The sensation of being slapped repeatedly with a wet fish...

[jducoeur]

Sort of cold and slimy, and leaving a smell that won't rub off -- yeah, that's about it.

I keep trying to ignore the LARPY Awards, and tell myself it can't possibly be that bad. And then things like this purported promo show up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvJ4SnWzWc (video, fairly short)

I really want to believe that this is a parody of some sort that someone has put together; unfortunately, it's entirely consistent with everything I've seen about the bloody show so far. From the general cheeziness to the (intentional? accidental? damned if I know) mocking tone, it seems to fit.

The idea of a LARP awards ceremony isn't a dreadful one -- I'm not certain that it can be done well, but I'm not sure it can't. But the only word I can find for this thing is tacky, and I dislike tacky. I have a nasty feeling that I'm going to spend the next two years telling people, "no, really, it isn't like that."

You know there's something wrong when someone creates an awards TV show for your artform, and your best hope is that it sinks beneath the waves without anyone from the real media noticing it. If it does get the level of publicity that the producers claim, it may be the acid test of the hypothesis that all publicity is good publicity...

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's some kind of amateur theater production? The purple mage and the chick don't seem particularly polished, nor the little clip overall. And was that an SCA gate in there?

[jducoeur]

That's what you would think, yes. But unless it's an *elaborate* hoax, the awards show is quite real, with B-list celebrities and all -- they've been publicizing it in the LARP community for a long time now, and making lots of noise about how it's going to be featured in mass-media outlets (daytime talk shows and such) and will draw thousands of attendees.

The question is, is this promo for real or not? I'd prefer to believe not, given the obvious amateur-hour quality, but it's depressingly plausible...

[siriel.livejournal.com]

And here I was hoping this abomination wouldn't have made it into the theater LARP circles. For some amusing discussion, check out tragic_culture's journal.

[jducoeur]

Oh, it's been a raging argument for months on the LARPA mailing list. (Intertwined with the ongoing NERO-vs-NERO fight.)

Part of the problem is that it claims to represent "LARP" in the broad sense, but makes little real attempt to represent the theater-style side of things, which has been a bit of an annoyance. Although at this point, I may be happier not being represented...

[siriel.livejournal.com]

Hm.... maybe I should get onto that list, if only for the NERO legal fiasco. Everyone's very happy the Larpys overlooked the nTeraction boffer LARPs around here.

[jducoeur]

I'm fond of the list, but I'll say that there isn't all that much *useful* information about the NERO mess. There are spurts of flamage, since a fair number of people on the list have passionate opinions on one side or t'other, but factual information is more occasional. I've found it moderately interesting in the "there but for the grace of God" sense, but I don't know that it's a particular reason to read the list.

(IMO, the really interesting parts of the list are the discussions of LARP theory that come up from time to time. Less common, but with vastly more practical value...)

[jducoeur]

Just read through tragic_culture's messages on the subject. Utterly delightful -- I'm glad someone has chronicled this whole sad mess. Thanks for the link!

[hungrytiger]

Yeah, I've given up on even reading most of the LARPY postings on the mailing list. The video is totally in keeping with everything they're claiming not to be.

[jducoeur]

I ignore a lot of it, but I can't quite bring myself to tune it out. It's sort of like a scab, constantly itching at me. And if this *does* turn out to be really wretched publicity for LARP in general (which I think is possible, although not certain), I'd at least like to be forewarned.

Really, though, I have to say that it's kind of turning into a mystery story for me. I'm getting very curious about, say, what the finances for this thing are. I've gone from being mildly pissed at Joe Valenti to provisionally sorry for him, because I think there's a very real chance that he's being taken for a ride here. All the signs indicate that the money is probably all coming from him, and given the on-the-cheap flavor of pretty much everything, I'm forced to wonder if he's being scammed...

[gower.livejournal.com]

Having followed the discussion for months and watched the video, I can only come down on the "elaborate hoax" conclusion.

It's all just way too silly to be real. They did have me going for a while, there, but they went too far with that video. That was just absurd.

[jducoeur]

See my comment to Charley, above. I'm starting to wonder if the whole thing is for "real", but is actually a scam that's fleecing NERO...

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

I've been rather glad I haven't had the spare cycles since Intercon (and before really) to keep up on the developments. But when I can, and I was probably going to do so tonight, I keep saying to myself "You mean you haven't thought about that yet, either?" And knowing what NEIL runs on, the finances question keeps me wondering, too.

At Arisia, there was a moderately fascinating and odd panel, moderated by some rather rude NERO people, that really wanted to discuss how LARP gets taken to the next level of production and mainstreaming. And it's an interesting discussion to have but it strikes me as way too early for this kind of production. The whole thing seems remakably slipshod and the only question I have is whether or not it will crash and burn amusingly or sink beneath the surface and die. The whole idea of a national LARP award show is, to me, today, about as farcical as a national quilting bee award show. (I could be wrong--there are probably some mean quilting bees out there.)

[jducoeur]

Actually, I'm less skeptical about the geographical scope than I am about trying to cover all of "LARP" -- my suspicion is that the comparison is too apples-and-oranges to really work well. But I have nothing against the idea of someone trying: I'm mostly bugged by how badly done this particular attempt appears. Slapdash work bugs me in general, far moreso when it purports to be "professional".

It's going to happen (or not), and I'll be interested to see the results. I'm really, really curious about whether Adrian Brody actually shows up: it's my personal barometer of whether they were at least trying to be serious about this whole thing, or if it was actually some sort of elaborate scam...

