by Gerald "Gray" Chartier
[ICYMI: Part I here]
Part Two
As
previously mentioned, when playing in the Camarilla’s Live Action
Vampire LARP, no matter where one played, there were always certain plot
elements one could expect to find. In particular, one could expect to
find the same antagonists whether they played in Boston, Seattle, or
London – no matter where one went, one could always find the Sabbat
making trouble one way or the other.
There
isn’t much commonality of plot within the Realms. Every eventholder is
free to make up an entire world. Thus, there tends to be wildly
different antagonists from event to event. That can be both good and
bad. It’s good if I didn’t like the plot of one particular event – I
won’t be seeing that plot at every event I go to. However, it’s also
bad because if I did like an event’s plot, I only get to interact with
it when that particular EH/nation throws another event, which usually
winds up being once or twice a year. That lurching from plot to plot is
another obstacle to immersion.
That
is not a criticism of any Eventholder, past or present. Our EHs
routinely do a fabulous job coming up with interesting worlds and
engaging plots to interact with. However, because there’s so little
agreed-upon detail in our setting, EHs are basically obliged to start
from scratch. If our setting had more depth, it would provide elements
for EHs to draw on to shape their plots. We might see more overlap from
event to event if EHs were basing their plots around a common setting.
In
addition to the common setting, the Camarilla’s Live Vampire game had
storytellers at the chapter, regional, and national levels. Chapter
storytellers created plot and ran games at the chapter level. regional
storytellers created plot that was shared in common by all the chapters
in the region, and national storytellers did the same with plot that was
shared by all the chapters in the country. The higher level STs would
coordinate with chapter STs to bring regional and national plot to the
players.
Realms
as an organization is roughly analogous to the Camarilla’s Northeast
region. Broadly speaking, Realms nations serve the same functions as
Camarilla chapters, gathering players in their area and hosting events
for the community. However, we lack an equivalent to the Cam’s
regional-level storyteller, so even if someone was interested in
creating a plot that could be run across multiple Realms nations,
there’s no one to bring it to for coordinating with the EHs. The Realms
is poorer for it, because having those storylines that interconnected
the chapters was a large part of what made the Cam’s Vampire LARP so
immersive.