H.P. Wodehouse

This happened at Peaky Midwest 2014. No names are used except in reference to persons not at Peaky. As this game is still a live game, no plots or surprises will be posted.

So I attended Peaky Midwest 2014 recently. We had more people than the one in 2012. A lot of ideas were thrown about and written down. This one was written down by mistake. But once written down, I knew I had to be involved in writing it. Mixing Great Old Ones and English upper crust humor was just too good to not write. My problem is that I'm not that versed in the Wodehouse lore but am familiar enough with the concepts and culture to fake writing about it. But that didn't stop me!

When it came time to make writing selections, I chose this one. I ended up in a team of 5 writers, 4 of whom I know, one other I didn't. Technically 3 of us are novice LARP writers, though I've got years of experience writing tabletop characters and have played LARPs before so I wasn't worried about me.

We started by researching PG Wodehouse stories, primarily Wooster and Jeeves stories. After much research and discussion, we ended up with a cast of 20 characters. Which is not bad but we had two resource issues: time and players. We only had basically the remainder of Friday night plus all of Saturday to get it done (time). We also only had about 14-16 players so we had to cut back and focus which ones we needed (players). Personally, if we had enough players and another day, we could have completed the game top to bottom. There is talk of completing it but with us being separated and other time constraints, it's going to be tricky.

We also had to come up with various plots and how to tie them with various characters. We actually had started writing up some of the characters Friday evening but didn't get very far due to the lateness of the start. Because of my sleep cycle (I am a severe night owl. I sometimes go to bed after the sun is up.), I ended up staying up for a few extra hours. I worked on some infrastructure to the game to make sure things kept moving in the morning. Things like relationships between characters, tying various plots to characters, and writing up a cheat sheet with a blurb about each character in order to focus on the character.

I was told the next day that the extra work helped out. However, I did not get a good night's sleep and was severely groggy after I was awakened for at least a couple of hours. But once I started to wake up and the group really started cranking out characters, I was able to start generating stuff. That took up most of the day on Saturday.

I had also pushed for (and got) a group edit session. That is, every writer would edit the same document at the same time in order to make sure that everyone knew what changes were happening and why. This definitely helped (from my perspective) to make sure that styles were similar enough and that all relevant information was in place. (Actually, we found out during the run that one major piece of information wasn't written up. Ooops.) This actually helped us find where some misunderstandings had happened and things were corrected.

There was also some other research done to add props to the game. And there was the availability of having period music on electronic format so that it could play in the background and help set the mood.

Now because of my work schedule, I was not around on Sunday to help finish it up. There was paper money being printed as props (no, not counterfeiting!). Other propage was collected and used. Again, I didn't see the first playtest so I don't know firsthand how things went. I did send out requests for critiques and got some useful information. The one thing I didn't get was someone stating that had a bad time. So that's the biggest win! To paraphrase, it is better for everyone to have an OK time than to have 90% have a great time and 10% have a sucky time.

Now I know that I have used "I" a lot in this. This is not to take away anyone else's contributions. Far from it! Once we got ourselves situated in our writing area, it basically went rather smoothly. There were some minor issues but we were all focused on getting the game done. And essentially it is done. As it stands it can run as a 1.5 to 2 hour long game. With the additions we want to add, we hope to make it a 3+ hour long game.

Here is the long blurb minus the writers credits. If the other authors read this and wish their names added, I will edit this to add them.

Bertie Wooster and friends are off to a golf tournament. Jeeves is going along to make sure nothing bad happens. So what could possibly go wrong?

Welcome to Gothic horror that is H. P. Wodehouse. Here you will experience upper crust ladies and gentry dealing with Earth shattering perils such as unrequited love, misbehavior, family disputes, and worst of all, golf! Oh, and the occasional creature from beyond the stars.

This is a light humor game of the idle rich being idle, similar to the style of P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster stories. There is a touch of H.P. Lovecraft inspired cosmic horror taken about as seriously as anything else in Wodehouse’s work. There is no serious horror here.

This game was written at Peaky Midwest 2014 and was inspired by a misunderstanding in writing down an author's name, hence the original working title H.P. Wodehouse. Set in 1930's England, there are elements of whimsy, light romance, stiff upper lips, gambling (but that's illegal!), dark forces (technically not illegal), and most horrific of all, a painting of dogs playing poker!

By the way, the title "H.P.Wodehouse" is only a working title. We are working on others. One I put out there that has gotten a vote up is Jeeves and Hastur. But we'll see how the voting goes.

Changes To LARPers Anonymous

There were a number of small changes to the game as we found the need to make changes. One change was the name of the character who is dying. It was too close to someone in the community who had died. So I was able to go through and do mass changes to all of the related documents to correct it. Another change is to emphasize a piece of backstory that seems to get lost.

