This President’s Day weekend the LA Domain hosted Camarilla sanctioned games, as well as other events, at Strategicon OrcCon. For the past 3 Strategicon events, we were given a beautiful restaurant-style room called Trattoria to do with what we liked. The organizer guy for Strategicon gave us a lovely Full Bar Reception, which the convention paid the deposit for, and came down himself during this time to socialize with us and other people there. For my part, on the coordination side, I got to talk with him and get some information about what he wants from the Camarilla and how he feels about our games. This was a great conversation, because basically the guy loves us and really wants to help us make our events huge. We can hold LARPs, do tabletop, card games, socials, LARP 101 classes and character generation sessions and whatever we fee like, and he’ll support us.
We had about 6-8 new people show up on Friday night for our Full Bar Reception/Mixer thing, and I sat down and talked with them, and they were really neat people, most of which played NWoD Mage Tabletop and were excited to get into the new system and LARP. Unfortunately, most of them could not make the time we had setup for Mage, but I passed around my contact info and got some of theirs, so maybe they'll come out to a regular game sometime. There will be another of these socials at the next Strategicon event happening over Memorial Day weekend, and I’d like to see more of our membership there to just socialize and be friendly with these people.
Riverside will be teaming up with Los Angeles to host some of the games this next time, and that’s great. I’d like to see more cooperation between the closer domains on this. That way it will be a true mini regional event.
For the next convention I'm going to try to get Friday off of work. I should have Monday off for both of the remaining cons, because they tend to happen on holiday weekends, and I think this one is the only one I didn't have off from work. If not, I'll be taking Monday as well. A few things I want to organize for the next convention:
1.
New-player oriented games. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1)
incarnate has suggested that we have lots of pregen characters made up, written with backgrounds that tie them together and give them interaction with the plot. Perhaps they even are firmly entrenched in the plot, and Camarilla PCs find that the new people have the information or item or whatever that is central to the plot and so now the existing PCs must interact with the new guys in order to do anything at all. It’s a good idea. I'm not in charge of the plot side of things, but it is a suggestion I’d support and suggest to the ST staff for the next Strategicon games.
Several related ideas have come up in discussion of the original thread in my personal journal. It was suggested by
thorns that all characters at the game should be door characters.
timcrall had this to say:
Pregen door characters with links to one another, to PCs, and to the plot would be a very important addition. The ability to have them show up and have someone work with them to customize a character is nice for those who have a concept, but linking them to the game is probably more important. There's probably a bit to be done by way of compromise there.
Of course this is all much more work for the STs, which is a reason that a team should be put together that draws upon more than just the actual STs of the Domain for this kind of a project.
As for Thorn's comments, there are strong arguments that can be made for that and I tend to agree, but I'm not 100% certain. I know that I definitely overheard some new players at both the Forsaken and Requiem games make comments as to how their involvement, especially in combat scenes, seemed pointless, as the "demigods" of the local PCs were so much more powerful. And factually, they were correct. Also, I was hesitant to cooperate too strongly in tying my own PC to door characters who are likely to never show again (certainly wouldn't have agreed to have one as a childe or anything at that level).
In years past we have written completely stand-alone LAPRs for recruiting purposes, in which you can make the door characters really central (hell, make your regulard play the supporting roles), and I think this *may* work better as a recruitment tool.
On the other hand there is something to be said for exposing them to the actual game, letting them meet characters they may meet again,and letting them play characters thay may opt to pick up and take as their PCs. Its hard to know which is really best. Maybe again a combination approach would be ideal.
My thoughts were thus:
Prince Kensington once claimed that 1000 kindred lived in his city.
I'm not sure this is accurate, but certainly we have room to play with other denizens of the area. Perhaps these 'con games should be focused around the activities of a group of kindred that exist in the city but only peripherally, perhaps they don't recognize the prince's power or they only marginally participate in court? That way we could have a shadow game that exists in the local storyline but is made with seldom-used npc's or secondaries, depending on what the individual player wants. These characters would be made as if they were secondaries, ie, at MC1, and so would be on an equal footing with each other. The story would be set in LA with our game as backdrop, but these characters may have largely different goals and organization than our actual primary characters do. This would allow some flexibility in story and maybe we wouldn't hear, "why the heck are we in Bodie again?" so many times throughout a night.
