Up too late, and a half-finished post.

[usernamenumber]

Shouldn't be up. Dealing with stressy (not bad, just stressy) financial stuff. Then again, after back-to-back 13+ hour workdays (and that's not counting time for errands arranging a housecleaner to get Skullcrusher all deposit-return-worthy, Second Shift business and so forth) I'm doing lot better than I should be. I think what's making this week more bearable than last, when I wasn't working quite this many hours but was feeling a lot more stressed, is that there is something actually on the horizon now. I have an ambitious, but finite and attainable with a few more long days, TODO and then a major milestone of project-o-doom, one that last week I was beginning to doubt we would make, will be achieved. Achieved slightly ahead of schedule in at least one way, in fact. So yay. I even walked about 60% of the route from Davis to home and got some exercise today so felling pretty good, all things considered. I just need to keep at it, and not sabotage myself by staying up late on other business and not getting... any... sleep. Well, crap. This is always the toughest part of long workdays, even when they're productive and mostly-good: I still tend to spend a long time winding down and dealing with other tasks afterward.

Anyway.

Here's a post I wrote last week but never got to put up because it was intended to be the first half of a really long one that I haven't finished. Instead I'll just put up the finished half and hopefully finish the other one, which is the half I really want to put out there, later in the week. The following has nothing to do with the preceding, but is a continuation of my attempt to summarize what I did and what I learned at at least some of the larp events I attend.



I've been meaning to write a bit about my last Threads of Damocles weekend, partly just to mention a few highlights, and partly to solicit advice from my LARP/RP flisters about an interesting RP problem I've been wrestling with.

Background, for those who don't know: Threads of Damocles is a series of weekend-long LARPs that I cast for. Casting (or "NPCing") is when you play an assortment of supporting characters, usually a different set each game, rather than a single, on-going character. I've found that this is my preferred role, as I tend to have more fun with the challenge of interpreting and implementing characters other people have written than I do writing characters myself. The games are organized into "scenes" of 2-4 hours each, so a single game can have several scenarios, settings and characters. It also happens to be populated by some really fantastic writers and players, and have had some of my best RP experiences there, such that I somehow keep driving back despite it being 5-10 hours away depending on the time of year (and I'm not even that hardcore-- there are contingents of players from Chicago and friggin Madison!). Special props to zombie_dog, as this most recent game took place in a setting he'd devised, and was largely directed by him.

First, highlights:
* I have now seen larpwriting jello-wrestle xiombarg. Dressed in lucha libre costumes. You're totally jealous.

* edit Forgot to mention this one at first: was awoken by a friend outside my tent suffering from some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning that went around one night. My only regret is that it took me a good couple of minutes to wake up enough to realize that this might not just be some really intense RP happening at 3 in the morning (something I love about Threads is that that actually is perfectly plausible). When I finally heard a weak "..help!" I asked "Umm... was that in-character?" and when the reply was "no", started frantically grabbing clothes in the pitch-black tent. The first thing I found were my "rag pants", pictured below, so I ended up running around camp in nothing but those in the wee hours of the morn (yes, for me that's quite risque'). Good times. =:)

* I've been producing short audio dramas that are being used as part of an ongoing plotline in the last few games. For this game it was a couple of noir detective stories written by arachne8x, and they seemed to go over well despite a couple of editing mistakes on my part (that'll teach me to try and edit while watching the jello wrestling).

* Got to be Trauma Boy a lot this weekend. One of my first roles was as one of a pair (along with ladysprite) of subjects of cruel genetic experiments that resulted in them becoming strange, half-bird people. The person running the scene went all-out, and had the very talented Pixel actually design and build us wings, which extended and retracted with the pull of a cord.



This character ended up writhing on the ground, having been attacked with some sort of biochemical agent that was basically the setup for a chem puzzle the players would have to solve to save him. I have no idea what that puzzle involved because I was preoccupied with what started as screaming in pain, but quickly changed (at least, this is what I was going for) to the sobbing of a terrified boy who'd been manipulated and abused by the lab techs all his life, and whose defences the pain of the attack had finally torn down.

To be honest, I was surprised by how intense the expression was, and even moreso by how cathartic it felt. Suffice it to say that after the last few of weeks, spending some time sobbing and screeching on the floor felt remarkably good, and once I started it was like a switch got flipped and a lot of my own real, if vague, emotions began to mix with the "acted" emotions and there was this great sense of release. I lost myself in it completely, unusually un-self-concious (though that was assisted by knowing that what I was doing was socially acceptable, given the venue). It was quite amazing.

