And there I guess is where we’ll just have to disagree.
As someone trying to market Quest to everyone out there, the last game went less than perfectly. From that point of view I was less than happy.
HOWEVER
Points missed…
Yes Quest NPC costumes leave a lot to be desired. Yes it is a shame.
Sadly Quest does not have the resources available that it may once have had.
I would love to see Quest really well equiped. If I had the spare cash I’d love to invest in Quest… believe it or not but the system (if not the resources) is highly playable.
We would have borrowed your costumes but we sadly didn’t know whay was brought. Part of this has to do with the next point.
Next point.
The game was poorly organised.
The GM kind of got skittled by the lack of his support crew at the very beginning. It happens. Game got off to a rocky start.
We have a range of GM’s, a range of game styles, every game is completely unique. (Even the exact same game plan will always end up different)
By that token not every game is perfect but some are very very fun.
I think a lot of people had fun. They may have had to stretch their imaginations but the typical larper certainly has enough spare brain power to fill in the gaps that the costumes miss.
But we do view some of this criticism as positive. We know what is lacked in the resource department.
Onwards and upwards
Jared
[/b]
Hi Derek, good to see you again
[quote=“Derek”]It was good to see that the Quest game challenged the boundaries of larp acting.
Playing in a public park, with parked cars, WWII war relics and families walking their children in strollers really set off the groups of orcs in white sneakers and nylon board shorts running around shouting “aargh”.
With this heady backdrop of immersive excellence I can see why we need to discuss the finer points of how players get into character.
[/quote]
Cool, I thought you would get it. We are not into acting, we are into Role Playing. Anyone can role play in an immersive game, it takes talent to Role Play when there are distractions. Sorry the wandering peasants put you off.
We take issue with this. They are square, not rectangular.
[quote=“Derek”]
I would really like to have seen Leonardo DiCaprio trying to act in the Titanic wearing board shorts, T shirt and sneakers. I’m sure his ability to “act” would have carried him through though! [/quote]
Actually I would like to see that too. Being an anti-method actor I’d give him equal odds. If David Bowie can play the Elephant Man without make up, why can’t DiCaprio. I have have seen a director reading a part from a script while wearing jeans in an Edwardian play. Nobody noticed after the first two minutes. He had talent.
I was impressed with the quality of Role Play. The ghouls doing a mating dance. But that was after you left. The orcs promoting their number. But again that was also you left. The humphrie attack and the orcs reaction. Sorry that was again after you left. The druid acting as decoy and the heroism of the fighter. Again after you left. In fact all the good role play happened after you left. I’m sorry that you missed it. Must have just taken a little while to get into character. Summary. 21 players present. 16 definate returns. 1 no return and 4 possibles. A good nights play.
As a scientist, you must surely know that squares are a subset of rectangles. The statement “they are square, not rectangular” is logically flawed.
I don’t know if the “1 no return” is meant to be me or not, but I never said I wouldn’t be coming back. The hardest thing to get in this game is players. Motivating them to desire excellence is easy in comparison. There wasn’t anyone at the game whose company I didn’t enjoy.
I just think that with the same people and a bit more effort you could have a lot more fun.
My post above was made after getting up after five hours sleep. I don’t disagree with what I said, but had I been a bit more rested I probably would have just kept my mouth shut.
Shortly, I’m going to post my ideas on how to get a larp game going in a “better” direction. That’s “better” for me.
[quote=“Carl”]do you put the Mona Lisa into an MRI machine to find out what the canvas is made of HELL NO!! [/quote]Oh, well, actually people have X-rayed it to look at the underlayers of paint and the charcoal sketch on the canvas. And there’s a lot of mathematics and anatomical knowledge and colour theory that goes into painting well. Which comment is a digression because I agree with you in principle anyway, because the science and the maths are contributing tools, not the art itself.
I’ll shut up now, shall I?
[quote=“Derek”]
15 odd years ago the Quest games were better than this. After Alista was touting the finer points of larping and acting in great detail, I was expecting something a bit more special.[/quote]
Ah, Derek, I would like to remind you that the game you played with us 15 years ago was a special deal - our infamous and much frothed about cave module at Waitomo. This had a bigger budget, our general pool of players was much more experienced, and as it was a special event we were able to convince players to run around in spray paint and loin cloths (remember our trolls - everyone instantly recognised them - monster lore or no monster lore).
Please bear in mind that we are rebuliding our player base after a recession where the creative driving forces behind Quest have been forced to concentrate on real life (and in the mean time many of our experienced players have graduated and moved on, or become too ‘grown up’ for LRP). Currently we are playing catch-up and module fees are paying money owed to our financers for things like maintainence of weaponry, consumables, and simple costumes for undead.
