Chimera 2013 - stray writers club

Auckland Chimera
#1

After poking through the Chimera 2013 thread and noticing quite a few posts from people wanting to write games/with concepts (and myself keen to write but not yet with a game idea!), I thought a thread like this might be useful.

Matching up people with concepts but lacking writing partners with those who would like to write but don’t really have a solid concept. Stray writers, post what you’d be interested in writing/contributing, GMs needing more writers, post your concepts!

I myself am keen to help write another game for Chimera. I favour high fantasy and the really quirky, and would like to see what writing in a partnership is like.

#2

im writing two larps,
one set at the MTV VMA awards,
and one at a speed dating meet up.
if anyones into looking at what ive written pm me.

#3

I have a concept that is muddling round in my head and im trying get written for Chimera, Fantasy ball meets Gods and mortals. but this is my first larp so… here is my

blurb as it stands

Grand Father Universe has decreed that there has been too much bickering between the current rulers of the middle kingdoms and now Mother earth and Father sky must step down as rulers so that a new era of peace and harmony may rein however with so many lords and ladies in attendance all wanting their own agenda is there any hope that the middle kingdoms will survive and prosper and find a couple prepared to work in harmony for its future. Will you attend, will you find betrayal or love or will you become the new ruler of the Middle Kingdom

Daena

#4

i think adam and his partner (sorry! forgot name!!) wrote one like this where we all played gods at a dinner party to try to form a pantheon.

really nice game, only that the rules around godly powers needed tweaking, my PC had HUGELY over-strong powers.

looking back it was a little bit culturally insensitive, at least in concern to the gods that are still being worshipped (rather than the ancient gods).

#5

This thread is for pitching ideas and offering assistance, not critiquing.

#6

[quote=“daena”]I have a concept that is muddling round in my head and im trying get written for Chimera, Fantasy ball meets Gods and mortals. but this is my first larp so… here is my

blurb as it stands

Grand Father Universe has decreed that there has been too much bickering between the current rulers of the middle kingdoms and now Mother earth and Father sky must step down as rulers so that a new era of peace and harmony may rein however with so many lords and ladies in attendance all wanting their own agenda is there any hope that the middle kingdoms will survive and prosper and find a couple prepared to work in harmony for its future. Will you attend, will you find betrayal or love or will you become the new ruler of the Middle Kingdom

Daena[/quote]

HI Daena,

There have been a couple on this line, as mentioned. One with a multi-pantheon and one focused around Aztec / Mayan gods “Jaguar Gods” (not sure of authors exactly but are Wellingtonians). Both got good review from what I can remember.

Plus it’s not a bad idea, it still has room for growth. I don’t think there’s too much trouble of insensitivity, most pantheons are fair game in this day and age. Plus we’re all grown ups here anyways.

Anyways I encourage you to have a go at your idea regardless, maybe post around and find the authors of Jaguar gods for some ideas.

(also Jared from Hamilton here)

I am shit at this kind of larp, otherwise I’d offer to help but feel free to ask questions…

Jared

#7

Hey Jarad

yeah i know who the writers were for Jaguar gods, and i did play in it. my biggest problem is that while i have some potentially good ideas in my head it’s pulling them out and getting them written down. add to that i cant spell for s(*# so it i bit more problematic, im better at talking than writing :frowning: and trying to make a balanced plot for everyone.

i have a big circle with pretty coloured lines linking everyone trying to workout how people know eachother and how i can expand things as the biggest problem i continually hear is that character have issues about being “plot light”

#8

Try to figure on 3-4 different things for each character to be interested in? With at least one involving the people in their starting group, and at least one involving another faction?

#9

[quote=“daena”]
i have a big circle with pretty coloured lines linking everyone trying to workout how people know each other and how i can expand things as the biggest problem i continually hear is that character have issues about being “plot light”[/quote]

If you think visually rather than linearly this is a good way to get going on character relationships, remembering that character relationships themselves can generate a good deal of ‘plot’.

#10

“One Night in Heaven” was written by Zara and me. Adam was not involved in the writing.

Now, as for the game blurb etc:

This sounds like it could form a good basis for a game. It sounds like the game characters might be fictional, fantasy deities, which would make it different from games that have run previously. Part of the trick with writing characters that give players enough to do for the duration of the game is including lots of sub-plots, to give them something exciting to do apart from the main plot of the game. Love triangles, hate, interconnecting plots where different characters play the villains in other characters backstories… Another thing I have seen work quite well in other games, is to make some characters investigation based, give them mysteries to unravel that involve them having to coerce information out of a number of other characters.

#11

[quote=“clare”]

This sounds like it could form a good basis for a game. It sounds like the game characters might be fictional, fantasy deities, which would make it different from games that have run previously. Part of the trick with writing characters that give players enough to do for the duration of the game is including lots of sub-plots, to give them something exciting to do apart from the main plot of the game. Love triangles, hate, interconnecting plots where different characters play the villains in other characters backstories… Another thing I have seen work quite well in other games, is to make some characters investigation based, give them mysteries to unravel that involve them having to coerce information out of a number of other characters.[/quote]

I think the biggest problem is trying to find other things to do without them all being tied up in the find love/harmony theme which en-composes everything (not that this is a bad thing), but a lot of people i spoke with at Kapcon gave me a whole pile of good ideas so im hopping that i have a better all round character spread with characters and plots and interactions. but there are definatly mysteries coming in to my plots and people trying to block things so its definatly a characters have their own agenda to some point thing going on. i just don’t want to spoil it to much in case it get’s chosen and people actually decide to play (fingers crossed) i have noticed that my characters tend to be lighter on back story than a lot of larp characters ive played whether this is good or bad we shall see and as Anna has requested the name of the larp has changed (i live but to serve you Anna :slight_smile:

#12

Also, there are resource management plots, where a character or characters want several different things but the resources available won’t cover it all, so negotiation, prioritisation, or strong-arming needs to happen, and stone soup plots, where if every faction contributes Something Special of Theirs, a Nifty Thing can happen.