Why me?

I Have Enjoyed The Past Four Days

2009-07-04T15:57:01Z

The player of Benjamin Coffin III has dropped.

Character count: 35. 42% done. Also, anubisgrrl has volunteered to write some. Thanks! Happy Fourth!

I Shall Enjoy This While It Lasts

2009-07-01T01:35:50Z

Lullaby of Broadway 2 is full. At least for full player characters.

We still need about 3-5 cast. Costs a lot less and you get to play all sorts of characters.

Character Count: 33. 40% done.

More No.

2009-06-30T16:36:38Z

Episode 3 of LoB will feature The Wiz and Wicked.

But not this:

No, definitely not.

Web Side Story

2009-06-29T18:51:22Z

Nope, won't be in LoB 2

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1913584

Character Count: 32. That's 39% done.

More eBay Mania

2009-06-20T18:16:24Z

OK, I got a little punchy putting this one up on eBay, but it's a fun read, right?

Also, check out my other autions: http://shop.ebay.com/merchant/ambug666_W0QQ_nkwZQQ_armrsZ1QQ_fromZ

For the love of all that is good and holy, buy this crap. Please.

Two Things

2009-06-19T14:33:50Z

I want to see this. I don't know if it's LoB 3 worthy or not, but I want to see it. Maybe it can be combined with Cats. Maybe I could go up one weekend just to see it (and visit relatives, of course).

Also, I am trying to put a thing on eBay a day for at least a week. Yesterday's thing is: Look At The Schmuck On That Camel Board Game

ambug666 @ 2009-06-18T11:40:00

2009-06-18T15:40:38Z

It happens to everyone. Really. At first the project is a bright, sparkly land of possibilities. You design and develop, energized by the act of pure unbridled creativity. It is fun, perhaps the most fun part of the creative process. At this point there are no limits, no drudgework. Just The Design.

But then comes The Work. Assembling. Writing. Coding. Whatever. Suddenly you have to make whatever it is you have designed happen. And this is where I have been lax. Sure, sometimes I get to write a particularly clever turn of phrase or it is interesting to see how the plot will be presented to the player, but I never feel more like a hack than when I am writing character sheets.

And they must be done. I have a deadline. A hard, fast, deadline if I want the players to get their characters two weeks before the game. There are 77 full characters to write, 6 replacement characters, and I-have-no-idea how many cast characters. Then there are the clue chases and side scenes, the information sheets, and the rule book. All told, we’re looking at, what? Over 500 pages of text? 600? 700? That’s a lot!

Right now, I’m about two weeks behind schedule. But I’m hampered by the fact that I don’t want to do this. This isn’t fun. It is work, hard, drudging work. The creative part is either done or I need to scrape the bottom of my creative barrel because a character has slipped through the vetting process without enough to do. Oh it’s rewarding work, sure enough. I get a lot out of the reactions when I give the character sheets to the players. But that won’t happen until September. Until then, it is work. Transcription. Converting GM notes to player readable materials. Blah!

I’ll get through it. I always do. But right now, I’m at the ebb of my excitement for Lullaby of Broadway Two. I know it will be a great game. I can see how busy people will be. I can see what they’ll be doing at the game and can predict to some degree the flow of the plots. I think the event will be a fun, rewarding experience.

But – wow – is it hard work to get there.

So, rather than this just be whining without anything constructive, I thought I’d talk about what I do to get past it.

First thing is I try to set a writing schedule such that it doesn’t take over my life. I’ve seen too many LARP writers go crazy the weeks before a game trying to get everything done at once. I spread out my pain over several months so that I only have a little bit of pain at a time, but I also have a life. Unfortunately, I have managed to have too much of a life lately and am behind in my writing. So now I need to play catch up. But I try to schedule it so that I can take breaks, breathe, and be with my family and friends.

Secondly, I track my time. I have a little spreadsheet that I keep updated to see how many characters need to be written (58, including replacements), how long I need to work on a character to meet the September 1 deadline (1.29 days/character at the moment), and when I would finish if I actually kept to my likely schedule of 1.5 days/character (9/13, about 2 weeks late).

I collaborate. Besides the other people who have written and are writing character sheets (thanks!), there are a number of people on the Lullaby of Broadway writers’ list. And I know I can go there and say, “ok I need a plot involving X, Y, and Z,” and someone will provide something useful. Sometimes I even get an overabundance of useful. It’s far better than trying to scrape the barrel when you discover that a character was less plotted than you originally thought.

Here’s an interesting thought: do you know who provides the best plot ideas for a character? The player of that character. That’s because the player is actively invested in the character and is thinking “wouldn’t it be cool if…” Many LARP writers want to spring plots on the player, but I can easily think of several examples where the player suggested plot ideas for their character that were just excellent. If you’ve got a resource that is that rich, it’s almost a crime not to use it. So what if the player knows a little of what is coming? You can always twist the plot here and there and make it a surprise if you have to.

