Topic: LARPs
Started by: ThreeGee
Started on: 9/18/2002
Board: RPG Theory
On 9/18/2002 at 4:46pm, ThreeGee wrote:
LARPs
Okay, I looked carefully and could find nothing saying that we cannot talk about other forms of roleplaying than tabletop, and I searched carefully for any previous threads on the topic, but for no reason that I can determine, there is zero discussion here concerning LARPs.
What I would like to do is solicit your ideas concerning LARPs that you have been in, what you think are the differences between live-action play and tabletop play, and how the system must necessarily be different between the two modes of play.
I am primarily interested in non-combat LARPs, though I play and staff combat-LARPs as well. I will refrain from making my own observations for now, because I want to open up discussion on the topic, rather than channel ideas into more specific lines.
/Grant
On 9/18/2002 at 5:09pm, Jared A. Sorensen wrote:
RE: LARPs
Quickly, 'cause I'm at work...
Aside from some social contract and stance (ie: immersion) issues, tabletop and live-action art the same exact beast.
The big difference is the addition of a fourth resolution mechanic that only exists in LARP (and only in some of them). That is (what I'm calling) "Skill" -- typically using physical prowess, like in boffer combat. Some LARPs also have lockpicking, pick-pocketing, spell-casting and alchemy as Skill-based.
Hmm...actually, "Skill" is a mechanic also used in table-top -- the classic example would be solving a riddle to get past an obstacle.
So right...Drama, Fortune, Karma and Skill.
We definitely need more LARP discussion tho'.
On 9/18/2002 at 6:56pm, Seth L. Blumberg wrote:
RE: LARPs
In my experience, Jared, the social contract and stance issues that you so cavalierly dismiss mean a lot.
It's very hard to get into Director Stance in a LARP. You can't really call NPCs into existence (who'll play 'em?), you can't call props and scenery into existence at more than the most basic level--even the GMs have a hard time accessing Director Stance other than in preparation for play. The biggest difference from tabletop play, however, is that in a LARP, anything that another player is doing out of earshot of you is indistinguishable from GM fiat. It is almost impossible to maintain protagonism in a LARP, and that makes Narrativists (like me) very unhappy.
In my experience, there are two, and only two, sustainable modes of LARP play: player-vs.-player Gamism, and Sim-Char. (I suppose one might add Participationism to that list, but why not take a load off your feet in that case?) Anything else is hopeless. Maintaining coherence is a bitch, and an absolute necessity, too--those modes do not mix well.
Other minor issues: social contracts are very very different (I'll let someone else address this, since I was always the one misunderstanding the social contract in my LARP days), and short handling time is utterly crucial.
And by the way--"Skill" is a subset of "Drama."
On 9/18/2002 at 7:35pm, Jared A. Sorensen wrote:
RE: LARPs
Seth L. Blumberg wrote: In my experience, Jared, the social contract and stance issues that you so cavalierly dismiss mean a lot.
Re-read my post -- I say those two things are the only things that are really different than in tabletop play.
And I don't believe that Skill is a sub-set of Drama. Drama would be:
GM: Okay, you're attacking the guard, blah blah, you miss.
Player: Dude, I'm 10th level. He's 1st.
GM: Oh right, okay...yeah, he's dead.
Or something. Player skill doesn't come into play.
On 9/18/2002 at 7:44pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: LARPs
Hi Grant,
Here are two older threads which discuss some relevant issues, although briefly.
Size limits for Narrativist play
Theoretical speculations about LARPs
Best,
Ron
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 1264
Topic 567
On 9/18/2002 at 8:31pm, deadpanbob wrote:
RE: LARPs
ThreeGee:
I'll jump in here in a little bit...
First off, most of my experience - either tabletop or LARP - is as the GM/Storyteller/Entertainer/DM/whathaveyou. Second, I much prefer tabletop, because I tend to prefer Director and Author stance - surprise surprise, and Narrativist and/or Gamist modes of play.
Getting all of that out of the way - the biggest difference in my experience is that in most LARPs, all plot, to whatever extent there was any, was player driven - whereas in most table top games that I've run/played in, the plot was more heavily influenced by the GM.
What this means, is that in my experience, unless the players in the LARP were not only good players/improvosational actors, but also good at creating characters with hooks that other less experienced, less outgoing players could latch onto, you ended up with extensive cliques in the LARPs.
There would be one very active, very self-directed, very enjoyable, very outgoing characters who all schemed and plotted against each other, and then you had a much larger group of folk who basically acted as window dressing and/or NPC's for the first group to interact with.
Finally, the size of most LARPs I've been involved with preculde any heavily GM controlled plots - because the high number of players typically means that a GM is stretched too thin to do a reasonable job of handling NPC's, and many players don't like being saddled with playing through heavily scripted plots handed to them by the GM.
I have worked with a couple of small to mid sized LAPRs (8 to 15 people), with a lot of dedicated players who were interested in cooperatively telling a story and involving everyone in the collaborative plot - and those were quite fun, and very similar to table top, but with an added flavor of heavy Simulationism thrown in.
Of course, all of the above are strictly opinions, and my LARP experience may have been skewed by the small number of times I've attempted it (a dozen or so). So, take everything with a grain of salt.
Cheers,
Jason
On 9/18/2002 at 8:37pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
I spent most of the eighties and half the nineties running and playing LARPs. I invented one of the forms of LARP, the (normally indoors and weaponless) kind where players are cast in pre-generated character roles written to interweave in an enormous relationship map.(1) I've written about a million words of LARP content and about half a million words about LARP. Are y'all sure you want to turn on this fire hose? :-)
And all I can say about this discussion so far is, Arrgh!
First of all, there are lots of different styles of LARP. Some of you have been talking about completely different styles without realizing it. These styles are about as similar to each other as RoleMaster is to Soap. (Back in the 90s, the last I kept track of such things, most LARP players were still completely unaware that any styles other than their own existed. Perhaps that's still true.)
I can break down a few types, but this is only one of several different and meaningful ways to sort them out:
Fighting LARPs usually characterized by:
- Boffer weapon combat
- Outdoor play
- Generic fantasy settings
- Generic fantasy systems with experience points, hit points, levels, classes
- Day-long games
- Ongoing characters with long-term advancement
Game Tie-In LARPs usually characterized by:
- Indoor play, usually at conventions
- Sponsored by commercial RPG publisher and based on that system
- Several-hour sessions
- Player-created characters within the system
- Resolution mechanics simplified from the commercial system
LARPs casting players in pre-generated character roles, usually associated with:
- Indoor play, often at stand-alone multi-LARP conventions
- Multi-day games (pre 1995 or so)
- Emphasis on politics, economics, diplomacy, espionage interactions that don't need to be simulated
- Wide range of settings and genres, wider even than most tabletop (e.g. Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, Watergate, Titanic)
Not to mention the actual play mechanics, types of scenarios, number of players involved, number of NPCs involved, gamemastering approaches, character design approaches, or GNS modes -- all of which vary widely within types.
So I can pretty much guarantee that any blanket statement to the effect of "all LARPs have problem X" or "only Y technique works well for LARP" is going to be wrong.
- Walt
(1) This may sound like a bizarre claim, because doing live games that way seems so obvious that why would anyone have had to invent it? Nonetheless, they didn't happen(2) before 1983 when I ran Rekon-1 (much later published as "Nexus" by Chaosium) the first time at Boskone XX; and within weeks after that, groups in several other parts of the country who had seen the event were already planning their own games.
(2) Model UNs, assassin games, some of the earlier obstacle course fighting LARPs, economic behavior simulation studies, improvisational theater, the novel Dream Park, the novel and movie Westworld, and role playing in psychology all already existed, of course.
On 9/18/2002 at 9:28pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
Links Walt? Can you let us in on where they keep the good stuff?
Mike
On 9/19/2002 at 12:42pm, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
wfreitag wrote: Fighting LARPs usually characterized by:
- Boffer weapon combat
- Outdoor play
- Generic fantasy settings
- Generic fantasy systems with experience points, hit points, levels, classes
- Day-long games
- Ongoing characters with long-term advancement
Game Tie-In LARPs usually characterized by:
- Indoor play, usually at conventions
- Sponsored by commercial RPG publisher and based on that system
- Several-hour sessions
- Player-created characters within the system
- Resolution mechanics simplified from the commercial system
LARPs casting players in pre-generated character roles, usually associated with:
- Indoor play, often at stand-alone multi-LARP conventions
- Multi-day games (pre 1995 or so)
- Emphasis on politics, economics, diplomacy, espionage interactions that don't need to be simulated
- Wide range of settings and genres, wider even than most tabletop (e.g. Shakespeare, Gilbert and Sullivan, Watergate, Titanic)
4th type: Invented independently by Oxford University's roleplaying society, also the Camarilla LRP organisation.
- Players make their own characters.
- Indoor play, more often than not weekly or biweekly.
- A team of GMs.
- Emphasis in-meeting on discussion, politics, diplomacy, etc.
- Between sessions players submit turnsheets describing what they want their characters to get up to between sessions (the IC time between sessions being anything from a week to a decade). This is when most action-oriented stuff happens.
- Resolution: most turnsheet actions are resolved by the GMs deciding if and how player's actions work. This doesn't feel as de-empowering as it sounds if you're a player since the GM meetings happen behind closed doors anyway. In-game, in Oxford we also prefer the GMs to decide how actions succeed - they tend to know what our stats are, rolling dice or playing paper-stone-scissors just looks monumentally ridiculous.
- Definitely only works for player-v-player gamism or character-Simulationism. Narrativism simply doesn't work: after all, what work of literature really has 20+ main characters? (Aside from things like Anne McCaffrey's Dragon series, which only focuses on a few characters each novel, and Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, which is really a bunch of different novels set in the same universe at the same time welded together.)
On 9/19/2002 at 4:09pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike Holmes wrote: Links Walt? Can you let us in on where they keep the good stuff?
Ah, where indeed? You've just hit on one of the main problems with SIL relationship-map LARPs: the ephemeral nature of their production. You can't publish a system (the rules are a trivial fraction of the game design), or even a compendium of all the written materials created for a game, and expect anyone to do much of anything with it. A good LARP design of this type includes a multitude of "contact points" (game mechanisms that involve the GM, partly or entirely for the purpose of keeping the GMs informed what is going on) and "control knobs" by which the runtime GMs can unobtrusively adjust pacing, economic parameters, and above all, the information flow that is a key influence on plot focus and plot trajectory for sub-groups of player characters and for the game as a whole. A coherent instruction manual pointing out these mechanisms and explaining how to use them was never, to my knowledge, written down for any individual game. The game authors and gamemasters "just knew." Pass the compendium on to another group (as was sometimes done), and they could figure it out, but with a similar (that is to say, enormous) amount of effort they could write their own.
