Big Picture : LARPing

I've never understood the attraction of Live Action Roleplay myself but this group seemed to be having a good time. The group are 'based' at Colehouse Fort in East Tilbury, Essex and regularly use the site for 'Battles'. They also help run an annual Halloween event that regularly draws in visitors and more importantly revenue for the restoration of the site. 

People in Glass Houses

I've been scanning some old news articles and found one from the BBC website from a couple of months ago that caught my attention. The article was about the rather mysterious scene known as Furries. Born of comic cons in the 8o's and fostered by the Internet in the 90's this has grown into a vibrant community. But a recent murder plot by two Furries has brought the community into disrepute and cast an unwelcome and often judgemental eye on this previously little known hobby.

Does this ring any bells with the roleplayers out there? This is sounding very akin to the uninformed furore that has surrounded D&D for the last 20 odd years. Don't get me wrong, dressing up as a cat or a fox isn't exactly 'my thing' but each to their own. The worrying thing I found was that some Internet forums (I won't say which to protect the innocent) for more mainstream gamers - if there is such a thing - seemed to have a high volume of mocking content in them.

There does seem to be a hierarchy of superiority within what I loosely call the gaming community. It goes something like this.... Historical Wargamers look down on Fantasy Wargamers; Tabletop Wargamers of all types mock Computer Wargamers, All Wargamers consider themselves superior to Roleplayers; Roleplayers mercilessly mock LARPers; LARPers can't understand Card Gamers; and pretty much everyone think Furries are plain scary. The sad thing is all of the above have something in common, love of 'the game' whatever that might be. We should be embracing our sameness rather than emphasising our differences (not a bad philosophy for society in general either IMHO).

When people outside our hobby mock us its bad enough but when we mock other groups we should know better. As the saying goes, people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

Dragonmeet 2009 - Photo Report

Well that's it for the year, my last convention of 2009. Here are a selection of pictures from the event. First off a view of the main hall from the balcony. It was quite busy this year even though I arrived late (thank you, TFL engineering works). The number of traders seemed about the same as last year but I noticed much more variety in the range of traders present. The foyer was also busy with lots of boardgames and card based games on display. I took several pictures of the Participation games including this Battlestar Galactica game.There seemed to be a lot of boardgames at this years show including this intriguing looking game, Kamisado.There was also a preview copy of the new 3rd edition of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay on display. The box looked packed full of items and the artwork was rich and inspiring... but at a RRP of £80 a little rich for my wallet.Also present were various LARPers which added a colourful feel to this varied event. These two were handing out cards for the Phoenix Games Club which ran several RPG participation games during the day.

I enjoyed this years event more than previous years, mostly because of the variety of games being demonstrated. I didn't spend much this year but spent more time talking to traders and getting a feel for the state of the industry. The Credit Crunch certainly doesn't seem to have dampened creativity with lost of new products launched this year or planned for next year. In fact this very subject was discussed by Carol Mulholland editor of Flagship in her last editorial. Carol was at Dragonmeet and I picked up a couple of back issues of this excellent independent gaming magazine from her stand.

All my photo's from this years event (33 in total) can be viewed on my Picasa page as usual by following this link.

Lighting the Dark

Yesterday I took the kids to Chislehurst Caves in the South Eastern suburbs of London. Some sections of the caves go back to about 1250 AD and the last known mining (for chalk & Flint) was in the 1830's. During WWI the caves were used as an ammunition depot for the nearby Royal Arsenal at Woolwich. The caves were then used during WWII by the local authorities for Londoners sheltering from the Blitz. At its height the caves protected 15,000 inhabitants and included electric lighting, a chapel, a hospital, barbers and a canteen.

The caves have featured in several television programmes including an episode of the BBC programme Doctor Who from 1973 titled The Mutants. Of course according to my kids this isn't Dr Who... "Jon Pertwee who?" they said. "Yes" said I, much to their confusion.More recently, some of the tunnels have been used for live action role-playing (LARPing). This must have been an interesting experience because its not until you've wandered these tunnels with just a paraffin lamp to light your way do you realise how dark it is. This might sound like a silly statement but if you've ever played D&D you'll be familiar with the standard equipment every adventuring Player Character takes with them into the dungeon. The (burning) torch and Lantern sound fine on paper, but in reality they give off very little light. I've run or played in plenty of games where the 'light source' of an adventuring party is given little or no thought. It seems to be assumed that if a torch provides light for say a 60ft radius then everything is clear right out to that distance. In reality anything beyond about 15-20ft will be dark and hard to identify without direct light (from a Bullseye Lamp for instance). In future I will definitely be emphasising the poor visibility provided by these light sources when I run a game. The ubiquitous adventurers burning torch will never be the same again.