WyrdCon 2012 Recap

WyrdCon is a local convention here in Southern California, dedicated to live-action gaming. It's closely related to InterCon on the East Coast, and just wrapped up it's third year. I've attended all three years, and enjoyed myself each time. Here's a recap of my experience at this year's convention.

I've left buying convention badges behind me - I love running games and meeting new people (and saving money!), so I almost always try to take advantage of the fact that most gaming conventions offer free badges in exchange for running events. At last year's WyrdCon, a friend and I ran a very well-received Babylon 5 LARP, and we're still fielding requests to turn it into a campaign! This year, I designed a smaller game, though I did not actually end up running it (more on that later).

Thursday

I arrived on Thursday night, just before the registration booth shut down and in time to attend the initial cocktail party. After a hectic, difficult day, I felt quite grateful for the chance to relax with friends and a gin & tonic. By the time the party was winding down, I decided to attend a ghost-hunting LARP/ARG that one of the designers had pitched to me in the elevator. The event was quite short, only about an hour long, and put on by the Los Angeles Ghost Patrol. After assembling a team of sufficient size, we were given a variety of ghost hunting equipment (a video camera, a few electricity meters and some dowsing rods) and led on a line course throughout the hotel, ostensibly looking for ghosts. I've always had a mild interest in ghost hunting, and the event was well-put on. The only quibble I have is that at the end of it, we were given small cards intended to kick off an ARG. I decoded the website fairly easily, and was able to log on in my room later that night. Unfortunately, something went wonky when I tried to send my text message to join - I never got any response, which was a little disappointing.

Friday

I am terrible when it comes to waking up early, so I didn't crawl out of bed until fairly late Friday morning. I decided to dress in costume, because why not? My next scheduled event was my Cobalt Nightmares game, so I got into my Irene gear: leather pants, a copper-colored shirt, black vest, ammo/pouch belt and handmade leather eyepatch, complete with boffer wrench and NERF derringer. I looked rather like this. I picked up a bottle of delicious Chocolate Peppermint Cordial from Oak, Ash & Thorn (and also traded a bottle of my homemade cider for a bottle of Lingonberry Cordial).

The Cobalt Nightmares game itself was quite fun - we somehow ended up ported from the Wastes to Qestera, the City of Games, currently holding a competition for the next Prince of the City. The event was mostly roleplay for me, though I did catch a dud shell during the bombing raid, and gained an ability called Luck of the Prince by drinking a mysterious potion (the Marshall's instructions were, "When someone is using an effect against you that you don't want, use this and then come find me"). Haven't used it yet, interested to know what will happen when I do. Also met my character's nemesis again, a rainbow lizard she has a grudge against (long story).

After that game was Big Damn Heroes, a Firefly-inspired LARP. I missed last years' game, but was extremely happy to make this one. My character, Shan Ivy, is a Shepherd from Higgins' Moon. She wears a little bracelet that says 'WWJD', and her Credo is "What Would Jayne Do?" All the PCs ended up unfairly imprisoned, so we got to roleplay out some interesting interrogation scenes (and some jailhouse preaching on the part of my PC) before staging a jailbreak. One of the innovations in this game was the setting up of an 'air vent' - two rows of chairs, about ten yards long, over which had been draped heavy pieces of canvas to create a tunnel. The trick was to crawl quietly through the tunnel, which led us over the Alliance guards' breakroom, and if we made too much noise, they'd hear us and flush the vents out with plasma. Fortunately, we all made it out alive!  Once I ended my PC shift, I switched to an NPC so the second group could fight their way though.

Saturday

By the time Big Damn Heroes ended, I was exhausted. Back up to the room, and passing out in an incredibly soft bed with incredibly soft pillows. I unfortunately slept through the 9 am keynote address by Jeff Gomez of Starlight Runner, but I did manage to make his next panel. And a few panels after that. I learned quite a lot about transmedia, and have even been inspired to expand the site using a few transmedia principles. All the panels were exceptionally interesting, and the only reason this paragraph is so brief is because I plan on giving transmedia whole blog posts later on.

