The Day the Larp Died: Found on pages 54-55
The day the LARP died...
I can still remember the very first combat based larp I went to,
Labyrinthe!
The very name conjours up images of twisting caves, forgotten
oubliettes and sexy goblin kings lurking round every corner.
It didn't disappoint in the slightest I can tell you.
That day spent in the total pitch black except where one or two
people had glow sticks to light the way. Creatures faster than the
eye could see, frenetic combat, and the loss of a good friend who
died at the hands of a dark elf assassin!
In no short time at all I grew to love the game, it had everything
I wanted that I could never get in the table top games.
I was in a group of friends, my table top group, who all had been
going to Laby for some time even though I was new to the area they
welcomed me with open arms.
During the breaks the sense of camaraderie was evident in many of
the people down there, all of them on some alternate quest or vital
mission of mercy and daring do!
Whilst I was there I came to make a good many mates and even lucky
enough to make some friends, and eventually meet my girlfriend whilst
there!
However, after a while, as I began to level up my character and
play with other groups, not to mention Monstering (playing purely as
crew for the day), there began a curious sort of rot which had
started to set in.
I was suddenly aware of numerous small groups of people, cliques
and elitists I thought at the time, which were often referred to as
“The Old Guard”.
Each of these little groups had very little time or like for the
other groups. At first I just thought they were in game guilds or
factions and that the subsurface hostility I had noticed was simply
some excellent roleplaying.
Before long however I found that the hostility was indeed a very
real thing.
The odd tale of a drunken assault or bitter row on social media
had begun to filter through to me.
Now i've always been a live and let live kind of guy, never
anything bad to say about anyone unless the really had wound me up
(which was a hard thing to do, i'm to fat and jolly to be getting
annoyed!).
After a couple of years I had been down to the game enough to know
who liked who and who avoided who and so I was suddenly aware of a
massive social minefield.
But me being me, I just cracked on and kept chatting to anyone and
everyone.
That was when it all really started to go wrong for me.
Some how, because I seemed to prefer to Monster and not play, a
member of two of the Old Guard had decided I wasn't worthy enough to
be part of what they saw as their game.
This hostility of course made me want to play less, and monster
not quite as often as I might have liked, I would be asked a couple
times a month to monster on a dungeon a friend was playing in or even
running but I started to find excuses, so in the end I was only going
once every couple or three months, then once every four to six
months.
There came a time all of a sudden when I realised I hadn't been
down to either play or monster for almost an entire year, though I
was still active on the forums, checking them daily for interesting
happenings and the like.
I resolved to start going again, after all I was in full time
employment and had some spare cash.
So I found a low level game to get involved with, made an entirely
new character, used up some of my monster points (a great little
thing Laby does to encourage people to crew, which can be spent on
making other games a bit cheaper or to purchase the latest game
update books, of which there are a great many..) to advance my
character a few levels and be able to use heavy armour which a friend
had loaned me for the day, and then I managed to convince another
mate to come along, some one who had been larping for a very long
time and even now spends most weekends in a field or nuclear bunker
some where in the country.
My mate was more than happy to crew for the day, it gave him a
nice rest from being a player.
So off we trekked, I got painted and armoured up, much to the
interest of some visiting italian grandmothers who were fascinated by
a grey skinned demon warrior with boar tusks jutting from his face!
So, after a few obliging photos with the ladies, and what i'm sure
was a rather cheeky pat on the bum from one of them during a picture,
off I set, Jalagos the Grrtuck warrior who didnt bother with shields
but relied on two mighty hammers and a rather dodgy germanic accent
to get through most things.
And you know what, I had a blast that day, it was great to be back
on the swing of things, smiting left right and center, protecting the
squishies in the middle of the party, causing racial tensions with
some of the local townsfolk who didn't like my folk..
All those worries of what the Old Guard thought had totally gone
away.
Until that is I got home and read on the forums that certain
people didn't think that people should be allowed to monster unless
they had played in the system for a considerable time.
