LARP System: WRATH

[xiombarg]

So, here's the first draft of a LARP system I'm writing:

http://xiombrag.tripod.com/WRATH.pdf

I'm looking for comments from LARPers and non-LARPers alike. In particular, I'm interesting in:

1) Any obvious condradictions or abusive situations?
2) Do you think this would be viable in a LARP situation, and if not, what would you change?

[PlotDevice]

Hello xiombrag!

Nice amalgum of ideas here.

If your players are comfortable with bidding for actions, this should work fine, but I have issues with the delays and out of character handling time that a bidding war will cause in a LARP situation. Also, bidding with large groups will get to become a nightmare to administrate.

May I suggest that if there are groups involved, you split them to sides who want the same effect, they nominate a leader, and the leader is given a commitment toward a pool of stones from the players to maximum bid?

Also, 50 stones is a lot to manage at once. Plus this system favours hoarding so that when critical actions occur you have as many as possible. May be dividing this up so you get an automatic re-fresh of base number of minimum stones per hour, and lowering the 50 start off point? so, for example, 10 base stones to a character, any stones you get above 10 can be hoarded, but if a character uses all their stones, they will get the refresh at the end of the hour to take them to 10 max... or something similar.

Managing the stones for people when they succeed in keys is a logistical nightmare if you have inexperienced players or people likely to abuse the system. You will be relying on the honour system. This can be fine, but watch out for stone abuse.

Hope this helps,

Evan

[xiombarg]

If your players are comfortable with bidding for actions, this should work fine, but I have issues with the delays and out of character handling time that a bidding war will cause in a LARP situation. Also, bidding with large groups will get to become a nightmare to administrate.

I expected this critique. My only excuse is that it is a conflict resolution system, not a task resolution system. In, for example, combat, the bidding war handles the whole fight, not just a single blow.

May I suggest that if there are groups involved, you split them to sides who want the same effect, they nominate a leader, and the leader is given a commitment toward a pool of stones from the players to maximum bid?

Hmmm, worth considering.

Also, 50 stones is a lot to manage at once. Plus this system favours hoarding so that when critical actions occur you have as many as possible. May be dividing this up so you get an automatic re-fresh of base number of minimum stones per hour, and lowering the 50 start off point? so, for example, 10 base stones to a character, any stones you get above 10 can be hoarded, but if a character uses all their stones, they will get the refresh at the end of the hour to take them to 10 max... or something similar.

You're not the first person to be concerned about the number of stones. This is something that I'm intending to playtest, that's for sure. I said 50 because I wanted there to be too many rather than too few, tho perhaps I should really encourage scarcity -- it might encourage people to use their Keys early.

Managing the stones for people when they succeed in keys is a logistical nightmare if you have inexperienced players or people likely to abuse the system. You will be relying on the honour system. This can be fine, but watch out for stone abuse.

This is the second time I've heard this critique, too, and it doesn't wash with me. Perhaps I've been at the Forge too long but I think for LARP as well as tabletop game the solution to cheating is to not play with people you don't trust.

[PlotDevice]

I expected this critique. My only excuse is that it is a conflict resolution system, not a task resolution system. In, for example, combat, the bidding war handles the whole fight, not just a single blow.

While I agree, a conflict resolution system is better than an action one for LARP, remember that you are still moving from character interaction to player interaction (metagame mechanic) when you have a conflict, and familiarity of the players for the bidding system will dictate how successfully they handle this.

You're not the first person to be concerned about the number of stones. This is something that I'm intending to playtest, that's for sure. I said 50 because I wanted there to be too many rather than too few, tho perhaps I should really encourage scarcity -- it might encourage people to use their Keys early.

A lot of the difficulty will come as the size of the group escalates. 50 might be just right for a small game. I would favour the stone scrounging over the overuse of the conflict mechanics potential that high stones presents. Remember that the stones are supposed to drive the players to act in character more, and if they have the higher number available they are more likely to favour using abilities over social interaction to get things done.

This is the second time I've heard this critique, too, and it doesn't wash with me. Perhaps I've been at the Forge too long but I think for LARP as well as tabletop game the solution to cheating is to not play with people you don't trust.

My issue is more with inexperience than cheating, so while the term stone abuse does subliminally focus on cheating, I also mean for it to include all the abuse of the system that occurs due to not knowing how to use them. More experienced players will know how the ebb and flow of the stones affects their ability to get things done, but newbies are likely to hoard them indefinately or use them up too fast to be effective... plus if the value of the stones is not clear to the player they are likely to be more easily manipulated by others into situations where they use their stones to further other peoples objectives. This is all fair play, but it is a gamist approach to fair play, and you will get people that will play the game this way in any reasonable sized group.

I am assuming that you will be having people new to rpgs and these kind of mechanics joining in, and you want the experience to be as complication free as possible IMHO. Anything that lowers the handling time and mechanics of the system in favour of people intereacting in a LARP is a good thing IMHO.

