Hogwarts it ain't, a discussion on Magic in Mage the Awakening

This week, I worked on a scene with my players. They wanted to do an action against the Seers of the Throne, fellow Mages who collectively make the Illuminati look like a gossip circle at recess. Their goal was to use Mind Magic to enter their mind's and take out valuable information.

They were successful, to a point. It wasn't until the Seers got hip to it that things went south. A bunch of close calls, and a player action that inadvertently helped the antagonists lead to the Seers escape from harm.

Actually, I've got to mention the action. The scene took place on the shoreline of Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn. It initially began as a group of Mages pooling their Space magic to Scry on the Seer. In his bid to stop one of the Seers, the Scrying window (which can only observe) was turned into a Portal (which can be walked through), and one of the Matter Mages jumped through it. He turned the street he and the Seer were standing on from concrete to dandelion seeds using Matter Magic. This worked, and both he and the Seer descended into the freezing water of the Bay. However, this got the Seer out of line of sight of the Space Mages he knew were responsible for the scrying window and the portal, allowing him to escape without major difficulty.

The Matter Mage's player and I spoke, and he expressed his dissapointment. He wasn't sure how that could have, in any way, gone any better. As if they were impossible to beat.

They weren't actually. There were alot of close calls. The Seer that escaped left hemmorhaging because his teleportation spell went wrong. The major thing was that the Seers were prepared for a magical attack. I told the player that if someone actually drew a gun and kneecapped the asshole, he'd have had better luck than if he had used magic.

I think a lot of the problem is that many see Mages as a one for one type character. I have a thing, I do a thing, problem solved. In other systems like D and D, that's normally the case. Except this is Mage, where everyone has the potential access to the exact same magical skillset as you. You aren't just chucking fireballs at a person, you're potentially playing chess against them. Point, Counterpoint, Contingency, Reply. If I know Matter Magic and I attack a Matter Mage, he can counter, trying to cancel out my spell or lower it's effects. Sometimes it's easier to bum rush him physically than actually taking on someone with straight up magic.

That's one of the reasons why when someone tells me their character and I ask what can they do? I don't mean their magic, I mean what can they do outside of magic? That 1) Tells me what they'll lean towards with their magic and 2) Tells me a lot more about their character. These people weren't born to magic, so it makes no sense that that's all they can do.

So, in the interest of time, here is Craig's Tips For Using Magic in Awakening

1) What is your role? Are you a Healer? An Explorer? A Fighter? A sniper? Are you a researcher? An Administrator? A Tactician? That flavors how you do your magic, not the other way around. My Mages are often explorers and intel gatherers, seeking depth and understanding and using that. Their Magic is usually based around that as well.

I mention this because I have had a lot people answer What does your character do? by answering with their magic. Don't do this. Tell me what, if your character was human, would they be qualified to do? And what they wouldn't be qualified to do. It adds flavor and context to a magic system, and considering that this is a game where the sky is the limit on what you can do, flavor counts.

2) Your opposition are other Mages. With very few exceptions, you're most likely dealing with other Mages. That means that there is a very good chance that your opposition has the same skillset magically as you do. This makes life so much fucking complicated. Consider that a lot of the magic is also good at mitigating itself, and this can get tedious pretty quickly if the pulls are right.

3) Tactics, tactics, fucking tactics. Going in blindly against another Mage you've no knowledge about is a last ditch effort. Intelligence, planning, and precision are actually the best methods. A good mage assault should be like that...a tactical assault. Knowing what the opposition can do helps in mitigating what they can do against you, and this becomes doubly important if they are of higher power ranking than you or have a decidedly perilous Legacy, which cannot be mitigated as easily and requires special consideration.

A case in point. I play a character who is an urban explorer. What this means is that I can gain information about the history of a location, and a taste for the overall energy in the area. I can potentially learn about things in the present, the way to get around me is to be mobile, or to begin cloaking in time and space, and putting up false signals and clues. And doing a lot of, at the time, really unnecessary things. But it helps keep me off the scent, and buys you enough time.

I'm my own worst enemy.

4) Old Tricks are the best tricks. Sometimes, simply going around the magic is the best way of taking out the Mages. Mages are human, they require (to various degrees) food, water, shelter, and their internal organs and blood to remain internal. Taking those away will most likely take the Mage out of the equation, or leave them vulnerable. This is why most Mage fights begin in Proxy Wars where they use mortals to take assault them in ways where magic would just complicate matters. Siccing the cops on Mages is a great way to tie their hands as anything they would do risks drawing attention to them.

5) Paradox is the great equalizer. Paradox is what happens when you pull on Realities Strings too hard and the Abyss notices. Paradox can cause a lot of problems on a truly Lovecraftian level, or can cause massive amounts of damage. It affects all Mages, even those who worship the Abyss. That means that throwing around Magic, while effective, is potentially dangerous for all considered. That is something that needs to be considered in all means.

