Festival overview
Alright, I'm procrastinating so I might as well write about last weekend.
Steph and I prepared together for our first larp (League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students), but we started a bit too late, considering the complex hair style I ended up giving Steph and the amount of time it took to pale my skin with the mix of foundation and white clown make-up that Rachel F suggested. The make-up was a grand success, however, and both of us were costumed to the T for this event by the time all was said and done. I had a wonderful Alice to work with for our run and overall the whole experience was very good. I really enjoyed interacting with all the characters and the easy-going (yet committed) atmosphere of all the players. Most of the players were really quite excellent and, despite spending most of my time wandering around unsure how to proceed, I was able to achieve all of my character's goals. It was 1:30AM by the time I got out of there, though, and I didn't go to sleep until 2. I really wished that Steph and I had pictures of us in costume because it really was quite something.
I had to get up at 8 or so the next morning in order to prepare for Oz, which started at 9. I was pretty tired, and for a while I was quite worried to note that there was nowhere to get food at 8:30AM on at Sat. at Brandeis. I was very hungry and didn't like the idea of having to go without food until after the larp ended at noon or so. Especially because larping demands a lot from me and it would have been hard to concentrate if I was feeling sick from hunger. Fortunately, there were donuts there. :-)
I had found some red leather cowgirl-ish boots at the thrift shop to go with my brown dress to complete my costume and I couldn't wait to play Phoebe's game and be Dorothy! For the first bit of the game (maybe the first 1/2 hour or so), I found that things were much slower than lxhs, which was a frenzy of activity from the get-go, had been. I was beginning to assume that this game was more one of subtle politics and discussions, meant to be more quiet and calculated, even though that hadn't been my general impression of what the game was like before it began. However, the quietness soon passed and suddenly Dorothy found herself in the thick of everything, getting dragged about, answering questions, asking questions, trying desperately to keep tabs on everyone and everything, and trying to figure out how to solve all the problems at once. I distinctly remember thinking several times over the course of the game "why in the world did I choose to spend my free time doing something that makes me this stressed?!?!?" A several points I wanted to grab Glinda Aralinda by the shoulders and beg her to stop radiating so much stress, even though I understood perfectly well that there were a good many things to be stressed about. It was hard to remember that I was having fun when I was so wrapped up in Dorothy's mentality. But it was indeed quite fun!
I had Camp David next, which I didn't costume for in advance particularly. I went back to my room and put on my black chorus dress, which I needed to be wearing for my concert that evening anyway, and then added accessories. My character needed to wear a white flower (I had borrowed a lovely fake one from Lenny) and a large diamond ring. I decided to just wrap the braids that were still in from Dorothy around my head in the back and then pin them in place and tuck the flower in my hair. I had long white gloves as well, which were lying out because Steph had considered wearing them for lxhs, so I threw them on and wore my large gaudy colored-diamond ring from Claire's over them. I added my long strand of fake pearls (wrapped three times around my neck) and my genuine freshwater pearl earrings. I put on just enough make-up to look like the English 1960s dignitary I was and added my purple heels to finish it off. I got more compliments about this costume than I did about any of my others, so apparently I looked smashing. ;-)
As for the game, I had a lot more difficulty with this one. My character always had something to say and was supposed to be smooth and composed and diplomatic. I never knew what to say, felt that every attempt to secure my goals was glaringly obvious or at least highly indelicate, which was exactly the opposite of what I would have liked. I was always stumbling over my words or even outright stuttering it seemed. I also felt like many of the other players were also struggling to grasp their goals and how to achieve them, which may have had something to do with the fact that we only got to read out characters sheets for the first time when we arrived. But props to the GM that played 2 or 3 roles in order to make sure that the game could run.
By the time my chorus concert finished that night, I was exhausted. Thankfully, Diamond Geezers didn't start until 2PM, so I got a chance to sleep in and recover before playing my last game. This one was different yet again. It was a lot of fun because it really was just a bunch of uninhibited organized crime members stuck in a very small "room" together and waving guns around at each other while yelling with cockney accents. What could be more fun? The only thing I didn't expect was that most of the players weren't as ready to jump on the chance to wave around guns and yell in a cockney accent as I was. The only other really active players for most of it were Phoebe and the character with an anger management problem. He did a fantastic job! Oh, and the guns were awesome! They had real heft and could be cocked and fired (they made a bang noise) and everything! Anyway, I had been planning on playing more in the background and trying to ally myself with whoever seemed to be the next leader, but I ended up getting frustrated and just trying to make the plays myself. But even then I was pretty conservative. In the end, nothing really happened. For anyone. It was rather disappointing. But there was still a good deal of fun to be had, and it was nice to play the game with Phoebe and Ryan.
Overall, I've learned that I have an easier time portraying characters that are mostly genuine and open, rather than ones that require making things up on the spot (coming up with imaginary anecdotes or opinions on matters I haven't given thought to before or having to tell lies that aren't pre-formed). (I would like to distinguish between improving a character and making complex things up on the spot. I can get into a character's mindset just fine and improv their role, but that doesn't mean that I know everything the character knows, so making up facts or fictions can get tricky.)