After all my panels, I had just enough time to grab dinner and change into my costume for Hunter's Moon, an urban fantasy, vampire & werewolf LARP which reminds me quite a bit of the Underworld franchise (though the vampires and werewolves in this game have come to a tenuous treaty in the face of attempts by a paramilitary organization to exterminate both races). I've played World of Darkness games for years and years, and have a strong nostalgia for the Masquerade LARPs which were my first introduction to the hobby. I keep hoping an indie Masquerade or Sabbat game will pop up in my area, but so far the only local games are part of global orgs I'm not a huge fan of (for various reasons - I can certainly understand how they appeal to others, I just prefer indie games). The character I made had influences from the Sabbat and Clan Malkavian - a proud, psychic predator. The game itself was interesting - I mostly ignored the plot and enjoyed the chance to roleplay a vampire again, including a very interesting philosophical discussion between me, a werewolf and a werebear as to the proper role of supernatural races in the world (my view: we are superior and therefore deserve to rule humans; their view: you're bugfuck insane for thinking that).

Sunday

After the game concluded was the post-game drinkathon, but I had to leave early, as I was running a game at 10 am. However, as I predicted - I didn't get many players showing up for my game. To drag a nerd out of bed on the fourth day of a convention early in the morning, I'd need to be running a game they already knew and loved. Not to mention I was up against some pretty stiff competition - there was a free brunch just across the hall from my room. Instead, we used the room allotted for my game to play 1000 Blank White Cards, which is rather like Calvinball: The Card Game. Soon enough, though, it was time to wend my way back home.

Overall, I had a fantastic time! I got to play in some of my favorite games, talk about some of my favorite games, spend some time with the friends I love and delve into the philosophy of gaming. Even though I was fairly tired by the end of the entire convention, I can't wait to do it again next year! 


Things I think would make the convention better:

• A panel held sometime on Friday where the various game designers get a chance to stand up and talk about their game and why attendees should play it. I realize many convention goers have already made up their minds which game they want to attend, but many more enjoy having a flexible schedule. I would have appreciated a chance to get introduced to more larps and local (or non-local) designers. As a designer, I would love the chance to introduce my game to more people.


•  Holding it on a three-day weekend. There's another local gaming convention in the area on the same weekend, but it's more geared towards strategy wargames than larp. I think geekery has gotten big enough and well developed enough that we can have two geek conventions, each covering a different aspect of geek fandom, happening on the same weekend within 100 miles of each other.


• More vendors! The vendors' room was so small! I realized shortly before my Cobalt Nightmares game that I had forgotten part of my PCs' costume - a ring of particular importance. I figured that buying a costume jewelry ring shouldn't be that hard at a larp con, but the only vendor selling rings only had simple hematite bands.

Character Death, Consequences, Drama and Story

Spinning off the Facebook discussion I mentioned earlier, the conversation which inspired me to write about my ideal LARP is now talking about the merits of having games dangerous - possibly to the point of lethal - for the player characters (if anyone is interested, the discussion is happening at the Wyrd Con page).

For purposes of this post, when I refer to 'character death', I don't mean an occurrence where a character dies but then is resurrected or resuscitated or otherwise brought back. That I consider to be story. The sort of character death I'm talking about is the permanent kind - no one can restore your character to life. They are dead and gone, forevers. Make a new PC, this one has been permanently removed from play. 

Some players, especially for long-running games, don't like the idea of their player dying in the middle of a game. Which, admittedly, is something I can understand. Especially for games which are comprised mostly of camping events; because if your character dies on the Friday night mod, what are you going to do for the rest of the weekend? Even though making a new PC might be mechanically simple, odds are good you didn't think to bring an appropriate costume or weapons or props. I personally don't have a problem with jumping in to help NPC (I usually pack extra costuming with me just in case), but some players disagree with that idea. For many games, NPCing is usually free or low-cost, whereas the players of PCs usually have to pay a higher fee. I can understand some people being upset at paying the PC fee and then being expected to NPC for the majority (or even a significant portion) of their game time. That being said, I disagree strongly with the argument, 'I paid my PC fee, so my character should be safe from death!' If it's really an issue, the GMs should be up for crediting you a prorated PC fee for the next game.

An argument I can get more behind is the idea that players don't want their character's stories to be ended abruptly or arbitrarily. Real life is arbitrary enough when it comes to inflicting suffering, and game should be at least something of a respite from that (when was the last time a PC was diagnosed with cancer or dropped dead from an aneurysm or heart attack?). People put a lot of creative resources into their character, and it can be disheartening when all those resources vanish in an arbitrary death - sort of like having your favorite TV show get cancelled halfway through the season. It's a let-down, to be sure.