This all leads me to point 6)

Mage is not about what you can do with Magic. So you're a Mage, congratulations, so are most of the people in the room. Mage is about what Magic can do to you, how it changes and enhances who you already are, and how you think. It opens up a new level of how you do what you already do. If you're a set of magic abilities with a body attached, congratulations, you're a glass bomb waiting to blow.

Don't take that the wrong way, so long as you're willing to accept you're going to go off eventually.

Later.

"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.

Theatre Larp 101

In December, I was asked to take part in a panel presentation introducing Larp to an audience of students at NYU, hosted by Shoshana Kessock and the NYU School's Game Center (proving I picked the wrong major). I was asked to introduce Theater Larp. The majority of people see Larp in the boffer variety or, now thanks to the media, Nordic style. Most of the games I've played/ran have been theater style larps.

But what the Hell does that mean?

NYC's Changeling the Lost Game, photo by Craig Page

So, before I begin in describing it. Let me first state that this is MY interpretation. If my blog has said anything, it's that I do not speak for everyone in the community and my opinions and biases are well known. If you have a different meaning to it, by all means comment and contribute! So on with the show.

Let's first begin with the statement of what I feel Larp means: Larp is when people create characters and perform them physically in a setting created and/or moderated by a core set of people. This is the core definition that can apply to mosts larps. Note, I say most larps, as even then there are exceptions. That's the general definition. What separates Theater Larp from say a Boffer Larp is that Theater Larps tend to be shorter in their time span, lasting only a few hours (2-6 on average). Physical combat, and most actions that are out of the question for the player or the environment are narrated, not acted out. As such, the focus of these games is social interactions. Most games centering around some sort of social function while the action goes on (most often) outside of the area.

Games are generally held in black box rooms, studios and spaces that the Storyteller narrates as being the location in general. I have played poker with Vampires on the top Floor of the Empire State Building, I have held secret meetings in abandoned theaters and subway stations with Mages, I have been beyond the Hedge and in the Goblin Markets where only Changelings may go. I have been all of these places in my mind, my body is more often than not in some studio space in manhattan, or an apartment in the City. Because the logistical need in these games are low, and most interactions rely on the storyteller, you just really need a space to play in. Of course, there are those who play in churches, bars, and apartments and they are treated exactly as they are...some of us are lucky. Ultimately it boils down to economics and the Cost of Gaming, we can only play where we can afford to play.

I've mentioned that actions are narrated, and that leads me to IC/OOC bleed out. Social interactions are considering in character unless specifically stated otherwise. Sometimes, descriptions have to be narrated out of character. Changeling the Lost is notorious for this as it has a Mask and a Mien, a Mask is generally what you look like and a Mien is the Changeling you're playing. My mask looks roughly like me while my mien looks like an Orcimer from Elder Scrolls. The same goes for the environment, castles, special areas, even common areas like landmarks that players are visiting should be narrated, and most often by the Storyteller or the hosting character's player.

The key point is that all interactions generally have to go through the Storytelling staff. ST staffs in large games are often spread out and not everything can be monitored by staff. In a theater Larp,  the staff is most often in the room with them, moderating the function. If players wish to engage in investigation of the environs or engage in combat, they need to speak to the Storyteller. In this, it shares close ties with it's cousin in Tabletop games, and a large chunk of tabletops have been converted to Larps. Of these the World of Darkness games have a large following. However, this leads to a special problem: whereas in boffer larps or fully immersive games, you need a storyteller to do most of anything. Some games can be run just knowing your characters and the situation and running loose. In a theatre Larp, someone is often usually at the wheel, or at least moderating.

Which also leads to the fact that games do not end at the end of game. Scenes, character interactions and further actions take place over the month, in what we call "Downtimes". Downtime Actions are done through emails, skype or google hangouts, dinners. I've had Ordo Dracul meetings in the backrooms of Horror themed bars and Changeling meetings in swanky apartments. The key, again, goes back to roleplay, mechanics doesn't often happen here. We call it soft RP. If these are monitored or acknowledged by the Storyteller, the players get experience points and more personal or game related plot. This type of gaming though leads to an interesting form of Alternate Reality Gaming, where real life and game life bleed into one another. It's fascinating stuff, something I'd love to work with if I had the time/money/energy/sleep cycle to figure it out.

