Applying the GNS theory to LARP Part 2

[mindwanders]

Unlike (most?) tabletop games, time is not elastic in a LARP: it ticks by, one second at a time, and until you hit the HHTM (High Handling Time Mechanic), it doesn't matter - though it does serve nicely to keep everything "tkaing as long as it takes" and nicely synchronized.

When the HHTM hits, you suddenly get an action that violates this synchronicity, and *doesn't* "take as long as it takes" - which, in turn, gives other players extra time to react to it, prepare for its outcomes, or whatever.

The realtime/realspace aspect of LARPs (whether or not realtime and realspace map at a 1:1 ratio to gametime and gamespace - it's possible that the game spans a longer span of time, or has areas that are far away, etc) enforces an implied Sim heavily into the game.  You can't sit up and shout "Story Now!" if your part of the game doesn't have enough plot to suit you (though you're perfectly free to go and *find* more story).

That's a very good way of putting something I've been trying to put into words for a long time :-) Mind if I maybe steal this for one of the later articles?

It also explains why some actions in LARPs have time penalties attached to them. The search and handling time for the simulated action is too low to accurately represent the players action.

For example a character goes and searches the library for information on something. The GM performs the necessary task resolution and gives them the information and then tells them to go and look at beooks for 10 mins before the character knows it.

I think this is seen as one of the ideals for LARP design, getting the time it takes for a character to do something to be the same as the time it takes a player to do something.

So, even if your overt system prioritizes Nar or Gam, you've got this nearly subliminal layer of Sim in a LARP, and players (in my experience) both notice and dislike events that take too long to figure out.  [I've pared my system down to bare essentialys, with maximum streamlining, and still the combat module takes too long....]

Just out of interest, is it mostly Sim players you have?

I would say that some gamists are probably more willing to sacrifice the 1:1 relationship in order to get more strategy into the game. Whether, again this is something specific to the Gamist Agenda or whether it's simply some people not quite getting the concept of LARP being based on the 1:1 rleationship.

I'm trying to think of a situation in a LARP where a HHTM would be a good thing, and I'm failing.  Any ideas?  It might help illuminate the problem.

The only examples I can think of are for long tasks, but they still would be resolved faster by the task resolution system than in real time. Apart from that, I've seen gamists Happily drag on a fight for a long time, much longer than it would take in real life, without any regard for it spoiling play (which most players outside the fight will complain it does).

[mindwanders]

Re HHTM: Only examples I came up with are: if it is agreed to in advance as part of the game structure, and/or integrated with continuing RP it can be useful. An example might be "we give our orders to armies." The players then are free to RP while the GMs wander off and consult for effects, and then half hour later report on combat events off camera. Another example might be integrating game breaks with HHTM: LARP that revolves arround the preparation for combat, then breaks (for lunch?), combat is done by mechanic, and game restarts with the after effects. quote]

I'd probably classify these examples as things that would take as long or longer to resolve in real time, and as such are acceptable breaches of the high search and handling time rule.

Not having fun, and actually breaking the experience as well as the synchronity. I'll think it like this: when a tabletop game enters a meta-discussion phase ("so, what you're going to do next, folks?"), the players slip back to real world, maybe have a quick look at the character sheets and game notes, talk a while in Out Of Character-mode, before slipping back to the game world and discuss In Character. It's perfectly fine and normal, and the transition is easy as the game world only exists in the players imagination (or shared imagination, or diegesis, or something).

LARP is a different beast; here, only a part of the game world exists in diegesis or imagination. Most of it is all around you - you can touch it, smell it, speak with it, walk in it. When game slips into the meta discussion, like resolving something with a system or discussion with the gamemaster, the transition isn't as easy as in tabletop games. You still are in the physical game world, and only slip back from the diegesis/imagination. And, doing that, you can easily break the diegesis of other players

I'd agree with that. So basically we have worked out why a lot of LARP writers claim that the artform won't really come to a fore until we have startrek style holodecks.

Again mind if I maybe steal this idea for a later article?

(like doing rock-paper-scissors in the middle of a masquerade ball).

I think this is a particularly good example of something that is broken on two levels. Not only is the search and handling time quite high in MET, but it also uses a task resolution system  that just screams "we are doing a test". I've seen particularly fun examples of this at games where characters (not players) are playing RPS and drew crowds of players waiting to see what was going to happen.

There's a worse example that I've seen (and used actually) and that is calling a halt to play to resolve a test with "all" the players.

[Merten]

It's only recently that it's been clearly recognized that rules lite system can achieve full integrity for simulationist play; but then, simulationism is going through a lot of development even tonight, as we all struggle to fully understand and define it.

Thanks for the correction. GNS concepts ain't the easiest ones to grasp.

Again mind if I maybe steal this idea for a later article?

Go right ahead.