As further explanation of why you can't buy a LARP in a box (of this type), let me paint you a picture of the state of all the tangible game components at the start of one of my SIL LARP events. It's Friday afternoon; the players will soon begin arriving to pick up their character packets. Many of them (the ones that signed up long enough in advance) have already received a copy of the rules and a brief description of their characters in advance in the mail.
The character packets, right now, are sixty manilla envelopes stuffed into two cardboard cartons. The envelopes each have a player's name on the outside (except for the ones not yet "sold" or cast to a player, anticipating some walk-in registrations) and the character's name on the inside. Inside each envelope is some or all of the following:
- A copy of the rules (even if sent in advance, no one remembers to bring them along). Rules were usually six to twelve pages, a good deal of which was devoted to covering the "elementary school" issues (no running in the halls, no real fighting, we will call the police if we see you doing something illegal in the real world, even if it's "in character") and the rest covering simulation mechanisms.
- A pocket schedule of game downtimes. (We learned that players failed to eat or sleep unless the game "closed" for these purposes.)
- The character sheet. Different for every character. In my games I shot for one-page characters. Sometimes more, if the character sheet also included background history that only that character knows. Some groups went nuts with character sheets, writing five pages or more per character, a practice I found counterproductive.
- Background briefing information (aka "blue sheets"). A typical game would have twenty or so different background information documents, ranging from "stuff everybody knows" that goes to almost every player in the game, to "secret insider" information shared by a few characters. Sometimes same background material had different versions for different characters' points of view. Every character has a different combination of these.
- Item cards. The character's possessions, identified and described on individual index cards. Every character has a different set of these.
- Physical items. Usually small trinkets that can be stuffed inside the manilla folders, but occasional bulky (but portable) physical items were supplied.
- Game money. Having several different currencies was common (e.g. earth money, alien federation money, and alien underground money). Occasionally metal coin blanks were used. Each character starts with a certain amount.
- Ability cards. Characters' actual special abilities (if any) were described in the character sheet, but the ability card represented the information shown to other players to use an ability. Klunky ability mechanisms was one of the hallmarks of bad SIL game designers. Few things are more pathetic than a guy walking into a room waving an index card and yelling "I'm invisible, you can't see me."
- Points. For any game mechanism based on consumable points, the appropriate number of individual points printed on business card size cards.
- Stat card. For any game mechanism based on individual character stats (if any), especially if those stats could change, a card (usually 4 x 6 to distinguish it from all the other cardware) with the character's stats.
- In-game documents. Coded messages, code keys, letters to be delivered, military maps, sealed orders, old books, wills, property deeds, ID badges, you name it.
- A small notebook and a pen.
Elsewhere in the control room:
- A file for the gamemasters for each character. The file includes the character sheet, additional notes compiled pre-game detailing such things as the character's outside contacts (NPCs role played by the GMs or by temporary NPC actors) and a summary of the character's relationship, and space for additional notes taken at runtime.
- Stockpiles of all of the game's currency. Stockpiles of additional prepared items, and blank item cards. Ditto abilities. Rubber stamps for vetting items created by the GMs at runtime (often hurriedly hand-scrawled). Supplies of points. Additional in-game documents awaiting release or discovery by player characters.
- A whole bunch more character packets, each containing all the necessary components (e.g. stat cards, money, items, and points) for "grab and go" NPCs for the NPC actors.
- Master "war room" maps (if the game has e.g. an off-camera military maneuvering element) or other global game state charts (e.g. a stock quote board if the game has a stock market).
- Computers and printers (or pre-late-80's) typewriters for creating new game components as needed, and for generating new in-game documents (e.g. twice-daily newspapers) as needed.
Want to know where all that good stuff is now? It's in cardboard boxes in my attic. Large cardboard boxes. Many cardboard boxes. Linking to it seems problematic.
Now, if you mean current active LARPs, well, I just don't know any more who's doing what or where to find them, or whether their technique is any good. When I say a decent 100+-player Narrativist LARP is possible and has been done, I'm speaking from experience, but that doesn't mean you can play in one this coming weekend. It's one of the reasons I stopped doing LARPs: the impossibility of publication except by live performance.
- Walt
On 9/19/2002 at 4:11pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
after all, what work of literature really has 20+ main characters? (Aside from things like Anne McCaffrey's Dragon series, which only focuses on a few characters each novel, and Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, which is really a bunch of different novels set in the same universe at the same time welded together.)
Not to be too snarky, but War and Peace has 150 or so characters. In any case, I can't see a player's play being any different within the context of a larger or smaller group. They can still theoretically make decisions that are Narrativist. What I think the hinderance in most forms of LARP is to Narrativism is the lack of omniscient view that usually accompanies such play (as opposed to Tabletop). As I don't know what player A is doing right now, how can I know for certain how to make a decision that will create good story. As such it becomes much easier to just go with "what would the character do" Sim, and hope the result is story like (if one cares about story at all).
But then, I'd bow to your greater experience. Does that seem to fit your observations?
Mike
On 9/19/2002 at 4:18pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
wfreitag wrote: It's one of the reasons I stopped doing LARPs: the impossibility of publication except by live performance.
I'm a bit confused at that statement. If I were to put all this into action, I'd first write it out on my computer, as I do everything, and then print out the copies I need. Having those files on my computer, it would then be a relatively simple matter (though possibly a bit laborious) to post them to a web page, or even to make a PDF file of the info and get it published.
So I think I'm missing what you're saying. Is it the GM experience that can't be bottled? What is it that can't make it on a site or into a publication?
Mike
On 9/19/2002 at 5:35pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
If I were to put all this into action, I'd first write it out on my computer, as I do everything...
Yes, if you were putting this into action today. What about if you were doing it in 1982? Or 1988?
Sure, some of this material exists in electronic form. Such as 5-1/4 inch floppy disks. (And some doesn't. The first few games were written on six dorm room typewriters.) Writing these games were group efforts, and everyone used whatever tools they had at hand: Apple IIs, IBM PC ATs, university mainframes, 128K Macs, whatever. Cutting and pasting often involved actual scissors and paste. A friend wrote an item card database program in BASIC so that they could be printed out on tractor feed index cards, since no commercial software could do so. Needless to say, those data files are not compatible with the latest version of Acrobat.
With some effort I could turn any of these old games into a Web publication, or write a new one in suitable format from the beginning. And to solve the problem of the typical result of an average group of GMs trying to run a SIL LARP from a compendium being fifty players forever convinced that LARPs suck, I suppose I could do what Ron did in Sorcerer and write a large manual on "how to run a SIL LARP" and include that on the site too. But I see no potential reward for doing so. The chance of any particular game being run even once as a result of such a Web site appears remote. It's too specialized a craft for publishing even to be meaningful in the conventional sense, like publishing plans for building your own deep-sea submersible. The audience for LARPs is small, and hasn't appeared to grow much since about 1985.
- Walt
On 9/19/2002 at 5:45pm, Ron Edwards wrote:
RE: LARPs
Hi Walt,
It seems to me that your posts in this thread, especially the big'un, already constitute a phenomenal "how to" guideline. If you wanted to turn them into an essay, maybe add an example or historical anecdote or two, it'd be very welcome as an addition to the Articles section at the Forge.
Best,
Ron
On 9/19/2002 at 6:47pm, Seth L. Blumberg wrote:
RE: LARPs
Jared wrote: Re-read my post -- I say those two things are the only things that are really different than in tabletop play.
That sounds to me like there's an implied "...so LARPs aren't really very different from tabletop play at all." Sorry if I misinterpreted you.
Jared wrote: And I don't believe that Skill is a sub-set of Drama. Drama would be:
GM: Okay, you're attacking the guard, blah blah, you miss.
Player: Dude, I'm 10th level. He's 1st.
GM: Oh right, okay...yeah, he's dead.
Or something. Player skill doesn't come into play.
Uh...no, Jared, that's Karma: direct comparison of character attributes not modified by random input.
Drama is anything that isn't Fortune or Karma. More specifically, it's any mode of action resolution that doesn't involve quantified character traits. As such, it includes resolving actions based on who talks most eloquently, or who can whack whom most skillfully with a boffer, or whether the GM is having a bad day.
wfreitag wrote: First of all, there are lots of different styles of LARP. Some of you have been talking about completely different styles without realizing it.
While I can't claim to be one of the Living Gods of Interactive Literature, I have played and run LARPs in two of your three categories (as well as Model UN, Killer, economic behavior simulations, and improv theater), and I have friends whose experience in the field of "fighting LARPs" is not small. I believe that the points I made apply equally to all three of your proposed categories. If you disagree, I would be interested to hear why.
Wart wrote: 4th type: Invented independently by Oxford University's roleplaying society, also the Camarilla LRP organisation.
Other than the emphasis on ongoing play, this is indistinguishable from Walt's second listed style, "Game Tie-In LARPs."
wfreitag wrote: A good LARP design of this type includes a multitude of "contact points" (game mechanisms that involve the GM, partly or entirely for the purpose of keeping the GMs informed what is going on) and "control knobs" by which the runtime GMs can unobtrusively adjust pacing, economic parameters, and above all, the information flow that is a key influence on plot focus and plot trajectory for sub-groups of player characters and for the game as a whole. A coherent instruction manual pointing out these mechanisms and explaining how to use them was never, to my knowledge, written down for any individual game.
Walt, if you write a book on how to design and apply these mechanisms in a LARP, and it costs US$40 or less, I will buy it. I have several friends who would, too.
On 9/19/2002 at 8:37pm, marknau wrote:
RE: LARPs
Ron Edwards wrote: Hi Walt,
It seems to me that your posts in this thread, especially the big'un, already constitute a phenomenal "how to" guideline. If you wanted to turn them into an essay, maybe add an example or historical anecdote or two, it'd be very welcome as an addition to the Articles section at the Forge.
Best,
Ron
I hate "me too" posts, but I just gotta. Walt, what Ron says is dead-on. I've got a 20-something person LARP brewing, and any and all advice I can get from the veterans is going to be fabulous. I agree that trying to package a LARP experience is futile, but even a brief look into your "how-to" knowledge packs a big punch for a novice thinking about getting into it.
On 9/19/2002 at 11:19pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
Seth wrote: I believe that the points I made apply equally to all three of your proposed categories. If you disagree, I would be interested to hear why.
A completely fair request. I guess the basic point of contention is this:
In my experience, there are two, and only two, sustainable modes of LARP play: player-vs.-player Gamism, and Sim-Char. (I suppose one might add Participationism to that list, but why not take a load off your feet in that case?) Anything else is hopeless. Maintaining coherence is a bitch, and an absolute necessity, too--those modes do not mix well.
Now, if you're talking about your experience, I have every reason to believe you. But I don't go along with the generalizations. I've seen plenty of Narrativist LARP play. That is to say, play in which:
1. The players' main decision-making priority was creation of story now.
2. The players were successful in doing so.
It's true that certain stances and mechanisms often associated with Narrativist play are not practical in a LARP. But hey, neither are most of the mechanisms usually associated with Gamist and Simulationist play. It's a different universe with its own balances, hovering (I believe) closer to congruence than tabletop play.