When things DO get rough, and fights or investigations need to happen, that's when the character's stat sheets come out and the storytellers need to get to working. Actions are based on the stats of the characters, usually their inherent traits like Social, Intelligence or Physical aptitudes and specific skills added together with other factors to make a base number. From there, chance decides. Some games uses cards, others dice, Old World of Darkness uses Rock Paper Scissors. Either way, Chance decides how those factors work. Some times it can change a whole game, some times it is purely academic. This leads to a lot of number crunching, which is time consuming. Large combat actions that in game-time takes minutes, but in real time takes much more than that. Also, some people, when making their characters, Maximize the stats they need for certain actions making pulls a moot point. I'm not particularly a fan of min maxing, unless you're playing a savant or something which in that case you've got other issues to deal with as well.

So, to conclude. Theatre Larps are Character Driven Gaming, with the Storyteller being directly involved in each player's action. It can span multiple media, and can be played roughly anywhere at any time. Because of these, it can be accessible to casual players from all stripes.

However, because of such things, it isn't as inherently immersive and relies on the players performances to carry the immersion (assuming that is what the players wish to do). It also presumes that the Storytellers can access each player on an equal basis, giving everyone the freedom/understanding. Storytellers are just people too, and sometimes they forget, or can't be everywhere. It's also mechanics heavy, which becomes a major time and energy drag. I've seen combat scenes go four hours without resolution, incidentally I've seen people not come back afterwards.

It also, I should say, has the distinctness of favoring people with high social skills in real life. I've seen the truly charming be able to play masterfully without ever having to use their sheet. I've seen the great debators talk their way out of things both ICly and OOCly, and I've seen these players be the top of the pile in terms of the game. Keep in mind that some of us aren't born with that, and you sometimes find yourself locked out a bit. In all Larps this is a thing, but when Social skills is the key factor, it becomes paramount.

And that, is my description of Theater Larping. It's not a perfect one, it's not even a great one. But it's the one I have.

Later.

Needs Must: a Dystopia Rising concept story

Jayk woke up, and Jayk felt pain, and Jayk knew that very soon he was going to die.  The world was dark, his vision darkened by wet cloth. The pain was numbing, almost freezing on principle and yet he could still feel the ice cold water lapping underneath his back and his legs. All things considered, Jayk did the only sensible thing anyone would do.

Jayk screamed for help.

It was stupid, and Jayk knew it. Being a guard for the caravans as long as he had told him it was a stupid idea. Sure he was dying, sure he had fucked up and deserved it. But noise attracted the Zed. It was either make noise, though, or become one of them.

And needs must when the Devil drives.

Time passed in the wet, cold, and pain. Time that Jayk couldn't even know. Hours? Minutes? Seconds? Why didn't he dissolve into the ground? Why didn't the gravemind claim him? He kept screaming, screaming helped. Screaming meant he was still alive. They weren't words, Lost Boys could mimic words. Scream in pain, pure and without bias and you'll live.

Between the screams, in the bid for air, Jayk heard a counter sound. It was a sweet melody, a soft tune that Jayk couldn't make out the words.

Jayk screamed again, words came to him. "HELP!" He screamed.

The melody stopped abruptly. Jayk stopped his shouting to gauge. Moments passed, heartbeats into eternities. A voice came out from the distance, musical and casual. "Are you alive?"

Jayk had to stop and question that, in this much pain. Was he sure he wasn't already in Hell? He realized he had no time to consider. "Yes! I'm Alive! No, I'm not making this up. Help me please!" The words flowed out of him. Words were always good to passersby when in aid. "I'm not a trap! I'm in help! Help!"

More silence, and then footfalls near him. "I'm going to take the hood off of you, close your eyes."

Relief washed over Jayk, almost making him forget his pain, almost allowing him to pass out. "I'm a Retrograde." he said. "I haven't changed. Don't kill me because of it."

"I don't think that's going to be a problem," The voice said. Jayk's world suddenly exploded in white, brilliant light. The pain of light burned almost as much as the pain in his chest.

"Easy now," said the voice. "Take a moment,"

"Pain." Jayk rasped. "Pain." He realized the person did not run or flee when his face was revealed. Retrogrades tend to get shot because they resemble the shambling hordes of the dead.  This one seemed fine with it.

"Pain will subside," the voice said. "I'd be glad, it means you aren't dead." There was a pause. "Although, death might be preferable."

The light began to lessen, and Jayk could see the blue of the sky with green trees in his peripheral. There was a man in front of him. His clothes were a uniform black, with a faded black denim jacket patched over. He had dark hair, silvering in some places. His eyes weren't the same color, both were hazel, but the left one was noticeably a deeper green and the right a golden brown. There was a casualness about him, as if he wasn't in the Zed and Raider infested end of the world.

"Hey" the man said. It was soft and welcoming. "I'm Walker,"

"J-Jayk," he replied. His teeth chattering once he gave his body some time to adjust.

"Hi Jayk," he said. "You have two options right now. You can look at me and not have to face what's happened to your body or..."

