This is part of my development of the aforementioned Firefly LARP, although the system should be applicable in a variety of conditions. (If I'm doing my job right, it could be used in a theoretical spaghetti western LARP with no problem.) Heavy influences from Dan Bayn's Karmic Cycle, and also some of DiTV.

What I'm going for: a LARP system without excessive out-of-character middling with stats / currency, encourage gameplay where players deal can grapple with: trust, relationships, and revenge, crossed against the self-interested desire for "loot". Ideally, lots of gunplay and rowdyness as well. Most of all, smooth play with minimal-to-none GM interference, so I can try to focus on continuing some Kicker-like activities behinds the scenes.


• Everyone has playing cards representing Karma. For X to do thing to Y, X must pay Y for it to happen, via bidding. (The value of the cards don't matter.)
• Three kinds of conflicts: manipulation, fisticuffs, gunfighting. You can escalate only up the list.
• You use specific gestures to signal the initiatiion of hostilities: Drawing and aiming your gun counts, putting up your firsts, or putting your hands forward as if in prayer/contemplation. This opens the bid at zero.
• Once a conflict is begun, the players take turns with "volleys" of attacks at the other. The opposite player can roleplay the response however she likes (miming shoulder hits, running and dodging, or whatever). Each one counts as upping the bid by 1.
• Once someone is willing to enact going down / end-of-conflict, the winning player can ask one last time for whatever compliance/favor she wanted. After this, she can do Damage to the loser (regardless of what she promised).
• If you Escalate, you basically have stolen initiative! You can bid basically what the opponent just bid, forcing her to bid even higher. (So if she just bid 6 and you escalate, you basically just bid 6 in response and she must bid 7.)
• Damage: there's different kinds of damage for each kind of conflict.

• Humbled - You cannot initiate social combat until someone cheers you up, or you get drunk.
• Bruised - You cannot initiate fisticuffs until you get some first aid, or you get drunk.
• Disarmed - Opponent takes your gun. You cannot initiate gunfighting until you get a gun.

• Bonus rules

• Liquid courage: there will be bottles of drinks you can take a shot of, for the limited time effect of ignoring the humbled/bruised effects above.
• Each player has some sealed Envelopes, with some important value of theirs written down on it, like Honesty, Thou Shalt Not Kill, Loves Wife, etc. At the beginning of play, the player can put any number of cards in the envelope. If the player is willing to violate this value, they can open up the envelope and get the cards inside as Karma on hand.
• GM Patronage: The GM can issue mini-goals off the cuff to players (such as "confront the chef" or "try challenging the captain, see what happens"), and offer 1-karma-point rewards for these.
• Team Conflicts: Each side must have one "leader", who is the person who must pay / may accept the Karma from a conflict. However, each leader can call out the name of one of the allies present to invoke him in the fight. ("Jenny! Give me some backup here!") This counts as an Escalation as above. When bad stuff (Bruised, Humbled, etc.) is given by the "leader", it is applied to everyone on the losing side of the fight.

• Winning

• GOALS: Each character has some goals to achieve, like Grab the Loot or Find Lost Love. You can be a "winner" by having accomplished your goals.
• MORALS: Each character can also "win" by having the most amount of Karma still in the sealed envelopes at the end. (i.e. you kept your promises)
• DEATH: Only in the last 20 minutes, death is possible. Each player has an envelope marked "MURDER" that is sealed, containing 3 cards, a mixture of black and red. A player may challenge any other player to a gunfight; they will open the envelope, each draw one of the cards, and then play-act the results, where red means escape/survival and black means death. It will be unclear if either one survives until the conflict is over. Getting out alive - or killing a certain person - may be a valid win condition. (Not using your MURDER envelope also counts towards your morality score above.)
• A player (out-of-character) can decline the MURDER envelope, and just have a normal conflict instead.



So, does my system support the goals? I think so. The whole arbitrary 1-point-karma-reward thing might let me gives me a GM tool to potentially incentivize some bangs/kickers to keep gameplay tight; I'd *try* to keep said actions in the vein of interesting situations, rather than interesting outcomes. Meanwhile, I imagined the Morality/envelopes thing to mostly cover relationships (violating the confines of your loyalty for short-term gain), while the Team Conflict could be used to bring some tension among members of a team, implicating trust and relationships.

I'd love to hear what you all think here.

Here's a short play sample, to elucidate the basics:

Scenario A: S giving in to J
J: (Raises fists) You're going to get off my chair. (Bid 0)
S: (does't return the gesture) Ah! Okay!! (No bidding necessary, S gives the chair.)

