Review - Maelstrom – Provocation (5th - 7th June)

I've been meaning to get to Maelstrom for several years now – most of my friends go and I've heard good things about the atmosphere. Having finally pulled my kit out of the garage I was not disappointed, but there were some issues that the ref team ought to address.
 
Maelstrom is the flagship system from Profound Decisions, the company that brought us the ground-breaking Omega. The basic premise is this: an existing “high fantasy” world has just discovered a new continent, and the player's are all playing colonists of this new land. There are more racial and cultural possibilities than, say, at a Lorien Trust event, but players of non-human characters will be expected to wear appropriate make-up and prosthetics. If you've ever had the urge to dress up as a samurai badger, then this is the game for you; there were several seven-foot-plus-tall dragons wandering around.
Positives: the best facilities of any site I've been to (if a bit lacking in atmosphere) and no drow muggings. The system is simple while allowing for a lot of depth and the standard of costume was among the highest I've seen.
 
Negatives: Maelstrom is not “new-player friendly”. The character generator on the web site is so buggy as to be practically unusable. While there is an off-line option, who uses pen and paper these days? I've been explaining LARPing to people using “it's like a MMORPG, but without a computer” for a while now, so the site needs to be as slick and as friendly as – say – World of Warcraft. The problems continued when I got on site – it took five admin staff and nearly two hours to print out two character packs (and this was after we got to the front of the queue). Then we had to ask for an explanation of the things we had bought – it wasn't handed over as part of the pack. Bring a book when you go to pick up your character from the Games Operation Desk on Friday, especially if you're a new player.
 
To continue my MMORPG metaphor, Maelstrom is a little like a fantasy version of Eve Online. The emphasis is on trading, exploration and crafting rather than quests and PvE combat and all the plot is generated by the players. This isn't to say that there isn't any combat – I saw several PvP skirmishes during the weekend – but the violence is never random. You will not get jumped by a gang of fat ninjas while you're on the way back from a 2am toilet run (unlike some events I've been to).
The site has the cleanest and nicest portaloos of any festival I've been to. I didn't use the showers, but I heard good reports. It rained almost constantly for the whole weekend and I was expecting a mud bath by Sunday morning. However, the site was picked for the drainage and I just had to let my kit dry off when I got home rather than spend hours scraping off the mud. It's just a shame that the horizon is dominated by Ratcliffe Power Station and East Midlands Airport is within spitting distance (great if you want to fly in – bad for atmosphere).
 
Provocation got me back into LARPing after a break of several years and I've just commissioned a pile of costume for my new character. While I have been negative about the new player experience, there are several Facebook groups devoted to the game, any of whom will welcome holding your hand through the character creation process and shepherd you through your first event. Overall, I had a great time.

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.