tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85663188686855814602011-07-08T14:54:33.573-04:00Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.comBlogger261100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-16773817701093234092009-08-31T15:00:00.003-04:002009-08-31T15:06:09.393-04:00

I'm not going to offer excuses (though I could), but I need to fess up here that I failed to get a LARP organized by the end of August. Which sucks, but I still want to try for future months. Possibly the work on the Poking the Emperor game will be used for September or November. (October is spoken for already.)September may or may not be preempted by Game Chef 2009, the annual roleplaying game

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-83437130875963270162009-08-01T11:58:00.004-04:002009-08-01T13:03:26.528-04:00

The French and Indian War started last night.If anything, the most surprising thing is how close the results were to real history. Jumonville died while trying to talk to George Washington, and battles broke out so eventually the French and British empires would come in conflict. It was also surprising how many people achieved their goals. Basically everyone, I think, including the deceased

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-47932065548399955882009-08-01T10:48:00.002-04:002009-08-01T10:50:55.080-04:00

Last night we had the "Bloody Forks of the Ohio" LARP. Everything went well. I'll try to write a full report after I get some food in me. Until then, you can peruse the LARP documents that are online.

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-77653002913519377322009-07-20T18:41:00.004-04:002009-07-20T18:47:21.396-04:00

I am currently stuck in the "two weeks until the LARP happens" slump, wherein I worry constantly if anyone will actually attend the thing. Right now there are all of 3 players RSVPed, which makes me wonder how small a group we need to play.Now, this happens every month, and sometime in the remaining time the guest list expands, but I need to remind myself of this every single time. And I still

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-59441619216505618282009-07-14T18:37:00.003-04:002009-07-14T19:00:26.098-04:00

It's been a little while since I wrote here, largely because June and July have been really busy. But also because the monthly LARP project went on the back burner for a little while, what with Origins and Amber running the June game and such.Regardless, I'm now at work on the July one. And what may be the August one at the same time, though that's a collaborative work that will be done

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-66416227706997624042009-06-16T18:34:00.004-04:002009-06-16T18:53:21.164-04:00

Because my 30th birthday was the other day, Amber decided to take over the larpwright duties for the month. This is good, as it gives me a break just around when GM burnout was setting in. And it means some vague, secretive plans are being made all around me, though that is more "mysterious" and "worrying" than it is clearly good.But it leaves me in a position of not having a project to work on

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-43159622201576819002009-06-03T19:00:00.003-04:002009-06-03T19:33:21.563-04:00

Something has been growing clear to me as I run a series of LARPs each month. It has to do with power relationships between the players and the GM. But first I'll have to talk for a while about tabletop RPGs, before circling back to my monthly larps.You see, LARPing is really a secondary hobby for me, despite it currently taking up a decent amount of my time over the last few months. The

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-65266854631112142482009-06-01T19:47:00.000-04:002009-06-01T20:35:49.064-04:00

So how did everything actually go?(Note that there's plenty of spoilers, and you may want to have read the relevant scenarios in Executive Decision and the Cavendish Memo to follow along here.)In both scenarios, there was always enough discussion that I as GM had very little to do. I sat back and listened, occasionally answered questions, but in general the discussion moved enough and never got

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-21549634538899952312009-06-01T18:39:00.000-04:002009-06-01T19:24:10.612-04:00

Cheyenne was unable to attend this month (due to being gainfully employed), so requested a more thorough LARP report. Which is probably a good idea, anyway, as I should do a better job supporting this blog-space, if it is to be meaningful to anyone.As I hope some of the various larps in the future will be, May's game changed up a lot of how the game was played. There were no detailed character

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-33235065045313857562009-05-30T07:54:00.000-04:002009-05-30T07:58:27.828-04:00

Dear future self,If you're going to store all the information for the monthly LARP on a USB drive, make sure everything is backed up somewhere. Because you don't want to go emptying your pockets two days before the LARP and wonder "Where did that USB drive with the last month of my work go to?"In this instance that where is "still in the computer that has Indesign installed on it at work". But

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-9817045809966161312009-05-26T20:35:00.000-04:002009-05-26T20:46:44.666-04:00

For whatever reason, this month began with a lot of stressing out, a lot of self-pity and negative feeling about the LARP project. I don' want to get into that right now, really, but it took me a while to get started actually working on the May LARP. And that procrastination there also meant that I was avoiding writing anything here about how it was all going.Luckily for me, a weird quirk of

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-68584518424214357652009-05-05T18:12:00.000-04:002009-05-05T18:14:49.198-04:00

Amber posted photos from the April LARP for people to see.On the other hand, I still don't have anything concrete for May's game. I should get on the stick and figure out what it is we're doing.