Scenario B: M trying to stomp on J
M: (Gesture:Palms) You shouldnt'a done that. (Bid 0)
J: (Points) I disagree. In fact, I think you shouldnt'a gotten in my business. (Bid 1)
M: I think you should mind who you're talking to. (Bid 2)
J: (Gesture:Fists) Are you just all talk? (Escalate! Initiative stolen, Bid 2)
M: (M mimes an uppercut, J mimes a block) Screw this! (Bid 3)
J: (J mimes a roundhouse kick, M falls to ground) Yeargh! (Bid 4)
M: (Gesture: Gundraw) Try that again. (Escalate! Initiative stolen, Bid 4)
J: (gives up) Uh... jeez. No need to get all personal.
M: (chooses not to inflict Damage; exchanges the Karma regardless)

A few points/questions:

1. After the resolution of a conflict, what happens to the cards? Does the winning player give them to the loser?

2. In a group conflict, is there a designated order for rasing the bid? Can anyone call out a raise, or just the leader?

3. Personal preference here, but I don't like "Humbled" and "Bruised" Damage being healed by having a drink. I'd rather see one of them change, so all three types of damage have their own flavor. Maybe getting first aid would heal Bruised, or something like that. It also might be cool to see multiple ways to heal different types of Damage, then some crossover would be okay. For example, Humbled is healed by A and B; Bruised is healed by B and C; Disarmed is healed by C and A.

4. Team conflicts don't seem able to handle a lot of things, but I might just be reading it wrong. For example, if two groups get into a fight, it goes on until one side is suddenly disarmed. I'd like to see some way for more varied outcomes, but again, that's all personal preference.

5. Is there a rule that says you can't heal Damage for a certain period of time after it was caused? Because otherwise, I'd just have my character carry around a flask and take a drink whenever he was Humbled or Bruised, so that he could immediately continue the conflict. Having a "wait period" would stop this.

6. Now, about whether or not the rules seem to support your stated goals, I can't really say, until we get down to "smooth play with minimal GM interference." The conflict resolution seems pretty simple for players to handle on their own, so that would seem to achieve your goal.

On the contrary, I think its almost amusing, but makes sense, for Humbled to be healed via a good stiff drink. I mean, in your stereotypical western types, someone's ego is soundly bruised or broken, whats one of the first things they do besides dusting themselves off? Wallow in a little self pity over the barkeep's special.
Now the "Bruised" could use something a little different. I see the drink thing more as a social healing: "Damn varmit stole my girl, my gun and shot mah horse. Coulda got a new girl, and the gun was outta ammo...but man! That was the best damn horse I eva had!" *drinks a shot*
Plus, many folks get drunk, get a little fire in their belly and get their balls back. "Drunken Brawl"? Thus, socially healed (or drunk for the next couple hours)!
Keep the Drink for Humbled, look for something else for Bruised or make the drink part of another condition. OR, Make a scale
Level 1 - Stiff Drink, Cheer
Level 2 - First Aid
Level 3 - Take gun
You deal level 3 "Damage" in a gun fight, you take their gun, they need first aid and a little cheer in their life from Billy Bob or a nice long visit from Jack.
Level 2 from a fist fight, get some first aid for that cut under your eye and hang out at the bar with your buddies.
Level 1, Rogers just royally insulted your family and your girl took off with him. Need a little sunshine around those parts unless barkeeper'll open a tab for you.

Hey, Nate, that's a cool idea.

Hey Dev,

I'm pretty interested to hear all this turns out, I assume we'll be getting a full report after this is done? In terms of the mechanics, I've got a couple of questions:

a) Where do the karma cards go at the end of a conflict? If I successfully win a conflict with a bid of 5, do I hand 5 cards to my opponent? The second example appears to indicate that but I'm not sure.

b) Why, or why not, escalate? In Dogs the choice to escalation carries a lot of weight. You're incurring additional fallout, you're risking death and dismemberment, the choice has a lot of thematic resonance. Here there's little reason not to go straight up the chain before bidding any additional karma, and in the end it's a who has more situation.

Maybe each player has some balance of stats in manipulation/fisticuffs/gunfight, and you can only bid up to the value of that stat without it forcing an escalation to go higher? You can even make man a more expensive stat to buy than gun, but losing and winning gun fights has more in the way of repurcussions. It takes away from the hands off somewhat, but I think it needs something. As it stands the only choice is in the envelopes, which might be what you're really driving at. If that's the case I'd drop the man/fist/guns escalation altogether and figure out some other angle.

