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.
Showing posts with label assassins' guild. Show all posts
Showing posts with label assassins' guild. Show all posts
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Thursday, July 5, 2007
The Top Ten Reasons I Love MIT #10
The Assassins' Guild
"You see a flock of 20 screaming chickens. Roleplay accordingly."
In high school, I was involved in a lot of extracurriculars. Community service, political clubs, Quiz Bowl, Science Olympiad...I could list all of them, but since this (fortunately) isn't a college application, I'll spare you. Suffice it to say I was a very busy beaver in high school. And I've always figured that's not likely to change when I head off to college.
After all, colleges have lots of extracurriculars too. Nothing strange about that, right?
Wrong.
At least when it comes to MIT.
As most of you probably know, MIT is not a normal school. Now you could be nihilistic about it and argue that there really is no such thing as "normality" anyway, but I think MIT would serve as a superb counter-example to that hypothesis. Just being on campus is enough for almost anyone to realize that MIT - from the architecture to the classes, from the teachers to the students - is like no place you've ever been before. Whatever your expectations about college, MIT and its students will defy them in the most extravagant way possible.
That is, in a nutshell, the reason I fell in love with MIT in the first place, because real life is not predictable. Real life does not conform to your expectations. Real life is wild, crazy, inexplicable. Real life is not a straight line from here to there, from birth to death - it is a twisting path, riddled with sudden turns and departures, the different trails combining and separating only to merge again, a beautiful pattern that only really makes sense many years down the road.
MIT is real. Sometimes the lows are lower, but only because the highs are higher. And even if everyone embraces the same traditions, there are still hundreds, even thousands, of variations on those cherished themes.
Other schools have traditions, sure. Other schools have strange campuses or funny quirks. And maybe I'm biased because I'm actually going to MIT, as opposed to one of those "other" schools. But just the same, no college I've ever visited has felt as real, as unpredictable, as wondrously strange as MIT.
There are a lot of examples of how MIT is different. As I go through this little Top Ten list of mine, I'll probably mention most of them, or the most common ones anyway. For me, though, one of the most concrete examples of what makes MIT different is embodied in one of the clubs on campus.
That club is the Assasssins' Guild.
First things first, that is indubitably the most badass name for a club ever.
More importantly - and to be perfectly honest I only realized this now, literally as I'm writing this entry - the basic concept of the Guild almost perfectly mirrors MIT's actual mission. Just like MIT itself is dedicated to finding new solutions to big problems, the Assassins' Guild is all about having fun in completely new and unexpected ways. Which basically means conducting outrageous LARPs - live-action roleplaying games, kind of like a novel or a play, except that you're writing the script, along with a couple dozen other fellow Assassins, who have their own ideas about how the story should end.
Then there's Patrol - the staple of the Guild, which is run (played) every Saturday night. Think paintball, except with dart guns. But that description doesn't even come close to capturing the sheer chaotic enjoyment of the game. Ah, there's nothing really like adrenaline, is there? I ended up playing Patrol during CPW*, and let me just say I am looking forward to next time.
I could probably say more, but this entry is long enough already. There's only one thing I really want to say, though, which I probably haven't been too clear about. The point of this entry isn't really that the Assassins' Guild, itself, is the #10 reason I love MIT - rather, the extracurriculars in general are the #10 reason. After all, all of MIT's extracurriculars are fantastic and I could easily write an entry about any of them.
It's just that the Assassins' Guild was one of the first clubs I discovered, even before I got in to MIT, thanks to a cleverly-placed flyer I found in the Infinite last summer. Even more importantly, though I have always believed that the Guild is truly representative of what makes MIT so different from any other school - and that is the primary reason I felt it was only fair to honor the Guild with its own entry.
And, as I said, I love the name.
*MIT-speak for Campus Preview Weekend, when hordes of pre-frosh descend on MIT to partake in a veritable orgy of crazy activities, numerous visits to classes and dorms, random visits to random parts of campus, liquid nitrogen ice cream, and lots of free food. Because no college activity is complete without free food.
