10/11/2024
So, I just got back from a week of assisting Drachenfest Australia to run their inaugural event. While my part was relatively small, steering their alchemy guild and contributing some Scy’kadian flare to their crafting system, the experience has left me with a LOT to ponder.
My beautiful partner Daisy was first approached by their team to portray one of the five primary NPC roles, the necromantic shadow dragon avatar. Given she is a tall, dark, glamorous queen who just so happens to have experience with the dead (legit), I reckon they’d have been insane NOT to seek her out! Soon(ish) after, I was asked to come on board too, as their lead alchemist.
We had our initial briefing-call, and for the first few weeks we were left to brainstorm and prep with what we’d been told (which wasn’t too much, but details were promised to come), while the orgs themselves jetted off to attend Drachenfest Germany.
Upon their return, admittedly there were some moments of confusion and even frustration for both Daisy and I (flip-flopping on whether she was still to be necromantic or anti-necromantic, whether she was to be active or passive with her players, what she could do within the rules, etc… for me there were delays on getting the European alchemy rules, and what was sent didn’t feel complete, which is why I suggested using Scy’kadian rules as a substitute. Certain vital documents were shared to Discord servers I was not part of, so I was never entirely sure if the players had access to what they needed from me, or if I was missing some vital clues); though I wish to stress that neither of us were part of the inner-circle as far as plot/rules/structure goes, so we were not privy to all the stresses the orgs must have been under. I mean they only had a few weeks to pull it all together post-Euro-trip, and given they were working with reps from both Germany and USA, I can only imagine the missed emails and miscommunications (or mistranslations) they had to endure. Having at last met the team face-to-face (all consummate professionals), and having experienced many similar issues as a game runner myself, a lot of it starts to make sense, but at the time it was difficult not to feel our enthusiasm buffeted.
To make matters worse, Daisy was made aware through the grapevine (to which every Aussie LARP org always has at least one ear firmly attached) that many veteran players in our own community doubted her ability to fill the avatar role, due to her natural positivity (“Surely she can’t act evil”) and relatively limited experience in the hobby (a year). This obviously stung, and for a while she considered giving up the role… thankfully, some truly awesome friends put their two cents in, and my darling decided to knuckle down and do an even better job instead!
We arrived on the first setup day, still uncertain of how the event was going to feel for us, still a bit hazy on how some rules and final decisions were going to pan out, but prepared to improvise our way through it.
Then I immediately got sick. On the second setup day I came down with some sort of horrific, fast, stomach bug that had me retching every time I stood up. I couldn’t eat or drink anything and ended up in hospital on an IV drip, with Daisy (bless her) accompanying me.
By the next day I was better, but we were both now a day behind on prep, so we blurred into action to make up for lost time. We attended a player mediation (handled extremely well by the org team), set up the alchemy guild tent (along with the help of my alchemy team), Daisy rehearsed with the other avatars, etc… and then it was game on!
Daisy made her entrance and instantly became a crowd favourite. I’m so proud of her and how she persevered through the uncertainty and doubts. It’s easy for me to say “been there, lived that” with a decade+ of the hobby under my belt, but she went through a baptism of fire that few fresh LARPers have to, and she smashed it, carrying a lot of responsibility on her scaly shoulders!
As to the event itself, I can sum it up like this:
It got messy sometimes… that was always to be expected, Australia hasn’t dealt with Euro-LARPing to this degree in a long time…. but the players had a blast. The rules were ironed out as we went, through a mixture of good communication between the guilds, orgs, and players, with trust being genuinely placed in the hands of whomever had been promised jurisdiction over key parts (micromanagement, at least for our guilds, felt minimal, which gave us room to breathe). What we couldn’t implement on the fly, we earmarked for next year… and there was a LOT of inspiration flying around once we got to see the game actually taking place. What we saw on paper, tended to flow very differently in practice, and that visualisation proved helpful for coming up with answers to previously difficult questions.
In regards to my thoughts on overall gameplay in the Euro-style, of course there were elements that weren’t to my personal taste (bear in mind, as a rules designer with my own LARP I am always going to have biases), but I saw plenty of good stuff, and most interestingly, a LOT of effort (in terms of acting) from players; with theatrical semi-rehearsed scenes taking centre stage over actual mechanics or competitive fighting. Roleplay and escapism as the core point of LARP has always been something we strive for at Scy’kadia, and I got to see some things occur which I’ve considered implementing for years, yet avoided doing so because of commonly held beliefs that “Aussie LARPers won’t actually do this, they’ll think it’s silly/too hard/intimidating/etc.” Seeing our very own players adapt (the only other option was to miss out or leave) sparked a hope in me that Scy’kadia can at long last creep to new and exciting heights.
There was one more BIG thing I noticed while attending.
Almost. No. Salt.
The Sydney LARP scene has come leaps and bounds in the last few years, in terms of eradicating bad blood between groups (and even factions within groups). While you will always have a handful of impossible-to-please types, some meta-gamers, a clique or two, trimming the worst of it has become easier and easier and easier for our local orgs. At Drachenfest, we had not only groups from NSW, but also QLD, Melbourne, Perth, Hong Kong, USA, etc, and throughout it all EVERYONE seemed to put in effort to stay positive and ignore the bad eggs. What little salt there was going in, was sifted out in the face of overwhelming communal spirit, to the point that by event’s end, EVERYONE was congratulatory towards the victorious silver dragon avatar and her camp, even the players who they actively s**t on (in a roleplay sense only).
Celebration of a win, even when it’s not yours… celebration of simply having a good time with our friends, telling a great story regardless of how it ended… is my favourite part of this hobby. And I wish it was more broadly encountered. In fact, I’ve come out of this experience determined to see it so.
In closing, I was honoured to lend a hand with the event, and I value the insight I have gleaned because of it. The orgs impressed the hell out of me and their team should all be extremely proud, as I am of them. I can only hope I get to see some familiar faces at one of our events before the next Drachen-journey 🙂
Now, after a few days to recover, I return to my Scy’kadian plans…
P.s. Extra special thanks go out to my alchemical guild assistants, Chelsea (my 2IC, who was the epitome of “understood the assignment,” and a stunningly creative mind, picking up the slack whenever I was otherwise detained), Taash (who juggled guild AND blue camp duties with expert grace), Garth (whose measured calm acted as perfect counterpoint to the rest of us, manic weirdos all), and Leigh (who despite coming into the team later, was a valued helping hand and voice of support).
