Now that weve all had a day or so to recover, Id like to thank you all for coming to the first event. We all had a blast running it, and I hope that you guys had fun playing in it too. We really appreciate all the feedback, positive and negative. The staff was left feeling like we played our own Gothic game - We went in to it with high hopes and a half decent plan, were hit by some of the difficulties, had some profound failures one after another that drove us to despair, decided that we had to press on no matter what, climbed from the pit of misery to somehow pull through at the end, though it felt like barely. Then afterward, everyone is calling you a hero, but you dont feel like a hero at all. A hero would have done better, youre just an ordinary person. The arc of a Gothic game isnt supposed to be like the arc of a lot of other games. Gothic was designed to be a game of hard moral choices and dilemmas, about doing what is right versus doing what is easy. The stories are very personal and character driven, and converting it to a LARP, that is something I worried wouldnt survive the transition. Whether it did or not remains to be seen. This first game was a lot more heavy on setup and specific frontloading than other games will be, and it also had more direct, in your face combat than there might be in most sessions. Instead, a lot of the focus is going to become addressing your backstories, working with your character ties, and trying to introduce those personal plots. Those are the bones that the meat of the game clings to. Gothic is doing its best work when you feel trapped by your own conscience. When you are put in situations where it feels like the right thing is to break your sworn oath, where your Honor Code conflicts with your Duty, where you know you are walking into death and putting your people at risk, but you cant allow someone to die so you can live. Where you really need to act against your Devotion, but you cant bring yourself to. Whenever one of those factors I had you write into your character careens into one of the other ones, I am doing my job. I set up those pins to knock them down. Its important to remember, that as those things come up, and you feel tricked, trapped, stuck, used, conflicted or justified, that THAT is the experience I wanted you to have when you came here, and that when you and I reach that point together from opposite ends of the story, magic just happened, so enjoy it, even if your stomach is in knots. That said, I learned a lot. Some of you know that in actuality, myself and my staff have never even played in a single session of a boffer LARP. This was our first time, too. I for one learned a lot that I didnt know about coordination and communication. We had some successes and some failures - way more failures than I hoped or would have liked - but it all is getting churned back into the machine. I am reworking the way I structure some back end organization, and how I assign roles to Support Staff at game. I realized where a lot of the soft spots are in my approach, and what I need to fix some of them. Ive realized that one of the things that would help is a committed Support Staff team or additional Staff so that I can assign out Director roles with autonomous jobs so that things can run simultaneously without each one being manually arranged sequentially. If youre interested in that, let me know. I also learned where some of the rough edges in the rules are, so Ill be looking over those, and I want to get a chance to finish some of the fiction writing I wanted to get done soon like the Rogalia packet, the Njordr packet, and the Testimonium. To get all that done, and to make sure that all the improvements can make it into game, AND because November is a crazy month for me with things pretty much every weekend, and Im moving, Im going to set the next game for the first part of December instead of in November. This will likely be December 5-7th, but I havent officially registered the site yet, so pencils only. That, and physically, the game damn near killed me. I keep hearing how exhausted everyone is. It makes me feel better about being exhausted, too. According to the pedometer in my phone, I walked (or ran) 38.3 miles over the course of last weekend. On Monday I had four meals before 2:00 to refuel. I dont know if any of us were prepared for how rigorous that was, but I guess if we keep doing this well be in pretty rockin shape. I hope to see you all at the next event. In the mean time, take the time to post about your cool experiences at the game here in the Facebook group and also with others personally. I made enough money to break even this game for the basic costs of the site, but without too much left over to put back into the game or to reimburse money I already spent on Kuarlite costumes and props, construction, canopy, etc. We can handle more players if you bring them, and it will mean I can start making bigger, cooler sets and monsters. Also, recruiting gets you a big bucket of Glory. 1 for the first game, then 5 if they stay. Recruiting is the most important thing you can ever do to help the game. Also, If you do a quality IC post on the forums about your characters history, their experiences in Stragosa, or anything else, Ill give you an extra experience point. Thank you all for making this dream of mine become a reality. I want it to get bigger, and better. I want this game to be THE game. I will improve my methods and my systems, and I will keep writing it and running it. Let us forge the Throne of God on Earth. -Sean
Posted on: Tue, 21 Oct 2014 17:45:34 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015