And protagonism is certainly an issue. But in my experience, some LARP environments allow players to protagonize themselves much more readily, and are much less likely to deprotagonize, than others. System does matter. As does GM approach -- such as asking things like "where are you going with this?" when a player wants to do something questionable that needs GM vetting -- or at least thinking it. The single most common and destructive error in SIL LARP design was, and I suspect still is, attempting to protagonize using the character sheet. "You are the world's greatest detective," says the character sheet -- but that sentence on a piece of paper cannot magically give you the skills of a detective, or the respect of other player-characters. Better to tell a player-character he's a nameless nobody, which he can go do something about, than give him a supposedly protagonistic role that the game gives him no chance to live up to.
Far more than in tabletop, player-characters must protagonize themselves. (Though really, who else can protagonize a character, ever?) There are some Narr advantages to SIL LARP. One shot games encourage Author stance, rather than pawnish self-preservation. And the initial set-up, when done properly, provides essentially a kicker for every character. Bangs (which can be on the individual character scale, group scale, or gamewide scale) are par for the course, though we called them something else.
It took a while to learn what worked and what didn't -- and I'm still learning, retroactively, from concepts here at the Forge. Such as why my silly cartoon character game (post Toon, but pre Roger Rabbit) was a hit while a big serious generic fantasy game was an incoherent mess. The cartoon game (Show Biz) was very focused comedic Narrativism. The set-up was an elaborate but silly cartoon combat system (in which combattants gained and lost not Hit Points, but Ratings Points). Player characters were led to believe that they would be competing with each other for more ratings and better time slots on the Saturday morning schedule. The kicker came on Saturday morning, when they discovered that every single one of their shows had been cancelled, replaced by toy marketing tie-ins and nonviolent PC cartoons. The cartoon characters had to find new jobs in other areas of show business, and eventually, after rooting out the corruption riddling Acme Studios, managed a big collective comeback. (The Roger Rabbit people never did send me any royalties. But then again, I never sent any to Warner Brothers either.)
All we prepared in advance were the characters, thousands of props (and a roomful of craft materials for players to make anything they couldn't find), and a schedule of auditions. Everything else was player driven. We had to invent the corruption one step ahead of the characters rooting it out. I'm pretty sure this wasn't Gamism in action, because at the Academy Awards finale we gave all the Oscars to the Bugs Bunny character, who most definitely didn't deserve them, and nobody cared. Sim, I guess you could make a case for. But I call it Narrativist. What about the Premise, you ask, tapping your foot? I guess it was, "What relevance do old-fashined toons have in the progressive 80s?" Not much of a Premise, drama wise, but what do you expect from a bunch of cartoon characters?
An interesting artifact from that game is an introduction page I wrote. Though I didn't see it this way at the time, it was essentially a page-long apology for what I was about to do to the player-characters with Saturday morning's kicker. I had figured out that comedy, unlike drama, involves bad things happening to characters when they don't deserve it. But I'd never done anything like it before, in mid-game, to paying customers who outnumbered me. Running games in public that are impossible to play-test in advance is not conducive to peace of mind.
Oh man, I've rambled horribly. This LARP stuff is dangerous ground for me. Most of my youth, a lot of hard work and creative energy, a lot of incredible high points, a lot of abject frustration tangled up there. (I can't say it wasn't worth it, for one reason above all: a whole slew of happy marriages among people who met playing them.)
- Walt
On 9/20/2002 at 10:16am, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike Holmes wrote:after all, what work of literature really has 20+ main characters? (Aside from things like Anne McCaffrey's Dragon series, which only focuses on a few characters each novel, and Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn trilogy, which is really a bunch of different novels set in the same universe at the same time welded together.)
Not to be too snarky, but War and Peace has 150 or so characters.
And all of them are as important as the main protagonists?
In any case, I can't see a player's play being any different within the context of a larger or smaller group. They can still theoretically make decisions that are Narrativist. What I think the hinderance in most forms of LARP is to Narrativism is the lack of omniscient view that usually accompanies such play (as opposed to Tabletop).
Yep, essentially it's going to be nearly impossible to reconcile 20-plus people's take on a game's Premise (if we want to go all technical). Furthermore, getting 20-plus people in a room with the same idea of what makes a good story is damn near impossible.
Furthermore, a game with 20-plus people in needs lots of things going on if it's not going to seem empty and boring. One of the best ways to increase the number of things that are going on is to introduce player-vs-player gamism to the mix - interpersonal rivalry produces so much interesting tension. (Not that the game has to be entirely player-vs-player, allies being as important and enemies and so on.)
And once you already have player-v-player tension, and since the game format really lends itself better to diplomacy and negotiation than to action, really character-based Simulationism is the best way to experience what the game has to offer.
On 9/20/2002 at 10:18am, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
Wart wrote: 4th type: Invented independently by Oxford University's roleplaying society, also the Camarilla LRP organisation.
Other than the emphasis on ongoing play, this is indistinguishable from Walt's second listed style, "Game Tie-In LARPs."
Except, of course, that it doesn't tie-in with a published game.
On 9/20/2002 at 12:12pm, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
Wart wrote:Wart wrote: 4th type: Invented independently by Oxford University's roleplaying society, also the Camarilla LRP organisation.
Other than the emphasis on ongoing play, this is indistinguishable from Walt's second listed style, "Game Tie-In LARPs."
Except, of course, that it doesn't tie-in with a published game.
And furthermore, now that I think about it:
- My 4th type has no commercial links whatsoever - the rules system tends to be made up by the GM team. (Alright, so Camarilla doesn't fit in this category at all, my bad).
- None of Walt's varieties mentions turnsheeting.
On 9/20/2002 at 8:12pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
I certainly have no objection to including a fourth style, or any other classification scheme people want to use. That only emphasizes my original point, which is the diversity of LARP styles that have been produced.
An MIT group used to run two week long LARPs. They were a hybrid of killer games (from which they inherited the two week runtime, a certain penchant for espionage and assassination, and less abstract weapon simulations, e.g. toy guns) and SIL games (they used pre written characters in a relationship web, having dropped the arbitrary assigned targets of killer).
On the other hand, very few if any individual games exhibit all of the characteristics of their "type." Many also borrow characteristics of another type. And most have unique characteristics of their own. When exceptions are the rule, the fit into types is necessarily approximate. Adding a type for every exception (how about those boxed murder mystery party games?) isn't always wise; there's often more to be learned by focusing on the similarities.
- Walt
On 9/20/2002 at 9:24pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
Perhaps LARP is better looked at in terms of instances of play instead of trends. What I'd do in that case is find the spectra, and qualify a particular example by how it fits on all the spectra.
For example: Continuity - as a spectrum it goes from one-shot to indefinite. A specific LARP will end up being somewhere on that scale.
Intra-session play, rules complexity, Play-site type and size (indoors to outdoors or both), sponsor/producer, emphasis, game or liscence tie-in, length of session, frequency of sessions, setting/genre. player population (students, businessmen, military, mixed, etc)
Anyhow, probably lots more as well. But anyhow a classification system where you could ask a series of questions about any LARP, and at the end have a descent idea of what play might look like.
The theory would then look at how each of these considerations affected the play alone or in concert.
Sure, a large project. But I'd go to $50. 00 for a write-up, maybe more.
Mike
On 9/21/2002 at 11:54am, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike Holmes wrote: Perhaps LARP is better looked at in terms of instances of play instead of trends. What I'd do in that case is find the spectra, and qualify a particular example by how it fits on all the spectra.
For example: Continuity - as a spectrum it goes from one-shot to indefinite. A specific LARP will end up being somewhere on that scale.
Intra-session play, rules complexity, Play-site type and size (indoors to outdoors or both), sponsor/producer, emphasis, game or liscence tie-in, length of session, frequency of sessions, setting/genre. player population (students, businessmen, military, mixed, etc)
Let's also look at:
Play between sessions (players discussing what they're going to put on their turnsheets with each other, etc.) - this is a very important part in the "Oxford model", since though the meeting is where most of the playing in terms of diplomacy, negotiation, and the occasional surprise event takes place, it's in turnsheeting that the things that folk have agreed on in the meeting actually have an effect on the world. In other LRPs which have a downtime system, it's had less of an effect - in the UK's Omega large-scale LRP (a game the size of a combat-LRP, with a latex weaponry combat system, but with much emphasis on diplomacy) the GMs make a great deal of noise about how not participating in the downtime campaign won't penalise your character.
Experimentation. What sort of experiments can be made with the format without actually changing the basic nature of the game?
On 9/24/2002 at 8:20pm, Seth L. Blumberg wrote:
RE: LARPs
First of all, forgive me for line-by-lining. In a discussion this large, where this much water has gone under the bridge since the messages to which I'm particularly responding, I feel it necessary to quote snippets of earlier messages to provide a more specific context for my responses.
Walt wrote: I've seen plenty of Narrativist LARP play. That is to say, play in which:
1. The players' main decision-making priority was creation of story now.
2. The players were successful in doing so.
That's not the definition of Narrativism. Where's the Premise? "Story" is not Narrativism.
Walt wrote: What about the Premise, you ask, tapping your foot? I guess it was, "What relevance do old-fashioned toons have in the progressive 80s?"
Fails the test for a Narrativist Premise--no moral relevance to the players.
By me, your Show Biz game was Simulationism focusing on Exploration of Situation and Color (and possibly Character, but you've presented no evidence in that regard). Your entire description of it focuses on the Situation and Color of the game, and ignores any issues of Premise.
Walt wrote: some LARP environments allow players to protagonize themselves much more readily, and are much less likely to deprotagonize, than others.
Please, I beg you, I get down on my freakin' knees and beg you, tell me what elements of design and preparation you believe lead to increased player protagonism.
Walt wrote: The single most common and destructive error...was...attempting to protagonize using the character sheet. "You are the world's greatest detective," says the character sheet--but that sentence on a piece of paper cannot magically give you the skills of a detective, or the respect of other player-characters.
From your fingers to every GM's ears. I've been burned more times by this one....
Wart wrote: it doesn't tie in with a published game.
Sorry--I was seduced by your mention of Camarilla play, with which I am familiar, and ignored the Oxford style, with which I am emphatically not. For lack of any evidence to the contrary, I will stipulate to the existence of a fourth LARP style.
On 9/26/2002 at 3:13am, James Holloway wrote:
Types of LARPs
It's funny - regional variations in LARP styles seem to be quite significant. Where I come from, the dominant form of LARP is the outdoor game - weekly or biweekly, with players milling around some appropriate part of town. I've also run Cthulhu Live games which combine elements of the Vampire-type game and the outdoor combat LARP (not so much with the combat, but a lot of props and sets).
