Not Quite Preschool....

[Luke]

Everything I ever needed to know I learned from...

Roll-Playing
Advanced HeroQuest (TT)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (TT)
AD&D: Dark Sun (TT)
AD&D: Planescape (TT)
AD&D: Birthright (TT)

Earthdawn (TT)
King Arthur Pendragon: 4th Edition (TT)

Vampire: The Masquerade (TT)
Werewolf: The Apocalypse (TT)

Mystic Shadows Inn (IRC)
Tyrannights (IRC)
Wizard's Keep (IRC)

Roleplaying GAMES
Final Fantasy (SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2)
Chrono Trigger (SNES)
Shadowrun (SNES, Genesis)

Landstalker (Sega Genesis)

Planescape: Torment (PC)
Ultima Online (PC)
Baldur's Gate I & II (PC)
World of Warcraft (PC)

Playing-Roles
Omaha Underworld (LARP)
Afterlife (LARP)
The Camarilla [LARP]

[Luke]

Why does any of this matter?
Why did I waste the time to type all of that out?

I think it's important to know where people come from.

This is how MY first LARP experience went.

[glow=red,2,300]Prologue[/glow]
I was down at the Game Shoppe playing Warmachine with my good friend Tanner when Chris Rodenburg asked me if I played VTES.

That night as I was testing the pre-constructed Tzimisce deck I purchased to play, Gabe Villagomez invited me to play in his table-top Werewolf: The Forsaken game. I hadn't played Dungeon & Dragons in years and was looking forward to getting up to level 40 in an RPG in years. I couldn't resist.

Two weeks later Chris and Gabe influenced me enough to play in "Ben's Game" an old world of darkness LARP just a few blocks away. What was the final convincing I needed to play? Chris' sister was going to be there. She was fun, pretty and had nice breasts. How could I resist?

[glow=red,2,300]Setting Up[/glow]
I end up in the living room. It's dark and dreary because it's the middle of January and there's no real light in the room. It's all filtering in from the kitchen or the entryway.

This man who looks like he's part grizzly-bear and Gabe negotiate whether or not I'm going to be playing. I sit quietly on the futon while Chris Rodenburg explains character creation. He says things like "cheese" and "neonate"... even though I am familiar with the setting I kinda fumble through the character creation.

I wanted to play something feral and bestial with no real humanity to fall back on. A creature of the night who exists from one moment in time to the next off of instinct and the desire for survival. I wanted to play as "The Beast"...

Chris casts me as a Gangrel. We play up the physical and mental abilities and put no socials in the fucker. This was going to be awesome. Character creation - good to go. Protean, hell yeah!

[glow=red,2,300]3.. 2... 1... Action[/glow]
I try to get "In Character" which Gabe explains to me is like psyching yourself up for a football game. We're all in the den. We look up at this man who is part grizzly bear... and he smiles a toothless grin.

He mentions something about us having a new player "me" and that the setting is Elysium. From reading the V:TM TT and what I know from VTES... Elysium is a safe ground. That's good.

So... he claps his hands. Game on!

We stare in silence at each other.

I kid you not.

There is a good five minutes where nobody talks.

I am beginning to wonder at this point whether or not the game actually began or if we're waiting for something.

There's talk, but it's quickly hushed away.

It's like we need permission to talk and haven't been given it.

The game is stifled and contain with our inability to start conversation.

One of the three women who are there, with a pear-shaped body and short hair folds her arms in her lap and opens her mouth to speak. She continues for minutes and then looks around the room as if asking everybody else with her eyes for them to please, for the love of God, comment on what she said.

Conversation actually starts to flow at this point. I get pulled aside by this skinny player with coke-bottle glasses and a black trenchcoat. He could tell by the way I was posturing and my responses that I was animalistic and possibly... a fellow nomad.

From here I get pulled into a smaller group of players and we go "upstairs" to a room with a computer and books scattered everywhere. There is hardly any place to sit, but we manage to get comfortable.

