I've got a group of friends who've been itching to get back into a live roleplaying game for a few years. Their reasons for wanting this are fairly simple.

1. To dress up in costume (whatever that costume may be).
2. To socialise with a growing crowd of people who also enjoy dressing up in costume.
3. To tell epic and developing stories that unfold over the course of weeks, months and years.
4. To have a situation where the mechanics behind the system are simple and presented easily to newcomers.
5. To have a global storyline allowing players to travel to neighbouring cities and take their characters with them.
6. To have a deep and rich setting that invites the telling of tales rather than the negation of it.
7. To avoid the OOC politics inherent in certain global LARP campaigns that shall remain nameless.

We've had this in other LARP campaigns, but it was the last two that was the killers among that campaign.

So now that my other projects are pretty much complete, I'm starting work on a new LARP system and setting.

Name, not defined, yet.
Concepts, still in a very rough state.

One of the things that makes the concept difficult is the costume genre. We've got a couple of people who love period clothes, a few goths, some anime-freak/cosplayers, a few mediaevil re-enactors who'd love to get involved in something and a few interested parties who don't really have costumes yet and would probably show up to a few games in regular clothes for the first couple of sessions.

Challenge 1. How do I get all of these styles into a coherent setting?
Challenge 2. How do we ensure that this setting is open to newcomers?


I'm working at the moment with a notion of a spiritual post apocalypse. There is a reality reflecting our own, except that it always exists a lunar month ahead of our own. This reality deviates from our own by the fact that 99% of the population simply ceases to exist tomorrow. ("Tomorrow" always progresses with our timeline, and the month ahead also progresses with our timeline). Of the remainder, maybe 99% survive normally and the tiny fraction remaining develop some kind of powers.

I don't know what casues the apocalypse, but the ramifications become instantly recognisable. Infrastructure collapses, no trucks for a month means no delivery of petrol/gas, no food deliveries, ammo has run out from a month of looting and pillaging, basically you get the whole "I am Legend" New York scene, but with a few scattered people who aren't zombies/vampires.

I'm still undecided about whether to include the supernatural as an element in this, or try to keep it hard-core sci-fi.

The characters basically exist in the real world, our world, but they have a means to travel to this alternate reality. Maybe a portal, maybe some kind of device. Either way, their voyages through the post-apocalypse are limited by duration (maybe they can only spend a night there at a time or else become stuck there permanently, maybe their hyperspace transport device only keeps them in phase with that reality for a couple of hours at a time, this is still a key concept linked in the the backstory that needs exploration). The characters can make changes to the real world, to make changes to the other world, but changes in the other world aren't necessarily reflected back (except possibly in dreams). John builds a steam powered car in his garage and locks it up, when he steps into the other world he unlocks the garage door and there's a good chance that he'll find a working steam-car that doesn't need petrol.

The idea with a setting like this is that players have a rich world at their disposal, a world that they can research to their heart's content at any library.

How do the costumes fit?

In the other world, there are different bands of survivors, some have tried to develop different types of societies based on where they thought things went wrong. One faction might decide that the elegance of the Victorian era was the pinnacle of society, others might choose to go back further to a time of swords and direct melee conflict. Another faction might be scavengers, while some could be cyberpunks who've claimed a range of technology in an attempt to keep ahead of the dangers around them.

What's the point of the story and characters?

The game would be about exploring this strange reflection of our own world. Themes would include coming to terms with how much we actually need the civilisation around us, maintaining a social facade in the face of global annihilation, developing an empire in a world where the rules have suddenly changed. Some could even use it as a means to explore deeper themes such as politics, religion and race.

Why are you telling us this?

This is a first thoughts forum. I'm looking for ideas that might mesh with what I've written so far. I'm wondering if anyone else out there thinks that this concept has potential.

Interesting setting notion--our world, but changed, is a strong start for costuming and prop reasons alone. Part of why I am most keen to do a post-apocalyptic game with GLASS (see sig).

