LARPs at Potlatch 18
A few weeks ago, I was at Potlatch 18, a local science fiction convention -- that's primarily for written SF rather than other media. I had never been there before, but I knew some people who were organizing, and there is a lot of attendee overlap with WisCon that I've been going to for a few years.
Regarding RPGs, I ran two science fiction parlor LARPs at the con. Also, there was some RPG discussion in the panels since one of the two books of honor was Growing Up Weightless by the late John M. Ford -- who was also a role-player and role-playing author, and the book's protagonists were involved in a virtual reality role-playing game. I am tempted to revisit his Paranoia adventure, Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues, in some way with his literary themes in mind.
LARP #1: "Stagecoach"
This was a Firefly/Serenity LARP that I had written, and run at GenCon 2007. It was set on a ship operated by the Companion's Guild, a setting I had originally created for a tabletop one-shot game using Spirit of the Century. The scenario, though, took notes from the 1939 film starring John Wayne.
One of the fun parts of this was running for people who had never done larps or even role-played before. The cast was dancingsinging as Captain Granger (a Guild master and ship's commander), Jon as Major Sanchez (an Alliance officer), Francesca as Yong Lau (the Major's prisoner), vito_excalibur as Journeyman Shepis (second-in-command), Alan as Jamie Holloway (friend of Capt. Granger), Olga as C.J. McLaury (a Guild student), Amber as Corporal Hatfield (the ship's pilot), and Debbie as Dr. Collins (the ship's doctor).
It came off well, and dancingsinging even posted about it as "LARP for joy!" For my own writing, I have some design thoughts for how to improve it, but in general it works fine.
LARP #2: Garden Station 4
The first LARP went so well that most of the people who played got together for dinner the next day and we decided to play another LARP scenario. I pulled out one of the pre-written parlor LARP scenarios from Shifting Forest Storyworks, "Garden Station 4." I first played this with my friends back in 2005. It is about crews of two science ships whose nations (the UP and the Cerians) are in a cold war standoff trapped on an alien space station. The unique part of the scenario is the set of five different terminals which are located at different points in the space station, and how action flows between them.
We added a friend at dinner, Ian, who played the neutral party Sandy Applebaum. In addition, we had Alan as N. Mitterson (the UP leader) and Jon as J. Tantorian (the UP Journalist) -- while on the Cerian side we had Amber as Red3 Stanville (the leader), dancingsinging as Green4 Rockton (the computer specialist in drug withdrawal), and Olga as Grey5 Ellisville (the loyal guard).
Perhaps influenced by having a nice dinner together just before, the players in this run were more trusting and peaceful than most of the other runs I had seen. Still, it ended with a satisfying bang -- literally -- as everyone was killed by a grenade (sort of). Again, everyone had a good time.
Conclusions
This basically confirms my faith in the parlor larp format as an excellent introduction to larps and role-playing. I'd like to do some fine-tuning both of my Stagecoach scenario and how the mechanics are introduced, but I wouldn't want to deviate too much from a fun and successful instance.
Regarding RPGs, I ran two science fiction parlor LARPs at the con. Also, there was some RPG discussion in the panels since one of the two books of honor was Growing Up Weightless by the late John M. Ford -- who was also a role-player and role-playing author, and the book's protagonists were involved in a virtual reality role-playing game. I am tempted to revisit his Paranoia adventure, Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues, in some way with his literary themes in mind.
LARP #1: "Stagecoach"
This was a Firefly/Serenity LARP that I had written, and run at GenCon 2007. It was set on a ship operated by the Companion's Guild, a setting I had originally created for a tabletop one-shot game using Spirit of the Century. The scenario, though, took notes from the 1939 film starring John Wayne.
One of the fun parts of this was running for people who had never done larps or even role-played before. The cast was dancingsinging as Captain Granger (a Guild master and ship's commander), Jon as Major Sanchez (an Alliance officer), Francesca as Yong Lau (the Major's prisoner), vito_excalibur as Journeyman Shepis (second-in-command), Alan as Jamie Holloway (friend of Capt. Granger), Olga as C.J. McLaury (a Guild student), Amber as Corporal Hatfield (the ship's pilot), and Debbie as Dr. Collins (the ship's doctor).
It came off well, and dancingsinging even posted about it as "LARP for joy!" For my own writing, I have some design thoughts for how to improve it, but in general it works fine.
LARP #2: Garden Station 4
The first LARP went so well that most of the people who played got together for dinner the next day and we decided to play another LARP scenario. I pulled out one of the pre-written parlor LARP scenarios from Shifting Forest Storyworks, "Garden Station 4." I first played this with my friends back in 2005. It is about crews of two science ships whose nations (the UP and the Cerians) are in a cold war standoff trapped on an alien space station. The unique part of the scenario is the set of five different terminals which are located at different points in the space station, and how action flows between them.
We added a friend at dinner, Ian, who played the neutral party Sandy Applebaum. In addition, we had Alan as N. Mitterson (the UP leader) and Jon as J. Tantorian (the UP Journalist) -- while on the Cerian side we had Amber as Red3 Stanville (the leader), dancingsinging as Green4 Rockton (the computer specialist in drug withdrawal), and Olga as Grey5 Ellisville (the loyal guard).
Perhaps influenced by having a nice dinner together just before, the players in this run were more trusting and peaceful than most of the other runs I had seen. Still, it ended with a satisfying bang -- literally -- as everyone was killed by a grenade (sort of). Again, everyone had a good time.
Conclusions
This basically confirms my faith in the parlor larp format as an excellent introduction to larps and role-playing. I'd like to do some fine-tuning both of my Stagecoach scenario and how the mechanics are introduced, but I wouldn't want to deviate too much from a fun and successful instance.