A letter about frustration that I just sent
I'm emailing you for a reason that I don't normally email people. I'm weirdly pissed-off after a few larp incidents in the last week. I emphasize *weirdly* as opposed to "really." The incidents started with the last Changeling game, continued on through trying to talk things out with Craig (nothing bad happened, it just relates to the below), and capped off with a not-very-successful conversation about Werewolf, and changes in gaming both mechanical and surrounding race, and how acknowledging these might assist in increasing the player base.
What's weird is that it's just been eating at me, and I keep think I've done the final private vent-to-myself, and I've even written a couple polemics, but I keep feeling angry. I guess I feel like I'm butting up against exactly the same problems in larp that I've seen repeatedly over the last seventeen years - at the same time as one of my favorite games (LutLL) closed down. Which was also tied into a process I started in therapy, which is creating some other weird feelings. The problems seem to run as follows.
(1) I realize that while a few multiple-game PCs I had left play voluntarily, most of the characters I've seen removed from play followed the same pattern - I tried to introduce some moral ambiguity or microcultural change into the game, and another character killed them as part of enforcing what said cahracter saw as an obvious moral system.
(2) I keep having the same unsuccessful conversation with STs about adapting improv and storygame principles. I actually started to get buy in from one recently who stated that one of J's birthday games was one of the best larp experiences he'd ever had, then spun around and got back to focusing on starting a WW troupe game.
(3) And, well, werewolf came out the year I started gaming and it hasn't changed. Even the revised 2nd ed larp book version seems to have more interest in small mechanical changes than addressing its shit.
So I applaud L's attempt to break the Cam monopoly with a game about interpersonal politics, but right now, for me, changing this hobby/medium that I love, or even creating space for alternatives feels frustratingly hard, like every out is blocked by some extra problem.
That's all I got.