Other changes not related to character sheets are:

• a revamped casting form
• a GM briefing document, edited since Intercon M
• a game wrap document which includes names of gamers who have died
• modified name badges with background image

Since the game is designed to be as gender neutral as possible, there are potentials of gay/lesbian relationships and/or cross-gender casting. In case of issues like that, it's just a question of going through the documents to verify genders and make the necessary changes. We tried to avoid gender pronouns when creating the game but it's very difficult to eliminate them totally. However, it's only a 10 character game so it's doesn't take too long to make the appropriate changes.

Since this is the last posting for LARPer Anonymous (at this point), I'd like to thank you for reading. You are more than welcome to leave comments on any of the posts.

I know that I didn't mention a number of people, but that is to respect their privacy. I also left out the vast majority of details as the game is still being run.

I am planning on attending Peaky Midwest 2014 so any game that I write would start a whole new set of posts related to it.

Thank you again for reading.

LARPers Anonymous As It Played Out

Peaky Midwest Playtest

I was not able to hang around the next day for the playtests as I had to work. I did hear about how the games went and was pleased to find out that our game held up well. What I was surprised to hear about was the emotional impact the game had on some of the players. It was unexpected to me and also gratifying that something I helped create made such an impact on players. I ended up talking with one of the playtesters much later on and found out how much of an impact it made. Even though this is only a game, the issue of mortality forced her to get her affairs in order, just in case.

Tapas de Larpas

There is a couple that hosts games periodically and one event they host is a weekend of gaming in which small and/or experimental larps can be played/playtested during Memorial Day weekend. All three of the Peaky games were run and this was the first time I got to see it and co-GM it. Since I had already heard about the effect of the game on some people, I kept a box of tissues around just in case.

This was also the first time we had a chance to build some sort of casting form. It turned out to be rudimentary but it got the job done. I knew all the players and had no concerns about the game not working. But what I wasn't expecting was some of the scenes that developed and there was one scene that played out as I expected. I also found out there was a minor flaw (not enough information in the character sheet) but that was corrected later.

The game is supposed to start like a 12-step program, where everyone gets a chance to air their grievance, which is provided on their character sheet. It was also stated to the players in the character sheet to take only 2-3 minutes so others would have a chance to get theirs' out there. Well, after about 10 minutes, it turned into a verbal free-for-all. Conversations were going everywhere and not everyone had their say and small groups were starting to break from the main group and form on their own. It was designed that groups would form but it took place earlier than planned for/expected. Go figure. Gamers will do what gamers want to do.

Other things that were added on the spot was periodic interruptions by the GMs as other gamers trying to setup for their run. This helped put pressure on the players to get through the plots. This wasn't really planned for but it did add a little more realism to the game.

No one had a bad time but emotions did run high and deep. One player was emotionally exhausted by the end of the game and it took her over a half hour to get back to her normal self.

Since three of us writers were there at Tapas, we met up later that weekend to decide what next to do with the game. There was talk of running it three times concurrently at Intercon M and also talk of some edits and possibly adding another character. But one thing we recognized is that this game has a number of triggers so we had to come up with a warning sheet. Over the next few months I was able to create a warning sheet to be part of the game plug and also completed the edits that were discussed.

With that work done, I bid the game for Intercon M. It was accepted. Little did I know what I was in for!

Intercon M

This turned out to be my trifecta. It was my first time as a lead GM, by myself, with the first game I wrote. I would have preferred someone else to have been there as an observer but I got thrown me in the deep end to see if I could swim. The good thing is that the game is almost bullet proof. However, I am not.

I first had to deal with the convention committee in order to get the game added to the schedule. I was very much the beginner in this situation. I had to meander around trying to get the game added, figure out the gender balance, get the game write-up completed, etc., etc. None of which I ever had to do for Intercon. I did get help from members of the Con Com and from others who had experience with it. And so, I was able to squeak in my game just in time to make the first draft of game selections. Once registration opened up for all games, my game filled. Exactly 10 players, no more, no less.

I then had to redesign the casting form to get the kind of information I needed to cast the game. I had some help with that and it worked well for me. I was able to get the forms out and received the replies. Then I had to figure out the casting based on the responses. There was about half the people in the cast I didn't know so it was tricky getting it cast effectively. But, as it turned out, it worked well.

I then worked on a GM briefing document. It was good for a first draft. It covered most of the expected issues.

Before the convention started I got an email from a player who had some concerns. She has issues and she was concerned that they would be in game. I let her know that it was backstory and to be discussed, not actually in game. That relieved her and she became enthusiastic about the game.

