If you could do it quick before he has a chance to have me whacked, I’d be much obliged 
what? The bounder, why on earth would he want to harm so lovely a lady?
lol, we are clearly going to have to write a New York gangster larp.
YES PLZ
As i mentioned to Anna, I have a plan, and yes gangsters are an option 
Ok, here’s a (back on topic 
) thought. Negative goals only work if there is a counter-goal.
The personal example I had was not a main goal, but one of the characters motivations. Howard Hughes and Bette Davis were dating. My character sheet said “You want to keep it quiet to protect your reputation”… Unfortunately, his said the same thing, so we basically avoided each other all night aside from one brief conversation that got me the role in his film (duh!) and one photograph.
If one side wanted to keep it secret and the other side “was in love and wanted to tell the world” or get married, or something, then there would have been drama and conflict and interaction.
I’m aware that other characters were spreading rumours, but it didn’t really have any effect on plots that i’m aware of.
Just a thought.
On a vaguely related note, it says on Madeline Page’s character sheet that she calls Evelyn White “Evey” because it really bugs her. It didn’t mentioned this on my character sheet, and we started the game off with Capone calling me Evie, and finishing the game with pretty much everyone calling me Evie. I had no idea I was supposed to hate the nickname, so when Madeline came up to me and repeatedly called me Evie, I gave no reaction…
Now that my brain is no longer mush, that really rocked. As Rick Blaine I had not a moment of quiet. Everybody wanted something from me, and I never said a flatout No. Just kept dealing and dealing. Had a great time playing one of my favorite heroes of all time. Added to everything, I managed to achieve everything I set out to, if not more.
Started out fashionably later than everyone else with Marion Ravenwood (Lucy) hanging on my arm. Which immediately turned to meeting Al Capone since she was friends with his moll (Anna). Now, here I was preparing to be going against Al Capone and looking for the best deal from his enemies, but it just turned out that he was able to provide exactly what I wanted, which was someone who could cure me of my werewolfy problems. This landed me into a good friendship with Capone and about three grand. As well as meeting with Prof Bruttenholm (Jack) who wanted to use me against the Nazi’s. For those who do not know their Casablanca well, Rick hates the Nazi’s. He’s been on their black books for years and ended Casablanca joining the French resistance with his buddy Luis. Sorry Gene, your Gestapo shadow was the reason I never did end up helping you. So I spun a tale for Elliot Ness about the evils of Bugsie Moran. Never let anyone suspect I was behind all the mobster murders. Ended up Capone’s buddy and in an elite, supernatural fighting team against the Nazi’s. Oh, and the whole scene in the end. I heard some masked dude talking bout a bomb and the Trekkies were trying to cover him up. So I immediately go to Capone and tell him, cause its my skin’s that’s important. I don’t help in the fight but I am seen in it, just so that I can claim neutrality if needs be, then get away with Capone and the Prof.
Great time. Loved being beaten up by Dereck, that came out of nowhere, as well as general chatting with random people. Had a particularly fun scene where I wanted to be alone to talk with the Prof so I asked Frankie to punch me out, just so that we could take up the sick bay.
Loved the scene where Annie walked up to offer five dollars for the charity. That was just so sweet.
I spotted a great new venue for smaller 1920s/1930s games last night, but it would only be suitable for expensive food-included events.
“Prohibition”, on Ponsonby Rd. It’s themed as a high-class speakeasy/restaurant, blacked out windows, longcoated doorman, waiters all in pinstripes and so. There’s an upstairs room for hire, but they don’t have prices yet as it only opened last week. We’d need to keep the noise down I think, and make a good impression in general.
I think we should go and hold a Hindenburg afterlarp there
Aren’t they mutually exclusive?
Sounds like a good venue for a game after work some evening.
[quote=“theotherphoenix”]
The personal example I had was not a main goal, but one of the characters motivations. Howard Hughes and Bette Davis were dating. My character sheet said “You want to keep it quiet to protect your reputation”… [/quote]
To me that seemed to be a complete non-starter for you. Garbo character knew you wanted to keep it secret but as I didn’t like you very much (you’d snagged a role I’d wanted - plus you were up and coming while I was worried about getting too old and being past it) so I was determined to see it got out. The way the character was written there was no way you could have kept it quiet as my charcter sheet flat out told me to tell people.
So I did go around telling anyone who’d listen (including when I knew a reporter was eavesdropping - I wouldn’t be so crass as to tell the press directly - but if they happened to overhear… ) , but as far as I could tell there were no consequences - basically no one really cared except you. Perhaps if you had pegged me as the source of the rumours that could had led to a confrontation? Or Wooster was stalking you right? How might he have reacted had he found out? (I fully intended to tell him outright, but he left for the 21st he had to go to before I had a chance).
The other option that I never thought of on the night was what if I’d confronted you with the information? Could I have blackmailed you into giving me the role in the movie with my silence? How much did you really care about keeping it a secret?
I think some of the problems in the game were caused by people not remembering all of the details on their sheet, or assigning them perhaps incorrect levels of importance. And with so much going on it’ sprobably not surprising. I don’t know how I would have reacted if you had blackmailed me, I don’t know (because I didn’t have to decide!) if I needed the role in the film (primary goal) more than I needed to keep my relationship quiet (motivation).