[querldox.livejournal.com]

My main question would be just what blackmail material they have on Adrian Brody, whose Oscar is recent enough to think he shouldn't be at this level of career desperation.

My secondary bit is pity given that some of the nominees appear to be out of the UCLA sf club, Enigma, which I used to help out many years ago when living in LA.

[jducoeur]

My current guess is that Brody not only won't be there, but hasn't even been notified of it. Given that the LARPY Awards already have a track record of outright falsehoods of this sort (the original "confirmed" site had never heard of them, and got really pissed off when someone pointed out that it was being advertised there), I'm adopting an expectation that anything that seems implausible here probably is BS...

[laurion]

I pulled that from the mailing list and shared it with learnedax this morning. We eventually decided that if this were accurate (and as you say, it is consistent with the discussions to date) then it must be a way to either transfer money from NERO-the-corporation to NERO-the-pocket-of-an-individual.... or at least to use corporate funds to buy a party with celebrities and porn stars.

Or it could all just be a really bad idea. (Well, ok, it's a bad idea regardless of the motives or optimistic attempts that may or may not be behind it.)

[jducoeur]

transfer money from NERO-the-corporation to NERO-the-pocket-of-an-individual

I'm not so sure. Consider: Joe Valenti has an *enormous* amount of ego invested in the idea of "mainstream legitimacy" for LARP. I think it's entirely possible that *he* is the one being taken for a ride, by the producers of this mess, who might be playing on that ego to rip him off.

Granted, it would require a truly excessive disconnect from reality on his part. But that doesn't seem wholly impossible to me, given what I've seen him say. And it makes more sense than the idea that he is intentionally ripping off NERO, which *only* seems plausible if he's intentionally destroying the corporation's finances prior to losing the court case to Ventrella.

(Which, now that I think of it, doesn't seem all that impossible either. Hmm...)

[edolecki.livejournal.com]

What exactly is LARP? I know what it stands for - but isn't it like what the SCA does? Or is it like D&D but in someone's field? Or? I could check the Wikipedia, but you're so into this, you probably could shed more insight.

- Mr. Sodium

[jducoeur]

"LARP" == "Live Action Roleplaying". The word "Game" is implicit there at the end. It's a sort of kissing cousin to the SCA: I (and most people) don't consider the SCA to be a LARP, mostly because it's missing key "game" concepts like plots and gamemasters, but they're related enough to make it an interesting and oft-discussed comparison.

In its easiest-to-explain sense, you can think of LARP as being sort of like live-action D&D, and some games are very much like that, with foam-rubber swords, costumed monsters and simplistic plots. Better LARPs get significantly more interesting than that, particularly due to better writing and more interesting concepts. For instance, some friends of mine are currently putting together a fairly complex post-apocalyptic story called "Endgame", which will start to run in a few months.

Personally, I'm focused on a variant often called "theater-style", which drifts further from the D&D feel. My games are usually highly "scripted" stories, where each player is handed a fairly detailed initial character, and they take it from there; they're all indoor games (usually played at a hotel or in a college building), and limited in their timeframe (from 1 to 48 hours long). Topics vary widely: just among my own games, they've ranged from extremely dark science fiction stories, to one based on The Wizard of Oz, to a high-concept game that was a parody of panels at science fiction conventions.

So the term "LARP" is pretty broad, one of those "stuff kind of like this" cases. The LARPY Awards are fairly focused on the more traditional live-combat games, especially fantasy ones, mostly because that's what the guy organizing them does...

[edolecki.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the reply.

For instance, some friends of mine are currently putting together a fairly complex post-apocalyptic story called "Endgame", which will start to run in a few months.

Do you remember "Gamma World"? We dabbled in it, Bushido, and some others:

Apocalypse Now
In 1978 TSR released an exciting and original game concept called Gamma World™. It garnered an immediate and hardcore following. It was a small game, but exuberant, with weird mutants, killer robots and a strong sense that absolutely anything might be around the corner. There’ve been half a dozen successive editions since then, each changing rules and settings in various ways.

[jducoeur]

I've actually played very little tabletop (which makes me fairly unusual among my friends) -- one campaign of GURPS Supers, and that's it. So while I've heard of Gamma World (it's pretty famous), I don't know a huge amount about it. I gather that Endgame is probably even more esoteric than that, though, with a deliberately open-ended (if fairly bleak) scenario...

[edolecki.livejournal.com]

How about putting that Endgame online in the form of a streamed video? That would be pretty cool. Just please no wmv.

[jducoeur]

Well, it's not my game (I'm not involved, just friends with some people who are running it), so not really my place.

In general, I haven't found most LARP to film well, though. LARPs are typically fairly large -- from 10 players up to a couple hundred -- and spread out over some amount of space. Add to that the fact that you never really know where there good scenes are going to happen, and it's difficult to know where to put a camera. So in general, they make better storytelling fodder than film...

[edolecki.livejournal.com]

In general, I haven't found most LARP to film well

Does that mean you have access to video recording you have attempted yourself? Or footage that someone else has taken and that you have personally viewed and felt lacking? Even a small snippet of LARP online would be interesting.

[jducoeur]

Footage that others have taken. There probably is some online; I haven't gone looking, but there are enough LARPs around (probably at least a hundred ongoing ones, plus all the one-shots) that it seems unlikely that there wouldn't be. But what I've seen tends to have a "you had to be there" quality to it -- the best moments are usually spontaneous, and therefore hard to capture...