Are you going contact (boffer, Nerf, Airsoft) or non-contact (cards, RPS, stats)?

Will players have full autonomy to create characters, or are you going to do pre-gens, or somewhere in the middle (i.e. "classes" or "GM-appointed" stuff like factions)?

How concerned with "play balance" are you, given the potential disparity of technology levels (e.g. my modified paintball marker will SMOKE those sword swingers).

What's the general reason for mixed-genre play; why do these folks from different cultures mingle once a month (or however often you're running the sessions)?

Would you consider using an existing system, or are you going the homebrew route of 99% of LARP organizers?

What sort of play space(s) do you anticipate using routinely? (Seems like any and all would work, given the setting background.)

RE hard sci fi vs. supernatural: you will have to explain how this "event" occurred. And either way--some supernatural is just misunderstood nature (e.g. Cthulhoids as 8th-dimensional beings). For now, it's the least of your concerns at this juncture, but it will most-impact color in the game world.

Yeas, Larps!

If I'm reading you correctly, you are trying to come up with an in-game, setting-based reason for why these characters only interact once a month, and also have a setting that allows for cross-over genres.

Which, by the way, is totally awesome.

I can see a few different options, depending on what you want to have this say about the setting.

1): The alternate reality (let's call it Reality X) is only "accessible" once a month, for a few hours at a time. Different groups from different realities have all developed their own methods of getting to Reality X (ritual magic, supernatural effect, sci-fi), because it is somehow valuable for each group to make this kind of effort.

2a): Reality X is governed by very powerful beings. Let's just call them Watchers (hey, look, the Watchers are GMs. Neat, huh?). These Watchers have their own, mysterious reasons for drawing the characters from their various realities into Reality X. Perhaps the characters *have no choice* and are pulled against their will?

2b): Or perhaps there is some kind of understanding between the Watchers and the groups in their respective realities, and the characters are essentially diplomats or envoys, sent across the cosmos on a regular basis. The game only happens once a month because this is what the Watchers have decreed.

3): The various groups *can* and *do* send each other around to various realities. However, they all go to Reality X once a month because this is a mutually agreed upon regular meeting. Again, this explanation sets up a diplomacy-style game, since everyone is there voluntarily.

Most non-contact Larps I've seen or played in are similar to the Minds Eye Theatre, VtM kind of setup, where most play is expected to be social, and not combat oriented. This way, players spend most of their time in-character, and simply walking around and talking to one another. Personally, my best experiences larping came from games where I only had to make one or two challenges.... the rest of the time was spent fully immersed, in character, with no thought to mechanics whatsoever.

So, I'd encourage you to consider the "diplomat" format for your game, if only to support best this kind of social play. But combat boffing has its place, too. Depends on what you're shooting for.

Hope that helps,

-adam

Some people love the concept of addressing other peoples posts point by point...other people hate it.

I don't mind either way, but for ease of answers I think it's often easier to fall into the first camp.

I'll preface my responses with some experience, which will put a few of my responses into a more coherent perspective.

I met my wife and most of my current friends through Live Roleplaying, we've each got a "costume trunk" with dozens of outfits that just aren't getting used anymore. Everything from ancient egyptian, through to napoleonic reactment, and victorian corsetry, via japanese school uniforms and onward to flight suits, and science fiction uniforms. There's about a dozen of us, and we've each got three or four other friends who'd love to try out live roleplaying.

I guess we just tell great anecdotes about the old days:

Running through Sydney's Central train station and down one of it's busiest street in full costume...scaring the regular folk.
That game where one guy threw a tennis ball into the room and yelled "grenade" while ducking, causing everyone to run out in a panic even though it was a tennis ball in both our reality and in the game reality.
The game where we paid far too much for strippers who claimed they could do kinky stuff that would "make out party more interesting", then ended up leaving our game mildly disturbed themselves...
...there's plenty more that cover fifteen years of LARP (of which I've been GMing it for at least ten of those).

