I didn’t sleep much on Saturday night. Not too sure if it was emotional tension, my brain processing the day or just the ninja caffeine in my supplement water, but I got three hours tops, probably less.

So I felt a bit zombified on Sunday morning even though I was pretty well hydrated and I’d had a sandwich and stuff. Still my first game was Nick’s Pokemon Emergency! Which promised to be awesome. The pokemon roleplaying game is the world’s highest selling RPG, so that’s a point of interest. Us players also thought it would be funny to name ourselves S names, so I was Snack Lightly, Fraser was Spoons McGraw, Cat was Sunny Daze and then we had Susan Mary and Spiffy Danish rounding out the group. (Have decided that Spiffy Danish is the best name for anything, ever.)

Anyhoodles, it was much like playing the first part of any pokemon game, or watching the first episode of the series, except there were five of us and we worked together. Professor Oak gave me a Bulbasaur to start off with, which I was happy with. Once we were out of Professor Oak’s lab we walked about in the long grass and captured wild pokemon. I got an eevee and then later a Charmeleon and a Raichu. Go me.

Cat: Thunder Rave Attack!

Nick: You’re staying at a pokemon breeder’s house.
Me: Oh cool, I go out and look at their field of pokemon…..getting it on. (I actually won a spot prize for this quote!)

Fraser, realising that Oddish half out of the ball looks a bit terrifying: Cthulu! I choose you!

Nick: I just wanted to check the success of your giant pushing people into holes plan.
Fraser: This is the best plan I’ve come up with all Kapcon.

My character also insisted on burgers quite a lot, and this lead to everyone in the game craving burgers so we went on a Burger Fuel run. Delicious. After that I was in Svend’s “Dirty Streets” game which was a Mountain Witch scenario set in Film Noir times. I played the Grizzled veteran detective, Richard, my partner a bright eyed rookie called Charlie played by Chloe. Jackie played the high flyer and Margie was the career cop. Andy played the DA and organiser of the team with the task of bringing down the mob boss. I drew the ‘Past allegiances’ dark fate which I find really hard to grok for some reason. I really struggled with my dark fate narrations, but I think I roleplayed well enough the rest of the time that it didn’t matter. I really love the game system, the trust counters work very well. I also loved playing with that group, especially as their true natures became clear.
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My character was Lucy Malta, a soldier in the Malandrino mafia family. I was in a crew with Giffy (Nicky 9-lives), Nick (Vincent) and Margie (Babs the Builder).

I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect to enjoy the LARP this year very much, given the premise Cyberpunk Mafia was a bit….odd. However, I’m pleased to report that the organisers/writers surpassed themselves. The characters were interesting, the drama brought itself and the experience was an awesome one.

Vincent and Lucy had been best friends forever, and a lot of people assumed that they were together. We weren’t though, I was the only one who knew that Vincent was secretly gay. I had been forced into an arranged marriage with a member of the Irish mob so that our families could have peace. Vincent had been forced into an arranged marriage to ‘Bloody’ Beatrice, whom we were rather terrified of. I mention all this because Vincent’s goals were my concern, I wanted him to be happy.

The complication with my engagement were that I thought I had met my fiance Paul O’Fiel a few days previously. We’d hit it off, and had a very successful date. That uh, lasted three happy days. Then I saw a photo of Paul and didn’t recognise him. My character sheet implied that I was angry at being set up and wanted revenge. Luckily for him, the man playing Abel O’Fiel sought me out first thing in the LARP. Abel was Paul’s brother, sent along to tell me that Paul couldn’t make it. Abel had been under the influence slightly and against his better judgment had continued to drink with me and kind of fallen into bed with me. He was very very sorry and sweet and charming and we both agreed that Paul “The Nutcracker” didn’t need to know anything. Paul was played by Norm, Abel by Wellington RPG scene newcomer Bryn.

Of course, Paul wasn’t as charming or as interesting to me as Abel and although he was very sweet and I tried very hard to be happy about it, I found a lot more excuses to talk to Abel and introduce him to Vincent and Nicky and Babs. I also got some good emo staring in. In the last hour or so before the end of the LARP I decided I couldn’t cope. I took Abel aside and confessed my feelings to him. He was terrified of the repercussions, scared that Paul would kill him and me as well. This conversation felt very real to me. Compounded by a very honest conversation earlier with Vincent, I felt all the love, desperation and isolation that Lucy would have felt confessing to Abel and not having him immediately agree to run away together.

