Week 2: Part 1 - Getting Ready for Game.
Week 2 - Coffman Student Union 7PM-Midnight. "Day 1" in Sanctum.
Real-Life problems plaqued the play-test size in week 2. Two of our players were MIA due to a sick kidlet, and several more could not make it due to Real Life obligations, Work or Illness. In short, our second training session was not needed, but proved useful in letting our early arrivals prepare for costuming, talk about thier motivations for playing and get to know each other. Our overall count was the same, with three additional spectators who haven't decided yet if they are prepared to take the jump from table-top to LARP yet.
There was some initial worry; Would this play-test end up like so many other play-tests? Would we have a good first game and then fizzle out before we even got going? It happens alot in even pre-established games, so being optimistic was the only thing I could really do; People would either want to play, or they wouldn't. Optimistic or not, I continued to worry until people started showing up, finding relief as I realized, not only were they showing up, but showing up in costume and talking about thier characters while we waited for game to start. I'll post a seperate entry with a gallery of our play-testers and the costumes they sported.
As Stage-Hands, Me and Adam opted for a white T-Shirt with Black Pants. Our Supporting Casts characters would be identified by an assessory. Adam sported a shoulder harness with holster and black leather hat for his "Communist", and a white sheet for his "Librarian", while I had a tie and jacket for my "Vice Dealer.", A Skirt for my "Match-Maker", and stole Adam's sheet for my "Oracle"
concerns: My main one was attendence. It seems to be a false worry for now, but Adam has warned against assuming it won't change. So far, so good; we'll see if it continues to be that way.
The Pre-Game Huddle:
We called everyone's attention at about 7:10, only a few minutes behind our slotted schedule. We had full attendence, not counting those who let us know ahead of time that they'd be missing this game but would be at next.
We started out by handing out character sheets, which were no bigger than a index card...in fact, they WERE index cards. We had the testers assign thier Ends and Means and Adam handed out the tokens that would represent plot points. (Adam had typed the Opposition Brief up, along with our supporting cast characters on a single sheet of paper, which was to be our own character sheets.)
observation: It never ceases to amaze me how fast people will lower thier numbers when they realize that they get more plot points that way. The look on people's faces were priceless...absolutely priceless.
Ready, Set...
We then determined that Coffman University would be the main rooms, the garage would still be the prison and the cafe would be the grocery store. I had meant to establish an OOC room, but I don't think we did. This could have been bad, but it turns out no one really seemed to need one, as anyone who wanted a break, went and sat at the registration table...which worked just fine.
Adam ran the floor with an Explanation of Cues - See Adam's Post for more information - and then after he went through a few more details, he turned the floor over to me to set the floor for game to begin.
I re-stated the conditions of Sanctum, and what people would be waking up to, ran through what was inside of Coffman and what things could be expected from the world...and answered a few questions.
concerns: There was some hesitation on my part when the question was raised on if the protagonists would ever find out what put them in Sanctum. Adam has been prodding at me for awhile for this question and I have been reluctant to say one way or another. Sanctum itself has any number of possibilities and I was hoping to reserve having to decide one way or another until I saw where the players seemed to want to go. Since this is a beta game and is unlikely of branching out into other games, I chose "Fate/Time" was the abductor and that the conclusions characters would draw would never be a lack of information, just a possible 'not what they expected to get for an answer' instead. They seemed fine with this, but it's going to take some considerations on my part on why it was so hard for me to just pick one.
Game!
Having gone through everything we could think of, we then called "Game on" and told people to go find where they would be waking up, because they'd be doing so in 1....2.....3.....4....
I've never seen people run so fast.
concerns: When I first started talking about how and where they would be waking up, I found myself feeling as if I had repeated myself so many times that I was being redundant. I stumbled over the introduction and it seemed awkward, although players didn't seem to mind that much; I need to work on the execution of what is in my head into actual explanation!
