Someone I know chants, "My process is not your process," and that applies. This series is called, "How I Design a LARP," not, "If you don't do it this way, you're WRONG."

I am always open to questions and suggestions, but I'm writing this down so future (and current) co-GMs have a piece of my mindset and method to my madness.

Goals are always (always!) a matter of connections between other characters, though, in my LARP workbook. I start by putting together what I dubbed a "tolerance chart" (from the racial tolerances in the Unearthed Arcana book, if you must know.)

(characters)	Shiro Jo	Talia	Budapest	Emidor
Shiro Jo	0	+	+	-
Talia	-	0	+	+
Budapest	+	-	0	+
Emidor	+	+	-	0

This sets up the original scheme of conflicts. (A "0" is neutral.) You will note that everyone has two people who like them (a "+" is "positive"), and everyone likes two people - but that while Shiro Jo likes Talia (best be on the safe side with a Chaosian assassin who is pregnant with the heir to the Throne) Talia can't stand Shiro Jo (no, really, no one can stand Shiro Jo.) That balances the situation and gives me leeway to write a story in each of their character packs from that perspective.

This also gives me a chance to make some goals: Shiro Jo might want to impress Talia, or get her on his side to assassinate Emidor. Emidor, on the other hand, kind of tolerates Shiro Jo. Doesn't understand the animosity Jo has for her...

With fifteen people this process gets a little harder...but while you are using this to set up your groups of initial knowledge, maybe not everyone knows each other, or has a set opinion. This is great when you have a political game - maybe (in Amber terms) there's a Rebman embassy and so the fishfolk know each other, and some of the simple fisherfolk but they don't know anyone from the Moonrider contingent. (Or do they? Muah ha ha..ahem.)

Here's one that bugs me (and again, my experience, and certainly there is only a small percentage of the men in my gaming life that do it) but why is it that women aren't expected to know how the game works? As if they didn't buy games and learn the rules?

If you want a good example of mansplainin', it's in RPGs. You know, I actually design my own. Like everyone (male OR female), there may be things I don't "get" intuitively - there's little to no standardization of language - heck, some games require you to know a lot about gaming before you even pick them up...which is all well and good! And when it comes to the "storygaming" and the idea of having to make my own narration, I'm still a little slow... but that doesn't mean I can't decipher, say, THAC0.

(My worst "slow" habit I think is that I want the approval of the GM before I go anywhere "weird." This means sometimes I don't pick up the reins because I'm not sure how to stop once you get me galloping...)

This is actually a place I feel sorry for guys, because, you know, as a woman, I can ask for directions. [snort, rolls eyes] And I will - asking for assistance is not the same thing as needing to be told how to play. It may just be a matter of sorting out the boundaries.

Boundaries, of course, being a feminine conceit. [snort] [tease]

Another funny gender disparity I've found is the, "Tell me about your character," trope. See, when I get enthused when I've found another gamer, in my experience 100% of the time the guy will start telling me about his character. The woman will tell me about the game, and only when I express specific interest do I get to hear all about who she's playing. That 100% is not a typo or a generalization, by the way: that's a, "Every Time Up To Current," kind of ratio.

The other side of this is that men are more likely to tell women about their characters like she cares. (Lucky for you, I do, but that's because I'm weird, not because of the boobies.)

So, that's four things off the top of my head that I don't see highlighted enough in the discussions. I don't want anyone thinking I don't take seriously the dangerous and dysfunction that happens with other social expectations and details when men and women get together in the potentially intimate atmosphere of gaming, just that I did have the realization that outside all the oogly stuff, I guess it DOES make a difference.

I don't want to say being the only woman at the table is an issue, because there's no reason it should be.

I want to say, "But it is," and it's not the boys' fault.

DISCLAIMER: (while some examples come from real life, none of them are intended to suggest people are 'doin' it wrong.' They are purely my observations and tinted by my perceptions and all of that.)

I just don't generally have anything to add about being female and being a gamer. (I think the "girl" portion is mostly for alliteration - I don't see anything perjorative in it, but I understand some folk do so I'm trying to consider their viewpoint and phase it out a little.) Can guys be jerks? Sure. Can women? Absolutely. Everyone who exists has some possibility of being a jerk. So I don't want to (don't care to) share my "horror stories" or disgust over some artist or production and the company that hired them, which is what it seems most of the forums for the gals end up being.

