West End Lullaby

Earlier in February, I played in West End Lullaby, a weekend freeform for 77 players and is based on musicals such as Chess, Fiddler on the Roof, Cats, School of Rock, Our House, Bugsy Malone, Matilda, Les Miserables, Return to the Forbidden Planet, Starlight Express, Sister Act and many others.

I played Aaron Burr (from Hamilton), who has a side-order of Sam from Mama Mia! Essentially, Burr is a lawyer who is also one of the three fathers in Mama Mia!

This is rather long, so TLDR: It was great, I had a wonderful time. When can we do it again?

This and other photos of the game are by TsiJon Photography.

West End Lullaby was written by Matt Freeman, Hanbury Hampden-Turner, Ray Hodson, and Daniel Taylor (with additional material by Rei England, Simon Clark, and Kate Ashford). James Goodman and Mike Nudd helped as GMs. 

This will be my third musical freeform. Will I sing? The picture above suggests I did...

Oh yes, and an obligatory spoiler warning. I will talk about some plots – I’ll try not to give too much away!

Pre-game character summary

West End Lullaby had the best pre-game character summary I’ve seen. In addition to telling me who the character was, the GMs gave me what they thought my game would probably look like (so lawyerly stuff to begin with, easing more into politics and potentially a rivalry with Hamilton – and maybe a duel).

(In freeforming/larping circles, this is often called a casting “hint”. “Hint” never seemed the right term – this was a summary, not a clue or indirect indication.)

The GMs also provided costuming advice: “Characters come from across several hundred years of time, so other characters will be wearing anything from 18th-century formalwear to post-apocalypse glam rock. In keeping with the ‘musicals’ theme, conveying the emotional feel of the character is the most important thing.”

So I took the easy route and wore a frock coat I already had. (While I love the effect that costumes produce, I find costuming very stressful. My perfect costume would be for someone to say, “Here, Steve, wear this.”)

Character sheet

The full 20-page character sheet was issued later than some would have liked. I know that stressed some people out, but personally, that works fine for me. I’m used to reading character sheets at the last minute, so two weeks was still plenty.

There are often typos in character sheets, and these were no exception. None were awful; the worst was the omission of a key piece of information that could have been much worse for my game had I not realised. (As it was, I accidentally blabbed it to someone early on, but they were an ally anyway. And then I let the GMs know so they can correct it for the future.)

Rules

The rules arrived a few days after the character. I gave them a quick skim, knowing that I’d read them in more detail during the game when they would make more sense. The rules were mostly standard, but there were nice points I particularly liked:

Play to lift: Styles of Play covered playing to win and playing to lose (both fine) but emphasised playing to lift. Try to support other people’s visions of their character, letting them, in turn, support you. Try to roleplay in a way that encourages the players around you by accepting their view of their character. That’s probably a freeform (if not roleplaying) metarule. I know many people do that instinctively, but it was nice to see it in the rules.

Pickpocketing: Pickpocketing is divisive as it can ruin your game when someone steals that vital item you’ve been spending all game hunting for. West End Lullaby solved the problem by letting the victim decide what had been pickpocketed. So you could lose something trivial or just make something up. (And it was easy to get an item – just go to the market and buy something. I bought books and CDs and flowers.) That also meant the GMs weren’t involved – it could be handled entirely by the players.

Evidence: I liked the idea that all criminals left evidence cards with their names on them. (That includes pickpockets.) Arresting a suspect for a crime involved gathering enough evidence cards (severe crimes needed more evidence).

The evidence cards didn’t have to come from the same crime – it was all damning evidence. This might have been a bit strange, but from what I can see, worked out well in practice.

(One of many memorable moments was frustrating Inspector Javert (Alex) in arresting Dandy Dan (Nathan) for murder when I used my ability to point out inconsistencies with the evidence (which meant they needed more). I suspect Javert didn’t make the same mistake twice.)

Relationships: The relationship rules covered romance and were the “heart tasks” that many games have used. West End Lullaby brought interesting tweaks, though. 

