Shadows of Amun Game 1, or, How to Set 40 of Your Friends on Fire
Shadows of Amun happened. I NPCed my first boffer/live-combat game.
It was amazing. I only hope it was just as interesting for the PCs!
How amazing was it? The highest compliment I can pay it is: I am downright wistful that I have to miss the next game for the first weekend of VP. That's right. I am somewhat regretful that this workshop where I will have my writing taken seriously by my favorite authors --where I will likely get to drink Scotch with, and lose spectacularly at poker to Steven Brust--interferes with my hitting people with foam swords.
So... I'll try to say all the millions of things that are floating through my head, without being spoilery. Let's see if I actually succeed, or if I get bored and decide to, I dunno, go play SWTOR or something.
The site:
The game takes place at East Boston Camps in Westford, Mass. Trying to find it in the dark? Was a bit of a challenge. Our GPS dropped us at 66 Depot Street and was all like "You're here!" and we were like... where? On our second pass we saw a dirt road wending past the train tracks, and assumed by the "East Boston Camps -- Fall Foliage Festival" signs that we were in the right place.
So we drove. In the dark. Having no idea where we were going. Eventually we found a "BEWARE MUNDANES" sign, basically explaining that this was a game that took place in WWI in Egypt, and there would be a lot of people in Arab clothing with nerf guns and foam swords wandering around. (Something we are, understandably, sensitive about in this country).
Once we passed that sign, while we knew we were in the right general place, there were a lot of twists and turns, and it wasn't clear where we should be going. Finally we saw lights, and people milling about, and found our way to Monster Camp, and got set up in our optimistically-termed living spaces.
One thing about this camp... it's really grotty. From what I understand it's an old Boy Scout camp that got bought out by the city of Westford, who are ever-so-slowly renovating it. In the meantime there's a layer of grime several years thick on every surface, toilets that sink ominously into the floor when you sit on them, windows duct-taped in place, and cabins with doors that don't really close. The screens of the dining hall have a permanent layer of trapped eastern conifer seed bugs decorating them. The bunks in our staff cabin were newly built, which is great, if you like smelling pressure-treated lumber all the time--well, it's probably better than the alternative, which I wouldn't be surprised to learn involved termites.
Plus there's the whole camp thing where the cabins are panopticons with giant screened windows on all sides with no shades or shutters. I remember that from when I went to camp as a kid. It sucked then, and it sucks even more when you have to make a costume change every two hours. I hung up a blanket around my bunk to make a little private space.
Despite the rusticness of the accommodations, I couldn't fault it too much. In some ways it's a lot more fun than trying to larp in a hotel ballroom! It's nice to have weather and different locations and persistent sets and all those things you can't really have in a hotel.
On the other hand, the sheer number of mundanes--hikers and dog-walkers mostly--wandering through the site was a little intimidating. But it did lead to some interesting stories--more on that later!
The staff/Plot/other NPCs:
I introduced some of the staff when I talked about the Dom prequel. So far they all seem delightful, although Lackey and Jeffo and Jesse are usually so busy that I don't get to interact with them much. Of course I knew cristovau and bess before going into game, and they are the reason I am here, after all. I ran in some mods Quick wrote this game, so I got to know him a little better--I really appreciated his answering all my dumbass Accelerant questions. Of course dervishspin and I can always bond over costuming and historical authenticity. (I love her. Can I be her in ten years?)
After that, I'm not really sure who's staff and who's just a dedicated NPC. Clockwork? Ted O? Other!Beth? _kria_? Doesn't matter, they're all awesome. Clockwork saved the day for Team CPAP, with the simple expedient of an multi-prong power adaptor. He's also the bestest misogynist Egyptian doctor ever. Ted O is the best husband and/or father an NPC could ask for. (No appearances of Baba Aswad this game, although he was an ominous presence off-screen). Other!Beth is snarky and delightful, whether she's being the enigmatic Azza Izzah or the more adorable Jane Sissmore. And of course, Whitney as Jabari is the best teahouse owner ever :)
There were also a lot of new NPCs, some of whom I unexpectedly recognized. Chris told me he was bringing "some folks from MES," and was I surprised to see Nixon show up with his girlfriend Adria. "Hey, I know you," says I. "You were Mr. Sebastiaan!" (the low-Humanity Ventrue Harpy from when I was playing Masquerade last year). He tried--unsuccessfully, I think--to sell me on the new chronicle and Accord, although he told some interesting stories in the process
He wasn't the only person I knew from elsewhere, either-- it took me a gentle prodding to realize I recognized Abrihette, who played in Loot Council with me at Intercon M. I hardly recognized her without her samurai armor and wig ;) Her boyfriend, Sean C., was also in that game. The two of them together did a beautiful job of setting up the Open Palms on Saturday night, turning that grimy space into a place with real atmosphere, with just a few decorations and some dim lighting.
