Introduction:

LARP Website: https://cotlarp.com/

LARP Design Document: http://rollespilsfabrikken.dk/cotlarp/dd/cotlarp_dd.pdf

I had a good time at Convention of Thorns 3 (CoT3 from here on), but it was not as good as CoT2 for me, so I thought I’d write this to figure out why. Some of this was based on changes to playerbase/the game, some of it was things about the game that I didn’t notice because they weren’t relevant to me last year, and some had to do with my personal choice of character. She was my second choice, so I can’t blame the casting process either- I just chose a character who wasn’t quite right for me, so you can take all this with that knowledge in mind. Next time, no elders, no princes, and no Tremere. There were fun things about all those categories, but overall I found it much harder to get into character and the responsibilities of being a Pontifex interfered with my favorite things about game. However, that position also put me in a place to notice things I didn’t last year

Some of these things are game design things that I didn’t like, which are very clearly opinions, and some are aspects of the game that could be polished or their function improved. I am aware that some of these are artifacts of behind the scenes compromises that I am not aware of, too.

Part 1: Safety Workshops

I found the safety workshops very valuable and well-run. Only thing I would change is to do them more like CoT2, where we do the break, look down, etc. and practice negotiations according to the script in small groups rather than watching them demonstrated. I really missed having the ritualized dialogue practice, like the script that follows:

“Violence/Intimacy/Feeding?”

“Yes, please.”

“How do you want to do this?”

“I’d like to do X, not Y right now, and definitely never Z”

“Great!” *does X*

It was a really, really good system in my opinion, and particularly for people new to Nordic LARP or LARP in general, it gives a good framework. Honestly, this is the most important thing for me, and the thing I missed the most. As a shy person, it gave me a framework for requesting violence or intimacy that was ritualized and therefore had a lot of the guesswork removed. If only one of these suggestions gets taken, please take this one and re-implement this negotiation system

Part 2: Character

Or, Things That Are My Own Damn Fault

Getting into the meat of game itself. This section is mostly to point out that a lot of other issues I noticed (except the safety workshop thing!) wouldn’t really have mattered if I had picked a different character. I will be picking with all this in mind next year.

Irene had many things I enjoyed and I think I would have found her very interesting in a longer-running game. Her collection of personal qualities made her a fascinating and unusual elder, but I couldn’t quite push her to have the character development and personal crises I love. Some of that is my own play style- I tend to hesitate and play things too safe. I think I need characters who have everything to gain and little to lose, so that I feel less constrained. I am sure I could mitigate this with effort, but I didn’t consider it when forming connections and deciding on a narrative.

One thing I was very pleased with was the effect she had on other characters. Her interactions with others, however brief, seemed to have outsize effects and were memorable. This pleases me, and to me it means I played the character well, even if my experience personally wasn’t what I hoped it would be.

I felt like I got about halfway done with a bunch of plotlines, and resolved very few of them. The scenes involved in each were very good, but they just… didn’t tie up at the end well.

Suggestions to Myself:

• Pick a neonate. Maybe an Ancilla, but not too old. Except: Dragan, because he is a delight.

• Pick someone who is a minion to someone powerful, so they always have a task to do and also aren’t management.

• I don’t like being management.

• Don’t pick Tremere, Giovanni, or any other very clan-y clan.

• Pick someone from a domain with vibrant relationships that really speak to me- that’s as important as a good character.

• Decide on a character narrative and stick with it while planning relations. Being picky is okay. You don’t need to say yes to everyone.

Part 3: Clan

TREMERE. So, the clan got off to a rocky start online. Tremere is one of the most intensely self-involved clans, along with the Giovanni. The hierarchy is strict, everyone else hates you, the entire clan is blood bonded to the people above them in the pyramid, and absolute authority over a chunk of the clan is part of the package of being Pontifex. The clan has a lot of expectations and traditions that apply to no one else and where violating them can, in canon, get you summarily executed.

For some people, that’s why they like about playing the clan- it is why the Tremere are on their list. For others, this was not their first choice, or even their last choice. Some had no idea who the Tremere were. They might not want to participate in intense games of power dynamics and oppression with every single clan meeting, and have to weigh the consequences of every action, and that’s a very reasonable boundary. This conflict was resolved through a lot of good work on part of all the players and we managed to work something out that worked for everyone, but there were some strong disagreements about it online and in person

Things I really liked about the Clan Workshop:

• The status line where we all lined up in exact order of who outranked who. It was very helpful to see where we all stood, literally.

• Status lines in general- these were very helpful for tagging people to argue or agree with later IC.

• All the players really did their best and did a lot of good work sorting out difficult topics.

Suggestions for the Clan Workshop:

• A more assertive facilitator in the clan workshops. The clan workshop, I feel, should have given some more guidance regarding play, particularly given the number of first-time LARPers this year. We had a lovely and kind facilitator, but given the number of strong opinions (and everyone being low on sleep and having pre-LARP jitters and sometimes language barriers), someone who can guide the discussion more firmly would probably be a good pick for next year.

