I used to have little knowledge of the terms "punk" and "post-punk" until Adrian explained them to me. As I understand their meaning now, "punk" describes a setting where a new development has radically changed society, such as steam technology or cybernetics, and people are still getting accustomed to the change. "Post-punk" is a setting where people have come to accept the new development, and now it is commonplace and widely-understood.
With superheroes being as prevalent in entertainment media as they are at the moment, I've started to suspect that superhumans have their own punk and post-punk settings.
"Superpunk" - as I shall call it for want of a better term - frequently seems to have the following features:
- People with supernatural powers are only just showing up.
- Most of the general public do not know about these powers, and if they do, people with powers are regarded with suspicion or fear.
- A character in the setting probably had no say in what powers he or she has.
- Many super-powered individuals have limited control over their abilities, and stress can trigger the use of their powers.
- If the story has an ensemble of main characters, they will probably have only one power per person.
These themes seem all too familiar from television shows such as Alphas, the 4400, Heroes and Misfits. They even apply to the recent Avengers films, since the general public in Marvel's setting are still getting used to the idea of thunder gods, alien beings and heroes in powered armour.
Interestingly, if I want to find something post-superpunk, I would probably have to look at entertainment that is aimed at a much younger audience. DC's cartoons portray a world that has become accustomed to the existence of powerful superheroes. Some excellent "post-superpunk" films exist, such as the Incredibles and Sky High, but I cannot deny that they are aimed mostly at children or young adults.
Perhaps this is because of an assumption on the part of film and television producers that older audiences cannot accept fantasy as easily as children can. A child can accept a character having superpowers after just a few seconds of explanation, whereas adults seem to need to be taken on a whole journey and see how those powers work out in a semi-realistic world before accepting them. As Steve Dismukes said to me in a recent conversation, DC's Dark Knight films seemed almost apologetic about the fact that they were about a vigilante running around dressed as a giant bat. Steve may be right that one of the most refreshing things about Guardians of the Galaxy is that it made no apologies; instead it simply presented a fantastic setting full of aliens and space ships - without trying to seem grounded in reality or slathering on exposition.
On the other hand, perhaps superpunk just offers more familiar options that writers can mine for drama. A world in which having powers could be unacceptable immediately offers more ways to create tension than a world where people have become used to superhumans.
When I look at role-playing instead of television and films, however, the situation seems to be reversed, and the preference seems to be overwhelmingly post-punk. A lot of games about superheroes (e.g. Champions, Mutants & Masterminds) contain a setting where superheroes and supervillains are well-established. This may be because these games try to provide a way for role-players to insert their characters into the comic book worlds that they have been reading. Marvel and DC comics both have their own licensed RPGs, and other games such as Mutants & Masterminds contain a lot of material that references existing comic books - their characters include "Superman by another name" and the like. I can imagine that another benefit of having a post-superpunk setting is that it allows writers to create heroes, villains, aliens, etc to include in later supplements and thus expand the range of products.
This is not to say that a group of players could not try to tell a "superpunk" story using these games, but they are not really designed to capture that particular narrative flavour, either in their "fluff" or their "crunch". They provide the chance to trade blows with the Joker or Loki, but their books say a lot less about characters that have to hide powers that they can barely control, and have to fear the social consequences or their controversial abilities.
The closest role-playing game to being "superpunk" that comes to my mind is White Wolf's Hunter: the Reckoning. It does a lot to capture the themes of a story where characters come into power that they cannot fully control, and they also have to reconcile this development with a world full of people that do not believe in or understand what they are doing. Hunter: the Reckoning is not quite a perfect example, because the setting's mystical powers only affect other supernatural creatures, but if this caveat and the game's interdependence with the rest of the World of Darkness were removed or ignored, it would be pretty close to what I could call superpunk.
Tuesday, 21 October 2014
Monday, 11 August 2014
Anime and Me
Yesterday, Wil Wheaton wrote a blog post about Akira, the film that introduced him to Japanese anime. It led me to think about my introduction to the genre; his exposure to it was quite similar to mine, but our experience was quite different.
Like Wil, my first exposure to Japanese anime was Akira, which I saw when I was about 16. It did not appeal to me. Sure, the imagery was striking, but I did not really have much enthusiasm for the themes of gang violence, state-sponsored murder and supernatural body horror. Perhaps it was relatively uncomfortable viewing at the time, because Akira was the first example that I had seen of animation being used to tell an adult story - and a harsh, bloody one at that. I did not feel any strong urge to pursue and find out more about Japanese anime.
