Double double toil and trouble

Yesterday, I participated in my first official LARP for the MIT Assassins' Guild. If you don't already know what LARPing is, the acronym stands for Live-Action Roleplaying. It's a little like Dungeons & Dragons, except acted in real life instead of on paper, and much more fun. :)

The game last night was called Salem, and it was basically a recreation of the town of Salem during the witch scare of 1692...except that this time, the witches were most definitely real. I think most people went into the game expecting the plot to revolve around the witches, but as it turned out the GMs (Game Masters, the ones who wrote the story) had included a number of surprises besides the witches. For one thing, some of the townspeople were secretly French spies, British loyalists, or colonial rebels. One girl was talking to a ghost almost the entire game, my own wife had cheated on me years before...basically, every character had some sort of secret.

(Disclaimer: The game of Salem is likely to run again this spring - so if you are planning on playing in Salem later, you may want to skip the rest of this entry. Likewise, if you know you've already been cast in Salem and for some reason are looking to get some dirt on the rest of the players, that's just lame. You're ruining the fun not only for yourself, but also for your fellow players.)

So my character for the night was Goodman Thurgood Jones, the constable of Salem...and also the leading warlock of the Salem coven. Talk about a double life, eh? Not only did I get to cast spells that would set people on fire, wither their limbs, blind them, etc., I had to take part in an evil ritual that would basically desecrate the town congregation hall. Besides that, I was cheating on my wife with another witch in the coven, which was in and of itself a severe violation of the coven rules. As one of the GMs said, "It takes a special man to sell his soul to the devil and still think he can keep secrets from his master."

As it happened, Lucifer himself was present in Salem town - apparently a deacon in some neighboring town had made a pact with the devil, and Lucifer had taken possession of his body. In game terms, that meant the deacon knew practically everything about everybody, including all the witches, and was working very hard to pressure, threaten, or otherwise coerce everyone in town to voting for him. One of my very first conversations in-game was with the deacon, who basically conveyed that he knew exactly who I was, and that if I voted for him he'd cast a blind eye. So that was pretty convincing, even though I had no idea how he knew I was a warlock, since I had done absolutely nothing witchy (yet).

But ultimately what the deacon knew didn't matter...because he was killed minutes before the actual election. That's right, someone actually killed off an incarnation of Lucifer. I instantly guessed the murderer (and I turned out to be right!) and I probably should have thrown him in the stocks...but I had no real evidence, and when I questioned him he did a very good job of acting innocent. Either I'm a bad constable, or a very just one. ;)

Incidentally, the same guy also killed my son about two-thirds through the game, for reasons I still don't really understand. Once again, I was pretty sure it was him, since he was one of the last people with my son and his story of the murder didn't match up with what actually happened. But by that point everybody was too busy running around and pursuing their own agendas for me to really do anything, and since he later turned out to be a French loyalist (and therefore sort of on "my side") I guess it was a good thing I didn't do anything to him - although I did end up chasing him around later, just for the hell of it. He managed to escape, yellow-bellied Frenchman.

Anyway, when we finally tried to elect a minister, there were only two candidates - myself and another fairly ordinary man. I nearly got myself elected, but I realized I couldn't do much witchcraft if I became minister, since everyone would always want to know where I was, so I withdrew my nomination and let the other guy have it. So instead of becoming minister, I instead became the minister's right-hand man in town, which was just as good, if not better.

Ultimately, though, I did much more politicizing than witching. As I mentioned before, the British and the French were very active in the city, though the French in particular were pretty stealthy about it. Another issue was the Indians, who were very concerned about the presence of the British in Salem. I ended up forging a three-way alliance between the town of Salem, the French agents, and the Indian tribe. I also helped the Indian envoy kill off the local British captain, took part in the ghost's wedding, set the minister on fire, and completed two-thirds of our satanic ritual...all without a single person ever accusing me of being a witch.

Basically, it was a great experience. I didn't do much sneaking around or much serious combat, but I had a great time simply interacting with people, not to mention manipulating them and/or flat-out lying to them. Even though it was my first game, I caught on pretty quickly, and the other players were simply amazing as well. I'm already looking forward to the next game. :)

That's about all I have for this entry, and in any event I have to run. Keep checking back for more about my weekend, some of the clubs I've started to get involved in, and - last, but not least - those dreaded p-sets.