"I just decided to"

For over a year now, I've started delving a little deeper into this great big thing we call a Hobby. This whole blog is one giant self exploration sounding board for Live Action Role Play. Through this, and through the magic of the internet and the gaming community, I found a friend in Shoshana Kessock. I later learned that she, like me, wrote on the subject of Larps and their profound affect on us as people and and our affect on it. She has made this hobby into her vocation, and by doing so, she's become a name in the global gaming circles, both in practical and academic spheres, and someone attempting to learn through all the forms of Role Play. Through her I learned of Sarah Lynne Bowman and Lizzie Stark, and know more about the possibilities and theories of Larp than I did a year ago.

I'll admit she's kinda my idol.

In December, she ran a two hour presentation featuring several names in LARP to the NYU Game Center, introducing LARP to people who most likely never experienced it before. I was asked to take part, representing Theater Larp. Out of all of them, I felt like the little fish in a big fucking pond. I'm sitting next to Avonelle Wing, Dexcon organizer and mainstay figure in gaming circle; Michael Pucci, game developer and the father of Dystopia Rising, the Zombie Apocalypse boffer Larp that is now being played in 1/5th of the United States;Sean Jaffe, game designer and writer; Mike**, lead game runner for Dystopia Rising New Jersey;and Christopher St Louis, one of the best game runners and players I have ever seen and the high mark of what it means to be a role player And then there is me, some schmuck who talks faster than he thinks and if he stuttered any more they'd confuse him for a flooded engine. I felt like Junior Varsity during a Pro All Star Game, and the fact I just used a sports reference should tell you all exactly how nervous and under-fucking-prepared I felt!

In the end, the presentation went well. Most of us knew that this was something of a dry run, a test for a bigger event. Shoshana was putting together an academic conference in March, where she was gathering people to discuss and introduce Live Action Role Play in all it's myriad forms. There were to be lectures, workshops, panels and games played. It wouldn't be a convention, per se' run for the sake of gaming. It would be a conference to discuss who we are and where we're going and what we're doing.

I submitted a lecture based on my Living in Myth article from last March. It's actually one of my favorite articles I've written, and certainly my first serious attempt to write about this thing I love doing/considering. I like mythology, I like storytelling, and I like making believe and taking something out of that. It's that last little sparkle of Magic. Power of creation and imagination.

My problem, however, was that this was an academic conference, with quantitative research  and data going mostly behind it. My blogging is anecdotal, at best. There is no data to back this up, and no review really. I just write what I think and hide behind my bunker. So it got turned down, and the explanation was exactly that. Spend enough time in the psych department and you learn a thing or two about research, and about what articles are and aren't acceptable for academic appraisal. I'm oddly okay with the letter of rejection, if anything because the letter was matter of fact. Normally I'm hiding in my bunker wanting not to deal with the world in my only little introverted emo way of handling life. I knew the score, and I knew that this was exactly what it was, and my lecture wasn't what it should have been.

Then I flashed back to a previous hangout we had last month, Shoshana was really supportive of my endeavors with Kensei and with this site. In that conversation told me what she did to go from just blogging about larping to being published academically about larping.

"I just decided to"

That really stuck with me. It's been a month since she said it and it stays with me. After reading the letter of rejection, I just made my decision. I want to make games, I want to share my thoughts and learn more about this marvelous hobby/vocation of ours. That doesn't mean that this blog is going to change. It's my baby and I love it as my sounding board, but this means I will be making myself read more reviews and studies, which may crop up in these articles. But if I can do this, I want to. If anything just to say I did it.

Having said all that, in March 14th-16th, I will be assisting Shoshana in running the Living Games Conference in Brooklyn. Come on down from wherever you are and learn more about this amazing hobby, meet fellow players, and help the academics learn about this amazing thing of ours.

And to Shoshana, thanks.

Later


**: Due his stating of occupational concerns about his hobby I've opted not to mention his name broadly on the internet. He knows who he is (if he reads this) and he should know I consider him to be one of the consummate gamers and storytellers I've encountered and I would love to work with him at some point.