I need to admit something here.

After 20+ years of being a purist when it comes to LARP - sticking exclusively to theater-style games, wanting nothing at all to do with live combat - I finally have to admit that there's fun to be found in boffer games.

I still have zero interest in actually participating in combat; my abuse history makes it so I just have a massive mental block against hitting people, even in pretend. And I'll probably never actually be an actual, formal player in any of the campaigns; despite most of the assertions that one can be fully involved in the game while never engaging in combat, it seems that that still means 'you can play the healer.' I get enough of that in my day job, thank you.

But I've lucked into a couple of groups out here that are willing to work around my anti-hitting-things policy to let me play as an NPC - picking up a handful of semi-scripted roles over the course of the weekend, to help drive the story. While I can't hit people, they're slowly learning that I can be their go-to girl for emotional gut-punches, driving plot, and providing color. And it's turned out to be a lot more fun than I anticipated.

Usually I like playing deep, complex, extended parts, but there's something kind of liberating about only needing to be in a given role for a couple of hours. And knowing that I'm going out for a specific purpose gets around a lot of my worries and anxiety about having my character be useful, or feeling like I'm pushing my way into a space where I'm unwelcome. Plus, it means I get to try a lot of roles that I normally wouldn't think of myself.

If anything, I feel a bit like I'm being catered to by the GM's, and I'm not sure why they put up with me. I'm an utter princess - I won't fight, I won't play scenes past 2am, I won't camp or stay onsite, I won't write my own scenes or characters, I do my best to avoid anything that would have me interacting with rules in any way. And yet they invite me back, and save the juiciest parts of the story for me (immortal Atlantean exile? scion of an alternate-reality Roman ruling family? literal nightmare fodder? Go for it!).

Whatever the reasons they indulge my whims and reward my unreasonable demands with more and shinier parts, I'll take it. (In fairness, this also means that I take parts that involve me standing in the biting cold near midnight, in a game with Actual Real Ghosts, playing a character with a sheet over my head like a Charlie Brown Halloween special, shouting 'BoooooOOOOooooo!' in an attempt to convince the players that I, too, am a fearsome spirit.)

Okay, that last bit was actually ridiculously awesome too. Sometimes the one true way to be cool is to embrace the dorkitude of a situation, and make everyone else wonder why they're not cool enough to have sheets on their head.

Anyway. Boffer larps. Not as bad, or as shallow, as I thought. Still not PC'ing, but I'm glad I got talked into at least joining in some way....

It seems to me, at least so far, that rewriting a game requires a completely different skill set from writing said game in the first place.

I have a list of things to be done - some as simple as 'Add Character X to Character Y's Who You Know list' and others as general as 'Character Z just feels incomplete.' And I'm making progress. But at the same time, it's scary. There are the simultaneous feelings that, if I wrote it this way the first time I must have had a reason, and that if this was the best I could do then, how could I do better now? Even when I have ideas, starting is the hardest step. It's changing a thing instead of creating a thing, which is always harder for me.

On the other hand, it was a good game the first time, so no matter what it'll be a good game this time. We just have the chance, and the time and experience, to make it an even better game. And it does feel pretty darn good to immerse myself again in the world of the Hollywood Hawaiian Hotel and all of its wacky clientele.

In other news, signups start tonight for Intercon M! If you're wondering what to play, allow me to humbly recommend Desperadoes Under The Eaves, Saturday night - rumor has it it's a pretty darn good game - or so I've been told....

This past weekend was my last time playing in Threads of Damocles, a campaign LARP that I've been part of for three years. The game was originally only intended to run for those three years, and while it's continuing on from here... this is what I wanted. I've told my stories, my character has finished her arc, and I'd rather stop here, while it's still fun and good, than let things go on to the point of burnout.

All the same, though, I am going to miss this game like fire. I know, intellectually, that there have been ups and downs, and that everything wasn't always perfect, but right now all I remember are the good bits - and that's something wonderful, and says some pretty amazing things about the campaign. I have had so many positive experiences, met so many incredible people, been part of so many cool scenes and stories, that I can't keep them all in my head at once. I had the best character, worked with the best players and the best GMs, and played in the best plots - I don't know how anything I play again will ever be quite as amazing.... and that's okay.

I'll miss the people, and the game, and the story, but right now most of all I'll miss my character. Last night, as I was taking off her necklaces and washing off her tattoos for the last time, it finally hit home. It's not fair to her to keep going - she deserves a break of her own, too - but still, she was pretty awesome. So, goodbye to...

Miryam O'Shaugnessy Laughing Fox
Daughter of Kathleen O'Shaugnessy (prostitute, Cowboy Pete's Palace of Earthly Delights) and Joseph White Crow (medicine man, Sac & Fox tribe)
Bartender, card dealer, and dowser for Maddy's Oasis
Core member of the Tribe of Three
Founder of the MacRorie Tribe, chief of the Seven Nations, and ambassador to the government of the former Midwestern United States.
Shaman of Fox, and sometimes Thunderbird, Hawk, and Gitche-Manitou
Scion of Christ, heir to the throne of DeGaulle's France, and Coffee Filter For Jesus
Godmother to Finn Thorne, who may or may not be a Mystical Child of the Morrigan
Beloved of Andrew Matthew Thorn, as much as a sociopath can love anyone, and John E. Grayer, even though it's complicated.
Friend of angels, dead pirates, voodoo priestesses, technomages, emotionally conflicted pilots, London werewolves, drug-dealing shadowmen, Mafia princesses, depressive cyborgs, temporal physics prodigies, stodgy immortals, Funfair refugees, serial-killing vampires, pompous windbags, kitsune half-breeds, diplomats, generals, and almost anyone else who would slow down enough for her to say hi.

Go. Have fun. Drink from the fountain of youth, wander the world with your lover and your tribe. And try not to wreak too much havoc in the process.

A little is okay, though.

I had kind of figured that, after writing Desperadoes Under The Eaves and marinating myself so thoroughly in the music of Warren Zevon for so long, that I'd be sick of the stuff - that while I'd still appreciate it intellectually, and enjoy a song or two here and there, that I'd never actively want to seek it out again.

But yesterday, during a six-hour-long solo car ride (which I actually love - it's not something I'd want to do every day, but there's something about being able to keep the windows where you like, the a/c set at your own comfort zone, and the music as loud/repetitive/dorky as you want that's kind of delightful every once in a while) my little Ipod performed its own version of the Chanukkah miracle, and made its little 1/8 of a battery charge last almost the entire way home. So instead of listening to the Carl Hiaasen book on CD that I had borrowed from the library, I just blissed out on music, playing whatever I craved. And apparently, for at least a couple of hours, what I craved was my all-Zevon playlist, on infinite shuffle.

And you know what? It's still awesome. And God help me, it kind of made me want to re-run Desperadoes.

The more I think about it, the more I realize it just might be feasible to run at Intercon Mid-Atlantic. It's a bit big, but there are a few characters that could, if need be, be cut out or combined into others. There are a few areas that need tweaking and polishing, but I made notes at the end of the last run about what needed work, and I still have them.

It'd take a bunch of work, and I'd need to talk it over pretty seriously with my co-writer (hi jadasc!), but... it could work. And it could even be fun. Or so my hindbrain is shouting at me.

They say the human brain just isn't built to remember pain - that that's a necessary fact in order to allow things like families with more than one child. I think I'm finally experiencing the reality of that first-hand.

I could do this.....

Somebody tell me not to, please?