[quote=“Lady Prema”]The Rose and the Dragon - Definitely the highlight of my weekend, loved it from beginning till end. I really loved the dynamic of the four camps, the greenwood was awesomely eclectic. However the highlight was roleplaying with my fellow wisewomen - Ellen and Michelle you guys were awesome, especially since you ran around after me the whole night, and looked after my wayward ways. I really love playing the type of character who just goes out and creates things to do, thanks the Matt and Helen for writing her, she’s awesome![/quote] 
Thanks Prema Credit also needs to go to Jackie who came up with the concepts and initial plots for the “wise women” (they’re still called Witches in our prep docs 
)
[quote=“kharnak”]Phoenix Project - Dr Hollzman
This was insane. As the leading medical officer I demand more upfront information about why these people keep turning up in my medical bay full of life-threatening and recklessly achieved injury! Great game. I honestly expected a different outcome. Nice touch with the information video from Ruzzo. TK & Kirk, you two… shakes head - I think it was Raoul, Gaffy and Matt Read who I helped the most, not that I knew what I was helping with. Using my medical jurisdiction to free prisoners gave me the sense of power that the Dr title gave me over certain situations. Thank you Ben for being a coma patient for so long. Matt Swain you … you…[/quote]I have no idea to what you are referring, Dr Hollzman. Go back to your lab and do your work, would you?
Hoo boy, I guess while I’m here I should do this too… There are a couple of different themes running through this, spot the trends
Evil Overlord Society
Character: Captain Black. Final Status: Deceased
Had a blast at this one. Not going to spoil the plot (I assume this will be run again - it should be!) but really enjoyed messing around with people a bit, wheeling and dealing, getting what I was after then getting it taken off me, got myself the most awesome minion ever (thanks Serena!) and really enjoyed the manner of my death. I was attacked by another Overlord, whom I defeated in combat. I was then attacked by his “ally”, whom I also defeated. I turn around, and get shot. By a freakin MINION. What an inglorious end to a spectacular career. Really cool game and just the right thing to kick the weekend off with.
Tesla’s Wedding
Character: Pierre de L’Eclaire, Groom. Final Status: Happily married
A really interesting setting which (if I must be honest) my character wasn’t that involved with. There were a BUNCH of plots going on of which I was completely unaware, my goal in life being to marry my darling Tesla von und zu Drakenwyrm, which I duly did. Special props to Patch as the frankly terrifying “Cousin Bernard” who wanted - quite rightly - to know what it was his favourite cousin saw in me, although he did warm up after talking with the rest of my family (thanks to my brother Simon (Nick Pitt) and Cousin Eugenie (Aurelie Houdelette) for sorting him out) 
A game with great potential, I was playing as a mundane character in a decidedly non-mundane world.
The Phoenix Project
Character: Dr Scott Granger, scientist. Final Status: Running for his life
Well now. This didn’t quite go the way I was expecting it to, although it was certainly heading in the right direction. Dr Granger recognised very early on that either a) funding was going to get cut with extreme prejudice, or b) there would be very few survivors… as a result he was trying to talk to those people he thought would be capable of re-starting the project into a special team. That didn’t include very many members of the original team, with the possible exception of Dr Hamilton who at least knew what she was talking about. However things went According To Plan (not his plan, unfortunately) before he could make the pitch and so things just got very interesting for him.
The Rose and The Dragon (As a GM)
Character: Fillbert Chaucey, random forest dweller. Final Status: Glad it’s over
I was pretty worried about how this game was going to go; it had a number of elements which hadn’t been tried in a flagship larp before (off the top of my head: four separate but connected games; foam weapon combat in a flagship; historically accurate (i.e. no fantasy elements); characters who (generally speaking) didn’t have driving goals but were just presented to the players “as-is”) but it seemed to go off pretty well. Something I didn’t anticipate (but probably should have) is two of our major groups (The Travellers and the Woodsmen) pretty much taking off from the Greenwood to do their respective things in other locations. The Greenwood game suffered a lot from the Real Life troubles of all three of the writers, and to be honest I wasn’t that happy with how it turned out - in particular, whether the characters were interesting enough. However, the players all took what we gave them and breathed life into the characters and ran with it, for which I am eternally grateful. Thank you all for playing.
Bilgerats and Buccaneers
Character: Nathanial “No Quarter” Hayes. Final Status: Deceased
A fun romp through Piratical times. Again I can’t say much because of spoilers, but I had a great time trying to figure out how to accomplish my personal goals, the goals of the people who got to tell me what to do, and also trying to maneuver my way through the Captain’s contest. I challenged one of the Captains to a duel to the death, and had a very cool swordfight which went hammer and tongs for a while until it slowed down dramatically when we were both reduced to 1 hit point. Unfortunately the last blow went to my opponent and the only person who could have saved me life was the same person who wanted me dead… Ah well. Although aware of the existence of such things, Mr Hayes was a mundane character (albeit a very interesting one) in a decidedly non-mundane world.
A Night at the Museum
Character: Dr Albert P. Stanford Final Status: Deceased
A really good game to end the con with, I really enjoyed this one. Dave Agnew as Tesla was amazing, and the characters I interacted with were at the same time iconic, charicatured, and intriguing. Without giving too much away, I saw Dr Stanford’s demise coming from before the game started, so was totally prepared for it when Mani (GM) came over and gave me the “bad news” . Once again, a mundane character in what turns out to be a non-mundane world.
So. 3 out of 5 characters dead (and another looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life), but more importantly, I seem to have acquired the weirdly specific typecasting of “doesn’t know what’s really going on/how the world works”. I would say it’s a fluke, but I had exactly the same type of role in the last larp I played down here in Dunedin, too… very odd!
I had a great time at Chimera again, and will definitely be back. I will definitely not be writing or running the flagship though 
). Chimera has an awesome atmosphere around it- people coming from all over NZ and even from around the world to get together with others, have a blast and spend time in great company. There are so many people involved and in so many different ways to pull together an amazing event.
To give full credit, this was written by Nickey Barnard, Jerry Elsmore, Alex Jones, Sue Lee, Tym Norris, Mark Steedman, who kindly let me rerun it here.
- but The Rose and The Dragon was AMAZING (also my first Chimera)! My highlights include sneaking out of the Great Hall whenever possible (and keeping an eye out for the Steward) to go and play commoner. Complete with REALLY bad lies - “Oh, Percival said something like x” “Percival?! You cannot mean Percival