Jumping In The Deep End

I feel I have very much been neglecting this tumblr account. I should really pick up the pace - it's not like I have nothing to write about! We had our first meeting since Event 1 on Saturday. I'll let you know how that went, and see where I end up (as I seem to invariably start off on one topic and stumble over to another!)... I'll list the points of the agenda, and then give you a run-down of how each one kind of went. Point 1: Contacting one another and dates for further meetings.

This was pretty straight forward, though we didn't manage to put down any further dates for the meetings until after Richard had left. The intent was to decide on when would be best based on when we decided to open bookings, and by that point it had largely been forgotten about, so we decided to have them on the weekend closest to the 20th of each month, as Dark Tempus Event 2: Incursion (which I think sounds like a bad sci-fi movie) will be running 20th-22nd of September. Point 2: Event 1 feedback. I'm honestly quite pleased with how this went. I asked the team three questions: How do you think Event 1 went? What did we as a team do well? What do we need to improve on for Incursion? I then ran through all of the Event 1 feedback with them and asked: Now that you know what the players think, what should we look at changing? So we now have a nice little list of things to get done (as it stands, a lot of these will need doing in the next 10 weeks... Though I'll post about that later on tonight)! Point 3: Roles within the dev-team. The roles within the dev-team are a sore spot with me regardless, even more so now that I'm having to wait until the next meeting, on the 20th of April, to get it sorted. To be honest, this might be a blessing in disguise though, as one of the people on the team will be moving right around the corner from Simon and me in the coming weeks. Currently, as her partner is A) slightly overbearing and B) one of our players, she's been very hard strapped to actually make it to the meetings. Point 4: Opening bookings and a rough talk about Incursion. You would think that this is an easy one to tackle, right? Oh no. Not at all. It took us two whole hours to not come to a definitive decision. Richard and Stephen are of the opinion that we should wait until a few weeks after Empire to open bookings, and even then we should ONLY open them to returning players for a period of two weeks. Simon decided to sit on the fence, but eventually came around to my way of thinking, which was that we should open as soon as possible, without any sort of 'early bird' openings. My reasoning behind this is thus: If we open sooner rather than later we are able to take bookings, thus have money to work with, NOW rather than later. Granted, there is no promise that anyone would actually book, but it's nice to have the option. Having an 'early bird' set up for existing players *sounds* nice and all, but in reality it means that, to new players, we look like we're creating a clique. It also means that if a new player wishes to book on as part of a group, and one person in that group is planning on paying for everyone's tickets at the same time they literally will not be able to book. We'd have to refund tickets bought for new players so that we didn't appear to be working with one rule for Bob but a different one for Jim, if you catch my drift. I also have no idea how we would monitor this whole system - if a new player booked and paid in that two week period would I be expected to refund them and tell them that no, they can't book now. Wait until this date and try again...? It's just an overall stupid idea and I hate it. Stephen and Richard, above all, where worried about appearing amateurish in opening bookings before Empire. I don't follow their train of thought there, though, since there is a large chunk of our players who have very little to no interest in that system. I mean, before even taking bookings into account, they where prepared to run a PE/S event AT THE SAME TIME AS EMPIRE 2! Le sigh. It became clear after two hours of going around in circles that we weren't going to come to a happy compromise. It also became clear that the others where kind of accepting of the fact that, at the end of the day, the final decision has to be made by Simon and me, as I'm (apparently) in charge of admin, I make all of the posters, and it's an OC part of the game, so it's Simon's area. I'm still not 100% on when I'm opening bookings, but that is tied into something I'll be posting about later, as mentioned before. Point 5: The player event.

Trying to sort out a date and a site for the next event is actually insane. I missed out on the site hire stuff for the first event, only coming into the fold 5 months before the game ran.

We've found that we're in a situation where sites are coming to us to see if we can run on them... Simon and I have set ourselves a goal of choosing a site by Monday. It's going to be tough, but we've committed ourselves to that date. I'm very excited, and very much afraid, but I think we're going to do it.