And because the corollary to that theorem is that no blog entry is complete without links, here's the Assassins' own homepage. And while I'm on the topic of extracurriculars, I'm also rather fond of - among others - OrigaMIT, the Debate Team, and Rune.
Am I shamelessly plugging for these clubs? Maybe.
Is that because I'm excited to join them? Hell yes!
"You see a flock of 20 screaming chickens. Roleplay accordingly."
In high school, I was involved in a lot of extracurriculars. Community service, political clubs, Quiz Bowl, Science Olympiad...I could list all of them, but since this (fortunately) isn't a college application, I'll spare you. Suffice it to say I was a very busy beaver in high school. And I've always figured that's not likely to change when I head off to college.
After all, colleges have lots of extracurriculars too. Nothing strange about that, right?
Wrong.
At least when it comes to MIT.
As most of you probably know, MIT is not a normal school. Now you could be nihilistic about it and argue that there really is no such thing as "normality" anyway, but I think MIT would serve as a superb counter-example to that hypothesis. Just being on campus is enough for almost anyone to realize that MIT - from the architecture to the classes, from the teachers to the students - is like no place you've ever been before. Whatever your expectations about college, MIT and its students will defy them in the most extravagant way possible.
That is, in a nutshell, the reason I fell in love with MIT in the first place, because real life is not predictable. Real life does not conform to your expectations. Real life is wild, crazy, inexplicable. Real life is not a straight line from here to there, from birth to death - it is a twisting path, riddled with sudden turns and departures, the different trails combining and separating only to merge again, a beautiful pattern that only really makes sense many years down the road.
MIT is real. Sometimes the lows are lower, but only because the highs are higher. And even if everyone embraces the same traditions, there are still hundreds, even thousands, of variations on those cherished themes.
Other schools have traditions, sure. Other schools have strange campuses or funny quirks. And maybe I'm biased because I'm actually going to MIT, as opposed to one of those "other" schools. But just the same, no college I've ever visited has felt as real, as unpredictable, as wondrously strange as MIT.
There are a lot of examples of how MIT is different. As I go through this little Top Ten list of mine, I'll probably mention most of them, or the most common ones anyway. For me, though, one of the most concrete examples of what makes MIT different is embodied in one of the clubs on campus.
That club is the Assasssins' Guild.
First things first, that is indubitably the most badass name for a club ever.
More importantly - and to be perfectly honest I only realized this now, literally as I'm writing this entry - the basic concept of the Guild almost perfectly mirrors MIT's actual mission. Just like MIT itself is dedicated to finding new solutions to big problems, the Assassins' Guild is all about having fun in completely new and unexpected ways. Which basically means conducting outrageous LARPs - live-action roleplaying games, kind of like a novel or a play, except that you're writing the script, along with a couple dozen other fellow Assassins, who have their own ideas about how the story should end.
Then there's Patrol - the staple of the Guild, which is run (played) every Saturday night. Think paintball, except with dart guns. But that description doesn't even come close to capturing the sheer chaotic enjoyment of the game. Ah, there's nothing really like adrenaline, is there? I ended up playing Patrol during CPW*, and let me just say I am looking forward to next time.
I could probably say more, but this entry is long enough already. There's only one thing I really want to say, though, which I probably haven't been too clear about. The point of this entry isn't really that the Assassins' Guild, itself, is the #10 reason I love MIT - rather, the extracurriculars in general are the #10 reason. After all, all of MIT's extracurriculars are fantastic and I could easily write an entry about any of them.
It's just that the Assassins' Guild was one of the first clubs I discovered, even before I got in to MIT, thanks to a cleverly-placed flyer I found in the Infinite last summer. Even more importantly, though I have always believed that the Guild is truly representative of what makes MIT so different from any other school - and that is the primary reason I felt it was only fair to honor the Guild with its own entry.