Jayk craned his neck up, looking down. Small tines poked out of his arms, chest and legs, bone white and curved. They blossomed like thorns of a flower.  A groan gurgled from his mouth, bubbling like the stream that was beneath him.

"...or you can look and see what happened." Walker finished. He sucked in a breath, "I'm going to guess from the positioning and the watermask you were wearing, you didn't just slip and fall, right?"

The question shocked Jayk from his pain and his suffering. "Natural Ones....Clan Shrike."

The man raised an eyebrow, "Cannibals?"

Jayk shook his head, the only thing that was free to move. The man eyed him up and down, then snapped his fingers. "You're bait," he said. "They mount you onto this thing, keeping you alive and screaming for the Zed to hear and be attracted. Even dead, the smell of meat and flesh will be potent enough...and since you're not technically touching the ground, you don't get to be taken by the Gravemind. Clever. Sadistic, but clever. "

"Help...me." Jayk said. It was a plea, a cry for help.

The man took in another sharp breath. "I'm no Doctor, but I'm pretty sure those...yeah, those are antlers, are puncturing several major organs...and even if they aren't...pulling you off will most definitely rupture a major organ. " Walker stood silently, looking at his body. "Okay, I'm going to do something incredibly stupid. I'm going to peel you off this thing and then I'm going to pull you to the side and heal you."

"You said you weren't a Doctor?"

"Man doesn't always need medicine to survive."

"Priest?"

Walker shrugged.  "You religious in any way?"

Jayk struggled, "Dad was Fallows Hope. I hung out at the Blue House in Aysea."

Walker laughed, "you probably missed me a couple of times."

Jayk said nothing at first, then looked up at the man. "Can I...do you do confessions?" The man raised an eyebrow, and Jayk explained. "I've died three times...once in a bar brawl in the Aysea...once  when Raiders hit our Caravan, the third time I slipped off a wagon and broke my neck. This is it for me. I die...I won't come back as pretty."

Walker nodded. He clearly knew what happens to Retros when they die all the way. They become Zed, but not just any Zed, stronger Zed.  No shambling horde for them. They get to cause major mayhem. "You want absolution." the young Priest said. "Sure, hit me with your best shot."

Jayk took in a breath. The pain of the Shrike's antler mount was a distant pain. Either he'd gotten used to it, or his body was in so much shock it was pointless to worry about it. "I asked for this. Our caravan was stopped over with the Clan, we traded goods, kept the guns and tech out of the way. I caught the eye of a little thing. Cute. Did this little trick with his...anyways, you know how Hill Folk can be about...intermingling."

"So they crucified you on a pile of antlers to die as Zed bait?"

"I said some nasty words," Jayk said, lying.

If Walker had picked up on the lie, he didn't show it. "And do you feel sorry for this?"

"If I could do things differently, I would have."

Walker nodded, and then grabbed under Jayk's body. "I don't want to alarm you, but this is going to really hurt."

A sudden thought occurred to Jayk as Walker took in a deep breath. "Shouldn't you break off the antlers ffffffffffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuc---"

Pain. Pain as blinding and as sharp as the light that stung his eyes. Pain that made his skin want to rip itself off and escape the entire situation all together. He almost wished at that moment to just sink into the ground, join the Gravemind and become one with the Horde.

Soft, firm ground embraced Jayk's back, and he was surprised he did not descend immediately into the ground. Walker rested a hand on the Retro's head, on the roughened face, the bones of his skull practically sticking out of his greying, mottled skin. His chest burned and itched. He imagined the air touching his organs, blood vessels bleeding into the wild.

"Okay," Walker said. His voice was unhurried. "Here goes."

He placed his hands onto Jayk, one on his forehead and the other on the bloody remains of his chest. "I call out to you, those who hear my voice. Guide this man in his darkest moments. Allow him to find the power within. To liberate himself from his shackles."  Walker's tone changed, it wasn't casual and melodic. It was direct and powerful. As if he called on someone. Jayk remembered seeing priests of the King's Court at the Blue House in Aysea. They sang songs, songs of the late Kings and Queens of the world long since claimed by Zed and Radiation.  They spread the messages of their preferred Prophet to others. Their seat in Aysea was the Blue House, where music and religion were one and the same.

This man Walker was not one of them.

The realization flashed on Jayk's face, and Walker caught on. The Priest's hand clasped around the young Retrograde's ghoulish mouth. It moved like a flash, but Jayk saw all he needed to see to prove his fears. A brand beneath the wrist, an eye, and where there should be an iris was a glyph from the old world. It's true meaning was lost, but everyone knew it well enough. It meant the Danger of Rad, the killer of worlds.

Jayk was in the hands of a Final Knight. Devil Worshipers, while the other faiths built for a better day, the Final Knights armed for the hell that was here and more to come.

