I meant to post this months ago, but kept forgetting. Hate getting old . I don't know if this company is going to run this again, so if you think you might play in one of their CoV LARPS, DO NOT READ THIS! This contains major plot spoilers of the game.
==================
Here's my LARP report for the CoV Back in Black experience at Gencon 2005.
I arrived a little early to the divided conference room, so was able to talk with a couple of players already there. One of them apparently knew who he was going to be because he was wearing a hollowed out TV on his head :-).
The GMs started about 15 minutes late to let any people that had not signed up to play to stagger in, since there were a few spots left. I got my character, named Dream Reaper - undead henchman. He was a scientist whose research was in sleep and dream research that died during a trial of a new, powerful drug treatment, since he suffered from several sleep afflictions. (Now switching to first-person) I died and was thrust into the realm of sleep, which I had recently emerged from. I was a controller AT with three powers - put another person to sleep for 2 minutes, search their dreams for information while they were asleep, and a basically one-shot power to program a sleeping person to never attack me.
Name: Dream Reaper
Archetype: Controller
Super Powers: Darkness Rising (sleep), Dream Invasion (information), and my ultra power, Night Terror (program person to never attack
Background: I've just closed my eyes again. Climbed aboard the Dream Reaper train. Executioner take away my happiness of today. And leave tomorrow behind. Ooh, dream reaper. I believe you can kill me in this night. Ooh, dream reaper... You are the Dream Reaper, an undead monster in the style of the grim reaper. You have powers to knock people asleep and when they are asleep terrorize and unlock the secrets of their minds. Before becoming the Dream Reaper, you were an average citizen with an almost average life, being plagued by nightmares and sleep apnea. In an experimental dream study you were given a highly volatile sleeping agent. Well, things went poorly and you died in your sleep, but you did not remain dead. About a year later, you raised from the grave an undead creature with powers over those mortals who sleep in your presence...
The GMs then set the stage for the game. We were all on a tropical resort island at a convention of villains. Half of the people there were super villains, with the rest being henchmen. The super villains were here for two reasons - to have a henchman draft to pick additional supporters to their cause and to divide up the world into regions to stop the fighting between the villains.
I had three goals - the first was to avoid the henchman draft. I was recently returned from the dream realm and had super villain powers; I was still classified as a henchman since no one really know much about me. Second, I had to defeat a villain or hero to show the others that I truly was a super villain. The third one was to build a device called the Night Train super weapon that would put people in a coma so I could control them better. This required four parts and I started with one.
I didn't have much in the way of props available for my character, but I was able to roll up two posters I had gotten for free in the dealer's room into a 3' long shaft, then folded some scrap paper into a scythe that was taped to the shaft. No luck on anything for the heavy black cloak.
The villains went into the other room (the "Villain Club") while the rest of us remained at the "Henchmen Hideout". I got to meet the henchmen and converse with them a good bit. Turns out most of us were building our own super devices and needed parts that other people had, with most people if not all only having one part. So the trading floor was open.
[One point here to mention - the people running this event apparently do not usually let people under age 16 play in their LARPs. However, this one had about 4-5 12-15 year olds who all did an excellent job.]
The character types for both henchmen and villains ranged from very cool to very campy. One of the best role-players had Dentures, the henchman who was very close to retirement (kept falling asleep, was hard of hearing, talked loudly, and had a big aversion to me [grim reaper motif ;-) ].
There was one hero present, Skippy the captured hero. He did a good job of acting as the clueless hero who thought he was there to keep the villains in line, even though he was a prisoner.
The villains had the henchmen come into the Villains Club and line up. We had to say why we would be a good henchman and talk about our powers. All I said was that "I don't work well with others" and that "people tended to die around me..." :-)
They then had the henchmen face off against the captured hero, which I skipped because a new villain had entered play - Dr. Vahzilok! He was played by a young man in a trenchcoat who did an incredible job of power grabbing from the other leader of the group. I schemed with the good Doctor while everyone else was busy and we agreed that I would work best as a "free agent". He wanted me to guard him against the other villains and help intimidate them.
After the hero-henchmen battle, the group milled around for a short time trying to advance our individual agendas. Then the henchmen draft was announced.
