My first Consequences

So last weekend I attended Passionate Consequences, the freeform larp convention (with some boardgames) held every year in a holiday camp near Poole.

Loads of people found it hard to believe that this was my first Consequences. Many of my larp friends attend – and many games played were ones written at Peaky. Consequences started in 2007, but as it’s on the south coast (near Poole), attending it always meant taking five days (including travel). And while I had a day job and a young family, that was more leave than I was comfortable taking.

Now I don’t have a day job, it’s easier to take leave, and so in 2023, I went to my first Consequences.

Consequences

Consequences is held at Naish holiday village, so the accommodation is mostly holiday chalets. My accommodation (a two-bed apartment, not actually a chalet) was fine – it was clean and (once we’d figured out the heating) warm. As ever in this sort of accommodation, there were never enough towel rails.

Typical accomodation / gaming lodge

The accommodation is all self-catered, and I ate a mixture of ready meals and bar meals. Unfortunately, the apartment’s oven was a little shonky. I’d bought a non-microwavable shepherd's pie but couldn’t get the oven up to temperature. So tipped the pie out of its foil tray onto a plate and used the microwave, and all was fine.

Thursday

I set off from Yorkshire at about 9, having walked the dog, and after a long but easy drive, arrived at about 3 pm. I checked in and chatted with old friends.

Horrospital

My first game was the tricky-to-pronounce Horrospital, a horror-comedy game by Tony Mitton for 25 players. Horror in freeforms is never very horrific. It is inevitably played for laughs and involves comedy vampires, werewolves, demons and the like. It’s always over the top and never very scary. Which sums up Horrospital nicely.

I played Orderly Peeler, an undercover cop. I was investigating a series of murders, and I got much of the way through solving it, but couldn’t quite get the final piece. This is partly because I was tired, but mainly because I didn’t sit down and discuss the murders properly with the character who could have filled in some gaps.

(I was tired not because of the long drive, but because the game started at 8 pm and I’m often tucked up in bed at 10 pm. I remember starting to flag at about 9:45 pm and thinking, blimey, we’ve got a way to go yet.) 

Anyway, Horrospital was very enjoyable, my favourite bit was explaining to everyone that the reason I was investigating the murders was because I was studying for an NVQ. I’m sure everyone saw through my nonsense.

Friday

I woke at 6 am (as usual) after a not-very-long night. Although I returned to the chalet early(ish), I didn’t go straight to bed as I wanted to relax and unwind first. I also needed to review my character for the morning’s game. I was originally signed up to play Sam, but a last-minute dropout meant I changed to Stevie. Who I hadn’t read. So I needed to read, absorb and take notes. Perhaps unwisely, I did that before going to bed and, as a result, got only three or four hours of sleep.

Antarctic Base 13

This was a ten-player tense SF game set at an isolated research station in the Antarctic – with strong The Thing vibes. Written by Rich Perry and Alli Mawhinney, I’ve wanted to play it for a while. I’m glad I did, as it was great.

I played Stevie, the comms operator. Which meant I had access to lots of information – and I didn’t like going outside. My favourite parts were searching the base when everyone else had gone outside and doing something in plain sight in front of other players who were so caught up in their own thing that they didn’t notice me doing it.

It’s not perfect – the character sheets need a bit of work, and a couple of bits feel creaky, but the core concept is great. 

After that, I had a short nap to wake up and lost badly at Dune Imperium, which I’d not played before. (I can see why it’s popular, but it’s a bit long for my liking.)

Children of the Stars

This was the first of the two games I was running, and I was looking forward to seeing how it would work. I had 13 players – and it went really well. I had a few pre-flight nerves because the first run (online) didn’t go well for various reasons. But this time, it went off without a hitch.

Discussions about weighty matters...

The players bought into the ongoing story. A couple had played in earlier episodes, and I had four playing in both this and Sunday’s Messages from Callisto. And I could see the decisions I’d given everyone were causing them to think.

As ever, I made copious notes and have a few changes to make – mostly clarifications rather than anything game-breaking.