"Shhh" Walker said calmly. He leaned in conspiratorially, and Jayk wanted to recoil. To fight the hand around his mouth and call out to someone, anyone to help him. "Jayk...JAYK" The last was a command, a bark of order. "You're dying Jayk, you were dying to moment they put you on the rack, you were dying the moment you were born. How old are you Jayk? Eighteen?" Jayk didn't answer. "Younger?" Jayk blinked. And Walker nodded.

"Not even eighteen, and already on your last legs against the infection. How long would you survive before you found yourself in this position again? Weeks? Months? And what would you do in that time? Continue working? Embracing Life? No...you'd probably squander it. I offer you some meaning in your final moments. Some clarity as you face the Gravemind. I offer you the chance for revenge in death that you could never gain in life. To Rise and claim your revenge on Clan Shrike for murdering you. For you are murdered, Jayk. And they have done the deed. Do you accept?"

Jayk knew he would die there. He knew that there was no escape, and he knew deep down that this Damned Priest was right. His life would have no meaning. As the last minutes of his life's blood ebbed out of him, he nodded.

Walker smiled, and took his free hand and placed what felt like the whole thing into one of Jayk's open wounds. When extracted, the fingers were sticky and coated with blood. Walker dabbed the blood on Jayk's head, proving to be cooler than Jayk had thought it'd be. Walker said nothing, and just smiled. The world darkened around Jayk, and his last thoughts were of that smile.

And revenge on Clan Shrike.

---

In the end, the Gravemind took him. The Gravemind always takes them. And they always come back as the shambling dead.

Hell. How could the other Faiths see this as anything less than Hell?

Walker asked this question as Jayk's veins turned green under mottled skin, as his eyes bled black, and as the tendrils of the gravemind claimed his body and took him down through the earth. Jayk, young Retrograde was dead. Life squandered and never being able to fulfill his true power and potential on Hell on Earth.

But was it a complete waste.

Walker sat on the bank of the stream, allowing the sun to warm and dry his soaked black pants. It was ultimately a pleasant day. The Zed hadn't been that numerous, and he was glad for warnings about Clan Shrike. His eyes travelled to the rack Jayk had been stapled to, it was a gruesome way to die. But ultimately an ingenious one. He'd have to remember that when he found a place to stay.

Time past, and the sun was warm. And as bright sun turned into orange sunset, the screaming began. It was distant first, but it soon grew clear. The shout of surprise, combat, anger. Then came other noises, low but clear and distinct. The groans of the shambling horde. The groans, as they often did, followed the screams. The screams, through the forest, sounded at least several miles away to the east.

"May the survivors find enlightenment as those in the old days found enlightenment as they beheld the bombs falling to earth. That this is Hell and we are Damned. May they come to power in their truth, and may they draw strength from that power. May they learn the names of the Infernal Lords and may we join to bring this world to a true understanding." He felt his strength return to him, he felt invigorated by the words and knew that, somewhere, something was listening and approved.

And in the twilight gloom, the man known as Walker Blackforest made his way along the path, now made empty as the zombies and hill folk made war in the east. A song in his heart and on his lips.

Going Splat: What I Would Be If the Games I played Were Real

This came from a conversation during New Years Eve, where several of my friends were discussing what types of characters they would be if they were actually made into Vampires as seen in Vampire the Requiem. This of course got me to thinking...

For those of you just tuning in, that's never really a good way for me to start one of these posts.

In Psychology, the moment we were taught diagnoses, we were told one simple thing: don't diagnose yourself. By the end of studying, you will have classified yourself with every major diagnoses in the book. That being said, keep in mind that most of the games I play in are from The World of Darkness, a line of games that prides itself on the trope "Blessed With Suck" and "Cursed with Awesome". So when I mention these Splats ('splats' is a catchall term for either Races, Jobs, Organization Choices that help define a player character, for those who didn't already know) it helps to understand that I'm also looking at their baggage as well. The games I'll be going through are Vampire the Requiem, Changeling the Lost, Mage the Awakening, Accord, and Dystopia Rising.

Warning: I may be getting personal in this article, so if you don't have the time or energy to deal with that, please click the little 'x'. I appreciate your patronage.



Vampire the Requiem:

It was universally decided by my friends that I would definitely be a Mekhet. Mekhet are a species (lack of a better term, they prefer the word 'Clan') of Vampires who favor high Intelligence and Wits (depending on the day, I qualify for either). They specialize in Auspex, a mental power that specializes in altering senses, from advancing sight, sound, touch, taste and smell; to seeing the aura's of others, to seeing the emotional aura of others, to telepathy and finally projecting their minds into the twilight realms. They also specialize in Obfuscate and Celerity, mentally tricking the mind something isn't there and superspeed, respectively. This makes Mekhet the information gatherers/spies/assassins/overall passively dangerous figures.

