[Opening theme]
Good morrow nerds. I am Cheyenne and welcome to the LARP House.
This episode I am going to be talking about:
Trying a vampire LARP.
Actually, I realized that I'm wearing the wrong flower crown for this so,
if you'll excuse me for a moment.
[Creepy instrumental version of "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones]
[Humming creepily]
[Singing] Life is but a dream...
Now that is a more fitting flower crown for this episode.
Flower crown
What you have just seen is a trailer for the LARP "Natten's fortellinger".
Which is a "Vampire the Requiem" -LARP, and to my character within.
"Vampire the Requiem" and "Vampire the masquerade" are two different game universes,
though both games are designed by White Wolf.
I'm gonna, I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get right into this.
So even among the LARPers vampire LARP has a very interesting reputation
They can often be treated like the edge Lord in the back of the classroom, if that makes any sense.
And so even though I've been LARPing for a few years now I never actually tried vampire LARP.
There seemed to be this really visceral reaction to vampire LARP, even among some LARP communities.
Sooo.. I began to question it.
What I'd heard about vampire LARP is that it's basically a lot of debauchery.
And being a person who's pretty high up there,
pretty high on the asexual scale.
It didn't really sound like a wonderful time for me personally.
But eventually I decided why not? What do I have to lose?
Pride?
Can't lose what you never had. Who am I trying to impress here?
So I decided to try out Convention of Thorns,
a White Wolf game run by Dziobak studios in Poland.
And long story short about convention of thorns:
I had a great time!
I got to be a flower crown alabaster badass.
The costumes were incredible.
The castle was beautiful.
And all of the debauchery type roleplay?
They had an entire floor just for that stuff.
You could just walk right by that floor. You pretend you don't even see it.
Like a dog that strong something bad.
In fact I had such a great time at Convention of Thorns,
that I decided I wanted to play that character type again.
You know the immortal ingenue with an appetite for secrets
I love secrets.
I also wanted to get a better feel for the vampire LARP scene in general.
So I was looking for it,
and that is when I had "Nattens fortellinger" recommended to me.
I got an email saying that there was a game with a viking vampire family,
who wanted to adopt me.
Let's just say:
Yes, please!
I had no costume for this because I had just moved from California to Germany,
but like magical German fairy godmothers,
this company called Mytholon asked me if they could sponsor any part of my costume.
So...
Said yes!
I sent them a list and said that any one of these things would be helpful,
and I would be happy to do a review,
because I've heard really good things about this company from my friends.
And then they just...
They sent me..
They sent me the whole list.
They sent me every single thing..... on that list.
Every.. [chokes]
I'm gonna link everything I was wearing in the description,
because affordable store-bought garb is a godsend.
The character's name is Sif.
She is a brand new fresh little baby vampire, and she just wants everyone to be friends.
She's also got a couple of neural divergences,
because of the circumstances under which she was turned. So..
..basically playing me as a vampire [awkward chuckle]
Now on to the game!
I only really have two issues with these games so far, and they're both by White Wolf.
So keep that in mind.
Having said that one of the issues is something that I've noticed with a lot of mechanics heavy games,
especially franchise ones that are, you know, multiple chapters all around the world.
That issue is: New character uselessness.
It happens in a lot of games where in order to make a character useful,
you have to be very powerful,
as opposed to making them useful by being unique in some way.
It kind of takes a balance of those things in mechanic's heavy games to make it work,
but when the balance is off, and it's more towards you have to be powerful to be helpful.
It can result in baby characters not being included in story, for.. the first multiple games.
They just end up being too underpowered and useless to actually help with any situations,
and that's, that's just.. that's, I'm sorry... You know what?
It's not good design! I said it.
What are you gonna do?!
Because being protected is great and heartwarming and fun,
but being unincluded in things and then being like locked in a tower
because you need protection because you're squishy and can't do anything.
That's just, that's boring and frustrating.
I'll just be in my room making noise and pretending that I don't exist
that can totally be helped by designing your game so that characters could be a little more unique
and they don't have to power up quite so much before they can start being helpful.
For players that can be helped by including newcomers actively.
Finding a reason to like or dislike them,
finding a reason to help them make friends and enemies.
Doing something that pulls them into the game universe, like the actual events of your game.
At least these are things that you should consider if you want new players to actually come back,
and have fun, so that they can see how awesome your game universe is.
Feel like I'm gonna start a fight on the Internet..
The second issue has to do with accessibility, in a way.
I mentioned earlier, ehm..
that I am a..
pretty high up on the asexual scale, like..
like.. pretty high.
What that means is that I am in with a group of people
who really needs to be able to avoid...
Certain themes.
It needs to be avoidable somehow,
in order for us to play a game without having a bad brain time.
So my issue here is:
That in the design document of this game
feeding,
like drinking blood, like the thing that makes a vampire a vampire.
That every vampire has to do,
is written as a
/sensual experience/
[Awkward laughter] uh oh
Some trouble on the horizon
for the SS asexual.
but why do snacks have to give people adult feelings?
Why?
And no that is not a question. I want answered.
I know you internet. I know what you're thinking.
Don't do it put down the keyboard bongos. I don't want to have that discussion.
I do not actually want to know.
Why?
Hmm, you ever get so worried you sound like a seal?
But everything else with "adult" themes in this game can be avoided,
pretty easily, actually surprisingly easily.
So thumbs up there.
