Masquerade Grande : cWOD LARP

Before 2009
Masquerade Grande
cWOD LARP : Vampire the Masquerade

MASQUERADE GRANDE
He wore the gown.
The ebony gown that was his Sire's. No one liked her. No one in the room particularly even wanted to remember her. The Lady Jadviga Almanov of Bohemia was not one of the Kindred others would love to still see walking about. Her harsh tongue and cold heart were legendary by Toreador standards and quite frankly (though never admitted aloud), none in the room save the Toreador ever really cared for her passing.

Except to thank whosoever brought her death for making their own lives easier.

But SHE came back.

This was an awesome game, since it was one of the few games I ran which literally was held in public view.  The gaming area was cordoned off, as to avoid causing confusion with those who were not playing.  The game was held within a mall so it had a lot of exposure to people who were definitely not gamers.

My players were DJ Mojo Jojo, Isami, Tommy, Cliff with my then-office mate Joey (who never played an RPG before) playing the role of the Ghost who reveals to them the true reason the spirit of Jadviga Almanov of Bohemia returned.  Being an un-official LARP game, this game did not use the usual Mind's Eye Theater Live Action roleplaying game system.  Instead, depending on the clans of the players, I handed them each bunch of a small cards with the name of the Disciplines they had.  Each card could be "used" for an effect.  So one with Dominate, for example, can hand the card to another player, then say, "You will tell me who your sire is" and the other player get's forced to comply.  The system was crude, but it worked in keeping the game fun, that's for sure.

Purists will note that Jadviga is supposed to be Ventrue, but for this game I felt it would be awesome to have her as a Toreador instead. :-)  I guess only a Toreador would wear her gown to "remember her."   Of course, it was only later that the players realize the gown itself combined with this ring that she owned that was allowing her to manifest through her childe.  So they eventually strip the childe (me) of both the ring and the gown.

I still remember handling Joey the small note with her acting notes and asking her, "Are you sure this isn't too weird for you?"  She smiled and told me, "This is going to be fun!"

For the gown, I had to go to my uncle Ricky who was handling the theater group in Ateneo.  I asked him if I could borrow it and miraculously, the gown fit me (given I was what, a 5' 11" guy with a thirty six inch waistline by then?)    The old recovered site is here, but I decided to repost all the images in this page for easy viewing.  

Ah, LARP.

So much like theater.

So fun.

Yes, in our world, the Kindred drank Diet Coke.