Saturday

I woke with a headache on Saturday and decided to eat in the restaurant rather than battle the kitchen appliances. My headache had cleared by the time it was to play my first game.

Old Nick’s Game

Old Nick’s Game is written by Charlie Paull, Alan Paull, Roger Gammans, and Nick Hollingsworth. It’s for ten players and is set in Hell and is based (loosely) on Old Harry’s Game, a Radio 4 comedy which I know of but haven’t listened to.

I will admit to being slightly apprehensive about this game as I wasn’t sure about my character. I was playing Antonia, the mother-in-law of another character. Gender didn’t seem very important in the game, so I wasn’t worried about that, but my character didn’t believe that they were in Hell – instead, this was all a rag week stunt. But the character sheet felt muddled as a result.

As it turned out, I needn’t have worried as the game was great. It played really nicely, and I had a whale of a time pretending we weren’t in Hell. I particularly enjoyed threatening to report Satan to HR if he continued his bullying. My favourite bit was discussing my favourite fiction (which I decided was Mills & Boon romances) with Satan, and he summoned Jane Austen from the pits of Hell – and she turned out to be extremely foul-mouthed. She must have had a very good editor!

Between games

The most important thing I needed to do on Saturday was prepare the character packs for Sunday’s Messages from Callisto. So once I’d had a bite to eat, I popped back to the apartment to sort that out.

Messages from Callisto is set ten years after Children of the Stars, and decisions the players make in Children affects the background to Messages. I’d thought about this in advance and come up with options – so I had extra background and briefing sheets for each character. And now I knew what had happened in Messages, I could prepare Children.

(Would I do this again? It was a lot of work, but it was also very satisfying. So the answer is probably yes.)

Once I’d done that, I went back to the main area and got into a game of Villagers. While I was playing, I was asked if I’d fill a spare place in Better Than Life, as a player had dropped. So that was my evening sorted.

A Better Than Life Sandwich

A BTL Sandwich is a series of three short minigames featuring five characters. The scenes are all unrelated. It was written by Martin Jones for the Across the Universe weekend game, but he’s run these separately many times since.

The three minigames are all wonderful – tense, angsty and funny. The character sheets were all short, so it didn’t take much for me to catch up. It’s a great pick-up game.

The three minigames were:

• The Judgement of Solomon: The fate of a child hangs in the balance… I played the judge – and I might have played this before. There’s no good decision here – wonderfully angsty.
• The Gig at the End of the Universe: Inspired by The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy – and at about 30 minutes, probably the right length for a Hitchhiker’s game. The light relief to the other two more angsty games. I was Zaphod Beeblebrox, man! Delightful nonsense.
• Waiting: A dramatic game about waiting for aliens to attack. How long do you have, and what must you say before the end? Fabulously bleak.

Looking back, Better Than Life was one of my favourite games of the weekend. And it finished relatively early, which meant I was in bed by 11 am and got a good night’s sleep.

Sunday

A good night’s sleep left me refreshed for Sunday. I heard stories of people not getting to bed until 4 or 6 am. I don’t think I can do that.

Devil to Pay

Devil to Pay is a 26-player pirate freeform written by Brian Richburg and Alison Joy Schafer. It was an old-style freeform larp with long character sheets, rules, contingency envelopes, items, abilities and more. I found the long character sheet hard to read at first, but it soon made sense during play.

I played Laurens de Graaf, a Dutch privateer. To my surprise, my character survived. I was expecting to die horribly – but I won a duel and ended up with just enough loot to survive the game. It was great playing with Nickey, who was my wife and rescued our daughters before they could be killed in a pirate raid.

Messages from Callisto

Messages from Callisto follows Children of the Stars. It’s for 13 players, and I had four players who played in both games. Three played the same character. The fourth was a last-minute addition – I would have cast them as the same character had I known.

Thanks to a few typos (and some mistakes when stuffing envelopes), Messages from Callisto had a slightly creakier start than Children. But once it was going, it went well, and everyone seemed fully engaged and having deep discussions.

