There and Back Again: Road Trip to Kentucky
Back from my second consecutive weekend of LARPing, and boy are my arms tired. The road trip was greatly amusing. Driving half-way up to Nashville on Thursday was the way to go. We got a crazy late start - like 9:00 pm before we left Atlanta. Then we got up too early because we forgot about the time difference - which was just as well since we also forgot that the event is back in Eastern Time again. O.o
We found a restaurant we like in Elizabethtown - Rafferty's, I think it was? There's one at Barret Parkway right near Ted's Montana Grill, so that gives us another pre-movie option. Wish we'd discovered it in Kentucky earlier, but better late than later!
Stopped at Dinoworld - skipped the Jack Daniels distillery since it was out of our way, but that leaves us something to do next time. Had Ian take my picture at a gas station on the way home. It had a poster in the window which read, "Inside our store, anything is possible." Ian noted that this must also include cooking grits in only 5 minutes. Done. Just done.
The Event
The weekend was fun, but as always, it's the terrible question of the fun to travel ratio. Most of my interaction this weekend was among other PCs rather than with storylines (through no fault of the game's - storyline opportunities were certainly obvious (c'mon, it's Wildlands!) just didn't really appeal to my idiom, or they were already dogpiled by many other PCs). It's easier and better for the game to write storylines with broad appeal rather than directed at one or few people, and I don't fit easily into many groups. I just happy to fit into either a unique niche or a very narrow one. My character's clan has never been a populous one. There aren't many tinkerers in town. The thieves have no cohesion. There are only four of my character's race. Half my friends were involved in one moral storyline, and the other half were involved in a different moral storyline, and I wasn't directly involved in either one, so like I said, I feel between the cracks.
This gave way to some interesting inner monologue for my character, and internal development of the character - but I'm an extrovert. While internal roleplaying is amusing, it's not what I'm after. Through the course of the weekend, I mentioned to a few friends my theory that LARPers themselves have stats, strengths and weaknesses that follow them from game to game. For example, I'm virtually immune to necromancy. I've been playing in the NERO system since 1992, and I could probably count the number of necromantic spells that have hit me on one hand and have fingers in change leftover. My downfall is a bunch of guys calling 3s. I could be playing a draco-liche or a god, and a bunch of dudes calling 3s would take me down. If they were calling 10s, I'd be fine, but 3s, forget it.
Another characteristic I have is that I'm extremely vulnerable to what I call "Night of the Living Dead Syndrome" where I am the only living person left in a town full of zombies. Now, this is not the literal case, but a metaphor for isolation, of course. Oftentimes I seem to find myself in a setting where it seems like everyone in town has bought in to something, or has been charmed (literally or socially), or in some way become zombies, and I'm the only person left alive. This weekend, my character Locket Buttonpusher felt like everyone she knew and trusted had been influence, charmed, coerced, charmed, marked, or mesmerized by some power or another. I actually took a survey. There is the potential for only 1 person that she trusts who was onsite this weekend who might still be "clean," and there's another who wasn't at the event who's okay. Otherwise: Zombietown, no doubt. Could be very interesting roleplaying long-term, but sadly, long-term ain't what I got. I've got one more event for sure, and then it's like Sarah Connor talking about the dark road ahead (not to get too overly emo about this).
The watch words for the weekend were witch hunting and paranoia. For the most part, this was entertaining and fun. Most of my interaction with witches or witch hunters were friends or at least nicely acquainted in real life, and it was all in good fun. We had the requisite amount of waylaying and otherwise incapacitating our own team members. Good times. There was a significant amount of PC tension elsewhere, though, that was unresolved. Not sure how I feel about this. SOLAR has shown me that a little fist-fighting among the PCs is a pressure release and can be fun and healthy... A lot of it, and the pressure building gets ugly fast. I understand there was a round of handshakes after the event that I missed, and I'm sad to have been absent for that. I'm feeling a little paranoid about reputation in those circles, but there's nothing to be done about it now. Whether thrown under the bus, or I jumped shouting, "BANZAI," road kill is road kill. Then again, I'm still tired.
Wrote my event commentary yesterday (full of typos, ouch, but I was too lazy to edit). It seemed flavorless and boring as I was writing it. Louis gave me cause to look over it again, however, and I realized that when you replay the event in Locketvision, it's actually kind of funny. It's like a mixture of Onyx Hollow reality and an episode of "South Park" with everyone giving each other the finger.
