you be king?” He blinked, looking dazed, and I think a little unhappy at my insistence. “Yes,” he said at last. “I will.” McNabb arrives with my bodyguard. “He’ll do it,” McNabb announces, just as we find out that the Sujanese supplied an extra person. The relief is palpable on my bodyguard.
Relief doesn’t last long. Captain McNabb’s cunning plan to kill Alan Copeland is about to go into action. He has fed the Doctor a lie about how there is an alien spaceshuttle docking at the airlock and we have to get Copeland out because the gates will fail. After they found enough people for it, McNabb amended the story to “Yes, I pushed the Ambassador in, but she wasn’t compatible enough so the gates will fail, Copeland needs to be saved!” We even did a fantastic little skit for this when McNabb ‘punched out’ my bodyguard, put a gun to my back and started pushing me around. Two dozen people jumped to my defence which was very sweet although I didn’t actually want them hurting McNabb so I proudly told them I would be fine and shouted, “You’re a traitor Copeland! Is this your idea of diplomacy? Negotiations? Peace? You’re treacherous scum!” He didn’t hear but I was hoping those around me would. McNabb hustled me off and hid me in a side room where I waited for news. After ten minutes I got bored and came out, and then a few minutes later game ended. Wagner and Maunder had completely believed the lie about what happened to me.
Whether or not Wagner and Dr. Maunder got hurled out of the airlock is questionable, apparently the GMs vetoed it but the players (Wagner’s at least) actually kind of preferred that ending. Either way, the way it was to unfold on Arboria is as soon as we step back through the gate, we all shoot Alan Copeland. If the doctor is still there, we shoot him too. If Wagner were still alive, he’d have defected to us, because he was manoeuvring to be on both sides so that when one of us came out on top, he could say “I was totally on your side.” Then Jack Glover goes on the throne with myself and Captain McNabb as his advisors, then I make all effort to marry him because Vanessa realised she actually rather loved him. The look on Copeland’s face when he realised the coup against him too late was all kinds of priceless.
I counted that as a win for achieving my goals. That counts as peace, right?
As usual, after the game I found out just how much I missed. Bharat was lying to us as we suspected and trying to foster an arms race between me and Copeland. I found out as well that Copeland was still the first Alan Copeland ‘cause he was body hopping into his sons each time. Anthony said that Copeland had a back up strategy which was that after Jack was crowned, the mind switching device would turn up in the mail for him to use. Of course, if Jack used it, Alan Copeland the First would possess him, take power again and wreak horrible torture and revenge upon me for being a traitorous conniving cow. By this point there were too many factors in play so I think we ended up agreeing that the movie closes on a happy ending for the enemies of Alan Copeland, with the dark shadow of possibility of his return….
I also found out from another recap that Chapparel was coming to attack us with a force of Sujanese. Which is a shame because we actually killed the people that had been bothering them (and I’d have had no compunctions handing Wagner to them to make peace anyway) and I wish I paid more attention to them so I could’ve negotiated something.
So with the possibility of Alan Copeland’s return and a war with the Chapparal…sounds like we really need a sequel! :D
I had a fantastic time, even with my dubious success at the end, it was wonderfully tense and politically charged game for me. Plotting treason was delightful fun, and I had such a great time with all the people I played with. Captain McNabb was one of those people I could really plot well with, he was a good roleplayer and tons of fun. My bodyguard was really awesome for a newbie. Muppet was a fantastic double agent. Anthony was amazingly impressive as the noxious Copeland, the levels of subtlety in his roleplaying were fantastic, he could be charming and skin-crawlingly noxious at the same time. I enjoy going up against a good villain, and he was a fantastic villain. I think I tacklehugged a few people at the end of the game, including Norm our GM who wrote these fantastic characters, and the newbie who was my bodyguard, just from sheer exuberance.