To be honest, returning after a 5 year hiatus, I was somewhat dismayed by the state of the Quest costume closet. I do plan to rectify certain lacks as the Quect organisation can afford it. I am donating my time, but I am not prepared to donate the thousands of dollars which this could potentially suck up.
I for one was not aware you had a car full of costumes - I am always interested to see what other people have made, if for no other reason than if I get a chance to see something I can usually manufacture a reasonable copy/variation of it. My big dissappointment for the night was that I thought you had a car full of leather and was hoping to buy some - cest la vie, I’ll have to stick with tacky vinyl in the meantime. 
It is unfortunate you seem to have missed the best characterisations. I think several people were awarded small role-play bonuses for the evening.
Finally, thank you for your feedback. While some of your comments may be slightly inflammatory, I do not think you meant this as an attack on Quest or the players, who, from the feedback we have had so far seem generally to have enjoyed themselves. Feedback is a good thing it helps us learn and it helps us develop. Feedback will not always be all good, but we are grown up enough to cope with that.
It’s interesting what attracts people into something like larping as they get older. When they’re in the 14-18 camp, running around whacking people is pretty much enough for most larpers. However, as they mature (read “get more boring”) their tastes change. Many drift more into reinactment, partially I am sure because it seems to have more intellectual legitimacy.
I honestly believe that to retain participants as they mature you need to have more on offer than just a party of adventurers killing wandering monsters. You need to seriously encourage people to improve skills like sewing and making armour and weapons. Try a feasts where people have an evening of dancing and singing around a campfire.
I probably spend vastly more on costumes than the average larper. Probably more than I should if I ever want to pay off my mortgage. I’ll be the last person to say that you don’t need to spend lots of money to get good kit.
However, most of it can cost less than people think it does. Especially if you ask people who are already making stuff where they get materials. I used to get steel for almost free for armouring by taking beer on a friday afternoon to an engineering company and getting their scraps. $15 in beer would get me steel I’d normally have had to pay $100 for if it wasn’t seconds/offcuts.
Another example, Craig has just built a spaceship. When I was helping with some of the electronics, I noticed he was purchasing nuts and bolts in packets of 10 from Miter 10. He probably spend $50+ on nuts and bolts he could have purchased for $20 if he’d known where to get them.
I had a few sets of armour, various medieval clothing and a centaur. Unfortunately, they didn’t fit with the plot. Maybe next time…
Sorry. PM me your postal address and what you want to build and I’ll send you some samples. Most of it is heavy leather (like Jarred’s greaves and vambraces). I’m pretty much out of softer leather now.
[quote=“Derek”]
Another example, Craig has just built a spaceship. When I was helping with some of the electronics, I noticed he was purchasing nuts and bolts in packets of 10 from Miter 10. He probably spend $50+ on nuts and bolts he could have purchased for $20 if he’d known where to get them.
.[/quote]
Apologies to craig if i am wrong, BUT…
at the commitee meeting i was under the distinct impression that the ship cost in total 5000 dollars ($5000). even if one were to cut corners and and call in some favours that ship would still have cost over 2000,
not a very good example i think.
I think that lots of favours were called in.
It certainly looked like fun on Friday night when I was there…
[quote=“Wulfen (David)”]at the commitee meeting i was under the distinct impression that the ship cost in total 5000 dollars ($5000). even if one were to cut corners and and call in some favours that ship would still have cost over 2000,
not a very good example i think.[/quote]
Nibbles is an ambitious project. People can be less ambitious and still get good results. There is a big big gap between getting your orcs out of board shorts and reeboks and purchasing three space suits with the little bubble helmets.
I’m going to draw up a couple of very simple affordable patterns for the type of medieval/fantasy costume that can be made in an evening.
Cool. Thanks for that. We’ve got a few designs already, but then again a few more won’t do any harm. I must admit down here we’ve always thought that the key to good Live Role Play was good Live Role Players, the costumes are a bit of the icing on the cake. Icing is good.
At the moment, the main problem is monster costumes and elemental costumes. That is where the money is going at the moment. Contrary to what you said,
That’s a nice thing to say, but I don’t believe you.
[/quote]
our biggest problem is getting parties. Getting people to play monsters is easy, usually we have to force people into parties. I don’t know if you noticed of the people that voulenteered party, only two were from down here. And one of them was told they had to be in the party. You should be nice to BurningSol and apologise for disbelieving her. I think our guys are really happy for Orklanders to come down so they can have fun as the baduys.
[quote=“Carl”][quote=“Alista”]
This distorts. Also it still assumes cause and effect, which free will and quantum physics obliterates. [/quote]
What in gods name does Quantum Physics have to do with acting.