But we've got the good and the bad. There are things that we'd rather forget about those times, and those things rarely make it into our stories.

We spent a few years using Mind's Eye Theatre, under the auspices of the Camarilla, but there are some inherent flaws in that.

It may have been more predominant in our part of the world, but I've heard plenty of similar stories from other places. Metagaming is rife, out-of-character politics plays more of a role than story, it was the kind of evironment that we didn't want to introduce new friends into because it showcased the worst that Live Roleplaying has to offer, while hamstringing the ability to bring out the best.

That's just a personal opinion based on my own experiences, mostly in this part of the world, not a general reflection of the organisation as a whole. I've met a few great people through it...

My aim is to create a similar type of concept, but eliminating as many of the negatives and reinforcing the positives.

That's the background, now to the answers.

David wrote:
Interesting setting notion--our world, but changed, is a strong start for costuming and prop reasons alone. Part of why I am most keen to do a post-apocalyptic game with GLASS (see sig).

Are you going contact (boffer, Nerf, Airsoft) or non-contact (cards, RPS, stats)?

Will players have full autonomy to create characters, or are you going to do pre-gens, or somewhere in the middle (i.e. "classes" or "GM-appointed" stuff like factions)?

How concerned with "play balance" are you, given the potential disparity of technology levels (e.g. my modified paintball marker will SMOKE those sword swingers).

What's the general reason for mixed-genre play; why do these folks from different cultures mingle once a month (or however often you're running the sessions)?

Would you consider using an existing system, or are you going the homebrew route of 99% of LARP organizers?

What sort of play space(s) do you anticipate using routinely? (Seems like any and all would work, given the setting background.)

RE hard sci fi vs. supernatural: you will have to explain how this "event" occurred. And either way--some supernatural is just misunderstood nature (e.g. Cthulhoids as 8th-dimensional beings). For now, it's the least of your concerns at this juncture, but it will most-impact color in the game world.

Though I understand the concept of GMs and the player authority ratio, I am more partial to a non-authoritarian model for larp. Larp, unlike table top, is non-centralized and spread out across a large area.

For a diplomacy/democratic/consensus-building game you might consider a more distributed model of game organization, control, and management. Players (as a whole) are more invested in the game and it's direction than any of the GMs I've had at my local OWbN Friday LARP game. GMs have rarely ever made the night. Most often it was the players themselves through various maneuverings. If each player is given enough power and responsibility over their character and slice of game-reality then they can regulate themselves by consensus. How this would work is largely dependent on the setting and system of the specific game.

I tend to favor a system like Magic the Gathering and Oh Hell meets Robert's Rules of Order. Where players can use setting integrated mechanics to mediate the play of the game without the need for reference to the rules or deference to an authority. Both of which are disruptive to immersive play.

I've been working on my own LARP system for sometimes for the exact reason that I've fallen in love with the LARP medium, but I despise the way it's squandered in MET: WoD. You have no compelling reason to cling to the authoritarian model that is inherited from the wargaming-roleplay hybrids of the 1960s.

O.K.

Time to touch on what I've been considering.

Player to GM is a relative index on a sliding scale rather than a fix pair of roles.

New players would begin very much on the side of the "player", experienced players gradually move across the scale toward the GM stage.

The more a player invests into the setting, the more responsibility they'll gain.

My initial aim was something simple.

1. You come to a game and play for a session or two to get the hang of things.

2. You invite a friend or two along and you start your own cabal/circle/pack/whatever. Since your friends will be looking up to you as the role model you get a bit more authority within the game (most systems would have this authority implied and wouldn't give any actual benefit, but I'm trying to give a bit more bonus for stepping up to the challenge).

3. You've been playing a few games and you decide that you'd like to inject some of your own storylines into the campaign's mix. This is another level of stepping up. The player gets some new responsibilities and some new benefits for their reward.