I'm sure there are more people I'm forgetting. offside7, who only showed up late on Saturday/Sunday morning. Little!Beth, who played Mabel Stobart most of the weekend with incredible grace. Some Realmsies. SCA people who are exceptionally good at hitting people with things. Matt R. Becky K and Arnis. Alex W. Courtney, Quick's mostly-non-LARPing wife, who rocks at logistics and organization and moving heavy things and lying quietly on the cold floor for over an hour as a corpse. The usual crowd :)
I also want to stress, again, how INCREDIBLY ORGANIZED the staff seem to me, relative to my limited experience in dealing with Cottington (from a very different perspective, admittedly). There was a schedule, and scenes were--with some exceptions--written far enough ahead that I could figure out what I was supposed to be doing and where. Costuming and boffer weapons for NPC roles were semi-provided. We received briefings before most of our mods--nobody stuck us out in the middle of a field by ourselves and told us to entertain the PCs, which is what I was fearing.
All in all, a great group, who I think work together as a well-oiled machine.
The players:
Oh god. Seriously. SO MANY THEATER-STYLE LARPers. This was the game, I understand, that made a lot of people decide to try boffer LARPing. Chrisco, for one. I believe Hyde and phoenix_rinna and pezzonovante are new, too, but I could be wrong about that.
All in all, there were about forty PCs, and I knew almost--but not quite!--everyone who was playing. Jokes were made in Monster Camp about the talkiness of the PCs; Other!Beth was exasperated trying to hook a plot with PCs who seemed reluctant to engage for in-character reasons ("no, no, if I'm going to do this, I need to bring along an American").
I had a good amount of interaction with the Dom players, as Hahanzi, my Dom NPC from the moot. As my other recurring character, Tabitha Evans-Kensington, I engaged with more of the Brits and Americans, but certainly not everyone. There still a number of people I found I hadn't talked to at all by the end of the weekend.
There was a good mix of nationalities among the players, too. There's a large Dom faction, and a sizeable Bedouin team, some Egyptians, both Copt and Muslim, and a fuckton of Westerners--mostly English and American, with a handful of Irish. I was entertained to see that Caitlin F (Caitlin! From ye olde alma mater!) and her husband Amod were playing, appropriately enough, an Englishwoman and her Anglo-Indian husband, Henry Gupta.
Strangely, my planned Frenchwoman/formerly disguised cavalry officer would have been all by herself, had I played her--no French folk, or other Europeans, were in evidence.
The rules:
This is an Accelerant LARP, like, well, most of the boffer LARPs in the area. Going in, what I knew about Accelerant could fit in a thimble. I mean, I tried to read the ruleset--and I really appreciated that Plot had deigned to actually put the core rules in the SoA rules book, rather than assuming we all knew it already--but I can't learn rules that way. I seriously just cannot. And to be honest, my lack of knowledge about the ruleset is one part of the reason why I decided not to play Cottington, so I should stress that I had a LOT of anxiety around this.
This made me first few fights... interesting. I apologize for flailing around as the derpiest Senussi ever on Friday night. I fell down before I was dead, because everyone else around me was dying. I didn't remember the rules for whether or not you were stable or unstable when you went unconscious, and even when I did, I had trouble remembering if I'd gone down from called or uncalled damage. At one point I threw an empty bottle from a Molotov cocktail at someone (we'd been told if we found one of these props, just to use it at a thrown weapon, without the fire damage), and the PCs looked at me like I'd forgotten the "3 damage by fire" call. I didn't know how to tell them, "no, really, it's just a bottle" without dropping character. (I learned later).
Like most rules systems, though, I pick it up pretty well with actual practice. I knew enough to not feel like an idiot by the end of the weekend, though I still have a long way to go.
The roles/mods:
I DID ALL THE THINGS.
No. Seriously. Every time I looked at the schedule in the Google Drive folder for the game, I found someone had added me to something else. Mostly Chris and Quick ;) I mentioned that to Quick, and he joked, "Well, I'm sorry for thinking you'd be good at this mod!"
I also prepped waaaaay more than I had to, but seriously, I wasn't expecting a briefing at all, so I wanted to be quite sure I knew what to do.
My two major characters were my Dom NPC, Hahanzi, who I played from ~6pm to midnight on Saturday, and again on Sunday, and Tabitha Evans-Kensington, the British investor/philanthropist, whose job was basically to make the PCs take my money, (harder than you might think!), and who went out around noon on Saturday to have tea and lunch with the PCs.
Small costuming note: Tabitha's "identity" piece--what I consider to define her, in a game where no one wears name badges--was a fabulous hat, which I got many compliments on. Amusingly, it was just an $8 "witch's hat" from the cheap costume display that springs up in Savers at this time of year. Next time I think I shall put more flowers and feathers on it, to make it a little less black and grim.
I had a few other one-off roles, too--nosy Egyptian neighbor Falma Vaya, on Friday night, Antonia Castiglione, the Italian mob underboss who got deathstriked by a very bloodthirsty player, and probably the most intense of my one-off roles, Amisi.
Oh man. That role. That module. More later, because it definitely goes under Favorite Moments.
I also stepped in as a random mook in a few places--on Friday night, with the raids, or on Sunday's field fight. I was reluctanct to step in on Sunday after doing so badly at mooking on Friday, but it turned out to be so much fun, and good experience, too.
Another costuming note: pashminas of various colors are astonishingly useful when playing so many different roles in one weekend. Hahanzi is cold? Wrap a pashmina around her. Need a makeshift hijab, or kaffiyeh, or turban? Pashmina. Don't have pockets? Make a sash out of a pashmina around your waist. Want to dress up a plain blouse, or distinguish it from another character's look? Wear a pashmina as a shrug.
