LARP Matrix Game idea

[MatrixGamer]

I've toyed with writing a LARP for some time. I have a variety of combat ideas. I'd like to know if these are done in anyother games and what holes they have in them

First the non- Matrix Game idea

Players come up to opposition players (members the "Special Effects Crew" who are minor referees in that they enact the story.) One Speical effects player says "This combat will last two minutes. The bad guys will win. If you want to die here you can - gloriously! If you are still here at the end of two minutes you are captured. If you don't want to be captured then run away." The players then start making shooting noises while pointing their toy guns, bananas, or other fruit or vegatble os choice.

This give the over all game master control over how the story goes becaus he knows when the players need to start winning to have the game end well. This game is heavily narrative and simulationist  because the players are suppose to win. The point is just to make it happen.


The more Matrix Game idea would be to give players a certain number of tokens with their names on them. They can use these tokens to make a Matrix argument to cause something to happen (in a very limited sphere - say within twenty feet of them). They give their toke to a player on the other side. This could be done diceless or the other player might spend a token to make the first person make a 50/50 roll to have it happen.

If player arguments were limited to their immediate surroundings it would not likely wreck a game. It would involve some chance but that could be settled with a coin toss (so no dice needed) or Rock Paper Scissors.

I would still like people to act out thei actions in slow motion so people can jump in with their coins to make more happen.

The only limit I'd place on this would be that you can't give someone back their own token to make an argument. This would automatically limit a scene so a few players could not dominate everything. Three players could but not two!

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[Andrew Morris]

Chris-

1) How many players would be in the LARP?
2) Would it be a continuing game or one-shot?
3) Would it be its own event, or run at, say, a convention?

[MatrixGamer]

Chris-

1) How many players would be in the LARP?
2) Would it be a continuing game or one-shot?
3) Would it be its own event, or run at, say, a convention?

I've always imagined this game being run at a convention or at someone's home as a large party. Say twenty players or so. I'd probably see it ias a one shot game because my ideas on how the story works are that there is a master script that sets a real time event time line that unfolds as the players act. A game would be say two hours. Some disaster energes in that time. The actions they do during the game are the preparation for the climax during which they solve (or utterly fail to solve) the problem.

I've not told you the world specifics of the game because I may still write it. Who knows?

What do you think of the combat system? I wrote this because I read you LARP thread and thought this was too off topic to go there - but you're the one who got me thinking of this again.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[Andrew Morris]

How I feel about the combat system would vary based on the format and specifics of the game. Maybe if you were doing a LARP of The Farm, it would fit.  

"What I like" isn't really useful to you as a desiger, though, because I'm sure there are people out there who'd love it and some who'd hate it. Specifically, what are your design goals? If I know that, I can determine if the rules seem to support your intentions or not. Without knowing that, I really can't contribute anything valuable.

[MatrixGamer]

What I'm after is a light hearted silly game in which a groups of friends (20-30) can have an evenings entertainment without a lot of commitment in which they have a story unfold around them that they can join in in such a way as to be able to efect the outcome of the story line.  It needs to be a low tech approach, so it can be run anywhere and have rules that are simple enough that all can remember and run them by themselves.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

I'm sorry if this isn't specific enough. As I said this idea has been on my back burner for some time so it ia very much half baked.

[Andrew Morris]

Well, it really depends on what kind of fun your players are looking for, I suppose. Plenty of LARPs are run with very few rules or without rules at all, and people enjoy them. So I'm sure it can work, but I can't really comment further without knowing exactly what kind of play experience you want the rules to support.

[Bill Masek]

MatrixGamer,

Let me see if I can parse your design goals from what your description of the game.  I might not be right, but at least it will give you a place to start asking for feedback from.

Your game looked pre-deterministic.  One in which the story is already known to one or more parties.  Players have no control over the resolution of anything (accept possibly their own deaths), their is to act out the pre-determined plot.  In your game players are actors.  There are no "strategic decisions" to make.

Your goals seem to me to be as follows:
1.  Strong, predefined story.
2.  Players are actors, not decision makers
3.  Very simple rule system

Some questions you might want to ask yourself:
1.  What are the players going to get out of this game?  What will make it "fun" for them?
2.  What strategic decisions, if any, do players get to make throughout the course of this game?  Is it really a game if the players do not get to make decisions?
3.  What type of interaction are you looking for between players (both PC and psudoGM entities)?
4.  At the end of a day playing your game, what will have been accomplished, both on the individual level and for the group?  What will players look back on and say "wow, that was cool"?