Having said all of this, I don't know if I harped on this enough: I think the system you present has merit, and that it does in fact cover a lot of bases that most LARPs do not.  I think this could be a very effective LARP system, dependant on your players.

Warm regards
Evan

[xiombarg]

All good advice. Certainly given the power of Aspects, less Stones are needed. I was thinking in terms not being tired of games that limited player power, but in this case it's a matter of limiting complexity rather than power, especially given what one can do with Aspects...

[mindwanders]

Fist off, I totally love the comfort rule. It's great.

OK, first thing I noticed was a rules irregularity with humans.

Humans get 5 aspects.
Humans must buy the passing aspect.
Humans must spend 5 or more points in potential.

It also doesn't allow the player any points to spend in a proffession or anything that would make him important to the game.

Silly little thing but you'll need to sort it.

The other thing that I would point out is that unless your game is a lot longer than 4 hours, I would probably never get into a use of the conflict system that would not allow me to just use aspects, and as they are more powerful than stones, I'd avoid stones unless I didn't really care about the outcome of the challenge.

This also means that any reward relating to stones would become irrelevant to me. Wouldn't stop me roleplaying my character, but when all the rewards are something I see as useless I'm not going to persue them very hard.

Again really like the keys. But why have you given a specific list of them and left all the aspects open to be chosen by the player?

There's a couple in there That I would probably drop because they make for less enjoyable LARP play for me (Attention, Obscurity and the big stones rewards for a fatal use of the key of sustenance on Kin).

[on an asside I love the idea of a ghost getting attacked by a vampire who wants to feed and the ghost just turning and saying, Use the conflict system, I want to escape unscathed I bid the aspect Intangible.]

I'm confused by the gaining stones from keys. Do the stones referesh between sessions (as you hand in a report after the game, I'm assuming it's ongoing). Can a player start a session with more than 20 stones?

If the stones don't refresh between games, then it makes them feel more important. Although it actually makes the Aspects more powerful because they refresh at the beginning of each session. You could probably put in a stones cost for refreshing your aspects as well (between games, rather than at the game) which would probably offset this.

Overall it looks good and playable, and I am amazed that we are both looking at the same sources as far as stuff that might be usefull for larping while managing to go in such different directions :-)

But then you seem to be going for a quite narrative heavy game and I'm targetting the Gamist angle.

I'm working on a system for relationship maps that can be used by players who create thier own chracters. When I get it working I think it would work very well with your system.

[mindwanders]

Oh yeah,

And there should be a mention of public aspects in the chracter creation section.

I'd also not make the public aspects limited to negetavie ones. If I was beat cop in uniform I'd want that as a public aspect.

[simon_hibbs]

I can see one big problem with the stones pool concept.

I've played a number of LARPS and in some I've only been in one or even no contests. In other's I've been in 4 or 5 contests. Some characters just naturaly are likely to get in more contests than others, and this is going to be very hard to balance. Also it effectively discourages charactrs getting into contests at all, because doing so will rapidly deplete their stone pool. Surely you want to encourage people to get involved int he action and do stuff, so this mechanic will encourage exactly the kind of behaviour that you don't want.

Every LARP system I've played has some concept of resource management in contests, but usualy it's a relatively minor element and I think for good reason.


Simon Hibbs

[xiombarg]

Simon, the problem is I don't want to go back to something like RPS, and if people pause before getting involved in contests, that's fine.

As far as how often you get involved in stuff, I don't consider that a problem. You can never force a player to expend resources under any system, and I don't feel the need to encourage -- or discourage -- the use of the conflict sytem. Remember that you can do stuff without the conflict rules through the Rule of Comfort.

Mindwanders, I think mentioning Public Aspects in chargen is a good idea. Certainly the rule isn't intended just for negative Aspects, just mostly for negative Aspects.

As for your concern about humans, reread the rules: humans get the normal 10 Aspect Points everyone gets. So a normal human still has 5 Aspect Points to divide between the four non-Potential Aspects.

Stones do not refesh between sessions. You can have more than 20. Keys are the only way to get them. I'll add an explicit note to that effect.

As for Stones being useless, this needs to be playtested, but I think Aspects will run our faster than y'all think. Also, consider that you get an extra use of an Aspect during an evening for 10 Stones -- they're not just used in conflicts.

[mindwanders]

As for your concern about humans, reread the rules: humans get the normal 10 Aspect Points everyone gets. So a normal human still has 5 Aspect Points to divide between the four non-Potential Aspects.

Assuming your character is Kin, pick up to 10 Aspects. (Maximum is 5 if you are playing a normal human.)

Ah, the line above from the chracter creations section is kinda confusing.

Stones do not refesh between sessions. You can have more than 20. Keys are the only way to get them. I'll add an explicit note to that effect.