I think this is a particularly good example of something that is broken on two levels. Not only is the search and handling time quite high in MET, but it also uses a task resolution system  that just screams "we are doing a test". I've seen particularly fun examples of this at games where characters (not players) are playing RPS and drew crowds of players waiting to see what was going to happen.

Quite so; there's a problem in two different levels, here - assuming the use of RPS attracts more players to the scene, and waiting for the outcome. If the test is physical (something that the other characters see, most often a fight), it attracts more characters who, usually quite reasonably, are drawn to the happening. Which produces even slower resolution, which attracts more characters...

The second problem is that if the test is not physical (say, using dominate discipline in MET), the test might attract players instead of characters. Even if they manage to overlook the fact there's an Out Of Character resolution going on in the middle of them, it still breaks the flow of game. Going to, say, another room to resolve the thing is also problematics as it removes few characters from the place they're supposed to be.

This is wandering quite far from the original topic, so we might want to start another thread for the rules-discussion.

[JamesSterrett]

Mindwanders: "That's a very good way of putting something I've been trying to put into words for a long time :-) Mind if I maybe steal this for one of the later articles? "

Heck, steal it word for word - and put in the attribution.  :)

and...

"I would say that some gamists are probably more willing to sacrifice the 1:1 relationship in order to get more strategy into the game.  [...]  I've seen gamists Happily drag on a fight for a long time, much longer than it would take in real life, without any regard for it spoiling play (which most players outside the fight will complain it does)."

The main disjoint is (usually) woith the people outside the fight (or other task resolution) - *their* ability to interact smoothly with people is disrupted, because synchronization is broken.

I don't think the key thing about a LARP is a 1:1 ratio of realtime:gametime; the key things is that the 1:N ratio of these is very close to invariant over the course of the game, and the 1:N ratio is very close to the same for every player in the game.

(Which isn't to say that the 1:N ratio *cannot* change - but it's very difficult to do it unless all the players are taken along for the time shift.  For example, the LARP we ran in June featured a "helicopter ride", in which all the players get "transported" from site A to site B - and we skipped right through the ride by GM declaration to all players.  The 1:N ration changed, but it changed for all the players at the same time, and to the same degree, maintaining the synchronization of player actions.)

My player base:  Is broken up into many groups.  Some are highly gamist (they want goals to pursue and go after them), some Sim (in the sense of "explore character/situation" - I've got one player who doesn't really want character goals, but wants to - and is good at - playing a character who acts as "color" in the game), some narrativists (who want to explore character dilemmas.  Some are highly experienced LARPers.

But many of my player base have never played any other RPG, and not other games more complex than the various offerings of CheapAss (most of which are simple, fun, & zany).  The trouble with the combat mechanics (which are, in a nutshell: draw a card, multiply by N if you have a weapon, do that much damage to your opponent, total initial health is 100) is that they are too complex for some of these players to readily grasp and then retain when the combat actually takes place.

Are they Sim?  Nar?  Gamist?  I treat them as default Gamist in some ways - I try to ensure they have clear goals (which lets them answer the question "What am I supposed to do?")  However, I also try to work in a character dilemma for them.

So, well, you tell me what my players tend to be.  :)

[One of the Subversive Goals of my LARPs is to introduce non-gamers to playing games - showing them that it's something they can do, and enjoy, etc.  I've had at least one success, with a player who reported to me that because of playing in my LARPs, she now plays tabletop RPGs in her home city.  :)  ]

[mindwanders]

Mindwanders: "That's a very good way of putting something I've been trying to put into words for a long time :-) Mind if I maybe steal this for one of the later articles? "

Heck, steal it word for word - and put in the attribution.  :)

Will do. Thanks.

The main disjoint is (usually) woith the people outside the fight (or other task resolution) - *their* ability to interact smoothly with people is disrupted, because synchronization is broken.

I don't think the key thing about a LARP is a 1:1 ratio of realtime:gametime; the key things is that the 1:N ratio of these is very close to invariant over the course of the game, and the 1:N ratio is very close to the same for every player in the game.

(Which isn't to say that the 1:N ratio *cannot* change - but it's very difficult to do it unless all the players are taken along for the time shift.  For example, the LARP we ran in June featured a "helicopter ride", in which all the players get "transported" from site A to site B - and we skipped right through the ride by GM declaration to all players.  The 1:N ration changed, but it changed for all the players at the same time, and to the same degree, maintaining the synchronization of player actions.)

I'd say that's probably accurate.

But many of my player base have never played any other RPG, and not other games more complex than the various offerings of CheapAss (most of which are simple, fun, & zany).  The trouble with the combat mechanics (which are, in a nutshell: draw a card, multiply by N if you have a weapon, do that much damage to your opponent, total initial health is 100) is that they are too complex for some of these players to readily grasp and then retain when the combat actually takes place.