The other players begin drilling me "in character" about things like who my sire is... how recently I've been embraced... all things that weren't mentioned while I was putting all 7 of my primary dots into "Physical" and trying to determine my "freebie point" expenditure.

We play paper-rock-scissors when they don't believe my cover story, but I miraculously win a few of the tests. I refer to my character sheet for everything from this point forward.

Eventually we go back downstairs. I am feeling a little bit more confident at this point and I try to get into the conversation.

Apparently the "location" changed so the place I thought we were going back to is now in the den... and the people in the living room are actually "off-site" whatever that means.

We all gather in the living room after about ten minutes where the location miraculously becomes where we were in the den.

The "Prince" makes an annoucment. Then half-man/half-grizzly announces that he hopes we all had a good time, to get in AARs, and to be here in two weeks for the next game.

[Luke]

Okay... again... why was that important Luke?
...and why are you posting more of this history lesson?

Chris O'Neill talked up and down about the Camarilla.
Camarilla this. Camarilla that.

"Cuz I'm going down to Lincoln tonight for the Requiem game."

I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but I dragged Ben and Bill along.

At this point I had already been "costuming" for Ben's game.

My character, Nick, had evolved from "Protean, hell yeah!" to a valued member of the Anarch movement in Ben's game. I fucked around with the concept for awhile and was gothing him out. I took a page from Wes and experimented with make-up. White face paint. Black eyeshadow and eyeliner.

The drive is forty-five minutes. I read through the Ordo Dracul book on my way down there. My general concept is a neonate Dragon preparing for his first chrysalis. He is attempting to change himself visibly. I planned to emphasize this by dressing differently each game, not just clothes... but the entire way that I shape him for that night.

We get to the place and Chris parks his SUV.
There's a fairly average man who comes towards the curb.
He has a little facial hair, glasses he probably doesn't actually need, and a beer belly.

The house itself looks old, but the side of the building where this man is leading us there appears to be new construction. Wooden stairs ascend towards an upper level of the house.

Inside it is unbearably hot. There is a cloth to the left as we enter and what's behind it isn't certain. Ahead is the kitchen. The ceiling is low so I have to watch myself as we walk through to the next area. There is a table with a few chairs, a lap top... the cracked bathroom door to my left and a rotund man sitting on the couch in the corner.

Straight ahead is another doorway with only a piece of fabric dangling down. Near the couch to the left is another doorway, this one with a door.

I sketch out how I want to have my character's stats be while we wait for more people to come in.

Three girls show up and four other guys. By the time everybody is there I'm already in the bathroom, applying make-up. I want to show everybody that I can put the extra effort into costuming and roleplay tonight. I want to prove to these people that Chris didn't make a bad choice in inviting us. Honestly, I want to prove that I'm not the "noob" that I know I am.

It's hot though and I don't know anybody... in or out of character.

Chris is playing a Lancea Sanctum.
Ben is playing a Sleepwalker.
Bill is playing an... I don't even know what Bill's character is.

As we start to play I see the "OOC" sign here and there and everywhere. It's like Old McDonald had a farm and the only animal he had was an OOC.

There's a discussion about how shitty the roads are... and how there are bandits on the road?

I get confused as "Andrixos" and "Ja-hi-ya" squabble over whether or not to fix the roads.

At this point Ben finally gets into play. He's a crackhead who was given an "in-ticket" by Bill.

It was the first time I had ever seen Ben roleplay where he wasn't the ST. He did a damn good job.

There's a lot of hilarity that ensues. Mostly the use of "Liar's plague" and "dominate" to get Ben's crackhead Denny to say things which either incriminate him to being a criminal or cause cockroaches to fly out of his mouth.

At the end of the day it comes to light that Ben was playing the same crackhead he plays in the Mage venue... his sleepwalker character... and the entire night gets erased out of continuity!!!!