We have a smaller team going into 2018, however, we are strong and poised to deliver. I typically don't like to do stories that take place in a cityscape. I think of the city as the realm of on-going chronicle games rather than Con LARPs. However, with three nights to tell our story, we are doing it. This year we've brought on a ST dedicated to handling resources, influences and procurement in the city. The rest of the team will be working to support the story.
Last year we heard from our players that hosting the game in one location was smart as it allowed players to know where to interact. While we have expanded the game to a city, we are making 8 locations that represent where the story takes place. Our game last year had separate spaces to interact within the Casino that we used for the setting. We are thinking of the locations in the same terms as last year, they just don't share a the same roof. Four of them will be genre specific and four will be open to any genre. Once we know where we are hosting the game, we'll be strategic about setting up the room. As we did last year, we seek to set up people in characters prior to the game. The story uses pre-generated characters who have information and plot that ties into the overall story. Even though these characters are pre-generated, we remain flexible to give those who work with us prior to game the genre and character types they enjoy. While there has been a request to allow year-to-year carry over in characters, we have decided not to allow this. Each story that we tell is unique to that World of Darkness. Because we are not a chronicle game or a club, each story's World Of Darkness is slightly different. We change elements of the known world to suit our purposes and to keep the story fresh. The characters are a reflection of that world and we write that perspective into the characters. By allowing collaboration there is a bigger investment that we are all making to a successful game. LARP is best when we are all telling the story. Our game doesn't utilize NPCs to drive plot. Every LARP character is the star of the story, their story, and every other character they meet is either the villain or their supporting cast. The only characters that the STs play are the interchangeable nameless people that represent the masses of the world around the players. We instead drive the plot through the story of the individuals and their goals on the character synopsis. Giving players a rich unique story to step into is one of the most important parts of the storyteller job. This year the team visually mapped out all the various plots going on and discussed overlap. As the character creation began we looked for ways to overlap the genres and provide tie ins that will enhance the player's game. Last year we worked with a great team of people, however, due to rising costs and personal situations we had to reduce our costs. We know we are telling stories using older rules not readily available or accessible by gamers, we need to keep the cost of the game low only adding in dollars to support the Darkness Remembered group and LARP printing costs. This year we intend to poll players on moving to a new rules set or linking our game to a networked experience. My belief is that you can tell an amazing story no matter what rules set you are using, the rules set only helps to provide a sense of parity in resolving differences. We hope to see familiar faces and new at this year's event. Let us know your thoughts or reach out to us for character development for GenCon 2018.
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At the Darkness Remembered LARP for GenCon 50 we are doing a cross-genre game. We haven't adapted to the new By Night Studios versions because we are dedicated to games that include all the denizens of the World of Darkness. The rules haven't come out for the others. For some like Changeling, they may never come out. When that is announced or we make the decision to move forward we'll have to figure out how we are going to adapt. It has been a difficult decision to stay with the old classic rules, but we want to keep things balanced. Using the same rules set for each genre keeps it that way.
For us the rules are the easy part. The hard part in a pre-gen cross-genre game is creating the characters. Each storyteller is working to build a character that has a rich backstory with personal motivations that will create intersect points with the plots. Once that is done, each character has to be capable of standing alone or working together. They need to be have the ability to stand toe-to-toe with the other things that go bump in the Tellurian. This week, my Assistant Head Storyteller and I, have been reading the first batch of LARP characters. We are ensuring they have a backstory that correlates to the character sheet. We want the motivations to explain how to get involved and why this character is needed. That is one of the steps to better immersion that I want to be a part of this game. After we agree on the characters and stat them out, we return them to our genre storytelling staff for review. We take a lot of pride in our product. We really hope that we will get a chance to work with players who want to breathe life into these creations. For those who register in advance we will make sure that they get the chance to be part of the creative process with us. After all, we have planned some PvP and PvE plots. We want players who see us as allies in their gaming experience. By Amy E. Weaver My husband I fell madly in love while at Michigan State playing in a LARP called Darker Images. Valentine's Day always takes me back to that time. We loved gaming and we were doing World of Darkness table top plus the Saturday night LARP scene. As 'adulting' set in and we moved away from the group we found ourselves in need of new games. We found another LARP in Ann Arbor, then eventually the Camarilla Fan Club. We made lifelong friends from these games. But, the game changed. The New World of Darkness rules set was introduced and try as we might it wasn't fresh enough to get us to stay with the game. Two years ago a friend from my days in Lansing had contacted me to gauge my interest in being part of the Darkness Remembered LARP team at GenCon in 2015. I jumped at the opportunity to go to GenCon, but more than that, I was excited to be part of a game that gave me such amazing friends and memories. I very much enjoyed GenCon and running Vampire again. LARPers speak a language I understand. No matter what our differences I see people that share my interest and that commonality draws us together. Here we are in 2017 and I am going back to GenCon with Darkness Remembered in the role of Head ST. Since GenCon 2015 I've been reading about various LARPs. I find myself fascinated with the Nordic Style LARPs, but am left with the thoughts that this is nothing new. For me, my first brush with LARP came in a big blue marbled box. This early system of LARP was reliant on the same principles that are part of the Nordic Style game. It relied on a blend of collaborative storytelling and competitive play. Players were themselves storytellers and the game masters filled in as the stage where people could strut and fret for an hour or more each week. Growing up playing AD&D and MechWarrior this rules light system was a departure from what I was used to, but I felt it was a welcome change. It was hard to convince others. In time, a much more defined rules set was offered by White Wolf and from there the rest is history.
Currently, the LARP side of the game has split off from the table top rules and there are gaming clubs building a big collaborative world through a network of games. While I am willing to try these new rules sets and groups, I still think that there is a place for the independent game, especially in a convention setting. For GenCon 2017 I want use the Classic World of Darkness trait bidding system for maybe the last time before I find my way to being involved in Nordic Style games and throwing away the rule books in favor of a simple one-pager. As I prepare with the team for GenCon 2017, I find myself falling in love all over again with the Classic World of Darkness. I can feel the emotions in me stirring as I read through the characters we are writing. This isn't just a game of vampires, it is bringing the rage and anger of Werewolf to the same place where Wraiths haunt the halls. I am in love with the pageantry of Changeling perhaps most of all. As someone who feels a lot like a grump these day I am looking to be inspired all over again. These games take the worst parts of what it means to be human and concentrates them and then gives them the faces of monsters. For a night, weekend, or sometimes longer, I can get out of my head and immerse myself in those strong emotions. I can work through the pain and pitfalls on my slow descent into darkness. I know there is no winning, what was ever human in me before I raged or had my chrysalis is losing this fight. In doing this, I feel like I have understood more about people out of game. I see everyday life through different eyes. For that I am immensely grateful. |
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