Seeing that Call of Cthulhu is at the top of the most recent list of most heavily desired rounds, readers of this forum may be interested in signing up for In Memoriam of Leo Song. The group running this event has been running both the Cthulhu Masters and Novus Ordo Seclorum tournament (also Call of Cthulhu) at Gen Con now for almost 30 years. Our RPG events sell out in a matter of minutes. As one of the long time organizers, writers, and GM's, I continually get people asking us to run more. We created this round specifically to fill that demand. Don't be dissuaded because it is called a LARP. While it falls into that style, it is very similar to the smaller productions we run which are very difficult to get into.Leo Song is our way of doing more and filling the need for more Call of Cthulhu. We have close to 70 open tickets between the two rounds as of today. They took a while to sell out two years ago as well and the players from 2014 still send me notes asking when we are going to run a new LARP in the same vein as Leo Song. It's listed as a LARP and is a lot more expensive than your average RPG but as one of the GM's who has written and run The Cthulhu Masters and Novus Ordo Seclorum, I have to say this round is one of our most extensive and has had huge praise when we ran it in 2014. We decided to bring it back because we still get players from that year asking us to write another story. Unfortunately for them, this is the same round as before, but for people who didn't get in, there is still time.
This is not your average LARP. I honestly shy away from most LARPs because the few times I have played them in the past they were either boring, too crowded, or I didn't get a central character. I believe that most people are like me and have had bad experiences and now shy away from these types of events. Plus our round is expensive and is it worth the risk of spending $40 and finding out you have a boring character and there is 1 GM for 100 people?
We actually created Leo Song because we knew LARPs could be better. We spent hundreds of hours (no exaggeration) prepping this round. The material (character backgrounds, handouts, & stories) approaches close to 600 unique pages when printed out. We are running the round with at least 10 GM's per session and hope for something like a 4 to 1 player to GM ratio. In short- we went all out and after doing all the work, we thought we would run it again.I know it may look to be a bit expensive at $40 for 6 hours but compared to some of the other events at similar price points, I will stand behind this before all of them. We think it is worth every penny and are pretty sure that if you like CoC and role playing, then this round will be a blast.Anyways- I just wanted to throw it out there that if you are one of the ones demanding Call of Cthulhu, then you should play in this event. If you've ever wanted to get into one of our (Novus Ordo Seclorum's) Call of Cthulhu RPGs, then this round is a lot of what we do there- only bigger in most every way.
Do you have an event number?
Sure thing- We are running twice on Thursday: LRP1685583 or LRP1685584
I detest LARP's but I played this event in 2014. I have to say I had a great experience and would recommend that anyone who is a fan of COC or wants a great gaming experience to give this a try.
Thanks!! We had a blast running it too and that is why I am posting this. It would be a shame if we didn't get enough players for what we feel to be such an awesome event.
Would this work for someone with no LARP or COC experience other than having read the original novella and having an Ia! Ia! licence plate frame?
I think it would be very easy to jump into this round. It is very rules light (though there are full CoC character sheets provided for each player). There is a ton of background supplied. A lot is going on in this round and the people I see having the most fun are the ones who put themselves out there. If you can get into a character and roleplay then you will have fun. For those who aren't that much into roleplaying, there is a lot of content and stuff to do. We like it best though when people try to stay in character or at the very least they follow the parameters laid out in their backgrounds. If you can read and remember what you read, then you should do fine.
We have had a lot of people who had never played anything in the past. It is a fairly rare occurrence for anyone to walk away from our rounds unhappy (and I have been doing this for over 20 years). I saw one of those new Leo Song players last year and they jokingly told me that I ruined Gen Con for them because they expected all the rounds to be as awesome as ours and felt let down. Not to sound pompous but we get a lot of that. We spend an inordinate amount of time writing and tweaking these events.
On top of that, I think we are a friendly group and love it when new people play. I know it is a bit costly to try to experiment but I stand behind this experience versus a lot of the other ones that are even more than ours.
Well I love CoC and I love NOS but as an introvert, I find the idea of being in a 40 person larp for 6 hours a little intimidating.
I am intrigued however....
What game system are you using? Cthulhu Live! or Homebrew or something else?
Thanks.
Well that is where there is a bit of confusion. We actually originally posted this game as an RPG. Two years ago we ran it under the heading of an RPG (It sold out in two days under that heading but had the same description). The first hour actually works likes an RPG and then transitions to Larp. We use standard 6th edition CoC rules for the entire event.
Much of the event transitions between small group to large group Larp and then back to smaller groups.
What's cool about our Larp versus standard Larps is the fact that you don't get dropped in a room of 50 people without any clue who is there or what is going on. We start you with a group and you can familiarize yourself with those people and do a little strategizing like you might in an RPG like setting. Then we introduce you to the larger group and we do a pretty good job of pointing people out as well. We have found that the round is mostly Larpish but so are most of our Cthulhu Masters and Novus Ordo Games- just in a smaller setting. I know it is confusing, but like I have said, it is extremely seldom over the years that we have disappointed players. Of course like all role-playing you do get more the more you put in. With that said, there is enough going on in this Larp that even a person who prefers just playing a fly on the wall could probably sit back and watch and have fun.
Thank you for taking the time to explain that....it doesn't sound as "daunting" as it did initially to me.
Thank you tmessnet I know you guys at NOS work your butts off and it's very appreciated. I'll definitely give this another look.
My pal did one of your events last year and loved it. We just scrambled to grab four tickets to the 7pm one and we are really looking forward to it.
These events were cancelled. :(
Unfortunately, it was getting to risky to see if these events would fill. We were facing the possibility that we might prep for them only to discover onsite we did not have enough to make it playable.
Note that in the coming days you should see a slew of new Novus Ordo Seclorum Call of Cthulhu RPG events to fill this gap.
We will evaluate ways to make this offering doable in the future.
I would definitely put more meta game explanation in the "long description". Also go back to listing it as an rpg over a larp. After discussion about it on the forums I became very interested and tried to get some of the guys I was going with to do it as well....after reading the description they weren't interested at all.
I had to explain the metagame stuff to get them more interested. I usually skip over larps in general because they're just not my thing....but NOS does a lot of their events "Larp" style so I think you can get away with listing it as an rpg.
Sorry to hear you had to cancel your event....I know that has to suck!!!
Good luck next year!!!