-Tim

Dev,

I think you have the beginnings of a neat system. I feel that the 3 damage levels brings out the cheesy western feel you are trying to create. I also like how booze cures all ills (except loosing your gun). I do, however, have a couple of questions:

1. How many values can I have. In the above description it seemed to imply that you could have as many as you wanted. If that was the case, the dominance strategy would be to create as many as you could possibly think of. This tactic would vastly increase the players effective karma (by breaking their moral codes) and allow them to win the game morally. I do not believe this is what you are trying to get across.

2. If I am playing your game, why would I want to compete against anyone? You briefly mention goals and loot but in no depth. (Does the GM create a bunch of random goals then distribute them randomly? Do the PCs create their own goals? Is there any relationship between values in the bag and said goals?) If the goals are something like kill X person, the dominance strategy would seem to be to stay away from all conflicts until the last 20 minutes, then burn every point of karma in order to kill them. Is there any reason, in this game, to do anything besides the absolute minimum required to fulfill your goals?

3. You mentioned cooperative play briefly. But since each individual has only finite resources, X people (with different agendas) dividing their resources equally to solve their separate goals is no more or less effective then 1 person investing all her resources into one goal. (This is less of in issue if the goals are co-operative in nature.)

Best,
Bill

Thanks for the most excellent feedback! Easy stuff first.

1. After the resolution of a conflict, what happens to the cards? Does the winning player give them to the loser?

2. How many values can I have.


3. I feel that the 3 damage levels brings out the cheesy western feel you are trying to create.

4. You mentioned cooperative play briefly. But since each individual has only finite resources, X people (with different agendas) dividing their resources equally to solve their separate goals is no more or less effective then 1 person investing all her resources into one goal. (This is less of in issue if the goals are co-operative in nature.)

Addendum: why compete? Because your goals are in conflict. So, "catch rebel spyring"/"find & join rebel spyring"/"stay uncaught", and also multiple folks having "get $50,000 pronto" when there's only $60,000 worth of stuff on the ship.

To clarify the drinking, I'd specific limit drinking to certain location - like the in-game "bar", or possibly in your own room - so you don't have that silliness of carrying a damn flask around. (This game inbalance would solve itself if real alcohols were permitted, but I digress.) The specific mental image that came to mind was a lonely coward (or bruised brigand) is nursing his wounds at a bar, being mocked by people from accross the room. Finally, in a fit of anger, he downs his drinking in one gulp, and charges at his foes foolhardily - yes, "drunken brawl" was the angle I was going for, and indeed the only advantage you're conferring anyway is the right to initiate a conflict. Once it's started, you're totally free to take part.

However, the thought of "wallowing in your sorrow to anyone who'll listen" is an excellent idea for an easy way to heal your social damage - it makes sense, but it moreover make's sure that everyone in the game hears about the use of coercive measures, possibly inspiring some kind of social cost (or at least social effect) to using these conflict mechanics. My revised notion of damage:

• Humbled: You can't initiate social combat until you've complained to someone about your defeat.
• Bruised: You can't initiate physical combat until you've gotten first aid.
• F*cked: The winner can ask for any one thing from you, and take it This includes the guns, and if you don't have yours guns, you can't start a gunfight!
• Drinking: You can take a drink for a limited-time ability to start any conflict anyways. (Only in the bar, immediately after the drink.)



The point of escalation was to make escalating (1) a possible way of getting what you want, but (2) making the possible bad outcomes - for either side - worse. Increased risk of losses for better odds on success. I was writing up some elucidation, but some complications came to mind. I'm going to go for a walk in the lovely Boston snow, and come back with some clearer ideas shortly.

I love your system, Dev.
Couple of years ago, my friends and I lead some scenarios in the legendary far-west, and that was exactly what lacked at the time.
I have one or two questions about your system.
Firstly, I’m not convinced that the first bid should be at 0, it seems a little too easy for me. Could you explain me why the first bid is not rated at 1?

I love the possibility of breaking ancient vows, turning one’s back to long lost faiths or oaths. It gives more opportunities during the game (since it gives additional Karma), but alter one’s ranking in the end. In addition, I would like to alter the “liquid courage” rule. It should be possible for a given character to find the needed back-up in its Values characterized by the Envelopes. For example, once per Value, a character can negate the outcome of an opposition through the support of its Value. A Humbled character should hence be able to negate the Humble aspect with full endorsement of one of its Value, like retreating in a church (Pious) or helping the local school (Role Model for Children).

The Winning conditions looks a bit like the story card game “Once upon a time” and the possibility of common or personal goals will greatly improve the quality of the story. I really love this system and I think I will lead several experiments concerning it. I’m interested in seeing the effects of distributing the Karma all over the place after each opposition to “balance” screen-time among characters (e.g. after a confrontation, half of the spent Karma points are given to the player at the left of the Leader, a quarter to the right: following opposition will hence have greater expenses and longer confrontations).

