This past weekend was Immertreu, a German gangster larp set in the 1920s outside of Hamburg. I was playing it for a rather silly reason — I had signed up for Gangs of Birmingham, another 1920s gangster larp,¹ and so I was going to buy a tweed suit and figured I might as well get some more use of it.²

There’s a tiny bit of larp history in the game, since it was the last Dziobak game in existence. I’m not quite sure how it survived — in fact, when Dziobak folded I was pretty sure it was dead, and had started thinking about alternative plans.³ I’m glad they weren’t needed; I enjoyed myself, in part because I got a small glimpse into a corner of German larp.

And German larp, at least this one, seems an awful lot like American larp, at least American larp circa 2010. Throw together a volatile group of characters — crime lords, drug runners, assassins, thieves — into a volatile situation — the murder of the head of the crime syndicate means a new leader needs to be decided upon — and let things play out over the course of 24 hours.

The tone of the game was a little weird, at least to me. There was a lot of strategizing, plotting who to buddy up to and who to betray, and there were a lot of dark secrets buried in everyone’s backstory. But the feeling when I got there was a little bit on the Agatha Christie side, with rooms full of locked safes and documents to be riffled through and clues to follow up on to determine who had committed various foul acts.

I can’t lie, I was pretty excited to play that Agatha Christie larp. But it didn’t last; the documents were pretty well riffled by the time I got to them⁴ and as things started accelerating towards the end people stopped playing that sense of 1920s propriety which is so key to the genre, in my mind.

So it ended up being a pretty basic political larp, where you negotiated with other people for power or jockeyed for position while trying to keep your secrets from getting out.⁵ It’s not like that’s a bad thing; running around a manor house featuring great food⁶ and an open bar with impeccable cocktails⁷ is a pretty good base for an event.

I’m currently resting in a airport hotel in London, having spent two days in an airport hotel in Hamburg. I’m here because my father’s flying in at 8am, or at least is supposed to be flying in at 8am, and this seemed to be the best way to meet him. I say “supposed to,” because he hasn’t seen fit to let me know he’s gotten any of my texts over the past week, nor that he actually caught the flight on the first leg of his trip.

But it’s late, and I’m going to bed. I assume I’ll have a text from him in the morning letting me know his flight took off — his phone won’t work in the UK, although I suppose he might be able to get only his email if he gets a WiFi signal — and if not I’ll be waiting in Gatwick arrivals hoping to spot him?

I have vague plans for the next few days, although they will largely depend on whether he shows up and, if not, why he missed the flights. But as I said, it’s late, chances are he simply didn’t see the need to update me.⁸ We go to sleep, and hope for the best in the morning.

Next: Southampton to New York City
Prev: Tallinn (TLL) to Berlin (TXL)

Footnotes

¹ Well, Peaky Blinders starts in 1919, so more-or-less.

² Gangs of Birmingham was canceled, but I ended up playing in Cirque Noir, and I guess I’m wearing the suit for dinners on this upcoming cruise I’m taking, so I guess I’ve gotten reasonable use out of it. I’m not sure if I’m going to be wearing it for Sahara, but I’m at least considering it.

I’ve said this before, but if you’re playing male characters you can probably dress for 90% of the larps you’re likely to play if you own a tuxedo, a tweed suit, and a modern suit. I’m not saying you should, but you can.

³ Minor suggestion: in the wake of the wholesale collapse of a larp company, maybe email everybody with tickets to let them know if their games will still be running?

⁴ I have yet to see a larp that manages to provide that satisfying feeling of a room full of clues to be solved which survives the first wave of players. I’ve been thinking about it, and one of the major problems, I think, is that detective stories are solitary affairs — one person gets to be Poirot while everyone else sits around waiting to be accused of murder.

Of course in real life (and in larp) all the suspects will have stolen the incriminating evidence against them before the detective arrives. And they’ll have grabbed everything else of value besides, just for blackmail or to trade for something they really want or just because it looks important.

⁵ Technically, trying out-of-game to get your secret revealed in the worst possible way

⁶ Seriously, props to the food team

⁷ Double props for the bartender. Someone please pass on my compliments; my social anxiety prevented from offering them in person. Those drinks were on point.

⁸ This is kind of a perennial problem with my family. When I texted him to find out how he was doing last month he replied “Fine. I assume you know [your aunt] passed away” which, yes I did, but more to the point, if one wasn’t sure about that mightn’t one feel compelled to reach out?