Hunters vs Dumb LARPers

This next one took place about twelve years ago. Specific Mechanical Details may be fuzzy, and for that, I apologize. It is, however, a WoD LARP story, and one I've been meaning to post to a Cat Piss thread since I joined SA.

I am not the same person I was back then, and, were I then, who I am now, I would have likely handled the situation in a different manner.

So, I was at Ohio State University back in 2003. Now, because, back then, I was a twenty year old college kid, I lived a nearly totally nocturnal day-cycle, due to some bad, bad insomnia.

This has anything at all to do with the story because of Burritos Noches.

Ahh. Burritos Noches. One Swipe of a Meal Card, and you could get a Burrito The Size Of Your Head. It was open from 12AM to 4AM, and was a godsend to those students who were, like me, up very late.

It also attracted the local chapter of The Cam. Or, at least, The Prince, and a whole bunch of his cotire.

Each and every night, this group of Goth-dressed Kine-Sneerers would cluster the area right around the doorway to this delightful land of tasty late-night burritos.

And they would LARP. In the worst, Cammy, Mundane-Freaking, Feed-By-Touching, Greasy Goth manner.

It got so harassing that the University considered shutting down the food venue, due to the complaints of female students about thirty-five-year-old grease-beards lounging around in black, and makeup, and touching them. I get the whole "Touch to Feed" thing, but seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeriously. The kind of folks who show up to do this form of LARP are exactly the kind of folks who will take that as an invitation to get all Creepy-Touchy on the college kids they're trying to freak.

Now, to myself, and my friends, all of whom were TTRPG players, the loss of Burritos Noches was unacceptable. Upon hearing that the University was considering canceling the program, we decided to take action. We knew enough about these V:tM players that most of them were former university students, but didn't currently attend, and didn't give a fuck about what happened to the students there, they'd move their characters to a new location on campus, and keep harassing students.

So long as they had those characters.

Which is where my friends and myself hatched our plan.

We contacted Campus Facilities, and, using available forms, made rental of five sections of mobile, generator-powered stadium-lighting. We positioned these around the little courtyard that these LARPers lurked.

We went out, and bought Super-Soakers.

And we bought a copy of Hunter: The Reckoning, and contacted the Cam to start a sanctioned Hunter Group.

The night all of this went down; when the lighting was in place, one on a pole above the center of the courtyard, the other four positioned on the ground to encompass the entire courtyard. We then used a sharpie to write "Flamethrower" down the side of each Super-Soaker, and "HIGH INTENSITY UV" on paper signs that we taped to each of the lights.

We waited. And waited. And once the whole LARP had shown up to do their freaking and feeding...

We turned on the Generator, and jumped from the hedges with the Super-soakers.

Between the "Sunlight", and the Agg-Damage from the Flamethrowers, we ashed nearly "five thousand years" of V:tM characters in one evening's actions. And as frustrated as the Storyteller was, when we presented our Avenger and Defender Hunter Sheets, he actually adjudicated that we had succeeded, to the angry protestations of his group. "They perfectly played the Role of Hunters. You all got too complacent, didn't check out the area you'd be gathering, didn't spend resources to secure the area, fed in the location too many times, and drew the attention of Hunters. Exactly like it's supposed to happen, when you do that."

So yeah.

I am not proud of super-soaking a bunch of LARPers in order to save a burrito location.

I am willing to admit there's some Cat-Piss on each and every side of this story.

But seeing a dude fifteen years older than you actually break down in tears, because the character he'd been playing for seven years, since he was in Grad School, had been Ashed, and there was nothing he could do about it? And knowing that what we'd done would cause a massive shake-up in the area's Cam; likely bringing in a group of leadership who would be more likely to tell guys like that to quit fucking "Freaking The Kine"?

I can feel a little bit good about that.

So yeah. That's the story of how I did a One-Shot Hunter: The Reckoning LARP, ashed thirty people's characters, and saved some tasty burritos.

Mature? Oh, hell no.

Would I do it today? God, no.

It is something I'll still point to as a citation of "In-Game Actions have In-Game Consequences."?
Absolutely.