It was good, my only regret as always is that I didn’t see more of the game…
Next year, I think I will go for a really emotional character. I’ve done plot for three games in a row now (Mafia 2071, Great Exhibition at Chimera and this game) so next time plot be damned, I want to just drama it up for a bit.
And tomorrow, I hope I can post the second day of Kapcon and my final day of touristing in Wellington. I expect they will be much shorter because I'm running out of recounting steam.
From the Kapcon website:
"The Union of Planets prospered through a system of interstellar travel gates that allowed instantaneous passage between worlds. Reunion is set centuries after the disastrous shut down of the gates. The vast distances between worlds has prevented any contact, and over time each planet has evolved in strange and different ways. The gate on your home planet opened briefly and a messenger arrived looking for help in permanently reopening the gate network. How can the gates be reopened, should they be reopened, why were they shut down, what is in your (or your planets) best interest, how will you seize this opportunity to take your place in history?
When the larp was first announced, I was a little dubious because I'm not a huge sci-fi fan. Then I read up on it a bit more and really liked the look of the factions, especially that Victorian/steampunk looking one, so when I signed up, I put down that I'd like to be a part of that one especially. I had wanted to make a fabulous Victorian costume for the Great Exhibition but it turns out organising Chimera was, as always, a far bigger time suck than I remembered, I ended up having to borrow something rather than make the fabulous big blue affair I wanted to (it's still on my to-do list) So there was my motivation for wanting to be in Arboria, the excuse to wear a cool steampunk outfit. As we covered last entry, I got do have my fun with costuming, and now, for the actual event itself.
Note: Behind the cuts are SPOILERS for the larp. I'm hoping to rerun it in Auckland sometime next year, so if you think you want to play, you might be best avoiding reading it. Also, very very tl;dr. Be warned.
When I got my character blurb, I had something of a sinking feeling in my stomach as I read it. She was a really smart cookie, and a political savvy woman sent to represent the interests of New Berlin in the armistice with New London. It's not that I didn't like the character, I was just terrified that I was going to have again play a character that was smarter than me. That never goes well. In fact the last time I did it, I got killed by Al Capone. Then I found out who was playing my opposite, the king of New London, and then it really was like "awwww hell" - some poor hapless newbie I might stand a chance again, but a seasoned competent roleplayer? I already felt sorry for New Berlin and the way we were going to get owned by New London.
Nevertheless, I reminded myself that it wasn't about achieving your goals, it was about having fun (and looking fantastic) so who cares anyway about suceeding, just shut up and sew your costume. Besides, it really was going to be fun no matter what happened. Then when I got my character sheet a week before the game, I really got excited because it was obvious that there were so many cool plots and so many tensions ready to explode. This was just going to be awesome. And I had a love interest! I think I howled with laughter when I read who my love interest was- "Wait, wait," I asked my laptop screen. "You mean to tell me that my love interest is the illegitimate son of Alan Copeland XXV? Oh that is just GOLD. If my girl is even half as smart as this character sheet says she is, she would know waaaay better than to even think about going there!" Now I may have the political savvy of your average teaspoon but even I knew that trying to go there was going to be DISASTROUS. But the other 95% of me absolutely adores catastrophic drama in larp, and especially adores politically unsuitable relatinships and all the drama it brings, so I figured that for all that I could see disaster brewing on the horizon, I was probably going to run at it head first. So between all this, and the fact that Anthony (the guy playing my opposite) had been trying to psyche me out via gmail-chat for weeks, I was now absolutely certain that no matter the outcomes, this was going to be an evening of awesome.
So who was I? I was playing Vanessa Jackson, ambassador of New Berlin, come to negotiate the Armistice with the new king of New London, Alan Copeland XXVI. The last king had been killed recently in an attack I had ordered with the help of information from Black Widow, the New Berlin spy. I was a higher-up in the New Berlin intelligence, I was ambitious, I was clever, and I was passionate about my city. Also, I may have had a reluctant crush on Captain Jack Glover, the illegitimate son of Alan Copeland XXV ("I'm using him! I'm using him! I'm using him! I'm...awwww I like him...dammit!") I played her as genuinely wanting the best for Arboria, and prepared to do nasty things to achieve it. I don't know if this makes her evil, as such, I think it did make her "not nice", and I thoroughly enjoyed the character's internal conflict between the right thing and the expedient thing. But anyway. I'm getting ahead of myself.