University did not change that, particularly because I spent my second year living with Adam Hattrell. Adam is a fan, but the impression of anime that I got from him only served to convince me that it largely consisted of nihilistic adult violence with unlikeable characters (looking at you, Golgo 13), or tentacle-based perversion that I just did not want to see. I've never watched Urotsukidoji, but I was regaled several times with the horror story of the night when Adam convinced / tricked IFIS into showing it, leading to stunned silences and members walking out in shock.
I don't think that my appreciation of Japanese anime changed until I was living in House Chthulhu. I cannot remember whether Linette or Steve had the copy of Princess Mononoke, but it was the film that showed me that anime had something good to offer - in this case a beautifully-realised fantasy adventure. Of course, after being introduced to Studio Ghibli, I soon saw possibly the best Japanese anime film - perhaps one of the best animated films of all - Spirited Away, which thoroughly earned its Oscar.
From there, Shayna introduced me to the late Satoshi Kon's films with Perfect Blue, and I watched Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I was not expecting to like GitS: SAC, because I was expecting a thin plot as a premise for cyberpunk battles, but my assumption was of course wrong. The politics and espionage elements of the series are two of its strongest points; particularly whenever the plot was following Section Chief Aramaki. Far from being juvenile, GitS: SAC is more like the bastard child of Neuromancer and The Sandbaggers.
At House of Plot, I had welcome help finding good films and television series from Adrian and Beth, who would watch a lot of anime. I would not watch with them, but I would be interested in some of the series that they recommended, especially the brilliant Dennou Coil - a very intricate, and yet child-friendly take on post-cyberpunk Japan. Adrian and Beth helpfully sorted the wheat from the chaff for me; I think that they saw a lot of bad or uninteresting anime, but in the process saved me from doing so.
Nonetheless, their help was not always enough to save me from being shown some very bad anime. Like Afro Samurai. Thanks, Tez.
Looking back on my experience of it, the most affecting Japanese anime that I have seen is definitely Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent, which had a lot of emotional impact on me, even more than touching films like My Neighbour Totoro. This tends to surprise some of my friends that have seen it, because it can be a confusing and dark series. It contains a lot of personal horror, and it in no way holds the viewer's hand as it reveals its story.
What made it so affecting is that I watched it in 2011, while I had depression. At the time, I was having trouble finding the will to get up from the sofa on week-ends, and felt pretty miserable about a lot of things. Watching psychological horror while needing psychiatric help may not sound very wise, but Paranoia Agent actually gave me the kick that I needed to start dealing with my issues. This may seem strange, since - when most people talk about media that gave them a helpful push with personal problems - they usually refer to something uplifting - something Capra-esque, not Kafka-esque, and Paranoia Agent is certainly the latter.
To give a somewhat simplified explanation, Paranoia Agent is a story about a society being consumed with stress, excuses and pressure, almost to the point of causing Munchausen's Syndrome in the general populace. The anime follows a number of different characters, who - as a result of problems in their lives - want to occupy the role of a sick or injured person, because it takes the weight of the world off them. Just as their problems seem insurmountable, a mysterious teenager with roller skates and a baseball bat appears and assaults them, hospitalising them - and thereby providing the excuse that they need to fail. However, as the series progresses, two detectives begin to find that Shonen Bat, the boy on the roller skates, is something altogether supernatural, and his victims start dying rather than getting the release that they want. The story ends badly for a lot of people.
The story presents two characters that blur the line between reality and popular fiction: Shonen Bat becomes a bogeyman to the general public, and the story also presents Mellow Maromi, a plush mascot (and a satirical take on Japan's tarepanda) that encourages people to "take a break". However, these fictions-within-a-fiction are flipsides of the same coin. While Maromi is an enabler for people as they let their duties slide, Shonen Bat represents the extreme way out that those same people need, after ducking responsibility gets them in a jam.
In my mental state at the time, I think that my mind wrapped itself around this meaning surprisingly quickly; I know other people whose reactions to watching Paranoia Agent is more along the lines of "Wuh?". It was kind of a harsh message to get from a television series. As I said, some people find that an uplifting message is helpful. However, what got me to seek professional help was something on television that said to me "take ownership of your depression and fix it, or fuckin' else".
Well, that piece of reminiscing went a bit deeper than I had anticipated when I started writing, but hopefully it makes for a relatively-interesting read.
Like Wil, my first exposure to Japanese anime was Akira, which I saw when I was about 16. It did not appeal to me. Sure, the imagery was striking, but I did not really have much enthusiasm for the themes of gang violence, state-sponsored murder and supernatural body horror. Perhaps it was relatively uncomfortable viewing at the time, because Akira was the first example that I had seen of animation being used to tell an adult story - and a harsh, bloody one at that. I did not feel any strong urge to pursue and find out more about Japanese anime.
