I thought this might be helpful

A larp conversation with a group of prospective players. I think this may be helpful to others, new and old. if you know any newbs, point them this way

Hi *** and Gang,



A fellow office member expressed some interest about D&D, Gaming Groups, and LARPs.



As to D&D, I can loan her the player’s handbook to give her a general idea. As to describing the current game we are playing, I am at a bit more at a loss… Any comments, observations, etc will be passed on as will your email addresses (if, of course permission is given to share them).



As to the LARP; she expressed interest in attending one also, but here (in addition to your general description and responses on LARPs in general) I would appreciate several specific questions answered:



1) If she were to attend for the first time, could a player-character be created so that she could participate?

YES

a. If yes, about how long does this take?

Depending on pre-reading 30 min to an hour

i. Any reference material she should/could pre-read?

Why, Yes. All of the rules and detals of our larp are available at http://vampire.echoesofempires.org
If she has questions or needs feedback we have a Larp Advice Blog at
http://malkuthmadness.blogspot.com
you're both welcome to use these resources.



2) How long does the gaming session last?

4-5 hours

a. Average start – finish time?

People are encouraged to arrive at 7 for check in and back actions, official game clock starts at 8 but play can begin sooner and if you have backstory or between game scenes to run 7-8 is really the right time. some players arrive earlier but the staff does not guarantee that they can be super hepful during the 6-7 setup hour.

Game ends officially at midnight, usually we'll do cooldown and closing announcements at 11:45 ot 11:30 but sometimes we'll go as late as 12:30-1. Aftergame events happen at the newark diner until 2, some scenes are handled as well as setup for the next game. participation in after hours diner chat is super optional buit often helpful for new players



3) What is the real (physical) setting for the game (a bar, night club, gaming room, college location, etc)?

The larp has 3 locations to serve you better. Saturday night larp, the main larp that I have been discussing is on the college campus of Udel in a building called Purnell hall. its a big building with senate chamber-style seating and several courtyards and fountains.
The Chester game a different sub-larp happens once a month on mondays it is held in a nice suburban home, a little more cozy than the wilmington larp, but a good place for the feel of immediacy and paranoia a sabbat game deserves.

Incidentally we're currently doing an experimental 3 rd changeling larp. the rules for it are not on the echoesofempire site but are present as expansion posts on the malkuth madness blog. this larp takes place once a month and goes from 4 pm to the mid to late evning, it is at a beach house in Lewes Delaware a colonial manse with english gardens and a few acres of property to realy get that Arcadian changeling feel.. rides can often be arranged

The dates, times and locations of all three larps are in vampire.echoesofempires.org in the ooc section for out of character.

a. Admission fees?

None, all of the larps in the EoE family are free, People sharing rides to he beach game may be asked to contribute gas money if they are being driven however. Donations are accepted to help keep us in ink, paper, and such, with every $10 donation you get a free copy of our Larp rulebook

b. Does the action all take place at one location or throughout DE

EoE is a shared universe larp system. the action takes place throught delaware and areas called the 'philladelphia Compact' each city has zones it regularly uses, for example, the monday, chester, sabbat larp takes place mostly in chester, west chester and media, even though the larp is held in neark de, the wilmingotn game, th emain game takes place thoughout all of delaware but mostly north of thre c&d canal, although the acton can take people as far as baltimore or new york. The changeling larp takes place in the tourist areas in and around rehobeth and tends not to move around much beyond that.

?

c. Is a “costume” required/suggested?

this is a complex question. a costume is not required...unless.. if you are playing a character with horns it is required that you at least twirl some pencils into your hair or stykle it to look like horns. if you are playing a character that is scarred or hideously ugly you should wear a mask or make sure the character has a power that lets them change into a less ugly shape. if you are playing a character with a sword, you should at least have a broom handle or cardboard tube to act as a prop for the sword for blocking purposes. more details on this are on the site but by and large we try to follow the 10 steps rule. If I can't tell what your character is supposed to be from 10 steps away, you need to change the costume or the character. With some people you wouldn't be able to tell that their costume was a costume. A character, ****, dresses in shorts, a t shirt and flip flops because that is what his character wears. his player, out of character usually doesn't wear shorts and definitely prefers boots, a very industrial goth look, Costumes don't have to be difficult or complicated but be aware your character will be perceived however it is you present them.



4) How friendly (helpful) is this group to newcomers?



I like to think we're quite helpful but this requires many caveats. Most vampire games are closed, cliquish and mean to newcomers. This group has been far less cliquish than any vampire larp I've ever seen but the people involved are still gamers, so some of them are rude and some of them are jerks. That having been said, We try to make sure there's someone in and out of character to help guide and assist any new players up until the end of their first year or so of play. Also most of the larp environment is a vampire environment. the people out of character may be nice and friendly and never hurt a fly, but in character they are playing soulless, undead, monstrous bastards. This has led to some misunderstandings. **** is a staffer and a schoolteacher and one of the few genuinely kind people i know. Her character is a enchantress, seductress, poisoning, backstabbing witch. so some people have trouble differentiating. In one case she pretends to be nice and then can be cruel. In another case she is about the best help for new players I know. As long as you make it clear that you need help or assistance out of character, say by making the various out of character handsigns, I have found this group to be helpful, friendly and willing to give new players the benefit of the doubt at the expense of their own character's well being. But if you ask them for aid in character, this is a game of politics and paranoia and some of these people have been playing a long time and playing for blood.

