(Please note, this praxis is in two parts. We did this because we had five players sacrifice many hours of prep and then several hours of standing in the brutal Chicago heat, in order to complete the task. Therefore, we wanted everyone to get credit for participating since the task only has space for four collaborators. It has been divided into Part One, which covers all the prep work, and Part Two, which covers the actual lakefront activities.)

PART ONE

After some deliberations and brainstorming, we chose to recreate the online virtual game World of Warcraft (WoW). The first thing we did was create our “head pieces” (beautifully made by Dela Dejavoo), which are the in-game indicators that there are quests to collect and quests to hand-in.



Then we had to create the quests that we were going to ask the hapless public to assist us with. Since there were five of us, we decided to divide into two “quest hubs”, one with three people and one with two. Deciding on three total quests, we chose the typical sorts of quests that WoW players have to complete.

1. Combat quest: “Hail heroes! Our village needs help from the onslaught of evil silithids! Help us keep their number down by stomping on 20 ant drones. You will be given coins for your assistance.” (Old coins from the game True Dungeon)

2. Collection quest: “I am brewing a magical potion for the defense of our village. Please bring me five twigs or leaves that have already fallen to the ground. We will give you a magic card for your troubles.” (Extra cards from the CCG L5R)

3. Delivery quest: “Will you help me with one small quest? I need this important document delivered to our companions over there.” This quest was a chain. Once the letter was delivered to one of the people at the smaller quest hub, it was handed over to the other person who then said, “Thank you for delivering this letter. Please now return it back to where you were. You will be given loot for your troubles.” (Choose either a coin or card)

If someone completed all three quests, then they had an opportunity to select an item from a suitcase filled with old books, mixed-tapes, LP records, games, empty photo albums, etc (all of which Amby D contributed towards the cause... she never misses an opportunity to declutter her shelves). We wanted people to actually have an opportunity to get free loot for participating in the silliness with us.

(As a side note, the “important documents” was a sheet of paper inside an unsealed envelope. We were hoping that someone's curiosity would be peeked and that they would take a look and read the letter, which was in fact, a hand-written love letter. We wrote out about ten copies, just in case the letters didn't make it to their destinations.)



Once our props were, more or less, in order, we gathered to get into our costumes and prepared for our very public tasking on a freakin-hot-ass Sunday down at Foster Beach along the Chicago lakefront.


(Troll, Druid, Undead, Paladin, Warrior)



Once we selected our spots, we prepared ourselves for the big unknown of how the public would respond. First we dropped off the small quest relay hub, then the remaining three of us continued on to a second location further along the path.



OMG?!? What happened? Well, now it is time for you, dear reader, to move on to PART TWO.