University did not change that, particularly because I spent my second year living with Adam Hattrell. Adam is a fan, but the impression of anime that I got from him only served to convince me that it largely consisted of nihilistic adult violence with unlikeable characters (looking at you, Golgo 13), or tentacle-based perversion that I just did not want to see. I've never watched Urotsukidoji, but I was regaled several times with the horror story of the night when Adam convinced / tricked IFIS into showing it, leading to stunned silences and members walking out in shock.
I don't think that my appreciation of Japanese anime changed until I was living in House Chthulhu. I cannot remember whether Linette or Steve had the copy of Princess Mononoke, but it was the film that showed me that anime had something good to offer - in this case a beautifully-realised fantasy adventure. Of course, after being introduced to Studio Ghibli, I soon saw possibly the best Japanese anime film - perhaps one of the best animated films of all - Spirited Away, which thoroughly earned its Oscar.
From there, Shayna introduced me to the late Satoshi Kon's films with Perfect Blue, and I watched Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. I was not expecting to like GitS: SAC, because I was expecting a thin plot as a premise for cyberpunk battles, but my assumption was of course wrong. The politics and espionage elements of the series are two of its strongest points; particularly whenever the plot was following Section Chief Aramaki. Far from being juvenile, GitS: SAC is more like the bastard child of Neuromancer and The Sandbaggers.
At House of Plot, I had welcome help finding good films and television series from Adrian and Beth, who would watch a lot of anime. I would not watch with them, but I would be interested in some of the series that they recommended, especially the brilliant Dennou Coil - a very intricate, and yet child-friendly take on post-cyberpunk Japan. Adrian and Beth helpfully sorted the wheat from the chaff for me; I think that they saw a lot of bad or uninteresting anime, but in the process saved me from doing so.
Nonetheless, their help was not always enough to save me from being shown some very bad anime. Like Afro Samurai. Thanks, Tez.
Looking back on my experience of it, the most affecting Japanese anime that I have seen is definitely Satoshi Kon's Paranoia Agent, which had a lot of emotional impact on me, even more than touching films like My Neighbour Totoro. This tends to surprise some of my friends that have seen it, because it can be a confusing and dark series. It contains a lot of personal horror, and it in no way holds the viewer's hand as it reveals its story.
What made it so affecting is that I watched it in 2011, while I had depression. At the time, I was having trouble finding the will to get up from the sofa on week-ends, and felt pretty miserable about a lot of things. Watching psychological horror while needing psychiatric help may not sound very wise, but Paranoia Agent actually gave me the kick that I needed to start dealing with my issues. This may seem strange, since - when most people talk about media that gave them a helpful push with personal problems - they usually refer to something uplifting - something Capra-esque, not Kafka-esque, and Paranoia Agent is certainly the latter.
To give a somewhat simplified explanation, Paranoia Agent is a story about a society being consumed with stress, excuses and pressure, almost to the point of causing Munchausen's Syndrome in the general populace. The anime follows a number of different characters, who - as a result of problems in their lives - want to occupy the role of a sick or injured person, because it takes the weight of the world off them. Just as their problems seem insurmountable, a mysterious teenager with roller skates and a baseball bat appears and assaults them, hospitalising them - and thereby providing the excuse that they need to fail. However, as the series progresses, two detectives begin to find that Shonen Bat, the boy on the roller skates, is something altogether supernatural, and his victims start dying rather than getting the release that they want. The story ends badly for a lot of people.
The story presents two characters that blur the line between reality and popular fiction: Shonen Bat becomes a bogeyman to the general public, and the story also presents Mellow Maromi, a plush mascot (and a satirical take on Japan's tarepanda) that encourages people to "take a break". However, these fictions-within-a-fiction are flipsides of the same coin. While Maromi is an enabler for people as they let their duties slide, Shonen Bat represents the extreme way out that those same people need, after ducking responsibility gets them in a jam.
In my mental state at the time, I think that my mind wrapped itself around this meaning surprisingly quickly; I know other people whose reactions to watching Paranoia Agent is more along the lines of "Wuh?". It was kind of a harsh message to get from a television series. As I said, some people find that an uplifting message is helpful. However, what got me to seek professional help was something on television that said to me "take ownership of your depression and fix it, or fuckin' else".
Well, that piece of reminiscing went a bit deeper than I had anticipated when I started writing, but hopefully it makes for a relatively-interesting read.
Sunday, 3 August 2014
Hot Finishes and Clean Finishes
Everything that I know about running a LARP, I learned from pro-wrestling.
Heh; well, okay - not everything, but the behind-the-scenes logic of American wrestling has informed some of the better, smarter decisions that I've made as a storyteller for live-action roleplay.
Being a role-player and being a wrestling fan is a strange space to occupy. I have plenty of friends who - like me - spent a number of their teenage years having to hide their interest in all things gaming-related, because the phrase "as cruel as school-children" is well-deserved, and few things could attract derision as readily as expressing interest in Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer. I know that some of us are still wary about even telling adults about the interest.