Good moments from the event that I can share openly:
Bailed on a module party! Went with a pickup group as the party thief. Missed the actual module due to said bailing, but had two minor D&D moments that just tickled me for whatever reason. We came to a crossroads and had a short debate about which way to go. I shouted, "Always turn right on an adventure!" and everybody agreed that worked for them. We turned right into a large party of pirates, and turned tail and ran away. Getting to be the cowardly (but smart) party thief just amused me to no end. Also - when have you ever seen me run at a LARP? Doesn't happen often!
Started on another module, and my friend Robert's character (Gaul) elbowed his way in with me. "I'm here to protect her, whether or not she agrees that she needs protecting." Way to go, Robert! He's gamed with me too long in other guises to know to leave that decision to me. I was proud of him.
One thing that always tickles me at this campaign is getting to play the role of the naive fangirl as the innocent Locket Buttonpusher. Locket just has such faith in her heroes. Anytime that I get to expound on the heroic and starlike qualities of Zensho Redcap and The Web Queen is just a huge win for me. I got both in spades this weekend. I loved being challenged by a big group of circling bandits Friday night, and innocently going on about great Zensho Redcap is. OOP I could see where it was going, and knew I was about to get us all trounced for running my mouth. But IP, Locket just can't resist telling everyone how awesome Zensho is.
Enjoyed everyone's amusement with performing a bad rendition of AC/DC's "Big Balls" at the feast. That's another LARPer stat belonging to me: Everyone who meets me at LARP assumes I listen to nothing but Enya and chamber music and that I'm "always professional" as my friend Jealousy says. I like pulling the tablecloth trick now and then and letting my 80s metal hair down to show my true colors.
Had a great roleplaying moment Saturday night when some truths about PC actions were revealed to Locket. It was one of those stunning moments of being deeply in-character. I watched my friends prepare something OOG before the event, helped with it, in fact. Locket knew nothing about it in-character. When I found out as Locket, I was able to experience genuine shock and surprise at the news, and I'd literally forgotten what I knew damn well out-of-play. Those moments are great in immersion gaming.
Late Saturday night, enjoyed an amusingly brief shouting match with Doctor Ezekiel. It was totally another Zombietown moment. I mentioned the name of a certain NPC. "Don't you give it a name!" he shouts at me. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO NAMED IT!" I shout back at him. "Don't you get indignant with me!" he retorts. And the fight was on! The world had gone mad. Another amusing immersion moment.
We hope to attend the next event. It conflicts with Shadowmoor - but half my Shadowmoor team will favor WLW, and there ain't no sunshine when they're gone. Ian doesn't really want to return to Shadowmoor, but ironically, he's the one psyched up about WLW now. I'm hopeful Louis and the Sligh's can make it, too.
Back Home Again
Ian and I were both overtired and just done in last night (no shock there). Came home from work and we had to unload the car from the trip, then run to the grocery store. Both of us being tired at once is a bad combination. We will each reset to our basic natures, and the comfort we need does not mesh. I am a creature of order. Ian is a creature of chaos. I wanted to pause before we left and make a grocery list. Ian wanted to just get on the road and walk aisle to aisle in the grocery store. We did, had a full cart of groceries, and still no idea what we were having for dinner last night or later in the week. Home to unload groceries and discard ancient foodstuffs from the fridge. By then it was 8:00 and I was really overtired and hungry and irritable. Ian was also overtired and stuck in indecision. He didn't want to cook, I didn't want to cook, and he was very particular about what he wanted for dinner. He didn't want to each fend for ourselves. He didn't like the 20 places I suggested we go out. He was willing to go out, but didn't want to be gone long. Then he decided to start some laundry.
Finally he wanted to just get in the car and drive until we found something we liked. This was about more than my little ordered brain could handle. Getting in the car and driving until we found something we liked when we hadn't been able to come up with any ideas in 40 minutes sounded much like, "let's go out in the parking lot and flap our arms until we fly" to me. Somehow we managed to avoid a fight over this - I think we were just too tired, really. We ended up at Taco Cabana around the corner from our house, and in a surprisingly good mood once there. The food was cheap and delicious and we declared it a win for a cheap and easy local food option.
