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The product
The game is sold as a 70-page PDF download, consisting of a GM's section and 43 pages of character sheets. The file is available in a variety of resolutions and colour choices depending on your needs, which allows the one obnoxious feature - a crumpled paper border effect - to be avoided just by selecting the printable version. The layout is otherwise clean and functional, with art (a combination of photos of costumed larpers and period artwork on the subject of absinthe) confined to the GM's section.
The promise
As noted above, its an appealing setting, and the game conveys it effectively through its background material and characters. The themes of the era - the squalor, decadence, corruption, and excitement - are all reflected in the Fairy's patrons. Despite the brevity of the character sheets, the characters are also all well-defined, and you get a strong sense of who they are and what they are about.
The information on staging the game is excellent, with a clear plot synopsis so the GM knows what is going on, and good advice on the physical setting and special effects necessary for the game. This includes a section on the preferred drink of the era - absinthe - and what to use in its place for either alcoholic or non-alcoholic games (though oddly, the former does not suggest representing absinthe with absinthe, instead recommending other expensive spirits). There’s also a collection of period absinthe labels, which can be printed out and used to add a nice touch of authenticity.
Eleven of the 30 parts are for women. This is a long way from perfect, but at least its not insulting.
The problems
This is a theatre-style larp, which means that barring certain limited GM interventions, all the story is generated by the players, from the seeds given to them on the character sheets. Unfortunately, like its predecessor, The Old Man of Damascus, this game is underplotted. There are a total of seven plotlines for 30 characters, and no-one has more than one. This is a lot less than I expect to see in a larp, and the result is likely to be people standing around wondering what to do.
A second problem is that the main plot - the identity of the serial killer - isn't really solvable. If they put all of the clues together, the players can work out why people are dying and even who the next victim will be - but they can't work out who the killer actually is, because no-one is primed with the necessary information. Worse, despite all this knowledge, they can't actually do anything about it. What happens in the end is predetermined and inescapable, and the players can't change it. They are effectively reduced to spectators while an unconsidered random anvil falls on someone's head. Some people might consider this appropriately Lovecraftian, a taste of the horror of inevitability and humanity's powerlessness in the face of forces beyond its understanding. In play, though, its just going to be frustrating.
Thirdly, the fact that there is an explicit "main plot" means that the few other plots - and the characters involved in them - get shortchanged. These plots "are not core elements of the storyline", and so the GM is instructed to just make up important details. The goes from having to provide random prop documents - sheer laziness on the part of the publishers - to determining how much money wealthy characters get. The latter is more important than it sounds; the balance between how much money there is and how much people want (or need) is tricky to get right, and can make or break a larp's economic plotlines. Too much, and there is no decision-making; people just buy everything. Too little, and people cannot achieve their goals. Good larps try and balance this, while using scarcity to drive character interactions. The Green Fairy just leaves it in the hands of the GM, with no guidance whatsoever. Again, its lazy, and I expect better from a commercial product.
Overall
Overall, this is a much better effort than The Old Man of Damascus, but still fatally flawed. While useable, it is very thin, leaving the weight of the game to be carried by the set-dressing and special effects rather than the plot. It could form the core of a good larp, if the GM was to sit down and write extra plots and find some way for the characters to resolve the central plotline - but that rather defeats the purpose of buying a game off the shelf. If you're having to go to that much effort, you might as well write the game from scratch.
But again, I'm struck by the price. You get what you pay for, and US$6.99 doesn't pay for a lot.
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