Multiverse Weekend Game - The Fragility of Symmetry

[Mike Curtis]

Thanks Jenna

PM me if you have any questions about the rules or creating a new character.

[Jared]

Anyone else keen to play? I'm coming up from Hamilton for this, the more the merrier after all. Also I will have spaces (for 2) for any Hamiltonians who haven't yet raised their hands to go... so you could carpool with me and help reduce my carbon footprint for the game!

[Mike Curtis]

Only 2 sleeps to go !

The weekend will be dry and sunny, perfect for adventuring !

Things You Should Bring*
* Your costume (PCs only, NPCs will be provided with gear)
* Thermals for under your costume, it might get cold.
* Sturdy, in-character looking shoes.
* Sleeping bag, blanket, pillow, sheet to cover the Scout Camp mattress.
* Plate, bowl, cutlery, cup.
* Towel
* A roll of toilet paper.

If you have not submitted your character sheet, please do so ASAP. If we can integrate your character into the plot-lines, we will...

Vegetarians and Food Allergies
If you have not been in contact with us over a food allergy or preference, please let us know. We have developed a vegan / vegetarian -friendly menu, and are flexible with regards to dietary needs.

The GMs will be at Motu Moana from 4pm on Friday. Crew, if you can make it before 6pm, that would be greatly appreciated.

Players, turning up before 7pm is useful, and we will process you as quickly as we can.

Looking forward to a great weekend.

Mike

* Cribbed from one of Anna's posts,ta muchly,

[Jared]

1 sleep!

[Mike Curtis]

And then there were no sleeps !

OK, heading out shortly.

Any issues, you can contact me on 021 444 338.

Cya there !

[Ryan Paddy]

Cool, see you folks out there.

[Mike Curtis]

Many thanks to everyone who helped make this game a success

We were very fortunate to use the new Scout Hall, which has two rooms upstairs (we used these three times during the weekend, to great effect). The war room was large and comfortable (with built-in seats and plenty of trestle tables, a full kitchen and adjacent toilet facilities). I will post the contact details of the person who rents this building (it's not via the Scout network).

Our very dedicated crew were kept busy all weekend keeping track of, and responding to, the multiplicity of inspired and unexpected player choices. the game certainly took many unexpected turns

We had some issues: there was a small fire on Friday night due to a wall hanging falling onto some candles. Unfortunately, no-one was in the dining room at the time, so there was some fire damage before it was discovered. And on Saturday morning, thieves broke into the accommodation (we think the doors were locked, so suspect they climbed in via a window), stealing wallets, phones etc. The police were alert, so hopefully they will find the culprits in good time.

Despite these setbacks, the players battled on to some (but not complete) success, and there is at least one daygame to be resolved from the outcome of the game. I'll make a thread for plot outcomes, though.

Again, cheers, to everyone who came

[Groo]

Irrespective of the reality wake up call's of the fire and thievery, brilliant tight gaming weekend full of a nice chaotic variety of occurrences and tangents. High turnaround rate it seemed at times from the crew side, lots of preparation resulting at times in subsequent (near)instant and immoral demise. Lessons learned on all sides, and it really does pay to check on information gleaned (and given). Some stand out players emerged to truly try to keep the plot, but all combined to provide a rich tapestry of intrigue and challenge (to the GM's).

Weekend current favorite at the moment (though calorie burning), was the room of 'clockwork' stone protectors of the dark blade. Perseverance on the players side won through, to the crews relief at last.

As always, many thanks to the innkeeper who feed us so well, despite her ultimate misaligned (to some) beliefs. It would be truly foolish to kill the hand that feed you...

[tigger]

Hi there guys
Thanks for a great game. Lots of fun - i think my favourite parts were the 'bong' room of questions at the top of the stairs and the 'quivering' heap of corpses piled up afer a bash Strange how the dead can jiggle!
Becca - thanks for feeding us
Until next time. (third time lucky...)

[Ryan Paddy]

I had a great time crewing this. I can't remember the last time I crewed a game, and I'd forgotten how much fun it is helping to come up with stuff on the fly to challenge players.

Top highlight for me was the unexpected turn taken in the dream sequence with Isabella... to say more would be telling. Closely followed by the "meat-grinder" room of magic sentinals. It was a very arcade game scene, Andrew told me it reminded him of an encounter from Assassin's Creed or something. Both the "slicers" and "mashers" were pretty exhausted by the end of it, half a hour of constant stomping about is much harder on the body than it sounds and my legs and feet are still sore.

I was also really excited by the new building we had, both the big hall and the upstairs meeting rooms were ideal for running larp, especially having the indoor kitchen and toilets coming off the hall. If we can use that building for Chimera it would solve all the space issues, and it's right beside the office so it's very accessible.

