Game Hangover
This weekend had two wonderful and mutually-exclusive opportunities for fun, though I'm assured that this mightn't have been the case if I'd been less of a seive and spoken up sooner. (To that end, I apologize to susansugarspun for being a flake.) The opportunity I ended up taking - involving myself in three games this weekend - was a phenomenal experience, if draining one.
Friday night was drydem and buzzermccain's post-Apocalyptic Buffy/Angel-verse LARP, wherein I play the principal of the high school, which has -- flying in the face of reason -- managed to survive the onslaught of the demonic hordes relatively intact. It made my night when I was told by multiple people that my over-the-top school spirit and rather deranged denial of the fall of civilization freaked people out even more than the 160 year-old vampire or the religious zealots from the Church. Of course, playing someone so full of sunshine and zest was particularly draining on a Friday night at the end of a week of oncall, but I managed to find the energy somewhere.
...but to all those in my faction, I just have this to say: "Take pride in yourself, and take pride in the Panthers. Go, Panthers!"
Saturday and Sunday were largely devoured by the monolith that is Changeling. This weekend was a special event game where everyone portrayed characters in a Concordian-level political bonanza where King Meilge of Willows had finally become High Regent of Concordia after the death of Faerilyth. I say it devoured Saturday and Sunday because it spanned two days and I was reprising my role as Meilge. As one might expect, I was rather busy.
Ultimately, though a series of events more tortured than I can comfortably recount here, Meilge's political support network crumbled before his eyes, his treason was revealed, and he delivered what I hope was a reasonably damning (and accurate) speech, detailing why Concordia had failed. In between all that, of course, I had some fantastic roleplay with some fantastic people. For reasons that I can't discuss in detail (but which relate to my thoughts on emotional investment), Meilge was both significantly harder and significantly easier for me to play than was Lucifer.
Oh hell. I can explain at least part of it, I suppose.
The Meilge I was playing was very much like the Meilge from the source material, only with several more layers of intrigue and plotting tossed into the mix. He was intensely ambitious and ruthless, imprisoning the High King in a cold iron prison and assassinating his own adopted daughter (though he ultimately only admitted to the former, as it was the only crime for which evidence had been produced); he was, in short, an evil bastard. He was, however, also an efficient, competant pragmatist; he understood that he could not be a king of a shattered land, and ultimately, he had the best interests of Concordia at heart, because he recognized the weaknesses that no one else seemed to be addressing.
...but he was, ultimately, a person, rather than some inhuman anthropomorphized concept, and every man is a hero in his own mind, really. So I had to find his center and play out from there. What kind of a man would plan so outlandishly and execute on that plan so efficiently? Where did such a monster come from?
The answer I came up with was really difficult to get inside of. He was a man of surpassing skill and arrogance, driven by rage at perceived injustice, but tempered by ingenuity, patience, and an iron-clad will. His Concordia was to be the mirror of everything that David's was. His Concordia would fix those problems he had seen in the previous design. That his adopted daughter provided a route to the realization of that goal was to him both an unexpected blessing and an unavoidable curse.
...and damn, but playing that was hard, even if it meant that I had a more solid hold on the character than I had on Lucifer.
In any event, my thanks go out to all of the players who costumed so elaborately and so beautifully. I had countless wonderful scenes, though the ones that stick most solidly are those from last night, rather than those on Saturday, when Meilge was attempting to plug the holes in the dike which was so close to breaching. My thanks to the STs for sowing the seeds of Meilge's fall so completely that it would have been nigh impossible for me to counter each one; I had far more fun talking to the monarchs and high lords of Concordia from my cell than I would have from the throne.
Overall, it was a great experience.
That said, I am exhausted, emotionally, mentally, and physically. ...but in a good way.
Friday night was drydem and buzzermccain's post-Apocalyptic Buffy/Angel-verse LARP, wherein I play the principal of the high school, which has -- flying in the face of reason -- managed to survive the onslaught of the demonic hordes relatively intact. It made my night when I was told by multiple people that my over-the-top school spirit and rather deranged denial of the fall of civilization freaked people out even more than the 160 year-old vampire or the religious zealots from the Church. Of course, playing someone so full of sunshine and zest was particularly draining on a Friday night at the end of a week of oncall, but I managed to find the energy somewhere.
...but to all those in my faction, I just have this to say: "Take pride in yourself, and take pride in the Panthers. Go, Panthers!"
Saturday and Sunday were largely devoured by the monolith that is Changeling. This weekend was a special event game where everyone portrayed characters in a Concordian-level political bonanza where King Meilge of Willows had finally become High Regent of Concordia after the death of Faerilyth. I say it devoured Saturday and Sunday because it spanned two days and I was reprising my role as Meilge. As one might expect, I was rather busy.
Ultimately, though a series of events more tortured than I can comfortably recount here, Meilge's political support network crumbled before his eyes, his treason was revealed, and he delivered what I hope was a reasonably damning (and accurate) speech, detailing why Concordia had failed. In between all that, of course, I had some fantastic roleplay with some fantastic people. For reasons that I can't discuss in detail (but which relate to my thoughts on emotional investment), Meilge was both significantly harder and significantly easier for me to play than was Lucifer.
Oh hell. I can explain at least part of it, I suppose.
The Meilge I was playing was very much like the Meilge from the source material, only with several more layers of intrigue and plotting tossed into the mix. He was intensely ambitious and ruthless, imprisoning the High King in a cold iron prison and assassinating his own adopted daughter (though he ultimately only admitted to the former, as it was the only crime for which evidence had been produced); he was, in short, an evil bastard. He was, however, also an efficient, competant pragmatist; he understood that he could not be a king of a shattered land, and ultimately, he had the best interests of Concordia at heart, because he recognized the weaknesses that no one else seemed to be addressing.
...but he was, ultimately, a person, rather than some inhuman anthropomorphized concept, and every man is a hero in his own mind, really. So I had to find his center and play out from there. What kind of a man would plan so outlandishly and execute on that plan so efficiently? Where did such a monster come from?
The answer I came up with was really difficult to get inside of. He was a man of surpassing skill and arrogance, driven by rage at perceived injustice, but tempered by ingenuity, patience, and an iron-clad will. His Concordia was to be the mirror of everything that David's was. His Concordia would fix those problems he had seen in the previous design. That his adopted daughter provided a route to the realization of that goal was to him both an unexpected blessing and an unavoidable curse.
...and damn, but playing that was hard, even if it meant that I had a more solid hold on the character than I had on Lucifer.
In any event, my thanks go out to all of the players who costumed so elaborately and so beautifully. I had countless wonderful scenes, though the ones that stick most solidly are those from last night, rather than those on Saturday, when Meilge was attempting to plug the holes in the dike which was so close to breaching. My thanks to the STs for sowing the seeds of Meilge's fall so completely that it would have been nigh impossible for me to counter each one; I had far more fun talking to the monarchs and high lords of Concordia from my cell than I would have from the throne.
Overall, it was a great experience.
That said, I am exhausted, emotionally, mentally, and physically. ...but in a good way.