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My Very Own Date at the Modern Moulin Rouge, Minus the Absinthe but Featuring A Very Charming Fox Trot with Boba Fett, As Told In Three Parts

I – Wherein I Explain the Title, Or Die Trying

Welcome, Ministry fans! Thanks for visiting! I have a pair of lovely little giveaways for you, but before I share those details, let me tell you a little story about what I love about steampunk.

I didn’t intend to become a writer of steampunk stories. I really didn’t. I knew the term, sure, but it was just another literary sub-genre to me … until a gentleman named Mister Lapin wandered along and changed everything. One morning I was driving to work, listening to the Dr. Horrible soundtrack, and as the mad, bombastic closing credits music played I was suddenly struck by an idea: What if I wrote a story about a man who turns himself into a half-man, half-rabbit? And what if he used alchemy to solve mysteries? It was so crazy I just had to do it, and when I sat down later that evening, I found the voice naturally became an excitable British man straight out of the Victorian era. The Impossible Mister Lapin, my novel of weird science and occult investigations in a Britain that never was, had begun. It quickly took on a life of its own, growing from a short story to a serial novella to my first ever full-fledged novel, adding gadgets and alchemy and evil spirits as it went, often with me feeling as though I was trailing slightly behind, trying frantically to keep up.

What was even more amazing, though, was the scene that surrounded this new world I’d chanced into. My wife, the costumer, had started attending Dorian’s Parlor, a lovely steampunk gathering in Philadelphia, and as the story of Mister Lapin took on life she brought me along with her. I was stunned and enchanted by the creativity and vibrancy of the community – there were people faithfully recreating exquisite Victorian and Edwardian dress down to the smallest detail, while others blasted off into the far realms of steam-powered fantasy as airship pirates and eccentric inventors, and everything inbetween. There was music, art, fashion, gadgetry, literature (always a relief for a writer looking to sell a tale), academic discussion … there was a community. And even though some of them liked to quarrel about what did or didn’t suit the scene, or even how to define the term “steampunk” itself, in the end the movement always seemed to celebrate a diversity of inspiration that was positively breathtaking.

In many ways, meeting the steampunk community – at Dorian’s, at New York Comic Con, at Steampunk World’s Faire and many other places besides – reminded me of Christian’s first experience with the Moulin Rouge in the film of the same name – a whirl of sounds and sights, faces and delights. And that’s without any absinthe to help the experience along!

Now that steampunk has crossed well into the mainstream, of course there are any number of naysayers who claim it’s over, it’s done, it’s been co-opted will never be the same. But with respect, I rather think those folks are missing the point. Movements rise and fall in popularity, naturally, but the very diversity of the community and the experiences and inspirations it draws on makes it far hardier than one might expect. Because it’s not purely history, and it’s not purely fiction, it’s a lovely expanse of middle ground between the two. Besides, there are other factors that also play a role, which might be even more unexpected than airship captains, safari enthusiasts with rayguns and the inimitable Steampunk Boba Fett. (As if such a thing were possible, I know.)

But here’s what comes to mind whenever someone tells me that steampunk’s already on its way out. When I was in college, the neo-swing revival was in full, well, swing, and an interviewer asked Royal Crown Revue lead singer Eddie Nichols if he thought the music would be a fad, or if it had staying power. He replied, “Will it be huge like it is now? Nah. ‘Course not. It’ll level off soon enough. But you see those cats out there on the dance floor? They paid a lotta money on those dance lessons, not to mention the outfits. This music didn’t really die before, and it’s not going to now either. Besides, it doesn’t age like the punk rock or metal bands wil. You can grow old with this, you know? It’s classy. You won’t be moshing at your daughter’s wedding, but you will definitely fox trot.”

I look around at all the passion and energy and innovation being poured into the fashion and music and writing and crafting, the humor and style and class that inform and support this scene, and I don’t hear metal.

I hear swing.

II – Rally Behind the Ministry!

While many of you probably reached this post as part of the blog hop, I suppose it’s possible that some of you haven’t heard of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences, and are wondering exactly where that lovely graphic came from and what exactly is going on. Well, wonder no further! Allow the creators themselves to explain:

“Galileo Games and Imagine That! Studios have teamed up to bring you an ambitious steampunk project! The Ministry Initiative is a two-part creative endeavor that will not only premiere new fiction from the steampunk world of the Ministry but also present a brand new role playing game from the makers of Bulldogs! and the ENnie Award winning game Shelter in Place. Thrill to the tales in Ministry Protocol anthology, or join in as an Agent in The Ministry Initiative RPG.

“Find out more about this endeavor by checking out my giveaway contest at the end of this entry, then hopping to all the blogs listed below – many of them sponsoring wonderful contests and giveaways of their own, I might add, for all you lovers of free things! – and of course supporting the Kickstarter here: http://bit.ly/ministry-initiative

The Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences	J.R. Blackwell	Jared Axelrod
PJ Schnyder	Leanna Renee Hieber	Pete Woodworth
Tee Tate	Karina Cooper	The Galaxy Express
Tiffany Trent	Alex White	Delilah S. Dawson
Simply Ali	Wicked Little Pixie	Books Make Me Happy
MamaKitty Reviews	Thats What Im Talking About	Kathryn Camisa
Krista Cagg	Seleste deLaney	Pauline Creeden
The Pen Punks	Melissa	Pauline Baird Jones
Vivid Muse	Robert C Roman	Jack Mangan

‘);

III – Last But Not Least: How to Win Free Stuff!

As part of the Ministry Initiative Kickstarter, I’m proud to announce my own giveaway for those dogged Ministry agents willing to put in a little legwork. Here’s the skinny:

THE “FIENDISH MENAGERIE FILES” CONTEST!

I want you to create the most devious, most devilish steampunk villain you can imagine, and tell me about it!

1) Craft A Villain!
Here’s what I need from you:
Name: Your villain’s name. It can be as simple or elaborate as you like. Don’t forget titles – they didn’t spend all those years in Evil Medical School to be called mister, after all!
Signature Villainy: What is your villain’s “signature” knavery? Killer gorillas? Freeze rays? Radioactive dinosaurs? Fell sorcery? Knives in the dark? A poisoned kiss? Unexpected cats?
Most Infamous Crime: Give the title or description of their most notorious bit of malfeasance: “The Terrible Affair of the Lemon”, “The Archduke’s Sinister Disappearance”. “The Time That Gravity was Most Unceremoniously Stolen”, you name it. You don’t need to elaborate too much – in fact, it’s usually better if you leave it to our imaginations a bit.

Here’s a sample contest entry – yours can be more elaborate, but this should give you the idea:
Name: The Ghost Emperor!
Signature Villainy: Poisonous alchemical fog!
Most Infamous Crime: “The Usurpation of the Imperial Throne, By Means Most Underhanded and Occult”

2) Post Your Villain!
* Post your entry here at this blog, as a response to this very post.
* You may enter more than once, but please, no more than once per day.
* The contest is open from the time this post goes live on May 22nd to 6 PM EST on May 29th.

3) Check Back for Prizes!
At the end of the contest, a winner will be decided by an esteemed panel of judges (read: as many Ministry writers as I can collect). This winner will receive a free electronic copy of my story from the Ministry Initiative anthology, currently titled “New London Calling.” Information will be collected and arrangements will be made to deliver this story in electronic format as soon as the Ministry’s esteemed editorial staff deem it ready for public release, which is likely to be a little ahead of its release to the general public. Tease your friends with knowledge of the exploits that only you are privy to as they gnash their teeth in envy!

In addition, the winner and one runner-up will also receive electronic copies of Runner, my post-zombie-apocalypse, action-adventure novel. Because after some dashing steampunk exploits, nothing cleanses the palate for another course like a serving of gritty survival horror. And, having just referred to zombies as the literary equivalent of sorbet, I’m going to stop talking now.

