I ran this larp at a public event last night, and the attendees had an amazing time! I thought the character brainstorming prompts were really good, especially for helping the first-time larpers jump in.
The players really dug the monologue mechanic, and there was a nice range of uses of it: from going on at length and making the whole room cry, to skipping the speech part entirely.
I was pleasantly surprised at how flexible and robust the game turned out to be, given the simplicity of its presentation. Bravo to the designer for writing a lovely game!
I think I understood your meaning fairly well; I didn’t think you were saying the game was bad. I’m very aware that as written this game is definitely Not For Everyone. My hope is to rework the meditation so that players have a built-in immersion dial. Sort of “if you want intense immersion do x and if you want a bit more distance do y”. But I think this will never be a game that everyone can safely play.
When my GMC was taken hostage I improvised a bit about how there were guards outside the door and they wouldn’t mind endangering me if it meant keeping their assets safe. I think I’ll add a few examples of how to handle an uprising. Thanks for the suggestion!
Thank you so much for your post about Did I Fall Asleep. It touched on a few points that are important to me.
This can indeed be a powerful game, and not only in a good way. That’s why I’ve been tailoring the safety mechanics and other components based on player feedback over the past three years. You pointed out the opening meditation, which was identified to me the last time I ran the game as a potential danger. Even though the closing meditation can be very effective in returning the players to themselves, the opening one needs work to be made safer. I have been working on an updated version of the game where the opening meditation guides players in a safer way, offering them the choice to moderate how personally they take the instructions.
The straightforward nature of the evil corporation in the game is an intentional design component. They know that their actions are fully legal, and they’ve got at least one governmental department backing them, so for them ethics are irrelevant. They don’t need to be deceptive: they hold all the cards when it comes to dealing with their agents and they know it. I feel this mirrors real life in an unsettling way. In the corporate world ethics has teeth only as far as it is legislated and enforced. As long as it is in compliance with local laws, a corporation has no motivation to act ethically if doing so would harm its profits. It will exploit its employees, buy its materials from overseas slavers and dump its waste wherever is cheapest. As long as it doesn’t explicitly admit to the public that its actions are unethical, it can be quite transparent about its business practices. Its shareholders don’t care, and no harm comes to the corporation.
Thank you also for mentioning the lack of combat mechanics. Funny enough, the exact hostage situation you described happened in my very first run of this. I feel I should include guidelines for physical touch within the game, but I want to be careful not to do so in such a way that I prime the players for a fight. That’s another design consideration I have for the version in progress.
Thank you again for taking the time to share your feedback on my game. If you wind up facilitating it I would love to hear how it goes.
Glad to hear it! This game is indeed a love letter to Dollhouse. I’ve taken some liberties with the background story and other elements though. Note that no familiarity with the source material is necessary, or even particularly useful, in this game.
Once upon a time I had enough local larper friends to run games this size easily. but most of the runs I’ve facilitated have been at conventions. I’ve been thinking of creating an online setup where there are multiple chat rooms, so people can talk in smaller groups. If I come up with something viable I’ll definitely add it to the game page so folks who have the game have access to it.
I cannot take credit for the Cartesian casting method, but I do claim credit for having made up that name just now. I think I first saw it in Factory Reset, by Ash Kreider, which was the inspiration for Did I Fall Asleep. And the fun thing is that your exact casting location varies depending on who else you’re playing with and on whether you’re answering the questions on behalf of yourself or on behalf of the character you want to play.
The interaction between required characters and topic exclusions is tricky. Without going into spoilers here I’ll say that there’s one pair of characters who could hypothetically be swapped for others. It would require some work on my part to write up some new questionnaires, but that’s a really good idea for a future version. Thank you for suggesting it! The other two required characters are fairly directly important to illustrating the nature of The Company, and their sensitive topics are ones that cannot be avoided while playing this game. I’ve started making notes for the next version of the game to expand on that.
I’m glad you’ve enjoyed reading the game, and when you get a chance to run it I would love to hear how it went. Thanks again!