At first, I thought it was because I'm a misogynistic snarkhound. Which I am, don't get me wrong, but I thought it was just that. I mean, I've seen the "GM's Girlfriend" be a guy.[1] I've heard the important arguments of whether or not to bring kids to the gaming session (a very important discussion when you lay down your gaming contract) and seen what kind of sexist assumptions come out of it. I'm over it.

I really didn't care when in the PTA game my character was less a butt-kicking warrior type and instead got to do the trope where she dresses up and seduces the soldiers for information. It was fun, and it was PTA - a TV trope was appropriate.

While my own "home group" (the Minions of past, present, and future) have always been good about crossgender play[2], when I'm in someone else's group I generally try to play someone my own gender. I'm fine with that - there's nothing that says I shouldn't show a little courtesy.

Do I care when "the woman's role" in the group is to be 'the healer'? Sure, because I don't play a good nurturer type, even in real life.[3] If I was constantly pigeonholed (ooh, that's dirty!) I probably would make a fuss.

But I've also been at many otherwise male gaming sessions and noted:

• I get treated differently when I wear make-up.

That's a silly one, but true. It's true in the workplace, too. I don't like it, because it makes me feel manipulative. It's not so much a bonus like, "Hah! I will wear make-up because it gives me a +1 to my presence at the table," but I've noticed a little more entry into the discussion because of it.

Which leads me obviously to the next point:

• I get spoken over a lot.

Now, I know the people I game with, and I know some of them are very much the "put up or shut up" type, even in (maybe especially in) gaming, and they want you to have enough backbone to take it or shout back. I don't mind being loud, but a woman being loud is perceived a heck of a lot differently than a man being loud. A man being loud is talking. Sometimes excitedly, sometimes he's telling a story, but he's just talking. A woman being loud is too close to being shrill and/or bossy. While there's a place for that, that leads to interpersonal tension in a group. I don't want to be that person.

Maybe it's a girl thing.

(I named this "part one" because I'll be adding to this, but I'm now out of time.)

[1] I've even been accused of it, but anyone who has GM'd my husband has differed.

[2] Let's talk about the strap-on incident later.

[3] There's a reason I'm fine with my little girl being a baby jaguar.

So our Elfquest game (yes, I'll actually post some more about that later) was on hiatus as we were missing our healer-trickster (two great tastes that don't taste great together) and our working-class lust goddess (um, yeah) so I offered to run a quick one-shot if people still wanted to get together, and since I'd been hinting at this game for a while, I got the go-ahead early.

The stats in InSpectres are usually Academics, Athletics, Technology, and Contact. For our Hogwarts version (which I riffed as "Aurors, Inc." because it had been a long day and I couldn't think of anything better [although, of course, the ideas are coming now!]) we used, "Wizardry, Quidditch, Artifacts, and Influence." I kept the "Weird Talent" to help differentiate things. I also kept the nine point spread.

There wasn't going to be any "Weird Characters," because I felt that the Very White World of English Wizards worked best for the straight aspect of the characters. (Only about 30% of this particular group are white guys, which is at least half of what amused me writing that sentence.)

I didn't know if people were going to want to make their own characters, but I statt'd out some recommendations. Harry Potter (no one was going to play him with my little sister in the crowd - she has Opinions) would, for example, end up with 2/4/2/1. (He was decent at Wizardry, but where he really shone was on the broomstick, so to speak. He had a magic cape and knowledge of Mugglestuff, so his artifacts wasn't negligible...his influence in the Wizard world, though, was a low, low one. Sure, everyone had heard of him, but his recognition was rarely (if ever!) positive.)

Hermione Granger, on the other hand would be a 4/1/2/2 - fabulous Wizard, no Quidditch skills to speak of, with a fairly decent knowledge of artifacts and some influence amongst the teachers if not the staff of Hogwarts. Draco Malfoy I thought was a 2/3/2/2 - decent at Wizardry, some Quidditch skills, dabbled with dark Artifacts, and knew some people. I could have put that extra point in Quidditch anywhere else, though, with fairly good story-based justification. (Great, Draco Malfoy is the Bleys of Hogwarts. Erm. Let's NOT GO THERE.)

