December 6 was First Friday in A-Town and the Cocoa Crawl. It was pretty funny and surprising that people asked me if they can last minute sign up for the LARP. Honestly, that’s on me for not seeing the potential. Saturday the A-Club met and we ran the game. The Club meets for 3 hours, we often stall 30 minutes for late arrivals. We had friends that we haven’t seen since Game Hole, so it was a great opportunity to catch up. At the 30 minute mark, we started and we played until 3:03 without any weird edits or cuts for time. The Game hit my 150 minute goal, so on a core level it works as is.
Having said that, there are tiny little things the Club pointed out that I like. Instead of a Facilitator collecting cards and shuffling them out, a player can pass cards to left or right, and …
December 6 was First Friday in A-Town and the Cocoa Crawl. It was pretty funny and surprising that people asked me if they can last minute sign up for the LARP. Honestly, that’s on me for not seeing the potential. Saturday the A-Club met and we ran the game. The Club meets for 3 hours, we often stall 30 minutes for late arrivals. We had friends that we haven’t seen since Game Hole, so it was a great opportunity to catch up. At the 30 minute mark, we started and we played until 3:03 without any weird edits or cuts for time. The Game hit my 150 minute goal, so on a core level it works as is.
Having said that, there are tiny little things the Club pointed out that I like. Instead of a Facilitator collecting cards and shuffling them out, a player can pass cards to left or right, and I think I’ll do both: Pass one to your left and one to your right. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, and I see this, "it’s not a big deal" issue all the time. The author could change their game to improve their game, but "why bother when it’s good enough." However, if everyone runs into the same glitch and everyone makes the same comment, the easiest way to shut down that conversation (and put more time into your day and life) is to make the tweak.
I also don’t think the Slasher needs a character sheet. When we played Final Girl The RPG, we found it really easy to game the system and build a powerful future Final Girl. Our solution was to give the Slasher Draw cards as well. This evened the playing field.
What I’m seeing now is since we changed the rule to, "The House Always Wins." Which means, you must play a scene until one person dies, the Slasher doesn’t need redraws. Eventually they will kill a target. This maintains the funnel!
Furthermore, the re-draw is a very mechanical solution. Rather than roleplay, you just draw another card. By staying in the scene and doing another "round," the game takes longer and you flesh out the storytelling. On Saturday we didn’t give the Slasher Draw Cards and the longer scenes allowed us to hit that 150 minute mark with storytelling over mechanics.
All of this is a long way of justifying a few tweaks to the game. I’ve been taking pictures all weekend long, and if I can get a few more vibe shots into the game and still keep the print legible, I may change some of the art.
Finally, I want to give a big thanks to, "Aurora." It would be very easy for downtown businesses to bounce off this game, to see this critical eye and say, "You’re painting a bad picture of us." No one is doing that, locals are simultaneously enjoying the "Pro-Aurora" angle and recognizing Our Fair City isn’t perfect. We’ve got some blemishes, and lets talk about them. The side conversations we had while playing this game involved the African Trade of Roses and what it’s doing to their environment. If Last Stand at Cocoa-Mart inspires conversations about disparity and exploitation, then The Aurora Dumpster Slasher may be the villain we need!