Two weeks ago I participated in what most people designate to be the ultimate example of nerdiness, a larp. For the uninitiated, larp stands for live action role-playing, and it usually involves a role-playing game, like D&D, being acted out in costume by its players. I was convinced to try the game by a guy at work who has been playing for several years, and his tales of wonder finally led to me driving two hours into northern Pennsylvania much too early on a Saturday morning.
The game I participated in, called Knight Realms, takes place once a month at various campgrounds. This month's game took place at Camp Daddy Allen in PA's Hickory Run State Park, and the game went all weekend, with players staying in the cabins provided (and hoping they didn't get attacked by orcs in the middle of the night). Leery about sleeping in unprotected cabins with people I didn't know, I decided to only go up for Saturday, and leave at night. When I arrived at around 11am, I parked on an extremely unsteady looking hill with the rest of the cars and wandered down the road until I started noticing various people wearing chainmail. Heartened that I had at least found the right place (road signs in PA being what they are), I was still concerned that I had no idea where I was actually supposed to go.
I was NPCing the event, which meant that instead of playing a specific character I had created, like I would in a table-top game, I would play various monsters or story characters that the people running the game needed to interact (i.e. fight) with the players. It also meant I could play for free, and wouldn't have to bring any costume stuff with me.
I eventually found the guy from work and he led me to the Logistics Office where all of the NPC's hung out, informing me that I was the only full-time NPC they had for the weekend. All of the other NPC's would be played by various players taking a few hours off from playing their characters. NPCing with me that afternoon would be the guy from work, a big guy that let me try on his chainmail (it made a very fetching dress on me), and a couple of skinny guys that could not have screamed "geek" anymore if they tried. This is not, I must say, intended as an insult; I actually found it fairly comforting.
A brief note on names: You may notice that in the paragraph above I don't mention the name of any of these people, and this is for a very good reason. I have no idea what their names are (except the guy I know from work, his name is Rob). Although the players in the Logistics office were out of character, it was not uncommon for them to call each other by their character's name. But this was done somewhat randomly, so that one person might be referred to by their first name, their character's first name, their character's last name and their character's nickname, all by the same person in the span of a half hour. People kept calling one of the guys running the game Allister, and for most of the afternoon I assumed it was last name. It wasn't until his time NPCing was up and he got back into character that I found it was actually his character's name.
So for my first bout of NPCing, the guy in charge decided we were going to go out as a band of raiding lizardmen. Unfortunately, there were only three lizard masks, so one of the lizardmen became a Summoner, and the rest of us became elementals. The job of resident air elemental went to yours truly. For this job I was given a blue tunic that hung down to my knees, a pair of clubs that were supposed to be my arms or claws or whatever, and a rubber mask with eye holes cut somewhere up on my forehead. If I hit someone with one of my clubs I was supposed yell out "2 Lightning" since that's the damage each of my club/claws did. I could also cast spells by hitting someone with my club, Gust of Wind which knocked someone back 5 feet, and Shockwave which kind of stunned them, or something. I don't think I ever really understood that one.
So, costumed and armed, we headed out towards the cabins. It was fairly quiet since it was early still, events tend to go on late into the night, so most players probably sleep in. We burst into various cabins, looking for one that had occupants and eventually came upon one who's occupants were standing on their porch. When they saw us approaching they immediately drew their weapons and huddled together just outside the door. As we got closer though, they separated a little and one of the girls held up her hand and yelled "Wall of Thorns!" Well, I didn't have to memorize the rulebook to figure out what the spell did, but I almost burst out laughing at the sight of her standing there confidently holding her hand up and glaring at us, as if daring us to try to get closer. The wall apparently protected the front of the porch, but we could still attack from the sides, just not well since there were no steps up. The wall, however, seemed to just be there to buy some time, because as soon as the girl put her hand down a guy came bursting out the door of the cabin, swinging a pair of swords like he had been doing it all his life. He wasn't even in costume yet, and had likely still been in bed since he was just wearing a t-shirt and a pair of jeans that looked like they had just been thrown on. He took on at least four of us in melee combat, successfully drawing us away from the cabin's other occupants, and dispatched us pretty easily. Do you remember the lightsaber fights in the new Star Wars movies? This guy fought like that. He hit me so quickly so many times that I couldn't even hope of keeping track of hit points, so I just fell down dead when I decided I didn't want to get hit anymore. The weapons they use are soft, foam things, but they still hurt when someone whacks your arm with them seventeen times in the span of five seconds.
