We're not sure exactly when vampires stopped being horrific and became vehicles for adolescent angst, but we suspect roleplayers might have to own up to some of the blame.

-- Darths and Droids #319 Commentary

* This is my concern--I've only been to one other Boffer LARP in the area (we're not counting BleachLARP, since that was Canadian and run by Cosplayers as much as by LARPers) and it was... shall we say, a less than enjoyable experience all around? Basically, I roleplay and LARP because I love playing dress-up-and-pretend. I never got over that as a child; I have an active imagination and an active fantasy life, and finding other people to play an elaborate and slightly structured game of Let's Pretend with is basically an awesome windfall. The bonus of getting to play pretend in an interesting world--like the universe of Persona 4, to cite one of my favorite online games of the moment, or a mythologically-oversaturated modern world, or Avatar: The Last Airbender, Justinified or fictionalized historical mishmash Europe with shapeshifters and fairies, or any number of other awesome settings, is also something I adore.

Unfortunately, at the last and only other Boffer game I've attended, the other players and staff dismissed the two things I love most (setting and character interaction) in favor of a mechanic entitled "crush". Crush was also a word they used more than the Governator's Conan the Barbarian, and, probably, more than important structural words like "the" and "and". And as far as I discovered, "crush" basically amounted to "winning by hitting other dudes until they run out of HP". When we (myself, angelofthenlght, twilsemail and raion showed up) and asked about the background and culture of the race we'd chosen to play, the response (mind you, this wasn't the Beta; it was the First Official Event) was "we'll get around to writing the fluff later". We then proceeded to talk OOC about the game for a long time, sneak around the woods a bit, and then get into, basically, Capture the Flag meets a WoW Raid. Two teams (suspiciously not named Horde and Alliance, but something like "Affiliation" or "Coalition" versus "The Scourge" or something) playing capture the flag by fighting; as soon as you ran out of HP you just walked back to your base and waited to respawn. And there was... literally, no in-story or in-character information given to us as to why our characters were doing this, why they cared that they were doing this, etc etc etc.

Reports of Seventh Kingdom tell me it is not like this, but, having been burned, I remain wary.

I discussed this with one of my more charming students this afternoon; I mentioned I was going to CVS to get my PPD read (so that I can be certified TB free and continue to work as her teacher, as a matter of fact). And here I am, on my lunch break, sitting in the Bryn Mawr CVS waiting for the Minute Clinic to be available. Humorously, I have a sort of nasty cough, although since no blood is involved I doubt that it's tuberculosis. Somehow.

My schedule was rather cut down at work today and tomorrow, which is not a terrible thing, since I'll be working Friday night at MG, although I don't know where I'll go between the shifts; if it's enough time to go home or not, for instance. My commute is half an hour or more, after all. At the same time, I want to get to see Justin; we spend a lot less time together on the new schedule. So today is a blessing, really; we get the entire afternoon together and we might even see a movie. (G. I. Joe, for those who want to know.)

And the Clinic person really needs to show soon; I only have 35 minutes left and I'm starting to worry. Showing up late from lunch would be a problem, I think.

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english_majors

Meyers also adds that teaching the Bible "would be a great thing if the teachers brought a properly skeptical attitude towards it." The problem here is that skepticism is an irrelevant criterion in a literature course: you do not come to a more sophisticated understanding of a literary text by being skeptical about its truth claims. A fruitful discussion of Hamlet in an English class does not take the form of a debate on the existence of ghosts.