Favorite moments: Or, this part outside the cut, because it's the best part?
So I mentioned the mod where I played Amisi. Amisi was an Egyptian woman whose husband, Nahkti (played by Ted O) had been kidnapped by Bedouin raiders and was being held prisoner by them. I was seeking the player's help to distract the captors and rescue her.
(Well, at least they looked like Bedu. It was more complex than that, but I don't want to say too too much more, for fear of being spoilery).
... nothing in this mod went to plan. And yet it was utterly, utterly awesome.
First of all, the plan of attack was for the PCs to draw off the raiders so the rest of us could sneak in and grab the husband. The players wanted nothing to do with that. Well, okay, said I. They're paying money to be there, and I'm not, so if they want to have a fight, I can roll with that.
What ended up happening is that a couple of PCs walked up to the front of the camp to engage the raiders. Another group snuck up the side. Yet another PC--Alex P., playing the Irish laborer Conor--tried to be even sneakier, crawling through the underbrush to try to get to the camp. More on that later--it's important.
Of course, as soon as the PCs show up, dear husband Nahkti starts screaming in pain, which set me off, which kind of blew our cover. A fight happened. It was dark, and I wasn't 100% sure what was going on, but we won? I think?
Then the players get to Nahkti, and try to move him. It turns out he's been poisoned, and only [antidote widget] would save his life. If he moves, he takes an Agony effect every minute. (Basically, screaming in pain for 10 seconds). If that continues long enough, he dies. He knows enough to know this, and will beg for the PCs to give him Widget.
If you thought, "Oh, the players will see this and obviously give him Widget, because they are not terrible people," well, congratulations. You are thinking like Quick did, when he wrote the module.
But you would also be wrong.
The players, having been primed by a previous mod, were doing No Such Thing. They had Good Reasons, but it's complex and spoilery to get into. They insisted on moving him back to Rick's Place--the dining hall--with him screaming the whole way, and me screaming in sympathy, as his wife. Once there, he lays on the floor, screaming and pleading, for FAR LONGER than he really should have, before expiring.
He begs for the Widget the whole time. I beg for the Widget. No one is giving it up. I don't even have combat stats for this character, so it wasn't like I could take it from them. They are like, "We'll get a doctor." Lo and behold, all the doctor PCs have gone to bed! They talk about blood transfusions, because someone has decided these are the cure for everything? (Oh, 1910s medicine). A doctor shows up. Diagnose Venom. No. Diagnose Poison. Yes. Well, fuck, he can't heal poison. (I don't even know if that would have worked).
The Dom--in particular staystrong62805 (Mouse) and nomadmwe (Tariq)--seem to be the ones leading Team No-Widget, although Tariq, at least, is decent enough to comfort the dying. One of the other players, a Copt named, I think Taliya?--player name unknown--is trying to get me to pray. Meanwhile, everything else is going on normally around me, like there's not a guy screaming about being stung to death by scorpions lying on the floor, with his hysterical wife beside him.
And then, Nahkti expires.
I'm not quite sure what happened to me, but I burst out sobbing. I'm not talking crocodile tears, these; these were full-on, snotty-nosed, messy smears on my pashmina-hijab tears. I have seriously never had a larp that made me cry like this, even when I was a PC. Something about the extended period of screaming in the dark, feeling powerless, etc, just set me off. Maybe I found myself thinking of how I would react if such a thing were to happen to Matt. I dunno. But I couldn't stop for some time, even after I went back the Monster Camp--even while I laughed about Wot Those Bastard PCs Did!
It was some damn good RP, either way--I hope the PCs felt the same way, and didn't think I stole the scene. I almost didn't mind my stuffy nose from crying kept me awake most of the rest of the night >.<
The final funny part of this thing? Remember Conor, crawling through the underbrush to catch up to the raiders?
Well, he succeeded. Was just about to stab the leader of the raiders, being played by Quick.
Then he got shot in the face by his own team.
DOT DOT DOT.
In Monster Camp, this was all terribly amusing. "These are players who stop in the middle of combat to make sure the enemy mooks are stabilized, but they have no problem with WATCHING AN ALLY DIE AN AGONIZING DEATH in front of them. Or shooting each other in the face."
I think we decided the players have a strict no-impact philosophy.
(There are parts of this story I'm eliding/being cagey about, for Reasons. Please respect that in the comments).
That was not the only awesomeness!
- With Tabitha, being invited to lunch with Farouq, the Bedouin guide (zapf's character) and his Dom companion Violet (Steph's character), and being forced to confront her racist assumptions about the Bedu, while eating delicious food and sitting in the shade. (Also, after seeing a bottle of Glenlivet on the table, the side discussion about the oversaturated Scotch trade market).
- Hahanzi totally pulled a high school girl move, and asked Mouse to ask Tariq if he would talk to her. At least it wasn't a note that said "Do you like me? Check Yes - No- Maybe." (She carried a message from Aswad, which I suppose helped). Thus proceeded an awesome conversation that went something like this:
"I don't hate you! In fact, I care for you a great deal"
"I don't hate you, either!"
"But your dad!"
"But my dad!"
"I understand, cause dads"
Finally agreed I would work to do Foo to prove that I wasn't just an agent of my father.