The post was directly aimed at my mate, the person had even
referred to the dungeon he was kind enough to crew for the day!
This of course started up a rather heated debate as others threw
their rather limited opinions in to the mix.
I spoke to the currant management team about certain player
attitudes that bordered on bullying, and was told “oh thats just
how they are, they're always like it, nothing we can do”.
It was the straw that broke the camels back for me. A good number
of people had all complained about the same attitudes from the old
guard and each been told the same thing.
At that point I vowed never to return as either a player or a
member of crew to the system.
Since then I've used the caves for another system (Kent By
Night/Camarilla Invictus), which all the players loved, and you know
what, I started to miss the place, the ambiance of the location, the
claustrophobic feel, knowing that if it were not for the torches and
glow sticks you'd be in utter darkness..
I'd heard that some of the Old Guard are no longer playing, and I
started wondering if its time to dust off the hammers and practice my
rather bad germanic accent once more..
After all, Laby was my first love when it comes to smiting and I
did have some good times down there..
Whether i'll return however I don't know. There are just a few to
many negative memories as well for me. Despite having been playing
for 11 years (with the exception of the last one and a half when i've
not played or crewed for) I still consider myself an utter noob with
their system, its hellishly large, and easy to get confused with how
things are done.
If I could find a combat larp that used a similar location, didn't
have 4 different kinds of armour class (Armour/Physical, Dextrous,
Magical and Spiritual), where abilities didn't have a dozen names and
all the same effect and was just a bit more affordable i'd like to
think i'd be a regular combat larper once again.
As it is, i'm rather happy running my own system these days, which
has no cliques, no old guard, people bring cakes for one another, is
full of combat, both physical and political, and has a modern theme
to it, not to mention it's 1 tenth the price for the same length of
time of game play!
Article written by Nick Sands, who's the Ref of Camarilla
Invictus, formerly known as Kent by Night and is desperately
searching for a decent slice of Battenburg and mug of tea...
Goodbye KBN: Found on Pages 66-67
Goodbye Kent by Night...
Very recently as a Ref I had a hard decision to make about the
system I’ve been running for the last twenty years.
It'd come to light that we were losing potential players because
of our name.
Kent By Night.
Now, if you've played in other Vampire based LARPs you might be
aware that “By Night” is a bit of a brand name much like Cam-UK
and UK-Masquerade.
A great many people had have rather mixed experiences, as
mentioned in the recent article a couple of months ago, with vampire
LARPs as a whole and many vampire games, regardless of the system
they're part of will use “By Night” as part of their name, to
indicate that it's a vampire based game regardless of the Sect or
Clans available.
With the “By Night” appendage there is usually the town or
city in which the game is based and played in.
For example, you might find a London By Night game, as well as a
Tottenham By Night or Chelsea By Night game, all of which run in
close areas but are utterly unrelated (though you my see a few
similar faces in them, after all the LARP community is quite small
and its very easy to bump in to others you may well know..).
-A Game Unlike Any Other-
When advertising our game, either on various facebook pages, or by
word of mouth, we'd constantly run in to the stigma that seems to
follow all vampire games.
“Oh, you're a 'By Night' game... yeah, no thanks. Tried that
before, didn't like it.. bunch of weirdos..”
Which when you look at it is a rather blanket attitude, it's like
saying “Gemmel? Yeah don't like him because I read some Tolkein and
got bored..” or disliking Angel just because it was a spin off from
Buffy.
They're totally different beasts. Ok, theres a few similarities
but not enough to pan one with out giving it a chance just because
you don't like something it's linked to in some manner..
Kent By Night really was, and still is, unlike many other vampire
games due to not only the rules, it's not a Minds Eye Theatre system,
but it is a Vampire the Masquerade based game, using all the same
powers, clans and sects. Unlike other vampire LARPs Kent By Night
uses full contact combat rules and everything is Real Time, so once
you're in the IC area nothings OOC, everything you say is considered
IC, same as every action you take is also considered to be fully IC,
as one player found out when he blew his brains out all over the
surrounding players in a game of Russian Roulette..