• Arm the facilitator with more information on the Tremere and some potential compromise ideas about how to run the Tremere as a clan with regards to hierarchy and oppression, along with workarounds for individuals who really don’t want to play to the hierarchy. For example, the two extremes might be “you are united in the face of your enemies, but internally you are more like an academic environment. There is hierarchy, but also a lot of arguing even across status lines” to the other end of “speaking out of turn will get you dominated or beaten and you’d better do EXACTLY as your superiors tell you, always”. Most players would fall somewhere in the middle, but having a range of described options might help with finding a consensus?

• One workaround that was suggested was “I don’t have time for this, I’ll deal with you on Sunday” as a way of expressing that the hierarchy was still present and preserving that for players that liked it, but giving space for the player of a lower-status character to avoid RP they weren’t interested in. It might be worthwhile to include it next year, too?

• Breaking into smaller groups based on who is blood bound to who is also something I would recommend adding, and allowing each sub-pyramid to sort out how they want to RP things within that ladder. Could even have formal questions, like the domain workshops.

• Sample ritual plans would be welcome. Improvising rituals was stressful for me- I had never done it before in a game, and I didn’t pre-plan rituals like I should have. Having some sample instructions in the Tremere packet for rituals of different sizes could provide some guidance for those who didn’t do a lot of pre-work. Maybe ask previous Tremere players for ideas or written descriptions of rituals? I’d happily contribute.

Part 4: Player Base

I feel like 170 is too many players for the way the game is structured. We couldn’t all vote in the time allotted (more on that later), it was easy to get lost in a crowd, and the game felt less focused than last year when there were only a 100. 100 is about the minimum I’d want, unless entire domains were eliminated to compress people into fewer, more fully cast domains. I know the total number of characters is based on site costs, though, so I understand this may not be changeable while keeping the game costs down. Overall, the game happening is more important than having a hypothetical ideal number of players.

There were also a lot more first-time LARPers this year, and some people in key roles were re-cast late, or the players of those roles had never LARPed before, or didn’t participate in pre-work for the game. All of those things are fine by themselves. But, with all of the factors happening a lot, at once, characters that are written to be powerhouses, coteries that are written to be cohesive, and all the relationships that are built on that foundation, end up falling through. Most of these factors are outside of staff control, but it is worth noting that the game does start breaking down when all these factors compound- it resulted in people abandoning the stated design structure of the game (voting on the Camarilla, etc.) because it became unworkable. Perhaps it would be possible to make character arcs more resilient to this, since it’s bound to happen again sometime? Take a look at characters that fell through the cracks and see if they need some revising?

Father Samuel was moved to a PC/NPC position with special casting for this reason. Other key roles probably do not need to go that far, but what about providing additional information or reaching out to players who are cast in these important roles and making sure they have what they need and providing some suggestions if they aren’t sure what to do? This may already happen, though- I’ve never played a Founder.

Part 5: Voting/Game Structure

Due to the playerbase and my character choice last year, I noticed all of this section a lot less last year. This year, there were some sticking points that made the game harder to engage with for me. I understand the game is structured to create conflict, rather than create an actual outcome or a reasonable process. There is, however, a tipping point where it moves from “story generating conflict” to “kafkaesque and frustrating”. As it stands, I find it very hard to imagine in-character that this structure was designed by anyone who wanted any kind of workable results from the Convention. And if that isn’t true, then why are we here and abiding by this? Why would we pick a system that forces outcomes most people aren’t happy with?

That in turn made it harder for me to engage with the process, especially as someone in a decision-making role.

One option that I heard about after game that I didn’t even realize was an option was Justicars voting on tradition edits after their clans have joined. Making sure people are aware of this as an additional layer of political maneuvering would, I feel, be a good quick fix. Because in the end, why should the clans that join the Camarilla be beholden to traditions that may have been intentionally created to wreak havoc by clans that did not join? It would preserve the jockeying for traditions, but it would make clans have to be clever with their attempts to undermine the Camarilla. After all, if they just attempt to troll the process and not join, the Justicars will re-write the traditions to the next runner up option that wasn’t trolling.

I know that the trolling may be part of the design on purpose, though it was explicitly discouraged by the PC/NPC Father Samuel. For me, though, as a player, it makes it hard to stay immersed because I cannot believe that this is a real situation that people would agree to participate in. Your mileage may vary greatly here.

Suggestions for First Night Voting:

I understand the beads method, and the lining up method from last year, and why the switch happened, but neither one works very well. Lining up is hard to organize with more than 100 people, and the beads method meant people couldn’t cast votes or had to pick between getting crushed and voting.

• General Suggestion: Write out the rules for the voting on handouts, or put them in the design doc. It might cut down on questions day-of.

