Magery
Feb 3, 2007 by rilla
This is kind of a long post that is meant to be a little introduction to the roleplaying games that I like playing. In it, you will get information on LARP and what the hell I mean when I talk about Mage.
Today Suzi and I scoured Value Village to find costume options for Nancy. I cannot believe how amazing Suz was today. She is a much better friend than I would be. We went through about three long racks of clothes with vigor and then she helped me for about an hour while I tried everything on and she gave me feedback on every single piece of clothing. Amazing. It was a good day. Sometimes I get frustrated shopping at the Village because I'll try on things that I really like and they never fit right, so by the end of the shopping expedition I'm a grumpy pants. I've got a good array of costuming possibilities and functional Rilla clothing too.
Anyway, a few weeks ago now one of my friends told me she didn't know what I was talking about when I write about Mage here. Since the Mage game is now a week away, I imagine I'll be talking about it a little bit more again, so here are some basics.
Mage: The Awakening is a role-playing game put out by White Wolf. It is generally played as a tabletop role-playing game, but the Mage game that I'm in is a Live Action Role Playing Game (LARP). I've blogged about LARPing before, but I believe all of my posts have gone the way of the dead blog and are... dead. So here's what I'll do: I'll write a little bit about LARPing, and then I'll write a little bit about this particular game and what it is I do when I play in this Mage game. Ready? Go!
Live Action Role Playing is kind of an odd thing to describe. When people LARP they assume characters that may or may not have supernatural abilities and characteristics. Those abilities and characterstics are chosen and developed by the player with the cooperation of a storyteller and the rules of whatever system of LARP being used. The main goings-on of a LARP session is interacting with other people who are also LARPing: this is called in-character interaction. When a person is in character he/she is reacting to events, conversations, people, etc. as if he/she is the character experiencing said stimulus.
That means, if I'm playing a timid vampire who is manipulative and lacking useful supernatural abilities when I am introduced to a new vampire who is obviously stronger than I am, my instinct will be to either befriend him/her or conspire to have him/her destroyed so that he/she is less likely to cause my own demise. That also means if I'm playing an overly protective bitchy werewolf, I'm likely to give pretty much every other werewolf the cold shoulder unless he/she ingratiates himself/herself to me and mine. However, if the stimulus is a threatening evil werewolf, I'm more likely to place myself in harm's way to protect those I care about.
Combat is where things get complicated. If you're pretending to be a character who has supernatural abilities, when faced against some extraordinary threat, instead of running away screaming and crying (like a regular person is wont to do) you're more likely to... oh, say... fly towards them at superspeed while growing wolf-claws... or something like that.
This is where it's important to clarify a few things about LARP. When characters get into a combat situation with other characters, nobody actually swings or shoots or hurts anyone else. That wouldn't be fun (mostly because that would be really stupid and painful), and the purpose of playing any LARP is to have fun. Much of the time it is relegated to dice rolling followed by pantomime of what is likely occurring based on what the characters are succeeding or failing at.
The main difference between LARP and table-top role playing is that each character is supposed to show and not describe, so that instead of saying, "ummm, my character sneers menacingly at you," you actually sneer menacingly at the other person. If you can't pull off a good sneer, maybe you should stay away from playing a character who dislikes a lot of different people. On the other hand, if you want to stretch your wings a little bit, go ahead and practice that sneer in a safe environment with people who are all playing dress-up with you. The easiest way to show that you are playing a character is to work on your costuming. I've posted about my adventures in costuming in this post.
So those are the LARP basics. As for Mage: The Awakening, it's a game system in which people can play characters who were regular ordinary people at one point, but develop magical abilities through an awakening experience. Once a character awakens they may be embraced into a society of mages, and each society has its own philosophies on the nature of magic, the role of magic in mortal society and the role of the unawakened (sleepers) in magic. These philosophies will alter how your character reacts to stimulus, and will alter how willing your character is to use his/her magical abilities.
LARPing is the most fun when you imagine a backstory for your character and the backstory affects how your character relates to everything. A good backstory can make LARPing enjoyable without ever looking at your character sheet (the character sheet is the stastics for your character per the system rules). In fact, I consider it a good night if I never have to use my character sheet and simply role play. In Mage, I've worked up backstory connections with John's character, Suzi's character, Kaz's character, Cheruby's character, and Carla's character. It's a lot of fun.
So, when I play Mage, what do I do? I get dressed up in clothes that I wouldn't typically wear (although with Nancy, I'm quite happy with her clothes) and I pretend to be a person who has a medical degree, runs her own clinic, lives with three of her closest and most trusted friends, has recently been reunited with her thought-dead fiance, and can cast magic spells. Then, I improvise how to behave based on stats on a piece of paper while keeping in mind my complicated backstory and responsibilities to my own mage societies. Good times.
Our lovely Storyteller, Wode, puts together a website for the game. I've got a description of my character here, and because the keepers of the website have considerately kept up the info posted from last chronicles, you can see my old vampire character's description, here.
And, as a reward for all of you who have made it all the way to here, I would recommend that you watch this awesome Ze Frank clip on improvisation because I think it makes fun of what I enjoy doing in a totally hilarious way.