And finally, I write. It has been said that if you want to be a writer, you need to write every day. Even when you don’t want to write. Especially when you don’t want to write. And so I do. I don’t have to worry about the blank paper syndrome. I have my notes. I know what needs to be written. I just need to do it.

So, what do you do to get through the writer’s blahs? How do you force yourself to put words on a page?

Character count: 25; Lola will be done before I go to sleep tomorrow.

Film Zendo II

2009-06-17T16:40:12Z

So, balthazar99 won the last one handily and promised to do three if he won this one as well.

The object of the abstract game Zendo is to deduce what the "rule" is by which the examples are drawn. Your task is to determine what the common thread is which ties all of the following movies together...

The Scorpion King
Them!
A Bug's Life
Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull
Empire of the Ants
Phase IV

You may also give suggestions of other movies that fit the rule, and I'll let you know if they have "the Buddha nature."

Film Zendo

2009-06-17T15:39:13Z

thebeardedone did a game of Film Zendo which I won, and by winning had to host the next round.

The object of the abstract game Zendo is to deduce what the "rule" is by which the examples are drawn. Your task is to determine what the common thread is which ties all of the following movies together...

Movies are not my strong point, so I have included a play and a musical in the list. Since I have DVDs of both, I insist they count.

Brazil
Pulp Fiction
Psycho
The Princess Bride
Fallen
Hamlet
Urinetown

You may also give suggestions of other movies that fit the rule, and I'll let you know if they have "the Buddha nature."

The Internet Is Random And Weird

2009-06-15T18:08:27Z

This...

Led to this...

Character count: 24. I'm working on Mr. Applegate now. Character sheets have a small 3-4 word description of the character under the name. For his character sheet, The Devil is in the details. Oh, I'm only amusing myself...

Holy carp!

2009-06-11T14:24:43Z

Thank you PETA. You have made my day enjoyable and surreal once again.

Character count: 22. So very behind schedule. Will be 23 by the time I go to sleep, by hook or by crook!

Chucky's Cheeze Lessons Learned

2009-06-08T17:26:10Z

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post mortem about a LARP I‘ve run, but I’ve felt the need, so here’s a post mortem about Chucky’s Cheeze, a scene I ran at the most recent Threads of Damocles event.

Chucky’s Cheeze was set in a restaurant that had become isolated. One concept Threads has is that of “consensual reality,” which basically states that when a thread becomes isolated, what people in the thread believe is true tends to become actual laws of physics. So, I started with the question: what would a thread entirely populated by children be like?

The laws of physics in Chucky’s Cheeze were weird. Children were “safe” there. They were completely invulnerable and could not be hurt in any way. This was, of course, not true of the player characters, although they would have become invulnerable had they stayed there long enough to fully integrate into the restaurant. Also, it was physically impossible to go to places (or touch things) marked “employees only.” Only employees could do that, and you are not an employee.

The entire place was watched over by the benevolent god, Chucky the Rat, who provided pizza – any kind of pizza (except apparently high gigawat energy pizza; magic sparkly pizza worked though. It was delicious). Chucky was also omnipotent as one player found to her disadvantage. There was a lot more inspired weirdness, but I digress. I’m thinking of making the scene available for download from my site.

The society of kids that lived there had devolved into tribalism. Evan’s tribe controlled the bathrooms and required a token to use them (tokens could be used to operate the video games; the scene had a token economy, you see). Betsy’s tribe held the area near the kitchen and thus got the best pizza. Tad had lost his tribe. The play area was a free space anyone could go to. Yes, there was a complex political negotiation going on in the background of the scene, involving finding allies, betrayal, and revolution. Well, as complex as kids 7-10 can be, anyway.

In general, the scene was very well received both by cast and players. But it was easily the most ambitious scene I had written for Threads yet. I don’t know how the scene sheet compared to other writers, but it ended up being 14 pages with 6 more pages of contingency envelopes. Every player character in the scene had 9-11 contingency envelopes as the consensual reality of the thread changed them into children. Some cast had contingencies as well.

So, what went wrong? My lessons learned:

The Gatehouse. I will *never* run a scene in the gatehouse again if I can help it. It was way too small for the number of players (technically not the gatehouse’s fault), was two levels connected by a steep ladder like staircase, and the bottom floor was covered in rat droppings. Luckily I found a cobweb covered broom there and was able to sweep up beforehand, but just cleaning the place made me nauseated.