I couldn't say whether or not Narrativist LARPing is possible - I will say that play conventions which traditionally are used to facilitate Narrativism seem difficult in LARPs of any type without making them very similar to tabletop games. In fact, I'm not sure that the separation is as clear as people seem to think; anyone who read the old Call of Cthulhu scenarios "In Media Res" and "Grace Under Pressure" knows that they use player movement, props, and stage effects in combination with player and GM description of action.
So, if there are these types of LARPs, what are the elements that make them LARPs and not tabletop (do most people still play sitting around a table? Well, you know what I mean anyway)?
- description vs. action: as a rule, in LARPs players act out their character's actions in some way rather than describing them. The level of this varies greatly - some actions are obviously not easy to physically represent ("I fly away!") or not desirable ("I kick his ass!").
- props, sets, and costumes: in some LARPs, props and stage sets take the place of the GM's description of the surroundings. These range from being abstract (how many times have you seen con LARPs with bits of paper posted all over saying things like "engine room?") to being totally realistic (this game is set in a remote mountain cabin and played in a remote mountain cabin).
what else separate LARPs and tabletop games? I don't know. Usually LARPs have a large number of players, but this is by no means universal: I once ran a Cthulhu Live game which had no more than five players. These distinctions obviously don't cover many LARPs: the SIL-West games I've played in, for example, have very minimal action and not too much in the way of props, sets, and costumes (this side of things is usually left to the players).
So, really, what are we talking about when we say "LARP?" I'm not at all sure I believe in these different categories - lots of games blur the lines between them. What makes a game a LARP? Once we identify the situations that make something a LARP, we can talk about how those things affect its ability to implement particular play goals.
Thoughts?
On 9/26/2002 at 3:01pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
seth wrote: Fails the test for a Narrativist Premise--no moral relevance to the players.
I would like to answer that in two ways. First in my normal voice, and then in a sort of high-pitched whine. Um, I mean, yeah, two ways.
1. Sure there was moral relevance to the players. "What is my (this character's) fit role in society?" is always a morally relevant question as long as the player perceives some empathic or metaphoric connection between the character and the player.
Show Biz explores the plight of entertainers whose work is no longer accepted. That work, when it's not being ignored as irrelevant, is being openly reviled for being "too violent" or "a bad influence" on its main audience. Like the old Vaudevillians whose outdated schtick they originally parodied, they're partly to blame for their situation. They've become complacent and hidebound. But how can it be otherwise? They're toons, which means the roles they perform "on camera" are no different than themselves and their behavior "off camera." How can they update their message to remain meaningful while still remaining true to their own natures?
I'm now having trouble keeping a straight face here so I'll move on to the second answer.
2. A visible Premise with obvious moral relevance might be one measure of quality in Narrativism, but it cannot be a definitional requirement for the existence of Narrativism. Assuming we're operating within the GNS model here, decision-making priorities trump everything else.
A player in a comedic LARP is walking down the street. Sees a banana peel on the ground. Slips on the banana peel and has a huge pratfall.
That, my friends, is as clear an instance of Narrativism as you'll ever see. How do I know? It's clearly not Gamism. Slipping on the banana peel doesn't garner any rewards that relate to compeition or challenge. It probably does the opposite. Simulationism has to be addressed with a bit more care. Might the player just be playing out what the character would have done? That is to say, what a comedic character in a world full of banana peels would have done? No. It doesn't wash. Inside the game world, a comedic character who slips on a banana peel does so because he doesn't see the banana peel. To deliberately step on the banana peel would be completely out of character and inappropriate (not to mention, not funny). If the character slips on the banana peel, it's because the player has decided that the character didn't see it. A metagame decision has been made. And it's been made purely for the sake of non-Gamist metagame rewards: in this case, creating humor; getting a laugh from the audience. That's Narrativism, pure and simple. Ron's assessments of such examples in recent threads consistently reaffirm this: you cannot conclude something is not Narrativism because you don't see a Premise; instead, Narrativism as a decision-making priority demonstrates that there must be a Premise in there somewhere, even if you don't see it.
So, despite what I said about not keeping a straight face above, what I said there is actually true and valid. And the capping evidence I offer is this: at the end of the game, the players reported feeling a sense of accomplishment -- not because they'd "beaten" the GMs or each other (though Gamism in the form of beating the GMs by dealing with the situation the GMs had devised was definitely present as a subsidiary mode, as it often is in Narr games), nor because they'd explored what it's like to be cartoon characters facing typical in-genre situations (that's what they expected to do coming in, and what they would have done, except that the kicker took them out of their normal milieu and made its continued existence an issue to be resolved), but because by their play they had affirmed the value of the characters and of an art form that they were fond of.
Actually, I've personally been skeptical of Ron's theory that if there's Narrativist decision-making going on then there has to be a Premise in there somewhere, even if it wasn't put there on purpose or consciously perceived. My experience with this game is evidence in its favor that, going in, I didn't expect to find.
- Walt
On 9/26/2002 at 3:45pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
I would totally agree with Walt that Narrativism can and does exist in LARP play. What Walt describes is "Vanilla Narrativism" exactly. Players addressing premises that even they might be unaware of (though they seemed to see it in the end). I would also say that it's rarer, and fairly difficult. I have speculated as to reasons for this.
First, that being less omniscient of larger events that it's harder to figure out what decisions are available that are Narrativist in a given circumstance. That is, since I don't know everyting that's going on (like I would in a tabletop game) that I have to make decisions more locally. And as such, it's easier to fall back into "what would my character do" mode. I suppose that this would be easily mitigated by having smaller groups. Hmmm.
Second, given the potentially more Immersive nature of LARPS, that many will prefer to play Sim. That in stepping out of character mentally for example to make a decision to slip, as Walt mentions above, might be something that they'd rather not do.
Note that I think that working against this latter notion is the idea that people may have that they are playing to an audience, theatre style. In that case, and being improvisational, they might feel the need to step out of character to make that decision that might be more entertaining for the group as a whole, and as such some of these decisions might be Narrativist.
What I'd say is that Walt had found a set of qualities in setting up a LARP that did not impede Narrativism (reduced Gamist tendencies, for example), and a group of people who were likely to respond in a Narrativist fashion. As such I would expect Narrativist play.
Does that seem to coincide with our experience, Walt? For example, if you had played with more wargamers, would you not expect to see these things come out more Sim (or even Gamist)?
Or am I wrong? Does LARP have certain qualities that I'm not aware of that make it more conducive to Narrativist play (such as the aformentioned audience effect) than my small experience would suggest? For example, I wonder if players during those scheduled breaks talked to each other OOC, and let each other in on the big picture so as to make each player better able to have his character address larger issues.
BTW, on a related issue, and one that's poped up in other threads lately, it seems to me that it's hard to do really small LARPS. We've discussed the intimacy factor in small groups for tabletop, but it seems to me that this is ampified in LARP. By which I mean to say that getting any fewer than say seven people to play a LARP seems, well, uncomfortable. Is there something about LARP in your esitmation, Walt, that makes a larger "Audience Factor" a must for comfortable play? Is it the similarity to theatre, for example? I find this very interesting.
Mike
On 9/26/2002 at 5:03pm, Matt wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike,
I've never had a problem with small LARPs. For example, in the Vampire LARP I'm involved in, we often have smaller events (3-7 people) between larger events (20-40 people). It tends to be good for intensive sim-char play (less other people in the way), but can also for Narativist play (easier to focus on a premise than with a large group). It's also used to protagonise characters more, which is difficult at largeer events.
The LARP in question also has a surprisingly Narativist bent for a vampire LARP (many I've played in have been very sim-char focused), as the organisers have been very vocal in establishing the focus of the game on the moral quandry of "which means more to you, freedom or loyalty?"
-Matt
On 9/26/2002 at 6:00pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike wrote: What Walt describes is "Vanilla Narrativism" exactly. Players addressing premises that even they might be unaware of (though they seemed to see it in the end). I would also say that it's rarer, and fairly difficult. I have speculated as to reasons for this.
Oh, it's definitely rarer in general, at least on a systematic gamewide level. But let's not forget that LARPs have a whole additional dimension (that is to say, space as well as time) in which "instances of play" take place. It's generally held that most games have instances of all three modes of play, but that a few scattered instances of e.g. Narrativism is not enough to make a game Narrativist if some other mode predominates. However, in a LARP a relatively few instances of Narrativism could, in theory, represent one player's entire experience in the game. The concepts of focus, coherence, drift, transition, and congruence must be applied to LARPs with great caution.
First, that being less omniscient of larger events that it's harder to figure out what decisions are available that are Narrativist in a given circumstance. That is, since I don't know everyting that's going on (like I would in a tabletop game) that I have to make decisions more locally. And as such, it's easier to fall back into "what would my character do" mode. I suppose that this would be easily mitigated by having smaller groups. Hmmm.
Yes, I think that's true. Evidence supports that idea. Show Biz was a relatively small game (18 players, IIRC). The best example of a systematically Narrativist LARP, Arabian Nights, is a very large game but has mechanisms that deliberately break down the play into smaller units with smaller casts of characters per unit. (I'll post a complete overview of the Arabian Nights mechanics on this thread sometime soon.)
Most large LARPs involve many smaller overlapping units of plot, even when that's not emphasized in the mechanics. And I think what can happen is, Narrativistic instances of play can arise within the context of those subplots. This might involve one or two players most involved in the subplot to take on a Narrativistic stance toward it; or all of the players involved in it can shift to Narrativism as the game nears its end in order to work toward a satisfying resolution.
Second, given the potentially more Immersive nature of LARPS, that many will prefer to play Sim. That in stepping out of character mentally for example to make a decision to slip, as Walt mentions above, might be something that they'd rather not do.
Again, I hadn't thought about it before, but there's evidence for this. Narrativist-leaning LARPs often give players a bit of license to step out of character, often in the form of genre expectations. (As in slipping on a banana peel... a player might think, "I'm a cartoon character, of course I'm supposed to slip on the banana peel" without ever thinking of it as an out of character decision. After all, it's an in-character action.) Also, Show Biz has a deliberate level-mixing quality to it that it inherits from the cartoons themselves. Bugs Bunny is both an anthropomorphic rabbit being pursued by a hunter, and an actor with Oscars, a mansion, and an agent. When Daffy Duck argues with the animator during a cartoon, is that a "metagame" or "out of character" event? A little blurring of IC/OOC lines seems natural here, even beneficial.
And guess what... Arabian Nights has quite a bit of a similar blurring. The Arabian Nights tales are stories about lots of things, but mostly they're about stories. And they're all taking place inside a frame story, which is itself about stories. The game mimicks this very effectively. Each time a player takes on a different character role (which in Arabian Nights she can do many times), she's aware that the story she's about to enter has purpose: to entertain and to instruct. If some of that knowledge leaks into the character it doesn't seem out of place. Another way of saying it is that each player is explicitly told that he's playing two roles simultaneously: his individual main character, and Shahrazade who is telling their stories, so not only license but mandate is given for Narrativist decision-making. Then if the character goes to a storyteller to hear (that is, enter and play out) a story within a story, and thereby takes on a new role, now he's got three different perspectives, all of them arguably "in character": the new role inside the sub-story, the main character who is learning the sub-story from a storyteller, and Shaharazade who is author of all.