We gathered on the floor above the floor with the larp on it, and it was easy to spot who the Arborians were because we were the only ones not dressed like savages or refugees from the eighties. I was freaking out because the guy playing my bodyguard (the only other New Berlin-er apart from a spy I was supposedly meeting up with) was late and so I was thinking I had to go into the game by myself with no back up whatsoever. It was scary enough to go into it with only one other person on side, to go in with nobody at all would've been really hair-raising! Luckily, he turns up, and is an enthusiastic newbie. I take him aside for a quick pow-wow, which was both a game plan ("We have to watch ourselves! They're out to get us! We're the only New Berliners here! Most importantly, don't let New London kill me!") and a quick beginner's guide to larp ("Don't take anything personally, don't be afraid to do nasty things to people, don't be afraid to tell people your secrets, don't be afraid to do outlandish and wild things because it's only a game so go nuts, and watch your drinks, people might poison you. Okay? Let's go.") We took a few group photos, then our AI (Norm) arrived and we fell into a loose formation as we straggled after him, with Alan Copeland predictably at the front, and me sticking like glue next to my bodyguard. Then as we emerge from the elevator, we're in character and being led through to the decontamination chambers, past another group who was garishly dressed and called out "Oh who are these guys? Are you getting this on film? I'm LOVIN what they've got going on with those outfits. Hello! You guys are looking FABULOUS! We MUST talk later! Aren't they fabulous? They're fabulous!" babbled Tigger at us as his character, Chet Fillion, the bigshot movie producer from Eclatia, aka Planet Hollywood.
Then the noisy garish people get led away and Arboria stands in stony silence in the decontamination pen. Then the GM runs over to me and hands me a bit of paper, which I flick open and read. Muppet later informed me that the look on my face was priceless as I suddenly looked up at him, at my bit of paper, up at him, back at my bit of paper and then tried to look neutral and disinterested once more. The little bit of paper told me that I suddenly recognised McNabb's butler, Hubert Wadsworth, as a New Berlin man named Vincent Formosa. My ex-fiancé. Fancy seeing him here. I suddenly began to have an inkling who the New Berlin spy, "Black Widow", might be. Eventually we were let out of the quarantine, and we walked in to the main playing space, which was just...wow. I hope like hell there are photos because descriptions are not going to do it justice. It was all white fabric and white LEDs and UV lights and flashing things. It looked amazing! And the five other variedly dressed factions milling around inside it just totally made it, it looked like we were in some sort of intergalactic meeting point. It was stunning.
Somebody from our faction cleared one of the side rooms for Arboria, so King Alan Copeland strode on in there to set up his court. We were milling around setting up (and I was trying to get over the tongue-tiedness that hits me in the first ten minutes of every larp, where I can't seem to figure out what to say or how to say it) and we got called out for announcement by the AIs who welcomed us and from across the chamber comes a smattering of applause and I hear Tigger's character call out "Oh COME ON people, give the man applause. This is EXCITING. We love what you're doing here! Wooo!" Arboria exchanges glances amongst itself and makes no move for applause. Then the AIs tell us that some sort of scanning for compatibility was going to take place for something, and go through the rules, then the meeting is over and we traipse back into the room claimed by Arboria to begin the negotiations between New London and New Berlin.