However, it also comes with the fact that Mekhet tend to be a little bit out of touch with reality...which is accurate for me in most cases. It's not that I am completely out of touch with reality, I'm fully aware of what's going on around me and much prefer the shit going on in my own head (most of the times).

This kinda jives as my longest running PC was a Mekhet. Vincenzo Taglia DaVenezia. He was a therapist, an eidetic with a penchant for scanning the minds of others and remembering it. He remembered 100 years of being stuck in the vampire equivalent of a coma with nothing but his Beast (the supernatural entity that technically makes a Vampire a Vampire) as his company. He was a bit unhinged, and he drank heavily to cope. In the new line of stories, I play Owen Asteria, a morally ambiguous occultist in a family of morally ambiguous figures. He's also a Khaibit, servants in the samurai kind of sense who can control and even become one with the shadows.

Out of all the clans of Vampires, I *get* the Mekhet the most. There is however a strong running for the Nosferatu, who evoke a sense of weirdness, which is something that I also tend to do (for good and ill).

The question for me is 'what covenant would I as a Vampire be a part of?". Covenants are socio-political groups that hold sway through Vampiric Society. Due to my history of being a Mental Health Counselor and my working idea of the science of the mind, I'd probably say Ordo Dracul, who wish to study,examine, and transcend the Vampiric Condition. But they have something that I'm not a fan of: a highly structured Hierarchy. If not them, I'd probably be part of the Circle of the Crone, a religious group based around pagan beliefs of multiple faiths and deal heavily with the concept of embodying Archetypes. The groups have a lot in common, except where the ordo wishes to transcend, the Circle wishes to embrace. So go figure

Changeling the Lost

Changeling the Lost is all about what you came back as after years of systematic torture and abuse. So these choices aren't for a "how cool would this be" factor but a "that's fucking horrible and tragic" factor.

So in terms of what I'd be if I escaped my Faerie Keeper and came back to the mortal world, I'd have to say it'd be one of two choices. The first would be an Elemental, a Changeling that had been turned into something like a fireplace, a silver mine, an actual toy or a gust of breeze. Note, being a Changeling is NOT a good thing. There are reasons for this, mostly because I have a strong affinity for the elements (I wrote an essay on the elements as archetypes, I know I'm weird, shut up). Most likely I'd have been a water elemental, something that constantly moves either externally or internally, who can be completely still one minute and running everywhere the next.

The other option would be a Wizened, a changeling who is altered and stunted in some way and tasked with some sort of trade. Smiths, Soldiers, Surgeons. My luck? I'd be an Author, someone meant to write and notate for their Keeper. That'd be my hell, to be some scriv for a god thing who would most likely drain my blood at the slightest embellishment.

As for Court...Courts are probably the easiest to figure out because it's a matter of describing what core emotion goes with me. For me, it'd probably be either the Autumn or Winter Courts, Fear or Sorrow. I have boughts of depression, sometimes cripplingly so, and my usual reaction is to stop and sleep. However, these emotions also come with a sense of anxiety, of Fear, of the great What Ifs. Both emotions, and therefore Courts, are both viable to me.

Alot of people will tell you about how they're the Court of whatever-makes-them-come-off-like-a-boss. Even the Sovereigns of these Courts are bound and chained to the emotion they are. It's a part of them, they embody it. And none of those emotions are easy ones to live with. Either way, in reality, let's face it. I'm really Unseelie.

Changeling's fucking depressing, okay?

Mage The Awakening and Accord

Mage is more difficult to describe, as their splats are more about how one views the universe and therefore their magic. I would have to say Acanthus, a form of Mage who receives their powers from the Fae Realm of Arcadia. I say Acanthus for it's specialty in Fate Magic, the exploration of Themes, the power of Oaths, and the blessing and cursing of others. It's not direct in it's actions, it's subtle. Depending on temperament, mood and situation, Acanthus can either sweat the details or rube-goldfarb someone to death.

Orders are what Mages do in the Awakened community. Honestly, I'd probably steer clear of those, dealing on my own as an Apostate. What would most interest me would be the Mage Legacies, subsets of magic that denote specialty and mindset. One of them is my absolute favorite: The House of Ariadne. The House of Ariadne are Mages who have attuned their souls to the fates and history of a given city. They can access it's history, speak to it's condition, find things that only someone who intimately understood it. Furthermore, their personalities come to match the cities they are closest to.

I gravitate towards this because my main pasttime is walking through New York. I love walking through it, through the streets and seeing neighborhoods bleed into one another. Of learning of the little hidden things and seeing the designs and artwork/grafitti. On New Years, when I left the party I was at and in the few minutes I was out in the open, I could taste the winter wind on me that blew through the canyon-like streets of manhattan. I could hear the traffic of foot and car. I felt more relaxed out there than I did in the warmth of the rooms.