• You could write your own tasks to suit how your game is going. I love that flexibility.
• The same approach (and often the same tasks) was used for other relationships – close friends, rivalries, etc.
• You didn’t have to give tasks out – you could just track them and decide for yourself whether you fell in love or decided someone was a good friend (or rival). (I suggested this in an old post – maybe the GMs thought it was a good idea.)
• Relationships weren’t exclusive – you could give your heart to more than one person (although it would have been nice to have different heart abilities for the different types of relationships.

As with most romance rules, you have a target number, and when that number is reached, you give someone your heart (which means sharing your game with them – and they get a neat ability).

So how was my game?

But enough of the rules, how was the game?

In short, awesome. And tiring.

Aaron Burr, sir?

It was lovely being so well known in song. Many people started their conversation with me with “Aaron Burr, sir?” I never stopped enjoying it (although, ironically, I don’t really like the song).

Important lawyerly business with Dandy Dan

As a respected lawyer, I got involved in lots of stuff. Some examples.

• I served papers on Bill Snibson (Simon)
• One character (Tony) asked me to certify them as legally dead. In the next session, someone else (sorry, I forget who) approached me and started to explain the other side of the story. For a moment, I thought there was a conflict of interest until I realised that I could simply give them a copy of the death certificate.
• I successfully defended Paula Gill (Victoria) from a breach of contract lawsuit. The contract may have been very one-sided, but it had been signed by all the parties and had been legally fulfilled, and the judge agreed with me. (Unfortunately, Hamilton (Jon) was supposed to be on the other side but was unfortunately held up and missed it – I was annoyed for Jon, but there were so many timetabled events we couldn’t wait too long.)
• I wrote a couple of wills, including Jean Valjean’s (Ezzy).
• Stacee Jaxx (Graham) and Penny Vandergelder (Elyssia) approached me to assign the ownership of the Stacee Jaxx name to Penny. For that, I needed Graham to sign their character’s real name. They were unsure about that. “We have to trust someone,” said Penny. So Stacy told me. I looked up and shrugged – I had no idea who [name redacted] was.
• Helping Gomez Addams (Rich) with his financial planning.

I also trained a new lawyer, Sarah Wyre (Kat), to whom I would direct players when I couldn’t help them (sometimes due to a conflict of interest, often because I was busy). Sarah said she was grateful that I sent her extra work, but also could I stop because she was getting so busy.

The Room Where It Happens

If the GMs had a planned arc for Aaron Burr, it was for him to become more influential by becoming a city councillor and maybe even Mayor. 

Becoming a city councillor turned out to be fairly easy. Between the Friday night and Saturday morning sessions, I re-read the character book and the rules. (I find everything makes more sense once I’ve started playing.) And I discovered there were two spare places on the council – these hadn’t been explicitly stated in the rules (or my character sheet), and I felt like I’d done my own legal legwork.

Not all council meetings were this dull...
(With Maria and Sir John Tremayne (Chris) and Horace and "Fat Sam" Stacetto (Mike) in the background.)

So I started the Saturday morning session by asking my friend Jean Valjean (Ezzy) to propose me to the council. I also sounded out Mayor Falco (Nick) and other councillors. To my surprise, Maria, Duchess of Dene (Lisa), wasn’t against my selection – despite my betrayal of her love 20 years earlier. And so I joined the city council – followed by Hamilton, who took the other vacancy.

I decided not to run for mayor. I had so much on that I didn’t need to be any busier, and when I saw that the wonderful Mrs Blitzstein (Janet) was standing, I correctly guessed that she would win.

One thing that didn’t happen was a rivalry with Hamilton. We barely saw each other for much of the game. I had a chat with Jon (who played Hamilton) before the game, and we agreed that we’d see how the relationship/rivalry played out. But I was so busy I didn’t have time or energy to put anything into the rivalry, and I don’t think he did either. And in our game, there wasn’t anything to be rivals over. (Maybe if I was a fan of the musical, things may have been different.)

