Here At The End

I'm here to talk to you about H.A.T.E..

You see those punctuation marks, clearly marking H.A.T.E. as an acronym?  Yeah, this is going to be a much less serious talk than the title and first sentence may make you think.  But it IS very important, especially if plan to attend GenCon Indy this year (more on that later), and double important if you live near southern Wisconsin and like to play dress up and/or whack people with padded sticks and/or shoot little bolts of light at people.

Here At The End is quickly becoming my favorite roleplaying world (live action or otherwise). It's the first LARP series by a dear friend of mine (or rather, his one-man company, Evil Genius Enterprises LLC), and the fifth event ever was last weekend.  I could tell you about the general premise of the world, but I think it would be faster if you followed that link above (or went to the H.A.T.E. page on larping.org) and read it straight from the Evil Genius' brain.  I'll wait.

Okay, now that you're back, a few things to add:  Yes, clearly the germ of this LARP owes a lot to the Fallout series, and if you're looking for a Fallout LARP but can't find one (or can't find one that fits your interpretation of canon), H.A.T.E. will definitely scratch that itch - play Old Guard for an original Vault 13/Brotherhood of Steel hybrid, or play Reborn if you're the type who recruited every useful ghoul and mutant you happened across.  But it is so much more than that.

This is a game where players from all the corners of LARP, post-apocalyptic or otherwise, can come out and play together.  Seriously - if you play medieval fantasy, Mad Max style post-apoc, steampunk of any stripe, military simulation or reenactment for any point in the last two centuries, vampires, werewolves, space opera, ANYTHING, or even if you don't play in any genre at all yet, there's a place for you.  No buying new garb just for your first event, unless you really want to.  Most of the generic NPCs just wear their rattiest available jeans and t-shirt, the Reborn start the same way but with some added actual rags and occasional extremely random other garments, the newer Edwardians are wearing thrift-store waistcoats and button-up shirts, Old Guard enlisted favor modern military gear while their officers look like stock photos of 1950s men, and most of the Elysians could go out into the real world and be mistaken for fashionable art/theatre students (the rest could step into a medieval LARP without changing clothes).  But somehow, for all that simplicity and catch-all randomness... we come out looking like this:


Everybody looks amazing, each faction still has its own distinctive look, and together we gel into a cohesive style for the world as a whole.  Even if all you can bring to an event is yourself and a spoon*, you can play and fit in somewhere.  Entropy and enthusiasm will rattle you into the shape you need to be for this game. There is really one way to explain why this LARP works... it's something that may scare some prospective players away, but hopefully will draw more in.  Because here's the real secret, the magic ingredient that makes everything work:

Here At The End is INSANE.  And I don't mean grim and chaotic "insane," although it is that, too.  I mean that this game has some serious bats in its belfry.  It's a PvP-geared LARP in which there has never been a major conflict between PCs (tension, thievery, friendly fire, and tripping non-faction members to use them as bait, but never conflict).  The first event featured several characters getting into a loud discussion about the movie "The Road Warrior" while still completely in character.  At event #4, I had to figure out on the fly which bit of the medical rules covered reattaching a severed hand.  ...These are just the few bits of insanity that are easy to describe.  My point is, while everything fits consistently into an internal logic, it is not always our Earth logic, and trying to predict how things will go is a fool's game.  And this most recent event really went down the rabbit hole...  LITERALLY.  There was a tea party with the Red Queen and everything, including a gloriously disturbing Cheshire Cat.

*There's food at most events, usually a hearty soup or chili.  The Evil Genius and his minions will provide a bowl if you need it, but keeping track of utensils invites the wrong sort of madness, so you have to bring your own.


Now, if that didn't scare you away (I hope it didn't), here's what you need to know:  Events happen roughly once every other month,  and to the best of my knowledge, the next one up is GenCon, where H.A.T.E. will be running one-hour mini-events all weekend long, for a total of 42 opportunities to try out this awesome new game.  I'm on the volunteer roster for the event, so if nothing else, come by and say hi to me!  I promise I won't bite!

Important Link Roundup (just in case you want to type instead of click):
https://www.facebook.com/EvilGeniusEnterprises
http://www.egelarp.com/index.html
http://www.gencon.com/

Photos in this post are courtesy of Shawn Smith and Anne Julia.