• First idea- only clans that want to put their name in the hat for leadership of a council put out vases for each tradition. The vases are labeled. Then, each clan is called up one by one to vote for all tradition leaderships at once. This avoids the OOC crush of bodies of everyone going up at once and makes everyone’s votes more visible.

• Second idea- every player, with their nametag, gets a small bag of six beads of different colors, one for each tradition. They can vote for their pick at ANY point during the night after vases are put out for the clans. People who want to can vote early, or vote at the end, but you’ve got until 2:30 to put the beads in the vases. Bonus: if you use beads that are mostly a uniform size and weight, winners can be determined by weighing the vases.

• Third idea- secret ballot. Removes the public aspect, but filling out sheets that you get with your nametag is quick and easy

Suggestions for Second Night Voting:

Nothing, really! I like the second night voting just fine, and I really like the public posting of tradition options. The CoT3 medals are a vast improvement over the sashes from CoT2. Only thing I’d suggest is maybe writing in small letters on the back the name of the Tradition. Numbers are good for the look of the medals, but I spent a lot of time asking “… what tradition number is that?”

Suggestions for Post-Voting Politics:

• Make it more clear that Justicars now have complete authority over the traditions and can vote on changes, which may of course lead to clans joining or leaving the Camarilla. Final traditions should be up by a certain deadline, though- maybe by 9pm on Saturday? Giving people time to backroom deal on edits, but also time for the next idea…

• To keep the process open to more people, I’m going to suggest something Edin came up with regarding primogen meetings at regular vampire games: Justicar meetings to discuss edits to the Traditions should be public. The Justicars will probably do most of the talking, but people should be able to comment, interject, heckle, storm out, etc.

• Keeping this discussion time-limited will help it stay urgent, I think. No more than 10 minutes per Tradition. Say meeting starts at 7:30, is done by 8:30, final posting is done by 9, and then people have time to read and decide.

Part 6: End of Game Summaries

Entirely personal opinion: I would prefer the game end with the long-term conclusion left open-ended. Partly because it is literally impossible for anyone to know what sort of backroom deals and long-term plans people have agreed to that could skew things dramatically, so it can be really jarring if something that was a key part of your character’s arc is completely omitted, or something that they worked hard and sacrificed for and got consensus from multiple other players on doesn’t matter. This has left a bad taste in my mouth before, and though I can headcanon it into my mental idea of game with a bit of work, it means that the immediate end of each game leaves me feeling disappointed when I want to continue the excitement of having just wrapped up game.

Part 7: Game Schedule

I really feel like CoT2’s third night ran until midnight, but I might be misremembering. Can we bring that back? The last night felt so, so short! 6-10:30 just isn’t enough time to wrap up storylines. If we could compress workshops (we didn’t need all that domain time, I think) and maybe we could start game earlier on Thursday, too? Expanding day 1 and day 3 to a full six hours each would be welcome if it’s possible.

Part 8: Things I love about this game and why I’m coming back that don’t fit into the other topics

A ton of things!

I love the time period and the costuming staff and players do.

I love the NPC request process and what you all make happen.

I love the NPCs- you all are great.

I love the castle as a site.

I love how responsive and helpful all the staff are, with special shoutouts to Edin and Boruta. I know how much work it was, for example, to send out individual hotel emails to everyone, but I greatly appreciate that Boruta and crew put in the time to make us more comfortable.  

I love how thoughtful the organizers are, too- like, I would never have thought to have Plan B available, but that one thing, which I have never had to use nor think I will have to use, made me feel like staff was really thinking about all possible outcomes and cared about the players and NPCs. Being willing to commit civil disobedience on this impressed me

I love how dedicated the players are and how much they throw themselves into the characters.

I love Masquerade as a setting, for all its many flaws as a setting and as a game.

I love the work Edin and others have put into filing off Masquerade’s rougher (read: racist/sexist/90’s edgelord) bits and making clans more playable or interesting.

I love the decadent, overwhelming nature of it all. It really feels like you’re getting swept up in history.

I love the fact that it’s the scenario every year, so there’s no “one true AU” for it- there are many, and there is always next year. It’s honestly a thing that makes any rough patches much, much easier to deal with- this is no more “real” than any other run.

Conclusion:

I’ll be coming back to game next year, unless something in real life happens that means I can’t go. It was still a really fun experience, and I applaud the game runners for a lot of very hard work in making this happen. I will be bringing more interested friends this year, too.

I learned a lot about my character preferences at this game, which is something I’ve learned at every big LARP that hasn’t gone as well as I’d hoped. CoT2 with Gertrude von Hohenzollern was basically the perfect character pick for me and set a very high bar for my experience, so I’ll be looking for similar characters next year, characters that will allow me to avoid the parts of game I’m less excited about and really dive into the parts that I am.

Lastly, I’d like to thank the staff and volunteers of the game again. For starting me on my Nordic LARP journey, for making this game, for always doing your best.