Copeland and I sit down facing each other across a table. The butler bustles over, opens his brief case and reveals inside it everything necessary for tea, including actual china. We sort of watch quietly as he spreads a tablecloth, puts the china down infront me and Copeland, pulls out a teapot, puts tea in it, then hot water from a thermos, pulls out sugar and shortbread and teaspoons. Very quickly we find ourselves looking at perfect little cups of tea, not ten minutes after my speech to the newbie about watching out for being poisoned. From the way Copeland was looking down at his own cup of tea, I guess he was thinking something similar. I was the first one to drink about five minutes later, after much agonising, because I didn't want to look like a wuss or like I didn't trust Copeland. He told me later that he took a drink from his cup and then when I turned to check my bodyguard was still around, he spat it back in the cup because he was so suspicious.
The negotiations began. The scene was thoroughly delightful, we both sat there with friendly smiles and said nice things like how we wanted peace and how we were friends, we discussed how we wanted Arboria to go forward together, and I'm not entirely sure what he was doing with this conversation but I was very much trying to gauge him, what he wanted and how trustworthy he was. There was a wonderful sort of noxiousness to the exchange as we were both very careful and very calculating, and knowing we both know that we were measuring each other up, and that maybe we were being just a little false in our friendliness. Three important things came out of this conversation, the first of which was our agreement that Arboria must present a united front and news of our little disagreement should not be made public. Second was that New London was unwilling to take the blame for the war, as was New Berlin so I proposed that we call it a misunderstanding and be done with it, save face on all sides, which Copeland seemed reluctant to accept and was determined that New Berlin (entirely innocent!) was the one to blame. Thirdly, Copeland pointed out that New London (and ergo, he) had the gate, and I gathered a sort of implied threat therein, that if New Berlin did not fall in line under his rule, we would be denied access to the gate.
By this stage, the representatives of the other planets are clustering around the door wanting to speak to Copeland, so we wrap up our negotiations for the present time and I go out of the room to ponder my next move. I have a somewhat shy conversation with Captain Jack Glover who asks about the negotiations, and says he hopes we will make peace because he would like me to show him around New Berlin. I eagerly agree then reluctantly excuse myself from the conversation in order to try and do some politicking. I felt really intimidated staring out at a roomful of strangers who were all busy-looking but in the end, I reminded myself that my character was totally confident, so I just marched on up to a consultant from Bharat and asked to speak to their leader.
I did this for three factions - Bharat, Cigani and Elcatia. Bharat had already heard of the conflict between New Berlin and New London which made me really suspicious of what Copeland's lackeys had been spreading around while we were in conference, but I did my best to convince them that our "war" was nothing more than a simple disagreement that would be behind us before the end of the night, as both myself and my friend and ally Alan Copeland were in one mind about this. The Cigani looked like all kinds of bad news from my conversation with the Count and Countess. From what they said, it sounded like they really didn't have enough food to eat and were very interested in coming to our planet. I quickly ended that discussion. amphigori" was playing the Countess and she looked all kinds of stunning in her fantastically blue outfit (for which she won Best Costume for, as we found out the next day at Prizegiving) I then met the leader of Eclatia, which was played by Tigger, and we negotiated an agreement for him to run a promotional cmapaign make New Berlin the figurehead of Arboria, and in exchange we'd let him use locations in Arboria for his films and nature documentaries.
As I left that interview I had the sinking realisation that no matter what deals I brokered, no matter the negotiations I reached with the other planets, it would all be fruitless without access to the gate. I had to get guaranteed access to the New London gate. At this point, the butler comes over to me and gives me a meaningful look. "I think we should talk," he says. I look around to check we weren't being watched, instruct my bodyguard to stay behind and headed off with the butler. Outside in an alcove, he says to me "I believe you know of me as Black Widow and have something for me." I pull the packet of information from literally up my sleeve and hand it over. "I didn't expect to see you here, Vincent. So you're Black Widow," I say. He nods. "Was it worth it, Vanessa? Was it really worth leaving what we had for your career?" I press my mouth into a tight, angry line. "Yes. I'm doing good things for New Berlin, for Arboria." An awkward silence as we look at each other. "We have business, Vincent. That was a long time ago." "Indeed," he replies and looks away. Another awkward silence.