Best,
      Bill

[MatrixGamer]

I see now why this game has been on the back burner...

I don't have good answers for this. My thoughts are very much in the  I don't know stage.

For instance - the predeterministic part. I imagine the players being on the equivalent of a train going out of control. They start off thinking they are going somewhere but in fact they are going somewhere else. Part of the players are characters, the other part are the special effects crew. The FX crew feeds clues to the players based on what the players do. So right up front they are given a clue that suggests something is up but not what. The players investigate. Once they find the problem, they next act to fix it. Some of their repairs will be foiled by additional pre planned disasters. The story has a built in critical moment that will pull all the players back into one location, at which time they find out if they did enough to survive.

It's a lot like the mini series "Atomic Train".  Where of course they fail to stop the bomb. Oops!

In my half baked world I see this as being a two hour game that is not overly taxing on the players. That feeds them enough stuff that they are not totally out in a field by themselves (which I've see happen in unstructured LARPS). And that is light hearted if not completely campy.

I'm not a LARPer though - I've played in a few, but they were a lot like exercises in politics and organizing - which I do at work and in Hamster Press. So I don't know if regular LARPers would like what I've described here at all.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[Bill Masek]

MatrixGamer,

Ok, lets work with this idea of a game which "equivalent of a train going out of control", a game in which everything starts fairly sane and normal and gets more and more out of hand as play progresses. I like this idea.  Its cool.  It sounds fun.  It could easily work in a LARP situation.  Unfortunately, I don't think that the rules you put out at the beginning of the thread reflect it.  Here are a couple ideas on how you could modify them so they will.

It seems to me that the idea of your game has defining two elements:  The "tracks" and the way in which it will "spin out of control".  These strike me as completely different objectives, so it seems fitting that one should be controlled by the GM (or GMs or Special Effects Crew or what ever you want to call it) and the other by the PCs.

1.  GM lays tracks, PCs spin train out of control.

This route strikes me as the most fun.  The story starts completely (or almost completely) linear.  Players have some way of exerting small margins of control.  As they exert control their power to exert control in future scenes increases.  Eventually the game hits critical mass and EVERYTHING goes to hell.  Fun.  :)

2.  PCs lays tracks, GM spins it out of control.

Alternatively, you could start the game with the players having roughly equal power to each other and the GM having none (or almost none).  But, players have the option to increase their own power relative to other PCs by giving the GM power.  Eventually the GM builds enough power to really mess with the players.

Best,
Bill

[MatrixGamer]

GM lays the tracks and players spin out of control is more what I was thinking of.

When I run certain RPGs I set out the adventure (in my mind at least) as a linear event. It doesn't matter which direction the players go in, I know exactly what they will meet next. This would be done in the LARP by the GM having a master script that spells out trouble moments. The players learn of it and try to respond. This preparation strengthens their Matrix Game arguments to solve it - but it doesn't prevent the next problem from springing up. If players let too many problems build up on them unsolved then they will be in a bad way when the crisis comes.

I'm very comfortable with predeterminism in games. For me the fun is not in the destination - it is in how you get there. I also like transparency in rules so everyone will know what is going on. In the LARP's case the players would know up front how long the game will last. That way they can guess when the problems will arrise (just like kids can look at a clock and a TV show and tell you who the badguy is or isn't.)

The combat mechanism was just one part of the rules. Meant to get people making shooting noises.

Hum...this is helpful. I'm getting ideas on how to put this train in motion.

I envision alarm clocks set up in certain rooms with envelops attached telling what has gone wrong.

Chris Engle
Hamster Press

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

This:

This give the over all game master control over how the story goes becaus he knows when the players need to start winning to have the game end well.

is contrary to this:

This game is heavily narrative and simulationist  because the players are suppose to win. The point is just to make it happen.

Narrativism is where the players are in control of the story, either through their protagonists or other control mechanisms. Simulationism is about accurately representing the fictional source material without adding to it (because, if you add to it, you're changing it, which makes it Narrativism).

The players can "win" without winning the fights. In fact, in the first Matrix movie, they practically couldn't win the big fights. They infiltrated, did their business, then ran like hell. What I think would make this way better is if, before each conflict, the players say:

"I want to save Split's life." (those are the stakes.) "I am willing to spend six of my tokens on this.