However, I have discovered at times that expressing an interest in wrestling can sometimes attract the kind of mocking responses from my fellow nerds that they used to get for being into games. Mention an interest in wrestling and I've often had to suffer some condescending jack-ass who feels the need to tell me it's stoopid, and ask me whether I know that it's not real*. I'm far from being the only gamer in my social circle with an interest in wrestling, but it can be a risky thing to admit.
I find this ironic, because if you take away the audience, pro-wrestling is similar to LARP - uncomfortably similar, some might find. Let's face it, if you like running around in a costume, playing a melodramatic character and swapping pulled blows from latex weapons, that's pretty damn close to pro-wrestling. Both activities have the notion of in-character and out-of-character, although wrestling uses the terms "kayfabe" and "shoot" respectively. Wrestling also has its storyteller behind the scenes ("the booker"). I've had some of my gamer friends literally stick their fingers in their ears and say "lalalalala" because they didn't like finding out how similar the activities are in concept.
However, the more I learned about the terminology and planning in wrestling, the more I began to notice concepts that are very useful for LARP. Pro-wrestling doesn't just have gimmicky characters, over-the-top speeches and staged fights like LARP does, it also has to sell those things to an audience on a regular basis. So maybe bookers and wrestlers might know a few things that gamers don't about making LARP a success.
The last time I used a wrestling idea was for Upwick Manor. I was watching a shoot interview with a former wrestler called Shane Douglas, and he was talking about the difference between a Clean Finish and a Hot Finish. When a booker puts on a wrestling show, he can have one or the other. In a clean finish, the Face (the fan's favourite) wins the last match of the evening, the main event, and the audience gets to go home happy. In a hot finish, the good guys get a raw deal; some sort of betrayal, cheat or ambush takes place, and the Heels (wrestling's bad guys) end the night standing in the ring with their arms raised in triumph, to the boos of the crowd.
As Shane Douglas explained, when a wrestling show is trying to get started and build up interest, hot finishes are actually far more useful to the promoters than clean ones. Clean finishes sound popular, but part of the problem is that they satisfy the audience, and so they don't necessarily feel an impetus to tune in for the next show. On the other hand, the point of a hot finish is to create a sense of unfinished business, so that the fans come back, wanting to see whether the Faces get revenge on the Heels.
Before seeing this interview, I had never really thought about the relevance of this logic to running a LARP that entails a series of games. It caused me to reflect on the different games that I had attended in old-World of Darkness Cam UK, pondering whether some of them had clean finishes, and whether some of their resolutions had made it easier for me not to go back to that venue on the following month.
I imagine that the equivalent of a clean finish in LARP are those games where the monster-of-the-week shows up at about 10pm, the players fight it, get to show off their characters' capabilities, and then the game wraps up and everyone goes home. But how many games had I attended where the storyteller took steps to make sure that the players were sent home with a sense of unfinished business or a need for revenge? How many games had I run without thinking about how useful a hot finish would be, as a way to bring players back?
So, when Elle and I were planning Upwick Manor, I wanted the reading of the Will to be one of the last things to happen during the first game. Part of the reason for this was because the players would have time to get used to the social gulf between guests and servants, before any upheaval occurred. The other reason was because I wanted a Hot Finish. I wanted the game to end while the players were off-balance, before they had enough time to recover fully from the surprise announcement and get to grips with the Will.
We were lucky during the second Upwick Manor game, because I think that it also had a Hot Finish, even though Elle and I had a lot less control over plot developments at that point. Two major revelations came out just as time was running out, both surrounding Adrian's character. I think that those controversies helped the game to keep its momentum. The third game had the Clean Finish, but of course it was the finale, and so that was the right time for it.
So, that's one of my stories about how pro-wrestling - specifically the way that bookers think about the pace of their story arcs - helped my creative process for a LARP. I think I might do one or two more wrestling-meets-LARP posts on this blog in the future, because more can be written about wrestling concepts that translate well in live-action role-play. My experience is that they have made me more considerate as a storyteller and as a player. Who knows? Maybe this post might get some of my friends thinking about whether they play in or run games that lure players back with hot finishes, or make it possible for new players to attend just one game and not show up again, because it ended cleanly.
Leave your thoughts, questions or mocking jibes about wrestling in the comments below....
*The wrestling industry became a lot more open about the fact that it's pretense in the 1990s, but wrestlers still react badly to being called "fake" in interviews or by journalists. A large part of this is due to the fact that their frequent stunt work nonetheless puts them at genuine risk of injury.
Heh; well, okay - not everything, but the behind-the-scenes logic of American wrestling has informed some of the better, smarter decisions that I've made as a storyteller for live-action roleplay.
