User Blog:
Interview with fantasy novelist and Alliance LARP founder Michael A. Ventrella - Part 2

Part 1 of this Interview is available here

Tara M Clapper: In your opinion, what has happened to NERO since the big split?

Michael A. Ventrella: I am not sure exactly but I have been contacted more than once (and recently too) by some of the NERO chapters wanting to join the Alliance for various reason I won't go into here. I've said no to every one though, because they want to be able to keep playing their NERO characters with all their powers and magic items and such. It's not fair to my players to allow someone else to come into my game at 43rd level that he earned in two years by buying experience points with real money or by just playing a different system with a less likely chance of character death and so on. You can't import your World of Warcraft character into Dragon Age, either.

And some of them want to keep their rules variants too. You see, in NERO, each chapter has its own rules on top of the national set of rules, which means if you take your character from one chapter to another, there are all sorts of new rules you have to learn first. That doesn't happen in the Alliance. If it's not in our rule book, it doesn't exist. We want you traveling to new places to learn their plots, not their rules.

So unless they are willing to start a new game at first level and use all our rules and no others, I'm going to keep saying no.

TMC: Were the legal difficulties involving NERO the sole impetus for creating Faire Play, a medieval-style faire ground for LARPs and similar organizations?

MAV: No, it had nothing to do with it. NERO plays no part in any of my decision-making. We've always wanted to own our own site (doesn't every LARP?) and with other Alliance friends, we pitched in our savings, started a corporation and bought the land. Not having to deal with camps that don't understand what we're doing is so refreshing, and being able to run all summer is great, too. The site is available to rent for other LARPs, too. Next year we already have four other LARPs reserving weekends. We wanted to create the kind of place we always wanted to rent from!

TMC: What types of groups utilize Faire Play?

MAV: So far mostly other similar but smaller LARPs. Dagorhir will be there next year, using it for one of their huge events, and the SCA has also taken an interest. Some day, when we've really built it up, we might even run a weekend-long renaissance faire.

TMC: There's a debate in the LARP community about whether it's a smart idea to run a LARP like a business or to make affiliated projects. Do they have a valid point, in your opinion, or are they just jaded by past LARPs?

MAV: It should be run as a business with the understanding that you're not going to make a living at it. Being professional about it is very important!

One of the problems many LARPs have though is taking the statement "the customer is always right" to an extreme. That is bad business in a LARP. In some ways, you have to treat your game more like a club where if you don't play by the rules or are ruining the fun of other players, we can kick you out. "But I paid to be here" doesn't work in my game. We don't need bullies and cheats.

That was a hard lesson to learn. When I first started telling players we didn't want them, there was a bit of an outcry, but so many other quieter players came to me and said "I'm so glad you got rid of that jerk. I wasn't having fun playing with him around." And our numbers went up! More people started playing.

The bottom line is to run the kind of game you want, and don't let the loudest complainers make you change.

TMC: What is the next step for you regarding the creation and marketing of fantasy worlds?

MAV: Well, my novels of course! They take place in the land of Ashbury (which is used for our chapter) so I didn't have to create a whole new world for it. I threw out most of the rules though—what works in a game doesn't in a novel, and vice versa. The first one, Arch Enemies, came out a few years ago and the sequel (The Axes of Evil) will be out in March [of 2010]. They're from Double Dragon Publishing and there's a link from my web page.

We also plan on running a second campaign at the Faire Play site next summer for two events. This will be a new game, in the same world, but in a different place. Everyone will start a 1st level character, and you cannot bring your regular character to the alternate campaign.

If you ever wanted to try out the Alliance rules system but didn't want to be overshadowed by higher level players, this is the event to attend.

Plus there are plans to try to run other kinds of LARPs there too. Scott Kondrk, the president of Faire Play, has been planning a WWII zombie LARP.

TMC: You seem to be pretty forward-thinking when it comes to the future of Alliance and of your books. How did you LARP for so long (let alone become involved in the most famous LARP-related lawsuit) without becoming completely jaded?

MAV: I'm not sure! Part of it is that I have not burned out completely because I have distanced myself from a lot of the day-to-day running of a game. I mostly coordinate things with the chapters and work on updating the rule book and such. Not having to deal with the headaches of running an event is freeing. Plus, my wife Heidi Hooper loves playing so she tends to get me enthused about each new event.

TMC: Do you feel that most LARP owners should consult with a lawyer regarding their brand? Why or why not?

MAV: Most LARP owners are not big enough to have to worry about it. But of course it certainly never hurts to consult with a lawyer. Better to be safe.

TMC: Arch Enemies is about a bard, what some might consider an otherwise underrepresented class. Why did you choose to focus the novel on a bard?

MAV: He's not a bard in the sense of what one thinks about in a D&D class. (We don't have a bard class in the Alliance.) He's just a kid who wants to perform in taverns. He has no skills whatsoever.

