POLL: Should nzLARPS get a stall at Armageddon Auckland '11?

nzLARPS
#1

Should nzLARPS get a stall at Armageddon Auckland 2011?

  • Yes
  • No

0 voters

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Hey guys, Armageddon Auckland is coming up in October this year, and we’d like to hear your thoughts on whether or not you think we should pay for a stall.

At the moment we’re looking at getting a 3x3m space at the expo, and will try negotiating to get it for $500-$800. From Aether and Iron we practically filled the Great Exhibition LARP that is being run soon, and the exposure we’ll get from 4 days at Armageddon, right in the faces of our primary target audience is definitely worth the investment.

We’d like to do some live demos of foam weapon combat and hand out flyers. Can you think of anything else you’d like to see?

Be sure to cast your vote and leave your ideas in the comments below :slight_smile:

#2

Well, the purpose of the society is to promote larping, right? That said, it needs to stack up economically. $500 - $800 is 25 - 40 NZLarps memberships, which sounds quite difficult to do over the course of a weekend. But you can also look at it as about 10 people going to one weekend game each (or fewer trying more games, and becoming long-term members of our community). And that doesn’t sound so hard. If you can recruit three new players for Teonn, for example (2 games a year plus assumed Chimera attendance) then it stacks up.

My only concern is having something soon after Armageddon to hook them with. So, what’s running in November - early December, with free spaces, to push interested-sounding people towards (and give immediate feedback on success)?

#3

To be honest, Idiot, we’ve held off planning exactly what to do until we know exactly what we are able to do. My goal is to do the same thing we did with Aether and Iron - have an event running two-three weeks after Armageddon that we are specifically recruiting for, and promoting as “an event for new larpers”.

#4

Excellent plan.

#5

It seems to have worked with our promotional run of Great Exhibition. I don’t recognise 75% of the people attending. We’ll see tomorrow how many of them turn up and how they find it, and if they sign up to anything else. But if the Great Exhibition experiment is successful, I’m keen to try it on a much bigger scale at Armageddon.

#6

Fingers are crossed for tomorrow, I’m sure its going to be an awesome game and will get a lot of new people keen on larping :smiley:

#7

[quote=“HAZARDU5”]From Aether and Iron we practically filled the Great Exhibition LARP that is being run soon[/quote]Sorry, you probably can’t count me in your tally of those from Aether & Iron who are attending the Great Exhibition. I was actively seeking out nzLARPS anyway, I didn’t just happen upon you by accident. If I didn’t know you were going to be at Aether & Iron, I would have contacted you some other way. Hehe.

[quote=“Wulfen (David)”]Fingers are crossed for tomorrow, I’m sure its going to be an awesome game and will get a lot of new people keen on larping :smiley:[/quote]I’m so looking forward to it. I have my costume completed, some prompt cards made up, and have been studying the background of the event. Roll on tomorrow!

#8

Indeed , be good to meet up again.

#9

I wonder if we can optimise that event for new larpers?

Games like The Great Exhibition or The Flight of the Hindenburg may be throwing new players in the deep end somewhat. They are highly involved games that may challenge even some experienced larpers. There are also a lot of players, which can be intimidating too.

I was thinking of offering to run The Black Hard of Camelot (as one of several game options to follow Armageddon), but now I’ve realised that’s not very newbie-friendly either. Too angsty.

I think a light-hearted game is probably easiest for beginners. Also, a single-genre game is probably easier than a genre-mashup game, because you know what to expect. Plus, a game where you’re not drowning in difficult-to-achieve goals, hard-to-use abilities or not knowing where to start.

There are new larpers who will love an angsty game, or a complex one with lots of people and goals and genres. But there are probably even more new larpers who will like a simpler first larp, that exposes them to the fundamentals of playing in a light-hearted game that holds their hand a bit and doesn’t throw everything and the kitchen sink at them.

Possibly multiple smaller game options, with clear advertising of stuff that will attract some larpers and put off others? That way you can have an angsty game, but clearly label it as such to set expectations and attract those who would enjoy it. If there were several small games and some got over-subscribed they could be run twice.

#10

Sort of sounds like Chimera :confused:

#11

If Chimera was 2 or 3 games happening on different weekends and the games were mostly oriented towards newcomers who would fill half the player slots, then yeah… this would be identical. :wink:

The alternative to multiple games is to re-run a big game like Hindenburg, Refuge, or The Gordian Knot. I think that all of those would be excellent games to run that would make a great impression on many new larpers, just like The Great Exhibition did. But alternatively, I think giving several options of genre & style and making it clear what they were might attract even more newcomers, some of whom might try multiple games.

For example:

  • A Dead Man’s Chest (for simple and light-hearted pirates)
  • The Black Hart of Camelot (angsty and dramatic medieval)
  • Masquerade on Fleet Street (gothic, historical aspects)

I would suggest an “adventure” style scenario, but I’m not sure I know a suitable one. The Jade Empire game that Erin ran at Chimera last year was an excellent example of this kind of thing. With more combat encounters and simplified rules & background it would be a great way of appealing to people who want to try out a fighting adventure with a nice plot, in another genre that’s of big interest to the “fan” community you get at Armageddon (Oriental fantasy). But what would be even more suitable would be a medieval fantasy game with a really big “party” of aligned characters, who are working together against a crew of monsters. That may be more beginner-friendly than splitting the PCs into semi-competing groups like that Jade Empire game did.

