LARP 101 and other things
Jun. 20th, 2019 12:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaLast Saturday, the Spouse volunteered to do a LARP 101 panel followed by a demo LARP and dance at a local game-and-comic shop. It's a nice space, but it's small, and he wanted to set up his usual wedding-gig DJ rig, so we had the panel in the shop's back room (it only has four non-storage, non-utility rooms, so this is a larger proportion of its space than that sounds like) and then the game in the back yard (after sunset).
I was skeptical that we'd get to run the game at all, but we wound up with exactly enough if I counted the shop owner, the VJ who was running the projector, and both NPCs being played by members of Mythos Houston's usual Keeper corps. Other than them, we had one of our regular Mythos player corps, and one new guy I didn't know at all. We soldiered on, and it ended up working out okay, despite a late start and me losing my chalk (which we were using as game props) twice. The new guy ended up solving most of the mystery, the shop owner stepped in to take on a pivotal plot point near the end, and the Keeper playing the NPC who was secretly the Bad Guy did a wonderful acting job, like he always does.
The game was based on the Phonogram comics, which I like very much and which the Spouse is near-fanatical about. The system is a loose adaptation of Play This Book and the FATE rules set, homebrewed by me into basic playability. I think I want to try running another game of it, ideally with a co-Producer or at least another floor Keeper; we'll have to see what comes up in terms of the availability of the space, though, since I don't want to try to run an outdoor game in Houston between the end of June and the end of September, even after dark. Maybe we could just use the three main rooms of the shop after closing time, if the owner trusts us not to knock stuff over, but I know me and I'm not sure I trust myself not to knock stuff over.
Anyway, I liked it and I hope it goes somewhere.
I was skeptical that we'd get to run the game at all, but we wound up with exactly enough if I counted the shop owner, the VJ who was running the projector, and both NPCs being played by members of Mythos Houston's usual Keeper corps. Other than them, we had one of our regular Mythos player corps, and one new guy I didn't know at all. We soldiered on, and it ended up working out okay, despite a late start and me losing my chalk (which we were using as game props) twice. The new guy ended up solving most of the mystery, the shop owner stepped in to take on a pivotal plot point near the end, and the Keeper playing the NPC who was secretly the Bad Guy did a wonderful acting job, like he always does.
The game was based on the Phonogram comics, which I like very much and which the Spouse is near-fanatical about. The system is a loose adaptation of Play This Book and the FATE rules set, homebrewed by me into basic playability. I think I want to try running another game of it, ideally with a co-Producer or at least another floor Keeper; we'll have to see what comes up in terms of the availability of the space, though, since I don't want to try to run an outdoor game in Houston between the end of June and the end of September, even after dark. Maybe we could just use the three main rooms of the shop after closing time, if the owner trusts us not to knock stuff over, but I know me and I'm not sure I trust myself not to knock stuff over.
Anyway, I liked it and I hope it goes somewhere.