Hobbit Report
House is an unmitigated disaster. It's April. Time to start clean sweeping for the move and then packing... although I have one free weekend this month, and it's my birthday.
T$
We found a restaurant we like in Elizabethtown - Rafferty's, I think it was? There's one at Barret Parkway right near Ted's Montana Grill, so that gives us another pre-movie option. Wish we'd discovered it in Kentucky earlier, but better late than later!
Stopped at Dinoworld - skipped the Jack Daniels distillery since it was out of our way, but that leaves us something to do next time. Had Ian take my picture at a gas station on the way home. It had a poster in the window which read, "Inside our store, anything is possible." Ian noted that this must also include cooking grits in only 5 minutes. Done. Just done.
The Event
The weekend was fun, but as always, it's the terrible question of the fun to travel ratio. Most of my interaction this weekend was among other PCs rather than with storylines (through no fault of the game's - storyline opportunities were certainly obvious (c'mon, it's Wildlands!) just didn't really appeal to my idiom, or they were already dogpiled by many other PCs). It's easier and better for the game to write storylines with broad appeal rather than directed at one or few people, and I don't fit easily into many groups. I just happy to fit into either a unique niche or a very narrow one. My character's clan has never been a populous one. There aren't many tinkerers in town. The thieves have no cohesion. There are only four of my character's race. Half my friends were involved in one moral storyline, and the other half were involved in a different moral storyline, and I wasn't directly involved in either one, so like I said, I feel between the cracks.
This gave way to some interesting inner monologue for my character, and internal development of the character - but I'm an extrovert. While internal roleplaying is amusing, it's not what I'm after. Through the course of the weekend, I mentioned to a few friends my theory that LARPers themselves have stats, strengths and weaknesses that follow them from game to game. For example, I'm virtually immune to necromancy. I've been playing in the NERO system since 1992, and I could probably count the number of necromantic spells that have hit me on one hand and have fingers in change leftover. My downfall is a bunch of guys calling 3s. I could be playing a draco-liche or a god, and a bunch of dudes calling 3s would take me down. If they were calling 10s, I'd be fine, but 3s, forget it.
Another characteristic I have is that I'm extremely vulnerable to what I call "Night of the Living Dead Syndrome" where I am the only living person left in a town full of zombies. Now, this is not the literal case, but a metaphor for isolation, of course. Oftentimes I seem to find myself in a setting where it seems like everyone in town has bought in to something, or has been charmed (literally or socially), or in some way become zombies, and I'm the only person left alive. This weekend, my character Locket Buttonpusher felt like everyone she knew and trusted had been influence, charmed, coerced, charmed, marked, or mesmerized by some power or another. I actually took a survey. There is the potential for only 1 person that she trusts who was onsite this weekend who might still be "clean," and there's another who wasn't at the event who's okay. Otherwise: Zombietown, no doubt. Could be very interesting roleplaying long-term, but sadly, long-term ain't what I got. I've got one more event for sure, and then it's like Sarah Connor talking about the dark road ahead (not to get too overly emo about this).
The watch words for the weekend were witch hunting and paranoia. For the most part, this was entertaining and fun. Most of my interaction with witches or witch hunters were friends or at least nicely acquainted in real life, and it was all in good fun. We had the requisite amount of waylaying and otherwise incapacitating our own team members. Good times. There was a significant amount of PC tension elsewhere, though, that was unresolved. Not sure how I feel about this. SOLAR has shown me that a little fist-fighting among the PCs is a pressure release and can be fun and healthy... A lot of it, and the pressure building gets ugly fast. I understand there was a round of handshakes after the event that I missed, and I'm sad to have been absent for that. I'm feeling a little paranoid about reputation in those circles, but there's nothing to be done about it now. Whether thrown under the bus, or I jumped shouting, "BANZAI," road kill is road kill. Then again, I'm still tired.
Wrote my event commentary yesterday (full of typos, ouch, but I was too lazy to edit). It seemed flavorless and boring as I was writing it. Louis gave me cause to look over it again, however, and I realized that when you replay the event in Locketvision, it's actually kind of funny. It's like a mixture of Onyx Hollow reality and an episode of "South Park" with everyone giving each other the finger.
