I’m not much of an interpretive actor. To be honest I’m not an actor at all. The last time I was in a play was when I was 8 years old and cast as the river. I held a blue sheet and said one line: “I am a river.” Literally. Needless to say, the expertise involved with Dead City Productions’ Live Action Role Play or LARP was a bit beyond me.
When I arrived at Parkes Hall, I met Jim Heide, who introduced himself as one of the Storytellers or STs. He tried to explain to me the rather complicated nature of LARPing. Dead City Productions has five STs who run the games. They are the masters of the rules and determine the outcomes of character’s actions. More than 20 players, ranging from current Northwestern students to alumni, participate each month.
It is present day Anchorage, Alaska in the “New World of Darkness.” With short summer nights and between 11 to 18 hours of darkness, it is the perfect location for vampires. While the Ordo Dracul Grand Master has ruled Anchorage peacefully since 1937, hunters have recently been causing problems, preying upon the vampire clans of the city. As I enter the Parkes meeting room, I am handed the monthly newsletter, The Anchorage Daily News, which apparently has some upsetting information. “One individual in particular was seen running through the stilled crowds, slitting throats and laughing madly before reportedly disappearing from sight into the darkness,” whispers a girl wearing a red-haired wig to her neighbor. They look concerned.
The Head ST, Michael Downey, pulls me aside to break down the evening. It is game six, with the theme of “in which everything that can go wrong, does.” Every player creates their own character and can control how much or little influence they have over the rest of the vampire kin. (As he is explaining this to me, a girl leaps up out of her chair and yells across the room, “I’m officially the prettiest princess!” And just like that, she becomes royalty of her vampire kin.) For the first game I am only observing, but he tells me I must cross my arms over my chest, signaling I am invisible, so no one tries to attack me.
As everyone scurries out of the meeting, I follow a clan of five players to the end of the hall. “Is this where court is being held tonight?” I ask. “No, this is where the prince is being assassinated,” the bodyguard of the door answers grimly. Apparently there is an ousted clan from the Order Dracul and they want to wage war against the Prince.
I sneak into the room and take a seat in the back, as one of the STs, Carly Ho, begins the battle sequence. She asks for every player’s initiative, or power, which determines the order in which they attack. The first player, Jane Austen, has the highest initiative of eight. I wait for the swords to come out. “BAM!” she yells. “I just shot the door lock.” As I sit, I’m a little disappointed that there aren’t any live action fighting sequences.
One hour later, the battle is ongoing, only this time a new character Betty Johnson, the “housewife in combat” complete with apron and spatula, joins the fight and comes to the Prince’s rescue. In a fighting stance, she takes out invisible canisters and announces she is spraying blinding cleaning chemicals into one of the enemy’s faces. I didn’t get to see foam swords, but I give her points for being creative. After four rounds, the heads of the ousted clan, Lancelot and Austin Drake die by stabbing and decapitation, respectively.
I walk with the deceased to the original meeting room. They still have another three hours left of LARPing left but no characters to play with. They tell me they’ll just create new ones of another clan with better powers. Then they ask if I will be joining them next month. I must admit, sometimes I wish that I could escape to an alternate reality where I can control how the world is around me.
