Confessions of a serious gamer

Sooo! Concerning the Drachenfest LARP (Wednesday to Yesterday).

Good parts first: On the whole it was way better than in the past two years. The Grey Camp was back on the road to knowledge and wisdom rather than self-destruction; the backstory has improved greatly, or perhaps the new plots just made it clearer; communication worked way better; we had a brilliant Avatar who really fitted his role; there were lots of plots, almost too many; there was always something in-gamely important to do.

Which brings me to the bad parts.

I know I am probably fairly alone in this; I know I am probably taking the whole thing too seriously; but if I go to a LARP, I am there for LARPing.
Cue sounds of surprise here.

I am not there for quaffing, or gluttony, or shopping, or smoking illegal things, or spending fun time in town. I am there for the bloody gaming. If my character's involvement with the plot means living on a diet of cookies and raw veggies because I don't have time for cooking or walking up to the "town" for supper for a coupla days, so BE it. I know that this is overdoing it, and I don't expect other people do be quite so extreme - but I do expect them to spend more time roleplaying than partying on the whole (unless, obviously, they play characters who party all the time). I do expect them not to sell their characters into slavery just for kicks and because the goblin pirates are OMG SO MUCH FUN. I expect them not to miss a good part of the important briefings, councils, elections and speeches because they spend most of their time elsewhere, unless they happen to play spies or messengers who by nature have to run around a lot. If they miss most of the important briefings, councils, elections or speeches, I expect them at least to have the grace not to kick up a fuss because "nobody told them anything" or "they weren't asked".

Because frankly, if my idea of a good holiday is chilling and drinking alcohol, I daresay I'd be better advised to go to Majorca or Ibiza.

Because if you only see just how many people you shared camp with when people gather for the final battle in which everyone wants to take part, and find out it's not 30 but in fact 120 - something isn't quite right.

Nor do I think it is at all necessary to bash other camps all the time. Of course we all think our own camp is the best there is. Of course we may - privately, OOCly - think that, damn, there's only nerds following Grey, only idiots following Chaos, only Mary Sues following Silver, only tree-huggers following Green - but IC, they still all represent the manifestations of in-game gods, and I rather think most characters, no matter how powerful, chaotic, cool they may be, wouldn't go and insult the manifestations of "their" gods all that easily. Yes no perhaps?

Eh well.
I should just ignore the idiots, but together with people who refuse to take hits even if it's obvious they got them, people who behave like assholes on general principles and people who think they have to assassinate me AFTER the collective OOC signal they're getting too annoying to ignore. Actually the latter instance wouldn't have counted as an assassination anyway, because the rules clearly state that you have to sneak up to your victim without them noticing you, and I noticed him when he was still five meters off. Anyway, everybody was OOC at that point, so sneaking up to people and attacking them in the darkness in the middle of the night is not such a good idea. I, at any rate, was in a bad mood anyway because the abovementioned powerful, chaotic/copper, cool people ruining the final ritual and because of the disgraceful fire dancers (all of them but two dropped their torches or pois at some point; two of them actually set their own beards on fire: I understand people aren't perfect when they start to learn things like fire-juggling, but if I am still that likely to drop my torches, do I have to perform in front of an audience of roughly a thousand people (and that's just because not all of the 4000 participants leave their end-of-LARP parties to join the final ritual)?!); and I was surprised and, I admit, a little scared; and I am really sorry I dealt the poor guy a bruise on his shoulder and a fist to his face, and a little ashamed for overreacting: but frankly I am also a little proud of my reflexes, and of the fact that he apologised profusely, and if my overreaction means one less stupid assassin next year, ON THE WHITE TREE IT WAS WORTH IT! WORTH IT! WORTH IT!
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Finally, after the good annd the bad: The ugly.
There were, for the first time in my Drachenfest experience, the kind of assholes who get kicks out of vandalising, cutting cables and piping and pushing over Port-a-potties. And that after I was so proud that us abnormal people who go to LARPs act, in fact, way more normal than "normal" people who go to Rock festivals. *sighs*
Gah.

- - -

Aaanyway, those people who were not idiots, assassins or away all the time were all the more fun to RPG with. There was a bunch of elemental clerics and a house of Drows who were great company and great players, lovely bards, a dedicated and conscientious night watch, good plots and GMs, and I can't praise our brilliant, funny, intelligent Avatar enough (one of the highlights was the "Discussion of Magical Theory" with him and the Black Avatar, which wasn't strictly IC but so amazingly funny it didn't even matter (and why shouldn't Avatars be relaxed and funny on occasion?): for those who know Ring*Con, imagine Craig Parker as the Grey Avatar and Mark Ferguson as the Black Avatar and you roughly get the idea). There wasn't a moment in which I could've felt bored. By the end of it I was really missing clean clothing, and water that didn't taste slightly murky, not to mention proper toilets and showers: I am after all growing old and hamfæst. Jörg and I already noticed that in London last weekend: although London was nice, and we did lots of interesting stuff, we missed our construction site and the woods, in only four days.

There, 'nuff rambling for one night!