This year for KublaCon I played in three larps. I had intended to run a larp I had written based on the Mad Max series, called "Imperator Rising", but for that slot there were only 6 out of 10 for my larp, and there were only 12 out of 18 for the Walking Dead based larp. Rather than be short in both games, I suggested to my players that we join the Walking Dead larp. Also, Erik Dahl had a larp Saturday morning entitled "A Midsummer Night's Dream" which I was interested in, but which only had five or so players, which wasn't enough to run. Hopefully both of these will be run at other cons. The games I was in were:
Midnight in the Shrine of Black Speech |
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Game system
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Empire of the Petal Throne |
Start time:
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SAT, 6:00 PM |
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Category
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LARP |
Duration
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6 Hours |
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Event ID
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49004 |
Location
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Sandpble-E |
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# of Players:
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14 |
GM / Judge
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Danielle Goudeau |
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Description
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It's midnight and both moons are dark, the traditional time for the priests of the Doomed Prince to attempt a summoning. With masks and robes and secret signs you gather in a forgotten shrine for the customary ritual; but scheming and betrayal are second nature to all here. After decades of failure, can you finally succeed? If so, what will you bring into this world and who will it serve? Discover the greatness of your destiny in Tékumel, the first published RPG setting! If you chose to costume, dark robes or cloaks are prefered TROUPE:Shiny Thing Games |
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C/E Rating
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2/A Complexity = Average / Experience = None | C/E Info | ||
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More Info
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Tekumel website | ||
This was a larp set in the world of Tekumel, the first RPG setting, created by M.A.R. Barker. It can be difficult to set a game in a very detailed world when the players aren't familiar with it or with much of the inspirational material - Indian, Middle Eastern, Egyptian and Meso-American mythology. To deal with this, the game was set in an isolated shrine which largely had its own rules. Nevertheless, it was often difficult for the players to keep straight what the positions were, and the effect of status. I didn't keep detailed notes on the players for this run, so I'll note only a few.
Essentially, it was political maneuvering prior to everyone attempting a ritual to be performed that night. There were a lot of moving parts, with secret societies and many hidden agendas. It made a good try at bringing in the coolness of Tekumel to a mass-audience, one-shot larp - but it is a very difficult challenge.
The character sheets were about four pages - starting with title, secret society, clan, rank, and patron aspect. One page was powers and one page was clan. There were no numeric stats. There were skills, but they were there as names for GM judgement rather than having described effects. Mine were "Poetry, Theology, Politics, Psionics (mind reading / control), Rituals, Singing". It wasn't transparent how to use these, though the powers had some description.
Walking Dead: Between A Rock and a Hard Place |
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Game system
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GM Fiat |
Start time:
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SUN, 10:00 AM |
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Category
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LARP |
Duration
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6 Hours |
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Event ID
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79004 |
Location
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Bayside A |
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# of Players:
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18 |
GM / Judge
GM Assists |
Ryan Walton Aaron Lopez David Oppenheimer |
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Description
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Due to massive herds of the dead surrounding them, three separate groups are trapped in the same building. While the groups attempt to negotiate, trade, or fight for supplies an even greater danger awaits them. The question is, will this threat come from within or outside the walls that protect them? TROUPE:Gamer Geekus
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C/E Rating
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1/A Complexity = Simple / Experience = None | C/E Info | ||
This was a Walking Dead larp that used the honed "cage" technique where a bunch of characters are locked into the same trapped space. In this case, there were three groups of survivors (with six people each) who are trapped in the same trailer surrounded by zombies.
This was a survival larp mostly triggered as three groups of survivors - with some overlap of familiarity - trapped in a trailer office, trying to hold out against zombies outside. There was some mystery about the behavior of the zombies, who eventually turned out to be controlled by Kelsey's late husband, who had been working on a zombie cure that didn't quite work. In the end, most of the group escaped while some sacrificed themselves in a distraction.
The system used a two-page character setup with nine stats (split into Physical/Mental/Social similar to the Storyteller system). There was then three skills with specific effects, equipment, and a 3-4 listed motivations.
I found that all the action being purely in a single room contrasted a bit with my expectations of the zombie survival genre. However, there were also great characterization - particularly from Piper - and many great interactions. The cage technique of trapping all characters together in-game is an oldie but a goodie.
The Association for the Advancement of Rights for Fairytale Creatures (AFC) |
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Game system
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Larp Factory |
Start time:
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SUN, 6:00 PM |
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Category
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LARP |
Duration
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5 Hours |
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Event ID
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89005 |
Location
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Bayside A |
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# of Players:
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19 |
GM / Judge
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Devon Apple |
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Description
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The Association for the Advancement of Rights for Fairytales Creatures (AFC) is an organization for all fairytale creatures. It is ruled with an iron fist by The Witch/The Evil Stepmother. Although the AFC was once a democratic organization, it is now democratic in name only since The Witch took over. With support from The Big Bad Wolf, The Witch has made allies using shameless favoritism, threats and every other means imaginable to hold the opposition down. She has even changed the voting system from secret ballot to show of hands, in order to rig the vote in favor of the chairperson.
Now it’s time for the annual meeting, and this year someone has decided to speak up. Will this be the year that the opposition dares to rise? Many of the characters feel it is time to take a stand. Should the AFC help and support all of its members, or should the creatures take responsibility for their own lives? As in all organizations, there are - of course - some trivial issues that need addressing. But the question remains: what is trivial to you? What battle will you choose to fight? Is it better to just sit back and let it happen? This is a straight-faced comedy LARP, combat-free and rules-light, with an emphasis on chewing the scenery and sharing the spotlight. TROUPE: |
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C/E Rating
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1/A Complexity = Simple / Experience = None | C/E Info | ||
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More Info
Game Materials Page |
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This was a run of one of the larps from the "Larps from the Factory" project, based on a larp created by Nils Andersen, Aina Sogn Husvegg and Jeanita Hatlestrand. The core of play was two one-hour board meeting sessions, with a half-hour break in between for socializing. The players and their characters were:
The action was broken up into a fairly structured setup of fixed time of talking in sessions at the table with a defined agenda, then twice breaking up for socializing, and then back into the agenda. On the down side, nineteen was really a lot of people to be trying to talk at a table - so this left a lot of room for table. On the plus side, everyone was quite excellent at their characterizations - and the fairy tale characters made for great quick handles on character.
I was playing the "Other Evil Stepsister" - which was kind of fun. I had two main keys for my play. The first was that the chairwoman was my mother (The Witch). I sat at the opposite end of the table from her, and rolled my eyes at everything she said... with my entire body. The other thing was that I had a drinking problem, so I snuck sips from a bottle and got ridiculously drunk over the course of the meeting. I tried to play to the format by being mostly quiet during discussion, and instead had exaggerated reactions to everything being said - being as physical as possible when seated at the table. It ended up being a load of fun.
I was concerned at the lack of people for the larp games this year. There were notably fewer larp players available in most of the slot than in previous years. It might be an anomaly, but it did seem cause for concern. However, I did hear that the vampire larp track was doing well.