What I Did At ODC Parts 2 and 3 (of 4)

[zebbiejohnson]

Being more of the Epically Long Report about my failure to locate the correct things to do to make ODC work for me, including death and pharaohs.

Comments

[zebbiejohnson]

It also makes me very sad because in an ideal world I would always LARP entirely with strangers because I find larping with people I know well gives me strong "oh look it's that actor that was in the other thing, do you remember, the one where she was that guy's mother" syndrome which works against immersion in the same way that coke labels on the bar of the Wessex Arms do. This was partly why I chose to go with Persia rather than Egypt at ODC, because I know the people I grouped with less well and so their actions are more unpredictable to me and thus less OC (whereas I am really quite used to larps or even real life with you and Timb swiftly involving drums, some storytelling and Timb having a duel, for example, regardless of setting - it is definitely not that these things are bad or unfun or that I don't want to ever do them, but that when they are brought into the game in any reality rather than being an emergent part of it, when I see them I recognise them as recurring approaches and it jolts me un-IC a little). I am sure I also have such tells and that probably, everyone does (eg: I drank Chai with my Persian group and it seemed quite novel, but I hear that the Marshalls drink a lot of Chai too) - but this seems to imply that it is not possible to get away from them ever without sacrificing most of the rest of the game alongside. :( This acts against the basic purpose of LARP for me, which is basically to seek out new life and new civilisations and to boldly go where no man has gone before. :)

[green_bryony]

I think the key thing is not 'people I know OC', but 'people who are willing to build a world with me, and/or have already created a world that I want to buy into'. Where by 'world' I mean group concept, maybe that says a lot about how I approach the game ;-)

It is easier to make that happen with a group of people that I already know, as I am usually selecting people who I think will buy into a certain concept and go 'hey cool'. But that is partly because I am lazy. It doesn't have to be that way at all - eg: tea and Rosie have joined different groups in Carthage with people that they haven't roleplayed with much before as far as I know. Both groups come across as having a strong concept though so clearly there has been discussion behind the scenes to decide what that concept is.

I also like roleplaying with different people, of my current Maelstrom group I only knew Tim on joining. Everyone else I didn't know at all OC but had spent some time trying to kill IC and had a lot of trust that they liked the same kind of game - although I had no idea what anyone's name was and didn't recognise faces without the snake masks. That has worked out very well as I now have a whole new group of friends/contacts - although I'm not sure I would have had the confidence to go in entirely alone without Tim or someone else as a known contact.

That said, it is hard when you are building a group from scratch though not to froth at the people you know OC and end up recruiting that way, especially if you are trying to make sure everyone wants to play the same kind of game.