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Past years: Kapcon 17, Kapcon 16, Kapcon 15.

Kapcon is Wellington’s biggest roleplaying convention and takes place over two days. That’s six sessions of three hour (ish) games and a big giant LARP (*LARP = Live Action Role Playing) in the middle. My Kapcon started with a walk up most of the hill and a lift from Amphigori for the last bit.

In an effort to get my GMing out of the way, I ran games in the first two sessions of Kapcon. I don’t normally run in first round because I have this idea that it’s the really big names, really awesome games that run in first round and that can be intimidating. This year they were really running low on games though, so I put my name forward to run I Know, Right? I wasn’t that pleased with how it went. I think we all had fun and the players were great, but I wasn’t warmed up to roleplaying, so I wasn’t warmed up for GMing and I let there be tangents talked about and I didn’t have much inspiration for creating plot. In part that was because I was thinking of ways to improve the game in the rewrite.

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My annual Kapcon write up will now commence. I had a strange Kapcon, I think because it’s the first time I’ve not gone to every session, the first time I’ve had to run out and do stuff and then run back. Interrupted.
Saturday morning I picked up my friend Soph, a Kapcon virgin, and we arrived at Kapcon earlier than it turned out we needed to. That’s alright, we were able to help out Paul by arranging the prize table all pretty like.
It’s neat on Saturday morning as everyone arrives, catching up with friends whom I don’t see too often, some of them only once a year at Kapcon, some a little more often. I was wearing my “That’s how I roll” D20 tshirt that B gave me for Christmas, cut up and re-sewn into a halter neck.

First round was Yesterday’s Woe, a new installment of Dale’s amazing Mutants and Masterminds serial featuring Captain Hope, Professor Eternity et al. It was all sorts of awesome, with Norm playing Hope, me as Eternity, J as our son, Nick as Salvo, Nasia as Sky, another super child and Gareth playing Ground Zero. It’s just such a fun set of characters.
It started off at a comics convention with us all doing signings and facing fans dressed up as us….some quotes.
Dale: The problem is that there are several Daniel Hopes.
Captain Hope: I gather them all up!
Sexy model calling to Captain Hope: why don’t you write to me any more?
Eternity: You’ve been writing to her?
Hope: Yeah, I should maybe go over there…
Eternity: Yes, you should find out why you’re not writing to ger any more.
Hope: Yes, I…what??
Daniel: I’m going to entertain some cancer kids by setting my arm on fire!
Hope (thinks he’s dying): Tell….Daniel….I love him.
Eternity (healing him with a gadget): You can tell him yourself in a minute.
Hope (readjusts camera fixed to his head for reality TV): Tell….Daniel…I love him
Eternity: Gods, you’re such a drama queen!

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In the second session I ran Best Friends with a fine bunch of players. After flirting with all girl Lord of the Rings or some trad fantasy setting we settled on Robyn Hood and her merry maids. This was great gender bending fun with Girl of Gisborne and Man Martin as NPCs.
There were a lot of pop culture references throughout including Pimp my ponycart, ‘My Humps’ being played on a lute and a reimagining of ‘the milkshake song’ about honeycombs. It was so funny that at times I was crying. That’s a successful game in my book.
Robyn: Mince away! As fast as you can!
Robyn doing a victory dance at the archery contest while disguised as a crone: Oh baby! Who’s your Daddy? Ow my hip! Ow my hip!
a character called Much produced a huge amount of hilarious puns, particularly when one character became jealous and asked the man she was seeing “Are you seeing Much behind my back?”
The LARP ‘Sanctuary’ was very cool, lots and lots of great outfits, lots of people who had plots and intrigues, lots of cross dressing (some very convincing) lots of marriages and fun times.
My goal was simply to find out who I was, and I did that after about an hour and a half, so that was good. I’m not sure I loved the larp more than last year’s one, I am torn as to whether I like being a major plot point, or whether I’d rather run around like last year and focus on the romance stuff…meh. It was fun to act like a Disney Princess all night.
I also had a lot of fun hanging out with Nick and Giffy who were playing bickering barbarian brother and sister, and looked totally awesome as well.