... of course, this may have been undermined by Things Wot Appeared to Happen Later, buuuut. (As Hahanzi, I seem to have the unfortunate habit of doing accidentally suspicious things. I hope to harness this power for good, not evil).
- the field fight on Sunday was so much more fun than I was expecting. Perhaps the best moment was sneaking up on and lobbing a Molotov cocktail at Albert's character (Zarid? Zahid?), who had taken control of the Hotchkiss in the turret and was about to start using it on the NPCs. He heard me call "3 damage by fire" and looked behind him just in time for the packet to hit his shoulder.
Of course, he was ALSO carrying Molotov cocktails, so he went up like a torch. Cue screaming and flailing. "Stop, drop, and roll, man," I heard one of the PCs say.
... the mooks might have been a little too successful at that mod. At the next wave of the same thing, instead we allowed ourselves to be distracted by theological discussions with Suleiman, Derek H's Bedu character.
- I love that, in this style of game, misunderstandings and subverted expectations can happen in the same way they do in real life--as with the friendly fire incident with Conor on Saturday night. Another great example: in a final mod on Sunday, some of the PCs misunderstood that Hahanzi was going to see her father, and thought she was a hostage. I guess they saw one of the random Egyptian mooks put a gun to Hanif's head (Hanif being Chris' recurring drug addict Dom NPC--he's disposable, amirite?), and thought, "Oh that must be her dad. Let's rescue her!"
Of course, this realization came to Riley, Tucker's hot-headed Irish mobster with a tommy gun, and a lot of bloodshed was the result.
The final hilarious part was Robert Harris, Hyde's PC, coming over to Hahanzi after they'd shot us all up, and handing us a few guineh with an apology.
- While we were in the field fight on Sunday, a family with a six-year-old-ish boy wanders up to the day camp. Kathy, who is the site liaison, goes over to tell them what's going on, why we're all wearing costumes, how we're the bad guys, and the good guys are trying to gain control of this turret, etc. They ask if they can watch, which we let them do.
At one point the mother says to the son, "Look, they're playing a game." The kid, wide-eyed, says, "Adults play games??!!"
Heheh. Yes, yes we do! Now we just have rules to do it.
Better yet: When the PCs had set up the dynamite for the explosion, the family mimes hunkering down and covering their ears. They didn't understand the "Ambient Slam by Explosion" call that followed, obviously, but I think they'd fit right in :)
We also had other visitors who were less interested, but I was intrigued by the "are you roleplayers or are you historical reenactors?" question that Kathy told me about.
Some minor quibbles:
- There's a part of me that still feels... weirdly culturally appropriative? I think we handle issues of ethnicity and religion respectfully, and no one is making insensitive jokes, but this is still something I think about. Like, is it okay for me, as a white, non-Muslimah, to wear a hijab when I'm playing the part of one?
I guess it's not different than acting, but still. It's something I think about.
- Okay, geeky guys. I love you. I really do. But some of you have this shyness/reserved thing going on that feels to me like avoidance/rejection. I'm 80% sure it's not me? Because in some cases it comes from people I barely know, so what could they possibly hate me for? Plus my husband does this sometimes (remember the time when he offended sabredanse accidentally in this way?), and I'm pretty sure he likes me ;)
But it is something that I have seen before in geek culture, and just this weekend came to a head for me. There's another NPC--who is not on LJ, so I think I'm safe saying this--who basically just refuses to talk to me. It's someone I've met like twice, too, so I'm pretty sure I haven't accidentally mortally offended him in that time. But when I try to interact with this guy, it's like: "Is it okay if I tag along on this mod?" *crickets* "Nice weather today, huh?" *silence*
I mean, I understand hating small talk--
... okay, no, I don't, really. Like alcohol, it is a social lubricant. If you refuse to use it, people are going to think you dislike them. Even if you think, "How is it possibly useful to acknowledge that yes, the sun is shining today?" the very fact that the two of you are sitting there together, enjoying it, is something that most human beings understand and can bond over.
In brief: this is not cool, guys.
Now, if you do have beef with me, and you're just not telling me... you should. I'm a big girl, or I at least have big girl pants I can wear from time to time. If I've done something insensitive, or offensive, I'd really like to know, so I don't do it again. If my personality just rubs you the wrong way, that's cool, too. If I've come on too strong and you want me to back off, that's something I'm okay with hearing, as well. I have an. Um. Intense, obsessive personality, and I know it's not everyone's style.
I'd just like to be told, so I can stop spending mental energy on worrying why you don't like me. Or looking like an idiot when I'm failing to get a hint you may or may not actually be sending.
Believe me. I'm not even remotely an extrovert and these are things that keep me awake at night.
When it's not my stuffy nose, of course.
- Have I mentioned the site is disgustingly dirty? Of course I have. But really, it grossed me out in places. Once I'm asleep I'm fine, but I don't like being afraid to put anything down on any surface because they're all covered in cobwebs and a ten years' worth of dried urine.
Sleeping on site is massively convenient, but I also live really close, so the temptation to just go home to my comfy bed and my kitties after the next game is prominent in my thoughts.
And now I go write up all the stuff that I can't be spoilery about here, in my NPC PEL.