Other people just didn't get that about Kent By Night.
Other By Night games were all strictly non combat, no death except
when it drove the story.
There was little real PVP action at all except when it drove the
story along.
Kent By Night was nothing like that, and no matter how both myself
and the players explained that other people just didn't get the fact
that we were called “By Night” but in name only because it was a
clear indicator we were a vampire based game.
-The Dilemma-
So, the dilemma of Kent by Night was something along the lines of:
Should we change our name to remove us from the other local games
with similar names, or should we stick with the stigma of being
confused with other games which we don't really resemble.
Myself and the A-Ref spent the better part of two months
discussing the matter on and off, judging player reactions to the
name, listening to their stories of other games which they have
attended in the last or still do attend and how those games go with
the “By Night” name.
We put together a list of some other names that were not to much
of a mouthful, chatted with a couple of our long term players who've
been with us since day one in the Chatham area based game.
One of them asked, initially, why we wasn't called Chatham by
Night, and the very simple answer was “there's not enough people in
Chatham to support all the vampires that will attend the game” we
also made mention that given the history of the game that Kent was a
very troubled Domain as a whole and as such the game will be set in
Kent as well as East & West Sussex, again due to game lore.
After whittling the twenty potential names down to a list of 10 we
then opened up a poll to the players to vote on, after all it was
their game just as much as it the Ref Teams game..
The players as a whole took to the poll with great enthusiasm, and
even offered up additional ideas some of which were also very well
received.
So, being the fair Ref that I am, I reset the poll, using most
popular options previously voted and some of the most preferred
player ideas.
Within a couple of days of the new poll being up we quickly saw
that the players were interested in a new name and began discussing
just what it meant as a name for the game.
Camarilla Invictus.
-Hello Camarilla Invictus-
It sounded snazzy, it made it clear that we're a Camarilla based
game and even made use of the Kent coat of arms motto (Invicta or
Invictas depending on the age of the local council stationary..).
It also was a great way to lure in people who'd played the more
recent New World of Darkness games where there was a sect called
Invictus or something remarkably similar..
It was explained that the root word, Invicta, meant Victory or
Strength, and players were agog at how such a seemingly random idea
for a name had gained momentum and become the firm favourite of two
thirds of the player base (the other third being spread between the
old name, and a smattering of other ideas).
However the final third have now come to accept the new name,
which is great news because it means that 100% of our player base is
embracing (if you'll pardon the pun) the new name.
Myself and my Asst-Ref have updated all our Wiki as much as
possible, keeping a few mentions of the old name and even having a
page as to why it was changed.
We've had some one design some great new artwork for our facebook
group and wiki, and we've got a few surprises for players next year..
The other great thing about changing our name is that suddenly
players are really interested in just what the game will change in
to, and the last few months since we started the name change process
the game has evolved in to a rather different beast.
Before it was a casual gathering of vampires, the option of
politics against one another was there but few really took to it (and
as such they became victims of those who did take to it, but isn't
that what the games all about?). There was the ever present chance of
random violence, after all vampires are creatures ruled by their
passions and some are rather quick to anger..
Now however the stakes have been raised, almost everyone has
suddenly taken an interest in the player versus player aspect of the
political struggle in the game.
The game seems to have suddenly gelled in to what the Ref Team
envisioned a couple of years ago when we started the game in the
area.
For the players the game is now much more personal, their
characters live in the domain and now they know that there are very
possible threats in the domain, some from other players and some from
things invading the place where they live and feed..
So, from January the 1st Kent by Night is no more.
And Camarilla Invictus has taken its place as a vampire game with
a little more bite!
Of course, if the Camarilla should lose Kent to the Sabbat...
Article written by Nick Sands, who's been running Camarilla
Invictus and the preceding saga for the last 20 years. He's in
desperate need of a decent Battenburg and mug of Tea...
Wiki link: http://kbn.wikidot.com/start
Facebook group link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/151976118247403/
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