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-2393678634030858622009-04-27T16:28:00.000-04:002009-04-27T16:39:58.374-04:00

Didn't work out perfectly by any means, but most of the players enjoyed themselves a lot, reportedly.As is the standard operating procedure here, all LARP relevant documents are up online for you to view and/or use for your own purposes.Since this game was less GM intensive than the previous one, I will try to write up GMing notes so you could run it on your own, if you wanted.There was a pretty

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-9582130944024094262009-04-16T17:47:00.000-04:002009-04-25T12:14:24.013-04:00

I tried to write up instructions on how to run the March LARP. I really did, but I don't think I'll be able to. The March game was a mystery game, see, and so it had a lot more stuff to it that wasn't on people's character sheets. There was another entire story, not directly spelled out anywhere in particular, that would need clarified and properly ordered for someone to be able to run the

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-1521968249336042852009-03-31T19:37:00.000-04:002009-03-31T19:45:10.706-04:00

As mentioned, the March game happened over the weekend. It seemed to me to be more low-key than the last one, though player comments indicate the opposite. The February one seemed to me as GM crazy and hyper-kinetic, whereas this one seemed a more subtle game. But players said that they had chunks where they weren't doing anything in February, but were constantly busy in March. This seems

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-54312260324209295362009-03-30T19:17:00.000-04:002009-03-30T19:22:00.203-04:00

The short form is that the March LARP happened over the weekend. And that it worked very well.You can see all the documents online as is by now the standard operating procedure. I might go more into what happened and/or how to run the game later. But not today. This game is probably harder than the last one to run based on what I had written, because so much of it was secrets and mysteries

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-9878565319436830422009-03-19T18:43:00.000-04:002009-03-19T19:03:59.044-04:00

It's hard to write a science fiction one-shot, because you have to figure out a lot of stuff about the setting. What does scifi technology look like? What does future society look like? Once you know what the setting looks like, you have to get all the players on roughly the same page. Preferably without spending half the session giving them background on the setting. (In a campaign game or

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-49133962763910483832009-03-11T14:31:00.000-04:002009-03-12T11:06:39.223-04:00

I wrote this a month ago, but kept it stowed away to keep from spoiling the game. Looking at it now, I'm less certain what I thought would spoil anything. After the old text, I'll write something talking about how it turned out.-------------------------------February 11thI am writing the February LARP, in which incompetent superheroes, guard a real hero’s base while he’s gone.* As I write, I

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-59411347359071076962009-03-04T15:52:00.000-05:002009-03-04T15:59:52.004-05:00

Is apparently a lot of information. I tried to write up what was going on behind the scenes, which wound up being nearly as much information as was given to the players in the first place. Hopefully, by reading this document someone else could create a similarly entertaining evening for their friends.Even those not interested in running the game might be interested in the "behind the scenes"

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-10580378224703214192009-03-04T14:54:00.000-05:002009-03-04T15:01:31.439-05:00

Those not present might want to see what the event looked like. Or those present might wish to see how embarrassing they look dressed as a superhero. Either way, readers might wish to see the photos from the February LARP. The only people likely to be disappointed would be those looking for photos of either GM. Amber was busy taking said photos, so does not appear in them. I meanwhile, am

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-61638290758822834982009-03-02T19:31:00.000-05:002009-03-02T19:50:46.176-05:00

Despite my total failure at logistics, the game went really well. I though some of the time I had scheduled for 7:30, when I in fact scheduled for 7:00, so we wound up even later than I though we were. Then when we got there, I realized I had everything except the character sheets. Which are, you know, the most important part. So Amber had to drive back to our house to get them, then return.

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-1563549575512749832009-02-16T17:53:00.000-05:002009-02-16T17:57:34.415-05:00

I’m at a point where I’m procrastinating against writing stuff or the February LARP. I expected this to happen, but hopefully this month will be the hardest one: I had all the time in the world to write the first LARP (and actually took a month and a half to do so). But the second LARP has to fall in the real month-long schedule, if I want to keep things on track. And since it’s the first one

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-71610108768305916732009-02-14T11:35:00.000-05:002009-02-14T12:05:56.062-05:00

This post is partly more deconstruction, and partly for the benefit of anytone following this Blog who ever is interested in running the game for their own friends.1: Not give the robbers rope. They tied up several hostages quickly, which reduced what those players could do. While it may be realistic, none of the variousbank robbery movies or TV shows I've watched involved tying up the hostages

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-68582251035662555782009-02-05T01:25:00.000-05:002009-02-05T01:43:22.480-05:00

* Giving someone a lethal weapon and a revenge goal that doesn't include their character living means the LARP will be very short.* Playing a hostage is not as much fun as playing a dynamic character.* The plot was too focused on one primary group of PCs: the Kirkwood / Thursday pairing. They tied in to way too much of the game. Other characters were more on the periphery. Future games need to

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-55450655541234218302009-02-02T20:21:00.000-05:002009-02-02T20:30:52.280-05:00

LARPing is not really my normal playstyle. Most of my gaming is of face-to-face tabletop roleplaying games (like, you know, Dungeons and Dragons or Polaris or Traveller or something). Why I chose to write a dozen LARPs is therefore an interesting question which I might explore later on at some point. But I mention this for a reason: It often happens that I am sitting around talking to some guy

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8566318868685581460.post-17224333050107960872009-01-31T20:43:00.000-05:002009-02-16T18:17:40.738-05:00

I started this year (2009) with a New Year's Resolution: The I wanted to run more live action roleplaying events (LARPs).  A lot more.  Previously I had been averaging between six months and two years between each one.  Now my goal is one per month.  Clever readers may have already figured this out from the blog's title.At this point, the goal is not just to run one: it is to write a complete

Nick Wedighttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11538986458274237830noreply@blogger.com1