What Your Casting Questionnaire Tells Me About You, 2011 edition: part 1

[hazliya]

I sent out questionnaires for the Intercon run of Better off Dead yesterday. I've gotten over half of them back. Already, I'm seeing some interesting things.

First off, there have been a number of people who do not want key elements of the game in their casting. Like being disliked at all. Or dressing up (the game has the word "prom" in the damn title!).

Know what that tells me about you? That you either a) did not read the game description, b) do not remember what it was like to be a teenager, or c) grew up in a bubble.

This game is set at a high school prom. Of course there is going to be drama, and of course no one is liked by everyone. They're teenagers, for fuck's sake! This is not the High School of Peace and Love. If you want to play someone loved by everyone, go play in the goddamn Rainbow-Brite larp.

Second, if you give them the option, 80% of male players will list "sexy librarian" as a character they'd be interested in playing. I approve.

Comments

[anitra.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of a male "sexy librarian". Just sayin'.

[mariaklob.livejournal.com]

IAWTC.

[laurion]

I know plenty of male librarians. And although I don't swing that way, some of them could even be called sexy.

[acousticshadow2.livejournal.com]

I feel your pain... I know exactly what it is like to list a game then have the players write “I don’t want to be the main points of this game”

I think if you wrote a game where the blurb said “in the end everyone dies” at least one player would say “I’d rather not die if possible.”

I’ve actually thought about writing a larp called the “Happy Fluffy Bunny Rainbow LARP” where nothing happens to anyone except happy fluffy bunnies rainbow stuff and everybody loves everybody and nothing bad happens.

[hazliya.livejournal.com]

Were I not moving to a foreign country, I would totally write Rainbow-Brite, The LARP with you.

[acousticshadow2.livejournal.com]

How long you gonna be in Japan? We could write it via the interwebs then run it in #years when you get back.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_dragonwolf_/]

Gah, people whose questionnaires basically state "I have no interest in anything that happens in this game!" :-P It's really bemusing to me that wouldn't be a tip-off.

[how-low-am-i.livejournal.com]

i guess i am a little sick of being the obnoxious, annoying disliked one that i play in most games. so that's why i said i didn't want to be disliked. UNLESS, as i also wrote, i could be EVIL and disliked.

also, you know ive got an awesome prom dress just waiting to be worn...;-)

[darkoni]

Huh. Somehow I never thought of Giles. I just thought of the girl with glasses as the sexy librarian, because that is always hot. I guess I was part of the 20% that did not pick that.

If you need more troublemaker/bastard types, feel free to up my answers on those.

[redfishie.livejournal.com]

well...male librarians can be sexy. I heartily approve.

[bleemoo.livejournal.com]

I assume when you say a bunch of us said we didn't like dressing up, you meant the bit on your app where you asked about costuming.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but none of the three options you describe explain why I answered the way I did. I am not dumb. I know this game is set at a high school prom, and I will likely need to wear a suit. I have no problem with that. I figure if you ask the question, that implies that some of your characters will require more costuming than others. After all, if every character requires full-body makeup and 6 hours of prep, that's something youll likely warn your players about in the blurb, and there's no point in asking the question, since the answers won't actually help you cast at all. So I answered relative to the game. Obviously I'll be wearing a suit; that's a baseline costume for this game. Beyond that, I'd prefer less costuming than more. So if you decide that the two best characters for me are a normal human and a 9-foot-tall demon with green skin and horns, and I'd be an equal fit in both of those characters, cast me as the human.

I hope that makes sense.

Damn. Now I want to play a 9-foot-tall demon with green skin and horns.

[hazliya.livejournal.com]

I *did* mean the question as extra costuming, but there are people who told me that they will very likely show up in like, a t-shirt and jeans.

[bleemoo.livejournal.com]

Also:

I have been told that I am sexy. I am a librarian, or at least a librarian-in-training. I am a male sexy librarian. Feel free to consider this comment an addendum to my questionnaire if you'd like.