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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