Seven Virtues, Game One
Mar. 28th, 2010 05:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
usernamenumberTrying to continue posting a little about the bigger games I play in (though I still haven't written up the final two games of Threads of Damocles, Season 3-- short version: awesome. Dirk was a really interesting character that gave me some great RP experiences, and left on a trajectory where, hey, maybe he could come back some time).
Anyway, "Seven Virtues" is my first real boffer campaign. Threads had some light boffer scenes, but wasn't governed by that kind of (or really any) system overall. The drive up was interesting because the guy I got a ride with had been playing in NERO and Accelerant boffer campaigns for about 15 years, but wasn't familiar with theater-style larps at all, so we spent the drive having this weird cultural exchange, wherein two very experienced players took turns asking total noob questions about each others' styles.
This is something that never ceases to amaze me about the local larp scene. I think of myself as someone who has a lot of experience, is well-known, and knows a lot of people in the scene; not just MA, but in NY and the mid-atlantic area as well. But I have to keep reminding myself that what I really mean by that is "in the theater-style scene". There are all of these large-ish groups out here, but they all exist in bubbles with what seems to be very little interaction. That the scene can support this is really cool, and indicative of the high level of interest in the hobby out here, but it's also a little sad that the sub-scenes are so disconnected.
...which brings me to my interest in 7V. It's an Accelerant game in which a fair number of people I know from the theater-style scene were playing. To be fair, the same could be said of Endgame, but the timing worked out better for 7V, and the latter was able to promise me more RP roles than combat-mooking, which is pretty much a requirement for any game I'm going to spend a nontrivial amount of time or effort on.
Anyway, the basic premise of the game is that there is an institution called The School Of Seven Virtues. Think "high-fantasy Hogwarts for grownups" if you like, though I suspect that the game's creators will wince if you do. The school once taught scholars and heroes, but the track of heroic training has been shut down for decades, since the world has kind of chilled out and become a relatively pleasant place of late. But then along comes The Ancient Enemy, Banished by Heroes of Legend in Days of Yore But Returned Again To Wreak Havoc Upon the Land, etc etc, and the path of the hero has been re-opened to train those with the potential to drive them back. Most of the PCs are new students in that track, seeking achievement in some combination of the virtues: Wisdom, Selflessness, Compassion, Honor, Courage, Grace and Wholeness. The first game was the orientation for new students which, conveniently, also served as an effective orientation for the players to the way the school worked.
The game started late, around 1:30p, and ended even later, around 2a, but was quite worth it. I was really flattered that the people running the game, none of whom actually knew me, were willing to take me at my word that I could handle non-trivial RP roles, and enjoyed playing more on the theatrical side than the combat side. This brings me to this post's Thing I Learned About Myself as A Roleplayer: Many of the roles I got were of a favorite type of mine, though I'd not been able to articulate it as such before: ill-defined, but with a compelling core of interesting possibilities. It's kind of like something![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
londo once said about being cast in theater-style games, which I think he attributed to elenuial: "Give me the shortest or the longest character description, and I'll probably have a great time".
So, a bit about the characters I did:
(this got reeeeally long, because I ended up summarizing the characters as much for my own reference when I need to use them next as anything else, so I'm lj-cutting them)
Sir Ulric Lancashire, legendary badass
Really all I was given about this guy was that he was the strategist of The Company of the Rose, basically the last great adventuring party to graduate from 7V before the path of heroes shut down. The idea was to show up with the surviving members of the company, be Heroic, Charismatic and Awesome during a meet-and-greet with the students, give a stirring inspirational speech, and then be found murdered in my room, setting off a mystery subplot. Really the best parts of this character happened before the game, when I and the other members of the company got together and, after going around frantically trying to memorize each others' character names and personalities, spent some time coming up with war stories about how we defeated The Gorgon of Smoky Crag, outsmarted Esmeralda The Bandit Queen, etc (sadly, for all that effort we never actually got a chance to tell any of them to the students! Sadface!), and generally how we would roleplay of of each other ("ok, you sound like the charming swashbuckler archetype, and I think I'm more of the straight-up Mr. Lawful Good archetype, so how about we have some sort of friendly-rivalry banter thing going on..."). As I've said before, to me, the heart of larp is grownups playing make-believe, and I had a fun time doing that, even before we got out there and RPd. That said, my favorite part of this role was probably the costume. Suffice it to say, another thing I learned about myself is: leggings + doublet + cape = hot Brad is hot, if I do say so myself. ;) Other highlights include spending about 15 minutes lying face-down in a pool of stage-blood waiting for someone to find me (at one point a GM walked in, did a double-take and said "geez, you're hardcore", but hey, these boffer-games are supposed to be all no-breaking-character-super-duper-wysiwig, right?)... only to hear the PCs finally arrive... and go to the wrong room. Fortunately they figured it out and found me pretty quickly, but those were a worrisome few seconds. :)
Thaleus DeRandt, cursed refugee
This is a great example of an NPC that grows into something much more than was originally conceived.
See, when the Big Bads returned, they did so in a country called Torheim, and basically trashed the place. One of the nasty things about said Big Bads is that they don't just kill people, they turn them into zombie-like puppets called Consumed, who do their dirty-work for them. Or at least, they try to. If a person is particularly strong-willed, that person becomes Touched instead. Being Touched is a good example of "Good for you, but...". They are by definition people vehemently opposed to the Big Bads, but the enemy still has gotten hooks into them. They invade their dreams, and constantly pull at them to give in. Eventually they do, and when that happens they become Fallen. Fallen are bad. Basically, the strength of will that kept them from becoming consumed in the first place rubber-bands back and now they become nigh-undefeatable uber-minions of the Big Bads. What to do with people who are Touched is one of the central ethical dilemmas in the game world.
That brings us to poor Thaleus. What I had to go on for him was that he'd been in the Torheim military, but retired five years ago due to the injury of my choice (I decided to make him lame because I have a good walking stick and it's a good character piece). When the attack happened, he tried to fight, but was no help due to his injury, so he was tasked with getting a group of civilians (which I later decided included family members of his) out of the city. During this process he acquired some information it would be useful for the PCs to have, but then blacked out and awoke on a road outside the now-overrun city, bearing the mark that identified him as Touched (on his ankle, so he had the option to hide it). This led to months of running through the woods, barely surviving, hiding from roaming bands of Consumed, and grouping up with other refugees, until they discovered that he was touched, and most wanted nothing to do with him, despite the fact that he could use his connection to the Consumed to anticipate and avoid them.
So, that's all background. The scene began with six refugees going out into the woods and hiding, after which about 18 Consumed were sent, followed by PCs who had been alerted of the situation and sent on a rescue mission (eventually-- the scariest part was knowing out-of-character how long it takes to actually organize players for a scene like this). Our object was to hide and flee (at which point I realized that making my character lame was perhaps not the best strategic move, but too late to change now, and he's a tough mutha anyway), with a real chance of some or all of us getting killed before the PCs were able to mount their rescue.
Fortunately it all worked out, and after being discovered, scattering, and fleeing like rabbits to other hiding places, we made contact with the PCs, who made short work of the Consumed and brought us back to the school, which was where the interesting stuff happened. Of course, one of the other NPCs was given a character who knew I was Touched, and who'd barely survived when another group of refugees was wiped out by a Touched member who became Fallen overnight. She'd been instructed to try to talk the PCs into offing me then and there. Of course that didn't happen, but she made a compelling case, and the fact is that poor Thaleus is a ticking time-bomb, and he knows it, but he's too damn proud and stubborn to fall on his own sword, let alone let some kid who owes him her life do the favor for him.... and yet, I decided, he knows he'd probably be advocating the same course of action if their roles were reversed, so that provided an interesting little angstnugget to chew on
Upon returning to the school, he was told that he would be kept safe, and that there were even students there who were Touched. After all, where better for the time-bombs to stay than a place surrounded by those with the best chance of taking them down should they Fall? A morbid but compelling argument. At this point, all of the character background was, well, background, and he'd delivered the information the character'd been created to deliver, so I was basically free to go wherever made sense with him, so I asked if I arranged to meet with some of the Touched students, some of whom had not made their status public and outed themselves only to him. Those kinds of conversations provide the ideal NPC experience, IMO, because they fulfill the purpose of an NPC role, enhancing the PC experience by serving as a catalyst for roleplay they wouldn't otherwise have, while also providing a compelling and interesting experience to the person playing the NPC.
