## What Happened
For PAX 2023 we ran I Danced with the Devil twice on Saturday, one afternoon game (1-5) and one evening game (7-11). Signup for the afternoon game opened on Saturday morning, signup for the evening game opened after the first game began. Both games were successful, as measured by player energy and by our [[LARP Metrics|standard metrics]] (with adjusted expectations for the afternoon game). **We learned that there is an appetite for a game run in the afternoon slot, but not enough of an appetite to maintain a 60 player game for 3+ hours.** We had roughly 30 players remain for the full game, which was cut to about 2.5 hours, but received very strong feedback from those players. My interpretation is that an afternoon game is competing with more events than an evening game is - during an evening game, there's not as many other events running concurrent to us, while during an afternoon game players might choose to move on to something else after an hour of play. From this it's clear that *some* LARP event should occur during this afternoon session, but that simply running one of our evening games during that slot is insufficient. Something should be crafted that better fits the needs and appeal of this timeslot.
We ran two games on the same day, and we learned that **this is viable from the perspective of set design and facilitator energy.** This was an aggressive move on our part and it paid off extremely well, coming close to doubling the number of players we were able to take in a single day. It is probably true that more of a facilitator 'rotation' would be useful - our facilitators were definitely exhausted by the end of Saturday, but we proved that this was valid in concept.
Lastly, **we confirmed that there is a major appetite for non-vampire games with roleplay-focused mechanics, and demographic wins to be achieved.** The contrast between table shifts that I worked in 2022 vs 2023, or pictures of our games between those two years could not be clearer - we have never had a better distribution of female, PoC and queer players than in our 2023 games. We weren't just getting players excited with the ideas of the game, we were attracting the kind of players we want to see in these spaces. Going hand in hand, we did *not* attract or see in play the "vampire dude-bro" archetype who has managed to appear, in one form or another, in every vampire game we've ever run at PAX.
## On the Ground Decisions
We have always found that some of our best decisions or realizations about the game are made the day of. Here are some of the things that were added to this game just before or while we were running it:
- Opening announcements were expanded to include ~20 minutes of roleplaying exercises. At 5 minutes each, these were 1) introduce yourself as your character, 2) brag about the coolest thing your character has ever done, 3) spread the 'rumor' of your character by taking the story you told in the last exercise and making it *bigger*, and 4) the blue Slurpee test (what does it look like when your extremely supernatural character tries to walk into a 7-11 and order a blue Slurpee?)
- The ritual system was entirely rewritten:
- A Karma requirement was eliminated from the rituals. Instead, players could perform their ritual at any time, and choose how much Karma to contribute - this amount became the new 'number to beat.'
- A faction could not perform their ritual more than once - you had one shot. BUT, players could participate in *other* faction rituals as many times as they wanted. This meant that recruitment / persuasion became a valid form of play and people always had something to strive for.
- A new benefit was added for each faction after performing their ritual.
- Eschaton poisoned their own Karma, making it useless for any other rituals.
- The Unit turned their Karma into an intel gathering tool - it could be given to anyone to force them to answer a question truthfully, or reveal how much Karma they had.
- The Twilight Cooperative, as a Cooperative, became able to share Twilight Karma - exchanging it without Claim or Wyrd.
- Pyrebane gained a group chant - anyone who *joined* their chant like a 'sheep' had to give one Karma up to the group - the group then had to decide who got to keep the Karma.
- Vespera gained more claim to their stolen Karma - anytime they claimed a Vespera Karma, they could take a second Karma.
- Caelum gained a free Karma anytime they sat down at a gambling table.
- The Thorneblood family shed their Wyrds, as they were drawn closer to their 'home dimensions.'
## What Worked
- Roleplay began immediately, a high energy was maintained throughout the entirety of both games, drop rate was favorable.
- People jumped into the Oathbound system pretty quickly in a wide variety of ways - this included active (people throwing their Claims around to begin accumulating Karma) and defensively (people shying away from scenarios with their Wyrd).
- The puzzles were received well (puzzle box / swordfish puzzle was solved in both games)
## What Didn't
### Karma System
- Some of the Claims / Wyrds simply did not function - they didn't happen frequently enough to be useful.
- Symmetric claims / wyrds became confusing.
- Announcing your claim in order to use it sometimes made word spread *too* quickly
- A couple of players felt that watching out for Claims was inhibiting to roleplay
We had a problematic interaction between two players - player A grabbed an item that was in the possession of player B (but was left unattended on the table), in response player B grabbed player A's wrist. The situation was resolved without escalating, however player A noted that the importance of props in the game meant that 'stealing' should be explicitly disallowed or should have a particular mechanic behind it.
The props probably received a disproportionate level of attention. The majority of the props were Wyrds for the Thorneblood family, but they were an immediate focus for a large number of players, and there were a couple of times where players seemed frustrated, not knowing what the props could be used for.
## Questions to ask
- Is Eschaton Limited too strong?
- They 'won' both games, successfully performing their ritual. Interestingly, they won in very different ways - in the first game they were the first to organize, moved quickly in performing their ritual, and then kept other groups distracted. In the second game they waited until the very end, building a massive coalition of players united behind their ritual. Because of this, it is not clear whether Eschaton is 'too strong' compared to the other factions - but winning twice at least gestures in that direction.
- Does Twilight work as a faction?
- Twilight was the last faction written, and was somewhat muddled as a consequence. Within its narrative, characters are almost perfectly split between the 'eager, precocious investigators' and the 'weary, traumatized survivors,' which results in a lack of cohesion that leaves players drifting. For this reason, I paid special attention to how players experienced the Twilight game. It was clear that players had a good time, and I did not witness any clear break points during the game, but the majority of complaints about the Oathbound system came from Twilight players, which might point to an underlying issue within the faction. Time needs to be spent on whether they would benefit from a more firm narrative direction being implemented.
*Author:* [[Jacob Shpiece]]
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