**********

“WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?”
OK, so I’m no quite finished. I’d encourage you to check back as the contest goes forward, because you never know what other wrinkles and new developments might pop up. Don’t forget to head on over to the Kickstarter to donate to this very awesome game/anthology combo, but while you’re here, steampunk fans should really take a moment to drop in and make the acquaintance of one Mister Lapin. If that amuses you, I also like to write about LARP, writing theory. geek culture, and most anything else that comes to mind, really. It’s been a pleasure having you here – thanks for stopping by, and I hope to see some of your villains soon!

It’s a strange world out there, agents.

Let’s keep it that way!

Posted by petewoodworth | May 22, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Mister Lapin, writing | Leave A Comment »

Time to Level Up

OK. Deep breath. I’m going to say something that I feel is a little bit overdue:

We geeks really have to get past the notion that we’re cultural outsiders.

Before anyone flies off the handle, let me make two things perfectly clear: I am not saying that geeks don’t get picked on for their hobbies and interests. Sadly I know that there are plenty of kids and more than a few adults who get picked on by classmates and co-workers for knowing what Naruto is, or arguing the merits of Star Wars versus Firefly. Bullies like easy targets, and there’s still plenty in our culture that says “nerds” are their natural prey, as though eighth grade was Wild Kingdom. Strike that. Anyone who’s been to middle school knows that it’s not Wild Kingdom – it’s much, much meaner. Lions only take down gazelle once; the gazelle never have to do a history presentation with them two weeks after getting mauled. So no, I’m not saying that geeks aren’t still being bullied for being geeks.

I am also not saying that bad cultural stereotypes don’t exist. Just to pick one of the most egregious genres, look at any of the thousands of police procedurals on the air – the techies and the “brainy” characters are still likely to have glasses, be “quirky” (read: socially awkward), and have hobbies that other “normal” characters make fun of for being too dorky. Venerable ratings juggernaut NCIS, whose writers generally display as much computer savvy as Wilford Brimley yelling drunken obscenities at a ceiling fan, spent a good chunk of time mocking MIT graduate Agent McGee and his fascination with computer games, role-playing and cosplay (not that they know that term). There are exceptions, of course, especially as characters get fleshed out over the run of a series, but on average if you dig back to those early episodes you’re going to see awkward, often-bespectacled geeks spouting jargon that – inevitably – some “down to earth” alpha male type barks at them to translate into “plain English” for everyone to understand. That sort of stereotyping still happens regularly, I know. That’s not in dispute.

No, what I’m trying to say is that we have to let go of the idea – deeply ingrained in many of us – that geek culture is still the weird kid no one wants to talk to at recess. I know it’s hard; sometimes I still can’t believe it myself. Whenever I see something from geek culture splashed across the mainstream, my first reaction is that old one a lot of us nerds grew up with – I don’t trust it. I look around to see if someone’s poking fun at it, or me for liking it, or maybe both. I just can’t accept that maybe a lot of other people, and I mean a lot of other people, might be into what I’m into. I think a lot of geeks know what I’m talking about, especially those in their late 20′s-early 30′s and up, the ones who didn’t grow up with Harry Potter being around their age. (The importance of this distinction will be clearer in a moment.) It’s a habit developed by folks who were used to having what they liked mocked or dismissed, and the “us versus them” mentality it creates is very hard to let go of even many years later.

When I was a kid, many people grudgingly suffered through The Hobbit in school, but it was a far rarer soul who’d braved the grown-up trilogy. Outside my circle of geeky friends, being able to rattle off the rosters and relative merits of of X-Men Gold versus X-Men Blue won me no love in the lunchroom, and staying inside to master Ninja Gaiden was definitely not the cool thing to do on a summer day meant for bike riding and pickup basketball. Being a geek felt like being part of a culture at the fringes – almost nobody knew what you liked, much less got what you saw in it, and so you were the caretakers of this little world, its protectors. We were enthusiastic about it in part because no one else cared, so it seemed even more important to pour ourselves into it.

But that world really isn’t there anymore.

Take a look around. I mean, really look. Video games are the highest grossing entertainment industry in the country; the Lord of the Rings trilogy tore up the box office; Game of Thrones is blowing away cable television; Harry Potter gave us a generation of fantasy fans; instead of having one mediocre superhero movie every decade or so, studios can’t make them fast enough. The average person went from not knowing anything about the Avengers to having opinions about possible roster changes and impending villains in upcoming movies. Geek culture isn’t just for geeks anymore, it seems, much to the confusion and consternation of many of the old guard who are still caught up in that “us versus them” mentality they’ve known for so many years. I mean, we could keep going:

Dr. Who? Huge.
Star Wars? A multi-billion dollar deal.
Star Trek? Rebooted.
Nathan Fillion? Dead sexy.

And all that’s just the tip of a very large iceberg. We have arrived, ladies and gentlemen – in fact we’ve been here for some time. We just can’t bring ourselves to accept it yet. Like the kid on the playground waiting for the bully to turn a “compliment” into another mean joke at our expense, we can’t believe it’s really sincere. Deep down, a lot of us who grew up geek just can’t let go of the notion that our culture is the kid standing alone at the prom, when in fact just about everyone’s lined up and asking us to dance.

I know what some of you are thinking: “But they sexed up the dwarves in The Hobbit! They turned Star Wars into a merchandising scheme! The Big Bang Theory makes us all look like jerks and losers!” Underneath all those complaints is a single meta-complaint, the cry of every geek when they see something like the Spider-Man origin retcon in the third movie, the anguish of the inauthentic moment: “THEY’RE NOT GETTING IT RIGHT!” Geek culture and its properties are being picked up faster than ever, but in the process there’s a sense that it’s being co-opted, it’s being hacked apart and dumbed down and so on. Countless posts on countless forums decry the invasion of the mainstream as it grabs up another cherished geek property, and I understand why: It’s scary to have everyone suddenly fall in love with something you like after you’ve been used to no one knowing about it at all. It’s natural to lash out a little, to go into the “I was into it before it was cool” mode and complain about how it will inevitably be butchered.

All I can say to that is, well, of course not all of what is created or recreated in the mainstream will be “right.” (Though, to be fair, a lot of “right” is in the eye of the beholder. Some people like X3, after all, God help the sorry bastards.) As geek culture is brought more and more into the mainstream, there are bound to be missteps and screw-ups and bastardizations and more. It will take a long time before many of those misconceptions are corrected, if some of them ever are; I suspect even Benedict Cumberbatch’s demonic perfection won’t be able to lift the “Trekkie = virgin” stigma that particular fandom carries. I won’t even talk yet about what my beloved larp hobby looks like to the mainstream. Let’s just say we have a long way to go.

But geek culture isn’t unique in that. Ask any lawyer how “right” most courtroom dramas are, or see what a real forensic tech thinks of CSI and its many clones. Most football fans and players can name on one hand the really good “football movies” that get the feel of the game right, and let’s not even compare real epsionage work to James Bond’s adventures. Last summer the History channel got ripped, and rightly so in many cases, for “dramatizing” events in its Gettysburg anniversary programming that, oops, turned out not to have happened at all in the real battle. Every culture has its stereotypes in the media, and every culture is done “wrong” by what’s produced about them. If you believe geeks are the only people consistently portrayed in a negative, inaccurate light, have a chat with a member of a motorcycle club sometime.

No, what we’re really missing when we pull back from this culture shift and retreat into the ivory towers of “original fandom”, though, is the chance to guide what’s being brought into the mainstream. This goes beyond voting with our wallets and our ratings, though that’s important too, and focuses on the people around us who are first exposed to things that we’ve known for years. When you reject a new Dr. Who fan for only getting into when the recent series reboot started, for instance, you’re missing a chance to show those people the charm of the older episodes in all their cheesy, wonderful glory. Push away a person because all they know about Batman is the video games, and how will they ever experience the sheer awesomeness that are classic Batman stories like Arkham Asylum, The Killing Joke, or Year One? Maybe you can’t reach out to everyone in the world who is awed by the Lord of the Rings movies or hooked on HBO’s Game of Thrones and tell them about other wonderful fantasy writers like Joe Abercrombie, MZB, Patrick Rothfuss, Scott Lynch or Mercedes Lackey – but you can tell the new potential fans sitting next to you.