God I love that game.
Note that I think that working against this latter notion is the idea that people may have that they are playing to an audience, theatre style. In that case, and being improvisational, they might feel the need to step out of character to make that decision that might be more entertaining for the group as a whole, and as such some of these decisions might be Narrativist.
Yes, that's definitely a factor. In fact, this factor can create quite a strong and destructive tension if you fill a LARP with the wrong kind of roles. The ultimate currency in a LARP (and I think in most non-solo RPGs) is attention. Yet given a choice, many players will request shadowy characters who work in secret and wield great power behind the scenes. They do so because they associate such characters with effectivness, and they are accustomed to RPGs in which character effectiveness is essential for getting attention. (Around a tabletop, the attention can be OOC, with the exploits of the shadowy lurker getting as much or more air time as everyone else.) It took us years to learn not to pay much attention to such requests; that players requesting such characters in LARPs were hosing themselves because the better they played their role, the less reward they got.
I've always wondered how Vampire LARPs manage to get around this problem. A whole cast of characters who are secretive by nature acting in a medium in which audience appreciation is the main reward never seemed a very promising recipe to me. My guess would be that Vampire LARPs have adapted to provide settings and situations in which secrecy may (or must) be dropped.
If you had played with more wargamers, would you not expect to see these things come out more Sim (or even Gamist)?
Yes, I would. But LARP audiences are very self-selected and their style preferences can often be predicted. Show Biz took place at a shared LARP convention along with a cyberpunk game. The wargamers were clearly not going to be the ones choosing to play cartoon characters.
Actually, there was one wargamer player who ended up "in Show Biz" because he couldn't get into the other game and wasn't very happy about it. He ended up playing spectacularly and the game quite won him over. But if half the players had come in wishing they could play cyberpunk instead, the results might have been very different.
Speaking of self-selection, the players for the first running of Arabian Nights were about 60% female. Despite the fact that the game was running at an SF convention whose overall membership was about 15% female. Considering the costuming that the Arabian Nights setting inspires, I really felt sorry for the rest of the con. (Did I say, God I love that game?)
I wonder if players during those scheduled breaks talked to each other OOC, and let each other in on the big picture so as to make each player better able to have his character address larger issues.
There's no evidence that that's a significant factor IME.
BTW, on a related issue, and one that's poped up in other threads lately, it seems to me that it's hard to do really small LARPS. We've discussed the intimacy factor in small groups for tabletop, but it seems to me that this is ampified in LARP. By which I mean to say that getting any fewer than say seven people to play a LARP seems, well, uncomfortable. Is there something about LARP in your esitmation, Walt, that makes a larger "Audience Factor" a must for comfortable play? Is it the similarity to theatre, for example? I find this very interesting.
I agree that smaller LARPs are harder. But I never associated this with an audience factor. One's immediate audience in a LARP is usually small in any event. It has more to do with pacing (20 players can move through or generate about 5 times as much top-level plot in 24 hours than 60 players can), and the amount of interesting turbulence and interconnections that can be generated with a larger versus a smaller group. Also another, even more basic factor. I used to explain "how SIL LARPs work" as follows: "You enter a fictional world that's made up primarily of the people you meet. The other players, by playing their roles, create the game world for you. By playing your role, you become part of the game world for everyone else." Therefore, fewer players, less verisimilitude, generally speaking.
I know from one of my own LARP playing experiences that Narrativist play doesn't require an audience (though I doubt I'm a typical case here). My best LARP ending ever as a player was in a feudal Japanese game. My character, a minor noble, basically saved the Empire through a series of the most dishonorable actions imaginable, including arranging the assassination of several incompetent (non-player-character) Emperors in order to bring an effective candidate (a player-character) to the throne -- who was the one person who knew what I had done and was honor-bound to impose the proper penalties. My crimes were revealed and I was permitted to perform seppu-ku in front of the whole player cast. That was fun, at a basic moment-in-the-spotlight level. But the really cool part was classic in-play exploration of the theme of Honor. As I began the ritual I was thinking: this business of an "honorable" death is a joke, pathetically inadequate to redeem such a dishonorable spirit -- unless the good intentions and heroically successful results of my actions are taken into account. In which case, why does my redemption demand my life at all? Yet surely no one so dishonored could live; only death could make any amends at all. I decided that to die with the question circling endlessly in his mind was a fitting end for this character. And no one in the audience ever had the slightest inkling that this part of the story had taken place. (Of course, this could not really be Narrativism by the GNS definition because my decisions for my character's mental state near his death were not reflected in observable behavior. But that's a necessary limitation of the GNS model, not a diminishment of my experience.)
- Walt
On 9/26/2002 at 6:01pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
Matt wrote: I've never had a problem with small LARPs.Sounds like cool stuff. But there are two things which I suspect mitigate the size effect of which I spoke in your case.
First, the players are all regular LARPers in your example. Let me ask a question. If you were to introduce a newbie to the game, would you think they'd be more comfortable in the big sessions, or the small ones? I think your small ones work precisely because the players have been introduced to the form in the large games. I'm also betting it's the most experienced players who do the small LARPs.
Second, I assume that this is somewhere in the UK from your ID. It seems that LARP there has been more destigmatized than it has been here (if there ever was a stigma to lose). Here I think that LARP is seen as a potentially very public and very potent way of "freaking the mundanes" which (if you aren't aware) is gamer speak for disturbing people who won't understand what you're up to.
I make this assumption based on what I've read in general of gaming in the rest of the world, and especially in the UK and Australia. And that is that gaming has never been seen as that odd an activity in these places (when it's known at all). This in part due to the fact that RPG gaming was begun by adults in the rest of the world, while here it was largely started as a childhood passtime*.
In fact, I have been given to understand that in the UK there were events prior to Walt's introduction of LARP as such to the world that were similar to LARPs and as such the conversion has been relatively easy. Assuming my reading is true, I'd think that players have less hurdles in general to leap getting into a LARP as a whole. As such, any small group intimacy effect might just be less noticeable.
Or maybe it's just the British stiff upper lip thing. I dunno.
OTOH, this could just be my own biases showing, and my understanding of the LARP and RPG phenomenon as it exists outside the US could be completely skewed. I readily admit that. Still, however, I stand by my first point. (and I may be mistaken about the LARP size thing as a whole, BTW, I'm just working from anecdotal evidence; I'd just like to hear more evidence before capitulating to another single set of anecdotal evidence).
Mike
*Please let's not debate this point here. If you disagree, that's fine and say so. But if you really want to mull over this point, please start a new post.
On 9/26/2002 at 6:23pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
Whoa, thanks for the detailed response, Walt. Just a few remarks...
wfreitag wrote: The concepts of focus, coherence, drift, transition, and congruence must be applied to LARPs with great caution.Ron has said this before on the subjet of LARP. I think you are starting to reveal what his intuition was about.
God I love that game.And now we do, too. Sight unseen. Produce a description post haste or risk a vebal lashing!
The ultimate currency in a LARP (and I think in most non-solo RPGs) is attention. Yet given a choice, many players will request shadowy characters who work in secret and wield great power behind the scenes. They do so because they associate such characters with effectivness, and they are accustomed to RPGs in which character effectiveness is essential for getting attention.That, my dear sir, is fascinating. I can totally see it.
I've always wondered how Vampire LARPs manage to get around this problem. A whole cast of characters who are secretive by nature acting in a medium in which audience appreciation is the main reward never seemed a very promising recipe to me. My guess would be that Vampire LARPs have adapted to provide settings and situations in which secrecy may (or must) be dropped.The funniest thing I see watching Vampire LARPS is the guys using the Obfuscate talent to be invisible (for those who may not have seen it, theystand stock still against a wall or in a corner out of the way, with their hands crossed over their chests). I mean, that sounds like a cool ability, but it's interesting how much attention pretending to be invisible can get you. More interesting is that the player doesn't get to interact with the game. He's got a power, which as you said, disallows his participation. Weird.
But LARP audiences are very self-selected and their style preferences can often be predicted.Moreso than other RPGs? Because they sign up for them as opposed to being recruited?
I agree that smaller LARPs are harder. But I never associated this with an audience factor. One's immediate audience in a LARP is usually small in any event.I suppose, but there's the notion that you can find a group that you're comfortable playing to. As opposed to only having to play to a small set. And also, in a large group, you can get lost in the crowd. You don't have to play a big part if you don't want to. Again, not possible in small LARPS. Don't you find wallflowers more in larger LARPS? Aren't these players who might be more uncomfortable in a smaller LARP?
It has more to do with pacing ... Therefore, fewer players, less verisimilitude, generally speaking.These are very interesting observations which has not occurd to me. But of course they're true. I find that all small LARPS take the form of "Several people get trapped on an island" sorts of setups. The only way to maintain any verisimilitude. Huh.
I know from one of my own LARP playing experiences that Narrativist play doesn't require an audienceCool example. The decision to commit sepaku is definitely a Narrtivist one, and obviously observable. The internal conflict was just a bonus. Sweet. Can you post that one, too?
Mike
On 9/26/2002 at 6:55pm, Seth L. Blumberg wrote:
RE: LARPs
Walt wrote: "What is my (this character's) fit role in society?" is always a morally relevant question as long as the player perceives some empathic or metaphoric connection between the character and the player.
Okay, when you rephrase it that way, it's a perfectly good Egri-style Premise, and your report of post-game comments from the other players seems to support your assertion that they (as well as you) were playing in a Narrativist mode.
However, you need to get your terminology straight:
Walt wrote: Simulationism has to be addressed with a bit more care. Might the player just be playing out what the character would have done? That is to say, what a comedic character in a world full of banana peels would have done? No. It doesn't wash. Inside the game world, a comedic character who slips on a banana peel does so because he doesn't see the banana peel. To deliberately step on the banana peel would be completely out of character and inappropriate (not to mention, not funny). If the character slips on the banana peel, it's because the player has decided that the character didn't see it. A metagame decision has been made.
You are confusing the distinction between Simulationism and Narrativism with the distinction between Actor Stance and Author Stance. The described action sounds to me like a use of Author Stance consonant with any mode of play. The character steps on the banana peel because the player is aware that, in a cartoon universe, toons routinely fail to see things if stepping on them would create an amusing pratfall; or the character steps on the banana peel because the character's clumsiness is somehow relevant to his theme; or the character steps on the banana peel because the player wants to get a laugh from the audience.
Walt wrote: And it's been made purely for the sake of non-Gamist metagame rewards: in this case, creating humor; getting a laugh from the audience. That's Narrativism, pure and simple.