Rob later told me the guy was a friend of his, and one of the highest level characters in the game. He had been playing for almost five years. I guess after five years of swinging swords around, you had better be good at it.
After getting our asses kicked we respawned as another group of marauding lizardmen and continued knocking on cabin doors. We found one guy alone in his cabin and killed him pretty easily before moving on, but word of our presence had reached the ears of everyone else in the area, and they had gathered on the nearby road to face us.
I must say, I have a new-found sympathy for warlock pets in World of Warcraft. I never really considered how much it must suck to be summoned up to do some asshole's dirty work and die a painful death in the process, only to be resummoned a few seconds later to finish off said dirty work. I must have died about five times during that battle on the road but the Summoner (a.k.a. asshole) just kept resummoning all of his elementals while he hid behind some trees. For some reason, none of the players seemed to know the cardinal rule of fighting anything that can summon other things, that being always kill the damned summoner FIRST. It got to the point that around the fourth or fifth time we died, Rob (also playing an elemental) mentioned this to the guy who killed us and pointed out which lizard guy was our summoner.
Also, being surrounded? Not fun. I really understand those flanking rules from D&D now, cuz it is really, really hard to pay attention to two people trying to hurt you at once, not to mention eight people trying to hurt you at once. I eventually learned how to spam my Gust of Wind spell to keep them away, but since it drew from my hit points every time I cast it, it wasn't exactly an effective defense strategy.
At one point about four guys were advancing on me, so I kept backing up so they couldn't surround me and ended up backing up to the trees. What I didn't realize was the ground sloped off where the road met the trees, so my backing up resulted in me tumbling backwards down the hill. I didn't tumble far, thanks to a tree and some handy thorn bushes that blocked my path, but I did scrape up my arm pretty bad. My first (of many) injury of the day.
So after we were all finally totally dead it was time to head back to Logistics. Apparently on Saturdays in the early afternoon there is something called Market Fair held at the inn. Players can buy or sell food or items for in-game money there, and most of them at least stop by for lunch. In general, it was apparently frowned upon to send out overt combat encounters during market fair, since it was more of a social and roleplaying experience. So it was decided two of our number would be sent out as "Merchants of Khormyre", meaning they were part of the Khormyre (I have no idea if that's spelled right) Merchant's Guild (I think) which had a deal with the Rogue's Guild (meaning they wouldn't rob them, I think). Khormyre merchants usually had interesting stuff to sell, so by sending them to market fair it would give players a chance to get their hands on some cool loot, but because they were from Khormyre they weren't bound by local pricing laws, so the stuff they sold was really expensive.
Khormyre merchants also, apparently, were known for being stuck-up, arrogant bastards, and the guys who played the merchants had this down pat, right down to the terrible English accents. Because of this, they brought three bodyguards with them, including myself, to protect them if anyone tried to steal their stuff (unlikely, due to the agreement with the rogue's guild) or just knife them out of sheer annoyance (much more likely). I got to wear chainmail, which, I will admit reluctantly, was kinda cool, but otherwise the bodyguard gig was kinda boring. No one tried to attack or steal from the merchants, so we just ended up following them around the inn as they peddled their wares and got on people's nerves.
It was interesting, however, in that I got to see the inn for the first time. The inn was actually the dining hall for the camp, but it was all decorated up to look like a medieval tavern. Drinks were served in unmarked glass bottles and there were candles on all of the tables. And people were selling stuff. If you have an out-of-game skill that can fit into the Knight Realms environment, you're apparently encouraged to use it to make in-game money. There was one table with a huge rack of weapons for sale, all soft weapons so they could be used in the game, but beautifully-made. There was an elf selling jewelry, a woman giving tarot card readings, another woman selling what was supposed to be a special liquor from her homeland, and a goblin selling cookies. The merchants we were with actually ended up buying the cookies, the whole bowl, because the goblin was only selling them for 2 silver each, and the merchants figured they could do better than that. However, that was before they tasted the cookies, after which they decided just to eat them. I was given a single cookie as payment for my bodyguard services, and it was a very good cookie.
When we returned to Logistics from bodyguard duty it was time to shift change for the non-full time NPCs, so I bid goodbye to Rob and the others and sat on the uncomfortable, mattress-less beds for a little while waiting for the next shift to show up.
This looks like a good place to stop for now, mostly cuz I don't feel like writing anymore right now. To Be Continued...
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