Among the various games I’ve run, my Flesh & Blood LARP – Live Action Role Play for the uninitiated – has to have been one of my all time best.
Obviously some part of that needs to be credited to me, but I think the freshness of the setting and overall shake up of the material did good things for a gaming community that had otherwise been stagnating. Anyone who predated the Camarilla – a fan organization who facilitates game play across a multitude of countries – had generally lost interest with the previous setting having watched iteration after iteration of the same world get churned out by the White Wolf publishing company.
The release of Vampire: The Requiem broke the gaming community out of what I can best call a rut, with the same stories getting hashed out – some certainly “crackier” than others. Keeping with the different families of vampires, the game writers instead changed the idea of how political membership worked, freeing players to move more easily through the spectrum offered by the Covenants. It was after all a setting that supported the idea of innovation and deviation. Allowing for a lot more personalization than the previous Laws of the Night system ever did.
And for players who are always looking to be different, having their character singled out for their spotlight moment, the Requiem system seems more suited supporting such. However with the revival of the Masquerade setting by the Camarilla, and White Wolf’s decision to re-release the material with fan sourced editing, players are returning to what they know, despite any criticisms they might have had about it in the first place.
I know part of it stems from nostalgia, but given all of the inherent drawbacks I don’t think I could personally return to that world. There are other things that interest me now, and I think if the LARPing community is going to survive past White Wolf, they’re going to need to start turning to other systems and settings, and break with the somewhat dominate World of Darkness that seems to be the default setting for most groups.
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Hey Gary,
Requiem and the NWoD materials definitely challenged the old MET conventions and encouraged new forms of play, and as such I’m really fond of them. I’m curious if your observation about reversion to OWoD is regional in nature? In Vancouver our two Requiem games are better attended than our one Masquerade game, but both are overshadowed by two larger Awakening games and surprisingly the largest game in the city is a Lost game.
Lastly, I think that there are some amazing opportunities for LARPs that go against the WW grain. Vancouver has had a couple of games come and go that were based on interpretations of TT materials (including an interesting, but short lived Nobilis LARP.
Derek Rawlings
aka drLARP
My observation was more spawned from things I’ve seen/heard with the Camarilla.
Our local game for example is only playing with old world of darkness material, as the Requiem game at the time wasn’t doing well in general – though this game is the reason I cited nostalgia as I know a lot of the players involved, and they’re definitely what you’d call old guard, who’d were interested in a chance at gaming like the old days.
But throughout the Camarilla the resurgence of the old material was pretty strong. I’d say that more however stems from an interest in travel and cross regional plot which the WOD LARPing communities have always striven for. Unfortunately the Requiem material is largely antithetical to. The oWOD was certainly better designed for that type of interaction, however in my opinion was never really attainable. Instead I am still a strong supporter of the Requiem setting, believing it a much more interesting avenue for LARPing.
Though I have begun to wonder if the vampire setting is a good one in general. Given that you’re largely playing at back stabbing your friends, it can often lead to a lot of sour grapes. So I’m not surprised that the Awakening and Lost games do better. Easier settings for a cooperative environment. But I’m leaning towards getting away from White Wolf in general, and had wondered what a Nobilis LARP might look like. I always envisaged elaborate costuming, but I guess that would depend on where the characters are meeting.
gary