Yeah, I think it'll work better that way.

Mindwanders, I think mentioning Public Aspects in chargen is a good idea. Certainly the rule isn't intended just for negative Aspects, just mostly for negative Aspects.

Cool.

As for Stones being useless, this needs to be playtested, but I think Aspects will run our faster than y'all think. Also, consider that you get an extra use of an Aspect during an evening for 10 Stones -- they're not just used in conflicts.

I think it will depend on your players and how often people get into challenges. It also depends on how much "plot" there is floating about. If the characters are just there to plot and scheme you'll probably find they make fewer challenges.

Anoyingly I've generally found that you can't really tell how a LARP system will run until it's been thuroughly playtested.

I may be able to get a group together to playtest it over in the UK if you'd be interested. Probably just around 15-20 people for a single session, but I have an idea for a game (supernatural 10 year reunion party) and some people who would be up for it.

Playtesting the report system will probably be harder.

The other thing I was wondering, can you meet keys in your report and gain stones that way?

Are you planning on publishing the system or just use it for your own larps by the way?

[PlotDevice]

Simon, the problem is I don't want to go back to something like RPS, and if people pause before getting involved in contests, that's fine.

Hello again!

When you have people with conflicting aspects of the same level, you revert back to "flip a coin" which is basically the same thing, though...

I would have thought that in a situation like this it would revert back to a stones bid.

If you like, your Aspects are like the 100s digit and the stones are like the 1s digit in a three digit number. If you are bidding stones, then 1 aspect KOs them. If you are bidding Aspects, and equal, then the stones should come back into play rather than movign to a whole new mechanic, IMHO.

Separate point: Public Aspects: If someone has a particular social status that all are aware of, perhaps this should be manageds as a Public Aspect always available to be called on. So, for example, if someone is the Queen and all others are her subjects, the Queen aspect should be public for anyone to invoke because it is in effect always on. Just a thought.

Warm regards,
Evan

[xiombarg]

I may be able to get a group together to playtest it over in the UK if you'd be interested. Probably just around 15-20 people for a single session, but I have an idea for a game (supernatural 10 year reunion party) and some people who would be up for it.

I'd very much be interested in a independent playtest.

The other thing I was wondering, can you meet keys in your report and gain stones that way?

Yes, particularly in the "between game activities" section.

Are you planning on publishing the system or just use it for your own larps by the way?

Well, technically it's published now, just not the Web. But yes, the plans are to self-publish this. I'm thinking a cheap barebones version, and a larger version with a default setting, expanding on the Kin thing.

Separate point: Public Aspects: If someone has a particular social status that all are aware of, perhaps this should be manageds as a Public Aspect always available to be called on. So, for example, if someone is the Queen and all others are her subjects, the Queen aspect should be public for anyone to invoke because it is in effect always on. Just a thought.

Not a bad idea at all. Let me think on that, it may very well show up in the next draft.

As for your "revert to Stones" idea, I considered that, but remember Aspects have to be used before you bid any Stones -- I didn't want to get into a "late bidding" situation. And the coinflip only happens the rare case of a tie.

[mindwanders]

I'd very much be interested in a independent playtest.

Cool. I've put a shout out to some of my players to see if they would be up for a session in october (too much other stuff on until then I'm afraid).

Yes, particularly in the "between game activities" section.

I think that also tends to be the most broken aspect of most games as well. Probably because it is so hard to playtest thuroughly.

Well, technically it's published now, just not the Web. But yes, the plans are to self-publish this. I'm thinking a cheap barebones version, and a larger version with a default setting, expanding on the Kin thing.

I think I'd be more likely to pick up a version that had some more info on the kin types and sugested aspects. Otherwise you can end up with a lot of very confused players coming to you at character gen. Note that this doesn't have to be a full setting with backstory, I'd just prefer something that nailed the options down a little more than "whatever you negotiate with the GM".[/quote]

[xiombarg]

Well, I prefer the more freeform "negotiate from scratch" thing (witness my related tabletop system, Pretender), but I certainly understand the need for more examples, and the advantages of something you can just slot in and run with.

[mindwanders]

It's one of the problems with roleplayers round here. They need to think the setting is cool before they play. And that means they need to be able to look at the book and go "that would be cool, I'll play that" rather than turning up and hoping the ST would like it.

I know it's kinda WW, but that's where most of the people around here have thier background.

What you have there would be great for a one-off (hence why I'm going to playtest as one) but if there's no cohesive setting or background I think the players in an ongoing game will quickly become lost (strictly a gut feeling though).

There's too much left up in the air, how do you, as GM keep track of all the background stuff that the players are going to create while playing and hand that information to new players.

The other option would be for you to specify that it's a generic "supernatural" system and take out the various karma references. Then you could just tell ST's to plug in thier own setting of choice.

At the moment it alludes to a setting and conflict without actually giving more than hints what it is.