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School of Seven Virtues finale writeup
Oct. 16th, 2012 09:45 amLast weekend was the final installment of a 3ish year long live action roleplaying campaign called The School of Seven Virtues. LARP is not always the most well-regarded of hobbies, but this really reminded me what I get from it, and specifically what I get from NPCing long campaigns.
For the uninitiated, NPC means "non-player character". Most people play "player characters", or PCs, the stars of the show; but no good show is complete without a supporting cast, and that's where the NPCs come in. Being an NPC means playing a whole host of roles, from random villagers to major villains, all of whom are there to help tell the game's story and add flavor to the world for the players; and that's one of the main things I like about NPCing: there's a peculiar but pleasant sense of purpose in, on one level, playing a character as "real" as any other in the game, but on another level knowing that you are secretly the Hand of God (aka the game's writers). Your character always exists for a reason, and there's a great sense of accomplishment when you play an NPC role well enough to know you really helped bring an imaginary world alive for someone.
To give you a sense of the size of this event, the final installment of 7V had about 55 NPCs and about 80 PCs, all living in the woods and playing make-believe together for a weekend. If memory serves it was at least the 10th such installment of the game since it started in 2010, and they've all been about that size. It's pretty amazing, and there is nothing quite like walking into the combination backstage/green room where all the NPCs live, colloquially known as "Monster Camp", for the first time. It's a place of constant activity: at any given time there are people getting made up as everything from wounded soldiers to half-animals, rummaging around for costume pieces, checking in with scene writers to make sure everyone knows what they're about to do to/for some unsuspecting players, and occasionally even eating and sleeping. All this is happening all at once, round the clock. In my experience the hours between 6am and 9am are the only ones during which the majority of the people in Monster Camp are all just sleeping, finally completely exhausted.
But I could ramble on and on about this sort of thing forever. Let's get to something specific; I want to write a bit about how the final scene of The School of Seven Virtues went down, lest anyone think this sort of game is just about running around in the woods hitting one another with foam swords.
First, we ran around in the woods, hitting one another with foam swords.
What? It's fun!
But there's more (in fact one of the things I really liked about 7V was the emphasis on roleplay vs just combat).
By Sunday afternoon the last of two Epic Final Battles had just ended, finally ridding the world of an enemy it had taken most of the campaign for the PCs just to learn how to fight. One has to appreciate that at this point the campaign has totalled about 24 *days* of gametime spread over almost 3 years worth of events, during which hudreds of characters have lived and, in many cases, died. For the final battle, the NPCs split into two groups: about 2/3 played the big, bad villains of the climactic fight, and the rest played the spirits of NPCs who had died over the course of the campaign: friends, relatives, and spouses all of whom appeared to aid the PCs in their time of need. There were tearful reunions, then a big fight, and then the best ending of a game I've ever seen.
See, in the game world the dead are shepherded to the afterlife by mysterious figures called the Lantern Bearers. After the fight, those of us who'd played badguys in the fight ran back to monster camp and changed into Lantern Bearer costumes (the PCs had no notion that any of this was going to happen). Now, one of the chief NPCs and writers for the game is also a composer, and he wrote a song for the event, a lovely four-part choral piece about heroism, love, and never being truly alone. We rehearsed it several times in Monster Camp, and had it sounding pretty damn good by the end, if I do say so myself.
The PCs were still reeling from their victory and the bittersweet knowledge that their reunions with loved ones couldn't last forever, when they noticed our hooded, masked figures in the distance. As we approached, we began to sing, first the sopranos, then the basses, then the altos, and the tenors. With each verse the number of voices grew, and as we sang, the spirits among the PCs all joined in as well, one by one until, still singing, they left the PCs and walked over to join the Lantern Bearers. Then we reached the final chorus, which incorporated another song that had been used in a previous game, during which many of the PCs had learned it, so finally they were able to join in, and we all stood there on the field, singing. By the time the last notes had faded, and Melissa, the woman who'd made it all happen, said "And... that's game", there was literally not a dry eye there. I don't know if I'm doing the moment justice here in writing, but I'm choking up all over again just thinking about it.
I've only experienced the end of a multi-year campaign twice now, but both times it's been one of the most satisfying and moving fiction-based experiences I've ever had. There's just nothing quite like investing that much time and effort into a creative project and have it pay off in moments of beautiful, cathartic drama, followed by the knowledge that you've all just turned the final page of a book you wrote together. Everyone applauded, everyone hugged, and most of us spent a loooong time cleaning up a very messy campsite together. Everything hurt. Everything still hurts. But it was so, so worth it.
Edit: Oooh, and here's the behind-the-scenes story from the Melissa herself!