As the henchmen lined up again (minus myself who stood with the villains), Dr. Vahz announced a new consortium of villains that he had constructed and asked all those who had joined him to step off to the side. Six villains and I moved over to him. The draft commenced with lots of activity, with the final villain holding two draft picks for only one henchman left. He asked the GM, "Did a henchman drop?" to which the GM only shrugged his shoulders...
There was a long period of time while people met to advance their individual agendas, including a group of villains and henchmen who offered to find rare parts if a player would allow them to implant a chip that would prevent that player from attacking them. Needless to say, I didn't go for that :-).
The next big event was for the villains to draft sections of the world for their control. Dr. Vahz blew this off since he planned on taking over the whole world and had joined forces with the powerful archvillian, Bill Gates (groan :-). Gates was looking for a person who had powers that could control computers so I went into the group looking for such a person (and my final parts of my machine).
Once the world draft was completed, everyone gathered to celebrate this accomplishment. Then over the loud speakers we heard This is Lord Recluse speaking. You fools have fallen for my trap and will die within 15 minutes as bombs will activate the dormant volcano in the island. I will finally be free of all your puny interference! (I had messed up here in that I thought we had two more hours to go instead of only 15 minutes...)
The supposed leader of the convention, Ideal Man, tried to take control of the situation, but ignored by Dr. Vahz who had the group see if any of their inventions could get us all off the island. One would so we did a group search for the parts. As we gathered the parts and headed to the laboratory to construct the device, Skippy the captured hero blocked our passage there. I jumped forward, shouting my catch phrase of "To sleep perchance to dream!", putting him into a deep sleep (completing my second task).
The device was built, but as we ran to use it a villain by the name of Captain Kaboom announced that he had disarmed the bombs (since that was his specialty). As we boarded the craft, the timer clicked past the allotted time - he had done it! This was the end of the game.
Points I found out later:
- The mind control implants were not that. They were beacon transmitters that allowed the people implanting them (superheroes in disguise) to teleport all those that had allowed it to be implanted to prison.
- The heroes were there to STOP us from assembling any nefarious device. So they did a good job of fooling us by taking our parts.
- No one claimed to have had the last part that I (and many others) needed to complete our devices. The GM said he specifically gave that part out after giving out the packets, but he didn't remember who to. I hate that I could not complete my last task because of this...
But I had a good time - I need to do this some more... :-)
I meant to post this months ago, but kept forgetting. Hate getting old
. I don't know if this company is going to run this again, so if you think you might play in one of their CoV LARPS, DO NOT READ THIS! This contains major plot spoilers of the game.
==================
Here's my LARP report for the CoV Back in Black experience at Gencon 2005.
I arrived a little early to the divided conference room, so was able to talk with a couple of players already there. One of them apparently knew who he was going to be because he was wearing a hollowed out TV on his head :-).
The GMs started about 15 minutes late to let any people that had not signed up to play to stagger in, since there were a few spots left. I got my character, named Dream Reaper - undead henchman. He was a scientist whose research was in sleep and dream research that died during a trial of a new, powerful drug treatment, since he suffered from several sleep afflictions. (Now switching to first-person) I died and was thrust into the realm of sleep, which I had recently emerged from. I was a controller AT with three powers - put another person to sleep for 2 minutes, search their dreams for information while they were asleep, and a basically one-shot power to program a sleeping person to never attack me.
Name: Dream Reaper
Archetype: Controller
Super Powers: Darkness Rising (sleep), Dream Invasion (information), and my ultra power, Night Terror (program person to never attack
Background: I've just closed my eyes again. Climbed aboard the Dream Reaper train. Executioner take away my happiness of today. And leave tomorrow behind. Ooh, dream reaper. I believe you can kill me in this night. Ooh, dream reaper... You are the Dream Reaper, an undead monster in the style of the grim reaper. You have powers to knock people asleep and when they are asleep terrorize and unlock the secrets of their minds. Before becoming the Dream Reaper, you were an average citizen with an almost average life, being plagued by nightmares and sleep apnea. In an experimental dream study you were given a highly volatile sleeping agent. Well, things went poorly and you died in your sleep, but you did not remain dead. About a year later, you raised from the grave an undead creature with powers over those mortals who sleep in your presence...
The GMs then set the stage for the game. We were all on a tropical resort island at a convention of villains. Half of the people there were super villains, with the rest being henchmen. The super villains were here for two reasons - to have a henchman draft to pick additional supporters to their cause and to divide up the world into regions to stop the fighting between the villains.
