[Dirty Fucking Freaks] Ronnies feedback

[Ron Edwards]

Hello,

My primary question for this entry, which would permit me simply to consider it eligible or not, is whether there is a role-playing experience within the LARP. For those who let issues about this tie them into knots, please keep your definitions of "role-playing" to yourselves. I'm really not interested. What matters is that I decided the answer is "yes" and continued.

Boy, this is right up there with kill puppies for satan ... about as punk as you can get. I'm tempted to play it in a grotty way, but it doesn't get a Ronny because I'm not really visualizing play well, as I'll describe in a minute.

I was thrown by what seems to be a weird contradiction in the introduction and context for the game: it's written for friends with different interests from you, yet this is your ideal game?

The fighting is interesting; I'm seeing a fuelling mechanic similar to that in Barbaren. Geez, the STD thing is wild; with that and Beautiful Things, you have all sortsa conflicts and no need for the usual "play the LARP story" backdrop which essentially passes out a script or enforces it through ongoing coaching. I like that a lot.

Musing ... does in-game sex increase the chance of real sex? Or defuse it? I'd be interested in knowing that about many LARPs which are characterized by lots of post-play sex, but especially for this one. Not really anything we can answer in this thread, just musing.

I'm a little confused about the play-space and the movement of people within it. Is the assumption that everyone's wandering about, not necessarily visibly to one another? Thus, noticing the Clap, for instance, in someone else's scene, becomes opportunistic? Do you need a little notebook or Palm Pilot to keep track of stuff about your character? Is any of this monitored, or should it be?

Best,
Ron

P.S. Everyone, see [Dirty Fucking Freaks] Feedback as well, for some LARP-specific discussion.

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

Musing ... does in-game sex increase the chance of real sex? Or defuse it? I'd be interested in knowing that about many LARPs which are characterized by lots of post-play sex, but especially for this one. Not really anything we can answer in this thread, just musing.

Quickly semi-off-topic answering this: From past experience with almost a decade of writing all sorts of very sex-heavy larps, I've come to the conclusion that the pattern follows very closely the basics of flirting in general. The same rules apply more often than not.

Larps that both have a high level of sexual tension (especially court fantasy) and lightly simulated sex (softcore dry-humping, Ars Amadi, etc.) are the ones most likely to create near-immediate post-game sex. Games that have direct sexual contact or hardcore simulation are too person-sensitive (i.e. the plot can cause sexual situations with people you do not like) and have a tendency to cause ruined-mood situations quite often - but also correlate with non-immediate post-game sex. (Meaning people who play sex scenes in such larps do not go and continue right afterwards, but have an increased probability of ending in bed together later on.) Abstract simulation (such as back rubs) has next to no effect either way. All the aforementioned tendencies, however, can naturally be changed by player selection. Pick the right players, and you can alter the probabilities of sexual tension as you see fit.

Purely verbal resolution, the kind Graham uses in DFF, is the most curious system. It's extremely sensitive, because the choice of words and the situation in general can create extreme tension or ruin the mood completely (towards either comic or unintentionally abusive). Absolutely nothing correlates with post-game sex like good verbal simulation, but since it's a very tricky subject (requiring chemistry, situation, verbal skills, courage to use those verbal skills, etc.) no generalizations can be made beyond "attractive people with good verbal skills are the most likely to get laid".

Now, back to DFF.

[Graham W]

Thanks, Tuomas and Ron. Very useful stuff.

I enjoyed writing this game an astonishing amount.

The fighting is interesting; I'm seeing a fuelling mechanic similar to that in Barbaren. Geez, the STD thing is wild; with that and Beautiful Things, you have all sortsa conflicts and no need for the usual "play the LARP story" backdrop which essentially passes out a script or enforces it through ongoing coaching. I like that a lot.

One of the things I hate about LARPs is that they're often dull for new players. The new player rolls up a character, then gets thrown into this game and thinks "What the hell do I do?". Everyone else has things going on, but new players don't know where to start. So, yes, the idea was to actually write things for players to do into the rules: "Fight people. Fuck people. Take their Things."

Musing ... does in-game sex increase the chance of real sex? Or defuse it? I'd be interested in knowing that about many LARPs which are characterized by lots of post-play sex, but especially for this one. Not really anything we can answer in this thread, just musing.

I would be very interested in reading Actual Play reports about this issue. It would be useful if people could start reporting whether they got laid after their games and what the content of their game was.

(That was a joke, in case it wasn't clear.)

On reflection, the sex in DFF is so nasty that it's likely to be more of a turnoff. I've considered a complete change of period to the English Restoration: where similar loose morals applied but there was a courtly aspect as well. I think that would be more sexually charged.

I'm a little confused about the play-space and the movement of people within it. Is the assumption that everyone's wandering about, not necessarily visibly to one another?

Yes, exactly. People are in a sort of loose crowd: close enough so that you meet people as you wander around, distant enough so that they can go into corners and have private conversations. Although, of course, those private conversations might be overheard. Yes, this needs explaining.

Thus, noticing the Clap, for instance, in someone else's scene, becomes opportunistic?

Yes. That's not a standard in LARPs - in most LARPs, it would be regarded as cheating to use, to your advantage, rules-related information you gleaned through watching a conflict. In this game, it's encouraged. Voyeurism is your friend (especially if you have my friends).

Do you need a little notebook or Palm Pilot to keep track of stuff about your character?

The idea is that you have a character sheet and a pencil.

Now, this is actually a major problem in some LARPs I've played. These games have lots of things changing during the game: wounds, abilities, point scores going up and down, etc. And the fact is that nobody bothers recording any of this. Players claim to remember the changes. And then they make a mistake later in the evening and allegations of cheating abound.

So, the idea in this is that there's very little to remember: just which Pains you've used and which Beautiful Things you've got.

(It's another design goal of this game that you can start playing without much equipment. To play DFF, you need a pen, a scribbled character sheet and a coin. I believe the latest version of Vampire uses a set of cards to resolve conflicts, which, to me, is a turn-off - it's another thing you need to bring to the game.)

Is any of this monitored, or should it be?

In many LARPs, it's theoretically done by the GM. But there's only about one GM to every ten to twenty players, so, in practice, it's done on trust. Which leads to accusations of cheating.

Now, as written, DFF doesn't have a GM. The idea is that the GM role is taken by the Spectators. So the Spectators will be able to say things like "You've used that Pain before!". But, again, that needed to be explained better.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm not quite sure what I'm going to do with this game. It's more of an interesting prototype than an actual game, so I think I'll come back to it when the mood takes me.

Graham

[J. Tuomas Harviainen]

I would be very interested in reading Actual Play reports about this issue. It would be useful if people could start reporting whether they got laid after their games and what the content of their game was.
(That was a joke, in case it wasn't clear.)

It actually doesn't have to be. All of the comments I made above were based on data very close to Actual Play reports. Of my half-dozen latest sex-related larps, I have over 90% coverage on what happened during and afterwards. Really. Pays to be good friends with one's players...

As I PM'd to you before, Graham, if you decide to develop DFF further I can provide you access to summaries of that material as well, should they be of assistance to refining the game. I'd just rather not make public posts about such issues at this point, given the sensitivity of the material and cultural limitations on what's acceptable in which countries.

-Jiituomas