Through these conversations, he learned about experimental, and in some cases dangerous, rituals that the students are working on to try to halt or remove the Touch. In addition to out-of-character seeing this as another catalyst opportunity, I felt Thaleus was already bordering on fanatical in his wish to see the Touch and its creators eradicated. He also saw now that the safest place for him to be was at the school, and his pride wouldn't let him just be a layabout, but what could he do? Even without his injury, Thaleus wasn't nearly at the level of the students who now surrounded him, so, he concluded, if being a lab rat was the best way he could serve as a tool against the enemy, then so be it. Even if he died, he figured he'd already cheated death so many times, he couldn't blame the reaper coming for him now, and besides, anything would be better than Falling.
So we left that game with at least two PCs eager to experiment on him, and Thaleus eager to get on with it or over with, whichever was going to happen. I wish we'd had time to actually resolve some of that during the game, but there wasn't time, and given that I may be locked inzrealm's basement for a completely different larp during most of the first weekend-long 7V game, we now have some irritating logistical issues to sort out. Ah well. In any case, I am eager to bring him back and see where that goes.
Cragga Illius, ornery teacher of Honor
The origin of this characterization is kinda odd. I wasn't given a character per se for this one, just a set of roleplay-scenarios to put students who were interested in the Honor virtue through, each of which put forward an ethical dilemma with no clear solution, to be discussed after playing through the scenario.
So basically, I was told what to do, but not whom to do it as. This had me a bit stumped, because while I'm good at taking a concept and fleshing it out, the reason I rarely write my own characters is that I'm not very good at coming up with the initial concept. But as I was playing around with costuming the day before game (playing dress-up until 2am FTW!), I found this... impressive fake beard I'd once used for a Hagrid costume many halloweens before. I put the beard on, let my hair down, put on a heavy cloak, looked in the mirror, and there looking back at me was this weird cross between a wizard and a grizzled hermit. I saw that image and really liked it, but it just didn't fit with the stoic warrior archetype one typically associates with "honor", so I experimented a bit with throwing that stereotype out the window, letting the character speak and seeing what he might have to say about being honorable. I played around with voices and personalities, alone in my room ranting to myself in a strange costume, and ended up with a weird mashup of Grizzly Addams, Leaornard McCoy and Greg House.
And yet, going into game, I felt like I had only the vaguest idea what I was going to do with this character. Part of the problem with playing a character who is an authority on a subject is that you have to be able to speak authotitatively on the subject at hand, and how does one do that with a concept like "honor", especially with an unusual character, meaning I couldn't just fall back on the easy "well, how would Worf answer this question?" solution. I went into the scene with basically the following:
- He teaches because it's important, but he doesn't really like people. Whenever he doesn't have to be at the school, he's off living in a cave, alone, self-sufficient and accountable only to himself, which he believes is the only environment in which one can come to understand one's self well enough to really understand honor.
- I knew he'd be abrasive and un-friendly, but wasn't entirely sure how that would actually manifest
- I decided that rather than go straight into the roleplay vignettes, he'd decided that that was stupid and would first ask everyone to define what they mean by "Honor" in the first place, and wing it from there.
- A name, which I promptly forgot and ended up having to make up on the spot during the scene
As it turns out, though, this was one of those situations where the character really came together on-the-fly once roleplay started. Because of a timing issue, the Honor orientation began before I and one of the other teacher NPCs were ready, so I got to introduce the character's personality by bursting in on the already-in-progress orientation muttering about how "I go on sabbatical and return but five minutes later than that ever-changing, damnable schedule dictates and you lot start without me? What is wrong with you people?". Somehow the person in charge still saw fit to give me some students to take off and work with, and it was great, great fun. I was abusive, sarcastic, and condescending... and my "students" loved it. :) The best part is that we actually got somewhere philosophically. As planned I began by poo-pooing the official curriculum and asking them each to define "honor". Of course, each of their answers were along the lines of "doing what's right even when you don't benefit from it", and while listening to them, the follow-up question that cemented the final piece of my character's philosophy occurred to me: "Yes yes yes, all very predictable answers. "Right". "Wrong". "Good". "Bad"... Tell me, can any of you actually define this word that is central to the path you presume to walk in a way that doesn't rely on other, equally ambiguous, terms? One student immediately answered "no", earning and impressed look from Cragga and a comment on his confidence and audacity. The others struggled to do better but couldn't. And that was the key: The follow-up was a trick question because you can't define honor, at least according to Cragga, as anything less ambiguous than consistent adherence to a code, the definition of which is much less clear-cut (lawful evil is still lawful, after all). This led to a protracted philosophical discussion that had some actual meat to it, wherein I think I did a good job of actually giving the students/PCs some novel perspectives on some of the standard heroic fantasy tropes in the game.
It's going to take a lot of work to flesh out Cragga, his philosophy and his code to bring him back, but being a teacher it makes sense for that to happen, and I'm looking forward to doing so.
Bobkayak, extra-planar seeker of joy and novelty
In 7V there is this place called the Aether. It's the place where the Weird Things live, populated by fairy tales and other oddities. The scene took place in what was effectively a bar in the Aether with a strictly-enforced policy against violence, where "you could meet your worst enemy for a drink, should you be invited". Some PCs received invites over the course of the game, and the scene was basically used as a way to introduce players tot he Aether and its denizens. I was cast as a member of the Court of the Morning, which is a place within the Aether that is all about newness and joy, ruled over by a being called "The Laughing Lord". The only things I was given to go on were that I should be "boisterous", "otherworldly", interested in "anyone who seems interesting", and seek out some PCs who had done a ritual honoring the Laughing Lord and to offer them his blessing.
The scene started around 11:30p and I was dead tired. To be honest, I really doubted I was up for a high-energy role, but as often proves the case in situations like this, once I got going the characterization started fueling its self, and hey, for a character like this, a little sleepdep can only help.
I got myself done up in an elaborate purple robe and gold mask, then worked glowesticks into my hair, which I put up in little buns at odd angles on either side of my head, and had decided ahead of time that the characterization would involve lots of strange physical positions, invasions of personal space, and weird vocal pitches. To put another way for those familiar with BB1938, give Wordsworth Willie a double-espresso dosed with lsd and you'd just about got it. ;)
Had lots of fun banter with the other NPCs as we waited for the PCs to arrive, the idea being to have the party in full-swing when the players showed up. It was during these conversations that Bobkayak got his name. Being Aetherial, he'd never really needed a name as such before, so when someone asked his name, he asked what seemed fitting. One person said "Bob", another "Kayak", and the rest is history. Once the PCs arrived, I had even more fun RPing with
Anyway, "Seven Virtues" is my first real boffer campaign. Threads had some light boffer scenes, but wasn't governed by that kind of (or really any) system overall. The drive up was interesting because the guy I got a ride with had been playing in NERO and Accelerant boffer campaigns for about 15 years, but wasn't familiar with theater-style larps at all, so we spent the drive having this weird cultural exchange, wherein two very experienced players took turns asking total noob questions about each others' styles.
This is something that never ceases to amaze me about the local larp scene. I think of myself as someone who has a lot of experience, is well-known, and knows a lot of people in the scene; not just MA, but in NY and the mid-atlantic area as well. But I have to keep reminding myself that what I really mean by that is "in the theater-style scene". There are all of these large-ish groups out here, but they all exist in bubbles with what seems to be very little interaction. That the scene can support this is really cool, and indicative of the high level of interest in the hobby out here, but it's also a little sad that the sub-scenes are so disconnected.
