GenCon 2011 Vampire the Masquerade LARP "The Forgotten"

I've been asked to help with the writing and preparation for a VtM LARP, The Forgotten, which friends will be running at GenCon 2011.

The LARP will be held in the Hyatt Regency Ballrooms A and B Thursday, Friday and Saturday from 6pm to 1am.  I can definitely recommend playing - it looks like an excellent concept with a lot of interesting characters.  It's an official LARP, so you can sign up for it when you register for the con.  And no, I'm not just saying this because I am writing some of them.

But the most interesting ones are mine.

I've also tweeted back and forth with one of the developers for V20, and hopefully some of them will get a chance to come by the LARP and see how it is going.

Not for the last time, like Bilbo missing his Hobbit-hole, I am wishing I could be at GenCon this year.

The Theme is Burial

So much has been going on lately - a possible book deal with Chalice Press; three or four other book ideas with my collaborators over at Two Friars and a Fool; helping friends with a Vampire the Masquerade LARP for GenCon this year; a rough draft of the character sheet for Parsec; continuing work on a rough draft of Reckoning; and that on top of everything else.

Hence the longer-than-usual languishing of this blog.

There's a lot of writing inside me, and it is coming out like one of those old-school lawn sprinklers - in multiple streams and all over the freaking place.  That being said, if I didn't enjoy it, it would be the easiest thing in the world to just...stop.

But that won't happen.

I'll be at Origins this year for at least two days - Friday and Saturday.  I want to make sure I get a good look at the dealer floor, maybe try to awkwardly schmooze with people, and also check out the art room, since that was awesome last year.  Also, you know, Columbus is no slouch as cities go.  I wish I had more time to prep and run a game, but honestly we need a final character sheet for both Parsec and Reckoning before I want to do a full-on convention demo.  I feel like, especially for a convention game where people are paying to play, there should be a baseline of quality, and we're not quite there yet.  It's one thing to hand friends something you laid out yourself in Microsoft Word three years ago.  It's quite another thing to do that with strangers who you want to turn into fans, you know?

MagiQuest: Live Action Goes Mainstream

This is the first time that live-action roleplaying has gone mass-market in the United States thatI'm aware of. There are plenty of systems like Daggerhere or Nero that are widely played, and even a live-action RPG summer camp that runs in the Bay Area where I live, but as far as I know, MagiQuest is the first mainstream attempt.

It seems to be aimed at Harry Potter fans, utilizing infra-red projecting wands that players can use to cast spells or even to duel each other. Apparently, the wands also remember how much progress their wielder has made, making record-keeping presumably a lot easier. It looks like MagiQuest is setting up locations all of the the U.S. as well as in Japan.

I for one call this a good thing, not knowing a lot about it yet. I like opportunities like this to both roleplay and actually interact with other human beings live. I also think it is a good idea to piggy-back on what every Harry Potter fan wants to do - run around slinging their wand at their friends.