4. You're a veteran and people regularly try to get involved in the stories relating to your character. In this situation you gain quite a bit of prestige within the game because people want to do stuff for you...you get the idea.

The more a player puts into the setting and the game, the more they are rewarded.

I don't want to make this a metagaming thing where the vampires get points for donating blood in the real world, or where someone does a bit of book-keeping every month and ends up with an uber-monster.

Since people seem to be comfortable with the Minds-Eye concept as a basic paradigm, I'll sit with it a little longer.

If you want to be a primogen in vampire or a pack leader in werewolf, you'd have to step up to the challenge of telling stories for your immediate group. If you want to be the prince, or the sept alpha, you'd have to step up to the challenge of telling stories for the entire local community. If someone wants to get political and take down the leaders of the community, they'll have to be willing to take over the GMing duties as well. This way you don't get players who simply step into the positions of power to squash any potential storylines that might develop.

If the majority of players don't like what's happening story-wise, they can rise up en-masse. A political coup wipes out the reigning figures in the game world and a player vote knocks out the GM in the real world. The game continues in a new direction with a new GM, but any old issues have to be resolved before new elements may be brought into play for the story.

You're right, Ian, that game mechanics often get in the way of a good story, and that's one of the things I've been toying with over the last couple of years. That's another reason for desiring a fairly simple, logical and coherent system that is easy for newcomers to pick up but robust enough to cover the widest range of situations.

You seem to have your plans coming along, so I'll just add a few wrap-up points.

I'm tending toward middle gorund at the moment. With new players getting pre-generated characters that are more carefully linked in with the setting, while those players who have shown their skill and talent are gradually given more leeway to develop their own characters.

If you want to load your modified paintball gun with pellets filled with acid rather than paint, go ahead, but the acid will eat through the standard plastic pellets, and glass pellets will probably shatter in the earthquake.

They gather to retain contact with this other world, they accept one another as defenders of a world gone mad. They may each have different ideas of how best to deal with the otherworld, but they know that they can't do it alone and they know that their efforts have to be maintained regularly otherwise their efforts to improve the world will collapse.

I want something quick to pick up, easy to understand, but difficult to manipulate with loopholes and irregularities.

So diplomacy would work on two levels, the global game which could only occur in the "real world", and the local game which could occur in both the "real world" and the "otherland".

It looks like a few people have similar notions regarding LARP, and the directions it could take.

It also looks like people are generally tainted by the Minds-Eye Theatre experience...which is like the fast-food equivalent of live roleplaying compared to the gourmet restaurants of LARP I've also experienced.

Which is a shame...

Still, it sets some ground rules that make a nice departure point.

The factional basis on Mage "traditions" is a nice idea and ties into some of the concepts I've started developing over the last couple of days. But with some twists to get it away from the WW paradigm...I'm working toward the idea that this "Otherland" is a spirit world where great beings have fought for control since the dawn of time. These beings are unable to interact with the physical world, but they are able to call humans into their home realm. The "otherland" is always a reflection of a potential post-apocalyptic future, and each of these beings wants the realm to reflect their agenda as far as possible. So you have ancient chinese immortals stuck in the "otherland" calling on their descendents to make changes in the real world that will then cascade back to their reality, native american totems that try to push the agendas of their traditional tribal groups to restore their "hunting grounds", african/voodoo loa, terminator-esque machines, etc. All trying to dominate this reflection of our own world through the humans they call.

The problem is that humans are unable to inhabit the "otherland" for too long otherwise they start to lose their identity. They draw supernatural powers from the otherland but they lose their sense of self. So the characters are forced to walk a line between the realms...like shamans, luantics, priests or visionaries.

Hope you got a lot of crew for NPCs, then--if all the PCs are "mostly" aligned, then all opposition has to be from the "outside."