Some other examples:
Ron: 1/3/2/3 * Luna: 3/1/3/2 * Ginny: 2/2/1/4 * Percy: 3/1/2/3

I had left the game a little vague as to whether or not we were going to play in the school or post-Hogwarts, depending on what people wanted. (I left the Gringotts/Quidditch Field/Library analogues to the Bank & Gym, etc., available, but we didn't end up using them.) We ended up choosing post-Hogwarts, and, in fact, we were the "Far Reaches On the East" or somesuch branch. ("Eastside!")

So, it turns out that while most of the players had seen the movies, few of the players had actually read all the books. So there wasn't a lot of point in playing canon characters anyway. Our canon characters ended up being Draco Malfoy and George Weasley. (A lot from book six and on doesn't fit into my internal canon, anyway.) I said the Ministry had put Draco out this way in charge, and George (player had only read the first couple of books?) was trying this out because the joke artifact shop thing was doing its best work through owl-order.

Draco's special talent was a "dark magic magnet." He just had a talent for running into it. George's talent was a joke item; a portable hole.

My younger sister played Callista, a wet-behind-the-ears Auror whose special talent was, "Making the implausible plan sound like it could really work!" We had Ralph, whose special talent was to make big explosions, and Billy, the American who was very confused as to what all these Brits were doing with their soldiers against the Dark Arts.

We tapped Draco to be in charge, and started creating our franchise. Callista was On Time and very eager to help, including creating something to clean up the owlery which was kind of a roomba-owl that magnetized the owl feathers to itself. George popped in much to Draco's disgust, and dropped Draco into the basement area while taking over the Nice and Neat Desk with his feet.

Ralph came in and made himself at home. Billy showed up during a scene of sheer madness (large owl cleaner-bot, papers flying back and forth, Ralph pouring himself a drink from a cauldron, Draco Malfoy wondering what the woman knocking on the door could want... ah yes, therein lay the tale...)

"I need to cast... what's it called, `Send for help?'" - Draco's player "The Dark Mark?" - GM, helpfully

[The papers coming in were almost inevitably changes in procedure from the Ministry. One of them required the wearing of green on Fridays. It was noted many times that dress codes did not include mandatory knickers. Changes in procedure always contradicted one of the last.]

Somewhere in here, a challenge was made to George on his artifacts and he created a spell akin to the Pied Piper's flute, which started dragging in rats. While the owls (and the Rogue Owlbot) were quite happy with this, it also brought in the lady at the door, whose arm seemed to be turning into a black rat itself.

A...contagious morphagus of some sort.

Which, of course, Draco and Callista ended up encountering.

"Those rats are vicious! That's awesome! I...think you need a new stapler." - Callista

While the others look up possible cures, it's the village of Far Reaches on the East which is in need of their help. Whiskers, rat eyes, long noses... the evil animorph was quickly taking over the city, called into her curse by George's using the Pipe.

Callista uses the now giant Owlbitbot to search for the dark wizard, having been tagged in Draco's Confessional as having ridden other birds in her past.

Draco contacts his former mentor, Snape, for a rare ingredient. Snape recognizes Ralph, to his disagreement, but agrees to send the anti-shifter article.

The magic holding the remnants of the owlery starts to fail, in an obvious way as Draco goes out finding what happened to the shifter, which means Draco uses his Qudditch skillz to save Callista. (A 6 rolled over a 5 made Callista have to agree that Draco "looks good in doing it.")

"So you want to do yourself with a broomstick?" - George mishearing Callista's aborted Accio!

Ralph and George check Draco's amazing library of books on spellmaking and potion materials for some solutions. Billy assists in triage on those under the worst of the spell, especially as the library says they've got only until the setting of the moon to turn things back to "normal."

"I do have something of a reputation for handling the Dark Arts," - Draco, fully aware of the euphemisms.

While Draco and Callista continue looking for the blood of the magus, the owl comes in from Snape, and the boys make up a potion to reverse the effects. It's mostly successful...as in it will work, but it will taste "most foul."

They find the ratwoman paralyzed in fear from the giant OwlThing and take a sample of her blood. Draco goes back to research in his library, whereupon Ralph and George make sure to scramble things a little. However, due to his overwhelming success, the potion he makes has an effect that vibrates out and cures the ratwoman as well. Mission success!

