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kingandyBack from Artificer: It was good, and everybody should come to the next event. I had lots of fun being menacing at people with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
richc as Mr Blunt and Mr Montague, and for some reason it seemed to work. Despite almost everybody realising that we were being Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar (names changed to protect the guilty). And me being so lovely. The hard part was not smiling and joking.
Some way through Saturday certain similarities with Battlehwak struck me. Aside from the obvious geographical connection (both were held on the same campsite, using the same glade as a central arena), both were fest-style club-scale larp. Except some certain fundamental difference in approach made Artificer work.
Part of it was down to the undeniably higher quality and quantity of players and crew, respectively. (One was, for instance, rarely far from a ref at Artificer.) But I think the real difference is that where Batlehwak tried to take fest-style roleplay and just do it at a club scale, Artificer put more thought into the realities of the situation. It's not just about acknowledging the limitations of the scale[1]. It's about embracing the advantages as well. For instance, with fewer than thirty players it was possible (though no doubt exhausting) for the plot team to write personalised briefs, and to give the NPCs reasons to talk to specific players.
And, of course, the players were not scattered across the entire site. The lack of 24-Hour Time In made that unnecessary and, indeed, rendered the location of the sleeping tents quite irrelevant.
That's not to say the weekend was perfect; the plot team's love of cutscenes[2], though less pronounced at their Everichon event, was still looming in the background. At least in the case of the trial some members of the audience were called to give evidence, and the wedding could not really be expected to be audience-participation, so forgivable.
Critiques aside; it was most enjoyed. And given the event was within twenty minutes' drive from my own bed (a fact I made use of on the second night), most convenient. A weekend marred only slightly by the chill in the air, and slightly more by the loss of a contact lens. Lucky I keep the old ones as spares.
Now I go to shave, because hot damn Mr Montague has an itchy chin.
[1] Being, in my opinion, that a group below a certain size simply cannot sustain full player-led roleplay for a whole weekend; a certain amount of external momentum is required, and that momentum comes from a restricted background with built-in rivalries and NPCs with pre-planned timetables and agendas, even scheduled events for particularly small groups.
[2] Being an event that involves players standing in attendance while NPCs interact. These are not necessarily pre-scheduled or pre-scripted, but are likely to be both.
richc as Mr Blunt and Mr Montague, and for some reason it seemed to work. Despite almost everybody realising that we were being Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar (names changed to protect the guilty). And me being so lovely. The hard part was not smiling and joking.Some way through Saturday certain similarities with Battlehwak struck me. Aside from the obvious geographical connection (both were held on the same campsite, using the same glade as a central arena), both were fest-style club-scale larp. Except some certain fundamental difference in approach made Artificer work.
Part of it was down to the undeniably higher quality and quantity of players and crew, respectively. (One was, for instance, rarely far from a ref at Artificer.) But I think the real difference is that where Batlehwak tried to take fest-style roleplay and just do it at a club scale, Artificer put more thought into the realities of the situation. It's not just about acknowledging the limitations of the scale[1]. It's about embracing the advantages as well. For instance, with fewer than thirty players it was possible (though no doubt exhausting) for the plot team to write personalised briefs, and to give the NPCs reasons to talk to specific players.
And, of course, the players were not scattered across the entire site. The lack of 24-Hour Time In made that unnecessary and, indeed, rendered the location of the sleeping tents quite irrelevant.
That's not to say the weekend was perfect; the plot team's love of cutscenes[2], though less pronounced at their Everichon event, was still looming in the background. At least in the case of the trial some members of the audience were called to give evidence, and the wedding could not really be expected to be audience-participation, so forgivable.
Critiques aside; it was most enjoyed. And given the event was within twenty minutes' drive from my own bed (a fact I made use of on the second night), most convenient. A weekend marred only slightly by the chill in the air, and slightly more by the loss of a contact lens. Lucky I keep the old ones as spares.
Now I go to shave, because hot damn Mr Montague has an itchy chin.
[1] Being, in my opinion, that a group below a certain size simply cannot sustain full player-led roleplay for a whole weekend; a certain amount of external momentum is required, and that momentum comes from a restricted background with built-in rivalries and NPCs with pre-planned timetables and agendas, even scheduled events for particularly small groups.
[2] Being an event that involves players standing in attendance while NPCs interact. These are not necessarily pre-scheduled or pre-scripted, but are likely to be both.