I have come away with a page of notes and improvements – but players told me later that they had a good time (and want to play other episodes), so that was all wonderful to hear. (I’ll probably reflect on that in a later post.)

Next year?

Next year, Consequences will move to a new venue. I suspect it will still be a long drive from Yorkshire, but I’m planning to go again.

Are tabletop RPGs "art"?

The old question of whether RPGS are Art (with a capital A) came up on The Tavern discussion forum recently.

I realised I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. Instinctively, I think RPGs aren’t art – but I’m also aware that this discussion has happened many times before and by people smarter than me.

So if it’s an old discussion, it was probably in ChatGPT’s learning data. So I asked the question.

Are roleplaying games "art"?

My first mistake was not specifying tabletop roleplaying games. While ChatGPT 3.5 gave me an excellent response, I realised that it was referring to video games. (And purist that I am, I’m slightly annoyed that videogames have hijacked “roleplaying”.)

So, I asked about tabletop rpgs. Here’s ChatGPT’s response – I’ve merged both answers as elements in its first answer also applied to TTRPGS.

Whether tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) are considered "art" can be subjective and depends on how one defines "art." In a broad sense, many people argue that TTRPGs are a form of art. Here are some perspectives on this:

• Narrative and storytelling: Tabletop RPGs rely heavily on narrative and storytelling. Game masters (GMs) and players collaboratively create stories, characters, and worlds, making TTRPGs a unique form of interactive storytelling. The creation of these stories can be seen as a form of artistic expression.
• Creativity and imagination: TTRPGs require substantial creativity and imagination from both the game master and the players. The open-ended nature of tabletop games allows for limitless possibilities, encouraging participants to think creatively and contribute to the unfolding narrative. The design of game worlds, characters, and scenarios involves artistic decisions.
• Visual and handcrafted elements: While not digital, the physical elements of tabletop RPGs can have artistic value. Hand-drawn maps, character sketches, custom miniatures, and other handmade components contribute to the overall artistic experience.
• Emotional impact: Like other forms of art, TTRPGs can elicit emotional responses from players. The immersive nature of the experience can create a powerful connection between the player and the game, similar to the emotional impact of other art forms.
• Rulebook design: The design and layout of TTRPG rulebooks can be considered a form of graphic design. The choice of typography, illustrations, and overall presentation can enhance the artistic appeal of the game.
• Social and collaborative art: TTRPGs are inherently social and collaborative experiences. The interactions and dynamics between players contribute to a unique form of collective storytelling akin to a collaborative art project.
• Cultural and Social Commentary: Some RPGs explore complex themes, social issues, and cultural commentary. This reflective aspect can be considered a form of artistic expression.

However, not everyone may view TTRPGs as art, especially if they have a more traditional or narrow definition of art. Additionally, some TTRPGs prioritise gameplay mechanics over narrative or visual elements, blurring the lines between art and entertainment.

Ultimately, whether RPGs are considered art depends on one's perspective and definition of art. Many consider the act of playing and creating within a TTRPG to be a form of artistic expression, demonstrating that the boundaries of what is considered "art" continue to expand.

I thought that was pretty good. But I wondered if ChatGPT could present the opposing arguments.

And the arguments for them not being art?

Some arguments against considering tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs) as art include:

• Functional vs. artistic intent: Critics may argue that the primary intent of TTRPGs is functional rather than artistic. The rules, mechanics, and systems are designed to facilitate gameplay and create an interactive experience, emphasising functionality over traditional artistic expression.
• Varied quality: Not all TTRPGs have the same level of narrative depth, character development, or visual appeal. Critics might contend that the wide range in quality among different games undermines the idea of TTRPGs as a cohesive art form.
• Player-generated content: The collaborative and player-driven nature of TTRPGs could be seen as shifting the creative responsibility away from the game designer. Critics might argue that the artistry lies more with the players' contributions than with the inherent design of the game itself.
• Commercial considerations: Some argue that the commercial nature of TTRPGs, where profitability is a significant factor, can dilute the purity of artistic intent. Games may be developed with market trends and sales in mind, potentially compromising artistic vision.
• Lack of tangible artefacts: Unlike traditional visual arts or literature, TTRPGs don't always produce tangible artefacts that can be readily displayed or collected as art. This lack of a physical, tangible product may contribute to scepticism regarding their classification as art.