Good moments from the event that I can share openly:
Bailed on a module party! Went with a pickup group as the party thief. Missed the actual module due to said bailing, but had two minor D&D moments that just tickled me for whatever reason. We came to a crossroads and had a short debate about which way to go. I shouted, "Always turn right on an adventure!" and everybody agreed that worked for them. We turned right into a large party of pirates, and turned tail and ran away. Getting to be the cowardly (but smart) party thief just amused me to no end. Also - when have you ever seen me run at a LARP? Doesn't happen often!
Started on another module, and my friend Robert's character (Gaul) elbowed his way in with me. "I'm here to protect her, whether or not she agrees that she needs protecting." Way to go, Robert! He's gamed with me too long in other guises to know to leave that decision to me. I was proud of him.
One thing that always tickles me at this campaign is getting to play the role of the naive fangirl as the innocent Locket Buttonpusher. Locket just has such faith in her heroes. Anytime that I get to expound on the heroic and starlike qualities of Zensho Redcap and The Web Queen is just a huge win for me. I got both in spades this weekend. I loved being challenged by a big group of circling bandits Friday night, and innocently going on about great Zensho Redcap is. OOP I could see where it was going, and knew I was about to get us all trounced for running my mouth. But IP, Locket just can't resist telling everyone how awesome Zensho is.
Enjoyed everyone's amusement with performing a bad rendition of AC/DC's "Big Balls" at the feast. That's another LARPer stat belonging to me: Everyone who meets me at LARP assumes I listen to nothing but Enya and chamber music and that I'm "always professional" as my friend Jealousy says. I like pulling the tablecloth trick now and then and letting my 80s metal hair down to show my true colors.
Had a great roleplaying moment Saturday night when some truths about PC actions were revealed to Locket. It was one of those stunning moments of being deeply in-character. I watched my friends prepare something OOG before the event, helped with it, in fact. Locket knew nothing about it in-character. When I found out as Locket, I was able to experience genuine shock and surprise at the news, and I'd literally forgotten what I knew damn well out-of-play. Those moments are great in immersion gaming.
Late Saturday night, enjoyed an amusingly brief shouting match with Doctor Ezekiel. It was totally another Zombietown moment. I mentioned the name of a certain NPC. "Don't you give it a name!" he shouts at me. "YOU'RE THE ONE WHO NAMED IT!" I shout back at him. "Don't you get indignant with me!" he retorts. And the fight was on! The world had gone mad. Another amusing immersion moment.
We hope to attend the next event. It conflicts with Shadowmoor - but half my Shadowmoor team will favor WLW, and there ain't no sunshine when they're gone. Ian doesn't really want to return to Shadowmoor, but ironically, he's the one psyched up about WLW now. I'm hopeful Louis and the Sligh's can make it, too.
Back Home Again
Ian and I were both overtired and just done in last night (no shock there). Came home from work and we had to unload the car from the trip, then run to the grocery store. Both of us being tired at once is a bad combination. We will each reset to our basic natures, and the comfort we need does not mesh. I am a creature of order. Ian is a creature of chaos. I wanted to pause before we left and make a grocery list. Ian wanted to just get on the road and walk aisle to aisle in the grocery store. We did, had a full cart of groceries, and still no idea what we were having for dinner last night or later in the week. Home to unload groceries and discard ancient foodstuffs from the fridge. By then it was 8:00 and I was really overtired and hungry and irritable. Ian was also overtired and stuck in indecision. He didn't want to cook, I didn't want to cook, and he was very particular about what he wanted for dinner. He didn't want to each fend for ourselves. He didn't like the 20 places I suggested we go out. He was willing to go out, but didn't want to be gone long. Then he decided to start some laundry.
Finally he wanted to just get in the car and drive until we found something we liked. This was about more than my little ordered brain could handle. Getting in the car and driving until we found something we liked when we hadn't been able to come up with any ideas in 40 minutes sounded much like, "let's go out in the parking lot and flap our arms until we fly" to me. Somehow we managed to avoid a fight over this - I think we were just too tired, really. We ended up at Taco Cabana around the corner from our house, and in a surprisingly good mood once there. The food was cheap and delicious and we declared it a win for a cheap and easy local food option.
Hobbit Report
House is an unmitigated disaster. It's April. Time to start clean sweeping for the move and then packing... although I have one free weekend this month, and it's my birthday.
T$