...which brings me to my interest in 7V. It's an Accelerant game in which a fair number of people I know from the theater-style scene were playing. To be fair, the same could be said of Endgame, but the timing worked out better for 7V, and the latter was able to promise me more RP roles than combat-mooking, which is pretty much a requirement for any game I'm going to spend a nontrivial amount of time or effort on.
Anyway, the basic premise of the game is that there is an institution called The School Of Seven Virtues. Think "high-fantasy Hogwarts for grownups" if you like, though I suspect that the game's creators will wince if you do. The school once taught scholars and heroes, but the track of heroic training has been shut down for decades, since the world has kind of chilled out and become a relatively pleasant place of late. But then along comes The Ancient Enemy, Banished by Heroes of Legend in Days of Yore But Returned Again To Wreak Havoc Upon the Land, etc etc, and the path of the hero has been re-opened to train those with the potential to drive them back. Most of the PCs are new students in that track, seeking achievement in some combination of the virtues: Wisdom, Selflessness, Compassion, Honor, Courage, Grace and Wholeness. The first game was the orientation for new students which, conveniently, also served as an effective orientation for the players to the way the school worked.
The game started late, around 1:30p, and ended even later, around 2a, but was quite worth it. I was really flattered that the people running the game, none of whom actually knew me, were willing to take me at my word that I could handle non-trivial RP roles, and enjoyed playing more on the theatrical side than the combat side. This brings me to this post's Thing I Learned About Myself as A Roleplayer: Many of the roles I got were of a favorite type of mine, though I'd not been able to articulate it as such before: ill-defined, but with a compelling core of interesting possibilities. It's kind of like something
londo once said about being cast in theater-style games, which I think he attributed to elenuial: "Give me the shortest or the longest character description, and I'll probably have a great time". So, a bit about the characters I did:
(this got reeeeally long, because I ended up summarizing the characters as much for my own reference when I need to use them next as anything else, so I'm lj-cutting them)
Sir Ulric Lancashire, legendary badass
Really all I was given about this guy was that he was the strategist of The Company of the Rose, basically the last great adventuring party to graduate from 7V before the path of heroes shut down. The idea was to show up with the surviving members of the company, be Heroic, Charismatic and Awesome during a meet-and-greet with the students, give a stirring inspirational speech, and then be found murdered in my room, setting off a mystery subplot. Really the best parts of this character happened before the game, when I and the other members of the company got together and, after going around frantically trying to memorize each others' character names and personalities, spent some time coming up with war stories about how we defeated The Gorgon of Smoky Crag, outsmarted Esmeralda The Bandit Queen, etc (sadly, for all that effort we never actually got a chance to tell any of them to the students! Sadface!), and generally how we would roleplay of of each other ("ok, you sound like the charming swashbuckler archetype, and I think I'm more of the straight-up Mr. Lawful Good archetype, so how about we have some sort of friendly-rivalry banter thing going on..."). As I've said before, to me, the heart of larp is grownups playing make-believe, and I had a fun time doing that, even before we got out there and RPd. That said, my favorite part of this role was probably the costume. Suffice it to say, another thing I learned about myself is: leggings + doublet + cape = hot Brad is hot, if I do say so myself. ;) Other highlights include spending about 15 minutes lying face-down in a pool of stage-blood waiting for someone to find me (at one point a GM walked in, did a double-take and said "geez, you're hardcore", but hey, these boffer-games are supposed to be all no-breaking-character-super-duper-wysiwig, right?)... only to hear the PCs finally arrive... and go to the wrong room. Fortunately they figured it out and found me pretty quickly, but those were a worrisome few seconds. :)
Thaleus DeRandt, cursed refugee
This is a great example of an NPC that grows into something much more than was originally conceived.
See, when the Big Bads returned, they did so in a country called Torheim, and basically trashed the place. One of the nasty things about said Big Bads is that they don't just kill people, they turn them into zombie-like puppets called Consumed, who do their dirty-work for them. Or at least, they try to. If a person is particularly strong-willed, that person becomes Touched instead. Being Touched is a good example of "Good for you, but...". They are by definition people vehemently opposed to the Big Bads, but the enemy still has gotten hooks into them. They invade their dreams, and constantly pull at them to give in. Eventually they do, and when that happens they become Fallen. Fallen are bad. Basically, the strength of will that kept them from becoming consumed in the first place rubber-bands back and now they become nigh-undefeatable uber-minions of the Big Bads. What to do with people who are Touched is one of the central ethical dilemmas in the game world.
That brings us to poor Thaleus. What I had to go on for him was that he'd been in the Torheim military, but retired five years ago due to the injury of my choice (I decided to make him lame because I have a good walking stick and it's a good character piece). When the attack happened, he tried to fight, but was no help due to his injury, so he was tasked with getting a group of civilians (which I later decided included family members of his) out of the city. During this process he acquired some information it would be useful for the PCs to have, but then blacked out and awoke on a road outside the now-overrun city, bearing the mark that identified him as Touched (on his ankle, so he had the option to hide it). This led to months of running through the woods, barely surviving, hiding from roaming bands of Consumed, and grouping up with other refugees, until they discovered that he was touched, and most wanted nothing to do with him, despite the fact that he could use his connection to the Consumed to anticipate and avoid them.
So, that's all background. The scene began with six refugees going out into the woods and hiding, after which about 18 Consumed were sent, followed by PCs who had been alerted of the situation and sent on a rescue mission (eventually-- the scariest part was knowing out-of-character how long it takes to actually organize players for a scene like this). Our object was to hide and flee (at which point I realized that making my character lame was perhaps not the best strategic move, but too late to change now, and he's a tough mutha anyway), with a real chance of some or all of us getting killed before the PCs were able to mount their rescue.
Fortunately it all worked out, and after being discovered, scattering, and fleeing like rabbits to other hiding places, we made contact with the PCs, who made short work of the Consumed and brought us back to the school, which was where the interesting stuff happened. Of course, one of the other NPCs was given a character who knew I was Touched, and who'd barely survived when another group of refugees was wiped out by a Touched member who became Fallen overnight. She'd been instructed to try to talk the PCs into offing me then and there. Of course that didn't happen, but she made a compelling case, and the fact is that poor Thaleus is a ticking time-bomb, and he knows it, but he's too damn proud and stubborn to fall on his own sword, let alone let some kid who owes him her life do the favor for him.... and yet, I decided, he knows he'd probably be advocating the same course of action if their roles were reversed, so that provided an interesting little angstnugget to chew on
Upon returning to the school, he was told that he would be kept safe, and that there were even students there who were Touched. After all, where better for the time-bombs to stay than a place surrounded by those with the best chance of taking them down should they Fall? A morbid but compelling argument. At this point, all of the character background was, well, background, and he'd delivered the information the character'd been created to deliver, so I was basically free to go wherever made sense with him, so I asked if I arranged to meet with some of the Touched students, some of whom had not made their status public and outed themselves only to him. Those kinds of conversations provide the ideal NPC experience, IMO, because they fulfill the purpose of an NPC role, enhancing the PC experience by serving as a catalyst for roleplay they wouldn't otherwise have, while also providing a compelling and interesting experience to the person playing the NPC.
Through these conversations, he learned about experimental, and in some cases dangerous, rituals that the students are working on to try to halt or remove the Touch. In addition to out-of-character seeing this as another catalyst opportunity, I felt Thaleus was already bordering on fanatical in his wish to see the Touch and its creators eradicated. He also saw now that the safest place for him to be was at the school, and his pride wouldn't let him just be a layabout, but what could he do? Even without his injury, Thaleus wasn't nearly at the level of the students who now surrounded him, so, he concluded, if being a lab rat was the best way he could serve as a tool against the enemy, then so be it. Even if he died, he figured he'd already cheated death so many times, he couldn't blame the reaper coming for him now, and besides, anything would be better than Falling.
