|
I've got some friends who are totally into the Camerilla and it's amazing the amount of time and effort they dedicate to it. It's pretty much all they do anymore, which is sad. I wasn't ever very close with them, and they were always more friends with my husband, but they were nice people. There's a couple who own a warehouse and host a Cam game, and I've attended as a one-off a couple of times when they needed a spare person. I just don't get the appeal. My impressions: -It's like a simulated high school, down to the clans being the jocks, the art fags, the punks, the weirdos, the crazies, etc. Everyone and everything is constantly about stabbing each other in the back, trying to gain status and popularity in the most convoluted and insane ways. The idea seems to be for one group to out-dick the other groups. -None of the conflict ever seems to come from outside the group dynamic. It's never about werewolves attacking, or the evil corporation thing trying to take over the city. They seem to have a huge fantasy world to play in, only to not actually interact with it. -It's supposed to be connected worldwide, but nothing seems to have any real effect on worldwide events. It's not like a group can go "Hey, let's all break the Masquerade together , and go on Fox News and explain vampires!" and have it do anything. When I pointed this out, the response was "No, like last cycle, they made [unusual faction] be the most powerful in south america!" Uh, ok, no one blew up New York or anything? No one released a vampire virus that was spreading from region to region? -No beginner gets any power or specialness behind a character. Which is fine for the first time you play a game, except that you play that character for FOUR YEARS. Then maybe you get a little bit of power or get to be a rarer breed. -You can never get to the highest levels of power, because someone will always have been playing for a longer time than you, and therefore have more power. There's no cap. I don't think this means LARPing in general is always terrible. There was a group called "Rules to Live By" that did neat LARPs with interesting stories. They were always one time events, though. They did a great heist one, in which the plot twist was everyone involved with the heist was secretly working for the FBI, but everyone thought they were the singular mole. And I went to a game run by the MIT assassin's guild that was fantastic, involving 50's pulp and popular characters. I just regret that I'd only played stupid Vampire before, so I spent my whole time trying to manipulate other players, instead of finding Hitler's brain or any of the 10000 other things you could do in the game. I think what sums it up the best for me comes from a conversation my husband had with the wife of that couple. He pointed out that he didn't really like to LARP with them, because it was like high school all over again. She agreed it was indeed like high school, but enjoyed it. He asked how she could enjoy it, when for him high school was a miserable experience of being low on the social totem pole, with all the popular kids picking on the unpopular ones. He said his only good lesson from those years was when he realized how stupid trying to be popular was, and saw it didn't matter in the real world. She just replied quietly that she had always wanted to be one of the popular ones. So I think most of us grew up and discovered that it's better to be yourself than be popular. Vampire players seem to be made up of people who never got there, but still can't be popular or have power. They just LARP to pretend they do.
|
#
¿
Aug 15, 2015 03:36
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 04:49 |
|
|
ScratchAndSniff posted:Also, I don't know much about Vampire, but I played the video game. Do people RP as the crazy vampires? How does that work? I played a Malkavian as a one-off, and it worked fine. I just wore blue rubber gloves and refused to touch anything "dirty". But there are apparently people who play them full time, and most of them are the style derisively called "Fish Malks". They play as the random-wacky-monkey-cheese kind of crazy, which really doesn't fit in with the supposed theme. I don't know where the fish part of the name comes from. No one has mentioned historical reenactments much, but I do have a friend who does that for the NYC tenement museum. She was into LARP stuff when she lived here in Ohio, but despite this, I don't get the idea that she'd be up for regular Cam meets. Historical stuff seems to be for people who like to LARP, but grew too mature for the insanity of Vampire.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 19, 2015 03:50
|
|
|
There was a zombie group that did some similar but much less technologically advanced stuff at Origins a few years back. I thought it was loads of fun. They made walls by stacking chairs and putting garbage bags over them. There was a door that was secretly of made of lots of velcroed together parts. It let the zombies either punch right through the door to grab someone, or just suddenly burst through what looked like a solid door. It was impressive. I don't know that it really counts as a LARP, though. There were roles like "Medic" and "Engineer", but no one had characters per se.
|
|
#
¿
Aug 22, 2015 03:06
|
|
|
Mr.Bob posted:Are you guys pointing real guns at each other? Several years before I met them, the vampire group I was talking about played a game of tabletop paranoia...with real guns. Yes, they were unloaded, and yes, they were all checked and supervised by a navy arms master, but that's the very definition of stupid.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 3, 2015 22:30
|
|
|
Everblight posted:Forgive me if I don't believe the Vampire LARP group member that claims to be an ex-Navy 'arms master,' but it's sort of that person's job not to let shenanigans like 'playing with guns' to occur, not facilitate it. He actually was, as far as I can tell. Might have the job position name wrong. I never met him, but my husband knew him. He died about a year after I met the group, but he lived in another state at that point. Fell asleep at the wheel and went head on into a semi. Didn't wear a seatbelt. So maybe not a guy who made the best choices anyway.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 4, 2015 17:04
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 16, 2024 04:49 |
|
|
Wow, I'm actually kinda weirded out by how similar everyone's White Wolf experiences are, both to each other and to mine, down to the whole inappropriate amount of violence and sexuality included in backstories. It's like people think they're being edgy, but they're just being creepy. Although I'm curious how much bad spelling people have seen, because that was another big feature of backstories. Sentences like "He surly had a gapping wood.", or translated from bad spelling, "He surely had a gaping wound". That said, I think it's the continuing plot that seems to be the source of trouble in all of these. I've had way more fun in one-offs than I have in campaigns. It ensures there's not too much whining about things like how powerful a character is. If someone is overpowered, who cares? That character could be you next time.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 5, 2016 00:17
|
|