That is not remotely within the scope of Narrativism. I re-read the big GNS essay to make sure.
Ron wrote: Narrativism is expressed by the creation, via role-playing, of a story with a recognizable theme. The characters are formal protagonists in the classic Lit 101 sense, and the players are often considered co-authors. The listed elements provide the material for narrative conflict (again, in the specialized sense of literary analysis).
Trying to get laughs from the audience is absolutely a form of Gamism: if they laugh, you've scored points.
On 9/26/2002 at 7:27pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
You're quibbles, Seth, while technically true do not invalidate his observations. As you note yourself. So let's not clobber Walt with a disection of GNS on a thread that's supposed to be about LARP, and not GNS.
Again, as Walt has stated, and Ron, the progenitor of the theory both claim, one needs to be careful in applying the theory at all to LARP. Misunderstandings are inevitable.
In any case, I think that we've established that Narrativism exists in LARPS though it may be rare. I think it's also worth noting that NArrativism may be rare in LARPS for the same reason that it is in tabletop, namely that it's not often recognized as a form of play, and just as often discouraged by the mechanics presented. Or rather the mechanics (and setting, situation, etc) promote Gamism or Sim. In LARP this is often because they are based on tabletop games, and of those games, I'll bet that none of them are Narrativist. So no big surprise, there. Vampire LARPS lead to Sim-Gam play. No big surprise there.
Hey, Walt, you mentioned space as a determinant of play. I've often thought that space is the biggest inhibitor of LARP play. Is that true? How do you get around that limit? Especially for we folks who aren't students and don't therefore have access to such resources.
Mike
On 9/26/2002 at 9:04pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
Avaunt, with thy double standards!
Warrior takes wounds because a game system prescribes them as a result of a resolved action. We say, a typical sim (or gamist) facilitiating mechanism.
Warrior takes wounds because the player has narration rights and decides to narrate it that way. We say, ooh, nice way to facilitate narrativism.
Guy walking down the street slips on a banana peel because he failed a perception roll. We say, a typical sim (or gamist) facilitiating mechanism.
Guy walking down the street (in a LARP) slips on a banana peel because the player can behave however he wants and decides to act it out that way. We say, ooh, how... gamist?!?
The difference appears to be that for the wounded warrior, everyone's willing to hypothesize the existence of an unstated context that makes the event a part of the exploration of a Premise. That willingness evaporates for the pratfall. But for the pratfall to be funny (as it was stated to be, since laughter was the reaction), it needs exactly such a context. Humor is a complex signal that elicits a complex emotional reaction. Look into any instance of successful humor; you'll find a Premise there.
I stand by my assessment and my use of the terminology.
- Walt
On 9/26/2002 at 9:13pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
Oh, and...
Trying to get laughs from the audience is absolutely a form of Gamism: if they laugh, you've scored points.
No fair putting a point-scoring mechanism into the scenario that I didn't put there or imply. What kind of points? These points are relevant in what arena of competition?
Surely you don't mean "points" that are an abstraction of personal satisfaction. A player might just as plausibly achieve personal satisfaction by playing well in-character, or by creating a story of literary merit through play. That logic would turn just about everything into Gamism.
- Walt
On 9/26/2002 at 10:01pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
Just as I thought, derailed...
Mike
On 9/26/2002 at 10:36pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
Sorry, Mike. I would have responded to your points as well. But I don't understand your main question.
Hey, Walt, you mentioned space as a determinant of play. I've often thought that space is the biggest inhibitor of LARP play. Is that true? How do you get around that limit? Especially for we folks who aren't students and don't therefore have access to such resources.
Do you mean, how do we deal with the fact that play is scattered over real space? Or do you mean how do we obtain the use of an appropriate space?
The first question is complex and goes right to one of the main differences from tabletop play, and all the concomittant issues: limited GM knowledge of events, real-space-related mechanisms such as pursuit, communication of the "world condition," and so forth.
The second question is straightforward real-world logistics. Actually, being students never was a factor (helpful or hindering) for my group, except insofar as it limited our budget. We borrowed space from conventions (at which there was rarely dedicated game space, except for control room space and specific reserved time in a function room for game opening and ending events; players mostly mingled in public spaces, which accounted for the strictness of some of the conduct rules), or bought it the way conventions do for our independent events.
Could you clarify the question please?
- Walt
On 9/27/2002 at 12:49pm, James Holloway wrote:
RE: LARPs
wfreitag wrote:
The first question is complex and goes right to one of the main differences from tabletop play, and all the concomittant issues: limited GM knowledge of events, real-space-related mechanisms such as pursuit, communication of the "world condition," and so forth. - Walt
I've seen two ways to do it: the first is how, in my experience, SIL-style games are usually run. This is to make player-vs-player plots the most important aspects of the game, and to minimize (hopefully) the need for GM interaction. GMs are then posted in a particular location (a particular hotel room, a desk, etc) and the players are informed of this. Any player needing a GM can then come to this spot, and the largely GM-less rules system hopefully ensures that there won't be a big line there. Meanwhile, other GMs rove around, troubleshooting on-the-spot or going to scenes which will need more intense GM supervision.
The second is how my LARP group does it in our mainly outdoor game: each GM has a cell phone (in previous games, it was two-way radios) and they spread out among the wandering players. This can occasionally lead to confusion, but gives the GMs a high level of flexibility.
This was done this way before GMs had any reliable means of communication; an old Vampire LARP was legendary for "we need a GM" being native for "let's wander around for hours looking for one."
In my small LARPs, the GM usually plays some NPC role and accompanies the players, who are usually in a group.
In all cases, the physical limitations of the game are an important element in designing it. Since LARPs often involve purpose-built systems, this shows up in every aspect of the game design, from basics (location, number of players, duration) to system (resolution mechanisms, for example, are usually a bit simple in order to avoid the need for GM intercession) to scenario (will player conflicts be able to drive this plot? Will the players have anywhere to do activity X?)
I don't know if all styles of play are equally possible as LARPs; certainly, not all types of scenarios can or should be LARPs.
On 9/27/2002 at 1:54pm, Matt wrote:
RE: LARPs
If you were to introduce a newbie to the game, would you think they'd be more comfortable in the big sessions, or the small ones?
To be honest small ones tend to work better for introducing newbies, simply because (as a GM) you can give them more attention (something not always possible in larger games). As it happens, we have a newbie to LARP in that very game (though he'd done tabletop before), and he had a blast and got really involved. That said, as with any game, depends who's running it (a poor organiser is more of a liability in LARP IMHO).
As to UK trends being different, possibly. LARP has a different history here, going back to Treasure Trap in the late 70s, (boffer weapon LARP to you US types, though I'd hate to describe an eldritch weapon as a boffer). I've found more problems with freaking out tabletop players than mundanes, to be honest.
As you say, maybe a topic for a different thread.
-Matt
On 9/27/2002 at 1:57pm, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
Walt said: (Talking about players preferring shadowy, powerful characters working behind the scenes.)
I've always wondered how Vampire LARPs manage to get around this problem. A whole cast of characters who are secretive by nature acting in a medium in which audience appreciation is the main reward never seemed a very promising recipe to me. My guess would be that Vampire LARPs have adapted to provide settings and situations in which secrecy may (or must) be dropped.
This is what I have observed in Oxford's Vampire LARPs - there tends to be an unofficial one running alongside the University society's official "society freeform" and Camarilla UK. One of the more effective ways of dealing with this is the current one, in which the PCs are the leaders of the Camarilla - Inner Circle members, Princes, Justicars and what have you - and so have to talk to each other. The game is *set* in the smoke-filled rooms behind the scenes that the shadowy figures make their deals in. (It also manages to make the immortality bit actually *relevant*, by having a decade of IC time between sessions - the campaign is going to cover the 20th Century from a Vampiric perspective...)
Then Mike said:
The funniest thing I see watching Vampire LARPS is the guys using the Obfuscate talent to be invisible (for those who may not have seen it, theystand stock still against a wall or in a corner out of the way, with their hands crossed over their chests). I mean, that sounds like a cool ability, but it's interesting how much attention pretending to be invisible can get you. More interesting is that the player doesn't get to interact with the game. He's got a power, which as you said, disallows his participation. Weird.
Most of the unofficial Oxford vampire games have some sort of convention which says that it's regarded as terribly, terribly gauche to use kewl powerz in-session. (They tend to be used out-of-session in turnsheeting). Mainly because people look so silly when using them, they screw up suspension of disbelief for most people. (And don't get me started on paper/rock/scissors/bomb...)
More dubious are the rules for Status. High-Status vampires are generally expected not to talk to low-Status vampires in the canonical WW setting: this has been implemented to varying extents in various Vampire freeforms.
Camarilla incorporates all of Vampire's social stats lock, stock and barrel, which is rather silly for a game which is supposed to be based on the players acting out the social skills. (Yes, I know this means it's hard for someone to play someone with better social skills than them - this problem is more pronounced in LARPs than in tabletops, since at least in tabletops you can say "I make a stirring speech" and roll dice - in LARPs doing this looks silly, and you really ought to act out the speech yourself. Being "convinced" by someone who is a truly abysmal liar, who's just told you a transparently counter-factual and internally inconsistent whopper, just because they have more dots in a particular stat than you and beat you in paper/rock/scissors/bomb just doesn't feel right...)
A former unofficial Vampire game (they tend to run for a year or so, since if they run longer than that students end up graduating and their characters disappear...) didn't incorporate all of WW's social rules, but did impose a very strict Status system - more strict than usual. As a result, high-status PCs snubbed low-status PCs in-session. "Sounds great," you think, "makes social interaction a game/better simulates a stratified society/emphasises the inequality premise I want to explore." Unfortunately, it had the effect of generating a subculture of folk whose Status was so low (arguably through their own fault, through choosing to play a very low-Status character or committing a grotesque social gaffe) that they could only talk to each other: everyone else avoided them. This had the result that, with few people to talk to in-session, they got bored, so some left, so those low-status plebs who were left had even less people to talk to...
The current Vampire game manages to incorporate Status without limiting people's roleplaying opportunities: there is a social convention that if one is masked at a meeting, one is effectively anonymous for purposes of Status, and it is a tremendous social gaffe to admit to recognising someone wearing a mask at an official function. This allows high-Status folk to talk to low-Status folk and vice versa, but still highlights the Status system. It's also very fun - when wearing a mask you can't say "As the Prince of London, I think...", you have to say "I believe that if you asked the Prince of London he would say..." or something like that.
On 9/27/2002 at 2:14pm, Le Joueur wrote:
No Much Experience Here
James Holloway wrote:wfreitag wrote: The first question is complex and goes right to one of the main differences from tabletop play, and all the concomittant issues: limited GM knowledge of events, real-space-related mechanisms such as pursuit, communication of the "world condition," and so forth.