I break the silence by explaining my conclusion regarding the gate and Alan Copeland to him. "We need to remove Alan Copeland," I conclude. "How?" he asks. "I have a plan. I know of an heir. Another son, an illegitimate son, of Alan Copeland XXV. He's a good man and...and I believe I could convince him to take the throne." "Is he your son?" he asks me. I have no idea what my face looked like at this point. I imagine it was some picture of disgust and horror and shock. "Vincent, seriously? No. No he is not my son. Ew. Just...ew." "Okay, fine," he replies defensively, "I think we'll go with that plan. I'll try and convince Captain McNabb to our side." I nodded. "I'll...talk to the heir." What I was thinking was, Men, honestly. He's still annoyed that I dumped him, and he thinks I ran off and shacked up with Alan Copeland XXV? Oh, ew. For goodness sake, what does he take me for?
We return surreptitiously to the main room, I meet up with my bodyguard again and seek out Captain Jack Glover. I sit him down away from the other Arborians and have a long, halting conversation with him, where I broach the concept of usurping the throne. Jack doesn't know he's the heir, and I don't tell him at this stage. Vanessa is very conflicted inside at this point, because she's trying to convince him and trying to not lie at the same time. She's got no proof this Alan Copeland is a bastard, she's just got her deep misgivings about him, and his chosen advisors - denounced evil doctors and war criminals dishonourably discharged. After much thought, Jack nods. "Is this...this heir, is he a good man?" he asked me. Vanessa tried to not let her feelings show on her face. "He...he is. He is a very good man, the very best of men, and I trust him absolutely to rule justly and well," she says with absolute, earnest sincerity. He nods, and agrees to support her if the King cannot be persuaded to peace.
It was about here-ish at some point that the AIs make another announcement, that six people will have to go into the Nexus to permanently keep the gates open, otherwise we will all die here tonight. Those who go into it will be immortal but also kind of not themselves, or something, and we’ve all been scanned for compatibility, so all those who were interested in a future as part of a machine as a gate sentinel or something, please go and inquire. I did not, as self-sacrifice didn’t seem to rank very high on my list of character traits. I did discover though that I had the second best level of compatibility, so did Jack Glover, and my body guard was the most compatible of all the Arborians. Vanessa really didn’t want to put her bodyguard in the machine, he was a good man, and I silenced the ruthless little voice in my head that spoke of the advantages of having a New Berlin representative inside the machine. Not yet. Last ditch measure.
Around this point I discovered the bar, which was a small side room completely papered in black paper and painted in neon paints which glowed in the black lights that lit the place. There was a shelf of bottles, all covered in glow sticks, and the entire place was surreal and smoky and neon bright. It is here that Captain McNabb approached me to discuss treason, prompted by his butler. We were both very carefully in what we said, where we discussed the situation of the war, and the unfortunate advisors the king has chosen, and our good wishes for the future of Arboria. At the end though, all the careful talk in the world led to the same awkward question: “Will you help me overthrow the king and put his illegitimate half brother on the throne?” A long pause, a heavy sigh and a quiet, “Yes.” I explained that it was Captain Glover who was the heir but did not know. And we also discussed the more difficult question of how to eliminate the king. Captain Glover walks in at this point so we include him in the discussion, once more omitting the very pivotal role he is to play.
The rest of the game gets a little blurry at this point. For about the next forty minutes, I spend a lot of time in assorted discussions with other planets, and the treason plots starts to heat up and I have a lot of hushed discussion with my bodyguard and Captain McNabb plotting just how we were going to put our treasonous-with-the-best-of-intentions plans into motion.