These arguments are not universally accepted, and opinions on whether TTRPGs are considered art can vary widely. Additionally, the evolving landscape of art and the broader acceptance of interactive and participatory forms of media challenge traditional distinctions between art and other forms of cultural expression.

But what do I think?

I found ChatGPT’s explanation helpful in helping me realise where I stand on the whole “Are RPGs art?” discussion.

So, for me, while RPGs have artistic elements (most obviously the artwork), I don’t regard the playing of RPGs as art. But I’m happy if you do.

(Note: the image above was the result when I typed Are tabletop roleplaying games “art” into the Artflow AI art generator. I think it’s orcs playing D&D.)

Currently reading

My current reading pile has gotten out of hand. Normally, I may have two or three books on the go – an actual physical book, a book on my Kindle that I read at night, and maybe an audiobook or a book on my phone. 

Thanks to poor book management by myself, I seem to be in the middle of ten books right now.

Here they are, in no particular order.

The Integral Trees by Larry Niven

I picked this up at the wonderful Aardvark Books secondhand bookstore in Herefordshire. It has a pretty good SF section, and while I remember Larry Niven’s The Integral Trees coming out in 1983, I didn’t read it then. It cost me £2.50, 55p more than the 1985 cover price.

Unfortunately, it isn’t as good as I hoped. While the world is exciting and different (and the reason to read it), the story is about the descendants of a crashed human spaceship and feels a bit derivative. (Maybe it wasn’t derivative in 1983 – but I can think of other books with similar premises from about that time.)

I won’t seek out its sequel, The Smoke Ring, but I’ll probably pick it up if I come across it.

How to be a Liberal by Ian Dunt

I enjoyed Dunt’s Brexit – What the Hell Happens Now? (which accurately predicted much of the chaos we’ve experienced) and I’ve enjoyed his journalism. But How to be a Liberal is, so far, a history of liberalism, starting with Descartes in 1619.

And I’m finding it hard going - I picked this up in Wetherby’s Oxfam months ago, and yet I’m not even 100 pages in. So I’ve put it on the back burner. I haven’t abandoned it (yet), but I’m clearing other books before returning to it.

The Land of the Green Man by Carolyne Larrington

This is a tour of British folklore, covering pretty much everything. I bought this because I wanted to learn more about British folklore – and particularly how I might apply it to my Liminal games. (I usually just make stuff up, but Liminal’s USP is that it covers British folklore, so I thought I’d do some reading.)

However, I’m starting to regret not taking any notes…

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

Chiang’s Stories of Your Life is the short story that became Arrival. It’s been on my to-read list for a while, so when I saw it in a secondhand bookshop in Berwick, I bought it.

However, I don’t enjoy short stories. I find them too choppy – I want to wrap myself in a story, and short stories are over too quickly. They also have a different feel to novels – they’re “cleverer”, and that’s not always what I want. So, I’m slowly working my way through them. My favourite story so far is Understand, a story about a man whose hormone-K therapy makes him superintelligent – but not quite intelligent enough…

I’ve got one story to go, and I’m not quite sure what is stopping me from reading that story and moving Stories of Your Life and Others off my current reading list. (All those other books, probably.)

Discovering Scarfolk by Richard Littler

A birthday present and delightfully wrong on so many levels. Scarfolk is the fictional 1970s county in England’s Northwest – I can’t do it justice here, so I suggest you visit the Scarfolk blog. To my surprise, Discovering Scarfolk has a narrative and concerns itself with the disappearance of two children. Or at least, that’s the story so far.

The Book Your Dog Wishes You Would Read by Louise Glazebrook

All about dog behaviour and communication – our dog, Monty, is now seven years old, so I probably could have done with this a few years ago. It’s an easy read, and I’m already nearly halfway through, so I expect I will finish this fairly quickly.