It’s taken me a few days to recover from Dark Tempus, and to find the time to actually write this post... but it went brilliantly. I’ve never had so much fun in all of my life.

I don’t quite know what to say, to be honest. I don’t know if the relief of having something I’ve worked so hard on for the past 5 months go so goddamn well outweighs the desperation to get the next event booked and advertised or not. I really just want to get back to work. I am increasingly seeing Dark Tempus as my job – almost as my life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I love our players. I know they probably won’t see this ever, but they were all amazing, polite, fun... just wonderful. To come into the LARPing community the way I have and to be suddenly surrounded by such friendly, kind people is a beautiful feeling. It’s worse than finishing a really fucking good book – the characters these people have created are just not there now, and I don’t know when I’ll see them again!

The crew we had blew me away. Without them the event couldn’t have run. Granted, we could have done with (a lot) more, but hopefully that’ll be sorted for event two...

My character, Lucy, was so much fun to play. I started off as the town whore... which suited me just fine! But through a series of terrifying and bizarre events she has become almost entirely committed to one of our player’s characters, Zef. I’ve been regaling everyone with this story, so I shall tell you, too!

On the Saturday night whispers of a cybernetic infection where brought to Lucy’s ears. She’s not really one to buy into that sort of thing though, so she carried on with business as usual... Until Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome (played by Richard!) came into the bar, hit on one of her working girls, who then proceeded to kiss Lucy. Yup, turns out he was infected. Lucy was affected by this virus in such a way that she immediately needed to spread it, and so (with the help of her working girl, who was HOT STUFF) proceeded to try and get in bed with every man she came across. Unfortunately this was cut massively short by members of the Restoria Matriarchy, who had developed (or where using) a piece of kit that detected the virus. Lucy’s change of character had not gone unnoticed, and they screened her... immediately they quarantined her and the other working girl. Lucy, naturally, wanted a cigarette (that had been provided to her by the good Dr Cade, who intentionally caught the virus to be able to treat those with it), and convinced the Restoria to let her go out for one. They, obviously, took her out under heavy guard. Halfway through Lucy’s smoke the Aristoc group, Kerensky, turn up. They’ve gotten wind of the infection, too, and thought that it might well be in every ones best interests to shoot her in the head (well their leader, Portia Kerensky, did at least!)... Until one of their lead fighters, Jahzeft Kerensky (just to note – they’re not related, but Kerensky is their Aristoc ‘Family’ name) took it upon himself to stand in between Portia’s gun and Lucy.

I’ll just take a break to explain the relationship I’d had with Zef before this point. I was a whore, and he occasionally came into the bar. If I saw him, much like I did with every other male there, I’d walk past him, make eye contact, put my hand on his chest and allude to him having a good time if he came into the back room with me. I managed to take him in the back once, passed him some info, took his credits and sent him on his way.

Anyway. Zef is in between Lucy and the gun. He will not move, despite Portia’s harsh words. She’s technically not his boss, so he does not in any way have to take orders from her. In fact, rather than pay her any mind he slowly begins to back towards Lucy. Not a good idea. There’s a 10% of him catching the virus just from physical contact (and if he does any more than that he’s 100% got it!). Lucy is begging him to stand down; she’s not about to get people killed or infected for some crazy heroic purpose. She might be a whore, but she’s kinda honourable. Kinda. Zef continues backing towards her, until Portia herself stands down. Lucy immediately is ushered inside, back to her holding cell with the other working girl. A bit of time passes, and she decided to ask if the Restoria guards will bring Zef and a security detail to her, so that she can thank him for his kindness. The second Zef gets wind of this he comes, unarmed and without anyone to keep an eye on him. He sits on the bed next to her and full on kisses her...

I might be a bit fucked in the head, but my god I thought that was the most adorable thing in the world. Needless to say from that point on Lucy was inseparable from Zef. The end game for the event involved everyone being paralysed by a serum that prevented Blight Corpses, the games big bad, from detecting them, and as the serum was injected into them Lucy and Zef where frozen in a close embrace. N’aww. I’m really looking forward to the next event. Lucy very much misses ‘her’ Zef!