Once I got to the convention site and had a chance to look at the room, there was a little extra work but it served its purpose and worked well for the game.

Then came the start of the game. I had my notes and my camera (as I was going to take pictures during the game) and totally forgot my notes and just got the game started. #facepalm The game started just like it did at Tapas. It took longer but the groups did splinter off and proceeded to play the game.

I did interrupt early on the get people's permission to take pictures and there were no problems with it. #READTHEDAMNBRIEFING

The emotions didn't get as extreme as Tapas but the kleenex was still needed. There were a number of memorable scenes, some funny, some emotional, some unexpected. Again no one had a bad time. And pictures were posted for people to see after the convention.

How LARPers Anonymous Was Created

I chose to write the self help group as I am familiar with how they function. I also ended up with two people that I was familiar with and respected and one also of the Brits who I didn't know. Of the four of us on the writing team, I had the least experience writing LARPs because this was my first time in actually writing one from scratch. But I still have experience in writing tabletop games which played more like LARPs than tabletop. But the combined experience of the other writers was measured in decades so I was in good hands.

So we started with the idea of a self help group. The next step for us was to determine which kind of self help group. We bounced around a number of ideas, none of which really caught everyone's attention. One idea I had that I liked was along the lines of Mom's Kitchen and Therapy. Growing up, I had noticed that people tend to gravitate towards the kitchen and that's where the interesting conversations happened. However, that idea didn't take off for anyone else. But then I chimed in, "Hi. I'm David and I'm a LARPer." LARPers Anonymous. That got everyone's attention. My thought process was that writers say write what you know and we know LARPs. So that was agreed upon.

We then started to discuss how to construct the game. Several methods were discussed and it was decided that the structure was that it is a gaming group that gets together before a convention to air their grievances before the convention so they can get that out of their systems before starting their convention experience. We then decided that it would be similar to a 12-step program where everyone has 2-3 minutes to air their grievance and then let someone else go. We then decided to base these grievances on gaming/LARPing tropes. One of the writers designed a boiler plate for the players to use as a starting point for introducing their character into the game. Then we had to flesh out the characters. This is where we hit a fork in the road without seeing it until after we chose a path.

This is one of those points in development that the game could have gone in one of two directions: humor/satire or serious. We didn't just go serious, we went almost dark. So when we started to flesh out the characters, not only did we use tropes from gaming, we used tropes from real life. We then had to match up tropes with characters and tie the characters together. We also had to come up with stories to explain things and plots to involve the players. We were using several sheets of flip chart to track the characters and their related plots and their relationships to each other.

One thing I am proud of that is never seen because it's behind the scenes. I pushed for having a "time table" of events because this is a group that has known each other for years and still has new members. I wanted to have the background filled out with dates and also published for the players so that they can improvise stories in a consistent manner. So we ended up setting the date of the game and started back filling dates as we needed in order to introduce a member to the group and/or a plot point. This gave us a framework to hang the game on.

At one point in our discussion of tropes came the topic of death. We decided to have a character with a terminal illness. I brought up the idea of a character dying of cancer. I realized as I was mentioning the idea that Dean had died of cancer a few years before. I didn't realize that some people are still upset about it. So we changed it from cancer to congenital heart defect.

So we had gaming tropes, personality tropes, relationship tropes, some plots, and a background with dates. Time to start putting it all together. We had to tie the relationships between the characters together. We had to lay out which plots were tied to which characters and why. Once all of that structure was in place, it was time to start drafting characters. We starting to work on characters and in some cases work on the same character at the same time. We quickly found out that it was counterproductive and we stopped. But as we developed the characters more as we went along, we would go over each others' work to double check for holes and fix as needed. We also had a spreadsheet to track which plots and relationships were tied to which characters. The idea was that if there was a tie-in, there would be a quick bullet point to note what the tie-in was. That was our "master reference". We could use it to spot check each character to make sure we weren't missing anything. The spreadsheet could also be updated if something new was added.

One thing that came out of this was that it was going to be very character driven. We have very few contingency envelopes and props. The ones we do have are there to drive a plot.

Another thing that was emphasized was that there was nothing earth shattering taking place in this game. Just a slice of life as I prefer to think of it. That was one thing that my friend was proud of for this game, the scale of it.

Another thing that I give him major credit for was the creation of the fleshing out of the group history. He took the time line and added a significant amount of detail; games played at the respective convention, any new players added to group, other significant events. This gives the players more to talk about it.

I also want to give credit to Jill. She showed up the night we were pounding away at creating the game and pitched in to help. This is when I found out about what the iPad was doing to our documents. Fortunately, I was able to recover the information and continue forward. But it was helpful having someone else just plug away.

