The Other Side of the Glass, by Tory Root and Lily Benderskaya
Tacoma, Washington, 2031. Once the world had been much as we know it, with a little magic here and there, until one strange night nineteen years ago, when an unexpected and phenomenally powerful spell cast by an arrogant and careless mage altered reality. Computers stopped working, civilization ground to a halt, and countless people died. Yet in balance, magic became far more powerful, those with the talent more common. Hordes of newly-empowered mages set forth to build a new way of living, with magic replacing the lost technology of the past. But it's never been quite as easy it once was, and rumors spread of people's reflections coming alive, shadow-monsters in human form, magic run amok in terrible ways that would never have been possible before.
Still, here in the Laughing Cat Inn and Pub, people can leave their cares and worries at the door, or drown them in the best home-distilled rum on the Puget Sound. Magically warded and with a policy of turning no customer away, the Laughing Cat has been serving all kinds in this strange new world for years. Especially when storms of magic and glass-shards blown like needles in the wind ravage the countryside; these walls and wards can stand against anything. And the people within will be safe. At least physically. Their messed-up lives and feelings are another matter entirely.
The Other Side of the Glass is a character-driven game about love, gender, identity, and the strange ways in which magic changes them all. This game is full of romance and alternate sexualities; it also contains disturbing themes and abusive situations, and is recommended for mature players.
"Congratulations on your opacity."
- an asshole
This is a weird little (sort of) game that Tory started plotting as a low-key surreal romance game and then by the time Lily got involved and we started making sheets, it turned into Abuse: The Larp. Like it probably has some of the most fucked-up characters and most unusual worldbuilding we've ever written. It also may or may not be a freeform game disguised as a secrets and powers game. It has some narrative and exposition flaws which we hope to fix somehow someday, but overall people seem to have had fun playing out their messed-up lives and creating new and exciting magical shenanigans.
April 13, 2013, at the Brandeis Festival of the LARPs in Waltham, MA.
July 13, 2013, at Dia de los Sobres Tres in Watertown, MA.
November 16, 2013, at SLAW at WPI in Worcester, MA.
March 1, 2014, at Intercon N in Chelmsford, MA.
The Other Side of the Glass is a game for thirteen players (characters have assorted predefined genders) which runs for four hours, in two rooms, under the direction of three GMs. Average character sheet length is about fifty-five hundred words.
The game is benched pending complicated narrative and mechanical edits which we are not even 100% sure how to approach, but maybe we'll figure it out someday. The game has a runtime GM bible, but no casting or stuffing information.