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beige_alertI went to my very first live-action role-playing game in Germany, with rather minimal knowledge of the German language. Overall, I'm glad I did it, though next time I want to be sure that, one way or the other, I can reliably understand what everyone else is saying.
When the possibility of going to the LARP was discussed it sounded interesting. I've known gamers and LARPers for a long time, but never tried it. I also thought I might get some practice with the German language out of it. On the other hand, having my first role playing experience in a language I can hardly understand seemed like it might not be the most practical idea. It ended up being the thing going on at the time I was there, though, so my indecision got a push from that.
The LARP seemed mostly confusing at the time, and sometimes frustrating, but seems hilarious in retrospect. I guess a lot of things in life are like that. It wasn't clear at the time that struggling to mostly fail to understand what anyone was saying was valuable practice, but it was soon clear that it did wonders for my ability to understand spoken German. It would have been worth it for that alone.
I began by playing a priest of knowledge who had studied the language of the dark elves (for which purpose they use English) and who had, due to an unfortunate head injury, forgotten his own native language (which would be German). This sounded like a very clever idea on the part of the game masters, though in practice it didn't really seem to work out. For one thing, the player characters mostly didn't ask any of us much of anything. So much for priests of knowledge. Not that I actually had any knowledge in the first place. I mostly spent the evening watching and listening and trying to get some sort of feel for what was going on. Mind you, listening for me was not a casual, easy thing, it required full concentration, and still I pretty much understood nothing. The scholar-with-head-injury role might have been a bigger success if I'd been more confident (and more experienced) and tried harder to engage people with it.
Eventually the hour got very late, and we all ended up talking, singing, and drinking beer, and I had a little bit of success understanding some of the conversations, and we also did some of the chatting in English. In regular conversation it's not too hard for someone to explain to me what, in general, is going on in the conversation. In-game it's much harder to find a break in the action for translations. Also, with English being the language of the dark elves, the player characters tended to panic if they heard it used. Another one of those hilarious things I didn't know about until later.
There was one extremely frustrating event for me. Toward the end of the game everyone came rushing into the room and a dramatic confrontation between players carrying a wind chime (I have no idea why) and the head vampires ensued. The vampire spoke. Very. Very. Slowly. Excellent, I thought! Slow is just what I need in German. Unfortunately, he was whispering. I listened as closely as I could. Those few words he spoke loudly enough for me to hear I understood perfectly. The rest I simply could not hear. It was the most frustrating experience of the weekend for me. After the dramatic exchange of inaudible words, they all ran out, wind chime in hand. What they did next, I have no idea. It was like being in some weird Monty Python skit (the Whispering Vampire verses Wind Chime Man!), only in German.
I did look out and notice the sky, however. Dark and clear. The weather was lovely the whole weekend, and I spent some time out looking at the sky that night. I was surprised how dark the sky was. We did spend a lot of time in the minivan driving out there, but I didn't expect to be far enough from the city lights for such darkness. It's rare for me to get far enough away from the cities here in America to see a dark sky, and I hadn't really expected to do so in Germany. It was very lovely.
Sunday was cleanup day, and I'll just say that an indoor Dark Elf vs. Werewolf fight with a few liters of fake blood makes a hell of a mess, even though they did try very hard to be tidy. Fortunately, scrubbing the floor was exactly the kind of task I knew how to do. It was actually somewhat entertaining. We'd get a section cleaned, look up, and, oh, look, more blood. Then, after cleaning that, we'd look up, and, oh look, more. Immer mehr.
I'm glad I tried it.
When the possibility of going to the LARP was discussed it sounded interesting. I've known gamers and LARPers for a long time, but never tried it. I also thought I might get some practice with the German language out of it. On the other hand, having my first role playing experience in a language I can hardly understand seemed like it might not be the most practical idea. It ended up being the thing going on at the time I was there, though, so my indecision got a push from that.
The LARP seemed mostly confusing at the time, and sometimes frustrating, but seems hilarious in retrospect. I guess a lot of things in life are like that. It wasn't clear at the time that struggling to mostly fail to understand what anyone was saying was valuable practice, but it was soon clear that it did wonders for my ability to understand spoken German. It would have been worth it for that alone.
I began by playing a priest of knowledge who had studied the language of the dark elves (for which purpose they use English) and who had, due to an unfortunate head injury, forgotten his own native language (which would be German). This sounded like a very clever idea on the part of the game masters, though in practice it didn't really seem to work out. For one thing, the player characters mostly didn't ask any of us much of anything. So much for priests of knowledge. Not that I actually had any knowledge in the first place. I mostly spent the evening watching and listening and trying to get some sort of feel for what was going on. Mind you, listening for me was not a casual, easy thing, it required full concentration, and still I pretty much understood nothing. The scholar-with-head-injury role might have been a bigger success if I'd been more confident (and more experienced) and tried harder to engage people with it.
Eventually the hour got very late, and we all ended up talking, singing, and drinking beer, and I had a little bit of success understanding some of the conversations, and we also did some of the chatting in English. In regular conversation it's not too hard for someone to explain to me what, in general, is going on in the conversation. In-game it's much harder to find a break in the action for translations. Also, with English being the language of the dark elves, the player characters tended to panic if they heard it used. Another one of those hilarious things I didn't know about until later.
There was one extremely frustrating event for me. Toward the end of the game everyone came rushing into the room and a dramatic confrontation between players carrying a wind chime (I have no idea why) and the head vampires ensued. The vampire spoke. Very. Very. Slowly. Excellent, I thought! Slow is just what I need in German. Unfortunately, he was whispering. I listened as closely as I could. Those few words he spoke loudly enough for me to hear I understood perfectly. The rest I simply could not hear. It was the most frustrating experience of the weekend for me. After the dramatic exchange of inaudible words, they all ran out, wind chime in hand. What they did next, I have no idea. It was like being in some weird Monty Python skit (the Whispering Vampire verses Wind Chime Man!), only in German.
I did look out and notice the sky, however. Dark and clear. The weather was lovely the whole weekend, and I spent some time out looking at the sky that night. I was surprised how dark the sky was. We did spend a lot of time in the minivan driving out there, but I didn't expect to be far enough from the city lights for such darkness. It's rare for me to get far enough away from the cities here in America to see a dark sky, and I hadn't really expected to do so in Germany. It was very lovely.
Sunday was cleanup day, and I'll just say that an indoor Dark Elf vs. Werewolf fight with a few liters of fake blood makes a hell of a mess, even though they did try very hard to be tidy. Fortunately, scrubbing the floor was exactly the kind of task I knew how to do. It was actually somewhat entertaining. We'd get a section cleaned, look up, and, oh, look, more blood. Then, after cleaning that, we'd look up, and, oh look, more. Immer mehr.
I'm glad I tried it.