The basic contents of the game turned out to be:

• Character sheets
• Blue sheets containing background information about the group and its history
• Contingency envelopes
• A GM procedures document on how to put the game together to run
• Name badges

When we got to the point of printing the game, it turned out we had several printers to choose from and ended up having issues. Being in IT, I was able to quickly resolve the issue and took over the job of running the print jobs.

Even though we were just a little late with the 24-hour deadline (I think like 15 minutes), we were still able to have the game completed as is and ready to run. As it turned out, our game was more complete than the other two.

How Peaky Midwest Was Run

I don't want to get into how people were gathered. That is not relevant for the topic as I wish to cover it. The people who attended gathered at the home of our sponsor. Monies were collected to provide food and drink for the participants. There were 14 attendees and the 2 Brits who help run Peaky in Britain. The Brits were there to explain how Peaky runs in Britain and also told of some experiences. This was kept brief as it could eat into our creative time.

The way Peaky (and now Peaky Midwest) works is that there is a number of flip chart boards on which to write ideas down. Everyone also chooses a marker of a different color that is to be identified with them. This will have a purpose to be described later. With 10 people throwing ideas around (the Brits exempted themselves and two others were late), we soon filled several flip pages with ideas. Here is where the colored pen comes into play. Everyone had to go around and mark which ideas they would like to write a game around. Everyone can (and was encouraged) to mark down multiple ideas. The list of ideas was thinned from several dozen to about half a dozen. Since we had 12 writers plus the 2 Brits, it was decided to divide into 3 teams. The teams formed organically based on what ideas people wanted to write about. The ideas that were developed were 1920's seance on a train (don't ask me about that idea), the end of the world and no way to stop it (this was in 2012, go figure), and a self help group.

The groups were separated from the other groups far enough apart so that our discussions wouldn't bleed into the other groups' discussions (generally). Everyone had some sort of computing device that was connected to the internet. My group decided to use Google Docs because it allows real time creating and sharing of documents. We also had a flip board and markers to write down ideas among ourselves. Food and drink were more self serve as this was a residence, but we did have scheduled meals. There were also multiple printers around for when the game needed to be printed to be played on Sunday.

Two lessons learned from this: 1) concurrent editing within the same document is possible but makes the flow of creativity cumbersome; 2) the iPad can REALLY mess up a document created with another OS. The really good thing about Google Docs is that it tracks changes to each document so I was able to recover stuff that was messed up.

We spent Friday night refining what the game was going to be about and started writing late Friday night. Saturday was spent continuing the writing until it was completed and then printed the game out for play on Sunday. Sunday was the initial play test to see how well the games run. (I wasn't there for the initial play tests so I had to find out later how the games went.)

One other thing about Peaky: as part of this writing experience, the writers essentially turn over publishing rights to Peaky organization though they get authors' credit. At this point, I believe the details are still being worked out. And as part of that, the game is licensed under the Creative Commons license or something similar to that. That is, others can take a copy, make changes and run it. I don't think they can make permanent changes to the game, but I'm not 100% sure. I know that I have made changes based on my experience with running it. I still share my changes with my co-writers but I don't know if those changes make it to Peaky proper.

History of Peaky and Peaky Midwest

Below are links to Peaky and Peaky Midwest. These detail the history of Peaky and its spawning to the Midwest!

I was one of the original participants in Peaky Midwest in 2012 and I will be detailing that experience in the following posts.


http://uk-freeforms.wikidot.com/peaky

http://www.peakymidwest.com/index.html

About Me

You may wonder what qualifies me to be a LARP writer. This section will detail my gaming experience, which is rather long.

I was first introduced to D&D the night I graduated high school. (I know, strange thing to do after graduating, but that's what us geeks do!) I spent the summer getting to know the system, buy and play modules, and collect dice. I still have some of them from way back when. Most didn't survive as they were really cheap quality.

Then I did something brave/stupid at the time: I introduced D&D to my dorm mates at college. OK, that doesn't sound too bad but it was the fall of 1979 and the college was a Southern Baptist institution. This was just before the controversy hit about D&D and devil worship. You can imagine what happened! Actually, not much. The people I gathered treated it as a game, nothing more. I found it rather funny that people were so up in arms about a game, so we kept it up. I ended up changing majors after a couple of years and left that college. I visited for a few years afterwards and found that the gaming group was still active.

I then tried to start a D&D group at my new college, which is more liberal in its outlook. I also met another gamer in my home town and we started yet another group to play during the summer and holidays. The hometown group grew to five players, with a core of three: myself, Jeff (who is no longer with us), and Keith. Robert and Jen were added later.