But, on the other hand, LARP is all about story, which means conflict and drama and tension. Part of what creates that conflict is having something at risk. Maybe its your PC's life, or maybe it's something they value almost as importantly (the lives of loved ones, their honor, etc). Fearing the loss of that provides motivation, depth, character growth and story. And fear of death is the easiest one for a GM to invoke. It doesn't have to be personally tailored to individual PCs - everyone intrinsically wants to avoid death.

One story from a recent game I attended: I'm playing an engineer named Irene in a post-apocalyptic fantasy LARP. She has a brother, also a PC, played by a good friend of mine. We were orphans together before being taken in by our adoptive father. My PC pissed off one of the local leaders, who issued an order of banishment against her - leave the city or face execution. While this order was being drafted, my character was meeting with some fairly shady folks. Shady enough to threaten to kill her brother should she attempt to leave the city. ICly, my character fully believed both these NPCs were capable of killing her. And from a meta perspective, I, the player, was pretty sure Irene was toast unless she figured out a way to make both NPCs happy.

Conflict, tension and drama. Now, instead of wandering around the camp with nothing to do except glare at people, my character was scrambling to try and find information with which to bribe the first NPC to let her stay in the city so she could protect her family. And because of what Irene found out, I got to participate in a very cool endcap scene wherein my engineer yelled at a construct of the god of knowledge. Now, my poor little engineer has effectively been coerced into working for a group of fairly violent criminals, who will probably break her legs and kill her brother if she fucks up badly enough... but may lead her to accomplish one of her long-term goals if she manages to work well with them.

The game designers threatened my character with death, and put her in a very difficult situation. Maybe they actually would have killed my character, maybe they would not have. I don't know for sure. What was important, though, was that I believed they were capable of killing my character if she failed. The death would not have been arbitrary - everything which happened was a direct result of choices my character made. If Irene hadn't shot the Arch-Lector, he probably wouldn't have cared enough to want her banished. If she hadn't tried to track down a local criminal, she wouldn't have ended up being threatened by his coterie. I went home from that game feeling like I'd had an awesome time, and now I can't wait for the next game to see what will happen as a result of the choices made at the last one.

I have been to games which I consider to have been played in 'Easy Mode,' and games which I consider to be 'Hard Mode.' In the Easy Mode game, healing and resurrection magic was abundant and NPCs were rarely empowered to be a lethal threat to PCs. In the Hard Mode games, there was no resurrective magic and the setting actively encouraged PvP. Neither of those games were fun for me - in Easy Mode, I felt like nothing was ever going to be at risk for my PC. If I was going to 'win' anyway, then where was my story? In the Hard Mode games, I felt like I had to participate in an arms race to make sure my character had adequate defenses on her sheet so she could get away if a boot squad jumped her. There wasn't much time left over for story or character development after that, and the game staff was too busy adjudicating PvP combat after PvP combat to pay much attention to personal plot.

Now, I understand some people love games in Easy Mode, and other people don't have fun unless they're playing Hard Mode. Different play styles is what makes the world go round - and game designers should be up front about the level of lethality players can expect from their games. That way, if I pay my PC fee for a game I know has a definite lethal potential, I'm accepting the risk that I may end up having to NPC for the latter part of the game.

I, personally, play for story and character development - ideally, I'd like my games to be somewhere between Easy and Hard (though if I had to pick, I'd rather attend a Hard Mode game than an Easy Mode one). I want a game where I will have freedom to explore my character's hopes and pursue her goals, while at the same time fearing what will happen if she fails. And if she does die, I want the scene to be awesome and have a meaningful impact on the story (though, rather than die, I would much rather be given the opportunity to roleplay her response to failure and loss). That middle ground is where I've managed to find the most story and have the most fun at games. Of course, it's also the most demanding in terms of Plot Staff - to create a feeling of impending lethality without having the game become so lethal that half the characters permadeath at a game. And it means that, instead of creating overtly lethal situations, they have to craft story where other, equally important things are at risk (which itself means encouraging players to create characters with complex goals and motivations). It means monsters and challenges have to be carefully calibrated, and the amount of available healing resources has to be monitored. It also means they have to pay close attention to what has happened and the choices PCs have made, so the story can evolve in direct response.

So, to all the game designers, Storytellers and Plot Staff who have created the Moderate Mode games I've played and had such a great time in - my hat is off to you, and thanks for all the story!