Gone Gaming

So, McCain decided to suspend his campaign so he could deal with the economy. I guess he’s decided that it’s finally time for him to brush on what the economy is, go back to the Washington he hasn’t been to in ages, and stop the campaign events he’s had for the past week and a half during this crisis. Oh, and it has nothing to do with him being afraid he’s going to get creamed in the debate on Friday, and he wants to have some sort of little trump card in his pocket to pull out and divert attention from his lack of understanding on the issue to be able to point at a meaningless gesture which the other candidate was unwilling to join him in the stupidity of. I’m sure this wouldn’t be a problem if Obama had just agreed to the town hall debates. Which, of course, McCain wouldn’t have found excuses to avoid when his poll numbers tanked and it became clear his view on an issue was wildly unpopular.

Riiight.

<Now to relate this to LARPing, since this is a gaming-related site.

In many ways, the McCain campaign’s tactics during this general election represent the perfect tactics to engage in when you are playing in a one-off LARP with a time limit. Especially when all you need to do is run the clock or prevent someone from finding things out. I will point out that I will describe are tactics generally best suited for characters that are one of tricksters, villains, or other rogues who have flexible morals.

For example, divert attention from what people are trying to figure out that will hurt you by pointing them toward irrelevant information. Distract them from what you are doing by mentioning something interesting that they will be interested in checking out.

When necessary, fabricate lies that cannot be investigated, or that cannot be controverted. The more outrageous the better, as it will be sensational and attract much attention, meanwhile completely obscuring what is actually going on. And if they can be found out, make sure that it will take time to do, and by then you will either be able to make up another lie to explain the first, for example that the person who “gave” you the information lied to you. This will divert them on a witch hunt directed at the other person and give you breathing space.

And then there’s the possibility of threatening apocalyptic happenings that people must go deal with rather than continuing their thwarting of your plans or that you must deal with that is much more important than their stopping you. Or point out that there’s something else they should be dealing with that is much more important than worrying about you.

Done well in a LARP, you will hopefully entertain people with wild stories and give them a memorable experience as well as thoroughly entertaining the GMs as they watch you think up wonderful new things and find creative solutions to problems.

Done poorly, you can spoil things for everyone, make people think you’re a jerk, create headaches for the people trying to run a fair game for everyone, and distract from the themes that are supposed to be the focus of the game.

Sort of like what’s been happening in this campaign.

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