We have to put some of our old demons behind us, folks, and accept that as a culture we’re no longer the outsiders looking in. We’re at the threshold of a brand new culture, one that – with a little bit of our help – can bring some of the wonder and amazement and imagination that we love to people who otherwise might never have experienced it in their lives. As my man Hardison likes to say on Leverage – one of the better portrayals of a geek out there recently, by the way, who not only hacks computers but gets to be witty and kick a lot of ass too – this is the Age of the Geek, baby.

It’s about time we stepped back of our self-imposed exile and started leading the way to the culture we want.

Posted by petewoodworth | May 17, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

The Ministry Initiative, Part I

OK folks, this is the big one! I’m proud to officially announce that I’m a small but excited part of a *super awesome* Kickstarter – the launch of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences RPG! One of my stories will be featured in the companion anthology for the game; not only that, but I’m standing alongside literary giants and steampunk luminaries in this collection, folks, including Tee Morris, Philippa Ballantine, PJ Schnyder, Delilah Dawson, Lauren Harris, Brennan Taylor, Jared Axelrod, Leanna Hieber, JR Blackwell and more! It’s going to be a great game and a great anthology.

For those unfamiliar with the Ministry world, it is a high steampunk setting of dashing action and daring adventure, as globe-trotting secret agents wield wits, weapons and sheer brass in the struggle to thwart various threats to Great Britain (and beyond). The world has been lovingly chronicled in the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences novels – fourth book on the way! – and now it’s your chance to step into the action directly. Even better, the Ministry RPG will be powered by the FATE rules system, so you know the mechanics are going to be awesome for helping you craft your own exciting steampunk tales.

Seriously, everyone. This is already amazing and will only get better. Stop by the Kickstarter and back it if you can. These are all great people doing great work, and you’ll get some fantastic rewards from it too!

Full link here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1034531507/the-ministry-initiative-steampunk-role-playing-and

Posted by petewoodworth | May 15, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

No Pressure: 5 Tiny Tips for Writing Without a Deadline

A very talented writing student of mine wrote to me over the weekend, and brought up a difficult subject for a lot of authors – how to stay focused when there’s no looming deadline to act as an incentive. Personally, I know I often have a hell of a time working when I don’t have a particular time it needs to be finished, and I still haven’t perfected a way to really guarantee work gets done. After all, not writing is the easiest thing in the world, as the saying goes. However, I do have a few pointers that I’ve found helpful in the past:

Outline. A lot of writing projects stall out because a writer just sits down at the computer and kinda hopes that magic will happen. That’s risky, to put it politely, and can lead to some pretty disorganized stories. You don’t need much of an outline to get started, and it can certainly change over time, but you do need one.

Routine. Write 5 days a week, without fail. You pick the five, but try to be consistent. Routine is important. I like Sunday through Thursday, but choose whatever suits you.

Goals. Start off by setting a small writing goal for each day, like 250 words. If you go over, fine – but it doesn’t carry over. In other words, writing 750 words doesn’t mean you get the next two days off. That just invites disruption to your writing routine. It just means you did really well that day.

Just Write. Resist the temptation to edit as you write. Sure, you can fix a glaring mistake if you notice one, but don’t try to seriously edit and write simultaneously. They’re very different operations with very different mindsets, and you’ll wind up seriously slowing down your progress, if not stalling out entirely.

Relax. If you miss a goal or a day, don’t beat yourself up about it. Life is a decidedly chaotic experience, and inevitably things will happen that disrupt your routine. Just shrug, stick to your outline, and get back to work the next day.

Posted by petewoodworth | May 8, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: writing | Leave A Comment »

The Man Behind the Curtain

Thanks to the wonders of the Internet, today I had several friends share the new trailer for the upcoming film adaptation of Ender’s Game, and I’ll admit, I was pretty much 6’3″ of solid trepidation when I clicked on the video. I’ve loved Ender’s Game for more than a decade now – I read it at least once or twice every year, and I’ve taught it to students ranging from 7th graders to undergrads. (On the whole, the 7th graders have gotten it better than any other group so far, by the way.) But the book has been famously hard to pitch as a film, for a number of very good reasons:

1 – Child soldiers. Sure, it’s not like they’re in Saving Private Ryan, but you still have kids fighting kids. Viciously. Not to mention what happens later. Also that the kids were often naked in the book, but honestly, I don’t think that was ever actually proposed for any of the various film versions over the years, so I don’t really count that one as a real objection.

2 – The very political Peter & Valentine subplot, which I suspect will be significantly reduced in the film, if not chopped entirely in favor of simply using the emotional dynamic of the Wiggin siblings as part of understanding Ender.

3 – Lack of a love story, which Hollywood apparently assumes is mandatory for a movie with explosions or women will instinctively boycott it. I really hope they don’t add one; this was a sticking point for author Orson Scott Card in the past, and killed several previous versions.

4 – Child actors. This goes hand in hand with #1, really, but from the production side as opposed to the thematic. The kids are young – really young – but few real kids can carry these complex roles, or look convincing as action stars. So you have to age them up … but age them too far and a lot of the point is gone.

5 – Cerebral storyline. Ender’s Game is a complex, nuanced examination of empathy, survival instinct, fear of the alien (in every sense of the word), the cost paid by some for the good of all, and the fragility of love. It has some thrilling battle sequences at Battle School, both in and out of the games, as well as some wicked awesome fleet engagements, but it’s definitely not an action-heavy epic in the conventional sense.

All of these remain interesting questions as the geek world parses the trailer and immediately begins their “OMG IT LOOKS AWESOME!” “OMG IT’LL SUCK!” “RABBIT SEASON!” “DUCK SEASON!” argument loop, and I’ll be following more updates as the film comes closer to release. There simply is a lot of content available for a film adaptation of Ender’s Game to use, and I’m really curious to see what they’ll keep, what they’ll discard, and why they make the modifications they do.

What jumped out at me today, though, was that in reaction threads across several different Facebook accounts on my feed, little firestorms of debate ignited over whether or not supporting the movie could be justified given Card’s avowed and very public anti-government, anti-homosexual political activities. It’s no secret that the man, a devout Mormon, has donated a lot of money to groups actively fighting things like marriage equality or gun control laws, and that understandably upsets a lot of people who don’t agree with him or his stated beliefs.

Outraged at Card’s politics, these people refuse to do anything they think will support him – buy his books, see his movies, attend his speeches – and many of them are quite incensed that some of their friends continue to do so. At the same time, a number of people on the other side are getting defensive The argument seems to more or less follow this pattern.

Protester: How can you like Card’s books? He’s a homophobic bigot!
Fan: Hey, I don’t support him personally, but I love the book! I think it’s amazing.
Protester: But buying his books puts money in his pockets! Which means you’re essentially contributing to his attempts to suppress marriage equality!
Fan: I’m sorry, I just don’t think they’re the same thing. I think it’s fair to like his work and not agree with him personally. Besides, if you start “disqualifying” art just because the creator is a jerk, you’re going to have a very long list of banned things.
Protester: I’m not talking about other people, I’m talking about him in particular. If you see this movie, you’re giving him and his fellow bigots aid and comfort ..

And so on. Both sides have good points, which means it’s time to consider the two perspectives individually and see if we can’t figure out how to untie this particularly difficult social knot.