So I decided I'm just gonna 'Lestat' this
this character if she's gonna drink the blood of forest animals,
even though I like forest animals more than I like most people and that hurts me a little bit.
It's not a problem. It's no problem, it's no /real/ problem..
Until.. until it was a problem
So at both Convention of Thorns and Nattens Fortellinger
another player tried to use vampire hypno magic
to make my character participate in feedy shenanigans
[clears throat]
Uh oh heh
And both times it was totally a situation of:
"oh you look..
..bad."
"You should eat something. Take care of your undead body"
"Yeh kid, you rascal."
It wasn't meant to be creepy at all in any way.
They just didn't realize what that meant in the context of this particular rule set.
Somebody did totally stop it at Convention of Thorns, you know:
"You can't do that to her, you can't use hypno magic on her.
That flower crown idiot, is our flower crown idiot."
But in Nattens Fortellinger, no such luck.
Of course you can always cut a scene in LARP whenever you feel uncomfortable,
or for whatever reason, and no one should judge you for that
If they do..
they are..
they're..
They're incorrect.
Send them to me and I will eat them for breakfast
But if you're like me and those situations make you freeze up like a deer and some undead headlights.
It's kind of too late at that point.
Like the bad brain time has been had then.
So might I suggest going back to the golden rule of emotional safety in LARP:
Check it before you wreck it
Designers, please consider not writing these particular themes into your games as a totally unavoidable,
inescapable,
aspect of the universe.
Please.
Please!
Especially if you're a super popular worldwide franchise.
The most popular of which
that exists.
And players! If your game is written like that,
then, my dudes my bros, please
don't use social hypno magic to force
characters into that kind of role play without checking with them first.
Please!
I know this game has been around a really long time.
It's a really old game and some people might not realize how outdated some aspects of it are.
And that's okay.
But I'm telling you now.
Consider yourself told.
It's not a good look. It's not.
We should ditch it.
Just ditch it,
like, like frosted tips like the early two-thousands.
But now let's move on to the things I loved, because there are a lot of them.
And I'm gonna put these tips down before I crush them with excitement.
Aesthetics:
The makeup, the costumes, the whole murder goth look
that makes you feel simultaneously rock and roll and classy.
Where else can you get that?
Like maybe at a wedding, where it's like a rock and roll themed wedding?
But they have like string covers of AC/DC to make it still feel classy?
Like that's that specific situation, and vampire LARP.
Are like the only times you get to feel like that.
It's awesome.
Dark themes:
You get to sit around and question your humanity.
You get to have your moral integrity checked like every five minutes,
and you can sit around and exchange dark secrets with your friends.
[Whispering] I love secrets!
Emotional indulgence:
And stay with me here.
Most of the roleplay that I have seen in vampire LARPs has been cathartic in the extreme.
If someone does something you don't like;
You can burst into tears in the middle of the room.
You can ruin their reputation slowly with carefully placed rumors.
You could literally eat them.
You could start a vampire war.
It's all a possibility in the world of vampire LARP, friends!
Get all those repressed emotions out of your system
by being the most horrible emotional monster you've always wanted to be.
I believe in you.
Easy costuming requirements:
You absolutely do not have to dress like an actual Viking to play this game.
I'm just a little bit, a lot of bit crazy
In fact I was the one who stood out for wearing that stuff at the game and that was a character choice.
You can wear jeans and a t-shirt and a denim jacket.
Fit right in.
Amazing.
No setting requirements:
You don't need a castle to play this game.
It's set in modern day, and vampires are varied.
They have all kinds of lodging.
Just a bunch of regular everyday undead blood-suckin' serial killers
having sleepovers at each other's houses.
Physical accessibility:
Any kind of combat that I've seen a vampire LARP,
the system has nothing to do with your actual real world physical capabilities.
Anyone has the ability to crush anyone, and that's something I need more of in my life.
[Adventure violence music]
Am I going to play more vampire games?
Yes
I think they're great!
I don't think every aspect of every game is great.
But so far my first thoughts:
Vampire LARP; not as advertised, and that's a good thing.
So let me know if you want me to make more videos about my journey down the vampire LARP rabbit hole.
We can go on this little adventure together.
And because the subject matter of this video has had to do with my little viking flower child;
I am going to make another viking flower child the feature LARPer of this episode.
This is Pernille of ONO ONO FX on Instagram.
I really hope I said that right.
I'm really sorry if I didn't, but it'll be spelt and I'll link to everything. Please..
..forgive me.
She's a makeup effects artist from Denmark who looks like a mermaid from space.
That's what she actually looks like, in real life.
She does beautiful clean work, and she brings so much to the aesthetics of every LARP she attends.
And.. ehm I'm
..getting warm
And with that we're done for this episode my nerds. Thank you so much for watching..
We love you, we cherish you.
And if you have any questions comments emotional outbursts,
if you would like to support us in any way links in the description will be available for all of that.
I could not do this without you guys.
So, thank you!
You can also check out our actual website that is live now,
with a store and stuff.
I'd like to take this moment to thank my Lord and Savior:
Erica
Thank you for that.
And as always nerds;
Thank you so much for liking us, subscribing to us, and fighting with us.
Fun fact; I have been dyeing my hair deep red since the very beginning of high school.
Which is incidentally when my little brother was born,
and so when I told him that I am gradually going to go back to my natural hair color,
which is blonde.
He was very shocked.
He didn't know that I was blonde.
He just looked down and his hands went silent,
until he looked back up at me slowly and said:
"Am I blonde?"