PoF: pjs
CO: bacon and eggs

Man, I’m so tired.

I was severely tempted to sleep in on Sunday morning, following a frustratingly poor night’s sleep. I kept waking up too hot, too hyped on adrenaline and with a lingering crush on Sky Captain.
Three things stopped me sleeping in: One, I had to collect Steve from the railway station. Two, I was in Nick’s Samurai game first round. Three, I had to be there before first round to advertise my P&P game which was in the following round.
I was a little late collecting Steve, but we had a rave in the car about the coolness of the LARP so it was ok.
Session one was Nick’s Super Samurai Stir-Fry game, wherein I played Jin from Samurai Champloo. James P was Mugen my offsider and we had a lot of fun together. There was also much hilarity over the differing animation styles between us, Rurouni Kenshin and Samurai Jack. Heh.
Nick, as an NPC: You speak in the third person? Don’t you think that’s a little strange?
Cat as Kenshin: This one doesn’t think so.
Mugen: He called us fools. I have to kill him now.
Mugen: Jin got a job.
Nick as Fuu: Well, at least we’ll be able to afford food.
Jenni: Jin will be able to afford food for Jin.
Nick, as distraught NPC: Oh, it’s horrible! These girls get taken and it’s horrible! It’s just so horrible!
Mugen: That’s horrible.
Cat, in the middle of a bar brawl: What happened to those other guys?
Nick: They went out the back window with a wok attack.
James, having defeated a mob of loin-cloth wearing baddies: I rob everyone.
Kieran as Samurai Jack, who has a G rated series: I’ve killed everyone right?
Jenni: in a strangely bloodless battle.
Nick: You kill them in a strangely Jedi lightsabre way.
Jenni and James P: Ohno! The villain is the Famous Pickler! The pickler of Japan Town!

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The next session was my Matchmaking and Machinations revival, which was apparently very popular. *glow* I had a dream team of Svend, Daniel S, Nick P, Erik, Cat and Kieran (were you guys stalking me?)
It was a strangely marriage-less game, but not that strange since everyone was just having so much fun having extended conversations and being rude to each other that we only got through two days in gametime. Great fun.
Erik as Elsbeth: What is going on in here?
Dan S as Patience: Lily is once again being insufferable.
Svend as Lily: Patience is once again being unfashionable!
Nick as Alice: I did not think you enjoyed the country?
Kieran as Elliot: No, but I enjoy the country women.
Alice: This is Mr McKinley.
Elliot, (loudly): My father is a Lord!
Lily: are you the eldest son?
Elliot: No, I am the youngest.
Patience: Oh so it’s the church for you then.
Cat, Mr Darcy Knight, and a slip of the tongue: I visibly roll my eyebrows.
Elliot to the girls: Oh, you’re NOT all going home are you? At least a couple of you could stay the night?
Alice: Now Lily, we must not be associating with Mr McKinley.
Alice: I say Patience, couldn’t you play something a bit more upbeat?
Lily: Oh Lord no! Patience is very boring!
Lily to Patience: I do have some men’s cards…some of them were very shortsighted, they might be interested in you?
Elsbeth: What a fine horse you have, and how it improves your stature!
Lily about Patience: She smells like Mrs Harridan’s carriage.
Elsbeth: What were you doing by the waterside?
Patience: Probably looking for some frogs to kiss.
Lily: Unlikes some, I have better prospects than that.
Patience: It’s a wonder that you kept your shoes dry.
Lily: it is, isn’t it?
wheee. After that breathtaking laugh fest, Mr Knight and Elsbeth began a courtship and Lily was probably locked up in the attic for good.
The prizegiving was exciting as I had completely not expected to win anything this year, but did anyway. Turns out everyone had nominated me for the underhanded tactics in I Know, Right? and I won most nominations for a player in a single session. I got a Darth Vader lolly jar with dice in it. Glee!
Hix won for his portrayal of Elliot Ness in the larp, Fraser won for being Ultraman and many other cool people got prizes too. Picture of the winners here.
For the final round I had begged Sam to run her Faery Tale game, so she did and it was awesome fun. Me, Giffy, Svend and C were childlike faeries, and despite nearly falling asleep we had some grand adventures.
I played Willow, a super magical pixie. Svend played a shapeshifting pooka, C was a household Brownie and Giffy a sprite.
Giffy: Where are you going to get wolf milk?
Svend: From a cow?
Svend: Katria! Flynn keeps poking me in the arm!
Giffy/Flynn: stop having arms then!
Svend at one point, broke us all by turning into a custard pudding with arms and legs and then singing…”When I was just a custard pudding, I asked my mother “what the Hell?”
Sam, on the frog jumping race: “It was basically a race between you two and everyone else was left in your…..slime.