A constant theme in many fantasy novels involves the prophecy about a great hero who will emerge and be ‘The One’ who will save the world. This hero usually is found and then trained by the greatest heroes in the land so that by the end of the book he or she saves the day by having powers no one else has, and by being the greatest wizard or fighter in the world. I started off Arch Enemies by saying "Well, what if they got the wrong guy?"

So the main character is a young man who ran away from home in the hopes of becoming a troubadour. He never wanted to be the hero; he just wanted to sing about them. Now, as a musician myself, I used his musical skills to help describe the magic in the world (you'll see) but it's really not important to the plot other than to explain why he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

TMC: What makes Ashbury (the fantasy world of Alliance LARP) a good setting for your book?

MAV: I already know what it's like! The maps are there, the main NPCs are established, and the basic magic system is in place. (All good fantasy novels have to explain their magic system!)

TMC: Are the characters in Arch Enemies all of your invention, or have you included key players' characters from the actual LARP?

MAV: I only used a few NPC nobles. I didn't want any players saying "Hey, my character would never do that!" And even then, the book does not follow the in-game history at all. In-game, we pretend that the book is fiction as well. "Have you read this book 'Arch Enemies', my lord? That never happened! We'd remember that!"

TMC: Prior to Arch Enemies, you'd written rule books for your game. Was it difficult to launch into something different after you had established yourself as gaming system writer, or was it simply like adding more lore to your rules?

MAV: Well, I had also written a lot of modules and weekend events, so I certainly had experience in setting up plotlines and figuring out interesting twists and so on. But no, I don't think the two are similar other than the ideas. Writing is more than just the ideas, after all. There are some great books that have mediocre ideas and terrible books with great ideas.

I've also written lots of legal memorandae and briefs over the years, and also once edited and wrote for a magazine about animated films, so writing is not new to me. The skills one learns as a writer can carry from fiction to nonfiction.

TMC: What is the Alliance LARP community's response to the book? What about the LARP community as a whole?

MAV: I've received lots of good comments, but it's not being promoted as a LARP book in any way, and there's no way you'd read it and think it was based on a game unless someone told you.

I generally hate books that are based too much on a game, where they have to abide by rules that bog down the story. Sometimes you can almost tell where the author rolled the die to see what wandering monster came along. Arch Enemies is just a fantasy book that happens to take place in an already-established game world.

Like I said earlier, I tossed out most of the rules that would hurt the plot. In our game, if you die, you can be resurrected and continue on. That would be terrible in a book! If I needed my character to be able to cast a silence spell to push the plot along, I didn't care if it was a spell that was too high level for him.

TMC: The first chapter of Arch Enemies feels so much like an interactive LARP experience! Do you think it is potentially a good tool for drawing general fantasy fans into LARP?

MAV: Well, I think any good fantasy novel can do that! The first chapter is like the hook to a module that draws a player into the plotline, but isn't that true of just about every good adventure book?

TMC: What do you consider to be your main influences in terms of literature and fantasy environment?

MAV: I'd say the lighter fantasy of Orson Scott Card, J.K. Rowling and Robert Asprin are good starting points. Arch Enemies (and The Axes of Evil) are fun adventures. They're not comedies, but they also aren't Stephen Donaldson-like fantasies where the main hero is full of angst and all sorts of terrible things happen.

Both of my books are full of lots of plot twists, because I love surprising the reader. In fact, just about every review of Arch Enemies has mentioned that. Coming up with a convoluted plotline where the characters spend most of the time trying to figure out what they should do, only to have it all come together perfectly at the last minute in unexpected ways is a lot of fun! (As an aside, I also have a short story coming out in a collection soon which continues this trend.)

TMC: Tell me about your involvement with local authors and the interviews on your Web site.

MAV: It's not just local authors! I've been attending writers’ conferences and science fiction conventions for years and have made friends with quite a few famous writers who have agreed to be interviewed for my blog. (Among them so far are Alan Dean Foster, Mike Resnick, Tad Williams, David Morrow, Gregory Frost, Jonathan Maberry, Mark Waid and many others.) The blog is mostly about my experiences in learning how to be a better writer and how to get published and so on, so my questions to these authors tend to be geared toward people who also want to become writers.

TMC: How can Alltern8 readers find you and your book?

MAV: If your readers are interested, please visit my Web site! Become one of my Facebook friends or follow me on Twitter. And if you want to check out either Arch Enemies or the Alliance Rule Book but don't think you want to make the $20.00 investment, they are both available from my publisher as e-books or Kindle books for about $5.00 each.

To learn more about Michael A. Ventrella, Alliance LARP and the Faire Play site, visit:
Author site: www.MichaelAVentrella.com
Alliance LARP: www.AllianceLARP.com
Faire Play: www.FairePlay.org