Behind the Scenes at the View/What You Missed: Pick-up Realms!/Fresh Face Interview

At a practice two weeks ago, Brian Rubenstein overheard me asking someone about doing a Fresh Face interview. He then proceeded to "mention" multiple time (in a bit of a whiney voice) that I'd never asked him to do one.  Since he obviously wanted to share his opinions in the View, I reached to him to write this, asking, "You do understand this is your reward/consequence for complaining about not doing a Fresh Face interview right?" He then claimed he had just been teasing, I then told him, "you have now learned teasing me is dangerous."

Yesterday he submitted the following What you Missed for Pick-up Realms:

So, you want to know what you missed at pick-up realms. Well, sit down at let me tell you a story. Us adventurers showed up in a small village to the north, known as Rivertown. We showed up decked out in stakes, carrying tons of garlic, How did you learn about the realms? Well, I was always into LARPing, but unfortunately, the LARP that I did only ran over the summer. My brother had recently started going to WPI, and had discovered this new LARP called the Realms. Well, I went to one event (unearthed by Carrie Dolph) and loved it. It was silly, it had neat combat, and it had a spell system that let me do ritual magic. Since then I have really enjoyed going to events. expecting vampires and bats and more! What we found was a town full of people with things to sell. One person was selling information, there was an alchemist selling potions, and a blacksmith that was offering to improve our weapons. Most importantly, there was a bard there! He informed us to get to the caves we needed to go through the fields of terrible creatures. These fields were certainly full of many terrible creatures! How many events have you been too so far? About 50. If, by terrible creatures you mean small adorable fuzzy animals, they certainly were terrifying. However, then as we moved a little further, into the forest, these fuzzy animals became fuzzy animals with teeth! And claws! And one scorpion with a stinger! Oh my!

We fought against these animals until we managed to make our way forward. We got to the caves, and as we got towards the cave we ran into this crazy thing that was monologue at us. Have you ever LARPed before? Yes, I larped at an improvisational theatre LARP summer camp in New York. It had a horde of small fuzzy animals that were leaping at us and swinging claws! We fought our way through to the thing that was monologuing, but it fled before our might. Or maybe before our crazy eyes. Have you ever actually looked at an adventurer’s eyes? We are crazy! What is your character like? Where are they from? What is their race? What is important to them? Well, my character is named Crispin, and he is from the Fae Wildes. Well, being from the Fae Wildes, he naturally is Fae. He came to the realms seeking adventure, and ended up being a part of the large army that attacked Bedlam. Since then, he wandered around adventuring, as well as squiring to Mestoph Darkling, petitioning Griffindor, and becoming Rosetta’s student. His family and friends are very important to him. Anyway, we chased it into the caves, but then there was a cave-in, or something. I fell down at least. There was a swirling face thing, that I was told later was a dream demon. We were instructed not to tell it our names, thus we all went by Trent! Sounded like a good idea to me! Well, the dream demon said we were too serious to beat it, but really I think it just misunderstood us. I mean, have you ever met the adventurers.

Anyway, we needed to fight its minibosses. First, we needed to investigate a murder mystery. A number of the adventurers were chosen to be murderers! What do you remember most about your first event? I mostly remember Tarun scrambling on the ground trying to clean leaves. That was super silly. I was a murderer! Have you ever tried to kill someone in a room full of paranoid adventurers without being caught? I have, it is really hard. Sir Lucas caught and murdered me. I deserved it. The second miniboss we fought was a creepy gargoyle thing and cultists. We murdered the cultists and then had to deal with the gargoyle. I don’t really know what happened, but Therrin became one with it, and then maybe blew it up. Next, we needed to make our way through a magical minefield. Except, we were all blind, except for a couple of spellcasters. I don’t know why they were fine. With a very handy use of a nifty knapsack, we snuck our way through. What things have helped you to feel welcome in game? I have loved the community. Chimeron has been great, I have loved fighting with people on the field, and I have a great group of friends who I can talk to whenever. We then had to beat our time to get Therrin back, so we used some power and one person ran that room solo. Things got solved, and it was really fast. Therrin got back! Next were some undead dream things. Therrin and Larry and others might have made a bomb and blew up the undead lich in charge. I think Therrin just really likes blowing things up.

Next, we got pizza, and were happy. What parts of the game to you find most challenging? I have always struggled with combat. Sometimes I love combat, but it is really hard to keep up with the pace. Especially calling shots with armor in faced paced combat was a challenge for me for a while. Armor gaps have also been really tricky. We ate and ate and stuffed ourselves, before needing to fight the next miniboss. We decided to split the party! Always more fun if you split the party! One group went do go deal with bees. We had to go through a whole bunch of challenges or stay with them forever. The other group dealt with monkeys. I hear there was some dancing and maybe flying bananas. Do you have any game related goals (as either a player or a character)? Well, out of character, I really want to get involved in helping out with things. NPCing for people, prop making, and other things of the sort. In character, Crispin is trying to find his place, especially with the Fae courts gone. Finally, the bard revealed himself as having been the dream demon the whole time! No one was shocked. Anyway, he ran off and we had to have a stuffed animal fight among ourselves for a boon. Due to a clever application of Fae Tea Time, Borjid was the last one standing.

The first fight against the boss after the stuffed animals was NOT EVEN ITS FINAL FORM!!! What advice would you give to other new players? Definitely take some time to meet people. Also, definitely get involved in plot. It is especially hard to get involved in plot as a newbie, but will definitely help out getting a character who is invested in things and is interesting to roleplay. So, meet people, and also find plot to be involved in. It was a giant snake thing. We chopped off its tail several times and finally brought it down. Then, it turned into a vampire, and we took it down by hitting it with a lot of magic spells, like heal limb and raise dead. Then we went out and buried it after doing a whole bunch of other things, and finally had to deal with bats. I think. What have you enjoyed most about the game so far? Well, I love the community for sure and that is definitely a reason to keep hanging out with people. But also, I love how intense things get, and how immersive it gets when the entire realms all rallies as one. Well, afterwards I woke up, realized it was all a dream and headed off to go do more adventures. Anyway, that’s how that story ended. If you want to know more, ask around, I am sure you will get a different story from everyone you ask!

Anything else you’d like to take the opportunity to put into print?
And this is why Angie and I should never get into a troll off. Angie, it’s your move.



It came in with an email, Attached are the troll and non-troll versions of my What You Missed. It is up to you which one you post, but be aware that if you post the troll version that is making this dispute public. We shall see how that turns out! :D"

You'll note what I chose....