So we left that game with at least two PCs eager to experiment on him, and Thaleus eager to get on with it or over with, whichever was going to happen. I wish we'd had time to actually resolve some of that during the game, but there wasn't time, and given that I may be locked in
zrealm's basement for a completely different larp during most of the first weekend-long 7V game, we now have some irritating logistical issues to sort out. Ah well. In any case, I am eager to bring him back and see where that goes. Cragga Illius, ornery teacher of Honor
The origin of this characterization is kinda odd. I wasn't given a character per se for this one, just a set of roleplay-scenarios to put students who were interested in the Honor virtue through, each of which put forward an ethical dilemma with no clear solution, to be discussed after playing through the scenario.
So basically, I was told what to do, but not whom to do it as. This had me a bit stumped, because while I'm good at taking a concept and fleshing it out, the reason I rarely write my own characters is that I'm not very good at coming up with the initial concept. But as I was playing around with costuming the day before game (playing dress-up until 2am FTW!), I found this... impressive fake beard I'd once used for a Hagrid costume many halloweens before. I put the beard on, let my hair down, put on a heavy cloak, looked in the mirror, and there looking back at me was this weird cross between a wizard and a grizzled hermit. I saw that image and really liked it, but it just didn't fit with the stoic warrior archetype one typically associates with "honor", so I experimented a bit with throwing that stereotype out the window, letting the character speak and seeing what he might have to say about being honorable. I played around with voices and personalities, alone in my room ranting to myself in a strange costume, and ended up with a weird mashup of Grizzly Addams, Leaornard McCoy and Greg House.
And yet, going into game, I felt like I had only the vaguest idea what I was going to do with this character. Part of the problem with playing a character who is an authority on a subject is that you have to be able to speak authotitatively on the subject at hand, and how does one do that with a concept like "honor", especially with an unusual character, meaning I couldn't just fall back on the easy "well, how would Worf answer this question?" solution. I went into the scene with basically the following:
- He teaches because it's important, but he doesn't really like people. Whenever he doesn't have to be at the school, he's off living in a cave, alone, self-sufficient and accountable only to himself, which he believes is the only environment in which one can come to understand one's self well enough to really understand honor.
- I knew he'd be abrasive and un-friendly, but wasn't entirely sure how that would actually manifest
- I decided that rather than go straight into the roleplay vignettes, he'd decided that that was stupid and would first ask everyone to define what they mean by "Honor" in the first place, and wing it from there.
- A name, which I promptly forgot and ended up having to make up on the spot during the scene
As it turns out, though, this was one of those situations where the character really came together on-the-fly once roleplay started. Because of a timing issue, the Honor orientation began before I and one of the other teacher NPCs were ready, so I got to introduce the character's personality by bursting in on the already-in-progress orientation muttering about how "I go on sabbatical and return but five minutes later than that ever-changing, damnable schedule dictates and you lot start without me? What is wrong with you people?". Somehow the person in charge still saw fit to give me some students to take off and work with, and it was great, great fun. I was abusive, sarcastic, and condescending... and my "students" loved it. :) The best part is that we actually got somewhere philosophically. As planned I began by poo-pooing the official curriculum and asking them each to define "honor". Of course, each of their answers were along the lines of "doing what's right even when you don't benefit from it", and while listening to them, the follow-up question that cemented the final piece of my character's philosophy occurred to me: "Yes yes yes, all very predictable answers. "Right". "Wrong". "Good". "Bad"... Tell me, can any of you actually define this word that is central to the path you presume to walk in a way that doesn't rely on other, equally ambiguous, terms? One student immediately answered "no", earning and impressed look from Cragga and a comment on his confidence and audacity. The others struggled to do better but couldn't. And that was the key: The follow-up was a trick question because you can't define honor, at least according to Cragga, as anything less ambiguous than consistent adherence to a code, the definition of which is much less clear-cut (lawful evil is still lawful, after all). This led to a protracted philosophical discussion that had some actual meat to it, wherein I think I did a good job of actually giving the students/PCs some novel perspectives on some of the standard heroic fantasy tropes in the game.
It's going to take a lot of work to flesh out Cragga, his philosophy and his code to bring him back, but being a teacher it makes sense for that to happen, and I'm looking forward to doing so.
Bobkayak, extra-planar seeker of joy and novelty
In 7V there is this place called the Aether. It's the place where the Weird Things live, populated by fairy tales and other oddities. The scene took place in what was effectively a bar in the Aether with a strictly-enforced policy against violence, where "you could meet your worst enemy for a drink, should you be invited". Some PCs received invites over the course of the game, and the scene was basically used as a way to introduce players tot he Aether and its denizens. I was cast as a member of the Court of the Morning, which is a place within the Aether that is all about newness and joy, ruled over by a being called "The Laughing Lord". The only things I was given to go on were that I should be "boisterous", "otherworldly", interested in "anyone who seems interesting", and seek out some PCs who had done a ritual honoring the Laughing Lord and to offer them his blessing.
The scene started around 11:30p and I was dead tired. To be honest, I really doubted I was up for a high-energy role, but as often proves the case in situations like this, once I got going the characterization started fueling its self, and hey, for a character like this, a little sleepdep can only help.
I got myself done up in an elaborate purple robe and gold mask, then worked glowesticks into my hair, which I put up in little buns at odd angles on either side of my head, and had decided ahead of time that the characterization would involve lots of strange physical positions, invasions of personal space, and weird vocal pitches. To put another way for those familiar with BB1938, give Wordsworth Willie a double-espresso dosed with lsd and you'd just about got it. ;)
Had lots of fun banter with the other NPCs as we waited for the PCs to arrive, the idea being to have the party in full-swing when the players showed up. It was during these conversations that Bobkayak got his name. Being Aetherial, he'd never really needed a name as such before, so when someone asked his name, he asked what seemed fitting. One person said "Bob", another "Kayak", and the rest is history. Once the PCs arrived, I had even more fun RPing with
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Trying to continue posting a little about the bigger games I play in (though I still haven't written up the final two games of Threads of Damocles, Season 3-- short version: awesome. Dirk was a really interesting character that gave me some great RP experiences, and left on a trajectory where, hey, maybe he could come back some time).
Anyway, <a href="http://www.carusoking.com/sevenvirtues/Seven_Virtues/Welcome.html">"Seven Virtues"</a> is my first real boffer campaign. Threads had some light boffer scenes, but wasn't governed by that kind of (or really any) system overall. The drive up was interesting because the guy I got a ride with had been playing in <a href="http://www.nerolarp.com/">NERO</a> and <a href="http://www.larp.com/madrigal/system.html">Accelerant</a> boffer campaigns for about 15 years, but wasn't familiar with theater-style larps at all, so we spent the drive having this weird cultural exchange, wherein two very experienced players took turns asking total noob questions about each others' styles.
This is something that never ceases to amaze me about the local larp scene. I think of myself as someone who has a lot of experience, is well-known, and knows a lot of people in the scene; not just MA, but in NY and the mid-atlantic area as well. But I have to keep reminding myself that what I really mean by that is "in the theater-style scene". There are all of these large-ish groups out here, but they all exist in bubbles with what seems to be very little interaction. That the scene can support this is really cool, and indicative of the high level of interest in the hobby out here, but it's also a little sad that the sub-scenes are so disconnected.
...which brings me to my interest in 7V. It's an Accelerant game in which a fair number of people I know from the theater-style scene were playing. To be fair, the same could be said of <a href="http://www.endgamelarp.com/">Endgame</a>, but the timing worked out better for 7V, and the latter was able to promise me more RP roles than combat-mooking, which is pretty much a requirement for any game I'm going to spend a nontrivial amount of time or effort on.