The Art Is Not the Artist …
By and large, creative types are like most people, in that a few of them are saints, many are sinners, and most are a mixture of both. Lots of artists famously abuse drugs and alcohol, indulge in Dionysian sexual excess, espouse lunatic political/religious beliefs, and otherwise are not people you might care to hang around with, much less invite home for dinner. They say you should never meet your idols, because they’ll never measure up to what you want them to be, but they should also say that some of your idols would be just plain dangerous to be around in general. Sure, having a drink with Hemingway sounds like a blast, but a few mojitos too many and suddenly you’re in a bareknuckle brawl with a dozen townies while Papa hollers homophobic slurs and rants about Spanish socialism. A lot of artists were objectively terrible people in one way or another, and speaking personally as someone who strongly supports gay rights in general and marriage equality in particular, I find Card’s personal views on the subject despicable. But I also find it hard to argue that the book is a masterpiece of science fiction, and since Ender’s Game doesn’t advocate his objectionable beliefs itself, I don’t feel the slightest bit uneasy reading and endorsing it. Card and his book are not one and the same.

That’s the lovely thing about art, in fact – it exists separately from its creator. It can help to understand a bit about the artist and where they came from in order to get more insight into their work, but it’s not necessary. Ultimately the work has to stand on its own. And that also means that enjoying art created by an utter lunatic bastard doesn’t mean you also endorse their goals or ideals. Which means that you are perfectly entitled to love the sin and hate the sinner when it comes to art. T.S. Eliot was an absolute jerk by most accounts, but that doesn’t mean he didn’t write some staggeringly beautiful poetry, and you’re certainly allowed to enjoy his work without feeling the need to defend yourself against people railing against his obnoxious personal habits.

… But It’s OK to Draw A Line Too.
It’s also very possible to go too far in the direction I just outlined and try to dismiss people’s complaints with a slippery slope argument, specifically by saying something like “Well, if you refuse to read Card’s books because of his right wing views, you also have to stop watching Firefly because Adam Baldwin is an outspoken conservative, plus like a whole bunch of rock musicians are drug addicts and perpetrators of domestic violence, so that’s out, plus the director of that movie was indicted for manslaughter, plus …” Basically, they try to say that since you’re obviously not going to stop supporting every artist with questionable views or a nasty criminal record, you’re being a hypocrite for boycotting one while ignoring all the others. Or they’ll bring up people who committed “worse” crimes and ask if you’re going to boycott them too, implying that if you don’t you’re not really serious about your views or that you’re saying victims of other crimes are less important.

Granted, sometimes there might be some merit in this position on a simple level – if you say you will never willingly support art created by convicted child abusers, it’s going to be hard to enjoy that Polanski festival without coming off as more than a little bit of a hypocrite – it’s really a pretty lousy argument in the long run. People are entitled to pick a particular instance or individual, draw a line and say “No further” and not have to justify it to other people at every turn. We all pick our battles in life, and it’s possible that something about a particular cause or creator or creation just provokes this response in you.

Sure, if you’re going to say that you’re standing on a larger principle than just one artist or one work, it’s probably a good idea to do some research and make sure you’re not contradicting yourself,

Remember, It’s OK to Not Like Things
Ultimately it’s all about remembering that there are many instances where reasonable people can disagree about the proper course of action, even if they agree about the underlying facts of the situation. We can agree that Ezra Pound was a vile anti-Semite, for example, but still disagree on whether or not this means it’s acceptable to read his poetry.

Likewise, boycotting a particular artist or work of art is fine, but it does not automatically follow that someone who doesn’t choose to join said boycott is advocating what you disagree with. At the same time, a person’s decision to not support an artist or a particular work is theirs to make, and does not have to be justified in some larger framework in order to be valid. Respect each other and the ability of other people to have differing opinions, and resist the urge to create false dichotomies, such as: “You’re either a fan of Ender’s Game or a supporter of marriage equality!” It’s often possible to be a bit of both, or follow a third path that isn’t covered in those narrow options.

Don’t be afraid to take a look at the man behind the curtain, as it were, but don’t let what you find overshadow the action going on in front of the footlights. There’s often a place for both, and it’s worth looking close enough to find it.

Posted by petewoodworth | May 8, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Badass LARP Tricks #10: Select, Start

Let me share a great and terrible secret of larp:

You are not the star.

Well, OK, that’s not entirely true. As a player character, you are a star of the larp story where you attend. There’s an important word in there, though – “a”. Not “the star”, just “a star.” You are one of many stars at your game, and that means you need to learn a thing or two about sharing the spotlight. Because doing so doesn’t come naturally to everyone, even those who generally do their best to make the game fun for everyone.

Though some dive right in at the deep end, many of us come to larp from other forms of gaming, tabletop rpgs and video games being perhaps the most common points of origin. However, both of these gaming arenas have a different sense of the needs of the player as compared to the needs of the game as a whole. In video games, unless you’re playing an MMO or running some co-op action, the rest of the game world exists solely for your own amusement. (And let’s be honest, we know a lot of MMO players who still think that way even with 10 million fellow players online.) Everyone else you see is created by the program and is there to do with as you wish, at least within the bounds of what is possible in the context of the game. My Warcraft rogue may respectfully doff his cap, salute and kneel down before Jaina Proudmoore as part of my roleplay when I turn in a quest, but that’s my experience. You may decide to just run in, get your completion and go. Or you might decide to strip to your skivvies and dance next to her spamming macros asking everyone to group with you for a raid. Point is, in a video game, the world exists for you and you alone, or perhaps you and a small circle of friends. The enjoyment of others falls way, way down on the list for most people. If you don’t believe me, watch a bunch of individual players try to tag a quest mob that only on of them can tag at a time. Sure, some people will offer to team up, but a lot of them will simply spam every dirty trick in the book, tag the mob and ride off. Your fun is not their fun.

Tabletop gaming has a similar feel, albeit for a different reason – in this case, your small circle of characters are the people that matter, and the rest of the world is there for your enjoyment. Good groups try not to think of things that way, and good STs won’t let you get away with it much in practice, but ultimately it still boils down to the fact that the characters are in some way special if only because the story is focused on them. Not to mention that you’re going to tolerate things from your fellow characters that you wouldn’t tolerate from others because if you don’t, the game doesn’t work. Ultimately the players must work together, even if the characters don’t want to, or your game doesn’t go anywhere. There’s a wonderful scene in The Gamers: Dorkness Rising where one character uses a magical wish to revive a fallen NPC, and one of her fellow players flips out because she “wasted” her wish by using it on a character that isn’t one of the party (and therefore by definition doesn’t matter as much as they do). That pretty much sums up the “bubble” that tabletop characters exist in – even if it’s just deep down, the players know that their characters are the only ones that really matter. Now, tabletop gaming is often a bit more cooperative than video gaming, but it’s still just one group of players having fun in a world otherwise populated with NPCs, and so the only other factor to consider outside of your own characters’ amusement is making sure you keep your GM happy enough to continue running the game. Your fun is your group’s fun, it’s not anyone else’s fun.

Larp, though, she is a beast from a different forest.

When you are larping, whether it’s a weekend boffer game or a Saturday night parlor session, you are not the only person whose fun matters. Take a look around at the other players, the NPCs, the staff. All of them are there to enjoy the game as well, one way or another, and their fun is just as important as your own, if not moreso at times. Why? Because larp is not a solipsistic bubble where only your character matters and the rest of the world is generated by a program or by a single omnipotent GM. It’s generated by everyone you see around you, and if you treat it like your own personal playground built for your sole amusement, you’re not only missing the point, you’re missing out on a lot of the fun as well. You are, quite literally, playing a different game than everyone else around you, and often not in the best way.

Because unlike most other forms of gaming, the more you put into the stories of others, the more it enriches your own experience as well. Having fun for your own sake is fine, but helping others have fun too actually improves the game for everyone. Remember, this is a shared world – the more everyone around you puts into it, the more they enjoy and create and invest in it, the better it’s going to be for you too. So while your own fun is important – it is a game, after all, so if you’re not enjoying it most of the time it’s not working as intended – it’s also important to be mindful of the fun of the rest of the people around you as well. Maybe I’m more sensitive to this fact because I’ve been a serial ST for many years and making sure everyone is having a good time is part of the job description, but I think the point remains valid regardless.

