What is AIT?

Atlanta Interactive Theater (AIT) is a Live Action Roleplaying Game (LARP) set in White Wolf's World of Darkness. The rules have been changed significantly from those published in White Wolf's Minds Eye Theater, and customized to reflect the preferences of this Chronicle. For those of you unfamiliar with this setting, it is a world not unlike our own, but where corruption and all the baser instincts of humanity are far more likely to be given free reign. In this world the government and every other institution of human life is more corrupt than the most paranoid conspiracy theorist could ever dream. In every shadow there may lurk the creatures of supernatural legend- Vampires, Werewolves, Mages, Mummies, and even Faeries. These creatures use their powers to manipulate the world and gain power over each other, using humans as pawns and tools in their eternal struggles.

AIT focuses on one group of these monsters, allowing players to become those denizens of the night, the Vampire, with an occasional appearance by other creatures, and ususally as a villain. Players may assume many roles within the game, from a politician manipulating others for their own ends to a violent rebel, proclaiming anarchy in the night streets. The only limits are on the imagination of the player creating the character, and they can be as diverse as the goals the players bring with them. There are constant choices to make, and they can provide personal goals and group objectives for those who take them on. There as some unique questions brought out by the very genre. As a predator upon humans, morality becomes twisted to survival at any cost as the ethics and values of the living world are shed in fitting into the new existence. Of course, a Kindred (vampire) who struggles with such a change, and does not become an immoral monster, can present an interesting challenge for players to develop. Those who wish to may experience and work through the darkening angst possible when any moment may let the beast, the carrier of the red thirst for blood, assume control over one in a frenzied need for vitae.

What is a LARP?

For those used to normal tabletop roleplaying games, a LARP is a strange experience. Instead of talking about doing everything, and then rolling dice, with an omniscient Storyteller (ST) guiding you, one actually walks around in the characters shoes. There are Storytellers guiding the overall actions of the city, things beyond the players control and making rulings when necessary for inter-player interactions. However, the largest part of the game consists of simply walking around as one's character, speaking to others and generally living life (or unlife in this case) as the character would. There is an attempt to take a step back from rules and to act as the character as much as possible, so that it becomes an entire interactive experience.

There are also some great advantages to the sheer size of the game. In a normal tabletop setting there may be around six individuals playing. They are normally discourages from acting against each other, and instead given incentives to cooperate. All opposition comes from the omniscient Storyteller, against whom the players are united, and against whom they are expected to triumph. However, that lack of imaginative opposition, and the assumption that you will always win, can be boring after a while. In AIT, in contrast, there may be up to eighty players playing in a single night, and every single one of them has their own goals, there own expectations, and their own definitions of what winning is for them. Suddenly, there is an opportunity to forge allies and defeat enemies that aren't predestined to failure. It takes clever strategy and powerful allies to defeat other players, especially