So, uh, I did a thing. Anyone wanna play?
I was going to wait until Iāve read the current version, but hell. Yes, Iāll play.
Iād love to play!
Link to the rego form is live!
Sounds like a lot of fun indeed! Iād be keen, where is the form?
Itās in the rules
Wait, thereās a veil on the extremes of late-stage capitalism, but not the extremes of early-stage capitalism (child labour, the absence of health and safety laws, starvation wages, company storing, no product standards, widespread repression and violence to prevent labour organisation)?
This is an extremely solid point!!
Thereās a section on the sign-up form for adding Lines and Veils to the communal list.
(Alsoā¦ I think those are mid capitalism? Surely the excesses of early capitalism are likeā¦ Babylon?)
I just wasnāt sure it was deliberate.
(And youāre right, checking Wikipedia its mid-capitalism. āIndustrial revolutionā probably makes it more identifiable)
Not deliberate at all! If I thought about those topics at all, I included them mentally under late-stage capitalism, but youāre right about them being quite different.
Iād been trying to find the language to say āstories about needing money can be fun, fear of losing financial security is a handy motivator in some fiction, and itās an easy aim to understand, but lets not make it about exploitation and inequality, because I like my recreation to not be deeply depressing.ā
So how are numbers looking for this?
Which I feel like is probably not enough.
Iāll do another advertising binge and see what that gets us
First letter sent!
Its so difficult knowing where and how to start.
Itās always so interesting learning the sort of āplayer authorshipā bounds especially in something as freeform as a letter larp. Such as, how does one refer to anywhere āforeignā? Or what sorts of activities might occur. Obviously swathes of NPCs and local locations can be invented from whole cloth.
I knocked out four letters last night, and will probably pen one more as an opening round. It felt really good, and by the end of it, I was getting into the swing of who the character was.
And with a name like Mordecai Rufus Wyverstone, signing all your letters āDashingly, Mordecai R. Wyverstoneā just felt right.
I sent my fourth letter last night, and made notes for a fifth. Though thereās still two contacts I havenāt sent stuff to at all (but Iām aiming to start conversations with them on the weekend).
I am wondering if Iām going to need some sort of setting document to keep track of who and what everyone is inventing. Places, names, which of my neighbours has a dogā¦
I am delighted to give you all a shared gdoc to put extra world-building stuff in. But Iām going full PbtA in the amount of control over the setting - itās about your interactions and your votes, not about the lore. (hmmmā¦ a lore-heavy letter larp?.. ) Inconsistency is not a fault, itās an expected outcome, and can be hand-waved away. āOh, wow, there must be two bars called that.ā
I will also put the results of all previous Arbitrations into the results when I send it out. Outcomes that won are True. Outcomes that didnāt should be taken as things youāre aware, to a greater or lesser extent, that people want.
Any other ideas people would like to see implemented around world-building info storage?