I had an interesting discussion with Sylvester Wagner, the creepy war criminal advisor to the king, who much to my immense surprise seemed to be trying to feel out the potential for a rebellion. “Mister Wagner, what you are saying to me here is sounding very close to…” “…treason?” “Indeed.” I couldn’t fathom a reason as to why Wagner would be defecting from Copeland so I figured that Copeland must have suspected something was up and sent Wagner to feel it out. So I pretended to be offended by the very notion of treason and started walking away when he called out after me “Oh, Ambassador?” “Yes?” “I haven’t seen your bodyguard for sometime,” he said in a complete deadpan, “I haven’t seen him near you for quite some time.” For some reason, the way he said this caused me to completely panic, imagining that they killed my bodyguard. I backed away in horror, then turned and sprinted around the main room, looking for my bodyguard, feeling like I was going to cry because the idea that they had killed my bodyguard felt so personal and somehow it seemed worse than an attack on me. Luckily I found my bodyguard safe and sound, chatting it up with the Chaparal. We discovered at this point that his sister and mother had been kidnapped, ended up in Project Daedalus, and when they destroyed it, she had fallen to the ground…where we discovered lived the Chaparal! My bodyguard was building a wonderful rapport with them which I thought was all kinds of useful, given that if my coup was successful we’d probably have to negotiate something with them, now that it transpired we lived on the same planet.
I had a wonderful conversation with the Chapparal story teller named Truth. Imagine this man, covered in leather and feathers, with tribal tattoos and big stick, looking pretty savage. He introduces himself as Truth, the Storyteller and asks if I am a warchief. I explain that I’m more of a storyteller myself, and then he asks about my necklaces. “This one is a device that tells me the time and this one is a device that tells me the temperature,” I said slowly and loudly as though speaking to a simple person. Truth gives me a confused look (ah, poor savage!) and reaches into his leather pouches and produces a palm pilot. “I have a computer that does those things,” he says looking at me like I’m simple. “You’re telling me you have a watch and a temperature gauge?”
I sort of stood there flabbergasted for a few moments. Upstaged by a savage in feathers, how embarrassing. This was my favourite moment in the larp.
The game was beginning to draw to an end, which is good because I’m running out of steam for this write up. I sent my bodyguard to forge relationships with the Chapparel and me, I went to talk to Alan Copeland. The discussion wasn’t much to note. He accused me of buying weapons of Bharat and telling them about our conflict, I accused him of the same. I told him about Chapparel. Then his doctor called him away for his “medicine” and then he gets really cagey. Then the noises start from outside, the countdown is on the wall and there are only five out of six people for the Nexus.
Captain Glover comes up to me. “I’ll do it,” he says to me, “I’m going into the Nexus. I’ll be the sixth person.” Captain McNabb and I exchange horrified glances. Panic wells internally - oddly, not for the safety of my planned revolution but absolute horror at having him sacrifice himself. “No!” I told him, “you can’t, you mustn’t.” He nods firmly. “I must. I must do it. For our planet. For peace. To stop that annoying noise.” Captain McNabb puts his hand on his shoulder. “Son, there are better things you can do for our planet than throw your life away.” “Like what?” Captain Glover exclaims. The countdown is rolling over impossibly fast. “You’re the heir,” I blurt out, grabbing his arm. He stares at me. “You’re the heir. It’s you. I want to put you on the throne, please, you can’t go into the Nexus, I need you to be king.”
He looks away and at McNabb, who nods. He looks into empty space, mulling it over. “Wow,” he says at last. “I guess I really can’t do it. But who - ” and then McNabb turns to me and says, “Your bodyguard.” “I cannot ask my man to do something I will not do myself,” I said, a little more choked up than I realised. “I know,” said Captain McNabb, putting his hand on my shoulder. “That is why I will be the one asking him, man to man, soldier to soldier.” He walked off. I looked Jack. “Will you do it?” I asked earnestly. “Will you be king?” He blinked, looking dazed, and I think a little unhappy at my insistence. “Yes,” he said at last. “I will.” McNabb arrives with my bodyguard. “He’ll do it,” McNabb announces, just as we find out that the Sujanese supplied an extra person. The relief is palpable on my bodyguard.