The title may be a bit of an exaggeration. I think I only succeeded in hitting four people with my fire packets. But hey, at least I can say I decimated their ranks ;)
It was amazing. I only hope it was just as interesting for the PCs!
How amazing was it? The highest compliment I can pay it is: I am downright wistful that I have to miss the next game for the first weekend of VP. That's right. I am somewhat regretful that this workshop where I will have my writing taken seriously by my favorite authors --where I will likely get to drink Scotch with, and lose spectacularly at poker to Steven Brust--interferes with my hitting people with foam swords.
So... I'll try to say all the millions of things that are floating through my head, without being spoilery. Let's see if I actually succeed, or if I get bored and decide to, I dunno, go play SWTOR or something.
The site:
The game takes place at East Boston Camps in Westford, Mass. Trying to find it in the dark? Was a bit of a challenge. Our GPS dropped us at 66 Depot Street and was all like "You're here!" and we were like... where? On our second pass we saw a dirt road wending past the train tracks, and assumed by the "East Boston Camps -- Fall Foliage Festival" signs that we were in the right place.
So we drove. In the dark. Having no idea where we were going. Eventually we found a "BEWARE MUNDANES" sign, basically explaining that this was a game that took place in WWI in Egypt, and there would be a lot of people in Arab clothing with nerf guns and foam swords wandering around. (Something we are, understandably, sensitive about in this country).
Once we passed that sign, while we knew we were in the right general place, there were a lot of twists and turns, and it wasn't clear where we should be going. Finally we saw lights, and people milling about, and found our way to Monster Camp, and got set up in our optimistically-termed living spaces.
One thing about this camp... it's really grotty. From what I understand it's an old Boy Scout camp that got bought out by the city of Westford, who are ever-so-slowly renovating it. In the meantime there's a layer of grime several years thick on every surface, toilets that sink ominously into the floor when you sit on them, windows duct-taped in place, and cabins with doors that don't really close. The screens of the dining hall have a permanent layer of trapped eastern conifer seed bugs decorating them. The bunks in our staff cabin were newly built, which is great, if you like smelling pressure-treated lumber all the time--well, it's probably better than the alternative, which I wouldn't be surprised to learn involved termites.
Plus there's the whole camp thing where the cabins are panopticons with giant screened windows on all sides with no shades or shutters. I remember that from when I went to camp as a kid. It sucked then, and it sucks even more when you have to make a costume change every two hours. I hung up a blanket around my bunk to make a little private space.
Despite the rusticness of the accommodations, I couldn't fault it too much. In some ways it's a lot more fun than trying to larp in a hotel ballroom! It's nice to have weather and different locations and persistent sets and all those things you can't really have in a hotel.
On the other hand, the sheer number of mundanes--hikers and dog-walkers mostly--wandering through the site was a little intimidating. But it did lead to some interesting stories--more on that later!
The staff/Plot/other NPCs:
I introduced some of the staff when I talked about the Dom prequel. So far they all seem delightful, although Lackey and Jeffo and Jesse are usually so busy that I don't get to interact with them much. Of course I knew cristovau and bess before going into game, and they are the reason I am here, after all. I ran in some mods Quick wrote this game, so I got to know him a little better--I really appreciated his answering all my dumbass Accelerant questions. Of course dervishspin and I can always bond over costuming and historical authenticity. (I love her. Can I be her in ten years?)
After that, I'm not really sure who's staff and who's just a dedicated NPC. Clockwork? Ted O? Other!Beth? _kria_? Doesn't matter, they're all awesome. Clockwork saved the day for Team CPAP, with the simple expedient of an multi-prong power adaptor. He's also the bestest misogynist Egyptian doctor ever. Ted O is the best husband and/or father an NPC could ask for. (No appearances of Baba Aswad this game, although he was an ominous presence off-screen). Other!Beth is snarky and delightful, whether she's being the enigmatic Azza Izzah or the more adorable Jane Sissmore. And of course, Whitney as Jabari is the best teahouse owner ever :)
There were also a lot of new NPCs, some of whom I unexpectedly recognized. Chris told me he was bringing "some folks from MES," and was I surprised to see Nixon show up with his girlfriend Adria. "Hey, I know you," says I. "You were Mr. Sebastiaan!" (the low-Humanity Ventrue Harpy from when I was playing Masquerade last year). He tried--unsuccessfully, I think--to sell me on the new chronicle and Accord, although he told some interesting stories in the process
He wasn't the only person I knew from elsewhere, either-- it took me a gentle prodding to realize I recognized Abrihette, who played in Loot Council with me at Intercon M. I hardly recognized her without her samurai armor and wig ;) Her boyfriend, Sean C., was also in that game. The two of them together did a beautiful job of setting up the Open Palms on Saturday night, turning that grimy space into a place with real atmosphere, with just a few decorations and some dim lighting.
I'm sure there are more people I'm forgetting. offside7, who only showed up late on Saturday/Sunday morning. Little!Beth, who played Mabel Stobart most of the weekend with incredible grace. Some Realmsies. SCA people who are exceptionally good at hitting people with things. Matt R. Becky K and Arnis. Alex W. Courtney, Quick's mostly-non-LARPing wife, who rocks at logistics and organization and moving heavy things and lying quietly on the cold floor for over an hour as a corpse. The usual crowd :)
I also want to stress, again, how INCREDIBLY ORGANIZED the staff seem to me, relative to my limited experience in dealing with Cottington (from a very different perspective, admittedly). There was a schedule, and scenes were--with some exceptions--written far enough ahead that I could figure out what I was supposed to be doing and where. Costuming and boffer weapons for NPC roles were semi-provided. We received briefings before most of our mods--nobody stuck us out in the middle of a field by ourselves and told us to entertain the PCs, which is what I was fearing.