I've seen two ways to do it: the first is how, in my experience, SIL-style games are usually run. This is to make player-vs-player plots the most important aspects of the game, and to minimize (hopefully) the need for GM interaction. GMs are then posted in a particular location (a particular hotel room, a desk, etc) and the players are informed of this. Any player needing a GM can then come to this spot, and the largely GM-less rules system hopefully ensures that there won't be a big line there. Meanwhile, other GMs rove around, troubleshooting on-the-spot or going to scenes which will need more intense GM supervision.
The second is how my LARP group does it in our mainly outdoor game: each GM has a cell phone (in previous games, it was two-way radios) and they spread out among the wandering players. This can occasionally lead to confusion, but gives the GMs a high level of flexibility.
This was done this way before GMs had any reliable means of communication; an old Vampire LARP was legendary for "we need a GM" being native for "let's wander around for hours looking for one."
In my small LARPs, the GM usually plays some NPC role and accompanies the players, who are usually in a group.
In all cases, the physical limitations of the game are an important element in designing it. Since LARPs often involve purpose-built systems, this shows up in every aspect of the game design, from basics (location, number of players, duration) to system (resolution mechanisms, for example, are usually a bit simple in order to avoid the need for GM intercession) to scenario (will player conflicts be able to drive this plot? Will the players have anywhere to do activity X?)
I don't really have the kind of experience being tossed around here, but have observed a number of the same problems. I thought I'd toss in the solutions we can up with. Most were based on the premise of getting rid of the traditional 'tabletop gamemaster' role.
I posted this:
Le Joueur wrote: For Scattershot (did I mention it also has a set of Live-Action Role-Playing Game rules?), we separate the traditional role of gamemaster into five different parts for the sake of delegation. First is the referee, this is the on-the-spot arbiter of player conflicts. Second is the game’s originator(s), this is where the set up comes from, background, mechanics choice, character slots, non-player characters, and the whole shebang. Third is the ‘gamemaster’ (I know using this name can be somewhat confusing, but we wanted to stay away from pompous titles like Moderator or Storyteller), who is kept abreast of the major goings on and introduces ‘agitation’ in areas that are losing the players’ interest or becoming overwhelming. Fourth is site maintenance, basically the ‘host’ providing location, arrangements, scheduling of the events, ‘room’ sign-out and logging, prop sign-out (props also include in-game resources that do not necessarily have physical manifestation), check-in & out, and attendance. Fifth is recruitment and customer service.This came up in this post about live-action role-playing gaming last year.
Refereeing is required of at least a fifth of the membership (during their ‘off-screen time’ only) and is a trained position lead by a team leader and overseen by an ethics process. The most important thing about the game origination is that the process ends totally at the beginning of the game (it is suggested that one of the origination team continue on as gamemaster, but not required).
There is, was, and will be only one gamemaster ever; the intention of the design is to put every possible ‘power’ or background ‘office’ into the hands of the players (who are also required to play at least two non-player characters on a continuing basis as well as any ‘bit parts’ whenever they are not ‘on-screen’). This way all conflicts become a matter between players (only a handful of non-player characters are allowed the gamemaster). The gamemaster introduces new props and new or replacement non-player characters (assigning them as needed) and from this, the props log, and logbook, they can keep some idea how ‘things are going’ (not something I have seen any group of gamemasters, no matter how small, being capable of, except in well...exceptional circumstances).
Site maintenance is easily handled by a series of volunteers. Recruitment is handled mostly between sessions and customer service only becomes needed during a session when a referee cannot handle a dispute.
Since I am still interested in developing live-action role-playing game Mechanix for Scattershot, I was wondering what you guys thought of the 'gamemaster redesigned' and if you could see any inherent problems.
Thanks for the opportunity to discuss this again, you guys are a wealth of information. (I'm already thinking about making turnsheets for 'during the session' a requirement and having them and 'between game' turnsheets processed by the gamemaster; thanks for the ideas.)
Fang Langford
Forge Reference Links:
Topic 9310
On 9/27/2002 at 7:48pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
wfreitag wrote: Could you clarify the question please?
You answered it with your second answer about convention space, thank you. That does indeed sound like an impediment to play. Or perhaps I'm just not familiar enough with enough small cons to see how one could play very often.
That said, your other answer was also enlightening.
This leads me to another more general question. How often do people play LARPS? I play one every year or so. Not often. What's the most frequent rate a LARPer could expect to play?
Mike
On 9/27/2002 at 9:28pm, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike Holmes wrote: This leads me to another more general question. How often do people play LARPS? I play one every year or so. Not often. What's the most frequent rate a LARPer could expect to play?
In a university situation, where people can book college rooms, once a week.
Presumably, outside college situations there are local venues which could potentially be booked. (Church halls, social clubs, etc.)
W.
On 9/27/2002 at 9:55pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
Wart wrote: Presumably, outside college situations there are local venues which could potentially be booked. (Church halls, social clubs, etc.)
LARP in a church hall... Well, I've never seen nor heard of it, though I suppose it's not impossible. But I for one am not brave enough to ask. I think that's the point. You go to the social club and ask for space, they say what for, and then I have to explain what a LARP is...
Maybe the problem is just my own hang ups. Anyone ever play LARPS in such venues? Wart, are you suggesting that you have?
Mike
On 9/27/2002 at 10:01pm, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike Holmes wrote:Wart wrote: Presumably, outside college situations there are local venues which could potentially be booked. (Church halls, social clubs, etc.)
LARP in a church hall... Well, I've never seen nor heard of it, though I suppose it's not impossible. But I for one am not brave enough to ask. I think that's the point. You go to the social club and ask for space, they say what for, and then I have to explain what a LARP is...
Ah, this is the benefit of living in corrupt, decadent, faithless ol' Europe. ;)
Seriously speaking though: it depends on the sort of LARP you want. If we're talking freeforms, then booking a room like a church hall or social club or something needn't be too much of a problem - make comparisons to improvisational theatre or some other activity with superficial similarities which people might have heard of and they'll probably let you go along with it.
(Obviously, you need to think carefully about which venues you ask about this... in Oxford, the local Camarilla game runs in the basement room of a bar, church halls being a foolish place to ask to play a vampire game unless we're talking a quite hip, liberal church.)
For combat-oriented LARPs, booking rooms is obviously foolishness. We tend to go along to a local area of public woodland at night and play - we phone the police to let them know what we're up to and we haven't really had many problems.
On 9/28/2002 at 5:40pm, James Holloway wrote:
RE: LARPs
Mike Holmes wrote:
This leads me to another more general question. How often do people play LARPS? I play one every year or so. Not often. What's the most frequent rate a LARPer could expect to play?
Mike
At peak, I was playing in one LARP which was on alternate weekends, and one which was every weekend. This got to be a considerable drag on the players and GMs, including one GM who was working on both games. This usually happens in our group around the tail-end of one game and the beginning of another (which was the case here).
On 9/30/2002 at 8:50pm, Merten wrote:
Re: LARPs
Well, this thread certainly got me hooked and I had to register. Because I really haven't digged into the GNS-model (have to do that after I'm done writing my next campaign, it certainly seems to be intresting) and I'm not much of a theory-guy, and the sheer amount of information on this thread is making my mind boggle, I'll just answer to the original question.
Oh, yeah - this is my first post. Hi everyone.
ThreeGee wrote: What I would like to do is solicit your ideas concerning LARPs that you have been in, what you think are the differences between live-action play and tabletop play, and how the system must necessarily be different between the two modes of play.
First, a bit of background. Seeing that the methods of Turku school spawned some discussion some time ago (unfortunately, some people seem to have missed the fact that it's written a bit tongue in cheeck and provocative way, though the underlying thoughts are written with quite serious thought), I suppose I'll fit into the immersionist category when it comes to live-action games.
(Note for the theorists: There theory discussion around is here is again raising it's head - I don't know if they have digged into the GNS model, though. Sadly, the site which has all the material seems to be down at the moment)
Having said that, I think there's a difference between tabletop roleplaying and live-action roleplaying when it comes to systems and rules. IMHO, of course.
The published LARP-games and rules that I've seen so far (granted, I've only read ones published by WW and Holistic) seem to rely on rather heavy and tabletop-like mechanics. I'm not a particular fan of that trend, mostly because the tabletop gaming I've played has always had a sort of meta-level in it; players don't stay in their characters all the time, they tend to make out-of-character comments, require clarifications from the GM, flip through the rulebooks and so on. Same goes for the GM; as he has to provide all the information that comes from outside the characters (describing the enviroment, playing NPC's, ruling the game), there's bound to be some out-of-character meta-level involved.
This is where live-action games are different; no one has to, or is supposed to, describe the enviroment, since it's already there. No one is, usually, required to play the roles of NPC's (granted, GM sometimes has to do this), since all the characters are usually played by the players themselves.
Interpreted in the strict way, live-action games should not have the meta-level that the tabletop games have. Unless, of course:
- There are (heavy) game mechanics involved
- The said mechanics need a GM to judge the results
- Players need clarifications on something concerning their characters or the outside world.
When talking about immersion, I (and, most probably, the notorious members of Turku school) see these things as distraction, something that breaks the immersion element, and forces the player to abandon his/her character for a while.
Another thing is that heavy rules tend to disturb the flow of time in games. In tabletop playing, the GM runs the whole show - while he flips the rulebooks and searches something, the game usually stands still (not always, though - players might continue playinig in-character, unless the situtation cannot continue until some point has been clarified or resolved). In live-action gaming, this poses a threat to the continuity. As the GM(s) do not have control over the whole game (unless there's a fairly small amount of players and characters), using heavy mechanics and resolution systems tend to stop the game in one place, while it continues normally in other places.
One example of this is the celerity-discipline in Vampire the Masquerade. Usually, when something intresting (a fight, perhaps) happens, the characters flock towards the place of it's origin. If it's indeed a fight, it's quite usual that a large number of characters want to attend to it. As the game has several different levels of celerity (along with other disciplines), the situtation quickly comes into a halt, and a GM is needed to both judge and organize the fight. Usually, the game enters into somekind of simulation mode, where the fight is separated into combat rounds, which are then separated into celerity actions and so forth.
The resolution might take time from few minutes to half'n'hour. Meanwhile, the game continues elsewhere - in the worst case, the other characters hear that a fight is happening, but cannot do anything about while it's being simulated. There's a continuity problem, as time moves in different speed in different parts of the game.
Of course, there are ways of going around these sort of problems, but at least I haven't found the ideal one yet. Calling timestop for the whole game does the trick, but then we have dozens of players standing idly in their places while other fight.
That's one of the main differences between tabletop- and live-action roleplaying games. In my opinion, the latter one needs thinner rules, or no rules at all (usual in fantasy games, where conflicts are resolved with those wacky swords, or by doing the combat with steel weapons with slow-motion).