[/quote]
Quantum physics has to do with brain function, conciousness, subconcious action and therefore psychology. If one is striving for psychological realism in acting then one should take into account the quantum physics of the situation. I am sure that your group has considered the implications in their acting. The fun thing about Quantum, the more we learn about it the more areas of our life we find that it applies to.
You are right. Neutron Activation Analysis is a more appropriate mechanism. I believe they have already used it on most of the existing paintings called the Mona Lisa.
I don’t particulary hate Method per se, rather I hate the lies and deliberate misrepresentations about Method. It is based on false premises and therefore the results are also false. GIGO. I suppose I just hate people lying to other people. Stanislavski I forgave ages ago because he shifted on. It wasn’t his fault.
The reason for the interest in performance is that is where I earn most of my money, so I admit it is professional interest thing.
Why would I pick on EMOs? Most of them are honest in their intention and action.
Ayesha’s note: Carl went a bit far here.
Smited.
Carl,
I was once told that this forum is meant to be constructive to the max.
You have failed in helping it be that in your last post.
If you don’t want to talk to Alista (who likes provoking you for the sake of it)
then don’t reply.
And yes he is an idiot, in a very odd, amusing and strangely intelligent way.
Jared
[quote=“Carl”]Ayesha’s note: Carl went a bit far here.
Smited.[/quote]
It’s a shame you couldn’t have just given a warning, so that we could all see what “too far” looks like and have been warned. It would also have been nice to be given reasons.
I hate censoring. I understand that some statements cross a line and need to be moderated, but that isn’t the way to do it in my opinion.
He did the unforgivable.
He quoted Monty Python … badly
[quote=“Jared”]
Carl,
I was once told that this forum is meant to be constructive to the max.
You have failed in helping it be that in your last post.
If you don’t want to talk to Alista (who likes provoking you for the sake of it)
then don’t reply.[/quote]
My comment was not meant to inflame or insult, it was said totally tongue in cheek, and designed to poke fun and myself as much as Alista. If I failed inthat respect then i Apologise most humbly
[quote=“Jared”]
And yes he is an idiot, in a very odd, amusing and strangely intelligent way.[/quote]
I respect that and i find his comments on the whole amusing and entertaining, but radically skewed, as most of the best idiots are. Look at Billy Connoly, many people would call him an idiot and he is one of the most respected and loved performers in the world.
I was tired from training and probably should have said nothing
once again i am sorry
for the bad Monty python quote too 
So if you think spending $120 to look up alien porn is crazy, try blowing thousands of dollars and months of hard work just to let people come over and look up alien porn!
OK, so there was a bit more that happened other than looking up alien porn, and there should be video/pictures and more explanation in time. Wait! What was your point?
Anyway this follows on from something Derek just brought up –
Last year I created and ran a game called May Day, a frantic, immersive political action game where the players are terrorists holding a city to ransom. Cost about $50 to produce and it ended up making nzLARPS a small profit. Ran with about ten players - wasn’t really ambitious or hard to organise at all.
But was it a good larp? Yes.
Derek’s right, good games don’t have to be ambitious. But I am of the belief that larp is best when you only do what you can do properly. Don’t fudge anything!
Nibelungen may be an ambitious project and the players may have a working space-ship, but I can tell you now that we will never offer to larp a space-walk to repair the ship. We can’t do zero-gravity environments so we’re not even going to bother. Luckily, we’ve begun to establish a player culture where they can easily see that a space-walk is impossible so won’t ask for one. (One note to make - if the really really players wanted to perform a space-walk and prepared for it, we would not block this, we would let them perform a space-walk to their own satisfaction. But I’d hope that players would not risk their immersion by asking for impossible stuff. There’s a balance.)
Wait, I just realised how tired I am and how much of a bad idea it is to be typing this stuff out right now.
Alright, quickly on favours. Do them for people. They come back to you. Yep, I called in a shitload of favours to get Crash to happen and I’m probably in the negatives now, but people generally seemed quite happy to be a part of it. Calling in favours for larping isn’t very painful, and you’ll probably find that you have a lot of expertise in your contacts… you just gotta make them owe you one 
I shifted a lot of whiteware for Nibelungen, bought people a lot of dinners, and yes, sunk a lot of my own money into R&D/production costs. But working very hard on it inspired other people to lend their very skilled hands to the project.
I think this is returning to Derek’s main thrust:: Put some effort in and you’ll be well rewarded. I put lots and lots of effort into Crash and had an incredible time. While May Day required a lot less money, I put in a bit of effort and it all came back.
OK, enough of this trash, I’m going to bed.
[quote=“Carl”]Ayesha’s note: Carl went a bit far here.
Smited.[/quote]
Don’t sweat it. No offence was taken. Just remember though, no one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
Hope the Nibelungen went well for all those those attended. Back to work.