Peaky 2023

And what did you do during the coronation, Daddy? Well, I went to Derbyshire and wrote freeforms. Isn’t that what everyone did?

So yes, last weekend was Peaky 2023. 25 gamers congregated in Appleby Magna and wrote four freeform larps, worked on other freeforms, and watched the coronation.

I’ve talked about Peaky before, so I’ll just concentrate on the games.

That Second Difficult Album

I wrote That Second Difficult Album, an 8-player freeform with Kevin, Theo, Tym, Heidi and Mikey. (In typing that, I realise we had almost as many writers as players, which may have contributed to its smooth running.)

Here’s the teaser blurb:

August 1971. The Appleyards have been ensconced at Hurstmere Grange in the wilds of Sussex to record the follow-up album to their well-received debut. Tonight, they will reveal to the world the new album’s title, and some of the new songs, and announce where their next tour will be.

But has anyone seen the drummer?

As I hinted a few lines above, the whole experience was painless. We kicked around ideas on Friday night and got the shape of the game and ideas for plots and characters. On Saturday morning, we nailed down the characters and their concepts and started on the plots. By tea time, we were proofing the plots, followed by copying them into the characters. We finished shortly after 10 pm.

Observations and thoughts

While this is the first time I’ve written a music-based game, it’s not the first time we’ve done one. The Day the Music Died is a Peaky game and covered many similar themes (it’s set on a pirate radio station), and at Freeform Games, we have The Karma Club, featuring a similarly dysfunctional band.

We followed the approach I laid out in Writing Freeform Larps and it worked well. However, with some extremely experienced freeform writers in the group (Kevin wrote the first freeform I ever played), I was a little hesitant to do things “my” way. However, when I did a little project management and nudged the team in the direction I think we needed to go, they didn’t object and happily agreed.

To my amazement, Theo wrote on his phone. I couldn’t have done that – I need a proper keyboard.

We used Dropbox, which was a little frustrating as the wifi wasn’t reliable and created numerous conflicted copies, which we had to manage. In hindsight, a Google Drive folder might have worked better.

Paths not travelled: 

• We talked about players having more than one character, for some of the more minor roles. In the end, we didn’t write those but they’re something to consider if we expand the game.
• I asked ChatGPT for an example background for The Appleyards, and it produced a frighteningly comprehensive reply. While we didn’t use it, it was a clear indication of what AI can do for us.

Sunday running order

We had a few people writing games that weren’t planned for Sunday, so I asked Graham to sort out the Sunday schedule. As we had four games, the slots went as follows:

• 0930-1130: Across the City
• 1200-1400: The Restaurant and the End of the Dinosaurs
• 1500-1700: The Ashlight Labyrinth and That Difficult Second Album

As The Ashlight Labyrinth was a player short, I played in that instead of helping to GM our game.

Across the City

Across the City was written by Julie, Adam and Peter. It’s a horde game set in a Discworld-esque fantasy city. Bad guys have stolen a statue, and the guard must recover it. Three members of the guard are the players – everyone else was a member of the horde.

The guard in their splendid fezes (thanks Julie for the photo and Kevin for the fezes)

I’m not a big fan of horde games, but Across the City was the best I’ve played. The game was very structured – we started in the guard house (with two members of the horde to play with) and then visited three other parts of the city. Each part of the city felt different as the horde was different in each – the marketplace had stalls and people selling (and buying) fruit and veg. The artificer’s sector had more refined shops. The docks had fishermen and the like. 

As a non-horde player, I did find the horde overwhelming at times (noisy, chaotic, unhelpful, and easily distracted), but I really liked the sense that we were moving into different parts of the city. However, it was often hard to get any sense from the horde or find anyone who would help.

We failed to recover the idol before the villains made off with it, but we had fun doing so.

Things I liked: 

• A map of the city that meant something. We had time to visit three places, and it was up to us where we visited. (Poor writers, that meant there was material they wrote that never saw play – at least in this run!)
• Gentle roleplaying in the guard house. We had time to bond as a team (whether deliberate or not, that’s what happened), and it was fun to roleplay without having to chase the McGuffin or be overwhelmed by the horde. 
• As I said above, each area of the city had its own flavour – the city felt like a city.
• I liked the structure of the game – we were basically in four locations, and about 30 minutes in each. That was about right and helped keep the game from overstaying its welcome.
• As the watch, we all had fezes. Kevin had brought a box of hats with him, and found fezes for us all to wear.

The map!

Across the City felt like the most unique of the games at Peaky 2023 – it tried something different, and I would play it again.

The Restaurant at the End of the Dinosaurs

The Restaurant at the End of the Dinosaurs is a 12-player game written by Megan, Nickey, Phil, Kirstine, Megan, Ali, and Rich. It’s a “shenanigans” game with the players travelling back in time to view the last days of the dinosaurs before the asteroid hits the Earth. Of course, things don’t go according to plan.

I played Finlay, who, although being written as ungendered, I struggled to get my head around as I only know male Finlays. However, once I’d settled into the character and worked out that my spouse was being played by Mikey and my estranged son by Adam, I decided to play the character as female.

And as it was clear that I was an atrociously appalling mother, I modelled her on Jennifer Saunders’ character in Absolutely Fabulous. While it was fun, it ruled out any angsty resolution with our estranged son. (It was also potentially triggery, so care with casting is needed.)

I had a lot of fun in the first half of the game, roleplaying being just awful. Unfortunately, as a tourist, I had little to contribute when things started kicking off and going wrong. I’m not sure how easy it would be to make Finlay more relevant at the end of the game – it might be easier to give the character a second character and let them swap as needed.

Things I liked: 

• Dinosaurs! Why haven’t I written a game with dinosaurs in it? I had fun telling the experts that my favourite dinosaur was stegosaurus and that I wanted to see one. (And all the while knowing, as Steve, that stegosaurs had been extinct for millions of years by the end of the Cretaceous. But I figured Finlay wasn’t that bright.)
• Being awfully self-centred and rich with Mikey. I hope Adam wasn’t too upset with his awful parents.

I enjoyed The Restaurant at the End of the Dinosaurs – I hope we’ll see it again. 

The Ashlight Labyrinth

The Ashlight Labyrinth is an eight-player game written by Christi, Ben, Nick, Natalie, and Michael. It’s a character-driven last-ditch attempt to save a doomed land from an evil mage.

I must be careful what I say here, as the authors don’t want me to spoil the game for others. So, what I will say is:

• I thoroughly enjoyed The Ashlight Labyrinth.
• It’s very angsty. Very.
• Of all the games at this year’s Peaky, I think it needs the least work. (Probably just typos and layout. And maybe some GM instructions for others to run it.)
• It’s going to be compared to Critical Path, which is a highly regarded freeform larp. I played Critical Path in November, and while I enjoyed it, I wasn’t as blown away by it as I expected to be. The Ashlight Labyrinth addresses the issues I had with Critical Path – I think it’s better.
• I’m looking forward to playing it again, but maybe not for a while.

If you see The Ashlight Labyrinth being run anywhere, you should sign up for it. And as it takes only eight players, convention organisers should insist on multiple runs…

That Second Difficult Album

I didn’t see That Second Difficult Album being brought to life (as I was deep in the labyrinth), but I heard it generally went well. There were a few kinks, but we got some good positive feedback we can address.

The question will be whether to simply fix the things that need fixing, or do we add the extra characters we talked about during the writing?

Peaky 2023 overall

So three nights, four games written and played, 25 writers (plus the awesome Alison, who looked after us all), and a coronation to distract us on the Saturday. A brilliant weekend.