Since it was quick and easy and people were getting into their characters, we decided to create a new one. I won't go over the particulars, but it had to do with a vitamin-potion causing uber-hyperactivity, the cover-up of "wizard speed" in the ministry and the faked deaths of several wizards involved. George bought a set of tight leathers, and ended up making a "Malfoy flute." It ended up noting that the Minister of Magic had a "Paddling Hour," and a request by a very embarrassed Percy to, "Please allow the Minister his Dignity," with a robe being pushed into the room on the end of Percy's wand.

All in all, silly play, fun play, would have been much different with a group that was far more cognizant of the Potter Mythos, but it gave some of the people a little bit more freedom in their play. I am slowly seducing them to the indie hippie side of gaming. Slowly, but I think they *liked* being able to "call the shots."

Or, the number one lesson for life: expect change.

"I can sum up my ACNW game submissions on Twitter: `It's all gone wrong. It's your fault. Can you fix it?' and have characters left over."

The reason I'm talking about it here and not on my Amber Blog is because this isn't inherent in any fashion to ACNW, Amber, or even my games.

It's indicative of a methodology I've embarked upon in changing the way I GM.

See, I am an over-planner. There's a part of me that's uncomfortable not having a dozen lines of dialogue written out for every bit part in case he or she becomes important. I want statistics for everything (hence why I cheer everytime I re-read my friend's Falling Rules for Shadowrun - which I really could have used after pushing that mobmaster off the cliff into Tir Tairngire... but I digress.) I want to know I can handle whatever happens.

Because I *want* "whatever" to happen.

My friends know I will run things from the seat of my pants, and usually that works just fine. (There are notable exceptions. [sigh]) On the other hand, having reams of notes doesn't help my in-game comfort. Sure, it makes me feel more prepared, but maybe my group thinks I'm better when I'm knocked off my kilter.

Whatever my kilter is. Perhaps it's something like a tuffet?

So, I figured out my problem in part was that I took too much responsibility for the game. I needed to make the players responsible for more of the design. Not that they mind, necessarily, it's just that I was dug in too deep to "GM as host," and I'd hate to be impolite. (The Laws of Hospitality, and all.)

Hence, "It's your fault." There's the buy-in right there. And "Can you fix it?" is the game.

Briar's the mostly-NPC character I am "playing" in the Elfquest game. She was Recognized in the last session. I knew a little of her background, but it wasn't until that hit that I realized the reason why she was going to fight this. Nevermind it's like refusing water, and it might kill her and her potential mate. She's got a story, and this is what is behind it.

It was not the first one, or the last, to die before taking breath. Some were worse, passing on only after you could hear the sounds of their hunger in the winter storm.

I don't like to remember it. If its father gave it a name, I never asked. What good are names against the elements? The names are not like wolves that howl and are heard against the wind. They are the prints before they are filled by the snow.

They speak in their dreams about Recognition, and they are wrong. I do not tell them that. They are allowed their dreams.

I tell the others again: it is only Timmain's children that live. That is why I love her. That is why I will follow them, in their strange, warm shapes, with the bright eyes that see in the dark. I will give up the sun and live in the night.

Only... I cannot sleep.

I invent lists in my head to help calm the thinking. Lists of the plants and their uses. Lists of the colours and knots of the things I weave. Lists of all the things I will forget so that I can learn them anew.

I try to forget how to walk, or how to sing, so that I can mimic the way the others, the children do it. They do some of it so lightly, despite the concentration and focus that must come with the predator blood. We learned to lose focus, to relax and let the shaping flow through us, like rivers, like belief. Like Dreamseeker's belief that there would be cool shade and sweet, cold water. Like his belief that his dreams were sendings from the forest beyond the burning cliffs.
The belief that burned hotter than the tiny rocks beneath our feet, that dragged wolves and elves united behind him with the strength of his vision alone.

I have lost my ability to do any of that. I follow. I follow because I do not know how to lead. I follow to death.

The chief has banished me. I think he would argue but silently agree. I cannot provide for the tribe. I have no end of bravery because fear requires imagination.

Only... I cannot sleep.

And I cannot dream.