(**, *****, and ***) A collective answer to my questions would be nice, but three individual impressions might be more useful.



I hope this is helpful. feel free to email me with any more questions and post comments to the blog if you have any.
Hoping to See you all at Game
Ben

Thanks alot,



Unknown Newbs

Sugar We're Going Down

Downtime is a tricky issue in larps and tabletops. Some points of view favor more downtime, some favor less. I personally like having as much of it as I can reasonably get away with. Some of the best games I've seen basically could have been just talking heads exploring character and nuance of a game world. Now this doesn't mean I'm some kind of pantywaist, artiste, role-playing-not-roll-playing wussbag. I love D&D I like MechWarrior. Battles are awesome and frequent and ignominious character death makes for a tense and exciting larp. It boils down to an amount of simulation and verisimilitude in games. Most people most days don't do much, they don't fight or change careers or fall in love. and from time to time exploring what a character does on a typical day in their life really helps flesh out the world. Exercise for the day for new players or staffers: write down or try to take note of any time in your day when you do something hard, something where you have a real chance of failure and where that failure has consequence. At the end of the week see how many times that has happened. Think about what your character does when the game is not in session or what they did before the game was in session. What did they do easily, what are they like at home?

Yeah, What he Said

Many Exams this week. So here's someone who pretty much sums up what I think Facebook is about. Personally I try not to have anyone on facebook as a friend that I haven't' at least had lunch with once. This includes the various low to midrange celebrities present. Still, the idea of a facebook MMORPG is a pretty cool one, might be a better CCg, if anyone has any idea for cards or for classes post here.

What is a Uniform?

So a bus driver slugged McGruff. A blog of which I am quite fond, Holy Prepuce. has the story

Brim was later charged with simple assault on McGruff's human occupant, D.C. Police Officer Tyrone Hardy. The decision to charge simple assault, rather than assault on a police officer, raises an interesting legal question: to commit "APO" in most jurisdictions, the defendant must know that the victim is a police officer. Does socking McGruff the Crime Dog count? The person inhabiting McGruff turned out to be a real-life police officer, but the role could as easily be played by a civilian. Except where the victim is a plainclothes officer, the knowledge element of APO is usually open-and-shut because of the police uniform. Would McGruff's oversize blues count? The government's restraint in charging Brim means we'll never know--at least not until the next McGruff beat-down.

Makes me wonder if Smokey the bear counts as an authority or at least a park ranger in various wilderness and camp settings. Also if Captain Morgan can perform weddings, at least in Vegas or something.

Wiki Fatigue

I have just finished several hours of editing a wiki. I am beginning to suffer 21st century fatigue. On the plus side the best damn rules for Vampire The Masquerade LARP in the whole damn world are now just a little bit better.
I am willing to make the boast of Lu Buwei anyone who can add or subtract a single rule and have it pass the standards of heaven (the head storyteller) shall be richly rewarded.

Getting in shape

Well the thing about a blog is to get used to writing regularly, so here is my every-other-day post until Monday when I try to get used to twice-a-day.

Now, because at least part of my audience is made up of journalists, we begin our first regular feature, pithy quote from famous journalist.

The famous Journalist in question is Paul Boutin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Boutin_(journalist)

I first came across the work of Paul Boutin oddly through something called the Jargon File. I read the Jargon File pretty religiously in the late 80's early 90's in the old BBS days of computing.

in the jargon file Paul Boutin is quoted

TLA: /T·L·A/, n.
[Three-Letter Acronym]

1. Self-describing abbreviation for a species with which computing terminology is infested.

2. Any confusing acronym. Examples include MCA, FTP, SNA, CPU, MMU, SCCS, DMU, FPU, NNTP, TLA. People who like this looser usage argue that not all TLAs have three letters, just as not all four-letter words have four letters. One also hears of ‘ETLA’ (Extended Three-Letter Acronym, pronounced /ee tee el ay/) being used to describe four-letter acronyms; the terms ‘SFLA’ (Stupid Four-Letter Acronym), ‘LFLA’ (Longer Four Letter Acronym), and VLFLA (Very Long Five Letter Acronym) have also been reported. See also YABA.

The self-effacing phrase “TDM TLA” (Too Damn Many...) is often used to bemoan the plethora of TLAs in use. In 1989, a random of the journalistic persuasion asked hacker Paul Boutin “What do you think will be the biggest problem in computing in the 90s?” Paul's straight-faced response: “There are only 17,000 three-letter acronyms.” (To be exact, there are 26^3 = 17,576.) There is probably some karmic justice in the fact that Paul Boutin subsequently became a journalist.

Wikipedia gives the reason behind the math:

Statistics

The number of possible three-letter abbreviations using the 26 letters of the alphabet from A to Z ( AAA, AAB ... to ZZY, ZZZ) is 26 × 26 × 26 = 17,576. Another 26 × 26 × 10 = 6760 can be produced if the third element is allowed to be a digit 0-9, giving a total of 24,336.
In English, WWW is the longest possible TLA to pronounce, requiring nine syllables. Although in written English it is an abbreviation, in spoken English it may use more syllables than that which it is abbreviating.[9] See also Pronunciation of "www".

what makes the quote so amazing to me is not its pithyness or its accuracy but how quickly Boutin could calculate a remarkably accurate estimation of the number of TLA's possible in the English language.