Relief doesn’t last long. Captain McNabb’s cunning plan to kill Alan Copeland is about to go into action. He has fed the Doctor a lie about how there is an alien spaceshuttle docking at the airlock and we have to get Copeland out because the gates will fail. After they found enough people for it, McNabb amended the story to “Yes, I pushed the Ambassador in, but she wasn’t compatible enough so the gates will fail, Copeland needs to be saved!” We even did a fantastic little skit for this when McNabb ‘punched out’ my bodyguard, put a gun to my back and started pushing me around. Two dozen people jumped to my defence which was very sweet although I didn’t actually want them hurting McNabb so I proudly told them I would be fine and shouted, “You’re a traitor Copeland! Is this your idea of diplomacy? Negotiations? Peace? You’re treacherous scum!” He didn’t hear but I was hoping those around me would. McNabb hustled me off and hid me in a side room where I waited for news. After ten minutes I got bored and came out, and then a few minutes later game ended. Wagner and Maunder had completely believed the lie about what happened to me.
Whether or not Wagner and Dr. Maunder got hurled out of the airlock is questionable, apparently the GMs vetoed it but the players (Wagner’s at least) actually kind of preferred that ending. Either way, the way it was to unfold on Arboria is as soon as we step back through the gate, we all shoot Alan Copeland. If the doctor is still there, we shoot him too. If Wagner were still alive, he’d have defected to us, because he was manoeuvring to be on both sides so that when one of us came out on top, he could say “I was totally on your side.” Then Jack Glover goes on the throne with myself and Captain McNabb as his advisors, then I make all effort to marry him because Vanessa realised she actually rather loved him. The look on Copeland’s face when he realised the coup against him too late was all kinds of priceless.
I counted that as a win for achieving my goals. That counts as peace, right?
As usual, after the game I found out just how much I missed. Bharat was lying to us as we suspected and trying to foster an arms race between me and Copeland. I found out as well that Copeland was still the first Alan Copeland ‘cause he was body hopping into his sons each time. Anthony said that Copeland had a back up strategy which was that after Jack was crowned, the mind switching device would turn up in the mail for him to use. Of course, if Jack used it, Alan Copeland the First would possess him, take power again and wreak horrible torture and revenge upon me for being a traitorous conniving cow. By this point there were too many factors in play so I think we ended up agreeing that the movie closes on a happy ending for the enemies of Alan Copeland, with the dark shadow of possibility of his return….
I also found out from another recap that Chapparel was coming to attack us with a force of Sujanese. Which is a shame because we actually killed the people that had been bothering them (and I’d have had no compunctions handing Wagner to them to make peace anyway) and I wish I paid more attention to them so I could’ve negotiated something.
So with the possibility of Alan Copeland’s return and a war with the Chapparal…sounds like we really need a sequel! :D
I had a fantastic time, even with my dubious success at the end, it was wonderfully tense and politically charged game for me. Plotting treason was delightful fun, and I had such a great time with all the people I played with. Captain McNabb was one of those people I could really plot well with, he was a good roleplayer and tons of fun. My bodyguard was really awesome for a newbie. Muppet was a fantastic double agent. Anthony was amazingly impressive as the noxious Copeland, the levels of subtlety in his roleplaying were fantastic, he could be charming and skin-crawlingly noxious at the same time. I enjoy going up against a good villain, and he was a fantastic villain. I think I tacklehugged a few people at the end of the game, including Norm our GM who wrote these fantastic characters, and the newbie who was my bodyguard, just from sheer exuberance.
It was good, my only regret as always is that I didn’t see more of the game…
Next year, I think I will go for a really emotional character. I’ve done plot for three games in a row now (Mafia 2071, Great Exhibition at Chimera and this game) so next time plot be damned, I want to just drama it up for a bit.
And tomorrow, I hope I can post the second day of Kapcon and my final day of touristing in Wellington. I expect they will be much shorter because I'm running out of recounting steam.