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After that I picked up my Lee and we made a brief appearance at Sass’s birthday where I couldn’t stop myself talking about roleplaying with Nick, Svend and C and had to prop myself against the wall to not fall down.
I didn’t get to sleep in today either.

PoF: duvet
CO: Kapcon is fun!

What I did at Kapcon. Last year’s is here.
My Saturday started bright and early with mad packing of stuff I might need and then collecting Hix from the train station. We were both pretty psyched and it was great to get there and see all those people who I know from previous Kapcons and catch up.

My first round was a game of I know, Right? run by Zac. I was feeling kinda weird being allowed to play in the game I created, but Zac made it clear he wasn’t concerned as well. He gave me the target character to play, which was pretty cool actually, because it gave me licence to be completely underhanded and desperate in my scheming to get to the top of the heap.

Carla played the Queen Bee and she really was excellent at it, using her monetary resources to keep us onside and making up little things like pinky-linking with her BFF (Nasia) and not with any of the rest of us. I really enjoyed this game, and was extremely impressed with Nick B who played Valerie the art-wank student and was essentially my partner in overthrowing the clique. Oh yeah, I ended the game as Queen Bee. So Good.
Some quotes:
Zac as Jen Claude, the wankiest art student evah: I’m setting up a twelve person string quartet.
Nasia as Sakura: Do I look like I hang out with boys?
Her Dad: Oh, no boys would take any interest in you, you didn’t inherit your mother’s looks.
Val, about a constantly bicep flexing jock: It’s just repulsive the way he parades is body like that! *then checks out jock’s ass*
Sakura has got new pink highlights: Do you like it?
Carla as Amythest: Ah! It’s…..different.
Val, in the principal’s office: It’s just the teacher! he hates me!
Principal: yes! He made you smoke the cannibas
Val: what’s cannibas?
Amy’s mum: which one is Valerie? Is that the Beatnik girl? Yes, your Father and I have discussed her.
Brad the jock: I was just pumping some iron and thinking of you
Amy: We totally have to get you a dress that matches his-
Val: biceps?
Kelly’s mum leaves her some terrible clothes including a tshirt that says “I am a plain, boring person”
Amy: I think it’s time for an insinkerator accident with your hat.
Kelly: I tried to throw it away once, but it came back.

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For round two I ran a session of Best Friends. My group had Ian H, Fraser, Kieran, Naomi, Cordelia and Giffy in it. Awesome group, who sat girls on one side, boys on the other without even meaning to.
I have a fantastic photo of my group for this..but first. We were sitting and discussing what kind of game to play, and having some trouble agreeing on a style. Then Giffy suggested the Star Wars universe, and everyone was into that.
The group of Best Friends was made up of (in the player order I used above) an ewok with 5 cool and no other skills, a Jedi jawa with a nice spread of traits, a tough wookiee, a rich human Jedi apprentice, a smart human rogue and a pretty twi’lek who was training to be a Companion.
At first I had some difficulty working the conflicts in, but it sorted itself out once the players got the hang of the rules and we were all in the swing of it. Here’s the timeline for the game:
Characters in bar – disturbance in the force – stormtrooper shoot out – characters run to bolthole – spa – ewok makeover – call the Jedi boys – Jedi council – space ship to Hoth.
Everything came to a head on the spaceship. The ewok became jealous of the others’ complimenting the wookiee’s fur and went psycho, which brought everyone else’s issues to a head.
I didn’t get many quotes from this game because I was mostly trying to keep the plot (such as it was) on track, but I did get this one, for which Cordelia won a prize:
The jawa and the rogue hug in a touching moment of friendship
Cordelia: I almost don’t mind the fact that her head is in my crotch
Fraser: I do.