Steph and I prepared together for our first larp (League of Extraordinary Hogwarts Students), but we started a bit too late, considering the complex hair style I ended up giving Steph and the amount of time it took to pale my skin with the mix of foundation and white clown make-up that Rachel F suggested. The make-up was a grand success, however, and both of us were costumed to the T for this event by the time all was said and done. I had a wonderful Alice to work with for our run and overall the whole experience was very good. I really enjoyed interacting with all the characters and the easy-going (yet committed) atmosphere of all the players. Most of the players were really quite excellent and, despite spending most of my time wandering around unsure how to proceed, I was able to achieve all of my character's goals. It was 1:30AM by the time I got out of there, though, and I didn't go to sleep until 2. I really wished that Steph and I had pictures of us in costume because it really was quite something.
I had to get up at 8 or so the next morning in order to prepare for Oz, which started at 9. I was pretty tired, and for a while I was quite worried to note that there was nowhere to get food at 8:30AM on at Sat. at Brandeis. I was very hungry and didn't like the idea of having to go without food until after the larp ended at noon or so. Especially because larping demands a lot from me and it would have been hard to concentrate if I was feeling sick from hunger. Fortunately, there were donuts there. :-)
I had found some red leather cowgirl-ish boots at the thrift shop to go with my brown dress to complete my costume and I couldn't wait to play Phoebe's game and be Dorothy! For the first bit of the game (maybe the first 1/2 hour or so), I found that things were much slower than lxhs, which was a frenzy of activity from the get-go, had been. I was beginning to assume that this game was more one of subtle politics and discussions, meant to be more quiet and calculated, even though that hadn't been my general impression of what the game was like before it began. However, the quietness soon passed and suddenly Dorothy found herself in the thick of everything, getting dragged about, answering questions, asking questions, trying desperately to keep tabs on everyone and everything, and trying to figure out how to solve all the problems at once. I distinctly remember thinking several times over the course of the game "why in the world did I choose to spend my free time doing something that makes me this stressed?!?!?" A several points I wanted to grab Glinda Aralinda by the shoulders and beg her to stop radiating so much stress, even though I understood perfectly well that there were a good many things to be stressed about. It was hard to remember that I was having fun when I was so wrapped up in Dorothy's mentality. But it was indeed quite fun!
I had Camp David next, which I didn't costume for in advance particularly. I went back to my room and put on my black chorus dress, which I needed to be wearing for my concert that evening anyway, and then added accessories. My character needed to wear a white flower (I had borrowed a lovely fake one from Lenny) and a large diamond ring. I decided to just wrap the braids that were still in from Dorothy around my head in the back and then pin them in place and tuck the flower in my hair. I had long white gloves as well, which were lying out because Steph had considered wearing them for lxhs, so I threw them on and wore my large gaudy colored-diamond ring from Claire's over them. I added my long strand of fake pearls (wrapped three times around my neck) and my genuine freshwater pearl earrings. I put on just enough make-up to look like the English 1960s dignitary I was and added my purple heels to finish it off. I got more compliments about this costume than I did about any of my others, so apparently I looked smashing. ;-)
As for the game, I had a lot more difficulty with this one. My character always had something to say and was supposed to be smooth and composed and diplomatic. I never knew what to say, felt that every attempt to secure my goals was glaringly obvious or at least highly indelicate, which was exactly the opposite of what I would have liked. I was always stumbling over my words or even outright stuttering it seemed. I also felt like many of the other players were also struggling to grasp their goals and how to achieve them, which may have had something to do with the fact that we only got to read out characters sheets for the first time when we arrived. But props to the GM that played 2 or 3 roles in order to make sure that the game could run.
By the time my chorus concert finished that night, I was exhausted. Thankfully, Diamond Geezers didn't start until 2PM, so I got a chance to sleep in and recover before playing my last game. This one was different yet again. It was a lot of fun because it really was just a bunch of uninhibited organized crime members stuck in a very small "room" together and waving guns around at each other while yelling with cockney accents. What could be more fun? The only thing I didn't expect was that most of the players weren't as ready to jump on the chance to wave around guns and yell in a cockney accent as I was. The only other really active players for most of it were Phoebe and the character with an anger management problem. He did a fantastic job! Oh, and the guns were awesome! They had real heft and could be cocked and fired (they made a bang noise) and everything! Anyway, I had been planning on playing more in the background and trying to ally myself with whoever seemed to be the next leader, but I ended up getting frustrated and just trying to make the plays myself. But even then I was pretty conservative. In the end, nothing really happened. For anyone. It was rather disappointing. But there was still a good deal of fun to be had, and it was nice to play the game with Phoebe and Ryan.
Overall, I've learned that I have an easier time portraying characters that are mostly genuine and open, rather than ones that require making things up on the spot (coming up with imaginary anecdotes or opinions on matters I haven't given thought to before or having to tell lies that aren't pre-formed). (I would like to distinguish between improving a character and making complex things up on the spot. I can get into a character's mindset just fine and improv their role, but that doesn't mean that I know everything the character knows, so making up facts or fictions can get tricky.)