After I graduated, I stayed in my home town a couple of years as the job market was tight for my field. So we gamed more. Then Jeff and Jen moved away to Chicago area and got married. I then followed as they were willing to put me up as I tried to find work. I did find a job and moved out of my parents' house, which they were more than happy to see happen. I found my own apartment. Jeff, Jen, and I would continue to game for the next couple of years, with periodic visits from Keith. Then came summer of 1987. My first trip to Milwaukee and Gencon!

Gencon is the world's largest gaming convention and was so back then but wasn't as big as it is now. It was still large. It's primary focus at that time was tabletop role playing games. I went as a visitor instead of a player that first year, just so I could get a feel of the convention. I quickly became hooked as I saw not only a lot of other gamers but some REALLY good gamers and GMs. It got me to step up my game. For the next couple of years, I went as a player. Then I heard a seminar about the zen of role playing, where the lecturer had talked about creating scenarios on the spot. Inspiration!!! I thought, "I could do that!" So, the next year I decided to go as a game master and run scenarios on the spot.

So, it's 1990. My first year as a game master, running zen role playing where we make up the game on the spot. I told them to pick a campaign style and to create characters. As they made up the characters, I created a quick starting point for a story and we would run with it. Now, I had been running pre-built scenarios for different game systems and wrote my own game stories. I even tried to make one up on the spot for my group and it was horrible. So here I am at this largest game convention doing this same thing. I ran it three times each year for three years. Every year the results were the same: one good, one great, and one disaster. At least I was consistent with the quality.

Robert had told us about a game he played in which the game masters ran two groups secretly opposing each other and that kept in touch with a runner between the games. Keith and I went, "We can do that!" So for 1991, we created a scenario in which we had our games running in parallel but we used radio headsets to keep in touch. Now in those days at Gencon, games were scheduled to run for 4 hours at a time. We ran this in two slots back to back with the groups running in parallel. Somehow we were able to manage to do this twice that year. Yes, we ran an eight hour game TWICE. Hey, it worked.

So we did the same thing for the next year but with a different group and different story and it turned out to be 4 four hour slots over the weekend. And to top it all off, we were updating the game between slots and reprinting as needed at the convention. We had incorporated theatrical style LARP in our presentation, though we didn't have the word for it then. We had the two groups start out separately and it was up to them to determine when they would meet up. It organically happened in the first round. Once the two groups met, we let them talk among themselves and we would answer questions as needed. It worked this way for the remainder of the rounds, at least until the finale in which we drove the plot. But the one thing I remember about that experience was having several of the players leave near the end of the third round in order to get tickets to play the fourth round! They wanted to keep playing that much.

I still attend Gencon every year. I haven't missed one yet since 1987. But in 1998 (if I remember correctly) I played my first "official" LARP without really knowing that it was different than tabletop and not knowing it was a LARP because it wasn't advertised as such. It was "Intrigue Beneath the Waves" by Dean and Dana Edgell. Sadly, Dean is also no longer with us. Dean was part of a gaming group at Gencon and the style of getting up and "acting" the part instead of talking about it had been happening for since before I started going to Gencon so I was used to it. What I was not used to was the number of players. Being used to 6,7, or 8 players, it was a shock to be part of a group of 20+. I still had a good time but felt a little out of my depth.

By this time, I was engaged and living in New England. I stayed out there until 2000, when I had to move back closer to home. But before I left I noticed that there was a LARP convention in the Boston area. Unfortunately I didn't attend at that time and moved back to Chicagoland. I then tried to find more gaming in the area and found a couple hosting a game in their house. That led to finding another group and finding out more about Intercon. My first Intercon was in Baltimore in 2001. Shortly after 9/11. It was a good convention and I started adding Intercon Boston to my list of conventions to attend.

Through other connections, I learned about Whately's games in the Chicago area. So I attended and enjoyed it, though the game itself ended early. I ended up getting to know the couple that hosts the Whately's games. In 2004, they invited me to assist with editing and writing an existing LARP they wanted to run. I jumped at the chance to learn from experienced writers and LARP GMs. We took and existing game that needed work and we tried to fix the issues with it and expand it to let more players in. However, there was one fault we found that was known but we didn't effectively address. Still, I did learn some lessons on writing and running. But, this was editing not creating.

I also assisted other GMs in helping to run their games. I also helped run Intrigue Beneath the Waves several times. I also created sound effects for the game which helped add to the feel of the game.

I know that this was a long post and probably more than you wanted to know, but I wanted to show my journey from D&D to LARPing. There are lots more detail that I didn't cover because they weren't relevant to how I got to LARPing.