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Third session I played an amazing game of Donna’s called Wonderquest. It was set in a world just like ours, except a dimensional portal had opened up a way into a traditional fantasy world, and after the initial concerns Earth started organising tour groups through Raeth, although no technology was allowed to travel to Reath and no magical items were allowed back.
Four of us played tourists and two played native Reath tour guides. I played Simon, a total fantasy geek who works in IT and was hoping his latent magical powers would awaken during the tour.
Ruth had a lot of fun playing Tiffany, a spoiled model, used to a luxurious lifestyle that simply wasn’t available in Reath. Most of the jokes came from her
Tiffany: Does the hotel have a gym?
Zaklin, the wizard guide: There’s a john?
Tiffany: can we buy souveniers?
Zaklin: oh YES
Tiffany – after being told that orcs have a bonfire around our accomodation for the night: Is there a party with the orcs?
Carlton (her husband): Are they having a cook-out?

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The Flight of the Hindenburg (larp)
I was getting steadily more excited about the larp all day Saturday and I wondered why I ever thought I wouldn’t enjoy it. I really liked my outfit with my shortened trenchcoat and it was so much fun seeing everyone dressed up.
The game itself was quite frenetic for me. I played Polly Perkins, a “Meddling Investigative Reporter”, and Gwyneth Paltrow’s character from Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
My goals were: Help Elliot Ness find Al Capone’s missing ledger and therefore bring him down and get an awesome story.
Get some leads for stories.
Spread rumours that Sky Captain is a Braggart and a cheat (even though I still secretly loved him).
I have to say the hardest by far was helping Elliot Ness. The leads I had hit a brick wall and it turned out that the guy who had it wasn’t interested in talking to people like me, or Ness, or Evey White (Al Capone’s girl who had been feeding me information).
I still had heaps of fun though. It was good that although I didn’t have an offsider like I normally do, I could interview anyone I wanted to and be as bolshy and rude as I liked because I was a reporter.
Highlights: Arguing loudly with Sky Captain (Nick P) as soon as he walked in the door.
Snarky exchanges with Sky Captain that over the course of the evening became information sharing. Sky Captain telling me repeatedly to stay out of trouble just as I went to find it and then finally leaving the Hindenberg with him ten minutes before an explosion on board.
Interviewing movie stars such as Clark Gable, Orson Welles, Errol Flynn, Greta Garbo and Bette Davis.
Chloe Clarke (Donna G) and my professional rivalry. I rushed forward to get a photo of a collapsed Albert Einstein, she rushed forward to tell me off, sparking an argument so loud and catty that a Presidential candidate had to pull us apart. At the end of the night when Ultraman appeared Chloe stonewalled me, blocking my way through and ruining my photos of him. Brilliant.
Being offered a huge sum of money to give Al Capone his ledger back when I had no idea where it was.
The way that after the first hour, presumably because I had been talking to so mnay people, everyone started trusting me with secrets and offering me information. I had so many stories!
I also helped a couple of people achieve their character goals, purely because I’d talked to so many people. When Biggles mentioned needing a backer for a business venture I immediately introduced him to William Randolph Hurst, to great mutual benefit. I also helped a mobster get his goal of a photo with Greta Garbo (I took it) and lent him pen and paper for an autograph.

The photos all look great as well. You can see them here courtesy of Zac.
Here’s me.

Congratulations Giffy on being commenter number 2400! Your prize is….uh…to read this blog post! Hurray!
Basically I thought I’d write up some more about the Live Game because I had a ball and mostly just explained my character in the previous post. Here goes:

I entered the jubilee party with my friends Chastity Moonlight and Simon Quimby (really Ned O’Toole) and Eliza Doolittle. These were my only friends to know my secret life as a pirate because they were all pirates too. Awesome.

