The End (Of Summer)

Yeah, I know. My time in the last few weeks has been taken up with the student magazine, as a bunch of writers failed to do their part. Not to mention only just having my modules registered despite having put them in before the end of term.

Yay.

On the upside, I do have a regular gaming group. Bad new is that it's monthly and I'm running Stargate. The weekly gaming group hasn't, for various reasons, although I hope my newly-started Dark Heresy game may flourish (I pimped FS but a player vetoed it).

Another upside is that an old LARPer of mine is moving to Essex. He's been helper to a regional Camarilla guy (and was still there after they split) so I'll have help. He's not quite round the corner, but he has already pledged to help me set up once my degree's over. Next year will involve me doing some writing but I'm shucking my magazine role in favour of being a showrunner on the new radio station.

Apologies

First of all, I'm sorry for the disappearance, which was totally due to the end of year crunch to get projects in. Well, that and a bit of spazzing out over how to deal with being made editor (read: creator and maintainer) for a blog site for the journalism course.

No pressure.

Still that's all done now (except the website bit, but I have all summer for that) so onto the stuff.

Looking at the poll, props and mechanics are the big favorites, so I plan to put together two essays before Monday. One will be a walkthrough and cheatsheet of the basic system, while the other will try to address basic visual style and props.

Time To Get Writing!

Well, my most recent deadlines have come and gone and I can now turn t0 the requests for essays at this point. So far the votes are for Game Theory, mechanics, prop/clothing advice and setting info.

While I obviously do have to go where inspiration takes me, I've already pondered a few options and have scribed them below. If any grab your attention, comment and I'll see what I can do to meet your requests.

Game Theory

• Props - different methods and how they effect the game space.
• How to get people to NPC/GM.

Mechanics

• Explaining basic systems, one piece at a time (character generation, skill use, Wyrd, combat, social systems (20 questions and contracts) and other elements).
• 'Peasants Revolt' - a system explained to me some time ago and designed to counter the super-powerful from making excessive contracts.
  
• Alternative combat. I'm not too sure about this one (I feel ambivalent about trying to fit a boffer system for some reason), but it does have a certain synchronicity with John Wick's recent LJ vid about his Houses of the Blooded LARP combat system (it bears similarities and differences to Passion Play - I wonder how much he knows of it).
• Downtime - statting up fiefs and assets and creating a mechanic where they can be used, conquered and lost in conflicts.
  

Props/Clothing

• Making my Maverick - modding the nerf gun into something more FS.
• Weapon props.
  
• Basic clothing concepts, starting with Rampart's most influential factions.
• Small props - minor props used to add flavour to the setting.

Setting

• The Rampart Gazetteer (as sold by the local Charioteers Guild, only two talons guv'nor).
• Introductory Catechism - explaining Church doctrine.
• What To Do When Noble And In Town.

Does anyone have any preferences?

Pimping My Game

With having a better idea of where things will be happening (UCL), I have been putting out some ads.

On Livejournal I've gone to: London Gamers and Larpers, as well as my own LJ (you never know).

Forum-wise, I've started a recruitment thread on rpg.net and Shades Larp List as well as carrying details in my signatures.

Next I suppose is to hit up the local game shops.

See That Banner?

That wasn't my original choice - I wanted an animated banner.

Not knowing how to make animated .gifs and not having the time to learn, I made a slideshow of various backdrops to the text. Unfortunately, Blogger won't let me add a slideshow to the banner area.

As such, I never quite finished it beyond trying the slideshow out. But, if anyone's interested, the link is here. I know there's a problem with the text, but that comes from only having certain images on hand and, as I can't use it, there's not much point in my trying to fix it.

What Happened And What's Next?

Where did it all go wrong?

