Topic: [System Override - LARP] Problems with Instances of play.
Started by: Simon Marks
Started on: 7/29/2005
Board: Actual Play
On 7/29/2005 at 1:20pm, Simon Marks wrote:
[System Override - LARP] Problems with Instances of play.
So, here are the problems behind me posting an instance of play for an (I hesitate to use the word game) event I helped run earlier this year.
They are
1) A play cycle is really, really long in the weekedn LARP's I help run. You'd think that having a session that lasts 36 hours straight would be too long, but the social rewards in these systems may take weeks or months to play out.
I've taken a System Override instance of play, because the instance in this case is quite short - about 8 hours.
But 8 hours of constant and consistent activity is still a lot of time.
2) The number of people.
I help run systems that deal with between 12 - 3,000 people.
There is no meanigful analysis that can be done with 3,000 people in regards to CA analysis - so I won't bother.
The instance of play I am taking will cover 25 people - and that still far too many.
3) The lack of any coherent transcript.
I cannot be with or near all 25 people for the duration of a play cycle, so gaining a transcript far removed and in isolation is tricky...
But I'll give it a go.
System it self is fairly unimportant, suffice to say it is rigerously simulationistic with a fairly unified effects system and a brutal death and dying mechanic. (The combat system is intergrated in the general effects system - dying and injuries had their own mechanic).
There is little or no 'creative control' outside of character creation - and that is mostly open, bounded by the setting.
The setting is a far future, sci-fi, post-apocalypse system.
Three races Human, Bravak and Elani survive the Human Empire. The Demons have destroyed everything else. And now they are trying to destroy this last colony.
Magic and technology hold equal sway, with Technomages and Sorcerer-engineers.
The overriding motiff, and I'd say the Premise we (as creators) where trying to address was "If everything was going to be destroyed, what would you fight to save?"
I'm currently trying to work out (in my head) how I am going to post an 8-hour instance of play from a LARP in a way thats comprehensible - this may take some time...
So, apologies and patience please.