I once tried to "mix" like you're going to do and found it an utter mess, not only to balance (stat-based combat VS actual player skill) but to handle during play (time drift, as one group is doing a slow, OOG, mechanical resolution while another is rollicking by swinging away in real time).

I've seen LARP systems that front-load the challenge and then act out the results. They suffer the same issues as slow action-by-action resolution: break from immersion and folks in "different time" showing up mid-battle. You've reduced, but not avoided, the problems.

RE the former, any time the players aren't acting and doing things is, in my view of LARP system design, bad. RE the latter, unless you keep a tight rein on all of the players and isolate them from each other when separated, eventually someone will wander up (or dash up) in mid-battle and try to intervene. Front-loading only works, I feel, for individual, unopposed actions (viz Situational Abilities in GLASS--there's a front-loaded threshold check and then the player would act out whatever the success or failure entails).

As for using GLASS for intent-based resolution, forget about it. GLASS is action. It's boffer, Airsoft, Nerf. It's (rather heavily) front-loaded in character creation and advancement so that, in play, all mechanics are short calls and simple resource management (Ability usage, ammo, armor, HAP points) with instantaneous handling times. You couldn't port GLASS to  a stat-driven game without a LOT of rework... might as well start from scratch, in such a case.

It also looks like people are generally tainted by the Minds-Eye Theatre experience...which is like the fast-food equivalent of live roleplaying compared to the gourmet restaurants of LARP I've also experienced.

Points taken...

I agree that some of the best LARP situations are character driven rather than plot driven, and I'll certainly agree that GM intervention can cause levels of strain on a LARP environment. But for new players, GM intervention is often necessary to get them into the rhythm of the setting (based on my experience).

I think my recent thoughts have deviated from the concept of a "gentleman's club" and back into a generic one LARP fits all, and that kind of concept ends up pleasing no-one. If I go back to my original notion where physical conflict is kept to a minimum if not eliminated entirely, then that opens up another series of options that might be a bit more elegant.

It might be worth exploring a multi-form concept where the LARP deals with the politics of the "Otherland", while players performing combats or missions beyond the reclaimed lands work through the medium of battle-game miniatures.

But that's getting ahead of myself again...

I've got a few other thoughts, and I'll start some new topics and run some discussion between here and RPGnet.

I agree that some of the best LARP situations are character driven rather than plot driven, and I'll certainly agree that GM intervention can cause levels of strain on a LARP environment.

I don't want to make this a metagaming thing where the vampires get points for donating blood in the real world, or where someone does a bit of book-keeping every month and ends up with an uber-monster.

With this in mind, I think skills as specific task resolution mechanics are out, and general aptitudes for styles of action are better. Rather than a specific pair of skills in strike and dodge, a general aptitude in close combat might be more suitable.

Let's strip my concept back to it's basics...

1. To dress up in costume (whatever that costume may be).
2. To socialise with a growing crowd of people who also enjoy dressing up in costume.
3. To tell epic and developing stories that unfold over the course of weeks, months and years.
4. To have a situation where the mechanics behind the system are simple and presented easily to newcomers.
5. To have a global storyline allowing players to travel to neighbouring cities and take their characters with them.
6. To have a deep and rich setting that invites the telling of tales rather than the negation of it.
7. To avoid the OOC politics inherent in certain global LARP campaigns that shall remain nameless.


Forget combat resolution mechanics, skill resolution, or anything like that for the moment...I want to focus on what the players will get out of the game, and how the game might address these goals.

The chance to dress up in any type of costume is a major factor for the core group of players, and a drawcard for new players who like to try something if it "LOOKS" interesting.

Mechanics will be faced once people get into the game, and OOC politics usually take a couple of games to develop unless their are some pre-established rivalries (in which case a lot of people just wouldn't come along to the game if that were the case).

Telling epic and developing storylines basically means that things will be dramatic (it may not mean this for all people, but that's what I'm going with for the moment). Character death is a real threat, but shouldn't occur every game, and shouldn't happen for no reason.

