Although the Guild now runs games of all lengths, from one hour on up, and all styles, from low-plot Nerf action through Jeepform, the IAP 10-day remains a particular fixture. If four-hour games are short stories and weekend-long games are novels, the 10-day is the sci-fi/fantasy trilogy of LARPing.
This year's IAP 10-day is called Contact:
First contact happened yesterday, and it wasn't what anyone had expected. Insubstantial, alien figures appeared with no warning, visible to nearly everyone on Earth, speaking a strange tongue that everyone nonetheless understood:
"We are the Aspects, the sundered half of humanity's soul. Your crimes against us are great, and we demand recompense. You have twenty-four hours to send your chosen to meet us. They will have one week to satisfy us, or we will declare war."
News reports followed in a flurry; Kirijo Group researchers on Virgin Galactic's SpaceStation One opened a portal to another world, which they were universally surprised to discover was inhabited; the alien beings now wait there for those who are capable of answering their call.
Will you travel there seeking peace, war, or profit? Are you an ambitious corporate representative, a diplomat maneuvering for your country's gain, a seeker after religious truth, a curious scientist? The opportunities of a lifetime, for you and your species, await on SpaceStation One.
Contact is a ten-day game of diplomacy, espionage, psychology and discovery, written by Dalton Allan, Drew Hilliard, Jayson Lynch, Andrew Menard, Xavid, and Ariel Segall. Game will run from Friday evening on January 25 through early Sunday morning on February 3, with a game break on Tuesday January 29.
A 10-day game runs over two adjacent weekends and the intervening week. This seems like a long time, and it is, but it's broken up by a game break some time mid-week -- a roughly-day-long period in which no game actions may take place, and players are encouraged to catch up on non-game aspects of their lives like schoolwork, food, and sleep.
Game also starts Friday evening and ends very early Sunday morning, so despite the name "10-day", there are roughly eight evenings in-game, with a game wrap and dinner mob Sunday afternoon.
Like all Guild games, the IAP 10-day is open not just to MIT students but to the community at large. And it's not just students who play. Alums and community members with 9-5 day jobs do play, mostly in the evenings -- without losing our jobs! -- so it's a doable time commitment. I've played before, and I've apped for this game.
Like all Guild games, the IAP 10-day is cast more like a play -- you're cast based on your answers to the casting questionnaire, rather than first-come-first-served like a convention LARP, so you may submit the questionnaire and not get cast.
It's not personal -- there are only a certain number of roles, not all roles are good fits for all players, and it's possible to send in an uncastable app. In general, a reasonable number of strong preferences, positive or negative, will be easier to cast than an app which is completely neutral, so don't be shy.
People who app but are not cast are added to the waitlist, and if someone drops the game (as is not unlikely), you may be contacted if your app suggests you would be a good fit for the part.
Although the deadline to submit the casting questionnaire is officially 12 noon today, Saturday, January 12, having discussed it with the GMs, if you send this in as late as 6 PM and mention the blog -- or probably even later, if you don't see this post until then -- your app will be considered.
If this sounds interesting to you, the casting questionnaire is below the cut.
From talking to the GMs, it sounds like this game will be a pretty friendly introduction for players from other communities to the Guild style and community. I think it's going to be a good game!
--- copy from here, fill out, and e-mail to contact-gms@mit.edu ---
Name:
E-mail address:
Phone number:
Are you willing to have it printed on the playerlist?
Times not to call (so other people know when they can safely get in touch):
How many hours do you expect to be in game each night?
Are there any days of game that you expect to miss entirely?
Unlike most ten-days, Contact will be opening with some first-night
events that we expect most of game to be present for. What time can
you reliably make it in on the first Friday night?
Have you played a Guild game before? If you're a newer player, where
might we know you from? If not, do you have other roleplaying
experience?
Are you willing to play an NPC? Note: most NPCs in this game are *not*
high-roleplaying characters.
What genders are you willing to play?
What genders (if any) are you willing to have a romance plot with?
What gender(s) would you prefer to play?
The remainder of this app is meant to help us match you with the best
character. Feel free to expand on any answers that you think will be
meaningful for us when casting.
Are you interested in a character who is:
- saving the world?
- destroying the world?
- changing the world dramatically?
- just out for themselves?
Would you like to be human? Not human?
Do you want a high-plot or low-plot character?
Have you ever played a wargame (strategic board game)? Would you like
to?
Are you willing to play a journalist? This requires writing several
short articles per day about events in game.
Are you interested in making a documentary about some aspect of game?
This will involve documenting events during game and assembling it
into a story/film/etc; they'll be shown or distributed at wrapup.
How do you feel about:
- research notebooks?
- photo trails?
- shadowruns?
- patrol-style combat?
Would you like your character to be involved in politics? Economics?
Are you willing to play a character with limited ability to interact
physically with the world?
Would you enjoy having a lot of behavioral psychlims?
Which of the following are you willing to play:
- a megalomaniac?
- a psychopath?
- someone deeply religious?
- an ideological or religious extremist?
- someone with a deep secret?
- a child?
- an adult who is emotionally a child?
- someone suicidal?
- an optimist?
- a cynic or escapist?
- a bigot? (Either anti-Aspect or anti-human)
- someone delusional?
- someone culturally foreign?
- someone with low self-esteem?
- someone with a military background?
- someone who is under duress?
- a deceptive character?
- someone unethical?
- someone who thinks they know better than other
people how to run other people's lives?
- someone who will kill large numbers of NPCs in
order to achieve their plots?
Do any of the above especially interest you?
Do you want to play a public figure?
Are you willing to not start game in a team?
How do you feel about playing a loner?
Do you want a character who wants to dramatically change themselves?
Which of the following does your character primarily care about?
- Themselves
- Their family/close social group/tribe
- Their country
- Their species
- Everyone
- The world(s)
Do you want to play someone motivated by:
- Greed
- Power
- Revenge
- Guilt
- Altruism
- Curiosity
- Science!
How much do you want to play a character who knows a little more than
average about what's going on?
Are you willing to be in an internally competitive team?
Do you want to play someone with extremely challenging plots?
Are you willing to write your own cover story?
Anything else we should know?
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