Anyway, the basic premise of the game is that there is an institution called The School Of Seven Virtues. Think "high-fantasy Hogwarts for grownups" if you like, though I suspect that the game's creators will wince if you do. The school once taught scholars and heroes, but the track of heroic training has been shut down for decades, since the world has kind of chilled out and become a relatively pleasant place of late. But then along comes The Ancient Enemy, Banished by Heroes of Legend in Days of Yore But Returned Again To Wreak Havoc Upon the Land, etc etc, and the path of the hero has been re-opened to train those with the potential to drive them back. Most of the PCs are new students in that track, seeking achievement in some combination of the virtues: Wisdom, Selflessness, Compassion, Honor, Courage, Grace and Wholeness. The first game was the orientation for new students which, conveniently, also served as an effective orientation for the players to the way the school worked.
The game started late, around 1:30p, and ended even later, around 2a, but was quite worth it. I was really flattered that the people running the game, none of whom actually knew me, were willing to take me at my word that I could handle non-trivial RP roles, and enjoyed playing more on the theatrical side than the combat side. This brings me to this post's Thing I Learned About Myself as A Roleplayer: Many of the roles I got were of a favorite type of mine, though I'd not been able to articulate it as such before: ill-defined, but with a compelling core of interesting possibilities. It's kind of like something <user site="livejournal.com" user="londo"> once said about being cast in theater-style games, which I think he attributed to <user site="livejournal.com" user="elenuial">: "Give me the shortest or the longest character description, and I'll probably have a great time".
So, a bit about the characters I did:
(this got reeeeally long, because I ended up summarizing the characters as much for my own reference when I need to use them next as anything else, so I'm lj-cutting them)
<lj-cut text="Sir Ulric Lancashire, legendary badass">Sir Ulric Lancashire, legendary badass
Really all I was given about this guy was that he was the strategist of The Company of the Rose, basically the last great adventuring party to graduate from 7V before the path of heroes shut down. The idea was to show up with the surviving members of the company, be Heroic, Charismatic and Awesome during a meet-and-greet with the students, give a stirring inspirational speech, and then be found murdered in my room, setting off a mystery subplot. Really the best parts of this character happened before the game, when I and the other members of the company got together and, after going around frantically trying to memorize each others' character names and personalities, spent some time coming up with war stories about how we defeated The Gorgon of Smoky Crag, outsmarted Esmeralda The Bandit Queen, etc (sadly, for all that effort we never actually got a chance to tell any of them to the students! Sadface!), and generally how we would roleplay of of each other ("ok, you sound like the charming swashbuckler archetype, and I think I'm more of the straight-up Mr. Lawful Good archetype, so how about we have some sort of friendly-rivalry banter thing going on..."). As I've said before, to me, the heart of larp is grownups playing make-believe, and I had a fun time doing that, even before we got out there and RPd. That said, my favorite part of this role was probably the costume. Suffice it to say, another thing I learned about myself is: leggings + doublet + cape = hot Brad is <i>hot</i>, if I do say so myself. ;) Other highlights include spending about 15 minutes lying face-down in a pool of stage-blood waiting for someone to find me (at one point a GM walked in, did a double-take and said "geez, you're hardcore", but hey, these boffer-games are supposed to be all no-breaking-character-super-duper-wysiwig, right?)... only to hear the PCs finally arrive... and go to the wrong room. Fortunately they figured it out and found me pretty quickly, but those were a worrisome few seconds. :)
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<lj-cut text="Thaleus DeRandt, cursed refugee">Thaleus DeRandt, cursed refugee
This is a great example of an NPC that grows into something much more than was originally conceived.
See, when the Big Bads returned, they did so in a country called Torheim, and basically trashed the place. One of the nasty things about said Big Bads is that they don't just kill people, they turn them into zombie-like puppets called Consumed, who do their dirty-work for them. Or at least, they try to. If a person is particularly strong-willed, that person becomes Touched instead. Being Touched is a good example of "Good for you, but...". They are by definition people vehemently opposed to the Big Bads, but the enemy still has gotten hooks into them. They invade their dreams, and constantly pull at them to give in. Eventually they do, and when that happens they become Fallen. Fallen are bad. Basically, the strength of will that kept them from becoming consumed in the first place rubber-bands back and now they become nigh-undefeatable uber-minions of the Big Bads. What to do with people who are Touched is one of the central ethical dilemmas in the game world.
That brings us to poor Thaleus. What I had to go on for him was that he'd been in the Torheim military, but retired five years ago due to the injury of my choice (I decided to make him lame because I have a good walking stick and it's a good character piece). When the attack happened, he tried to fight, but was no help due to his injury, so he was tasked with getting a group of civilians (which I later decided included family members of his) out of the city. During this process he acquired some information it would be useful for the PCs to have, but then blacked out and awoke on a road outside the now-overrun city, bearing the mark that identified him as Touched (on his ankle, so he had the option to hide it). This led to months of running through the woods, barely surviving, hiding from roaming bands of Consumed, and grouping up with other refugees, until they discovered that he was touched, and most wanted nothing to do with him, despite the fact that he could use his connection to the Consumed to anticipate and avoid them.
So, that's all background. The scene began with six refugees going out into the woods and hiding, after which about 18 Consumed were sent, followed by PCs who had been alerted of the situation and sent on a rescue mission (eventually-- the scariest part was knowing out-of-character how long it takes to actually organize players for a scene like this). Our object was to hide and flee (at which point I realized that making my character lame was perhaps not the best strategic move, but too late to change now, and he's a tough mutha anyway), with a real chance of some or all of us getting killed before the PCs were able to mount their rescue.
Fortunately it all worked out, and after being discovered, scattering, and fleeing like rabbits to other hiding places, we made contact with the PCs, who made short work of the Consumed and brought us back to the school, which was where the interesting stuff happened. Of course, one of the other NPCs was given a character who knew I was Touched, and who'd barely survived when another group of refugees was wiped out by a Touched member who became Fallen overnight. She'd been instructed to try to talk the PCs into offing me then and there. Of course that didn't happen, but she made a compelling case, and the fact is that poor Thaleus is a ticking time-bomb, and he knows it, but he's too damn proud and stubborn to fall on his own sword, let alone let some kid who owes him her life do the favor for him.... and yet, I decided, he knows he'd probably be advocating the same course of action if their roles were reversed, so that provided an interesting little angstnugget to chew on
Upon returning to the school, he was told that he would be kept safe, and that there were even students there who were Touched. After all, where better for the time-bombs to stay than a place surrounded by those with the best chance of taking them down should they Fall? A morbid but compelling argument. At this point, all of the character background was, well, background, and he'd delivered the information the character'd been created to deliver, so I was basically free to go wherever made sense with him, so I asked if I arranged to meet with some of the Touched students, some of whom had not made their status public and outed themselves only to him. Those kinds of conversations provide the ideal NPC experience, IMO, because they fulfill the purpose of an NPC role, enhancing the PC experience by serving as a catalyst for roleplay they wouldn't otherwise have, while also providing a compelling and interesting experience to the person playing the NPC.
Through these conversations, he learned about experimental, and in some cases dangerous, rituals that the students are working on to try to halt or remove the Touch. In addition to out-of-character seeing this as another catalyst opportunity, I felt Thaleus was already bordering on fanatical in his wish to see the Touch and its creators eradicated. He also saw now that the safest place for him to be was at the school, and his pride wouldn't let him just be a layabout, but what could he do? Even without his injury, Thaleus wasn't nearly at the level of the students who now surrounded him, so, he concluded, if being a lab rat was the best way he could serve as a tool against the enemy, then so be it. Even if he died, he figured he'd already cheated death so many times, he couldn't blame the reaper coming for him now, and besides, anything would be better than Falling.
So we left that game with at least two PCs eager to experiment on him, and Thaleus eager to get on with it or over with, whichever was going to happen. I wish we'd had time to actually resolve some of that during the game, but there wasn't time, and given that I may be locked in <user site="livejournal.com" user="zrealm">'s basement for a completely different larp during most of the first weekend-long 7V game, we now have some irritating logistical issues to sort out. Ah well. In any case, I am eager to bring him back and see where that goes.