It sounds like a paradox, but it’s true: The vast majority of the time, entertaining other people is entertaining for you too. Your fun is everyone’s fun, and everyone’s fun is yours too. (If you don’t believe it, try to have a good time at a larp where everyone else is bored, pissed off, frustrated or some combination of the three. Good luck to you, brave sir or madam, good luck.) Most of us encounter this when we take a turn as an NPC – the more we commit to entertaining the players, the more fun we tend to have playing the role ourselves. Whereas one of the traits of a bad NPC tends to be someone focused only on their own amusement, and players be damned. Granted, the role of an NPC is different than that of a PC in terms of their relation to the story, but still, nothing says at least some of that spirit shouldn’t carry over to time spent as your own character. You shouldn’t feel obligated to entertain your fellow PCs at every turn, especially at the expense of your own fun, but at the same time, you should try to remember that encouraging their entertainment ultimately benefits your own as the world grows richer and the players are more fully engaged. When you entertain only yourself, only you benefit; when you entertain others, you all benefit. It’s a net gain for the everyone involved.

What do I mean by this, exactly? If it can be boiled down to anything, it’s this: Don’t treat larp like a single player game. It’s not. That’s what’s so magical about it, right? The fact that we’re all coming together to make and sustain a world, whether it’s an entire fantasy realm or just one city by night. To get the most out of your larp experience, you need to understand when to leap into the limelight and show off who your character is and what they can do, of course. but also when to help someone else do the same. Because when you can recognize the difference between those opportunities, that takes your appreciation of larp to a whole new level.

If you’ll pardon me using my own experience for an example, I’ll try to illustrate what I mean. My main character at Dystopia Rising, a post-apocalyptic zombie horror larp, is a country doctor. He happens to be something of a jack-of-all-trades, capable of doing a lot of different things in addition to medicine – farming, brewing, patching broken objects, even crafting simple items. And make no mistake, I enjoy doing all those things, and I believe that this self-sufficiency is very much an expression of his character. But I also know when to step aside and let someone else do them if it will make the play more memorable or enjoyable to do so.

For instance, if I see a brand new tinker walk into town, if at all possible I’ll take the job to them rather than make a new weapon myself. When waves of wounded come into the triage center, I’ll let the new medics get first crack at them, staying to advise and maybe take the more advanced cases that their characters can’t handle yet. I’m not saying that I never jump to the front and build my own gear or take care of the first wounded through the door, because I certainly do (and there’s nothing wrong with doing so), but I also try to keep an eye out for the enjoyment of my fellow players as well. If it’s been a slow night and the newer docs look bored, well, I don’t mind letting them catch the next couple of cases. The point isn’t that I’m giving up my own fun for theirs – I still stay involved in the scenes through roleplay and such – but I’m trying to be considerate and let other characters have a chance to show their stuff as well.

Most veteran larpers have been at games that have fallen prey to “superhero syndrome.” For those that are not familiar, it’s pretty much what it sounds like – games where some long-running characters are so powerful that newer characters often feel useless by comparison. (Imagine trying to feel relevant and useful as an ordinary police officer when the Justice League always swoops in to solve every case.) However, I’ve seen games where this power disparity was a major problem, and games where it generally didn’t seem to matter nearly as much. The difference? In some games the “super hero” characters cared about their fellow players and tried not to just bulldoze over them to solve every problem with their mighty presence, often allowing other characters to come to the forefront when their vast powers were not required to solve a problem. By contrast, in other games the “super heroes” were only interested in their own amusement, and didn’t care at all if anyone else was having fun so long as they enjoyed themselves. I’ve seen situations where a group of low-level characters is excited and about to face off with a group of dangerous enemies, only to have one super hero wander in, obliterate those enemies with a few powerful abilities, and wander off with a bored look in their eye. It’s not a whole lot of fun for anyone, trust me. The NPCs are frustrated, the new players are frustrated, and honestly, the super hero rarely has more than a moment or two of satisfaction from it anyway.

Now I know there are people out there calling bullshit on this line of thinking. (Hi, Noah!) And they have some valid points that are worth noting. After all, you’ve spent your money to play the game – if not up front at the door, at least chipping in for food and drink at your local parlor larp, I hope – and that means your fun should be primary. Even if you are an NPC, specifically tasked with entertaining players, your own enjoyment should still factor in or you’re not playing a game anymore, you’re going to a job. Let me also be clear in saying that it is absolutely true that you should be enjoying game. As I noted previously, I am not saying that being a good larper always means giving up chances to do things so that others get to do so. It definitely does not mean sacrificing your fun for the fun of others – it just means trying to encourage the entertainment of others at the same time as you enjoy yourself.

As I said, at Dystopia Rising I’m perfectly happy to heal people and build things when I like, especially if I’ll enjoy doing it, but I just try to “pay it forward” at times when it doesn’t matter as much to me as it might to someone else. If you think about larp as a single player experience, where you’re just there to pay your money, grab your fun and go, you might enjoy it. And there’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, at least so long as you’re not actively wrecking the fun of others in the process. But if you look at your role as being part of a larger community, and try to contribute not only to your own experience but that of others as well, you’ll find you can have a much more rewarding, much more fulfilling experience than any single player game can offer. Put your fun in everyone else’s hands when you can, and take up their fun from time to time yourself. I think you’ll be surprised and pleased by just how much fun it can be.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, my sweets.
Let’s all go get lost together.

Posted by petewoodworth | April 24, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Badass Larp Tricks, blt, LARP | 7 Comments »

Badass LARP Tricks #9: The Great Divide

By popular request, this installment of BLT is going to tackle something that every larper must face sooner or later – drawing the line between in-character (IC) and out-of-character (OOC). Now, I’m not talking about actually remembering that you’re not really an elven warrior or a vampire prince – though, for the record, if that does actually become a problem at some point, seek help (seriously) – I’m talking about some of the trickier or less obvious situations that come up when you and your friends spend time as other people for a hobby. And speaking of friends …

1) “We’re friends OOC, so we should be friends IC too!”

This is one of the first social hurdles a lot of larpers have to navigate, and a subject that has been known to split groups into two sometimes surprisingly vehement factions. Quite simply, the trouble is that some people like to automatically carry over their OOC friendships into game, while other players prefer a more “natural” approach that requires the IC friendship to develop. Neither approach is necessarily better than the other, but trouble arises when a group of friends doesn’t all share the same perspective. I’ve seen it happen, too – a person comes to their first session and has their character cozy up to a friend’s character, only to be brushed off with a IC dismissal because their friend doesn’t automatically assume OOC relationships should apply. The newcomer feels hurt and a little betrayed; after all, they came to this game to be with their friend, and being brushed off sometimes means that they spend the rest of their night surrounded by strangers pretending to be different strangers, which is fun for some but a small slice of boredom hell for many others. Of course, for their part, the friend is likely to feel that they’ve done nothing wrong – they’re just playing their character, and if that character doesn’t know someone, they’re not going to suddenly open up to them for no real IC reason. This tends to lead to a bit of a standoff and some hurt feelings, which can sour whole circles of friends on a game in really short order.

The Fix: As with a lot of IC/OOC problems, the best way to head off this sort of trouble is to talk about expectations before going to game. If OOC friendships are going to carry over into game from the beginning, make sure there’s at least some thread of backstory and character ties to support them – some classics include family members, old business partners, survivors of the same battle, etc. Having those ties also has the added benefit of soothing more “purist” roleplayers who don’t want to automatically carry over their OOC relationships by giving them IC reasons to know and talk to these new characters, so that they don’t feel like they’re bending their character just to accommodate their friends. Ultimately, though, if things start getting heated, remember that you’re all friends sharing a hobby – it should be fun, not painful. Even great games aren’t worth losing OOC relationships over. And speaking of relationships …

2) “So, we’re dating IC too, right?”