MrSalt wrote: I’m not convinced that the first bid should be at 0, it seems a little too easy for me. Could you explain me why the first bid is not rated at 1?

Oh, to clarify: I'll try to have cap guns, or at least loud plastic laser guns, so players don't have to yell "BANG!" all the time. Also, change the phrase "F*cked" to "Robbed" for now.

Andrew Morris wrote: "Get outta this room, buddy. Bid zero." "Uhm, yeah, okay, no problem."

Dev wrote: Can conflicts be handled without explicitly referencing the mechanics?

Dev wrote: * a team is made up of a group of some people, and at least one person with the Leader trait.

Dev wrote: * the "bad outcomes" (like being Humbled) will apply to everyone on the losing side. In terms of being Robbed, everyone gets something taken from them.

Dev wrote: * the conflict bidding is essentially managed by the Leader of the two opposing sides, EXCEPT: you must increment your bid by the number of people on the opposing team. (So if you're one person going up against five, you must increment your bids by 5 each time; but the bigger team's bids can just increment by 1.)

Andrew Morris wrote:
My gut feeling is that you'll need some explicit statement to clarify when bidding is going on. As you've said, a manipulative attack isn't always as clear as a physical one. Also, an explicit statement makes it clear when turns have switched.

HereticalFaction: Even using chips is less clear than a verbal indcator. Say you don't notice that your opponent has put in 3 chips instead of 2. You'll bid 3 and he'll have to clarify that his bid was actually 3, not 2. I think it's more clear than physical gestures and such, though.

By the way, would you mind putting your real name in your signature, so we all know who we're talking to?

It was my understanding that all bids are for 1 point of Karma, with the running number associated with the bid representing only the number of actions (bids) which have taken place.... I did not see in the rules or examples any condition where a raise of 2 or 3 karma points could be placed on a single action.

P.S. OK, I'll include a first name because I understand the way community pollitics come down on dissenters on these sorts of things and don't want to be flamed simply for anonymity.... But please understand that this is a significant violation of a long held policy on my part.

Hey HF. Firstly, you're not going to be *flamed* for having a pseudonym here. There's a cultural preference here (that makes sense to me the longer you're around, I guess), but many folks still stick with they're nickname, so please don't make yourself uncomfortable! (Just a first name, or and certainly even a fake first name, would make it easy to address you, but I can roll with HF, too.)

I did consider poker chips and liked them better for their flavor, except that they don't fit in those envelopes so well. If I decide to do something different with the envelopes, poker chips would likely be better. (Although, I was planning on using them for "money", anyways.)

Continuing off topic: Thank you for your reassurance, I have run into several forums with the "Doesn't want to use real name = Troll" assumption, sorry...

On topic: It occurred to me that the envelopes (at least those where the player is not intended to know the contents) might need to be filled with a number of "dummy" cards so that you couldn't tell the # of karma they contain by touch...

Marcus, good point. I didn't see anything about not bidding more than 1, so I assumed it's possible. But if bids must be for 1 Karma, then there wouldn't be any confusion.

As to using the real name, certainly don't feel pressured. (Though if you were, I suppose it's a little too late for me to comment now, huh?) I know some folks don't feel comfortable with it, but that's why I asked instead of saying, "give your real name already, or I'll make fun of you and flame you!" For me, it's just easier to remember someone from a name than from a handle. That way, I can remember other conversations we've had and comments they've made, when conversing in the future. No big deal either way -- do what makes you feel comfortable.

I'm still trying to finalize things for the LARP (in fact, I'm buying props today!), and am trying to hurry into finalizing it in time for this weekend. (I'll have a play report up in any case!) Among other things, I wondered if the interactive bidding wasn't ultimately worth it all. Here's what I'm thinking right now:

(0) A lot of "Conflicts" can occur without reference to the mechanics: freeplay of intimidation / brawling / gunfights can occur, and players may even volunteer to win or lose in them without reference the mechanics. The Conflict mechanics here are about being able to impose Bad Things on ther players, even if they don't want them. (Within limits.)

(1) In the midst of action, the attacker will issue a threat and a bid, and then proceed to mime the action. ex: "Bid 5! I'm going to tan your hide!"