Being a role-player and being a wrestling fan is a strange space to occupy. I have plenty of friends who - like me - spent a number of their teenage years having to hide their interest in all things gaming-related, because the phrase "as cruel as school-children" is well-deserved, and few things could attract derision as readily as expressing interest in Dungeons & Dragons or Warhammer. I know that some of us are still wary about even telling adults about the interest.
However, I have discovered at times that expressing an interest in wrestling can sometimes attract the kind of mocking responses from my fellow nerds that they used to get for being into games. Mention an interest in wrestling and I've often had to suffer some condescending jack-ass who feels the need to tell me it's stoopid, and ask me whether I know that it's not real*. I'm far from being the only gamer in my social circle with an interest in wrestling, but it can be a risky thing to admit.
I find this ironic, because if you take away the audience, pro-wrestling is similar to LARP - uncomfortably similar, some might find. Let's face it, if you like running around in a costume, playing a melodramatic character and swapping pulled blows from latex weapons, that's pretty damn close to pro-wrestling. Both activities have the notion of in-character and out-of-character, although wrestling uses the terms "kayfabe" and "shoot" respectively. Wrestling also has its storyteller behind the scenes ("the booker"). I've had some of my gamer friends literally stick their fingers in their ears and say "lalalalala" because they didn't like finding out how similar the activities are in concept.
However, the more I learned about the terminology and planning in wrestling, the more I began to notice concepts that are very useful for LARP. Pro-wrestling doesn't just have gimmicky characters, over-the-top speeches and staged fights like LARP does, it also has to sell those things to an audience on a regular basis. So maybe bookers and wrestlers might know a few things that gamers don't about making LARP a success.
The last time I used a wrestling idea was for Upwick Manor. I was watching a shoot interview with a former wrestler called Shane Douglas, and he was talking about the difference between a Clean Finish and a Hot Finish. When a booker puts on a wrestling show, he can have one or the other. In a clean finish, the Face (the fan's favourite) wins the last match of the evening, the main event, and the audience gets to go home happy. In a hot finish, the good guys get a raw deal; some sort of betrayal, cheat or ambush takes place, and the Heels (wrestling's bad guys) end the night standing in the ring with their arms raised in triumph, to the boos of the crowd.
As Shane Douglas explained, when a wrestling show is trying to get started and build up interest, hot finishes are actually far more useful to the promoters than clean ones. Clean finishes sound popular, but part of the problem is that they satisfy the audience, and so they don't necessarily feel an impetus to tune in for the next show. On the other hand, the point of a hot finish is to create a sense of unfinished business, so that the fans come back, wanting to see whether the Faces get revenge on the Heels.
Before seeing this interview, I had never really thought about the relevance of this logic to running a LARP that entails a series of games. It caused me to reflect on the different games that I had attended in old-World of Darkness Cam UK, pondering whether some of them had clean finishes, and whether some of their resolutions had made it easier for me not to go back to that venue on the following month.
I imagine that the equivalent of a clean finish in LARP are those games where the monster-of-the-week shows up at about 10pm, the players fight it, get to show off their characters' capabilities, and then the game wraps up and everyone goes home. But how many games had I attended where the storyteller took steps to make sure that the players were sent home with a sense of unfinished business or a need for revenge? How many games had I run without thinking about how useful a hot finish would be, as a way to bring players back?
So, when Elle and I were planning Upwick Manor, I wanted the reading of the Will to be one of the last things to happen during the first game. Part of the reason for this was because the players would have time to get used to the social gulf between guests and servants, before any upheaval occurred. The other reason was because I wanted a Hot Finish. I wanted the game to end while the players were off-balance, before they had enough time to recover fully from the surprise announcement and get to grips with the Will.
We were lucky during the second Upwick Manor game, because I think that it also had a Hot Finish, even though Elle and I had a lot less control over plot developments at that point. Two major revelations came out just as time was running out, both surrounding Adrian's character. I think that those controversies helped the game to keep its momentum. The third game had the Clean Finish, but of course it was the finale, and so that was the right time for it.
So, that's one of my stories about how pro-wrestling - specifically the way that bookers think about the pace of their story arcs - helped my creative process for a LARP. I think I might do one or two more wrestling-meets-LARP posts on this blog in the future, because more can be written about wrestling concepts that translate well in live-action role-play. My experience is that they have made me more considerate as a storyteller and as a player. Who knows? Maybe this post might get some of my friends thinking about whether they play in or run games that lure players back with hot finishes, or make it possible for new players to attend just one game and not show up again, because it ended cleanly.
Leave your thoughts, questions or mocking jibes about wrestling in the comments below....