Would have been interesting though. If I had researched Hughes before the game (oops) I would have known that he was married and had a reputation as a womanizer, which would have added to my desire to keep things very, very quiet. So, research is key, it would be easy to say these things should be on the character sheets, but how big do we want them to be? 
I don’t think players should have to research their characters before the game. Anything relevant should be on the character sheets. Sure we don’t want 10 page character sheets, but adding “because he is married” is a small addition that potentially could improve the game. I didn’t realise that he was married, so I just focused on the fact that you had to sleep with the director to get a role.
You’re right about people not remembering everything, or placing different levels of importance than the writers may have expected. Honestly I’ve rarely seen a large game where that doesn’t happen. And it’s part of the fun of the hobby that the same game can run multiple times with completely different conclusions due to different choices people make. But it does mean writers should consider that and have alternate storylines for people to get involved in if needed.
Hee hee. I’m glad Valkyrie’s real name didn’t turn up anywhere, or it could have gotten Violent. Luckily Bertie Wooster wasn’t stupid enough to tell anyone… muahaha.
Wow, I was amazed to play in a game with so many people, and yes, with such cool costumes.
Regarding the de-brief, I found it good. I was amazed to hear of what other plots were around. Playing Madeline, I had now idea that any undead or aliens were around, or even that they could exist - perhaps that’s why I didn’t understand /investigate the Hymie plotline. Anyway, knowing in hindsight all about other bits really emphasised the “What if …” thoughts the following day… if only I had stolen the kryptomite … if only I had let on about the alien transmitter … if only I had interpreted Jim & Sarah as another gang trying to set up in our territory, and getting Capone to help us turf them out …
Madeline’s main goal was to get a new boyfriend, with the implication with someone dangerous would be better. Shame all the dangerous pilots and Indiana Jones (man what a whip) were too busy about the race and stuff to concentrate on flirting… (And a confusing goal was to try and get Clyde away from Bonnie, but why would he ever want to ??? ) I also wish that I had recognised the book I had earlier stolen from Evie as being the same one I saw Rick pass to Capone.
And if I had known the newspaper had stuff that was relevant to plots I would have read that beforehand too … perhaps it could have been passed out to the players as we were waiting.
I must share one of my most amazed OOC moment - when I look across the crowded room, see someone with hands in the invisible position, then recognise the cape, as that belonging to my husband. How he managed to sew a hood and get his cape to the game without me noticing was awesome. He says he really missed Dirk Tracey too…
Regarding secondary characters etc …I think its taken me some time to get past my secretive nature and to go out and volunteer information to others. I have to think past the “my character wouldn’t say/do that …” to get to the goal of enjoyment of the game for all those present. I think ‘secrets’ is too strong a word to use on people’s charactersheet. “Something you don’t enjoy talking about” would be more appropriate. (But maybe that’s cos I’m a pedant.) Because the way I see it, if it’s on your charactersheet, it should be relevant to the game, and its only when everyone is generous with their knowledge can we use that information and all have fun. (“Bad Dreams” is in my mind when I say that too.) I still need more practise though …
really? and Biggles thought you were very sweet if a bit shy too…
Ahh, so that’s what Cryptography was for. I couldn’t figure it out since all I ever saw was the exhibit things that said Translation instead. It would have been hilarious for the goody-two-shoes authorities to appeal to a Nazi to crack Capone’s ledger. Tee hee!
Also, DUDE swastika armbands on the Nazis would have been fantastic! Why didn’t any of us think of that?!
On the this-could-be-improved side, I felt that my character sheet didn’t have enough information about the People I Know. Richthofen at one point was talking about depression and being addicted to cocaine and was obsessively drinking Coke all night and I was mightily confused because as the person who brought him back one would think I’d know these things. Or were we as players supposed to kibitz about mutual background stuff like that? If so, then providing contact information (with permission of course) for the players of the characters one’s character knows would be a big help. The Nazis could have been much better organized (see above comment re: armbands) and made a bigger deal about how the Hindenburg was a German ship, etc. Which reminds me that, other than Frankenstein’s own [strike]ReAnimator[/strike] plot, I was completely unaware of any larger Nazi objectives, and in the “downtime” before Richthofen regained his memories, I would have loved to get in on something.
By and large, though, I did enjoy it, and Chimera as a whole has restored my faith in larp (up to this point my only experience was with OWBN) and I will definitely come if there is one next year and I’d even like to play in Hindenburg again, either to do Frankenstein right this time, or jump into one of the other plots I was completely oblivious to, since there are millions.
~Sierra
After Hindenburg was over Malu and I sat down and compared notes on what our characters knew about each other. What we “knew” was in fact not correct. It was just close and slightly twisted. Our perceptions of events were coloured by our character values.
I liked that a lot! It worked really well!
Yes, that’s something that really stands out when you read a few of the characters. The villains don’t think of themselves as villainous for example, they all have perfectly good rationales for the horrible things they’ve done or plan to do. Or at least, the rationales seem good to them.
An interesting thing with your two characters was that both say “but you still love him/her”. So under all that anger, there was definitely a chance for reconciliation. You were like that classic fighting couple in dramatic comedies who eventually work things out.