I also enjoyed the geopolitical, religious and magical machinations that ran through the game. The players were factors for so many different gods and patrons, who were spread across the planes, and there were so many items and characters of significance, and that created a lot of cool conflict and setting complexity to be deciphered. The players being able to port off to different places in the world and interact with what was happening there made it quite an interactive setting at a scale beyond the immediate location.

Looking forward to getting a big copy of that last photo of me as Beltran, the Hierophant of Balaan.

[MissC]

Wow, well, where to start, thanks to everyone but especially Mike and Becca for making my first full on LARP so much fun. You were all so great for explaining stuff or answering questions when I was feeling a little lost or overwhelmed. Weirdly, funniest point was probably being in a pile of bodies I couldn't actually get up from (thanks Adam for pulling me up) and stomping around in the room with the sword, though finally stopping felt really good as well. It would have been nice to have survived at least one fight but hopefully I'll have learned to use a sword properly before next time and not end up with so many bruises, hehe. Thanks again everyone and I will for sure be coming back next time.

Michelle

[Ryan Paddy]

I thought you did well crewing this weekend Michelle, and it's always nice to make the connection between who someone is on Diatribe and in real life. Nice to realise the connection to Donna too... (looking at fuzzy photos taken in the dark) ... "what we need here is my little sister"...

And good point, big ups to Mike and Beccah who made crewing really fun with their relaxed style.

[Jared]

Well, my brain has still not recovered from this weekend however in leiu of a full debrief, I'll put in a brief summary instead.

I was impressed with the depth of game writing and that it was achieved with a skeleton crew.

The counter-point is that the GM ended up being very busy and along with some very tired players (I was feeling it bad) resulted in both OOC mistakes and miscommunication, which translated across into the game.

SO we (and by we I mean me and maybe others) managed some horrific fugde ups. A cluster of fudge ups even. A cluster fudge bomb of epic fail.

So yeah, the daemoness Azelskith opened every gate into the Young Kingdoms to the forces of Pan Tang flooded in. The sword Ourouberos is missing in the now desperately surrounded Purple Towns which are surely falling. Oh and Hawkmoon was sacrified (but not killed) to the Succubus for her pleasure. We thought ourselves betrayed by one of our own number (Lady Ysabella, our mole) but it was not until the morning that I puzzled out she could not have played her part in disrupting the daemon summoning because for some reason she ended up outside the circle ward. She too is missing. Count Brass will NOT be happy. Neither will the Blue Lady. Of course sorrow is her things so...

On the upside, the Runestaff was defended and a blow struck against the Granbretans... despite almost not making it there (a cluster fudge bomblet) in conflicting interpretation of diagrams (which were just to reinforce verbal instruction).

SO for me, a little more sleep would have gone a long long way. Very long. Gah.

Big Ups:
Loved the character interactions.
My favourite interactions were with 2 other players in-particular, Lady Ysabella (Jennifer) and Galvain (Andrew). Steffan (Gaffy) was good to have around, though he was a bit more solitary. Very handy in a fight.
We also had a rather antagonist side of Law (you know who I mean) whose interactions I found exceptionally annoying IC (and OOC). But well played for that, the Chaos/Law friction was maintained, well and truely.

Food - props to Beccah. Food was awesome.

Crew - with so few of you, you did well. The new girl (crew) Michelle did awesome.

Big Downsides:
Fire - we were damn lucky we found it when we did. It sucks most because of the game time lost.
Real life theft - Saturday morning - We were actually robbed in this. I lost my wallet. The thieves had clocked up a total of $624 at Service stations and butchers by the time we discovered it missing and reported the theft. I am liable at most for $50 of this amount however it has cost me $60 in replacing the wallet and my drivers licence so far. I feel more for those that lost more personal items like cellphones.
My other bug bear was players and crew lost to the New Horizons game on Saturday night. While I know this game was felt to be too crucial to miss for the people that left, it left a huge hole in the game. Numbers at the game were low. This made it worse. Truth be told I was pi$$ed off, mostly because I get to LARP maybe once every 2 months and because of this disruption the game suffered making the experience less than it could have been. Game fees, plus fuel and having to leave my family make attending game really hard for me to attend. So a game that should have been very enjoyable turned sour in several places.

The lack of sleeps, misunderstandings and confusion, did also marr the game however the consequences were funny enough to be ignored in the end. The above simply turned parts of it into suck.

Overall:
Well done Mike, the game plan was awesome and considering all of the obstacles, came off relatively well. The game itself suffered from circumstances around it. I enjoyed playing Fischer and if we could guarantee 20 (who will stay at the game) people at a game, I would consider attending another weekend Multiverse game.

editted for sensemaking

[Ryan Paddy]

You did look utterly shagged. There's always a hard balance between fitting lots of night play in and not turning into walking zombies.

Good point on the food - Friday night dinner was awesome, loved that chickpea dish.

[Ryan Paddy]

Mike - I've just put my $35 for crewing through, sorry it's late.