Along the same lines, when players are dating/married – let’s just say involved to keep it simple – the subject of whether or not their characters should also be romantically attached is bound to come up. As with the friendship issue, some folks like to just roll over their OOC relationship while others prefer to keep their IC love life separate from their OOC one, and problems arise when those involved can’t agree on which approach they want to take. Addressing that basic concern involves the same sort of dialogue involved in carrying OOC friendships over IC, though obviously tailored to suit the relationship in question. In my experience, at least initially a lot of players choose to maintain their OOC relationship in some fashion, if only to avoid potentially awkward situations. However, there is an added problem that faces players who are involved, at least if they choose not to roll over their OOC relationship – are their characters then allowed to date/marry other characters, or be sexually active IC? Even players who are cool with the basic concept of not rolling over an OOC relationship into game aren’t always OK with their partners becoming involved with other people IC, which can lead to some really awkward situations as their characters remain single for primarily OOC reasons.

The Fix: Communication, communication, communication. If you’re going into game and maintaining your OOC relationship, you don’t have much to discuss unless one of you decides to end it IC, in which case I’d recommend a long talk to reassure them that it’s a strictly IC decision. (If you want to end things OOC too, please, have the decency to just do it OOC and not sneak up to it by doing it IC first, or you risk dragging other players into a really messy situation.) If you decide not to maintain an existing OOC relationship but you’re fine with your partners pursuing IC relationships, you still should talk about what you consider acceptable IC behavior when it comes to sex and romance, and when in doubt, choose the more conservative option just to be safe. After all, it’s a lot easier and less traumatic to relax restrictions later if you find you’re more comfortable than it is to tighten restrictions after something upsets you. Make sure your lines are clear, and revisit them on a regular basis to make sure they’re still a good fit. (For longer games, like marathon con sessions or weekend boffer larps, it’s also a good idea to build in a little sweetheart time where you can spend a few minutes together and be all cute and cuddly OOC before going back into game.) I’d also recommend coming up with a code phrase that lets your partners know that you need to talk to them OOC, so if you find yourself needing to discuss important OOC matters or just have a little relationship time you can do so without being disruptive. And remember, no matter how awesome and immersive and intense your IC romance might be, it’s never a good idea to blow off your OOC partners for it, whether putting them off at game, spending too much downtime chatting with your IC love interest, or anything else. Trust me, “It was just in-character!” is the last thing a lot of sad larpers say to the angry person on the other side of the bedroom door before spending the night on the couch. Speaking of intense …

3) “Wow! Our characters have great chemistry – wanna go out for real sometime?”

As classic blunders go, this one ranks right up there with land wars in Asia and going in against Sicilians when death is on the line – while it’s true that many larpers end up dating and sometimes even marrying people they first meet at game, it’s important to remember that most players are just there to play a game and have fun living in a fictional universe for a while. Which means that the person you meet IC can be and often is very, very different from the person playing them OOC. It would seem self-evident, but it’s surprisingly easy for even veteran larpers to forget that everyone around them is playing pretend too – that obnoxious thug might be a softspoken PhD, that charismatic revolutionary might be quite shy OOC, and that outrageous flirt might be happily committed to someone else when the curtain falls. (And even if they’re not, that doesn’t mean they’re necessarily looking to be involved with someone at game.) Over the years I’ve talked to a lot of players about romance subplots, and the number one reason that a lot of people list for not pursuing them is that they’re worried their IC partner might not be able to keep things separate, and ruin some great roleplaying by trying to initiate a real relationship. Which is a damn shame, when you think about it, but a very understandable concern regardless.

The Fix: If you are really interested in asking out one of your fellow players, it’s generally best to do a couple of things before you take that step. First of all, you’ll want to get to know them outside of game, to make sure that you’re really attracted to them and not the character they’re playing. A lot of people play very different personas from their real life personalities, and that extends to their sexual and romantic preferences as well. Second, you want to find out if they’re available and interested, if you haven’t learned that in the course of getting to know the real person behind the IC persona. If they’re not available or they decline a request to date, accept it gracefully and move on. (By gracefully, that ideally also means not suddenly cutting all IC ties with them just because you learned they’re not OOC available.) Third, if the stars align and you learn that they’re really an awesome person and that they’re potentially amenable to a date request, for the love of Holy Rock-Paper-Scissors Trinity, DO NOT ASK THEM OUT DURING GAME. Not only is it potentially confusing – “Are you asking out me or my character?” – but it also breaks game and puts the other player on the spot in a big way. Wait until after a session, or better yet, try to set up something away from game entirely, even if it’s just the diner after a session. And now that we’re on the subject of being away from game entirely …

4) “Hey, guys, I know it’s 3 AM, but I have the best idea for a new power!”

Full disclosure: When I first got into larp, I was a sophomore in high school. My group of friends started playing The Masquerade, and we got seriously into it. As in, our whole group talked about little else but vampire clans and political intrigue and personal plotlines and cool powers and “could a mage take a werewolf in a fight” types of discussions. None of us failed out of school or quit all our other extracurricular activities, so we weren’t dangerously obsessed, but it’s safe to say that we were deeply into it. My girlfriend at the time – not a fan of vampires – told me more than once that she was sick of the fact that all our friends could ever seem to talk about was the game. It happened again when we found boffer larp in college, too – suddenly we were going to games for one or two weekends a month and spending an awful lot of our time away from game making costumes, holding fight practices, debating rules and storylines and otherwise geeking out about our new larp obsession. Again, nobody wound up carving an Uruz into their forehead and going to jail for stabbing people handing out Chick tracts, so we managed to stay at least a little grounded, but it was another period where those few friends who didn’t game with us had their friendship sorely tested by our incessant discussion of all things Mystic Realms. So trust me when I say that I know what it’s like to fall in love with a game and want to talk about it all the time. Both times it ended up that eventually our obsession leveled out a bit and our discussions returned to normal, but for a while we really broke one of the cardinal guidelines of larp, namely remembering to walk away from game from time to time.

There’s a fine line here, and I’m well aware of it – people like to talk about their hobbies, and I don’t want people thinking that I’m trying to shame people for being excited about their hobby or getting into their games and their characters. However, it’s also important to remember that always bringing the subject back around to the game can be really tiring for other players, particularly when they’re trying to enjoy the downtime between games. Most of you know the kind of person I mean – you’re at the diner with your gamer friends, talking just hanging out and chatting, and there’s that one friend who keeps trying to get people to discuss which vampire clan Dick Cheney belongs to, or joking about how many points Mal put into his pistol skill, or comparing their Econ professor to the villain from last weekend’s larp session, and so on. No matter what you try to do, they just keep trying to bring things back around to game, to the point where they’re really straining the conversation to make the connections or insist on continuing even when clearly no one else is into it. You’re all gamers, you all enjoy the game that they’re stuck on, but you’d just wish they could stop talking game for a while, you know? And we haven’t even touched on the folks who won’t give staff a moment’s peace, and constantly approach them about new rules, tweaks to skills and powers, etc., even when all the ST wants is a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs after a session.

The short answer, of course, is to take breaks from game and discussion of game from time to time. If it seems like too much game discussion is causing strife, designate certain nights “game free” zones where you avoid talking about game, and organize social activities away from game where you can hang out with people in a different context. You don’t have to be rigidly authoritarian about these things, but at the same time, if you realize you have trouble going without talking about game for a night, that’s generally a sign that you might need to give yourself a bit more distance. When it comes to handling some of these problems in others, you’ve got a few approaches that seem to work well too:

Fix #1 (New Friends): Believe it or not, when it comes to new friends you make at game, a lot of the time this behavior has as much to do with insecurity as it does with a genuine obsession with the game. Specifically, the person who keeps bringing everything back to the subject of the game is worried that you don’t have anything else in common, so they stick to the one subject they absolutely know you share (and enjoy). They can generally be persuaded to snap out of this pattern if you make it a point to find other common interests and talk about those as well. (“You like punk rock? Sweet! So do I! Who have you seen?”) As they become more comfortable in the idea that you’re now friends in general, and not just game friends, they’ll relax and stop leaning on game so much to support their conversations.