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<lj-cut text="Cragga Illius, ornery teacher of Honor">Cragga Illius, ornery teacher of Honor
The origin of this characterization is kinda odd. I wasn't given a character per se for this one, just a set of roleplay-scenarios to put students who were interested in the Honor virtue through, each of which put forward an ethical dilemma with no clear solution, to be discussed after playing through the scenario.
So basically, I was told what to do, but not whom to do it as. This had me a bit stumped, because while I'm good at taking a concept and fleshing it out, the reason I rarely write my own characters is that I'm not very good at coming up with the initial concept. But as I was playing around with costuming the day before game (playing dress-up until 2am FTW!), I found this... impressive fake beard I'd once used for a Hagrid costume many halloweens before. I put the beard on, let my hair down, put on a heavy cloak, looked in the mirror, and there looking back at me was this weird cross between a wizard and a grizzled hermit. I saw that image and really liked it, but it just didn't fit with the stoic warrior archetype one typically associates with "honor", so I experimented a bit with throwing that stereotype out the window, letting the character speak and seeing what he might have to say about being honorable. I played around with voices and personalities, alone in my room ranting to myself in a strange costume, and ended up with a weird mashup of Grizzly Addams, Leaornard McCoy and Greg House.
And yet, going into game, I felt like I had only the vaguest idea what I was going to do with this character. Part of the problem with playing a character who is an authority on a subject is that you have to be able to speak authotitatively on the subject at hand, and how does one do that with a concept like "honor", especially with an unusual character, meaning I couldn't just fall back on the easy "well, how would Worf answer this question?" solution. I went into the scene with basically the following:
- He teaches because it's important, but he doesn't really like people. Whenever he doesn't have to be at the school, he's off living in a cave, alone, self-sufficient and accountable only to himself, which he believes is the only environment in which one can come to understand one's self well enough to really understand honor.
- I knew he'd be abrasive and un-friendly, but wasn't entirely sure how that would actually manifest
- I decided that rather than go straight into the roleplay vignettes, he'd decided that that was stupid and would first ask everyone to define what they mean by "Honor" in the first place, and wing it from there.
- A name, which I promptly forgot and ended up having to make up on the spot during the scene
As it turns out, though, this was one of those situations where the character really came together on-the-fly once roleplay started. Because of a timing issue, the Honor orientation began before I and one of the other teacher NPCs were ready, so I got to introduce the character's personality by bursting in on the already-in-progress orientation muttering about how "I go on sabbatical and return but five minutes later than that ever-changing, damnable schedule dictates and you lot start without me? What is wrong with you people?". Somehow the person in charge still saw fit to give me some students to take off and work with, and it was great, great fun. I was abusive, sarcastic, and condescending... and my "students" loved it. :) The best part is that we actually got somewhere philosophically. As planned I began by poo-pooing the official curriculum and asking them each to define "honor". Of course, each of their answers were along the lines of "doing what's right even when you don't benefit from it", and while listening to them, the follow-up question that cemented the final piece of my character's philosophy occurred to me: "Yes yes yes, all very predictable answers. "Right". "Wrong". "Good". "Bad"... Tell me, can any of you actually define this word that is central to the path you presume to walk in a way that doesn't rely on other, equally ambiguous, terms? One student immediately answered "no", earning and impressed look from Cragga and a comment on his confidence and audacity. The others struggled to do better but couldn't. And that was the key: The follow-up was a trick question because you can't define honor, at least according to Cragga, as anything less ambiguous than consistent adherence to a code, the definition of which is much less clear-cut (lawful evil is still lawful, after all). This led to a protracted philosophical discussion that had some actual meat to it, wherein I think I did a good job of actually giving the students/PCs some novel perspectives on some of the standard heroic fantasy tropes in the game.
It's going to take a lot of work to flesh out Cragga, his philosophy and his code to bring him back, but being a teacher it makes sense for that to happen, and I'm looking forward to doing so.
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<lj-cut text="Bobkayak, extra-planar seeker of joy and novelty">Bobkayak, extra-planar seeker of joy and novelty
In 7V there is this place called <a href="http://www.carusoking.com/sevenvirtues/Seven_Virtues/Comic/Entries/2009/11/25_Don%E2%80%99t_Ask_About_the_Mortgage.html">the Aether</a>. It's the place where the Weird Things live, populated by fairy tales and other oddities. The scene took place in what was effectively a bar in the Aether with a strictly-enforced policy against violence, where "you could meet your worst enemy for a drink, should you be invited". Some PCs received invites over the course of the game, and the scene was basically used as a way to introduce players tot he Aether and its denizens. I was cast as a member of the Court of the Morning, which is a place within the Aether that is all about newness and joy, ruled over by a being called "The Laughing Lord". The only things I was given to go on were that I should be "boisterous", "otherworldly", interested in "anyone who seems interesting", and seek out some PCs who had done a ritual honoring the Laughing Lord and to offer them his blessing.
The scene started around 11:30p and I was dead tired. To be honest, I really doubted I was up for a high-energy role, but as often proves the case in situations like this, once I got going the characterization started fueling its self, and hey, for a character like this, a little sleepdep can only help.
I got myself done up in an elaborate purple robe and gold mask, then worked glowesticks into my hair, which I put up in little buns at odd angles on either side of my head, and had decided ahead of time that the characterization would involve lots of strange physical positions, invasions of personal space, and weird vocal pitches. To put another way for those familiar with BB1938, give Wordsworth Willie a double-espresso dosed with lsd and you'd just about got it. ;)
Had lots of fun banter with the other NPCs as we waited for the PCs to arrive, the idea being to have the party in full-swing when the players showed up. It was during these conversations that Bobkayak got his name. Being Aetherial, he'd never really needed a name as such before, so when someone asked his name, he asked what seemed fitting. One person said "Bob", another "Kayak", and the rest is history. Once the PCs arrived, I had even more fun RPing with <lj=rigel>, <user site="livejournal.com" user="oakenguy"> and others. <user site="livejournal.com" user="rigel">'s changeling character was especially fun, since she was one of the first to actually come an play with Bob rather than just look at him funny. She presented him with an origami piece with a riddle on the inside, much to his delight. Working out the solution to this gave me the chance to pull several PCs into some amusing and colorful conversations and really added to the scene, I think. My favorite part was either that, or the several PCs who, after talking to/being meddled with by me for a while, got mischievous looks and started telling me about this "friend" (read: enemy) they have, who is <i>very</i> interesting, whom they're sure I would just adore, and that I should seek this person out and say hello sometime soon. Oh, believe me, if if I can talk the GM into it, I will. :)
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So, in summary: four fun characters, three of whom I'm eager to bring back is a pretty good haul for a one-day game. Also, holy crap that took a long time. I've basically spent the better part of the day I'd set aside for getting caught up with work writing this (yeah, I write slowly). Ah well. The experience is now thoroughly chronicled for posterity. Huzzah?
Did I mention that I didn't actually get home from this game until 4:30ish am? And that I have EDTM rehearsal in 90 mins? Methinks it's time for a nap.
Anyway, <a href="http://www.carusoking.com/sevenvirtues/Seven_Virtues/Welcome.html">"Seven Virtues"</a> is my first real boffer campaign. Threads had some light boffer scenes, but wasn't governed by that kind of (or really any) system overall. The drive up was interesting because the guy I got a ride with had been playing in <a href="http://www.nerolarp.com/">NERO</a> and <a href="http://www.larp.com/madrigal/system.html">Accelerant</a> boffer campaigns for about 15 years, but wasn't familiar with theater-style larps at all, so we spent the drive having this weird cultural exchange, wherein two very experienced players took turns asking total noob questions about each others' styles.