Over the course of the night I was relentlessly pursued by Lieutenant Wedderburn, whom I had refused marriage to a few seasons back. He had decided it was because he didn’t have a high enough rank in the navy and had returned to pursue my suit after obtaining Lieutenant. I on the other hand had no interest whatsoever. It became even more annoying when he began to suspect my piratical secret, I especially remember panicking when he insisted on kissing my hand only to examine my palm and declare:

“Your palms are much rougher than one might expect from a lady at finishing school” I told him off for being so personal and fled the conversation.

Other highlights include bargaining with Moriarty (Paul said I did a fantastic ‘deer in the headlights’ when he casually mentioned my ship), watching the divine Savoy Opera Ladies and the hilarious poetry competition. Dracula’s BLOOD! poem was side-splitting.

I also enjoyed talking to Mr Ingram and was quite pleased that he was hired onto my crew at the end of the night (not that he knew whose crew it was) and that he would write a novel of my heroic escapades. Mash was very convincing as an annoying American.

Mad props have to go Dorian Grey (not sure of the real name there, sorry!) Who was very charming indeed and quite caught Artemisia’s eye and interest. I was slightly annoyed at his continuing laughter at Chastity’s name but I imagine I could have put it aside. Suffice to say: if Dorian had asked Artemisia to marry him she would have said yes. No one else at the Larp can claim that! Of course, all that is moot since he would never have asked, being too busy being evil. We would have made such a wonderfully evil couple.

Aside from heaping praise upon my pirate crew (heap! Heap!) the only other thing to say is that Eliza Doolittle and I were very miffed that after we asked H.G. Wells to find out for us what the puzzle piece was, he gave it away. We’d been hoping to fetch a nice price for it, but had made up a story about an anonymous delivery to hide the true discovery of it (found it on a German ship I sank 9 days earlier) so he’d innocently given it away to the rightful owner. Curses!

Finally, I was most impressed with those in attendance for whom it was the first ever Larp. I was most impressed with all of you!

Point of Fashion: Kapcon 15 badge
Current Obsession: Kapcon

Here it is. My annual summary of What I Did At Kapcon. Previous Kapcon: 13 and 14.

Saturday morning started well with Conan’s wonderful Flight of the Aristola a sort of swashbuckling pulp fantasy adventure. I played Rand who was essentially Indiana Jones and man, it was awesome fun. Our group was on our way home from the epid tomb raiding adventure when the luxury cruise aircraft came under attack. My character was very much a take-charge type so I was blundering all over the place and yelling at people. Nick was playing a Bad Ass Loner Who Plays By His Own Rules ™ and was very funny with it. Star was a kind of elven mage, Giffy played a noble fighter lady a la House of Flying Daggers and Jarrod played a grumpy Shadow Mage. I loved this game. I loved it to bits. (I just love to play the heroic male, I can’t help it.)

Quotes:
Jenni: my secret is the best because it gives me a sub machine gun.

Nick (on impending danger)”Sometimes all you can do is watch.” and then later “Is the time for watching over?”

Rand, accosting a hijacker in crew uniform:”What’s the Captain’s name?”
‘Crew’ member:” The captain’s name…is…NOW!” (hidden warriors attack)

Second round I ran my Mean Girls game I Know, Right? Unfortunately I don’t think I explained game play well enough at the start and it was a bit slow to pick up. There were almost no social conflicts in the first half and it almost felt like another playtest. I’m blaming myself for this, because I was sligtly late to arrive and somewhat fixated on my lunch. I should have done better. The players were all charmingly good teenage girls though, and Cat really got into the Queen Bee role. They also came up with some scary rules for their clique like they pxt each other outfits for approval the night before school and all have to match.

They also had some fun demurring from compliments. e.g. “Oh this outfit? It’s just something I threw on this morning.” and (ooc) “That boyfriend? I just picked him up from the side of the road” Other funny quotes..
Kelly: “I didn’t know Valerie could read!”

Arizona: “You look awful. But not in THAT way or anything.”

Amy: “You’ve used a pregnancy tester?”
Arizona: “I’ve totally seen one.”

Kelly: “We Owned dodge ball!”