Later that day I played a knight who had been captured by "The Lady of the Lake", who was in fact a physicist who had been driven mad by a gun that had a piece of the angel of death in it, which allowed her to control reality near her lake. Welcome to Threads. The basic idea was that he was being slowly eaten by the Lady and her cannibal followers/worshipers, but kept alive by her powers. Fun! I got to have my first go at putting on "hi, I am grievously wounded" makeup, and I am very annoyed that I forgot to take a photo because I think I did a damn good job of it. Anyway, I got myself as disturbingly made-up as I could and, alternating between cackles and sobs, tried to be as creepily pathetic as possible. By all accounts this was effictive (one of the players said she was considering putting me out of my misery at at least one point-- win?), so I'm pretty happy with myself, and again the really dark roles seemed partcularly cathartic to me, so I feel like it also helped me de-stress a bit. It was great fun conspiring with Anandi, who wrote the scene and played the Lady, and with whom I met to try and figure out what the character's purpose in the scene was (answer: be creepy), and come up with things to do to add to the... ambience for the playerss. I'm quite proud of one bit in particular that I came up with: On the way to the scene I grabbed a prop knife, which Anandi hid so that at one point she could produce it and ask me to offer our guests some refreshment, at which point I would mime slitting my wrists and say "The lady spared me this morning, so I would have plenty for you *cackle cackle sob*". It went off perfectly and I think it had the desired effect. =:)

This, I'm finding, is one of the main things I like about casting. I enjoy the challenge of being given a character and a role within a scene to fulfill, and then having to figure out not just how to do the character, but how best to identify and serve his purpose in the scene. Is he there to add to a particular element of the "feel" of the scene by evoking an emotion in the players? To give the players information? To force them, actively or passively, toward some particular course of action? For most roles this poses an interesting puzzle that allows for some creative problem-solving as well as good-old-acting. Playing as a player poses similar challenges, but there's something about being able to go in knowing that little bit more about the framework within which I'm working that makes things more enjoyable for me.

Ok, that's all I've got for now (tune in next time for the afore-mentioned RP-conundrum about which I'd like to see what y'all think), except to point out to those who haven't played in it that while Threads does have adult themes and can get very dark, it's not all like the scenes i described-- there's lots of being silly with fun people to compliment the zomgtehdramuh RP.

It's also always in need of NPCs hint hint =;)

Comments

[ladysprite.livejournal.com]

Welcome to the addictive joy of deeply angsty RP. :) It's not something I love every day or in every scene, but when it's what you need, it really can be an amazing experience, both as a character and a player.

I had a lot of fun working with you in the Avian scene, and I'm glad it was a good scene for you too....

[laurion]

Oh yeah, when I have the time to think about a character, and come up with that extra little piece or nugget that seals the deal, and brings it to life... (The wings, the sobbing, the knife, the well delivered creepy line are all good examples of those little gems...) it can be so delicious and so rewarding. It's more than just costuming or getting into character, it's about selling it, or making a more visceral impact. It's either easy to do or very hard to do when you create the character (either you already are so familiar with the character or you are playing an avatar of yourself). There is definitely a challenge though when someone else creates the character and hands it off to you.

[usernamenumber.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... "an avatar of yourself". I'd never thought of self-written characters like that. Or rather, I have, but never in those words, which work well. That approach to character-design has always somehow felt... self-indulgent? Or maybe just "like cheating", to me, though I suspect that that's a knee-jerk reaction that upon analysis will not have much to it. Someone (rigel?) once described the process of building a character as taking an aspect of your personality and playing with turning that up to 11. That intrigues me, but I always worry about the trap of ending up playing "Brad if he was always hyper", or "Brad with less of a brain/mouth filter"... I'm not sure even sure why that strikes me as a "trap", but it does. I think my mind draws a pretty hard distinction between "being yourself, but different" and "acting", though again I make no assertions about how realistic or worthwhile making such a distinction is.

Certainly bears further thinking-about.

[laurion]

It is a bit self-indulgent perhaps, or it could be cheating, or it could be laziness, or it could just be someone who is more interested in puzzle and problem solving, combat and mechanics, and not so strong on acting/role playing aspects. Or it could be, as you say, someone exploring themselves indirectly or directly. Any number of reasons.

But yeah, I always worry about playing 'myself'. Either because I feel I'm not doing the role justice, or that myself is too boring and mundane (I can be me anytime...), or because I worry about setting goals above character, etc.

[truthspeaker.livejournal.com]

"taking an aspect of your personality and playing with turning that up to 11"

Alternatively, you can experiment with being someone you're not. (I've really enjoyed playing the assertive, snarky, take-charge kind of guy.)

"a gun that had a piece of the angel of death in it"

I have a copy of a video game with that item. I kid you not.