[hr]

What's the vibe of my game?

A post apocalypse world that exists alongside our own reality, no one knows how long this world has existed, or why it exists. But they have learned how to reach it and that it has something to do with dreams, desires and the destiny of humanity. In this world, people appear as idealized versions of themselves, perhaps reflections of their true souls. Some may perceive themselves as high tech cyberpunks, others may view themselves as noble aristocrats trying to enforce order on the world, others still may be rebels identifying with barbaric ages of the past. Truly imaginative folk (or those who bear a taint of insanity) may perceive themselves as elves, fae, or other creatures.

Appearances aren't everything, and they don't apply automatic mechanical benefits to the character, but they give a good idea of the character's goals and motivations.

Where do I want my game-play focused?

I want it to be political. Those characters who have managed to cross over into the "otherlands" start off bewildered by the realm. But those who have been there a while start to realize the potential. In this world where imagination shapes their form, it can also fuel wondrous powers. The characters exist in secret from the native inhabitants of the post apocalyptic otherworld, but in time virtually all of them develop cults of otherworlders to do their bidding. They become revered as heroes and maybe even angels or gods.

But in our world they are regular people, people a little different to the rest of the population, but people none-the-less. No powers to call on, but the mundane actions they perform in our reality can have major consequences on a post apocalyptic otherworld.

I guess the game will have an inherent duality enforced by this notion of parallel worlds.

The regular LARP will be like a gathering of gods within a pantheon. They will always face rivalry from one another, but united, they draw strength symbiotically. Alone, they are weak and at the mercy of the "Otherlands". Generally, each player wants to become the dominant member of the group, without causing the strength of the group to suffer too much in the process. There's no point taking over a major corporation by firing all of the top executives if those executives have been the ones holding the company together in the first place.

Players should consider the cascading effects of their actions before making hasty decisions.

Their attitude to the denizens of the "Otherworld" will be a bit different though. After all, they are the lords and masters of the survivors, derelicts and mutants from the post apocalyptic waste.

How do I want my play to proceed?

I've been toying with the notion of a "Diplomacy" type system for interaction with the outside world. Divide the local city into sectors based on council/county lines, we run a couple of games separately, but to reflect the different issues of the city. One based on the gang crime, one based on the food supplies, one based on the technology, etc.

In these games, the otherlanders are expendible pawns, valuable only because the player who controls the most pawns has the most status within the pantheon. These pawns do the dirty work of surviving and little else, but they can be focused toward new goals.

For example, everyone has three actions for the day, every action generates a point. Everyone require at least two points worth of survival to make it to the next day. That leaves them one action to do useful things for their master. But if you get three people together, then two can focus on survival for a total of six points. They can evenly distribute their points to their third member, allowing this pawn to spend his three action points on something useful. If you want the mechanic to focus his actions on building a car, then the others can support him. If you want the medic to focus on medicines, then everyone can support her for a day.

These actions contribute to background effects that will influence play by shifting the political landscape.

I've still got a lot of work to go on this concept, but hopefully you get the idea.

Players are elders with cabals of troops to do their bidding, they don't fight each other directly because that is dishonorable and weakens the entire group. They vie for status in a post apocalyptic world where they are viewed as heroes and gods.

Yet somewhere in the shadows of that world there are secrets waiting to be uncovered...

Ian wrote:
Metagame is part of the whole game. Your system needs to take this in to account. You can try to segregate "real" world concerns from the game world concerns, but the two are one. Rather than denying this simple reality, I would suggest embracing it and designing it's use into the system you are developing. Make your system handle metagaming as part of it's operation. It'll make your game stronger.

One is advised however that MET brings an interesting light to RPGs in general, skills are limited in effectiveness to task resolution in general. Larger things like objective, project, and program-based resolution are better served by background and influence type systems. Right tool for the right job, correct?