Skip to main content

Camarilla Agram 8 review



Camarilla Agram 8, played last weekend, was the last major event of the year of our Vampire larp Camarilla Agram (well, besides the Sabbat Agram special event on Dec 13th - Camarilla Agram 9 will be played on January 10).

Let's be honest - last few major events we have lost the visual edge. At our first event, we brought in a make-up artist and made fangs for our players. At Camarilla Agram 1-3 we were in a small apartment, which was decorated much better every time we were playing. Since Camarilla Agram 4, we moved to the new environment - KKZ. While it was much larger and roomier than our previous location, it was never decorated as much or so densely. And while our costume quality went up, somewhere along the way we have lost the makeup. And the music. And the lighting...



Camarilla Agram 8 reversed all those thrends, and with a vengeance. We had skilled people doing makeup - especially visible for Nosferatu players. There was good quality fake blood. All players chipped in to bring candles and extra moody props. Music was better than ever. And as a result, we achieved the best Vampire atmosphere that we ever had.

Check out the video on top (entrance and security check) for a better view of some costumes, and the video below for how it actually was on the event itself during gameplay:


The Council that brought Prince Darius to power

The social situation was rather interesting. Zagreb was Prince-less, and it was the time for a new one to take position. But there was no real gap in power, as the old Seneschal was holding the reins strongly. He ended up becoming the new Prince, having the full support of the Primogen Council.

Apart from the politics, protocol and power shifts involved in setting a new prince and regular Camarilla bickery, there was a diplomatic visit from the nearby Anarchs, a (very strange) emissary from the Sabbat, a visiting plague carrier, and several other new characters who found themselves highly engaging.


Since my character is currently a Keeper of Elysium (there's a wiki for meta info about our characters), that means local security detail was up to me in-character (apart from being one of the organizers OOC). I did my best to involve others whom I placed as security personnel, gave them tasks, hierarchy, and other things during gameplay (e.g. this one is suspicious, keep an eye on him and report to me later etc). Players reported this was fun for them, and they felt engaged :)

Other reactions to the event were also quite positive. To the role-play, but mostly to the atmosphere which topped previous events. I guess it's a good lesson in just how much props, lighting and music can affect the general mood and experience of a larp.

A lesson best taken to heart.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The 15 rules of larp

The following 15 rules (warning: strong language) were written some years ago in Great Britain, and have been pretty much generally accepted on the British larp scene. Especially popular is rule 7 - widely known by its number and commonly considered to be the most imortant rule of all (and I agree). Even the biggest British larp forum has taken Rule7 as its name. The rules have been originally created by the Drunken Monkeys and edited by Rick Wynne who added some extra stuff in the explanations to make them more understandable to international audience (it still contains some British larp lingo though), more work-safe and to throw in his two cents. (copy of the original wording is available here ) 1. Don’t play a mighty warrior; play a warrior and be mighty. Don’t label your character. As soon as you say that you are the best swordsman in the land someone will come along and kick your ass. Just get into the mindset of the person and role-play it out. 2. No one cares about you...
6 comments
Read more

TESC IV: Ebonheart review

TESC is a Croatian Elder Scrolls-inspired larp, started by Marko Zadro and ran by him and his team for more than 4 years so far. During its first two years of existence, four larps were ran (the second was the one actually counted as first, as first larp was counted as playtest) which were well-received, well-visited and raised the visual level of Croatian fantasy larps. Yet TESC IV: Ebonheart was a whole different beast altogether. General ideas were formed by organizers far before the logistics to do them became available, and 2.5 years elapsed between the previous larp of the series and this one. Also, this is the first larp so far directly inspired by the organizer's (and mine) favorite game of the series, Morrowind. Inspired by the European blockbuster castle larps, TESC IV became the first Croatian blockbuster castle larp - although at the far lower entrance price (€85 as opposed to €500+ price typical of those). While this means production values weren't exact...
Post a Comment
Read more

It's been way too long without any updates

  I'm just back from PoRtaL XII, which was back in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, 6 years after PoRtaL VI , which is - incidentally - only 3 posts below this one on my blog, and I still remember it like it was yesterday. And this means I failed to review the past two year's PoRtaLs, also excellent. Here's some representation for them. Back during PoRtaL 10 in Krakow, I did a presentation called  Designing larps with intent . It was streamed, and can be found on Youtube. For PoRtaL 10, I also wrote and ran a larp Journey to Tau Ceti - an expanded version of the Arrival at Tau Ceti. I was a mess at documenting it, and it still remains in an unpublishable state. Both of these were run on Friday, which means I haven't really see much else on the convention that day, but I did on Saturday, when I was also able to play Ties that Bind larp by Alexandros Alexiou. I skipped Sunday, as we had to go early to drive home. For documentation purposes, full program listing is here . At next year...
1 comment
Read more