Is it maybe a maths problem? I've had a lot of players who get really intimidated by big numbers and even basic arithmatic (adding and subtracting) to the point that they just ignore the system and hope someone will stand there and tell them what to do if they need to use it.

Are they Sim?  Nar?  Gamist?  I treat them as default Gamist in some ways - I try to ensure they have clear goals (which lets them answer the question "What am I supposed to do?")  However, I also try to work in a character dilemma for them.

Well, I'd say that they don't know. I would think that your larp is a good way for them to find out as it seems to support all styles of play. Maybe you could sit down with them and find out what they think is "cool" (they talk lots about living in this cool alternate world, whatever) about larping, try and find a clique that meets that need and tie their characters into it. Point out that there's a lot of different things people can get out of LARPing and if the thing they thought they wanted wasn't what they were looking for you can design another character more targetted towards thier style of play.

So, well, you tell me what my players tend to be.  :)

from what I've seen with my larps, a good mix of all the styles :-)

[One of the Subversive Goals of my LARPs is to introduce non-gamers to playing games - showing them that it's something they can do, and enjoy, etc.  I've had at least one success, with a player who reported to me that because of playing in my LARPs, she now plays tabletop RPGs in her home city.  :)  ]

I do think this is one of the main reasons that we loose players from LARPs. If we can work out what they want from it, we can work a little harder to provide it.

[newsalor]

I believe that when the term immersion is used by most Nordic theorists, they mean it the way Turku School meant it or they mean it in the Three Way Model sense. The same may apply to simulationism. Immersionism is sometimes thought to be the true, most pure, form of simulationism and maybe the only form that is appliable to live action games.

[mindwanders]

I think that you've implicitly identified why conflicting agenda exist in LARP play: because the players are able to self-isolate. You suggest at the end of your article that LARP could be designed to easily accommodate drift, which you say tabletop doesn't do so well.

I think that about sums up what I was trying to say.

My reaction is to observe that Multiverser has for quite a few years now supported drift in play with a system which is flexible enough to allow players to do what they want. Player isolation is a factor in that, because characters do not have to interact at all if the players don't wish it, even at the same table.

I've been hearing so much about this game I think I'm going to move it up my "must buy at some point list".

"What is much more difficult to achieve is congruence--the "holy grail" of game design, perhaps, the game in which gamist, simulationist, and narrativist players can all play together, interacting with each other while pursuing their individual agenda, without interfering with each other's enjoyment of play. Far from enriching play, efforts to get the three disparate groups to interact is most likely going to inhibit each group's enjoyment of the game. Even if you can get them to agree that no one is playing "wrong" and no one is playing "better", they're still going to find that some players are doing things that are wasting their valuable play time, because it's not what they want to do. "

I must admit that is the view I'm coming around to. I think that a good LARP system that would allow the GM to decide on which agenda is played as part of the social contract, in the way Multiverser seems to do (from what I've heard, could be wrong on this), would be great. However I can't help feeling that if a LARP does not have a deffinitive "what it's about" it really always will just be a bunch of people standing in a room talking to thier mates rather than a cohesive roleplaying game.

[calebros]

I think that, once you acknowledged the existence of GNS, you can organize a LARP that doesn't conflict with any of those priorities providing they are no more tahn priorities.

My  opinion for it would be :

- respecting simulationist play is one of the rules that gamists have to respect. Any breach from this rule results in a gamist penalty (access to far less XP and NPC informations)
- simulationnist play provides ideal "NPCs" for narrativist play.
- narrativist play is hugely interesting PROVIDED "no RP" gamists don't pervert it.
- the "no RP" gamist shouldn't be invited whereas non-dysfunctionnal gamism should be encouraged.

My approach on it emphasizes other points. Brilliant gamists should get challenges and penalties. The same way some horses carry heavy weights in horce races. This is intersting for them as it gives them an appropriate challenge and intercation wuith every one (who is suddenly brought at their power level).

The condition for it to work is that you present penalties as rewards. "As I no you are very good at fencing, I don't allow your charcater to pick ambidexterity". This can be accpeted easily by gamists who admit that they still get a chance and an interesting thing to do.

[mindwanders]

I do wonder if you could ever convince players to accept a golf style handicap? Post it up for all to see and suddenly it becomes something that the gamists will compete to increase. Never forget the level of reward a gamist feels for seeing his name up in lights (or on the website or whatever).

This is similar to the reward system listed here http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?t=12230 but with a game effect.

I think a lot of designers forget that visable ranking systems are a great reward system for gamists without actually affecting the way the game plays. It plays to the Step On Up side of Gamist wonderfully.

Strangely, the gamist targetted LARP I'm working on at the moment relies heavily on offering a lot of ranking systems (visable to other players through the website). It's just going to take a bit of fine tuning to determine the way they are handled.

But then computer game designers have been using that trick for years.