Faulty assumptions. In the previous Threads game, the props I had asked to borrow from Threads had magically appeared in my space when I got there to set up (thanks Jenny!). I had somehow assumed this would happen again this time, but it was untrue, and I had to drive down to the cast tent to get the props. I had to return them again next morning, when it was pointed out to me that the props still weren’t being transported for me and they were needed for the next scene. I should have asked ahead of time if I was responsible for prop transportation for my scene.

Faulty assumptions 2: technology. I had negotiated a computer from the Threads staff which they provided (thanks again), and I had a CD Rom with the video games I wanted to play on it. The computer didn’t have a CD rom drive. We had pretend video games. Ah well.

Technology also failed me in that the files I made for a cool placemat became corrupted. I really need a new thumb drive. I don’t know if it is the drive or something else that corrupts the files, but I also nearly lost a character sheet for LoB 2 as well.

I made one mistake early in runtime. Remember I said that Cast had tokens to trade with. I gave a couple of tokens to players early on, but then realized that doing that would make them less likely to negotiate with cast, so I stopped. It was a very quick lesson learned and didn’t really hurt the game that much.

I also made one writing mistake. I let the players know that if they couldn’t escape on their own, they would be rescued. I believe this interfered with the “oh my god we need to get out of here before we all turn into children” attitude I was hoping to foster. Next time, I’ll put in the backup plan, but not inform the players.

Finally, I had verbally asked for trash bags to be added to my props and was assured they would be there. They weren’t and I didn’t discover that until after I had gotten back to the gate house. Now again, I should have put it as a written request way back when we asked for prop requests, but I believe a lesson learned is that Threads should supply a trash bag to every scene that happens in the gatehouse or the barn. No need to request one, you just get a bag for your trash.

What went right:

The cast. The cast were fantastic. Now, there’s few ways to plan for excellent cast, and I usually let the other GMs pick cast first because they usually have recurring characters to play. I had sent the materials out for the scene well in advance of the game, and those materials stressed that the cast (a) needed to show up without prompting because nobody would be there to prompt them and (b) the cast should show up early to help set up and expect to stay late to help tear down.

And they did! They read the briefing ahead of time. They got the place looking very Cheezy. They assembled last minute paper products. And they did an excellent job playing their characters as well. And they stayed to clean up, and some of them played those characters later in the game as well. I’m honored.

The players. The players ran with the scene. They picked up on clues. They negotiated with players. They deliberately made unwise decisions that furthered character growth. They had no problems as their mental, emotional, and physical states become more childlike. And they solved the puzzle. There were two main ways of escaping: destroying the thread or changing consensual reality so they could escape.

The players split into two groups, but while group 2 was about 2/3 of the way there, group 1 managed to do the final action to sever the thread’s energy source and it collapsed, spewing them into the Tween briefly and then into the Empire of New York. The current whereabouts of Chucky the Rat are unknown.

Other successes: Cake. The cake was not a lie. Lighting effects. They were cool. Ball pit and play area. They added fun to the game. Pizza boxes. I work for the best company ever and we had pizza for lunch on Friday. Music. The music was from the Organ Grinder Pizza restaurant chain. I strive for authenticity. The Chucky’s Cheeze Electronic Kazoo Orchestra. Whee!

Overall, I consider the scene to be a rousing success.

Uh-Oh

2009-06-08T14:58:31Z

http://wineandexcrement.com/conservatives-seek-to-add-larp-armies-to-domestic-terror-list/1359/

Song Quiz

2009-05-29T18:04:20Z

OK, it's been a while since I've done this. I have ten songs, plucked kinda randomly from my mp3 player. For them, I've picked a word or phrase I especially liked. Can you give me title and artist (for songs from movies and musicals, I'll take song and movie/musical title).

~~1 Groundhog!~~ mnemex
~~2 monkey butler~~ wgptrey
~~3 Drop to my knees to elicit crowd response~~ artful_username
4 cats eat birds (answer: Facts About Cats by Timbuk 3)
~~5 Orbiting Rondelle~~ wgptrey
~~6 I’m a consummated man~~ sharrainchains
~~7 she could hear the highway breathing~~ learnedax
~~8 They've got a pet monkey who likes/To get drunk and sing boogie woogie~~ starfyrone
~~9 Once I thought my innocence was gone~~ castalusoria
~~10 Hey, I've never seen the sun come up in the west?~~ wgptrey

Some of these are pretty easy. Some are harder. How many can you get?

Edit: I thought this was pretty easy. Hints: #2 is by a singer/songwriter who seems to have a thing for monkeys. #8 is an oldie. You probably won't get #4.

A Snake! A Snake! Oooo It's a Snake!

2009-05-28T13:32:56Z

One of the best things about riding my bike to work is that I get to cut through Claude Moore Farm Park. Besides not having to worry about insane drivers, I get to ride a paved path through woods and a farm.
Sometimes I see sheep. Sometimes I see deer, close enough to touch.