Cursed Objects by J W Ocker

I’ve had Cursed Objects for ages – I think it was a 2022 Xmas present. It’s a collection of over fifty essays about cursed objects (the clue is in the title). There are loads of ideas in here for RPG investigations, but I probably should have made notes.

This is taking a long time to read because it lives in the summerhouse, and I only read a chapter or so on a sunny afternoon. Now that we’re in November, sunny afternoons are few and far between… I’m not expecting to finish this before next year. 

The Ember Blade by Chris Wooding

I’m finding The Ember Blade hard going, which is a surprise as I normally find Chris Wooding very readable – his Tales of the Ketty Jay are wonderful (start with Retribution Falls), as is The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray.

However, this is slow. It’s a fantasy setting, with an occupying empire and plucky underdogs (I wonder who we’re rooting for?), but it’s taking its time in getting going, and I’m not finding the two heroes particularly likeable. (And as a result, I’m finding it much too easy to put it down.)

Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson

Every now and again, I find I’ve got some spare time, but I don’t have my Kindle (or another book) to hand. That’s when I turn to the Kindle app on my phone, and because I had some time on holiday recently (probably waiting for the family somewhere), I have started Ministry for the Future.

The book starts in the middle of an awful heatwave in India that results in millions of deaths. I’ve only just started Ministry for the Future, but it looks like that’s the event that kicks everything off. I expect when I finish The Ember Blade, I’ll start reading this one on my Kindle.

Unruly by David Mitchell

I’m listening to Unruly: A History of England’s Kings and Queens with Mrs H. We like to listen to audiobooks on long car journeys, and we started Unruly on our way back from Herefordshire recently. It’s engaging and often funny, as expected from David Mitchell.

Thanks to concentrating on the traffic, I’ve lost track of exactly where we are, but I know we haven’t reached the Battle of Hastings yet. But I don’t think it’s far off. However, I’m not sure when we’ll next listen to it – we’ve not got another long car journey planned for a couple of months.

MR James: The Complete Ghost Stories Collection

During December, I like to listen to MR James’ ghost stories – I have several of his best-known stories on Audible, read by the likes of Derek Jacobi and David Suchet. Last year, I bought this collection, read by Jonathan Keeble, which fills in the gaps.

I didn’t complete it last year – maybe I will this December. But I’m in no rush.

(By the way, if you don't get on with reading MR James' ghost stories, and I find them hard to read, I do recommend listening to them. They're much better that way.)

And the pile I haven’t started yet

So that’s what I’m currently reading. Part of the problem is that the books aren’t that compelling – so not ploughing through them. I’m likely to score most of them two or three out of five.

And here’s the list of books I have waiting for me. I will try not to start these until I’ve made at least a dent in the above:

• Art of Ron Cobb by Jacob Johnson (I love Ron Cobb’s art – and there’s plenty of text as well)
• A Gamut of Games by Sid Sackson (a collection of 30+ games)
• The Armchair General by John Buckley (a sort-of choose-your-own-adventure where you’re trying to win WW2)
• Gothic Ghost Stories by Trevor Bell (something for those dark December evenings)
• Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (currently being read by Mrs H)
• The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman (I’m not allowed to read this before Mrs H reads it, which is probably a good thing)
• Forgotten Castles of Wales and the Marches by Paul R Davis (I love castles, and saw this in Ludlow)

Motivating a horde

As I was thinking about horde games (a type of larp) a couple of months back (see here), I thought I’d talk about something the horde can use based on Monster of the Week (MotW).

Why?

One of the problems I sometimes find with horde games is that the horde swamps the permanent characters. Horde characters are often little more than two sentences that need something from the main characters. And as a main character, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the horde.

(One of the things I liked about Across the City (the horde game written at Peaky 2023) was that as a permanent character, I had a plot, and while there was a horde around me, I didn’t always have to interact with them. But occasionally, they were very irritating and got in the way of our main plot.)

Anyway, it occurred to me that it might be worth thinking about the horde characters’ role – or motivation, as MotW puts it.

