One of the big boons of coming to live in Columbus, Ohio was the presence of the Origins Game Fair. When I was a wee nerd growing up, I would occasionally read about it (and GenCon) in the various DnD magazines I would buy from the local shop. It didn't really mean much to me, since I wouldn't go to a con for the first time until my mid 20's.

Upon joining the local board games club at OSU, it was mentioned to me that Origins happened in town and that's the first time I felt like I was suddenly in a big pond.

And so it became a yearly tradition for me to make my way over to Origins and to game my little heart out as much as I could. The only exceptions to this time were during the lockdowns and a couple years where I was drinking myself into oblivion and couldn't spare the money or time.

Last year I made my way over to the con while roughly only a month sober. I was tired, but feeling good about the future. Well, feeling as good as my body would let me. I arranged for a suite of activities including a miniatures game of racing dinosaurs, an arena battle in Dark Sun, and a vampire larp.

Now, I had played vampire larp before in 2022 at Origins. I joined an independent troupe game that was a lot of fun, but I left early because of how much I was drinking. Soon after, that group dissolved and so I was not able to continue. I was glad to find another larp in 2024, and when I got there it seemed much larger than the one I had played before.

I had played Vampire: The Masquerade in high school, and had quite enjoyed it. There was a larp group not too far from the shop, and I met a couple of their players but never participated myself. I was drawn very much to clan Tzimisce, the monstrous fleshcrafters 'cause I guess I've always been a little edgy like that. They disgusted me with their powers, but I found myself fascinated with them nonetheless.

I played the game now and again, but during the lockdowns while I was depressed and drunk, I found myself watching LA by Night, a web series of a vampire game played by professional actors.

This reignited my interest in some of the macabre subcultures I'd passed through now and again. I never was goth myself, mostly due to the rampant fear my parents had of the culture, but found myself always drawn to it regardless.

And so while I spent a lot of time at the local goth nights (which I have trouble remembering a lot of the early days of), it was wandering into the larp at Origins that really changed things for me.

The larp has encouraged in me several things. One, it's encouraged me to talk to people, especially if I find them attractive. It's an extremely social game in a political arena, and so communication of all sorts is absolutely required. My social skills rusted dramatically during the lockdowns, and being able to so much as look at people and talk to them had become difficult.

Two, the larp has encouraged me to deal with confrontation. As a political game that is mechanically a combat game, the game can present tense situations at the drop of a hat. Being able to navigate that is something I've always had trouble with, and being able to expose myself to it in a safe environment has given me a lot of confidence.

Three, the larp has allowed me to step outside myself and look at the way I interact with people. I've been able to identify spikes of anxiety and ask myself why I get them when I do. It's encouraged me to interact with people older than me with more responsibilities as equals, rather than pushing myself in the role of a child against my adult peers.

Origins this year fell on the solstice, and marked one year since I'd joined the vampire larp community. In that time I've made a lot of friends and been able to open myself back up. I've learned to control my emotions and to look objectively at the situations I am in and react with intent, rather than being jerked around by my often tumultuous emotions. My emotions have calmed dramatically as a result.

I think there's still a long way to go. I find myself still at the behest of certain triggers, even if I am not knee jerking like I used to. I find myself still unsure of myself when I speak to confident and collected individuals, though now I can take that unsureness and hold it and analyze it and set it aside.

The larp really has changed me, and given me more community than I would have dared ask for. And it's let me reclaim a modicum of confidence that I had written off as lost.

As the summer presses on, I hope I can find new ways to explore the frontiers of my self, but whatever comes next I have my larp community to thank for so much.