This is something that never ceases to amaze me about the local larp scene. I think of myself as someone who has a lot of experience, is well-known, and knows a lot of people in the scene; not just MA, but in NY and the mid-atlantic area as well. But I have to keep reminding myself that what I really mean by that is "in the theater-style scene". There are all of these large-ish groups out here, but they all exist in bubbles with what seems to be very little interaction. That the scene can support this is really cool, and indicative of the high level of interest in the hobby out here, but it's also a little sad that the sub-scenes are so disconnected.
...which brings me to my interest in 7V. It's an Accelerant game in which a fair number of people I know from the theater-style scene were playing. To be fair, the same could be said of <a href="http://www.endgamelarp.com/">Endgame</a>, but the timing worked out better for 7V, and the latter was able to promise me more RP roles than combat-mooking, which is pretty much a requirement for any game I'm going to spend a nontrivial amount of time or effort on.
Anyway, the basic premise of the game is that there is an institution called The School Of Seven Virtues. Think "high-fantasy Hogwarts for grownups" if you like, though I suspect that the game's creators will wince if you do. The school once taught scholars and heroes, but the track of heroic training has been shut down for decades, since the world has kind of chilled out and become a relatively pleasant place of late. But then along comes The Ancient Enemy, Banished by Heroes of Legend in Days of Yore But Returned Again To Wreak Havoc Upon the Land, etc etc, and the path of the hero has been re-opened to train those with the potential to drive them back. Most of the PCs are new students in that track, seeking achievement in some combination of the virtues: Wisdom, Selflessness, Compassion, Honor, Courage, Grace and Wholeness. The first game was the orientation for new students which, conveniently, also served as an effective orientation for the players to the way the school worked.
The game started late, around 1:30p, and ended even later, around 2a, but was quite worth it. I was really flattered that the people running the game, none of whom actually knew me, were willing to take me at my word that I could handle non-trivial RP roles, and enjoyed playing more on the theatrical side than the combat side. This brings me to this post's Thing I Learned About Myself as A Roleplayer: Many of the roles I got were of a favorite type of mine, though I'd not been able to articulate it as such before: ill-defined, but with a compelling core of interesting possibilities. It's kind of like something <user site="livejournal.com" user="londo"> once said about being cast in theater-style games, which I think he attributed to <user site="livejournal.com" user="elenuial">: "Give me the shortest or the longest character description, and I'll probably have a great time".
So, a bit about the characters I did:
(this got reeeeally long, because I ended up summarizing the characters as much for my own reference when I need to use them next as anything else, so I'm lj-cutting them)
<lj-cut text="Sir Ulric Lancashire, legendary badass">Sir Ulric Lancashire, legendary badass
Really all I was given about this guy was that he was the strategist of The Company of the Rose, basically the last great adventuring party to graduate from 7V before the path of heroes shut down. The idea was to show up with the surviving members of the company, be Heroic, Charismatic and Awesome during a meet-and-greet with the students, give a stirring inspirational speech, and then be found murdered in my room, setting off a mystery subplot. Really the best parts of this character happened before the game, when I and the other members of the company got together and, after going around frantically trying to memorize each others' character names and personalities, spent some time coming up with war stories about how we defeated The Gorgon of Smoky Crag, outsmarted Esmeralda The Bandit Queen, etc (sadly, for all that effort we never actually got a chance to tell any of them to the students! Sadface!), and generally how we would roleplay of of each other ("ok, you sound like the charming swashbuckler archetype, and I think I'm more of the straight-up Mr. Lawful Good archetype, so how about we have some sort of friendly-rivalry banter thing going on..."). As I've said before, to me, the heart of larp is grownups playing make-believe, and I had a fun time doing that, even before we got out there and RPd. That said, my favorite part of this role was probably the costume. Suffice it to say, another thing I learned about myself is: leggings + doublet + cape = hot Brad is <i>hot</i>, if I do say so myself. ;) Other highlights include spending about 15 minutes lying face-down in a pool of stage-blood waiting for someone to find me (at one point a GM walked in, did a double-take and said "geez, you're hardcore", but hey, these boffer-games are supposed to be all no-breaking-character-super-duper-wysiwig, right?)... only to hear the PCs finally arrive... and go to the wrong room. Fortunately they figured it out and found me pretty quickly, but those were a worrisome few seconds. :)
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<lj-cut text="Thaleus DeRandt, cursed refugee">Thaleus DeRandt, cursed refugee
This is a great example of an NPC that grows into something much more than was originally conceived.
See, when the Big Bads returned, they did so in a country called Torheim, and basically trashed the place. One of the nasty things about said Big Bads is that they don't just kill people, they turn them into zombie-like puppets called Consumed, who do their dirty-work for them. Or at least, they try to. If a person is particularly strong-willed, that person becomes Touched instead. Being Touched is a good example of "Good for you, but...". They are by definition people vehemently opposed to the Big Bads, but the enemy still has gotten hooks into them. They invade their dreams, and constantly pull at them to give in. Eventually they do, and when that happens they become Fallen. Fallen are bad. Basically, the strength of will that kept them from becoming consumed in the first place rubber-bands back and now they become nigh-undefeatable uber-minions of the Big Bads. What to do with people who are Touched is one of the central ethical dilemmas in the game world.
That brings us to poor Thaleus. What I had to go on for him was that he'd been in the Torheim military, but retired five years ago due to the injury of my choice (I decided to make him lame because I have a good walking stick and it's a good character piece). When the attack happened, he tried to fight, but was no help due to his injury, so he was tasked with getting a group of civilians (which I later decided included family members of his) out of the city. During this process he acquired some information it would be useful for the PCs to have, but then blacked out and awoke on a road outside the now-overrun city, bearing the mark that identified him as Touched (on his ankle, so he had the option to hide it). This led to months of running through the woods, barely surviving, hiding from roaming bands of Consumed, and grouping up with other refugees, until they discovered that he was touched, and most wanted nothing to do with him, despite the fact that he could use his connection to the Consumed to anticipate and avoid them.
So, that's all background. The scene began with six refugees going out into the woods and hiding, after which about 18 Consumed were sent, followed by PCs who had been alerted of the situation and sent on a rescue mission (eventually-- the scariest part was knowing out-of-character how long it takes to actually organize players for a scene like this). Our object was to hide and flee (at which point I realized that making my character lame was perhaps not the best strategic move, but too late to change now, and he's a tough mutha anyway), with a real chance of some or all of us getting killed before the PCs were able to mount their rescue.
Fortunately it all worked out, and after being discovered, scattering, and fleeing like rabbits to other hiding places, we made contact with the PCs, who made short work of the Consumed and brought us back to the school, which was where the interesting stuff happened. Of course, one of the other NPCs was given a character who knew I was Touched, and who'd barely survived when another group of refugees was wiped out by a Touched member who became Fallen overnight. She'd been instructed to try to talk the PCs into offing me then and there. Of course that didn't happen, but she made a compelling case, and the fact is that poor Thaleus is a ticking time-bomb, and he knows it, but he's too damn proud and stubborn to fall on his own sword, let alone let some kid who owes him her life do the favor for him.... and yet, I decided, he knows he'd probably be advocating the same course of action if their roles were reversed, so that provided an interesting little angstnugget to chew on
Upon returning to the school, he was told that he would be kept safe, and that there were even students there who were Touched. After all, where better for the time-bombs to stay than a place surrounded by those with the best chance of taking them down should they Fall? A morbid but compelling argument. At this point, all of the character background was, well, background, and he'd delivered the information the character'd been created to deliver, so I was basically free to go wherever made sense with him, so I asked if I arranged to meet with some of the Touched students, some of whom had not made their status public and outed themselves only to him. Those kinds of conversations provide the ideal NPC experience, IMO, because they fulfill the purpose of an NPC role, enhancing the PC experience by serving as a catalyst for roleplay they wouldn't otherwise have, while also providing a compelling and interesting experience to the person playing the NPC.