(2) In response, the defender can:
(a) Counter: Throw the bid number of chips down, indicating that she is resisting the attack; then mime whatever response or counter she would like. ex: (tosses chips down, mimes a block and an uppercut; opponent mimes falling down). The defender has won.
(b) Escalate: the old bid is thrown out, and the defender may issue a new one at some higher level. ex: "(draws gun) Bid 2! I think my sixgun says different!" As you can see, the old bid number is irrelevant. (Assume the three levels still are Intimidation -> Brawling -> Gunfighting.)
(c) Give in: The defender acts out defeat, and has lost. The attacker throws the bid of chips down at her feat.

(3) Damage resolution (if there was a winner): The winner may try negotiating promises / extorted goods from the loser, prior to issuing damage. Then, the winner may issue whatever damage she likes (regardless of what she may have promised).

In my mind, I feel like restraining the Bid to specific actions can keep freeplay mostly trouble free. One question I'm still workin on is: what kinds of Damage outcomes are acceptibly bad (to make players avoid combat), but not greatly deprotagonizing? So far, possible damage outcomes I have:


• Humbled: for a given kind of conflict, the loser may not iniate that kind. (I'm considering making this possibly mandatory, perhaps to avoid "tagbacks" after a conflict.) Humbling is healed by complaining to someone else about what just happened. [Purpose: your reputation as an aggressor/loser will spread around the community.]
• Intimidated: The winner issues a command about what the player may or may not talk about (ex: "You're not going to tell anyone about the gold / about marriage / about this fight."). This is only relieved if the player can encourage someone to guess who did the Intimidating in the first place. (Ideally, this is in the context of a conversation where a friend tries to re-instill confidence; optionally, I may simply require contact and "healing" from someone with Leadership skill, analagous to a First Aid Skill)
• Disarmed: Lose gun.
• Beat Down: The loser is basically limp with pain. The winner can throw the loser out of the room, or forcibly escort them to a new room, or possibly steal something from them.
• Gunned Down: Sorta the worst case - you're can't move from where you've been shot, although you're allowed to crawl to a slightly more public area (like the hallway). You can't move anywhere without someone helping you, you can't participate in any conflicts, and you require First Aid to be healed. Hopefully, gunning people down will have pretty bad social consequences.



Sorry this is a bit in list form and no streamlined; I just wanted to share the progress of the ruleset. I'll post more as I get it done. Please let me know how this workable.

Overall, it sounds good to me. I have a better feel for how the rules work now. A couple of points/questions:

Dev wrote: (a) Counter: Throw the bid number of chips down, indicating that she is resisting the attack; then mime whatever response or counter she would like. ex: (tosses chips down, mimes a block and an uppercut; opponent mimes falling down). The defender has won.

Dev wrote: (3) Damage resolution (if there was a winner): The winner may try negotiating promises / extorted goods from the loser, prior to issuing damage. Then, the winner may issue whatever damage she likes (regardless of what she may have promised).

Dev wrote: Humbling is healed by complaining to someone else about what just happened.

Dev wrote: • Disarmed: Lose gun.

Andrew Morris wrote: Otherwise, it seems to be saying that it's easier to defend than to attack. If you're trying to cut down on the number of conflicts, then it's fine, though.

Dev wrote: ...The winner may try negotiating promises...

I really don't like this at all, because (and correct me if I've read this wrong) it seems like the negotiation is out-of-game talk. This means that the rules say it's okay for a player to lie to another player.

Dev wrote: From my POV, it's true that all the cost-uncertainty is on the side of the attacker (and the defender can easily decide if it's worth it or not to resist), but it doesn't seem otherwise greatly unbalanced. I don't think this is merely a difference in taste; could you explain it, to make me see it this way?

Dev wrote: Peter: "C'mon, man! Let go!"
Paul: "Give me ONE reason not to give you a reall nasty headache, dude!"
Peter: "It's... Joev. If I tell you, you'll let me go, right?"
Paul: "A deal's a deal. What did Joev say?"
Peter: (in-game secret explained)
Paul: "That's nice. Thanks! Oh, and *THUNK*." (Knock's out Peter.)

Dev wrote: I'm going to say, strictly speaking, the gun is "knocked to the ground" in the combat. The winner can take it, or leave it for the loser (or someone else). If I add the rule that you can't just stuff lots and lots of gun in your pockets i.e. you can't really stockpile many guns, then does this become less broken? (Plastic prop guns. Woo!)

Well, yes, requiring a physical representation of the gun will make this more difficult. When I mentioned a stockpile, I was really thinking of putting the guns in a drawer, under a bush, etc. Then if the player is disarmed, they just go grab another gun. Having more than one gun on you is more problematic, of course. For example, if a character has six guns on him (and that's easy to pull off, even with full-size props), then someone would have to do Disarm damage six times in a row before they are really disarmed.