Fix #2 (Old Friends): Hey, we’ve all been there – the friends we’ve known for years who won’t stop going on about their new obsession. (Chances are you’ve probably been that person yourself a few times.) In this case, the best way to address the problem is usually to, well, address it directly. Just tell your friend straight up that you need a little time without game coming up, and they’ll generally adjust their behavior. Most of the time they’re just super excited to share something awesome and fun with you, and genuinely don’t realize how stuck they’ve become on that single subject. So just politely let them know that you still want to talk about philosophy or horror movies or combat robots or swing dancing or whatever else you like chatting about with them, and generally it’ll work itself out in short order.

Fix #3 (Staff): Folks, let me tell you a poorly-kept larp secret: Your storytellers, rules marshals and other game staff need breaks from game too. It might seem like you just have one quick thing to tell your ST about the rule that’s been on your mind, but remember that many games involve 25+ players, and some big games have hundreds, many of whom may also be approaching the ST with “just one quick thing” to talk to them about, when all the ST wants is a quiet meal or a chill night out with friends. In short, it adds up quickly, and it can strain even the most laid back staff member at times. Once again, I’m not telling you that game staff are like holy mystics you dare not approach, much less question, but if you want to be polite, I’d recommend asking them if it’s OK to talk to them about game if you’re encountering them outside of a session. (This includes social media like Facebook and game forums.) If it’s fine, they’ll say so, but sometimes they might be tired or stressed or upset or simply not have the energy to discuss game with you, and they’ll appreciate a chance to politely decline and maybe talk to you about it later. Trust me when I say that this is one of the most amazing courtesies you can show a game staff member, if only because sadly so few people do it.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, my sweets.
Let’s go to the beach now and then too.

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Badass LARP Tricks is a semi-regular advice series for gamers who enjoy being other people as a hobby. Like what you read? Click on the BLT or Badass LARP Tricks tag on this entry to find others in the series, and follow me on Twitter or subscribe to the blog stay in the loop about future updates!

Posted by petewoodworth | April 18, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Badass Larp Tricks, blt, LARP | Leave A Comment »

Badass LARP Tricks #8: Ten Tiny Tips to Keep Old LARPers Young!

There’s a term that a good friend of mine uses – “larp fatigue.” It’s the feeling that can set in when you’ve been playing the same game for years, whether it’s a weekend boffer game or a parlor larp at a friend’s place. Those veterans in the audience know what I’m talking about – it’s the point when you realize you don’t know half the characters around you (and aren’t as interested in finding out about them as you used to be), when you see dread enemies lay waste to scores of people and think “well, that’s going to be a mess on the forums later”, when you start grouching about how things used to be in the good old days of the game, etc. A lot of the time it passes on its own if you just rally a bit and immerse yourself back in the game, but sometimes you might need a bit more of a push to chase away the dark clouds.

So with that in mind, here are a few tips for veterans who want to fight off “larp fatigue” and stay invested in the game. As always, of course, nothing about these rules is set in stone, especially if your character has a particular IC reason to be a certain way. (For example, #7 might not be as relevant if for some reason your character is not prone to big displays of emotion for IC reasons.) But in general, hopefully these tips will help inspire you veterans to fight off fatigue and apathy and come to fall in love with your games all over again. Because good games really are worth the effort. Here goes:

10) Don’t cut corners. New players often learn their bad habits by watching older players who slack off. If you don’t care, neither will they. If you want the game to stay strong, help lead by example.

9) Learn people’s names. It’s a little thing to you, but it can be huge for a new player when a veteran knows who they are. When you stop bothering to learn names, it’s often a big sign of fatigue.

8) Characters often organize into IC cliques. There’s nothing wrong with gaming with your friends – that’s why many of us do it! – but make sure you socialize outside your crew sometimes too.

7) Energy is contagious. Make sure you communicate fear and joy, pride and loss, as much as possible. Other people pick up on it … and it is also a big middle finger to game fatigue.

6) Take breaks now and then, whether it means playing an alt, volunteering to NPC for a bit, or even taking a game or two off. This is especially true if playing starts to feel like a chore.

5) Resist cynicism and mockery if the game seems to be changing OOC in ways you don’t like. Try to be constructive instead – volunteer, offer to help, give advice to new players, etc.

4) Get to know people outside of game, even if it’s just a diner trip after a session or the occasional forum post. Larps are communities, and knowing everyone helps keep you invested.

3) Set three goals – a short term goal for each session, a long term goal for a season or so, and a challenge goal that will be very difficult to achieve. Goals keep things fresh and characters busy.

2) Keep the old stories alive. Tales of battles won, friends lost and challenges overcome give a game history and depth, and make people really feel they’re part of an ongoing story.

1) Before each session, forget the game and embrace the story. It can be hard to see your 100th fight is as scary and intense as your first, but when you give up trying, none of them ever will be again.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep my sweets.
And there are always new paths to find.

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Posted by petewoodworth | April 16, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: Badass Larp Tricks, blt, LARP | 12 Comments »

Crooked

This is a little bit of a tangent for what this blog is usually about, but after thinking it over I decided it needed to be said. If only for my own sense of self.

Yesterday I read one of most horrifying things I’ve ever seen anywhere, online or otherwise. It was a blog post in reaction to the Steubenville verdicts, and it was one of the most nauseatingly hate-filled, horrifyingly ignorant and inexplicably smug rants I’ve ever seen. It was posted by one Michael Crook – I had not known anything about him before reading this post, though apparently he’s been making a name for himself for some time as the very epitome of a troll. The sort of person the Internet has perfected, if not created, someone who longs so desperately for the validation of other people’s attention that they will do the lowest, most vile things imaginable just for a few more seconds of notoriety. The kind of person who considers it acceptable to be hated if only so people keep discussing them, whose endless shout of “LOOK AT ME” is all the louder because they have nothing else to say.

I don’t want to discuss the content of his blog post yesterday, for several reasons. One, he’s objectively wrong in his assessment, and I’m not going to entertain his points any more than I would entertain a Flat Earth proponent. Two, even without linking to his site – which last I checked had been taken down by the vast armies of the Internet anyway – I already feel dirty enough giving him any more attention, even to make a point of my own in the process. Last but not least, at best we would be furiously agreeing with each other over what a terrible person he is, which is cathartic in a way but has been done plenty elsewhere, and at worst some misguided soul would try to play “Devil’s advocate” and end up turning this into a huge, rolling flame war. If you want to read it, I believe it’s been archived in several places, but be advised – it is extremely unpleasant to read. It is hateful, misogynistic, condescending to the point of blinding arrogance and on the whole makes a YouTube comment section look as cogent and reasoned as a Feynman lecture.

What I’m interested in is the fact that most of the news stories I read about him categorized him as an author. As that is a profession I’ve been known to dabble in a bit, I winced to see him counted among our number. Not because he’s the lone bad apple that spoils the bunch – like any profession, authors have their fringe component of borderline personalities, sad to say – but just because it means another bad example getting too much attention. Before his site went down, I clicked around and saw a collection of short stories, a book containing his “guide to life” (and here I thought the Internet had lost its capacity to make me cringe), and an upcoming novel about a man who kills drunk drivers. The themes are as obvious as they are inescapable – the righteous man being unjustly served by the world, the lone wolf who dares to speak truth to power, the virtuous man rejecting the temptations of a sinful world, etc. Basically all your favorite misunderstood loner tropes are there to be counted. It’s clear that in his mind he is a righteous David fighting a monolithic Goliath, but the sad part is that it’s more like a delusional David fighting Goliath’s old off-campus apartment. It’s a “battle” that serves no purpose except to injure a bunch of innocents who want nothing to do with his supposed cause.

I expected to be even more infuriated, but ultimately it was just depressing, the work of a profoundly lonely, angry and seriously damaged person who feels the need to try to pimp his work by shouting horrible, hateful things at anyone who will listen. (Not that it excuses anything, mind you, just an observation.) Labeling him an author is like calling a ragged homeless man a singer for screeching obscenities at traffic – not only is it an ill-fitting label, it also misses the disease for the symptoms. Except that’s not really a fair comparison, as the homeless man in question would probably be much bettered with proper medical care and social intervention, whereas all you can glean from looking at someone like Crook is that they are already hopelessly lost in the labyrinth of their own fears and delusions and unlikely to ever find their way out.

