Alpha Run at Summer Larpin'

There is no trial by fire quite like the first big run of your game. After this game failed to run due to lack of attendants back at the convention Writer's Block in Troy, NY almost a full year ago, I have not had a lot of confidence about it. I'm aware that it's filling a rather niche spot. Not everyone is comfortable being the center of attention, let alone doing a musical performance of any kind. I've also noticed a big culture shift away from player character death as a whole, at least in my circles of the larp scene. So making a game where the big draw relies heavily on these two core conceits of dramatic, show-stopping performances and loads of character death felt risky.

But wow, did the wonderful players at Summer Larpin' out in Boxborough, MA sure make me feel silly for all my worries. I truly could not have asked for a more engaging group of players. I was concerned nobody would buy-in developing character ties before game start - we took almost a full hour and likely would have taken longer if I hadn't called it there. I was worried people would just sit in their seats during performances stone-faced - these champs were waving signs and fans and tossing props to the performers at every opportunity. I stressed over whether players would be upset over their character's deaths and not have a good game afterwards - not only were the recasts having fun, but also the players who became part of the Crowd immediately started scheming with how to use their new Crowd abilities.

Are there things I could have done better? Absolutely. I nearly forgot an entire mechanic and after making a bunch of posters to signal environment changes actually did forget to hang most of those up at appropriate times. But it was so rewarding to see people play this game and have fun - it proves that this niche style of play does have an audience. I know that this is a game worth improving on and running again. It's worth rewriting and fine-tuning.

Lessons Learned: AKA The Stuff to Immediately Change Before the Next Run

• Add another hour to the expected runtime. Does character connection building take one hour? Yes. Does game basically run for two hours, even when shenanigans happen? Yes. So therefore this game only runs for three hours, right? Yes and no. Listen, setup and teardown takes time, giving an abridged rules and safety briefing takes time, and players will inevitably show up a little late. I'd much rather submit this game as in a four hour slot at conventions and be guaranteed to have the space for as long as I need it than cause another game to have the room later than they were promised.
• Computerize sheet generation. Doing this by hand for eight characters easily took the entire day. Did I make this worse for myself by going back and adding a few sentences and slightly changing tone so that overall sheet had better flow based on what was generated? Yes, but I maintain that this was a mere sliver of time compared to the slog that was manually copying and pasting hundreds of table results.
• Add more character relationship text. I currently only have enough to generate connections between 8 characters with no repeats. Since this whole game was designed in this (frankly insane) style so that replaying the game could still lead to fresh experiences, I might as well go all out.
• Detail the Game Runner's Guide. I should outright state what to do in case of tied Gauntlet Rolls rather than assume from game materials it's obvious, create clear numbers at which environmental posters unlock, and just take a general look at the revamping the GM Materials to be crystal clear. Plus, I want to include a pre-written GM welcome sheet to briefly go over rules and safety mechanics.

Things to Investigate: AKA I'm Waiting on Player Feedback and My Own Opinions to Make Themselves Known

• Review Persona and Secret abilities for tone, effectiveness, and fun. It's a constant battle. I should know - I definitely tweaked some of these in the weeks leading up to game. While I'm at it, I should also decide if I can think up any new ones, too.
• Change how Emotional Specialties work. Honestly, I'm thinking of having them be a one time +2 to a song rather than a constant meter players have to hit in order to unlock the +2 buff. This would probably mean reworking some Crowd Abilities, but I think the extra work is probably worth it.
• Debate changing the die scale for Gauntlet Rolls. D20's are swingy as all hell - that's why I originally chose them to begin with. It felt thematically appropriate in a game where you live and die by audience votes, essentially playing a game of chance. But this does mean that sometimes the difference between rolls is impossible to ever reach, which can make certain player's abilities feel a tad useless. It's something to further think about for sure.
• Possibly change relationship labels, or explain them further in the rules bluesheet. Quite frankly, there's some stuff from email correspondence that I'm debating adding outright to some materials for extra clarity, and this is one more area to consider. I'm also wondering if relationships should be specifically labeled if they're mismatching, or if it would be better to explain how possible mismatched relationships can be interpreted. I'm currently leaning towards the latter - I wrote a bunch of highly specific relationship questions for players a month before the game ran and I might as well use them as examples.

All in all, I had a great time running this game, and I'm feeling motivated to further work on it. I hope to update the downloadable files to reflect at least some of these changes over the next few months.