#12

I was thinking today about this as well, and how to maximise our appeal to people. What it comes down, at the essence of practicality, is how many people are willing to step up to run games for this sort of thing. It was a lot of work for Rowena and Dave to pull together the Great Ex on less than a month’s notice for a rerun. For each game we propose to run, we’re asking at least one person to put up their hand to do the legwork in organising it. Big games also have a lot more “wow” value. 70 people in a small space in costume is a better impression that 16 motley pirates on a beach somewhere.

Part of this as well is, “know your audience”. We reran Great Exhibition because it was pulp Victorian and our target audience was steampunks. Our target audience at Armageddon is pop culture afficiandos, so larps that tap into those things would be ideal. I had thought perhaps “Flight of the Hindenburg” and Wellington’s sci-fi “Reunion” might be good candidates. I would be happy to rerun Fleet St, but that’s pretty R rated for a larp. I like the three that Ryan listed, and I would possibly also tag on “Truth, Justice and Spandex!” for the superhero element.

#13

We’re really going to need the community to get behind this effort if this goes ahead. It’s a four day event, and we will need three larpers at any one time to sit at the stand and interact with the public. This means people need to be prepared to sacrifice part of their Armageddon weekends to take part in this. We will also need assistance in pulling together promotional material, and game masters for whatever games we decide to run for the new people. Any 60-70 player game will need at least two, preferrably three game masters, while the smaller games can probably get away with one each. Michael and I (as National and Auckland marketing respectively) are prepared to put the work in organising it all, but we can’t do it without serious backing from the community :slight_smile:

#14

I’ll put my hand up to hang out at the stall on at least one of the days (hoping to be at Armageddon for at least three of the days, so I’ll be able to drop by and help out at other times if needed, too).
Not so comfortable with the GM-ing of games yet, though. But anything else I can do to help, let me know and I’ll do what I can.

#15

Is vast experience necessary to help out at the stall, or will a little experience and lots of enthusiasm suffice? 8)

#16

Yeah, that game might well suit too. Although again, it would have to be clear to players it is a parody.

It might be easiest to just run Hindenburg. I just worry that for every new larper it blows away, it will befuddle another with the large numbers, the freeform playstyle, the genre mashup, or the swastikas. :wink: If expectations are set well it may work for a lot of people though. Bear in mind it has a serious predominance of male characters. I have the version of the characters I modified somewhere.

A Dead Man’s Chest won’t befuddle anyone, but like you say it’s small. The largest game from Freeform Games is “All At Sea” for 33 people, which is set on a cruise ship at the outbreak of WWI. Probably not the ideal setting for genre fans.

#17

Enthusiasm suffices :smiley:

#18

[quote]It might be easiest to just run Hindenburg. I just worry that for every new larper it blows away, it will befuddle another with the large numbers, the freeform playstyle, the genre mashup, or the swastikas.[/quote]I think it might be worth building in some new person specific features into the big games that we run. Like people have been saying, new people just about always get told to come to the big games, whether combat stuff like Teonn, or the theatre-style headliners like Hindenburg and Great Exhibition, because all their mates tell them how wonderful it is. For live combat campaigns, I think we do alright with hooking people up with groups to give them a lead in and giving advice on how to go about their first game, but for the theatre-styles I think we could do better.

Like, perhaps making a point of writing lots of groups where the members have some closely-aligned goals (may differ on the flavour, but all the members want basically the same thing, rather than some of them secretly wanting to stab the others in the back, so it’s an Us interacting with the rest of the game rather than a bunch of individuals feeling a bit lost). And planning for people to have multiple levels of goals - some might be inside their group, others with characters outside their group, and some low-level ongoing things for people to do if they’re feeling a bit stuck with other stuff. Like, “You’d like to flirt with as many people as possible”, or “You’re trying to make some petty cash by picking pockets”, or “You love to dance”. Stuff that will get them interacting with people, but not dependant on finding the right person, or acquiring the right titbit of information. I also read a suggestion (in one of the Steve Hatherley articles maybe?) of writing in a Suggested First Action, which was intended to give everyone a place to start, like “Go talk to person X about Y” - they didn’t solve their goals for them, but it did give them an angle on at least one of them.

#19

[quote=“Anna K”][quote=“augur”]Is vast experience necessary to help out at the stall, or will a little experience and lots of enthusiasm suffice? 8)[/quote]Enthusiasm suffices :smiley:[/quote]Excellent! Please count me in! I was planning to go along to Armageddon again this year anyway, so having a stallholder’s ID card would be great. I’m fine to put in as much time as you need me for at the stall, with short breaks so I can see some of the sights for myself as well. I’m at your disposal.

#20

I’ll put my hand up to be on the stall too, sure I can spare some time.