Today I saw this guy looking at a stick on the ground. As I got closer, the stick slithered away. A snake, likely a rat snake. So cool!

I need a bike riding icon.

Characters complete: 18, and should finish Svetlana tonight.

Screaming Puppets Show this Saturday

2009-05-26T13:55:32Z

My improv group has a show this Saturday at the Laurel Mills Playhouse on Main Street Laurel.

Here's the relevant information: http://www.laurelmillplayhouse.org/announcements.htm

If you show up and tell me "I saw it on Mike's Livejournal" after the show, you'll get a $1.00 refund, which I will personally give you out of my own pocket. I'm not above bribing my friends to see my shows.

Character count: 1/2 character more than last time. Will finish him tonight.

You Need Drew's Truck Redux

2009-05-23T18:09:41Z

People have asked me how much shipping would be for the four boxes of You Need Drew's Truck. They are:

25lbs - First set of cards.
30lbs - Second set of cards
15lbs - Envelopes, Rules, Play Mats, and some Magnets
50lbs - Metal Plates, More Magnets, Labels

Shipping from 20164

Let me know if you're interested.

Also, Character Count: 17. We're still on track, but I need to pick up the pace or we'll soon fall behind.

To My Wife

2009-05-21T15:07:53Z

Hey i_scribble!

Things I Discovered In Ohio Part One...

2009-05-18T02:12:44Z

There is a new Ambush Bug mini series. It's already on issue 5. Why didn't anyone tell me?

Happy Founders Day

2009-05-13T13:19:26Z

As I sit here munching on fresh bacon and scrambled eggs from the omelet bar, I must again reflect that I work for the best company EVAR!

Character count: 14. I'm leading 8 to 5 to 1.

500 Copies of You Need Drew's Truck

2009-04-30T15:22:43Z

Anybody want the materials to make 500 copies of You Need Drew's Truck? You'd need to assemble the games yourself. You pay for shipping and they're yours. If you're local, I'll drive them to you.

Character count: 10. Diana's still pacing me.

And Everything Was Ragtime

2009-04-29T18:02:54Z

Saw Ragtime at the Kennedy Center last night. If you are at all interested in the musical, go see it! They did an incredibly good job. They played well with the set and the acting was amazing. By complete coincidence two friends (who do not as far as I know do not have lj accounts, so I'll call them Brandon and Mary) were there as well. Brandon had seen Ragtime twice before and he said this one was the best of all the versions he has seen. The staging of "Henry Ford" and "What a Game" didn't meld with my preconceptions (although they were still well done), but luckily I will have my own chance come October.

Characters done: 8. I'll finish Princeton tonight.

Casting Done!

2009-04-28T14:17:39Z

I have put the casting results online in a PDF. If you are especially unhappy with your character, e-mail me and we'll talk.

I will send out more personalized results later this week, possibly this weekend. I want to write another character first.

You can see the results here:
http://www.interactivitiesink.com/larps/broadway/doclib/Players/Episode%202/casting.pdf

Also, Characters Done: 8

Ugh. Casting.

2009-04-28T03:09:09Z

Sigh, I have this fantasy in my head that casting is a fulfilling part of writing a larp. I get to picture people I know playing the characters in my head. Fun, right?

Except casting is like a jigsaw puzzle where all of the pieces connect to each other. You get the five people who all want the same three characters, or the people who say, "I'll play anything." It can suck. I'm gonna have to think of a better way to cast Episode 3.

In any case, the first pass through is done. We have 2 uncast female characters and 7 uncast male characters.

We have 2 women who have not filled out player questionaires and 3 men who are likewise uncast. This will leave 4 uncast (likely male) characters after casting is done (unless the women wish to be cross cast). We have 76 characters and 72 players. And thus my math is fine. Whew.

So, casting is not absolutely finalized yet. I'd say there's a 99% chance that if you've been assigned a character, that's who you'll be.

If you post here AND I see it before I send out casting results, I'll even tell you who you're probably playing.

And it isn't too late to sign up and get a great (male) character for the game. We've got singers, dancers, gang leaders, writers, and horrors available.

I lose

2009-04-17T02:37:58Z

But in a good way. So, I mentioned that ferretd was also writing characters for LoB. Well, she managed to finish her character before I finished mine. Well done!

OTOH, the character I wrote was nine frickkin pages long! The longest character from LoB 1 was 7 pages. And remember with these character sheets we only give the plot elements. We assume the players know the character histories from seeing the shows. Nine pages. And I didn't even consider him one of the more plotted characters in the game. I can see I've got my work cut out for me.

Luckily, I've got ferretd and theoclarke and tpau helping to write characters. With our combined might, we may actually make deadline. Cool!

character count: 2