• Timeframe: While four weeks is possible (the last one started in a week, but already had players, location, etc), I hadn't counted on having to spend so much time looking for a place. London Metropolitan University doesn't have a sci-fi soc that I know of, which suggested that reaching out to Met students would be a timewaster. However, it was taking a full week to go from 'can I meet your group to talk about this?' to 'well, that's interesting, but we can't do much. Try these guys'. Once that repeated itself couple of times I ended up too short on time.
  
  
• Bad risk assessment: I don't know London and its gamers as I haven't gotten out much (or at all) in term time. I thought that things would actually be easier to set up in as big a town as this (in fact, that was one of the few things I saw as good about moving to London. I was wrong in my unfamiliarity, basically, and lacking a basic network of people to help me get moving.
  

• Ambition: I know this links to what I've said already, but I think that I was too ambitious in my plans. If I had run a World of Darkness or Call of Cthulhu game, I think that I would have found it a lot easier to get players; after all, both games are well known and have strong followers. Fading Suns...does not. Its fans are serious, but the overall numbers are small.

As I've already said, on an objective scale I could have done more but, subjectively speaking, if I'd been able to all that, then I would have.

Still, that doesn't matter. The question is what do I have?

• I stirred up interest: UCL want me to turn up at the new year and basically do a stall showing the game as part of their union events. And there's others - I got an email from someone after the event, who wants to know if I ever do it again (she heard of it from the Maelstrom mailing list. News must have travelled, because I didn't put it there.
  
  
• My ideas: They haven't gone away - and focusing on them has only made them better.
  
  
• Timing: Once this semester is over, I have summer holidays to work on things at my own pace. I think that achieving a critical mass in interest will take longer than I ever anticipated and certainly more time than I had. As UCL and Imperial were saying that nothing could be done at short notice (roughly a month ahead), I have the luxury of not trying to get everything done at short notice.
  
  
• My props: I got a call yesterday afternoon saying that they were ready to be shipped. The universe does have a sense of humour. But I can still get hold of them and I still have ideas for stuff. For example, our housemate threw out some polystyrene pillars on which I am going to do a post, but basically I'm turning them into alien markers.
  

What do I do now?

Despite the frustrations and, ultimately, failure, I do still think that I have something. While it's not a full game, it would seem that such an aim was too high anyway. I've still stirred up interest and I have people who want so see me succeed.

As such, I have decided to keep the blog beyond the project deadline and work on it over the summer with the aim of making presentations and running a game in Year 2.

Keep watching this space, I guess...

15 Days Remaining

Yes, as you can see, I have added a deadline image to the page. Just to be clear, this is the amount of days until the entire project is over, not the amount of days until the game.

Good News Everybody!

I've had an email back from UCL about using the place to run the game. They're very enthusiastic, barring the usual negotiation, to have the game there! They're also looking for a LARP anyway, so this could go well beyond this project into a serial..!

One Week Down

And what do I have to show for it?

• Advertised on a number of forums and found more to go to.
  
  
• Contacted the UCL RPG group to see if I can use the uni grounds to run my game.
  
  
• Contacted a local game shop, which offered to hand out my cards (see below). And, in an unusual twist, it turns out that the person I talked to knows the game's developers! What's more, they now live in London and he offered to send them my way!
  
  
• Created a business card about the game. I know leaflets are traditional, but I study marketing and it would be lax of me to do something ordinary. Besides, leaflets tend to be easily forgotten, while business cards tend to stay in people's wallets. Although cards are small, with very limited space for text, mostly what it does is direct people here, to the crux of the project. Now I just need to get them out for people to find.
  
  
• Started work on the story. So far I have a working title "Tears of the Martyr", which refers to a certain plant grown in Li-Halan space. The plant, grown on the Li-Halan homeworld is also poisonous, except to those of sufficiently luminous faith. It is rumoured to be used by the Hidden Martyrs, the House's own Inquisition, to end the lives of heretics.

I still don't have a solid number for players, but it is early days yet and recruitment is something that I expect to do right up to the game itself.

As such, I intend to spend this week focusing more on creating plot and looking at prop creation

Here's the business card: