credits

I (lovingly) blame Jenna Knasin for this LARP.

It was early November, 2023. I was talking about LARP at Intercon V with Amanda Knasin, Jenna's wife, who had been thinking about playing a Star Wars game at the con. Amanda and her D&D group were curious about LARP, so Jenna set up a conversation for me, with Amanda. Amanda didn't sign up, but something exploded in my head.

During the winter of 2019, in a minor lull in my disabling, then-untreatable 24/7/365 migraine, I realized that I could write in really short bursts. I could scribble a mostly-coherent page or two before being forced to stop by the pain. I could lose myself in the writing and really exercise my cognitive abilities — which I was in danger of losing. While my scrambled brain couldn't add more to my existing Coterie Universe, I could focus just enough to write in a well-documented setting, which I could watch, like Star Wars. Metal Jedi told the story of two Jedi Padawan characters — or that was the plan. I wrote several disconnected sections spread across the structural outline of the book. When the lull evaporated, I was left with a disorganized, chaotic, inconsistent, fragmentary mess. I never got back to it.

I finally found medication[1] that turned off almost all of the migraine symptoms. I still struggle to exercise my brain, but I'm far better off than those awful years in pain.

I'd binged the entire The Clone Wars, Star Wars: Rebels, and Star Wars: Resistance over the summer of 2023. I'd just finished Ahsoka and its weekly Season One episodes. And Star Wars: A New Hope is one of my all-time favorite movies, from the day I first saw it shortly after it opened for its very first run (1977) in my local movie theater.

I had two really interesting characters in Metal Jedi that deserved much more attention. I'd written some events in their story. I could use all that as a starting point.

Over that first week, I dropped nearly everything to scribble down all the plots and ideas spilling out of my brain. The game consumed me. Jordan stood back, as I promised to let him into the process once I had the flood into my laptop. It wasn't long before I had cranked out 14,000+ words, producing the first draft of all the characters, some of the bluesheets, and outlines for the remaining in-game materials.

On our trip down to see the Michigan—Maryland football game[2] just before Thanksgiving, Jordan added his amazing ideas to the mix. We talked as I drove, he took notes, and the game got so much better. There were more brilliant discussions on the way back. As usual, this game is so much better because of Jordan's genius.

I continued to write at a furious pace. We brainstormed all the time, a wonderful collaboration.[3] Jordan read everything, every draft. The internal shape of the game changed in the process, for the better — but it meant even more to write. By the end of November, I was over 34,000 words, because that's who I am as a writer. I needed to get it out of my system first, before I can revise and edit further.

That's when my gallbladder decided to explode, and I had urgent surgery to repair the damage. Fortunately, I made a "remarkable"[4] recovery, getting back to near-normal fairly quickly. The problem — I'd promised to run Adrift on the Starry Sky for the Greater Boston LARP Society at the end of January. Additionally, I'd been prepping for months, touching everything in Across the Sea of Stars to make it easier to produce for its sixth run, at Intercon V. I'd even written some new Tales. I didn't have time to work on Force Multiplier. Even though that run fell through for lack of players, I still ran a game at Intercon — another run of Adrift on the Starry Sky. That took time I wasn't planning on.

Except the Force is unusually strong with this LARP. The ideas I needed to finish the story just kept coming, usually at the most inopportune times. I scribbled notes, then opened the laptop when I could. Words poured out. Time vanished... Jordan took everything in, told me how to make it much better, and more time vanished...

I started writing this on November 5th, 2023. I finished the first draft of everything needed for an alpha playtest at 4:15 AM on January 31st, 2024. There are 44,516 words of text in the first draft PDF, including most development notes. There are eight last pages Jordan needs to review, but he's wisely gone to sleep. Thus, it took me 87 days, averaging 500+ words a day, to go from nothing to playtestable alpha. While I didn't write every day (Surgery! Other LARP work! Real Life!), it's been forever since I've been able to sustain this kind of continually creative drive.

Anyone who's talked to me about LARP design knows that I'm not big on mechanics. My Real Life Special Ability is Screw Up Any Mechanic, No Matter How Simple, Even If I Designed It. What was I thinking, designing and writing a game where I'd need a really solid mechanic for lightsaber combat? Knowing I was out of my depth, I had a chat with Adina Schreiber, about possible existing systems. From that discussion, it's clear that I need to plan at least one run that uses live combat! She suggested a few other leads, but they didn't pan out.

I posed the question on the Thursday of Intercon V to Nat Budin, Will Fergus, and Olivia Montoya, talking about the ideas and priorities Jordan and I had for lightsaber combat. They were brilliant — outlining the scheme we used in our playtesting. On March 15th, Jordan and I invited Patrick Bird over, to see if our implementation of those mechanics was going to work. We played through several scenarios, and we didn't even dent the ceiling!

When Tim Lasko was in the hospital a few weeks later, I printed a bunch of the Combat Emotion Cards and Jordan filled a bunch of bags with Force Stones. Tim, Renee Lasko, and I played through several more combats during one of my visits. LARP is healing medicine, even if we didn't have any lightsabers!

Our thanks to our Relaxicon 2024 players. It was great to see these characters come to life for the first time, with some cool costuming and lightsabers in many colors. There were some epic confrontations. Jordan helped to GM and watch across a Discord video link, so he could be there with us through his powerful connection to the Force! Our thanks to Jen Eastman-Lawrence for her brilliant suggestion for improving the illegible runes.

Our thanks to our A LARP Festival players, who took these characters to some very intense and interesting places, with some incredible lightsaber battles, all on Star Wars Day! As creators, it's always a thrill to see players breathe life and emotions into our characters. Our thanks to Kendra Beckler for stepping in at the last minute, to replace someone who tested positive for COVID earlier in the day. Kendra was spectacular, as usual; I love having her in our games.

Our thanks to our Summer LARPin' players. It always amazes me how different players can take the same characters on such divergent paths. Once again, the dialogue was brilliant, often with throwbacks to existing canon. Our thanks to Izzy Rose for stepping in at the last minute, to replace another sudden drop. Thanks to Kendra, again, for urging Izzy to sign up. Izzy was incredible; it was her first LARP outside of the MIT Guild, and I, for one, hope she'll be back. (I also got to play with her in the next game. Izzy, you rock!)

During my writing, I listened to every Star Wars soundtrack I could find. Thank you John Williams and the other brilliant Star Wars score composers.

notes

[1]: Qulipta®, which doesn't help a lot of people, but works brilliantly for me.

[2]: Michigan's 1,000th overall win, and one of the steps leading to the National Championship! I scored amazing seats on the 50 yard line, behind the Michigan bench. We do more than LARP!

[3]: Jordan is, by far, the best LARP design collaborator I've ever had the joy to work with. He doesn't write, but he definitely makes my writing better.

[4]: That's what my amazing surgeon wrote in her notes.