All in all, a great group, who I think work together as a well-oiled machine.
The players:
Oh god. Seriously. SO MANY THEATER-STYLE LARPers. This was the game, I understand, that made a lot of people decide to try boffer LARPing. Chrisco, for one. I believe Hyde and phoenix_rinna and pezzonovante are new, too, but I could be wrong about that.
All in all, there were about forty PCs, and I knew almost--but not quite!--everyone who was playing. Jokes were made in Monster Camp about the talkiness of the PCs; Other!Beth was exasperated trying to hook a plot with PCs who seemed reluctant to engage for in-character reasons ("no, no, if I'm going to do this, I need to bring along an American").
I had a good amount of interaction with the Dom players, as Hahanzi, my Dom NPC from the moot. As my other recurring character, Tabitha Evans-Kensington, I engaged with more of the Brits and Americans, but certainly not everyone. There still a number of people I found I hadn't talked to at all by the end of the weekend.
There was a good mix of nationalities among the players, too. There's a large Dom faction, and a sizeable Bedouin team, some Egyptians, both Copt and Muslim, and a fuckton of Westerners--mostly English and American, with a handful of Irish. I was entertained to see that Caitlin F (Caitlin! From ye olde alma mater!) and her husband Amod were playing, appropriately enough, an Englishwoman and her Anglo-Indian husband, Henry Gupta.
Strangely, my planned Frenchwoman/formerly disguised cavalry officer would have been all by herself, had I played her--no French folk, or other Europeans, were in evidence.
The rules:
This is an Accelerant LARP, like, well, most of the boffer LARPs in the area. Going in, what I knew about Accelerant could fit in a thimble. I mean, I tried to read the ruleset--and I really appreciated that Plot had deigned to actually put the core rules in the SoA rules book, rather than assuming we all knew it already--but I can't learn rules that way. I seriously just cannot. And to be honest, my lack of knowledge about the ruleset is one part of the reason why I decided not to play Cottington, so I should stress that I had a LOT of anxiety around this.
This made me first few fights... interesting. I apologize for flailing around as the derpiest Senussi ever on Friday night. I fell down before I was dead, because everyone else around me was dying. I didn't remember the rules for whether or not you were stable or unstable when you went unconscious, and even when I did, I had trouble remembering if I'd gone down from called or uncalled damage. At one point I threw an empty bottle from a Molotov cocktail at someone (we'd been told if we found one of these props, just to use it at a thrown weapon, without the fire damage), and the PCs looked at me like I'd forgotten the "3 damage by fire" call. I didn't know how to tell them, "no, really, it's just a bottle" without dropping character. (I learned later).
Like most rules systems, though, I pick it up pretty well with actual practice. I knew enough to not feel like an idiot by the end of the weekend, though I still have a long way to go.
The roles/mods:
I DID ALL THE THINGS.
No. Seriously. Every time I looked at the schedule in the Google Drive folder for the game, I found someone had added me to something else. Mostly Chris and Quick ;) I mentioned that to Quick, and he joked, "Well, I'm sorry for thinking you'd be good at this mod!"
I also prepped waaaaay more than I had to, but seriously, I wasn't expecting a briefing at all, so I wanted to be quite sure I knew what to do.
My two major characters were my Dom NPC, Hahanzi, who I played from ~6pm to midnight on Saturday, and again on Sunday, and Tabitha Evans-Kensington, the British investor/philanthropist, whose job was basically to make the PCs take my money, (harder than you might think!), and who went out around noon on Saturday to have tea and lunch with the PCs.
Small costuming note: Tabitha's "identity" piece--what I consider to define her, in a game where no one wears name badges--was a fabulous hat, which I got many compliments on. Amusingly, it was just an $8 "witch's hat" from the cheap costume display that springs up in Savers at this time of year. Next time I think I shall put more flowers and feathers on it, to make it a little less black and grim.
I had a few other one-off roles, too--nosy Egyptian neighbor Falma Vaya, on Friday night, Antonia Castiglione, the Italian mob underboss who got deathstriked by a very bloodthirsty player, and probably the most intense of my one-off roles, Amisi.
Oh man. That role. That module. More later, because it definitely goes under Favorite Moments.
I also stepped in as a random mook in a few places--on Friday night, with the raids, or on Sunday's field fight. I was reluctanct to step in on Sunday after doing so badly at mooking on Friday, but it turned out to be so much fun, and good experience, too.
Another costuming note: pashminas of various colors are astonishingly useful when playing so many different roles in one weekend. Hahanzi is cold? Wrap a pashmina around her. Need a makeshift hijab, or kaffiyeh, or turban? Pashmina. Don't have pockets? Make a sash out of a pashmina around your waist. Want to dress up a plain blouse, or distinguish it from another character's look? Wear a pashmina as a shrug.
