Patrick’s LARP was a pretty good example of why it would be so cool to have a stronger relationship between nzLARPs and AMERICA. What the game had was a terrific premise that only comes about when a big group of people role play a lot and figure out exciting new ideas to try out. It had a large, suitable venue, a clever lock/access system, thoughtfully crafted puzzles as skill-tests, and a group of about 20 people. Yup, 20 people - the kind of turnout that Og, Mayday, Nightmare Circle really wish they had!
What the game was missing was experienced player ettiquite (make everyone else look good, don’t play-to-win, don’t remove people from action), a number of props (people in HAZMAT suits had to tell people “T I’m in a hazmt suit”) and the kind of simulation-planning that only comes from hanging out with larpers.
While the game stood to be highly immersive, it was GM intensive with two roaming GMs getting involved (often because they simply needed to be) in nearly everything players did. Unfortunately this lent itself to the “GM=storyteller” mentality rather than allowing player freedom.
The game had a funny thing with touching/ combat where fights could be decided mutually “we fight!” and were battled out in a series of paper-scissors-rock. This is an example of where the larp fell down - from more than a metre away, you weren’t sure what you could see. Were these people fighting or deciding which would jump off the wall first? Was there a wall? A truck? A hazmat suit? Could you even see them at all, or was something in the way? All stuff that only a GM can inform you - sad because there was actually plenty of stuff around and inclusion of some OOC stuff was just not necessary.
At a critical location, some see-through doors were IC NOT see-through. This is terribly hard to role-play and needs constant reminders. However, it was ultimately unecesary and would have been more elegant if it had been a “it’s exactly what it looks like” situation. My character was a bit of a shit-stirrer so I ended up heavily sedated and larp-sleeping for about half the game. If the GM/s were not so busy informing players of their experience, there would have been plenty of time for them to observe this, remove me (and several others) from the game and slip us into NPC roles instead.
Patrick and crew did a stellar job of hurrying together representative costumes with clear meanings, contriving of a clever setting for a larp to take place, devising some excellent character concepts and plotting a whole laboratory to explore (albiet in text). It lacked ettiquite and larping elegance, but I had a good time regardless. With another handful of nzlarp types there and/or use of our mentoring system, it’d be a world-class game and we’d talk about it for years.
I’m heading back in this afternoon to play in what they call a “role playing game” (I’m told it’s like larping but sitting down and talking IC/OOC) written by their current president. Again, if anyone’s reading this and has a spare afternoon to drop into Auckland uni’ then please join me at 1pm.
Incidentally, nothing at AMERICA’s Cup this year includes swords. And funny enough, there’s a stereotype in their club that all we do is hit things with foam swords. Clearly the two of us need a talk.