And, as I said, I love the name.
*MIT-speak for Campus Preview Weekend, when hordes of pre-frosh descend on MIT to partake in a veritable orgy of crazy activities, numerous visits to classes and dorms, random visits to random parts of campus, liquid nitrogen ice cream, and lots of free food. Because no college activity is complete without free food.
And because the corollary to that theorem is that no blog entry is complete without links, here's the Assassins' own homepage. And while I'm on the topic of extracurriculars, I'm also rather fond of - among others - OrigaMIT, the Debate Team, and Rune.
Am I shamelessly plugging for these clubs? Maybe.
Is that because I'm excited to join them? Hell yes!
Monday, July 2, 2007
Glimpses of what's to come
Random piece of news: today I signed up for the Reuse and Assassins' Guild mailing lists. I feel more and more like a real MIT student.
Also, while I was walking to lunch the other day, I came up with the most awesome idea for an entry. Or, rather, a series of entries.
First installment should be coming up soon. A tantalizing teaser: it deals with the Assassins' Guild.
In other news, if you'll permit me to brag a little, I called for my AP scores a few days ago. To quote something I posted to the MIT Facebook group:
AP practice materials: $20
AP test charge: $83
Getting your scores by phone: $8
Passing out of 18.01: priceless
Translation: I pulled out a 5 on BC Calc, which I am so happy about you cannot believe. I had always been very confident about how well I did on multiple-choice questions, so I guess that helped me. The free response questions, on the other hand? Not so confident. One of the questions, for example, featured what basically amounted to the Polar Equations From Hell. And since I had self-taught myself everything I knew about polars in the first place, I bombed that question in spectacular fashion. Thank God for generous curves. (That was not supposed to be innuendo. But I'm too lazy to change it, and anyway it kind of makes me laugh.)
I also got a 5 on English Literature. Which really makes me laugh, because it means all the time I spent on the FEE is now completely redundant. (I won't say it was wasted, exactly. Just redundant.) But I knew that when I took the FEE anyway.
Also, I think I've come up with a new name for the blog, which will be revealed shortly. I'm probably making it sound more dramatic than it really is, but whatever. For some reason the idea of a new name makes me very excited. Change can be good, I guess.
Meanwhile, I know there's a lot of bad stuff in the world that's probably more worthy of your and my attention, but this just strikes me as very sad.
Also, while I was walking to lunch the other day, I came up with the most awesome idea for an entry. Or, rather, a series of entries.
First installment should be coming up soon. A tantalizing teaser: it deals with the Assassins' Guild.
In other news, if you'll permit me to brag a little, I called for my AP scores a few days ago. To quote something I posted to the MIT Facebook group:
AP practice materials: $20
AP test charge: $83
Getting your scores by phone: $8
Passing out of 18.01: priceless
Translation: I pulled out a 5 on BC Calc, which I am so happy about you cannot believe. I had always been very confident about how well I did on multiple-choice questions, so I guess that helped me. The free response questions, on the other hand? Not so confident. One of the questions, for example, featured what basically amounted to the Polar Equations From Hell. And since I had self-taught myself everything I knew about polars in the first place, I bombed that question in spectacular fashion. Thank God for generous curves. (That was not supposed to be innuendo. But I'm too lazy to change it, and anyway it kind of makes me laugh.)
I also got a 5 on English Literature. Which really makes me laugh, because it means all the time I spent on the FEE is now completely redundant. (I won't say it was wasted, exactly. Just redundant.) But I knew that when I took the FEE anyway.
Also, I think I've come up with a new name for the blog, which will be revealed shortly. I'm probably making it sound more dramatic than it really is, but whatever. For some reason the idea of a new name makes me very excited. Change can be good, I guess.
Meanwhile, I know there's a lot of bad stuff in the world that's probably more worthy of your and my attention, but this just strikes me as very sad.
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