Through these conversations, he learned about experimental, and in some cases dangerous, rituals that the students are working on to try to halt or remove the Touch. In addition to out-of-character seeing this as another catalyst opportunity, I felt Thaleus was already bordering on fanatical in his wish to see the Touch and its creators eradicated. He also saw now that the safest place for him to be was at the school, and his pride wouldn't let him just be a layabout, but what could he do? Even without his injury, Thaleus wasn't nearly at the level of the students who now surrounded him, so, he concluded, if being a lab rat was the best way he could serve as a tool against the enemy, then so be it. Even if he died, he figured he'd already cheated death so many times, he couldn't blame the reaper coming for him now, and besides, anything would be better than Falling.
So we left that game with at least two PCs eager to experiment on him, and Thaleus eager to get on with it or over with, whichever was going to happen. I wish we'd had time to actually resolve some of that during the game, but there wasn't time, and given that I may be locked in <user site="livejournal.com" user="zrealm">'s basement for a completely different larp during most of the first weekend-long 7V game, we now have some irritating logistical issues to sort out. Ah well. In any case, I am eager to bring him back and see where that goes.
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<lj-cut text="Cragga Illius, ornery teacher of Honor">Cragga Illius, ornery teacher of Honor
The origin of this characterization is kinda odd. I wasn't given a character per se for this one, just a set of roleplay-scenarios to put students who were interested in the Honor virtue through, each of which put forward an ethical dilemma with no clear solution, to be discussed after playing through the scenario.
So basically, I was told what to do, but not whom to do it as. This had me a bit stumped, because while I'm good at taking a concept and fleshing it out, the reason I rarely write my own characters is that I'm not very good at coming up with the initial concept. But as I was playing around with costuming the day before game (playing dress-up until 2am FTW!), I found this... impressive fake beard I'd once used for a Hagrid costume many halloweens before. I put the beard on, let my hair down, put on a heavy cloak, looked in the mirror, and there looking back at me was this weird cross between a wizard and a grizzled hermit. I saw that image and really liked it, but it just didn't fit with the stoic warrior archetype one typically associates with "honor", so I experimented a bit with throwing that stereotype out the window, letting the character speak and seeing what he might have to say about being honorable. I played around with voices and personalities, alone in my room ranting to myself in a strange costume, and ended up with a weird mashup of Grizzly Addams, Leaornard McCoy and Greg House.
And yet, going into game, I felt like I had only the vaguest idea what I was going to do with this character. Part of the problem with playing a character who is an authority on a subject is that you have to be able to speak authotitatively on the subject at hand, and how does one do that with a concept like "honor", especially with an unusual character, meaning I couldn't just fall back on the easy "well, how would Worf answer this question?" solution. I went into the scene with basically the following:
- He teaches because it's important, but he doesn't really like people. Whenever he doesn't have to be at the school, he's off living in a cave, alone, self-sufficient and accountable only to himself, which he believes is the only environment in which one can come to understand one's self well enough to really understand honor.
- I knew he'd be abrasive and un-friendly, but wasn't entirely sure how that would actually manifest
- I decided that rather than go straight into the roleplay vignettes, he'd decided that that was stupid and would first ask everyone to define what they mean by "Honor" in the first place, and wing it from there.
- A name, which I promptly forgot and ended up having to make up on the spot during the scene
As it turns out, though, this was one of those situations where the character really came together on-the-fly once roleplay started. Because of a timing issue, the Honor orientation began before I and one of the other teacher NPCs were ready, so I got to introduce the character's personality by bursting in on the already-in-progress orientation muttering about how "I go on sabbatical and return but five minutes later than that ever-changing, damnable schedule dictates and you lot start without me? What is wrong with you people?". Somehow the person in charge still saw fit to give me some students to take off and work with, and it was great, great fun. I was abusive, sarcastic, and condescending... and my "students" loved it. :) The best part is that we actually got somewhere philosophically. As planned I began by poo-pooing the official curriculum and asking them each to define "honor". Of course, each of their answers were along the lines of "doing what's right even when you don't benefit from it", and while listening to them, the follow-up question that cemented the final piece of my character's philosophy occurred to me: "Yes yes yes, all very predictable answers. "Right". "Wrong". "Good". "Bad"... Tell me, can any of you actually define this word that is central to the path you presume to walk in a way that doesn't rely on other, equally ambiguous, terms? One student immediately answered "no", earning and impressed look from Cragga and a comment on his confidence and audacity. The others struggled to do better but couldn't. And that was the key: The follow-up was a trick question because you can't define honor, at least according to Cragga, as anything less ambiguous than consistent adherence to a code, the definition of which is much less clear-cut (lawful evil is still lawful, after all). This led to a protracted philosophical discussion that had some actual meat to it, wherein I think I did a good job of actually giving the students/PCs some novel perspectives on some of the standard heroic fantasy tropes in the game.
It's going to take a lot of work to flesh out Cragga, his philosophy and his code to bring him back, but being a teacher it makes sense for that to happen, and I'm looking forward to doing so.
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<lj-cut text="Bobkayak, extra-planar seeker of joy and novelty">Bobkayak, extra-planar seeker of joy and novelty
In 7V there is this place called <a href="http://www.carusoking.com/sevenvirtues/Seven_Virtues/Comic/Entries/2009/11/25_Don%E2%80%99t_Ask_About_the_Mortgage.html">the Aether</a>. It's the place where the Weird Things live, populated by fairy tales and other oddities. The scene took place in what was effectively a bar in the Aether with a strictly-enforced policy against violence, where "you could meet your worst enemy for a drink, should you be invited". Some PCs received invites over the course of the game, and the scene was basically used as a way to introduce players tot he Aether and its denizens. I was cast as a member of the Court of the Morning, which is a place within the Aether that is all about newness and joy, ruled over by a being called "The Laughing Lord". The only things I was given to go on were that I should be "boisterous", "otherworldly", interested in "anyone who seems interesting", and seek out some PCs who had done a ritual honoring the Laughing Lord and to offer them his blessing.
The scene started around 11:30p and I was dead tired. To be honest, I really doubted I was up for a high-energy role, but as often proves the case in situations like this, once I got going the characterization started fueling its self, and hey, for a character like this, a little sleepdep can only help.
I got myself done up in an elaborate purple robe and gold mask, then worked glowesticks into my hair, which I put up in little buns at odd angles on either side of my head, and had decided ahead of time that the characterization would involve lots of strange physical positions, invasions of personal space, and weird vocal pitches. To put another way for those familiar with BB1938, give Wordsworth Willie a double-espresso dosed with lsd and you'd just about got it. ;)
Had lots of fun banter with the other NPCs as we waited for the PCs to arrive, the idea being to have the party in full-swing when the players showed up. It was during these conversations that Bobkayak got his name. Being Aetherial, he'd never really needed a name as such before, so when someone asked his name, he asked what seemed fitting. One person said "Bob", another "Kayak", and the rest is history. Once the PCs arrived, I had even more fun RPing with <lj=rigel>, <user site="livejournal.com" user="oakenguy"> and others. <user site="livejournal.com" user="rigel">'s changeling character was especially fun, since she was one of the first to actually come an play with Bob rather than just look at him funny. She presented him with an origami piece with a riddle on the inside, much to his delight. Working out the solution to this gave me the chance to pull several PCs into some amusing and colorful conversations and really added to the scene, I think. My favorite part was either that, or the several PCs who, after talking to/being meddled with by me for a while, got mischievous looks and started telling me about this "friend" (read: enemy) they have, who is <i>very</i> interesting, whom they're sure I would just adore, and that I should seek this person out and say hello sometime soon. Oh, believe me, if if I can talk the GM into it, I will. :)
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So, in summary: four fun characters, three of whom I'm eager to bring back is a pretty good haul for a one-day game. Also, holy crap that took a long time. I've basically spent the better part of the day I'd set aside for getting caught up with work writing this (yeah, I write slowly). Ah well. The experience is now thoroughly chronicled for posterity. Huzzah?
Did I mention that I didn't actually get home from this game until 4:30ish am? And that I have EDTM rehearsal in 90 mins? Methinks it's time for a nap.