*The wrestling industry became a lot more open about the fact that it's pretense in the 1990s, but wrestlers still react badly to being called "fake" in interviews or by journalists. A large part of this is due to the fact that their frequent stunt work nonetheless puts them at genuine risk of injury.
Tuesday, 22 July 2014
Upwick Manor Post-Game
One of my motivations behind creating the Upwick Manor LARP was to find out whether I could learn from my previous game - LA Confidential Live - and so write a better role-playing experience for the players. Not that I regard LA Confidential Live as a failed or even particularly flawed game, but it gave me the chance to see what worked well and what caused problems.
I learned a lot about tightening up the setting of a game. The Player Characters in LA Confidential Live all had disparate lives and interests inside a big city. As a result, the idea that their lives would all intersect as frequently as the game required became contrived. I learned that a LARP often needs in its premise a single, physical location where the characters all have some sort of business, and for all of the players to understand its relevance from the beginning. One re-watching of Gosford Park later, I was convinced that an English Manor house was a great setting for a game, with the upstairs / downstairs divide being something that could be replicated using the two staircase-linked rooms in Englefield Green's Social Hall.
I also wanted to move away from needing much of a game system. The Dirty World system that I had used in the past was obscure and clunky - not very accessible to the players - even after I had chucked out Greg Stolze's accursed and pretentious One-Roll Engine. Elle Clegg, Elle Bullimore and Martin Hornsey's "Corporate Weekender" game in Gosport taught me a great deal about what a game could achieve purely with soft role-play. So, I went looking for a premise that would require as few rules as possible.
At first, I spent weeks in 2013 mulling over ideas that didn't work. I considered a game where an aristocratic family's fortune could be tied to a Faustian pact, and the rich family members would have to decide whether to re-new a deal with the forces of darkness, or see their wealth crumble. The problem with these fancy ideas was that I could not see how such a plot would engage the "downstairs" players and give them as much to do in the game.
I realised that the problem was trying to make a game with a supernatural element. So many of the LARPs that I have played over time have had science-fiction or fantasy elements that I was trying to use them just out of habit. I had not needed LA Confidential Live to have supernatural things, and they were actually limiting the way that I was thinking. Once I ditched the fantastical, I soon hit on the idea about executing a Will - a weird blend of Downton Abbey and Brewster's Millions.
I can remember when I approached Elle with the concept and my request that she co-ST, because we were at Ross and Pam's summer barbecue in 2013. Some guests were talking about their Requiem characters at her, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to offer her a change of subject. I already knew from things said in passing at the Doctor Who tabletop game that she liked the idea of preparing food for a LARP set in an historic period, and I fully intended to exploit *cough*, I mean pique her interest in doing that.
The premise also appealed to another interest that Elle and I have in common - making players squirm on the horns of a dilemma. Plotting with Elle was very useful; it identified a number of things that the game should include, and tightened up the story. She determined that the Will should be a winner-takes-all dilemma, foreseeing that giving the executor power to divide up the inheritance in any way would make it too easy to negotiate a happy ending for everyone.
One thing that I liked about the LA Confidential Live game and wanted to keep was that it had a wide range of possible endings, and the Storytellers were not at all invested in any specific outcome. Tom and I did not have any preference for what would happen, and this helped to keep us from nudging the plot and taking away from player agency. Similarly, neither Elle nor I were pushing players to choose a particular winner during Upwick Manor. The only push that we gave was to make an obnoxious NPC with bad intentions the person who would win if the players simply defaulted and failed to make any decision. However, this was merely a device so that the players would come to a resolution within a time frame, while still giving them a lot of options.
The first game of Upwick Manor was deliberately slow to develop. The idea was to let players get used to their characters and to get to know each other. I also hoped that the upstairs players would get used to treating the downstairs players as servants - although I was a little surprised at how quickly and naturally the guests fell into the practice of taking the staff for granted and acting as if they were invisible. Still, this seemed useful for setting up the twist that would drive the rest of the story. In order to shake up the balance of power between the rich and their servants, a little time was needed first to establish how that balance of power would normally feel. Frances' speeches in the first game about the "servant problem" were golden material to that end.
Of course, this meant that the downstairs players had to do a lot of... well, being servants in the first game, and I feel like I should apologise for all the genuine manual labour that their side of the story entailed. I am grateful for everything that they did, and I hope that it added to the atmosphere of the game. When Norwegian LARPers talk about the drawbacks and benefits of "bleed" - where in-character issues have meaning for players out-of-character - they are probably not thinking about the amount of washing up that Ross had to do....
I must admit that I enjoyed the style of LARP in Upwick Manor because the Storytellers did not need to offer any solutions for the players; we just had to seed the entire plot piecemeal among the players, and let them sort it out according to their whims. If done right, I think that this approach is good for the Storytellers, who don't have to take on as much work during play, and for the players, who get a lot of agency and can rest assured that the ending will not involve a "NPC ex machina" plot.