This love has cascaded over to Accord, as I'm unable to play in my own game. I play Mage and love Mage because they are the ones who speak to the universe and to the soul. While others are dealing with Blood, Madness, and Bestial Drives. Mages are what speak to the universe within and without. And there is a part of me that enjoys that.


Dystopia Rising

Switching tracks to the Dystopia Rising line, where the characters are split into different Strains of Humanity that evolved after the world ended in Atomic and Zombie Apocalypses (possibly multiple, history is a bit screwed). One of these races is Yorker, and they are exactly what you think of them. I'm not saying that because of where I'm from...I AM, but it's not the sole reason.

Yorkers are classified as people who are preternaturally pissed off survivors. They have lived through hell and have kept going and have taken on personalities larger than life. Their tongues are acid etched and their weapons are big and threatening. Sarcastic to the final fault and with emotional walls that would make a Titan blink (look it up folks) Yorkers are ones whom you do not cross lightly.

Faiths are a major thing, but to be honest, I probably wouldn't pick any of them, if anything because they are Faiths born out of a response to chaotic/insane times and none of them call to me. I've an affinity for *playing* some of them, but I'd be faithless in game. I'd most likely be a Teacher or Printer, possibly even a Jones, who explores the wastes for artifacts of the past. It's what *I* would do, both as a player and as a person. I would explore the world and try, very hard, not to die.

I should point out that most of the characters I've played in DR have been confused for Yorkers. So what, I'm from the Bronx and the Accent happens when I get nervous/excited/drunk

So I don't know what this blog post succeeds in doing. Perhaps in showing I'm neurotic and think to much?  Probably. It's my belief, and I've stated it before, that playing in LARPs is a great way to explore your internal workings, and possibly coming to an understanding/confrontation of the things inside you that you may not even be aware of. It may enhance you as a player, it may enhance you as a person.

Later.

The Holy Texts: Worldbuilding through in universe literature

The Elder Scrolls series is one of the most popular franchises in gaming today, with the fifth game: Skyrim, being universally acclaimed by both gaming and mainstream media. A lot of people will talk about all the things you can do: archery, hunting, magic, fighting, blowing cows and animals off of cliffs through the forceful power of your magical Shouts. But in all intents and purposes, you're playing a cypher. Your character is riding a series of rails that, in the grand scope, will end with you victorious and ultimately nothing changing to them. The player interacts with the environment, and it's the environment that is the star.

The main attraction is the realm of Skyrim, a Nordic culture at war with itself. Each area has it's own history and foibles, and scattered throughout the country are various texts that flavor the history and attitudes of the land. 820 books to be exact, all of them containing text that was written by the studio that developed the game.

Let's put that into perspective. Someone wrote 820 books (okay, exerpts of, but still) for a fictional world? Each one in it's own format, with it's own voice and perspective. That makes the world all the more real to me.

The same thing happens in a lot of the novels I read. Frank Herbert's Dune has, at the beginning of every chapter, an excerpt from one of Princess Irulan's many books on Muad'dib giving us an after-the-fact perspective on the story we're looking at. The Kingskiller Chronicle has the various stories, songs and legends both oral, sung and written about the world and how the fit into the world as it might be. Newsflesh features the blogs of the main characters reflecting publically and privately some of the information we see in the narration. We're seeing the difference between the experience and the news being put out. Daniel Wallace wrote three books for Star Wars, illustrating the inner workings of the Jedi, Sith and Bounty Hunters by writing them as in-universe textbooks (of which I use religiously, because duh)

Written media is different than most others because, for the most part, all visual aspects are parts of the imagination, you're filling in the blanks and pictures. So now you're reading a book in another book, or video game. It's a risk, because you're adding depth. So to make the main media you're dealing with believable, you need to make the in-game book credible. The ultimate reason to use this is to add depth and also to give background information in a way that doesn't require characters to give an information dump that they otherwise wouldn't give. It also, sometimes, adds importance to the words inside the book. And this is why some of them I call the Holy Texts.

When I first started playing Vampire the Requiem, I played a member of the Ordo Dracul. The Ordo was founded by Vampirism's biggest bad boy, Vlad Tepes aka Dracula. In the universe of Requiem, Dracula awoke as a Vampire, with no known Embrace. He had become a vampire by unknown means, and in the course of his existence, learned how to transcend his nature and his experience with the aid of his Three Wives. Together, the form of them founded the Ordo Dracul in the attempt to explore and experiment with the vampiric condition.