Then in third round I played in Morgue’s A State game Dangers on a Train. This was a very stressful game. In it we played elite flying squad team members who’ve been busted down to checking tickets on a train because too many people are off sick. It was awful dealing with all the annoying train riders and fighting amongst ourselves. It got even worse when an Inspector came on to check up on us. My quotes for this may not make much sense, but I’ll stick ‘em here anyway because it’s funny to me.

Garelock (re: Pease, another player’s character): “That sounds like a great idea – it’ll get me away from the smell of booze.”

Some kid:” My Dad’s way tougher than you!”
Cruden: “You know who your Dad is? Good for you!”

Morgue: “She catches your eye, of course she does. She’s not THAT ugly.”

Pease: “she’s got cast iron balls that woman”
Jenni (ooc): “I do?”

Garelock: “We don’t waste paper in the militia”
Pease: “We just waste losers”

After that it was the LARP. I had so much fun at the LARP I can’t really explain it. I loved my character so much and I had so much fun dropping subtle hints all night to people. My character was Artemisia Blastside, lifted from the book Piratica by Tanith Lee. She was a well bred noble lady, until after a stellar season rejecting 12 suitors her parents told her to settle down. In a fit of pique she went to a low tavern and gambled all her money. Instead of losing it all she won a ship which she painted black and used for piracy. She convinced her parents she was at a finishing school in Paris and when she wasn’t in London for the social season she was out marauding. Awesome.

I pretty much spent the evening talking to everyone in the upstairs party. I was frightened to go to the downstairs party after someone told me everyone was talking about Piratica down there. My main goal for the night (which I added to the character sheet mentally) was not to be arrested, so I didn’t dare go down where people might suspect. As it was I never ran out of people to talk to and I had a grand evening. It was such a pretty LARP with everyone going all out with costumes. I have some wonderful pictures.

Phew.

Sunday.

Nick’s Cowboy Bebop game in which I was allowed to play Ed. Giffy played Faye, Jarrod played Spike and Norm played Jet. It was so evocative of the series it was almost like being immersed in it. I really enjoyed the multi-media aspect of it too, with music and images provided on call.

Nick (on flying through hyperspace): “Effectively it’s like flying through regular space except there’s yellow things flying past.”
Faye: “More important than everyone else being hungry, I’m hungry! It takes food to look this good!”
Spike (to another spaceship): “Pull over! Have you got any hambugers?”

Jet: “Anything in there Spike?”
Spike: “me”

Nick: “He’s still awake, he’s like ‘Oh my head!’ Then you punch him in the head.”

Nick on who will Spike chase after? “The girl’s not worth a hundred million. But she is a girl. But not worth a hundred million.”

Spike (on the last time they fought): I was just going easy on you because your blind”
Giffy (ooc): “I’m still blind!”

After a delicious lunch of meatball subway I ran I Know, Right?” again. This time I feel like I explained everything better (although evidently not the diary chair, since no one used it for ages) and it seemed to run more naturally. These players were super-inventive making up new characters and improvising all over the place.

Val (the Queen Bee): I think your earrings would look good on me.”

Val: “I would never had done well if you hadn’t told me how to do that stats question”
Sakura: “well, you thought to text me first”.

Kelly (explaining her boyfriend’s cold behaviour”: He’s sick he doesn’t want to pass anything on.
Sakura:” He’s got an STD?!?”

Arizona-Rose: “What about a fall of the Roman Empire theme?”
Amy: ” we could all dress as female gladiators!”

Amy: “What’s chiarascuro?”
Val (knowingly): “Something really artsy.”

Sakura (on her emo arty boyfriend): “He gets really into everything. He’s like a lone wolf”
Amy: So doesn’t he have any friends?”
Sak: “No he has people who respect him. I think I’m the only person he opens up to.”

Kelly: “I’m never leaving my house again!”
Sak: “What’s wrong, you sound upset.”

After that I did a lot of chatting to people about how my gane went, although by this time my voice was feeling mighty scratchy and all Sunday in fact I had that dry mouth that usually comes with a hangover. Then it was prize giving. Lots of my friends won prizes, including J winning best player at the LARP and Steve recieving the grand prize of Best GM! Yay Hix! I managed to get second place in the Scenario Design Contest for I know, Right? which I am mighty chuffed about. My prize was a Pound ‘o’ Dice which I love to bits.