I had three goals - the first was to avoid the henchman draft. I was recently returned from the dream realm and had super villain powers; I was still classified as a henchman since no one really know much about me. Second, I had to defeat a villain or hero to show the others that I truly was a super villain. The third one was to build a device called the Night Train super weapon that would put people in a coma so I could control them better. This required four parts and I started with one.
I didn't have much in the way of props available for my character, but I was able to roll up two posters I had gotten for free in the dealer's room into a 3' long shaft, then folded some scrap paper into a scythe that was taped to the shaft. No luck on anything for the heavy black cloak.
The villains went into the other room (the "Villain Club") while the rest of us remained at the "Henchmen Hideout". I got to meet the henchmen and converse with them a good bit. Turns out most of us were building our own super devices and needed parts that other people had, with most people if not all only having one part. So the trading floor was open.
[One point here to mention - the people running this event apparently do not usually let people under age 16 play in their LARPs. However, this one had about 4-5 12-15 year olds who all did an excellent job.]
The character types for both henchmen and villains ranged from very cool to very campy. One of the best role-players had Dentures, the henchman who was very close to retirement (kept falling asleep, was hard of hearing, talked loudly, and had a big aversion to me [grim reaper motif ;-) ].
There was one hero present, Skippy the captured hero. He did a good job of acting as the clueless hero who thought he was there to keep the villains in line, even though he was a prisoner.
The villains had the henchmen come into the Villains Club and line up. We had to say why we would be a good henchman and talk about our powers. All I said was that "I don't work well with others" and that "people tended to die around me..." :-)
They then had the henchmen face off against the captured hero, which I skipped because a new villain had entered play - Dr. Vahzilok! He was played by a young man in a trenchcoat who did an incredible job of power grabbing from the other leader of the group. I schemed with the good Doctor while everyone else was busy and we agreed that I would work best as a "free agent". He wanted me to guard him against the other villains and help intimidate them.
After the hero-henchmen battle, the group milled around for a short time trying to advance our individual agendas. Then the henchmen draft was announced.
As the henchmen lined up again (minus myself who stood with the villains), Dr. Vahz announced a new consortium of villains that he had constructed and asked all those who had joined him to step off to the side. Six villains and I moved over to him. The draft commenced with lots of activity, with the final villain holding two draft picks for only one henchman left. He asked the GM, "Did a henchman drop?" to which the GM only shrugged his shoulders...
There was a long period of time while people met to advance their individual agendas, including a group of villains and henchmen who offered to find rare parts if a player would allow them to implant a chip that would prevent that player from attacking them. Needless to say, I didn't go for that :-).
The next big event was for the villains to draft sections of the world for their control. Dr. Vahz blew this off since he planned on taking over the whole world and had joined forces with the powerful archvillian, Bill Gates (groan :-). Gates was looking for a person who had powers that could control computers so I went into the group looking for such a person (and my final parts of my machine).
Once the world draft was completed, everyone gathered to celebrate this accomplishment. Then over the loud speakers we heard This is Lord Recluse speaking. You fools have fallen for my trap and will die within 15 minutes as bombs will activate the dormant volcano in the island. I will finally be free of all your puny interference! (I had messed up here in that I thought we had two more hours to go instead of only 15 minutes...)
The supposed leader of the convention, Ideal Man, tried to take control of the situation, but ignored by Dr. Vahz who had the group see if any of their inventions could get us all off the island. One would so we did a group search for the parts. As we gathered the parts and headed to the laboratory to construct the device, Skippy the captured hero blocked our passage there. I jumped forward, shouting my catch phrase of "To sleep perchance to dream!", putting him into a deep sleep (completing my second task).
The device was built, but as we ran to use it a villain by the name of Captain Kaboom announced that he had disarmed the bombs (since that was his specialty). As we boarded the craft, the timer clicked past the allotted time - he had done it! This was the end of the game.
Points I found out later:
- The mind control implants were not that. They were beacon transmitters that allowed the people implanting them (superheroes in disguise) to teleport all those that had allowed it to be implanted to prison.
- The heroes were there to STOP us from assembling any nefarious device. So they did a good job of fooling us by taking our parts.
- No one claimed to have had the last part that I (and many others) needed to complete our devices. The GM said he specifically gave that part out after giving out the packets, but he didn't remember who to. I hate that I could not complete my last task because of this...
But I had a good time - I need to do this some more... :-)