We know this information from the textbook writings of the corebook. We know this in further depth by the book known as the Rites of the Dragon. In universe, it's the 'holy text' of the Ordo Dracul. It's the first thing sworn members read when they join (membership is permanent. You leave when you die, and die when you leave). It is written by Dracula himself, chronicling his journey. In the Real World, the Rites of the Dragon exists, written by White Wolf. There are players who bought Rites of the Dragon and brought their copies with them to stay in character, to maintain the sense that this text is important to us as characters.

Things like this add another layer of a world, a sense that people existed. Here, we have proof that someone's thoughts have been written on a page and has stood the test of time. They don't have to be actual 'holy texts' (hello Book of Eli, I'm looking at you) but they can be diaries, journals, letters, recordings. Cloud Atlas basically takes this concept

As I develop materials for Kensei, and developing the backstory of the world and the various martial arts schools, I realize that for me to put the point across, I would need to write the (albeit truncated) documents of the various schools, corporations and other materials. That's a lot of depth, and some games don't even bother with that. But I prefer the method as it gives in coming players an in depth attitude to what exactly it means to be in this thing.

This is all a part of what draws me in to games lately: Immersion. I'm more likely to be able to immerse myself if I am able to have in-universe information before, during and after my character begins play. The more information helps me as a player make my decisions about how my character would react to that. How would he have interpreted the Rites of the Dragon? Would he have dismissed them as a fabrication of some enterprising young Acolyte? What if he wrote his response to that book, what if he made his own book depending on the information. Going that deep in allows for a lot more indepth discussion both IC and OOC and allows for some interesting conversations/arguments that may have long lasting repercussions on the other characters and the game as well.

Do your games have in-universe texts? How indepth are they? Do you prefer an FOIG (Find Out In Game) method, where your PC is basically walking in blind? Is your character writing one? I'd love to hear examples.

To the Waters and the Wild: A Sidhe Nordic LARP concept

This was an idea that formed this week, and wanted to write it down and write it out. It had originally started as an idea for the Changeling game I take part in. I play the Emperor of the West Court in New York City, and a Merchant in one of the local Goblin Markets, where anything can be bought and sold

Anything.

The stories are varied. Goblin markets are sometimes where stories begin, or sometimes they are the stories themselves. I had started getting ideas about scenarios in them, about mortals who slipped in and had to deal with the bizarre rules and even more bizarre people who run the market, about dealing with the devils and possibly buying and selling more than they realize.

Then my brain changed a turn, I'd always wanted to do something involving a college setting. High School and College (to me anyways) is where normative social rules are hammered down. What if a college campus had a brush with the weird, or odder yet, the Wyrd. What if the artist students met a leanansidhe? what if the jocks, idolized in the normal world, was quested and challenged in the weird. What if the popular kids now contend with the courts of the High Sidhe? What if some of the students revealed themselves to be Sidhe?

Then my thinking turned around. What if this was a larp? I mean, yes, Changeling has the mechanics for it. They have an entire book dedicated to the Goblin Markets. But I didn't want it to be a game about mechanics.

My heart has been grasped by the clutching allure of Nordic Larp, that great dream of Live Action Roleplay, where the focus is on deep immersion and bleeding the lines between character and person. Where games are given government sponsorship in some ways and seen as an artform. I'd dearly love to try it.

So here's my thinking, a one night game: from dusk until dawn. Players will play either human or Sidhe, explorers or dancers of a strange game. Human players would explore the magical realms, and in a way explore themselves. The Sidhe would play their various games, with the humans and with themselves. Some will triumph, some will fail tragically.

The setting would be as such, the mortal players would receive a message inviting them as friends and guests of one of their friends, who it strangely says it to be crowned a Lord in the Court of Nine Lights (Fictional, but I like the ring of it) at the promised place, at the promised night, their friend leads them into the land of the Sidhe. During the night, the mortals deal with the Sidhe, dealing through the wide and varied stalls of the market, spinning in the dancer's garden, engaging in bawdy singing, and engaging in the duels that spring up. Meanwhile, the coronation of their friend and the ritual behind that takes place. When the sun rises, the revels are over and the humans go back to their lives. Some may not have learned anything; some may have been transformed forever; some may not have gone back, having been claimed by the waters of the wild. And still the Changelings dance on.

In my head, this combines several aspects I've witnessed over the years. The first is the clash of odd vs normal in Changeling: The Lost, especially with their concepts of the Goblin Market. It also mixes the concepts of a real life Goblin Market that was put together with performers portraying the merchants and selling/bartering things like the whisper of a lover or a memory of a childhood joy. It could also bring out the ribald performances of my friends in the Ren Faire circuit except  not performing for paying normals, but for each other as performers. It also brings out the concept of ritual, which is something I want to see more in Larps.

This right now is a sprawling rant, I've put this together in my head in the odd hours between work shifts. But if this were fleshed out, what would you like to see. What questions do you have?

Later