For the last round I bullied Dale into running played in Dale’s Mutants and Masterminds (superheroes) game November Falling which is a sequel to the one he ran last year and I loved. We had an awesomely fun group of Luke (Captain Hope), Matt (Daniel Hope), Debz (Zia the Magnificent), Nick (Salvo) and Morgue (Ground Zero). I played Professor Eternity again. So much love. We were in a wedding rehearsal for Captain Hope’s wedding to Eternity when four mega alerts came through for us to deal with. Matt was playing our child Daniel with lots of enthusiasm and the game actually turned into some fearsome character drama. I especially loved the scene where everyone except me was affected by various emotions from a shadow magic woman and I had to try and calm everyone down. I actually ran around the table to get between Hope and Zero.

Captain Hope answers the phone: “Captain Hope! Bringing hope to the hopeless!”

Cpt Hope (after a fight with Ground Zero) “Don’t mention that name down my phone line!”

Ground Zero: “while they’re away on honeymoon we’ll need an acting leader! Let’s hear from her now.”
Zia: “OK! (beat) This isn’t as fun as I’d imagined.

Cpt Hope: “Zero, I was bad to you.”

Yeah, that’s it. I’m pretty wiped but I did get a good sleep last night so that’s something. My mouth still feels all dry and stuff though.

As with last year, I’ll do a quick summary of games and add in some quotes that I recorded. I will start now:

First thing Saturday I packed up everything I remembered needing and picked up Star from the railway station. I drove us up the wrong road but eventually we got to Kapcon. It was great to see all the rpgers that I don’t see otherwise (because I keep forgetting to go to WARGS).

My first session game was Dale’s The High Price of Spandex, which is a fantastic game. Depth and hilarity and awesome puzzles. I played Professor Eternity, and inventor from 1840 who has kept herself ageless and disease free with her Bodice of Multitudinous Function. Heee!
some quotes;
Dale as German supervillain Iron Cross trying to piss off the Arnuld-like Ground Zero: “Zero! You are look like little girl! I have comtempt for American!”
Captain Hope: Where do you come from? Like Minnesota or something?
Legionnaire: I think you would call it Hell.
Prof. Eternity: Ah, so it is Minnesota.
In the second round I ran my Jane Austen game Matchmaking and Machinations. It went Very Well Indeed. I had some very good players (only one gender-bending, a guy as Patience) and here are some of the quotes…

Darryl: I will try to keep the slime to myself
Alice: That is good, I wouldn’t want it to discolour my outfit.

Patience: She looks happy! I can’t approve of that.

Darryl: How did you find these sisters?
Elliot: They came through the front door.
D: Ah, I see your wit is as………..ever.

Darryl on Lily: It would be unfair to unleash her on the men of London.

Elliot: There seems to be silence from the other room.
Patience: Dear me, you don’t suppose they could be holding hands?

hee hee hee. It was verily a session of hilarity. After that I ate fish and chips and talked to people and then it was a weird moment of coincidence as I was in Conan’s Nobilis game playing Mischief right before the LARP just like last year. It was a wonderful game, although much more scary and serious than last year’s which meant I didn’t get to make nearly as much mischief as I had intended. I did however create a new pop song “My Immortal Toxic of Love”

…and there was a bit when people said “They’re not from Now yet” which I thought was rather eloquent and lovely.
The the LARP. I have no quotes from the LARP funnily enough, but I had a great time. Sam and I played Amazon sisters and I was a battle truck mechanic. We got some airbrush make-up. Green stripes over the eyes and a brown stylised A on the arm. We looked pretty darn cool, but the amount of effort that went into the evil mutant costumes was astounding. Ian’s Best Costume award was well deserved.

Spent the night meeting people and recruiting help to free Giffy, who was playing the Amazon Queen captured by the world’s most annoying and smug slavers. Great fun!

Was very tired when we got home and spent a good 15 minutes scrubbing at my eyes with cleanser and baking soda to remove green stuff. It was OK at the start but there’s only so long you wanna do that sort of thing. I still have the A on my arm. It’s cool. (more…)