Favorite moments: Or, this part outside the cut, because it's the best part?
So I mentioned the mod where I played Amisi. Amisi was an Egyptian woman whose husband, Nahkti (played by Ted O) had been kidnapped by Bedouin raiders and was being held prisoner by them. I was seeking the player's help to distract the captors and rescue her.
(Well, at least they looked like Bedu. It was more complex than that, but I don't want to say too too much more, for fear of being spoilery).
... nothing in this mod went to plan. And yet it was utterly, utterly awesome.
First of all, the plan of attack was for the PCs to draw off the raiders so the rest of us could sneak in and grab the husband. The players wanted nothing to do with that. Well, okay, said I. They're paying money to be there, and I'm not, so if they want to have a fight, I can roll with that.
What ended up happening is that a couple of PCs walked up to the front of the camp to engage the raiders. Another group snuck up the side. Yet another PC--Alex P., playing the Irish laborer Conor--tried to be even sneakier, crawling through the underbrush to try to get to the camp. More on that later--it's important.
Of course, as soon as the PCs show up, dear husband Nahkti starts screaming in pain, which set me off, which kind of blew our cover. A fight happened. It was dark, and I wasn't 100% sure what was going on, but we won? I think?
Then the players get to Nahkti, and try to move him. It turns out he's been poisoned, and only [antidote widget] would save his life. If he moves, he takes an Agony effect every minute. (Basically, screaming in pain for 10 seconds). If that continues long enough, he dies. He knows enough to know this, and will beg for the PCs to give him Widget.
If you thought, "Oh, the players will see this and obviously give him Widget, because they are not terrible people," well, congratulations. You are thinking like Quick did, when he wrote the module.
But you would also be wrong.
The players, having been primed by a previous mod, were doing No Such Thing. They had Good Reasons, but it's complex and spoilery to get into. They insisted on moving him back to Rick's Place--the dining hall--with him screaming the whole way, and me screaming in sympathy, as his wife. Once there, he lays on the floor, screaming and pleading, for FAR LONGER than he really should have, before expiring.
He begs for the Widget the whole time. I beg for the Widget. No one is giving it up. I don't even have combat stats for this character, so it wasn't like I could take it from them. They are like, "We'll get a doctor." Lo and behold, all the doctor PCs have gone to bed! They talk about blood transfusions, because someone has decided these are the cure for everything? (Oh, 1910s medicine). A doctor shows up. Diagnose Venom. No. Diagnose Poison. Yes. Well, fuck, he can't heal poison. (I don't even know if that would have worked).
The Dom--in particular staystrong62805 (Mouse) and nomadmwe (Tariq)--seem to be the ones leading Team No-Widget, although Tariq, at least, is decent enough to comfort the dying. One of the other players, a Copt named, I think Taliya?--player name unknown--is trying to get me to pray. Meanwhile, everything else is going on normally around me, like there's not a guy screaming about being stung to death by scorpions lying on the floor, with his hysterical wife beside him.
And then, Nahkti expires.
I'm not quite sure what happened to me, but I burst out sobbing. I'm not talking crocodile tears, these; these were full-on, snotty-nosed, messy smears on my pashmina-hijab tears. I have seriously never had a larp that made me cry like this, even when I was a PC. Something about the extended period of screaming in the dark, feeling powerless, etc, just set me off. Maybe I found myself thinking of how I would react if such a thing were to happen to Matt. I dunno. But I couldn't stop for some time, even after I went back the Monster Camp--even while I laughed about Wot Those Bastard PCs Did!
It was some damn good RP, either way--I hope the PCs felt the same way, and didn't think I stole the scene. I almost didn't mind my stuffy nose from crying kept me awake most of the rest of the night >.<
The final funny part of this thing? Remember Conor, crawling through the underbrush to catch up to the raiders?
Well, he succeeded. Was just about to stab the leader of the raiders, being played by Quick.
Then he got shot in the face by his own team.
DOT DOT DOT.
In Monster Camp, this was all terribly amusing. "These are players who stop in the middle of combat to make sure the enemy mooks are stabilized, but they have no problem with WATCHING AN ALLY DIE AN AGONIZING DEATH in front of them. Or shooting each other in the face."
I think we decided the players have a strict no-impact philosophy.
(There are parts of this story I'm eliding/being cagey about, for Reasons. Please respect that in the comments).
That was not the only awesomeness!
- With Tabitha, being invited to lunch with Farouq, the Bedouin guide (zapf's character) and his Dom companion Violet (Steph's character), and being forced to confront her racist assumptions about the Bedu, while eating delicious food and sitting in the shade. (Also, after seeing a bottle of Glenlivet on the table, the side discussion about the oversaturated Scotch trade market).
- Hahanzi totally pulled a high school girl move, and asked Mouse to ask Tariq if he would talk to her. At least it wasn't a note that said "Do you like me? Check Yes - No- Maybe." (She carried a message from Aswad, which I suppose helped). Thus proceeded an awesome conversation that went something like this:
"I don't hate you! In fact, I care for you a great deal"
"I don't hate you, either!"
"But your dad!"
"But my dad!"
"I understand, cause dads"
Finally agreed I would work to do Foo to prove that I wasn't just an agent of my father.