The GM says, "I want Split to die here. I'll spend seven." OR "OK, you'll save Split's life." OR "OK, you'll save Split, but I've got ten tokens that say that you'll die for her."

...

and so on. Once the bidding's over (I doubt it'll take too long), you can act it out and decide what the complications are. Being the Matrix, no one gets wounded permanently, they just get exhausted temporarily or killed. So the non-stake outcomes are totally emotional ("You sacrificed yourself for me? But I was the one who betrayed you! I've got 15 tokens that say that I can get Twofist to the exit before he dies!")

This also plays with the idea of fate pretty well: you can have the Oracle talk with people, with whoever's playing the Oracle spending tokens to make something happen acausally.

This will also keep the GM(s) job interesting: sHe won't know how the story will go. It will go where the players want.

Individual characters should have relationships with some or all of the other characters ("I've promised to betray IceCold", "I secretly love Split", "I owe Twofist a life debt") that they can bring to bear when dealing with those people, which gives them a bonus on whatever side of the conflict they want.

That's my advice.

[MatrixGamer]

"I want to save Split's life." (those are the stakes.) "I am willing to spend six of my tokens on this.

This token bidding sounds like what is done in Universalis. For a LARP isn't it important to reduce the amound that people carry around? Bidding like this could mean having a bag full of coins.

The GM's script would include a time line in which problems arrise. None are directed at killing players. I've always felt that players should choose when they die in a LARP. If they don't want to die in a fight then they are captured. Of course if they want to die they are not out of the game, they just join the GM's team and do special effects (like making sound effects, playing bad guys etc.) I can also see players coming back as Red Dwarf like Holograms (they can't effect the world anymore but they can't die either.

Chris Engle

[Andrew Morris]

Obviously, I don't think there's anything bad about LARP players carrying around a bag of tokens, since that's exactly what I'm doing in Shadows & Light. With that said, if you don't want players carrying around physical tokens, you can have some sort of accounting mechanism, such as punching out sections of a character sheet, or just marking tokens off, or something along those lines.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

This token bidding sounds like what is done in Universalis. For a LARP isn't it important to reduce the amound that people carry around? Bidding like this could mean having a bag full of coins.

Yeah, it could mean that. The GM could also play bookkeeper with a spreadsheet. What's nice about coins is that they're physical and you can see, directly and physically, how much something matters to a player.

You could also have a string of beads, or a bunch of checkmarks. It could be jewelry, or chains off which you break links. A pocket of elecronic parts might work well thematically. You  could have computer cables that you cut premeasured lengths off. You could have game money and everyone has a wallet (don't confuse these with in-game money, if there is such a thing).

The GM's script would include a time line in which problems arrise.

Why bother? Why not just have NPCs who want stuff to happen that doesn't line up with what the PCs want? Give the players their freedom! Let them play their characters, not yours!

None are directed at killing players. I've always felt that players should choose when they die in a LARP.

Natch (assuming you mean killing protagonists - if not, double-natch). The bidding system I just mentioned states explicitly when someone will die, and it's because the player made choices to do so.

If they don't want to die in a fight then they are captured.

... this breaks your simulationism claim. When in The Matrix, did anyone get captured, except as a chance to raise the stakes for everyone during the inevitable rescue? Capturing a character immediately changes the course of the story.

Of course if they want to die they are not out of the game, they just join the GM's team and do special effects (like making sound effects, playing bad guys etc.) I can also see players coming back as Red Dwarf like Holograms (they can't effect the world anymore but they can't die either.

Well, coming back as a ghost makes sense within the source material, I suppose. It certainly fits within the mythological metasource material.

I don't see why you don't just issue another set of vinyl clothes and start a new, freshly awakened character, though. That way, you can cycle people through. The longer a character's around, the greater the gain for that character's sacrifice. When (and in a situation like The Matrix, it's only rarely "if") the character dies, it's to pay the ultimate price for that character's relationship, as I mentioned above.

My feeling is that players should have the opportunity to sacrifice themselves for their cause. That's what the Matrix is about, right? The choice of what to sacrifice when? It shouldn't be random, but it really shouldn't be predetermined without the player's (not necessarily the character's) knowledge.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

you can have some sort of accounting mechanism, such as punching out sections of a character sheet, or just marking tokens off, or something along those lines.

I like the punchout idea: simple and permanent. You can't get those chads back in.