In so many role-playing games, whether live or tabletop, the Storyteller often has to be an authority figure, telling players what they can and cannot do, and whether they succeed. By contrast, being a Storyteller in Upwick Manor and LA Confidential Live was about sowing as much chaos and unclear choices as possible, while giving no answers. I'm starting to appreciate why the tricksters in mythologies seem to be having the most fun.
However, even sowing chaos actually requires orderly planning. In order to make sure that the game was not straightforward, Elle and I had to ensure that the different possibilities in Upwick Manor all had an equal chance of being revealed and considered. This meant that we had to think about ways to ensure that no particular choice was clearly superior or easier than the others. We also wanted to ensure that the game fostered interaction, and one of the main ways to do this was to plan so that, if one character had a problem, he or she could not resolve it without talking to other PCs, usually the ones on the other side of the social divide. For example, if one of the staff was the Lord's illegitimate child, we made sure that the proof of this was in the hands of a family member.
I've had a lot of thoughts about both Upwick Manor and LA Confidential Live. One thing that has struck me and makes me happy is that I had no control in advance over what themes would emerge from these games. For example, I did not know that a major theme in LA Confidential Live would be man's inhumanity towards women - that emerged organically from player's ideas and choices. Upwick Manor could, depending on the player's decisions, have been a completely different game, not just in outcome but also in tone. Due to the players, I think that it was a comedy-drama story about manners, tradition and sympathy, but all the ingredients were also there if the players had wanted to have a less-gentle game about intrigue, shady deals or class warfare instead.
This makes me happy, because - when I can see a web of storylines that could just as easily have been, but did not happen, then I know that the game's direction was genuinely driven by the players' interest. Plus, this is the second role-playing game with multiple episodes in a row that I have been able to run to its intended ending, and that feels positive.
Any comments or thoughts below, and I'll do my best to answer any questions.
I learned a lot about tightening up the setting of a game. The Player Characters in LA Confidential Live all had disparate lives and interests inside a big city. As a result, the idea that their lives would all intersect as frequently as the game required became contrived. I learned that a LARP often needs in its premise a single, physical location where the characters all have some sort of business, and for all of the players to understand its relevance from the beginning. One re-watching of Gosford Park later, I was convinced that an English Manor house was a great setting for a game, with the upstairs / downstairs divide being something that could be replicated using the two staircase-linked rooms in Englefield Green's Social Hall.
I also wanted to move away from needing much of a game system. The Dirty World system that I had used in the past was obscure and clunky - not very accessible to the players - even after I had chucked out Greg Stolze's accursed and pretentious One-Roll Engine. Elle Clegg, Elle Bullimore and Martin Hornsey's "Corporate Weekender" game in Gosport taught me a great deal about what a game could achieve purely with soft role-play. So, I went looking for a premise that would require as few rules as possible.
At first, I spent weeks in 2013 mulling over ideas that didn't work. I considered a game where an aristocratic family's fortune could be tied to a Faustian pact, and the rich family members would have to decide whether to re-new a deal with the forces of darkness, or see their wealth crumble. The problem with these fancy ideas was that I could not see how such a plot would engage the "downstairs" players and give them as much to do in the game.
I realised that the problem was trying to make a game with a supernatural element. So many of the LARPs that I have played over time have had science-fiction or fantasy elements that I was trying to use them just out of habit. I had not needed LA Confidential Live to have supernatural things, and they were actually limiting the way that I was thinking. Once I ditched the fantastical, I soon hit on the idea about executing a Will - a weird blend of Downton Abbey and Brewster's Millions.
I can remember when I approached Elle with the concept and my request that she co-ST, because we were at Ross and Pam's summer barbecue in 2013. Some guests were talking about their Requiem characters at her, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to offer her a change of subject. I already knew from things said in passing at the Doctor Who tabletop game that she liked the idea of preparing food for a LARP set in an historic period, and I fully intended to exploit *cough*, I mean pique her interest in doing that.
The premise also appealed to another interest that Elle and I have in common - making players squirm on the horns of a dilemma. Plotting with Elle was very useful; it identified a number of things that the game should include, and tightened up the story. She determined that the Will should be a winner-takes-all dilemma, foreseeing that giving the executor power to divide up the inheritance in any way would make it too easy to negotiate a happy ending for everyone.
One thing that I liked about the LA Confidential Live game and wanted to keep was that it had a wide range of possible endings, and the Storytellers were not at all invested in any specific outcome. Tom and I did not have any preference for what would happen, and this helped to keep us from nudging the plot and taking away from player agency. Similarly, neither Elle nor I were pushing players to choose a particular winner during Upwick Manor. The only push that we gave was to make an obnoxious NPC with bad intentions the person who would win if the players simply defaulted and failed to make any decision. However, this was merely a device so that the players would come to a resolution within a time frame, while still giving them a lot of options.