These NPC/Secondaries would be repeated use but mostly for the con games (i could see a few of them showing up in standard chronicle games for continuity purposes, or if a player wants a short break from his primary, with st permission), but mostly they'd be only played for recruiting purposes. This would allow new players to walk into game and pick up an existing character with a history and in game contacts already made and run with it. Of course, this last idea would have to be supported by an "exit interview" kind of situation where the players write a short summary of the character's actions, thoughts, goals, and interactions for each night it's played, so that someone else could easily assume the role next time.
To which
timcrall replied:
I never heard the thousand kindred claim. It strikes me as a bit silly. I heard him refer to himself as the Lord of Ten Million Souls, but that was a reference to the mortal population of the county.
That'd be one vampire per 10,000 mortals, which works out to each mortal being fed on every 27 years or so. Which might actually be sustainable. I can't rememer if they are some published guidelines as to vampire per human populations. But I think conjecturing a thousand unseen (and presumably unacknowledged?) vampires in the Domain is an exaggerated number none the less.
Which doesn't mean there couldn't be twenty or thirty vampires in the Domain who don't show up to court on a regular basis. The problem with a Con LARP about them is that by definition, they aren't very important, at least politically. None of them is the Prince, or a member of the Court, or a Priscus, or a leader within a Covenant, or anything. So to work, such a game would have to have a very involved plot about things that lower-level vampires would be interested in (and that wouldn't interest the more powerful and important vampires). A game like that run by a really great team of STs could be a great game - but I think it would necesarily lack many of the aspects of Vampire that people would expect (i.e. any kind of Court-level politics).
Please feel free to add your thoughts and ideas in the comments.
2.
Large amounts of great-looking promo materials plastered all over the convention. Full-color posters, brochures (I made some nifty new ones, now to get them printed in mass quantities), buttons, stickers, tee shirts, whatever. Also, if I can get a video like we had the first Strategicon we went to last year, and I'd like to make a tri-fold with photos of the players in costume at events, having a great time, similar to the one at the first Strategicon we went to.
3.
A manned information/registration booth elsewhere in the convention. Many people found us later in the convention and had no idea there were LARPs going on at the event, partially because our room is located pretty far away from the main convention space. I'd like us to have a presence up stairs or in the main hallway outside the Grand Ballroom, where we can setup the video and tri-fold (see above) and get people to sign up if they are interested in hearing about our larps, or if they want to play in one at the convention, that sort of thing. We need to be more visible!
4.
Tabletop and possibly VtES card games. Maybe even Prince of the City board game sessions.
evilbutcute offered to bring her PotC board game to the next event. These would be held in the RPG and board games area, not down in our LARP room, simply for visibility's sake. Anyone wanna run a Pimp: The Backhanding game for the kiddies? :) (J/K, would have to have a sign in process with an age requirement on that.)
5.
A great social event/mixer. This has been scheduled for Saturday, beginning at 6PM. Let’s get some music going, decorate the room a bit, let’s talk about games and gaming, have some drinks, laugh, chat, flirt, whatever. Let’s make these people feel welcomed, let’s make some new friends.
6.
Props and decorations and costuming for the games. Let’s make a show of our games at the convention. Show them how good we are at costuming. Bring extra costuming stuff for the newbies to wear if they want. Dress our set a bit to help with the imagination stuff. Have some great props to hold on to, so everyone can get into the feel of the game a bit. Let's make them want to come back.
Please feel free to comment with additional ideas. We only have till May!
Also, if you are interesting in Storytelling, running tabletop, card, or board games (WW only, I’m thinking), or helping in any other way, please respond in the comments or email me at ladc at secretpassageway dot net.Thanks!
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