Mamma Mia!

The other half of my game was all about the romance. Aaron Burr played one of the three dads from Mamma Mia! As per the musical, Sophie (Natalie) had invited me and the other potential dads to her wedding. And unfortunately, her mother Donna (Sarah), had never forgiven me for a terrible misunderstanding all those years ago. But Aaron had never forgotten Donna and wanted to mend the broken relationship. But did she want him?

While Sarah (who played Donna) had played in some big larps in Europe, West End Lullaby was her first weekend freeform. One week beforehand, she gamely stepped in when the original player dropped out. On short notice, Sarah did a fantastic job.

As I didn’t know Sarah, it was hard to judge how to play mending the broken relationship. I took it slowly – but I never really knew what Donna was thinking. Even when I finally proposed on Sunday morning, I still didn’t know if she would say yes or not. (She did!)

Sarah told me she was taken by surprise by my proposal. I suggested that had she played in one of these games before, she would have seen the arc from a mile off and known it was coming.

The romance mechanic: Curiously, if we stuck to the mechanics, it was almost impossible for Donna to win Aaron’s heart. First, his heart score seemed high (8), and second, the suggested relationship tasks weren’t very Donna-friendly (debate politics, ask me to be your second in a duel, enlist my help in a difficult court case, etc). So I created lots of new ones: Be Donna, accept my gift, dance with me, and so on.

Aaron Burr's romance tasks...

(I find that romance mechanics are often better thought of as guidelines rather than strict rules.)

The three dads

As for the other two dads, one kept a low profile. When I found out who they were and we spoke, they wished me luck with Donna. The other was the charming and wonderfully over-the-top Count Fosco (Paul). He had his own romantic plot but delighted in flirting with Donna in front of me.

As for who the actual father was – Sophie tore the DNA test results up at her wedding, so we never found out.

Actually a double wedding - Sophie bullied myself and Donna into getting married as well.
(The Mother Superior (Ingrid) marries Sophy to Bugsy Malone (Ewan), and me to Donna, while Dennis Dupree (Haven) looks on.)

Other highlights

New faces: While it was lovely to see old friends, it was also lovely to meet new faces. Four of my close contacts (Donna, Sarah Wyre, the Duchess of Dene and Jean Valjean) were played by people who hadn’t played a weekend freeform before, and I didn’t know any of them. I hope they enjoyed themselves and that we’ll see them again.

Singing "You're the One That I Want" with Donna

Singing: I sang “You’re the One That I Want” (from Grease) with Donna, which was nerve-wracking and exhilarating. Friends came up to me afterwards, surprised that I’d sung. (We sang that late on Saturday night. Afterwards, I wished I had sung Abba’s “SOS” to Donna on Friday evening. But I wasn’t feeling confident enough then.)

The war case: I helped Dolly Levi (Alison) with her investigation into General Stanley’s war record. Well, I say I helped – she did most of the work and told me how it was going. But I enjoyed being part of the investigation.

The Casey Street Market negotiations: I was heavily involved in the Casey Street Market negotiations, which involved Mayor Falco (Nick), Patty Klineman (Clare), William Pressman (Ben), Horace Vandergelder (Kevin) and the stall holders themselves. The end result may not have satisfied the developers, but it felt right.

The Battle of the Bands: I spent a large part of Saturday evening watching the music contest – it was so good, everyone threw themselves into it.

I’ve only scratched the surface; there was so much more I wasn’t involved with. Mad science, space and rockets, superheroes, time travel, crazy fire newts, chess tournaments, and so much more. It would be an easy game to play again – so maybe in a few years, when the GMs have forgotten how stressful it can be, they will run it again.

A final thank you

So, as I hope you can tell, I really enjoyed West End Lullaby. I had a wonderful, exhilarating time. It was great seeing old friends and making new ones.

So thank you to the writers and GMs and players and everyone who made it so wonderful. Let’s do it all again soon!