The first game of Upwick Manor was deliberately slow to develop. The idea was to let players get used to their characters and to get to know each other. I also hoped that the upstairs players would get used to treating the downstairs players as servants - although I was a little surprised at how quickly and naturally the guests fell into the practice of taking the staff for granted and acting as if they were invisible. Still, this seemed useful for setting up the twist that would drive the rest of the story. In order to shake up the balance of power between the rich and their servants, a little time was needed first to establish how that balance of power would normally feel. Frances' speeches in the first game about the "servant problem" were golden material to that end.
Of course, this meant that the downstairs players had to do a lot of... well, being servants in the first game, and I feel like I should apologise for all the genuine manual labour that their side of the story entailed. I am grateful for everything that they did, and I hope that it added to the atmosphere of the game. When Norwegian LARPers talk about the drawbacks and benefits of "bleed" - where in-character issues have meaning for players out-of-character - they are probably not thinking about the amount of washing up that Ross had to do....
I must admit that I enjoyed the style of LARP in Upwick Manor because the Storytellers did not need to offer any solutions for the players; we just had to seed the entire plot piecemeal among the players, and let them sort it out according to their whims. If done right, I think that this approach is good for the Storytellers, who don't have to take on as much work during play, and for the players, who get a lot of agency and can rest assured that the ending will not involve a "NPC ex machina" plot.
In so many role-playing games, whether live or tabletop, the Storyteller often has to be an authority figure, telling players what they can and cannot do, and whether they succeed. By contrast, being a Storyteller in Upwick Manor and LA Confidential Live was about sowing as much chaos and unclear choices as possible, while giving no answers. I'm starting to appreciate why the tricksters in mythologies seem to be having the most fun.
However, even sowing chaos actually requires orderly planning. In order to make sure that the game was not straightforward, Elle and I had to ensure that the different possibilities in Upwick Manor all had an equal chance of being revealed and considered. This meant that we had to think about ways to ensure that no particular choice was clearly superior or easier than the others. We also wanted to ensure that the game fostered interaction, and one of the main ways to do this was to plan so that, if one character had a problem, he or she could not resolve it without talking to other PCs, usually the ones on the other side of the social divide. For example, if one of the staff was the Lord's illegitimate child, we made sure that the proof of this was in the hands of a family member.
I've had a lot of thoughts about both Upwick Manor and LA Confidential Live. One thing that has struck me and makes me happy is that I had no control in advance over what themes would emerge from these games. For example, I did not know that a major theme in LA Confidential Live would be man's inhumanity towards women - that emerged organically from player's ideas and choices. Upwick Manor could, depending on the player's decisions, have been a completely different game, not just in outcome but also in tone. Due to the players, I think that it was a comedy-drama story about manners, tradition and sympathy, but all the ingredients were also there if the players had wanted to have a less-gentle game about intrigue, shady deals or class warfare instead.
This makes me happy, because - when I can see a web of storylines that could just as easily have been, but did not happen, then I know that the game's direction was genuinely driven by the players' interest. Plus, this is the second role-playing game with multiple episodes in a row that I have been able to run to its intended ending, and that feels positive.
Any comments or thoughts below, and I'll do my best to answer any questions.
Sunday, 20 July 2014
Opening Post
This is my first post in a new blog that I have created for my nerdy interests, particularly role-playing.
G+ is great for short entries, but its compressed presentation style does not really work if I want to write extensively on a subject. If I have enough material in my head to produce an article, I'd rather just create an entry with a link to a blog, than showing people the first line or two, with a tag at the bottom that says something like "read more (300 lines)".
I could use Livejournal, but I tend to restrict my posts to LJ to friends only, and few of my friends still use it. Besides, the point of this Blog is not to be about my life or personal matters, but more about the details and thoughts that go into my hobbies and interests, especially the ones that I share with friends.
I rarely write about my feelings, angstings and other emotions. This can be my place for scheming and plotting.
G+ is great for short entries, but its compressed presentation style does not really work if I want to write extensively on a subject. If I have enough material in my head to produce an article, I'd rather just create an entry with a link to a blog, than showing people the first line or two, with a tag at the bottom that says something like "read more (300 lines)".
I could use Livejournal, but I tend to restrict my posts to LJ to friends only, and few of my friends still use it. Besides, the point of this Blog is not to be about my life or personal matters, but more about the details and thoughts that go into my hobbies and interests, especially the ones that I share with friends.
I rarely write about my feelings, angstings and other emotions. This can be my place for scheming and plotting.
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