OB:con report, with maunderings on the local LARP scene
Con report in very brief: ran the Portal LARP that pixiecrack wrote, then played in four other LARP's, in which I had quite a lot of fun. Got to see my peeps, which was just wonderful. Had a great time.
My wife and I, in parallel to quite a few others, maundered a bit about the nature of the local LARP scene, which is essentially this: one plays with the same 15-25 people over and over again at every con. This is not a bad thing, mind you: almost all of those people are pretty awesome, and knowing and trusting them adds a depth to the games which is lacking when playing with complete strangers (not that I've done that in a long time now as a result of the self-same characteristic of the local scene).
ratonetheroad used this feature to inform his Lloegyr trilogy, allowing the Usual Suspects to play the same characters in a three-part epic series set in the same universe. Since the same people play at every con every year, he let them play the same characters, producing an emotional involvement in and attachment to the storyline which is otherwise quite difficult to achieve.
We are now considering the possibility (much-discussed by others, and neither unique nor original) of putting together a mini-con, a LARP-only, invitation-only event in which we would take a given weekend at a local hotel, rent a few event rooms for two days, invite 25 people, and have four teams agree to run one 25-person LARP each.
Each registrant would pay to defray the costs of the rooms only, would be guaranteed a place in at least three LARP's (four, if not running one of them), and would presumably also then get to have a good time, get character sheets in advance (for advance costuming and preparation purposes), and would also be able to schedule time for dinner, drinking, etc. in advance as well.
We don't know whether this will actually happen, or when. Part of the trick would, of course, be assembling a guest list of people with whom everyone wants to play and all of whose members can commit to showing up.
In any case, it's food for thought.
Much thanks to Dreams of Deirdre, Chuckling Cthulhu, Team Volare, and ratontheroad for their games, and to the players who brought pixiecrack's efforts to life.