MotW gives everything a motivation – locations, monsters and NPCs. And the motivations explain their role in the story. So dark woods with the motivation maze will confuse and separate the players, while a den will harbour monsters.

(Sometimes the motivations are obvious, but even then, I find it useful to think in those terms: what purpose does this location have in the story.)

And the NPC motivations could easily be used in a horde game.

MotW bystander motivations

So rather than invent the wheel, here are MotW’s NPC motivations. (If they’re not minions of the baddies, MotW calls its NPCs bystanders.)

• Busybody (motivation: to interfere in other people’s plans)
• Detective (motivation: to rule out explanations)
• Gossip (motivation: to pass on rumours)
• Helper (motivation: to join the hunt)
• Innocent (motivation: to do the right thing)
• Official (motivation: to be suspicious)
• Skeptic (motivation: to deny supernatural explanations)
• Victim (motivation: to put themselves in danger)
• Witness (motivation: to reveal information)

How does this help the horde?

If I was playing one of the horde, knowing the intent behind the character would help me play them. As well as the usual two-line character, it would help to know that my job is to throw myself in the path of the monster so that I can be rescued. Or whether I should be helpful – or a hindrance.

I know I would find this useful.

(I have a horrible feeling that I’m talking myself into writing a horde game…)

Turning Writing Freeform Larps into an ebook

I've been learning to make an epub file (for e-readers) from an MS Word document using Calibre. I've been asked for an epub version of Writing Freeform Larps, so I thought it was time to learn how to do it.

It turned out to be relatively painless - although I found myself going around in circles several times.

The essentials

So the process consisted of copying the MS Word document I used for Writing Freeform Larps and:

• Replacing the fonts with a simple Arial font - e-readers have their own fonts.
• Removing headers and footers.
• Removing the page breaks and white space I'd inserted to make the pages look right.
• Remove cross-references within the document.
• Review formatting for bullets - my first attempt was a bit weird. I think they're still a little weird, but they're not as weird as they first were.
• Change tables to be in % width rather than an absolute width. (The first time I did this, they were wider than the page, and I couldn't read them properly.)

Then:

• Import the docx into Calibre
• Turn it into an epub
• Email it to my Kindle
• And check

And every time I spot an error, I delete the file from my Kindle, amend the docx and go through the process again. (Happily, this doesn't take long.)

So I think I'm there, and last week, I uploaded the file to Itch.io and DriveThruRPG.

Of course, I now have two versions of Writing Freeform Larps to maintain...

Gaming books on e-readers

I'm not sure how useful an epub version is, as I don't like reading gaming books on my Kindle. I've read a couple (Fate Core and The Esoterrorists), and I found the experience, um, sub-optimal.

E-readers are great for novels and books where you start at page 1 and continue through to the end.

But I don't read RPGs that way. (Does anyone?)

And I don't use my Kindle for reference books. I'd rather have a physical book.

RPGs are full of art, tables and complex formatting - which my Kindle also struggles with. (I don't like reading pdfs, either... Maybe the problem is me?)

What would I want from an e-reader RPG?

When I use my e-reader, I read from start to finish. So, what would my ideal game ebook look like?

First off, it would NOT be a regular rulebook. It’s not something I would expect to consult at the table.

Instead, it would accompany the rules – something to read to introduce the game. Maybe explain the setting and what the characters are supposed to do.

It would cover the main principles and rules of play - but exclude the detailed skill lists and tables. (Reading skill lists, or tables of equipment, is just tedious on an e-reader.)

Maybe it would be free – a promotion piece for a game.

As ebooks are usually read sequentially, I would think carefully about the order in which everything is presented. I would want everything to flow from first principles so it makes sense.

(And now I feel I’ve set myself a challenge. Is it possible to create a good ebook version of an RPG? I want to try.)

What about Writing Freeform Larps?

I hope Writing Freeform Larps makes sense as an e-book. I start the book with the process, then build the rest of the book around that. I have a couple of lists, but they’re tucked away in the appendices and don’t interrupt the flow.

Click here to learn more about Writing Freeform Larps.