... of course, this may have been undermined by Things Wot Appeared to Happen Later, buuuut. (As Hahanzi, I seem to have the unfortunate habit of doing accidentally suspicious things. I hope to harness this power for good, not evil).
- the field fight on Sunday was so much more fun than I was expecting. Perhaps the best moment was sneaking up on and lobbing a Molotov cocktail at Albert's character (Zarid? Zahid?), who had taken control of the Hotchkiss in the turret and was about to start using it on the NPCs. He heard me call "3 damage by fire" and looked behind him just in time for the packet to hit his shoulder.
Of course, he was ALSO carrying Molotov cocktails, so he went up like a torch. Cue screaming and flailing. "Stop, drop, and roll, man," I heard one of the PCs say.
... the mooks might have been a little too successful at that mod. At the next wave of the same thing, instead we allowed ourselves to be distracted by theological discussions with Suleiman, Derek H's Bedu character.
- I love that, in this style of game, misunderstandings and subverted expectations can happen in the same way they do in real life--as with the friendly fire incident with Conor on Saturday night. Another great example: in a final mod on Sunday, some of the PCs misunderstood that Hahanzi was going to see her father, and thought she was a hostage. I guess they saw one of the random Egyptian mooks put a gun to Hanif's head (Hanif being Chris' recurring drug addict Dom NPC--he's disposable, amirite?), and thought, "Oh that must be her dad. Let's rescue her!"
Of course, this realization came to Riley, Tucker's hot-headed Irish mobster with a tommy gun, and a lot of bloodshed was the result.
The final hilarious part was Robert Harris, Hyde's PC, coming over to Hahanzi after they'd shot us all up, and handing us a few guineh with an apology.
- While we were in the field fight on Sunday, a family with a six-year-old-ish boy wanders up to the day camp. Kathy, who is the site liaison, goes over to tell them what's going on, why we're all wearing costumes, how we're the bad guys, and the good guys are trying to gain control of this turret, etc. They ask if they can watch, which we let them do.
At one point the mother says to the son, "Look, they're playing a game." The kid, wide-eyed, says, "Adults play games??!!"
Heheh. Yes, yes we do! Now we just have rules to do it.
Better yet: When the PCs had set up the dynamite for the explosion, the family mimes hunkering down and covering their ears. They didn't understand the "Ambient Slam by Explosion" call that followed, obviously, but I think they'd fit right in :)
We also had other visitors who were less interested, but I was intrigued by the "are you roleplayers or are you historical reenactors?" question that Kathy told me about.
Some minor quibbles:
- There's a part of me that still feels... weirdly culturally appropriative? I think we handle issues of ethnicity and religion respectfully, and no one is making insensitive jokes, but this is still something I think about. Like, is it okay for me, as a white, non-Muslimah, to wear a hijab when I'm playing the part of one?
I guess it's not different than acting, but still. It's something I think about.
- Okay, geeky guys. I love you. I really do. But some of you have this shyness/reserved thing going on that feels to me like avoidance/rejection. I'm 80% sure it's not me? Because in some cases it comes from people I barely know, so what could they possibly hate me for? Plus my husband does this sometimes (remember the time when he offended sabredanse accidentally in this way?), and I'm pretty sure he likes me ;)
But it is something that I have seen before in geek culture, and just this weekend came to a head for me. There's another NPC--who is not on LJ, so I think I'm safe saying this--who basically just refuses to talk to me. It's someone I've met like twice, too, so I'm pretty sure I haven't accidentally mortally offended him in that time. But when I try to interact with this guy, it's like: "Is it okay if I tag along on this mod?" *crickets* "Nice weather today, huh?" *silence*
I mean, I understand hating small talk--
... okay, no, I don't, really. Like alcohol, it is a social lubricant. If you refuse to use it, people are going to think you dislike them. Even if you think, "How is it possibly useful to acknowledge that yes, the sun is shining today?" the very fact that the two of you are sitting there together, enjoying it, is something that most human beings understand and can bond over.
In brief: this is not cool, guys.
Now, if you do have beef with me, and you're just not telling me... you should. I'm a big girl, or I at least have big girl pants I can wear from time to time. If I've done something insensitive, or offensive, I'd really like to know, so I don't do it again. If my personality just rubs you the wrong way, that's cool, too. If I've come on too strong and you want me to back off, that's something I'm okay with hearing, as well. I have an. Um. Intense, obsessive personality, and I know it's not everyone's style.
I'd just like to be told, so I can stop spending mental energy on worrying why you don't like me. Or looking like an idiot when I'm failing to get a hint you may or may not actually be sending.
Believe me. I'm not even remotely an extrovert and these are things that keep me awake at night.
When it's not my stuffy nose, of course.
- Have I mentioned the site is disgustingly dirty? Of course I have. But really, it grossed me out in places. Once I'm asleep I'm fine, but I don't like being afraid to put anything down on any surface because they're all covered in cobwebs and a ten years' worth of dried urine.
Sleeping on site is massively convenient, but I also live really close, so the temptation to just go home to my comfy bed and my kitties after the next game is prominent in my thoughts.
And now I go write up all the stuff that I can't be spoilery about here, in my NPC PEL.
The title may be a bit of an exaggeration. I think I only succeeded in hitting four people with my fire packets. But hey, at least I can say I decimated their ranks ;)