As noted before, there exists online a faction of personalities that take the maxim “no such thing as bad press” to ludicrous extremes in their quest for attention. They would rather make a splash saying something hugely repulsive and hope it translates into page hits, book sales, album downloads, etc., than admit that they have no other way to get attention. It’s the equivalent of someone gloating “They’ll never forge me now!” after taking the stage at a concert and playing nothing but discordant noise before urinating on the audience. They might be right, but not the way they’d hope. They’re figuring that if they can’t be remembered for their talent, they’ll be remembered as someone who shocked us to our very core – this colossal figure that made us question our deepest beliefs – the grand antagonist who consumes and bedevils our every waking moment and is discussed in frightened whispers or furious rages for years to come. But really all they’re remembered as is a sad, ruined soul.

In the wake of this sort of scrutiny, it’s important to remember that this is not what art is about. Not really. Yes, art can be controversial. Yes, art can leap out and challenge your beliefs, make you question things you had considered unassailable only moments before. But just as obscurity is not always an indication of a lack of talent, so too is popularity a poor tool to measure ability in anything but the barest sense. There are some people out there who will embrace the path of sensation and controversy as a shortcut to notoriety – as the wise man said, it’s quicker, easier, more seductive – but many more of us reject that approach, and will not turn our corners of the web into hateful bully pulpits just to get attention. Not only that, but we reject these individuals as part of our community, and will not condone their presence at our events.

So. Here it is. In the wake of blog posts like yesterday – or the imitators sure to come, forsaking talent and hard work for sensationalism and a quick fix of media attention – I offer a little Responsible Author’s Creed:

* I will not use the real suffering of others as a platform to promote myself.

* I will not mistake controversy for profundity, or publicity for truth.

* I will not support conventions that give hate artists a bully pulpit.

* I am not a Crook.

Posted by petewoodworth | March 19, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

The Magic Elves of Inspiration

I recently responded to a post over on Chuck Wendig’s excellent blog that I thought might be worth repeating here. Here’s the original comment I was responding to in italics – written by one Ali Craig – followed by my reply. I have edited my reply slightly from its original form:

Hi Chuck, I’ve liked your posts recently about that robber of time and lives, procrastination, and about just getting your ass in a the chair and writing. Well, I do. Write, that is. I think about it a lot (all the time), but I get a lot of words out too. Sometimes I have to tie them to a chair and beat some sense out of them, but hey, it’s all in a day’s work. But this thing happens to me, often. Really often. I have tons of ideas. Motivation and inspiration are not a problem. But then this thing happens where my head is burning and buzzing with an idea, it’s writing itself in my head so fast I just have to find a pen as quickly as possible, and then the minute the first few words arrive on the page or whatever is my means of commital (notebook, back of a receipt, laptop, notes bit on my cell phone), the idea dies a quick but ghastly death. I think it’s stupid, unoriginal, nobody else will like it, it’s just plain shit. What’s that all about? Does this happen to anybody else?

What you’re describing is really, really normal. Ideas are really easy to see in your head in all their glory – viewed from a big budget cinematic angle, if you will – but much more stubborn about making the transition to reality. Sometimes they really do leap out of your mind like Athena from Zeus’ forehead, nearly fully-formed and shining, but in my experience that is a rare and wonderful exception. Most of the time ideas take hours and hours of wrangling to get right.

For instance, take the famous lobby fight scene in the first Matrix film, Propellerheads music and all. It plays out in the matter of a few short minutes on film… but it took weeks to translate this actual shooting script sequence*-

INT. LOBBY DAY
NEO enters the lobby, looking super sweet. Some GUARDS stop him at the metal detector. He reveals a HUGE BUTTLOAD OF GUNS under his coat. A lot of shooting occurs, plus really cool anti-gravity parkour ninja flips and wuxia style wall-running. Everyone but NEO and TRINITY is ultimately TOTALLY SHOT TO DEATH. Our heroes then exit in the ELEVATOR as a single piece of masonry falls from a wall, providing COMIC RELIEF to cap off a scene of MASS MURDER.

- into a real thing. Actors had to learn a few lines and a ton of fight choreography, set design had to put together the perfect lobby space, stunt coordinators worked out all the wire tricks and taught the actors harness work, directors placed cameras and sought perfect angles, the music supervisor auditioned track after track for the scene, wardrobe tried and discarded a whole Vampire LARP’s worth of black trenchcoats and sunglasses just to find the right look for Neo and Trinity, etc. All for a sequence that, in the final film, runs for less than five minutes.

Hell, when I was writing RUNNER+, my zombie post-apocalypse novel, I had this bitchin’ idea for an action sequence. My protagonist, Rockaway, would ride down a really long zipline – during a thunderstorm! – and land on the roof of an old church. She’d slip on some debris and nearly fall off the roof, just barely pull herself back up only to see an enemy coming down the zipline in hot pursuit. She’d barely manage to get her rifle free just in time to shoot him and send him tumbling into the flooded city street below, then collapse exhausted against the bell tower as the storm raged on in ruined NYC.

It takes three sentences to describe it … and almost twenty pages to actually tell it in the book from start to finish. My mileage may vary – some authors would do that in less, some in more, depending in part on personal style as well as factors such as the importance of that scene to the story as a whole – but the point is that taking it from the visual I have in my head to a fully fleshed out sequence on the page is not an easy one.

What you’re describing that you see in your head is the three sentence summary. The reason it dies a quick death after you jot it down is that it needs more than those three sentences to live. It needs the time, attention and care of being brought to life a line at a time … and that’s not easy. Writing is very often the process of putting your head down, keeping your eyes on the end result and fighting your way through stubborn prose that just does NOT want to become the beautiful, awesome thing you see in your head. It’s easy to get discouraged after the initial rush fades, because you see the amazing thing in your mind and compare it to what you have on the page and the difference is frankly really depressing at times.

But you have to keep going.

And yes, self-doubt is often part of the process. As is hating what you’re working on from time to time, or being convinced no one will ever want to read it, etc. The cliche of the author staring at rejection letter after rejection letter – from agents, from publishers, from magazines – is so familiar that most people don’t realize just how hard it can be to cope with in reality. But that’s just it. You have to cope with it all. The rejections, the bad reviews, the self-doubt, the impatience of wishing it could just become on the page what it already is in your head, the fear that even if you do finish no one will like it. Neil Gaiman famously called this part of writing The Slog – the time between the rush of an initial idea and the satisfaction of wrapping it up, which incidentally is the majority of anyone’s time writing.

Mostly writing isn’t a cinematic moment of fevered inspiration, it’s just the day to day work of putting down one line after another, like a dot matrix printer slowly drawing an ASCII picture++. I think as a culture we do a lot of people disservice in how artists are portrayed in entertainment because we tend to focus only on those moments when everything is coming so easily, and imply that removing the fabled “writer’s block” can only be done by meeting a quirky soulmate at a coffee shop and going on a ski adventure full of wacky hijinks or something. That leads people to believe that being an artist is like being visited by capricious magic elves who bestow inspiration at random, when in reality it’s mostly about the capacity to stick with a vision even when it is dull or apparently hopeless. Because if you do, it generally does get better, or at the very least it gets finished, which is more than 95% of people get.

So I’m not telling you “sack up” or anything like that. Just that you can recognize what you’re feeling is normal, and that the only way to get past it is to realize that most every writer gets it – but the only ones who will ever know the satisfaction of a work completed are the ones who work through it.

True story.

.
*Not the actual shooting script.
+Shameless plug!: http://amzn.to/11a0cjl
++ Because I’m tech savvy like 1985.

Posted by petewoodworth | March 18, 2013 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

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