Nine Worlds part one - Thursday to Friday
This week sees me recovering in Dorset after the excellent 2017 Nine Worlds Geekfest in London.Wheels at the ready for Nine Worlds |
This was my second year attending (you can read about my
first year experience here) and as well as being an attendee I was also running
a workshop in the guise of Access:LARP called “How to write accessible plot for
LARP” and, co-GMing a large one of tabletop RPG. Those commitments meant my
experience of the event was a little odd, as I was neither wholly Attendee nor
Staff.
Since my Access:LARP workshop was on Friday morning I
arrived on Thursday evening. As mentioned above, Thursday night is mostly
social to allow those early arrivals to settle in and warm up. I didn’t
actually attend any of the programmed events but I did enjoy the opportunity to
catch up with friends, have some good food and a drink or two in the hotel bar.
I choose to stay at a hotel away from the con, as I like having the physical
distance from the business and bustle of the con. This is one of the reasons I
hired a mobility scooter for the weekend – we tried a manual chair last time
but bumped up against London pavements – having to go a bit further to get to
and from the Con venue to my hotel takes its toll on my fatigue. I had been a
bit nervous about travelling around London with it and also nervous about how I
would feel around and me received by other people. Thursday night was my first
real test of my social concerns (as I’d already managed to travel to the hotel
itself) and I was relieved at how not only my friends but new people at the con
just accepted things and treated me no differently. They were helpful when
necessary but otherwise my gentle rolling everywhere raised no comment. I was reassured.
The Access:LARP Workshop
The Access:LARP Writing Accessible Plot workshop in full swing |
Friday morning I started my day with a leisurely breakfast,
packed my scooter and made my way to the Con. Sessions start at 10AM and
running one of the first sessions of the con had me nervous – what if people
didn’t turn up? What if it was too early on for interested parties (hangovers
and travel times can be equally damning)? Plus for some people this would be
their first impression of what Nine Worlds had to offer. I was surprised and
happy though when, as I set up people began to file n and take their places at
the table. By the time 10:00 ticked around I had an almost full house. This was
excellent, but oh now the pressure to deliver! I hadn’t run this workshop
previously having had to pull out of a “test run” at a smaller event earlier in
the year due to, of course, my own chronic illness. I really wasn’t sure how it
would go so delivering it at a popular con to a full house was exciting! The
group were engaged, got on board with the material and as the plot writing took
off, very creative both in their ideas and in their approach to accessibility.
I think most people came away having learned something or at least having a
better idea of how to approach writing a game with accessibility in mind. As a
bonus I think a couple of people came away with games they might actually run.
So that was that hurdle out of the way.
Friday continued with a very good panel on Policing in Urban
Fantasy. Though they were using two books I hadn’t read as their main focal
point, I found the expertise of the three women on the panel was sufficient to
hold my interest. The books were used more as touchstones and examples of
various issues and mthods of depiciting police, law and intelligence in urban
fantasy (and indeed in other genres) and allowed for a lively discussion from
various viewpoints – the police officer, the home office civil servant and the
intelligence analyst (each with a number of other hats and specialisations).
I’m a big fan of detective stories anyway so hearing their perspective was
great for me as a reader giving me common mistakes to look out for and making
more appreciative of those things done right. I imagine any authors who have a
police or detective thriller in the works would have taken even more from it
than me.
Plus, starting my attendeeship with a panel made up of
women, and queer women at that who all had expertise, authority and a voice was
pretty good going and to be honest just the sort of thing I want and expect
from Nine Worlds.
My day was broken up by a long meeting with my fellow GMs
finalising the plot and actually how this ridiculous RPG we were going to run
would work. It was a good meeting and definitely in the spirit of Nine Worlds –
three geeks who get on well crafting a game and playing around with game
mechanics – but it was difficult to shake the feeling that it was work. Sadly
it also meant I missed out on a couple of interesting panels but, these things
happen.
I did manage to catch an interesting talk by a woman called
Rafeeat Aliyu who as a historian and blogger, questioned why the stereotypes of
African women in speculative fiction tends to fall to “the warrior woman” and “the
priestess”. As an argument against and solution to this problem she introduced
us to a number of women from African history who had diverse and interesting
lives. Princesses, business women, crafters and rulers: real people, ripe for
story inspiration and far from obeying the rules of trope. The talk also raised
a number of interesting points about the concept of different models of
patriarchy, a patriarchy bore of need (for the continuation of legacy), and
approaches to gender, in societies where gender was often very performative leading
to the creation of female sons and male daughters.
I rounded off day one with (after collecting my partner who
had only just arrived) with a talk on wolves in horror and heavy metal music by
the excellent academic, Amanda DiGioia. Or at least that’s what I attempted.
Due to some reshuffling of rooms and us running a couple of minutes late we
actually ended up in “History’s Forgotten Heroes”. After a few minutes of initial
confusion when it became clear that these people weren’t talking about wolves
at all, it became an interesting panel with all panel members showing obvious
enthusiasm as well as knowledge about their chosen heroes. From the real story
of Tutankhamun to the extraordinary radical Irene Harand (writer of Sein Kampf
a refutation and challenge of Hitler’s infamous book) and Algerian female ruler
privateers it was clear there is far more to history that commonly makes school
history lessons and TV documentaries. All in all a good way to round off the
day.
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