...and the good news is, there's more! Not more 7V, but several people involved with it are going to be starting new campaigns soon, so I'll end with a few plugs:
- Cottington Woods: A dark fairy tale setting (this is the one I'll be playing in by default)
- Shadows of Amun: Horror adventure in 1918 Egypt
- Invictus: Supernatural intrigue in ancient Rome
For the uninitiated, NPC means "non-player character". Most people play "player characters", or PCs, the stars of the show; but no good show is complete without a supporting cast, and that's where the NPCs come in. Being an NPC means playing a whole host of roles, from random villagers to major villains, all of whom are there to help tell the game's story and add flavor to the world for the players; and that's one of the main things I like about NPCing: there's a peculiar but pleasant sense of purpose in, on one level, playing a character as "real" as any other in the game, but on another level knowing that you are secretly the Hand of God (aka the game's writers). Your character always exists for a reason, and there's a great sense of accomplishment when you play an NPC role well enough to know you really helped bring an imaginary world alive for someone.
To give you a sense of the size of this event, the final installment of 7V had about 55 NPCs and about 80 PCs, all living in the woods and playing make-believe together for a weekend. If memory serves it was at least the 10th such installment of the game since it started in 2010, and they've all been about that size. It's pretty amazing, and there is nothing quite like walking into the combination backstage/green room where all the NPCs live, colloquially known as "Monster Camp", for the first time. It's a place of constant activity: at any given time there are people getting made up as everything from wounded soldiers to half-animals, rummaging around for costume pieces, checking in with scene writers to make sure everyone knows what they're about to do to/for some unsuspecting players, and occasionally even eating and sleeping. All this is happening all at once, round the clock. In my experience the hours between 6am and 9am are the only ones during which the majority of the people in Monster Camp are all just sleeping, finally completely exhausted.
But I could ramble on and on about this sort of thing forever. Let's get to something specific; I want to write a bit about how the final scene of The School of Seven Virtues went down, lest anyone think this sort of game is just about running around in the woods hitting one another with foam swords.
First, we ran around in the woods, hitting one another with foam swords.
What? It's fun!
But there's more (in fact one of the things I really liked about 7V was the emphasis on roleplay vs just combat).
By Sunday afternoon the last of two Epic Final Battles had just ended, finally ridding the world of an enemy it had taken most of the campaign for the PCs just to learn how to fight. One has to appreciate that at this point the campaign has totalled about 24 *days* of gametime spread over almost 3 years worth of events, during which hudreds of characters have lived and, in many cases, died. For the final battle, the NPCs split into two groups: about 2/3 played the big, bad villains of the climactic fight, and the rest played the spirits of NPCs who had died over the course of the campaign: friends, relatives, and spouses all of whom appeared to aid the PCs in their time of need. There were tearful reunions, then a big fight, and then the best ending of a game I've ever seen.
See, in the game world the dead are shepherded to the afterlife by mysterious figures called the Lantern Bearers. After the fight, those of us who'd played badguys in the fight ran back to monster camp and changed into Lantern Bearer costumes (the PCs had no notion that any of this was going to happen). Now, one of the chief NPCs and writers for the game is also a composer, and he wrote a song for the event, a lovely four-part choral piece about heroism, love, and never being truly alone. We rehearsed it several times in Monster Camp, and had it sounding pretty damn good by the end, if I do say so myself.
The PCs were still reeling from their victory and the bittersweet knowledge that their reunions with loved ones couldn't last forever, when they noticed our hooded, masked figures in the distance. As we approached, we began to sing, first the sopranos, then the basses, then the altos, and the tenors. With each verse the number of voices grew, and as we sang, the spirits among the PCs all joined in as well, one by one until, still singing, they left the PCs and walked over to join the Lantern Bearers. Then we reached the final chorus, which incorporated another song that had been used in a previous game, during which many of the PCs had learned it, so finally they were able to join in, and we all stood there on the field, singing. By the time the last notes had faded, and Melissa, the woman who'd made it all happen, said "And... that's game", there was literally not a dry eye there. I don't know if I'm doing the moment justice here in writing, but I'm choking up all over again just thinking about it.
I've only experienced the end of a multi-year campaign twice now, but both times it's been one of the most satisfying and moving fiction-based experiences I've ever had. There's just nothing quite like investing that much time and effort into a creative project and have it pay off in moments of beautiful, cathartic drama, followed by the knowledge that you've all just turned the final page of a book you wrote together. Everyone applauded, everyone hugged, and most of us spent a loooong time cleaning up a very messy campsite together. Everything hurt. Everything still hurts. But it was so, so worth it.
Edit: Oooh, and here's the behind-the-scenes story from the Melissa herself!
...and the good news is, there's more! Not more 7V, but several people involved with it are going to be starting new campaigns soon, so I'll end with a few plugs:
- Cottington Woods: A dark fairy tale setting (this is the one I'll be playing in by default)
- Shadows of Amun: Horror adventure in 1918 Egypt
- Invictus: Supernatural intrigue in ancient Rome