Today Suzi and I scoured Value Village to find costume options for Nancy. I cannot believe how amazing Suz was today. She is a much better friend than I would be. We went through about three long racks of clothes with vigor and then she helped me for about an hour while I tried everything on and she gave me feedback on every single piece of clothing. Amazing. It was a good day. Sometimes I get frustrated shopping at the Village because I'll try on things that I really like and they never fit right, so by the end of the shopping expedition I'm a grumpy pants. I've got a good array of costuming possibilities and functional Rilla clothing too.
Anyway, a few weeks ago now one of my friends told me she didn't know what I was talking about when I write about Mage here. Since the Mage game is now a week away, I imagine I'll be talking about it a little bit more again, so here are some basics.
Mage: The Awakening is a role-playing game put out by White Wolf. It is generally played as a tabletop role-playing game, but the Mage game that I'm in is a Live Action Role Playing Game (LARP). I've blogged about LARPing before, but I believe all of my posts have gone the way of the dead blog and are... dead. So here's what I'll do: I'll write a little bit about LARPing, and then I'll write a little bit about this particular game and what it is I do when I play in this Mage game. Ready? Go!
Live Action Role Playing is kind of an odd thing to describe. When people LARP they assume characters that may or may not have supernatural abilities and characteristics. Those abilities and characterstics are chosen and developed by the player with the cooperation of a storyteller and the rules of whatever system of LARP being used. The main goings-on of a LARP session is interacting with other people who are also LARPing: this is called in-character interaction. When a person is in character he/she is reacting to events, conversations, people, etc. as if he/she is the character experiencing said stimulus.
That means, if I'm playing a timid vampire who is manipulative and lacking useful supernatural abilities when I am introduced to a new vampire who is obviously stronger than I am, my instinct will be to either befriend him/her or conspire to have him/her destroyed so that he/she is less likely to cause my own demise. That also means if I'm playing an overly protective bitchy werewolf, I'm likely to give pretty much every other werewolf the cold shoulder unless he/she ingratiates himself/herself to me and mine. However, if the stimulus is a threatening evil werewolf, I'm more likely to place myself in harm's way to protect those I care about.
Combat is where things get complicated. If you're pretending to be a character who has supernatural abilities, when faced against some extraordinary threat, instead of running away screaming and crying (like a regular person is wont to do) you're more likely to... oh, say... fly towards them at superspeed while growing wolf-claws... or something like that.
This is where it's important to clarify a few things about LARP. When characters get into a combat situation with other characters, nobody actually swings or shoots or hurts anyone else. That wouldn't be fun (mostly because that would be really stupid and painful), and the purpose of playing any LARP is to have fun. Much of the time it is relegated to dice rolling followed by pantomime of what is likely occurring based on what the characters are succeeding or failing at.
The main difference between LARP and table-top role playing is that each character is supposed to show and not describe, so that instead of saying, "ummm, my character sneers menacingly at you," you actually sneer menacingly at the other person. If you can't pull off a good sneer, maybe you should stay away from playing a character who dislikes a lot of different people. On the other hand, if you want to stretch your wings a little bit, go ahead and practice that sneer in a safe environment with people who are all playing dress-up with you. The easiest way to show that you are playing a character is to work on your costuming. I've posted about my adventures in costuming in this post.
So those are the LARP basics. As for Mage: The Awakening, it's a game system in which people can play characters who were regular ordinary people at one point, but develop magical abilities through an awakening experience. Once a character awakens they may be embraced into a society of mages, and each society has its own philosophies on the nature of magic, the role of magic in mortal society and the role of the unawakened (sleepers) in magic. These philosophies will alter how your character reacts to stimulus, and will alter how willing your character is to use his/her magical abilities.
LARPing is the most fun when you imagine a backstory for your character and the backstory affects how your character relates to everything. A good backstory can make LARPing enjoyable without ever looking at your character sheet (the character sheet is the stastics for your character per the system rules). In fact, I consider it a good night if I never have to use my character sheet and simply role play. In Mage, I've worked up backstory connections with John's character, Suzi's character, Kaz's character, Cheruby's character, and Carla's character. It's a lot of fun.
So, when I play Mage, what do I do? I get dressed up in clothes that I wouldn't typically wear (although with Nancy, I'm quite happy with her clothes) and I pretend to be a person who has a medical degree, runs her own clinic, lives with three of her closest and most trusted friends, has recently been reunited with her thought-dead fiance, and can cast magic spells. Then, I improvise how to behave based on stats on a piece of paper while keeping in mind my complicated backstory and responsibilities to my own mage societies. Good times.
Our lovely Storyteller, Wode, puts together a website for the game. I've got a description of my character here, and because the keepers of the website have considerately kept up the info posted from last chronicles, you can see my old vampire character's description, here.
And, as a reward for all of you who have made it all the way to here, I would recommend that you watch this awesome Ze Frank clip on improvisation because I think it makes fun of what I enjoy doing in a totally hilarious way.
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You should play in the Kingdom Come game!
"That also means if I'm playing an overly protective bitchy werewolf, I'm likely to give pretty much every other werewolf the cold shoulder unless he/she ingratiates himself/herself to me and mine."
Whenever did you play an overly protective bitchy werewolf?????? I never noticed!
:)
cori: I've been told that about eight or nine times now. I'm still thinking about it.
amy: I think I might have been playing that character with a sneaky-type sister figure. Someone who kept secret plots all to herself.