That's my 2 cents, for what it's worth. This has probably been discussed to death already, so pardon me. :)
On 9/30/2002 at 10:19pm, Merten wrote:
RE: LARPs
While I'm on the subject.
Not sure if this has been discussed before, but here's one intresting approach to the heavy-rules problem:
http://users.utu.fi/a/aletal/roolipelaaja/colors/english/
I wasn't in the game (and I'm still grumpy about that - I'm supposed to have a character if the game ever continues, but so far it hasn't).
Separating the tactical part of the game from the live-action itself worked, to my knowledge, fairly well. There are several concepts which later spawned other games, even one to which I co-wrote with two other persons. The concept in that case was a multi-locational LARP (in this case, a whole city with several "hot spots").
On 10/1/2002 at 8:03am, James Holloway wrote:
RE: Re: LARPs
Merten wrote:
Oh, yeah - this is my first post. Hi everyone.
Hi, Merten!
Merten wrote:
That's one of the main differences between tabletop- and live-action roleplaying games. In my opinion, the latter one needs thinner rules, or no rules at all (usual in fantasy games, where conflicts are resolved with those wacky swords, or by doing the combat with steel weapons with slow-motion).
That's my 2 cents, for what it's worth. This has probably been discussed to death already, so pardon me. :)
I'm not sure that LARPs necessarily need fewer rules than tabletop games (some tabletop games, boiled down to it, don't have many rules), but I think they need different rules. Half-hour combats in Vampire? A half-hour combat is like two guys having a punchup 'round here. A big combat can easily last an hour or more. And it's not even tense and exciting like the equivalent combat in a sit-down game, because everybody's cold and hungry and needs to go to the bathroom by the time it's over.
This is one of the reasons I don't groove much on player superpowers in my games. Very few rulesets handle them satisfactorily.
But then, I've always worn my Cthulhu Live heart on my sleeve on this forum, I guess.
On 10/1/2002 at 9:06am, Merten wrote:
RE: Re: LARPs
James Holloway wrote: TI'm not sure that LARPs necessarily need fewer rules than tabletop games (some tabletop games, boiled down to it, don't have many rules), but I think they need different rules. Half-hour combats in Vampire? A half-hour combat is like two guys having a punchup 'round here. A big combat can easily last an hour or more. And it's not even tense and exciting like the equivalent combat in a sit-down game, because everybody's cold and hungry and needs to go to the bathroom by the time it's over.
Believe me, I know - I just didn't know how bad it might be elsewhere in the world. :)
But yes, you are correct - Larp's need different rules, because the medium is different. One other aspect is that tabletop games (at least in traditional sense) are almost all the time controlled by the GM. He/she is always there to judge, provide details and so on. On Larp's, it's different - the GM isn't there (and, in my opinion, shouldn't be unless absolutely needed) all the time to provide judging. The players should be able to work out the judging by themselves, and hopefully with as little out of character time and abstraction as possible.
One othe main difference, the lack of NPC's, also contributes to this. Most of the other characters in games are played by other players, not by GM's.
Though, as I said earlier, I'm a bit biased in this. I freely admit being an immersion freak when it comes to live-action games - one who thinks that rules should be used only when absolutely necessary.
James Holloway wrote: This is one of the reasons I don't groove much on player superpowers in my games. Very few rulesets handle them satisfactorily.
Agreed. I haven't seen a single good system, published (granted, again, that I haven't seen too many of them anyhow) or homebrewn. The Colors system is a notable exception, since it clearly makes difference between live-action and tactical phase.
Toning down the superpowers helps, of course. We did this on our last game (it was, what, almost two years ago. How time flies) and it worked quite well.
James Holloway wrote: But then, I've always worn my Cthulhu Live heart on my sleeve on this forum, I guess.
I should probably check the those rules. I've been meaning to do so for the past year or so. ;)
On 10/1/2002 at 5:18pm, Walt Freitag wrote:
RE: LARPs
I've been too busy the past few days to post in this thread, but this is some great discussion to be following. Since my own knowledge of LARP practices is almost ten years out of date, this information has been helping me to catch up.
My answers to Mikes's question about how often people play, as of back then, would be that it depended very much on how far one was willing to travel. A group would typically stage one SIL-style LARP per year, or perhaps two if one of them was a "rerun." (The design and runtime implications of rerunning authored-character LARPs, given the likelihood of repeat players, could be a whole thread in itself.) So by travelling a few hundred miles within one's local urban corridor one could play about three or four times a year. Jetting around like an Enron executive you could play just about every weekend.
Currently it appears that shorter and smaller games are more popular, which could facilitate more frequent events. I haven't seen a greatly increased number of events resulting from this, but perhaps they're being marketed in different places. There's definitely been a shift in focus from SF conventions to gaming conventions, associated with the shorter format and with the commercial game system tie-ins.
Fighting fantasy LARPs were and I believe still are a different story, with the most popular groups able to run at least a game a month (winter excepted) in one locale. Any style with ongoing characters (regardless of how those characters are created) doesn't require tens of thousands of words to be authored for each event, so more frequent meetings are possible (which in turn facilitates turnsheet mechanisms and other off-camera downtime mechanisms). Also, by using a combination of straight railroaded "adventure obstacle courses," and totally unstructured free-form play (we all hang out in town and occasionally a monster wanders in that we fight, or a damsel in distress comes along and leads us on an adventure obstacle course), the action breaks down into totally scripted or totally unscripted -- either way, reducing the demands of most runtime GMing to basic refereeing (except for the organizers behind the scenes handling the logistics). So participants can trade off GM and NPC-playing duties, reducing the problems of GM burnout.
Fang, your group's characterization of the different GM functions in LARPs is spot on (that is, it agrees with my experience). My group never actually enumerated these functions explicitly, but they were all there. I would add a sixth category, "off-camera NPC contact actor" who often had complete gamemaster powers to originate information and had their hands directly on the information flow, but whose efforts could be orchestrated by the person who is gamemaster in your parlance. Your own designs tried to turn more of that function over to players, I see, but that wouldn't work in my style which apparently is more dependent on information gradients.
I think it's possible that the LARP "gamemaster" role you describe does have its analogues in tabletop gamemastering as well. Player-character-focused intuitive continuity might be one such.
Merten, welcome to the Forge! And thank you very much for the observations about the more recent styles of LARP that you've seen. The issue is familiar from my own LARP designs; the way it crops up anew is always interesting.
In the first few years of SIL LARPing, a casual disdain of the game mechanics arose which I tried to oppose after seeing some bad results in play. (For example, I played in a supers game in which no one wanted to use their powers, because to "balance" the game the designers had introduced a limited currency of some kind of Power Points that were difficult to replenish. If you got into a fight and used up Power Points, then whether you won or lost, you were now vulnerable to everyone else.) There was a general feeling that because the mechanical rules should be as minimally intrusive in play as possible, that spending much time thinking about them was unnecessary. I wrote an article in a LARP publication around 1987 pointing out that, in so many words, system does matter. Need I even bother to mention that I got flamed from all sides for it?
I also wrote an article in which I examined the types of "power" that LARPs pretended to offer in character descriptions and via special-ability mechanisms, and contrasted that with the types of "power" that actually existed or could exist in play. I advised players, "Figure out what type of game you're in. If you're in a power game, then play for power, because that's how you gain relevance. If you're in a style game, then play for style, because that's how you gain relevance." This distinction might have a familiar ring to Forge readers...
James, I want to hear more about your Cthulhu Live game. (What a great name for a morning talk show...) How did this game avoid the problems that Merten describes in the vampire games he saw? Certainly Cthulhu player-characters would not be super-powered, but what about supernatural nasties? Was there a mechanism for sanity, or were players trusted to just act (and react) appropriately?
Another question is, when talking about the "immersion in the character's point of view" that some LARPers prioritize (hmm, when added to "playing for power" and "playing for style" as priorities, one could derive some kind of threefold model...), can mechanisms ever enhance immersion or can they only aim to detract from it as little as possible? For example, if I wanted a character in a Cthulhu LARP to have an ability to translate a certain ancient language, that might take the form of handing the player the substitution cipher that decrypts in-game documents written in that "language." That, to me, appears a good way to "capture the spirit" of the activity being represented (decoding the text is somewhat laborious and solitary, with some suspense and surprise likely as the details of the text become clear) without requiring a real-world talent. But to some players it might be no better than some combat mechanism where everyone pulls out dice and tables.
James wrote: I don't know if all styles of play are equally possible as LARPs; certainly, not all types of scenarios can or should be LARPs.
That's very true. And thinking about those constraints reminds me of some of the constraints I accept in tabletop gaming when I'm aiming for "congruence" between GNS modes (that is, attempting to prevent differences in GNS priority between participants from visibly affecting play). For example, fictional LARP settings work the best when they are caricatures whose details don't impinge much on play. ("You're all in a castle" is effective, but "this line on the floor is a portcullis and this spread-out bedsheet is a bottomless pit" is not). Similarly, "who narrates the setting details in event resolution" is one frequently-seen overt distinction between Narr-focused and non-Narr-focused tabletop play.
This is just an idle observation with no hard evidence to back it up, but it's possible that certain aspects of LARP play (esepcially with large groups) puts real GNS coherence and focus more or less out of reach, making congruence a more sought-after goal.
- Walt
On 10/1/2002 at 8:32pm, Merten wrote:
RE: LARPs
wfreitag wrote: Merten, welcome to the Forge! And thank you very much for the observations about the more recent styles of LARP that you've seen. The issue is familiar from my own LARP designs; the way it crops up anew is always interesting.
Thanks (and thanks to James as well, if I forgot to mention it).
Talking about recent styles of LARP - I was just reading the new Nobilis supplement, Game of powers, which has an intresting (I'm biased, here, again) part written by a friend of mine (chapter Hedges and Thorns, alternative preparations). It's a good primer about something I think, or at least was, a new innovation few years ago - separating a LARP game into multiple locations, or using a large area (like a small city) as a game area. I participated in writing and running such game few years ago (with the said author and one other writer, who had experimented with the idea few years prior to that) and though there were some dilemmas, the outcome was still quite positive. I participated in one other game with similar theme recently. It was intresting to say, at least.
There's something akin to breaking boundaries in that concept - at least the games I've played in prior to those games have been very strict in limiting the game area into single (or few) locations. There's a sort of invicible barrier in where the game area stops and real world begins and you're not supposed to take the game out of that box.
Roleplaying (and being immersed into a character) in normal, everyday areas of the city, like cofeterias, pubs, boulevards was certainly intresting experience, at least in the first game whch used such methods. Gamemastering such game is (at least from my point of view) even more demanding that GMing a "traditional" LARP which is tied to one physical place.
Aww, there are so many issues connected to that one that I think I'll stop the monologue here. I think I had a point connected to the immersion discussion when I started, but somehow I lost it on the way. ;)
Anyhow - has anyone done similar experiments?
wfreitag wrote: Another question is, when talking about the "immersion in the character's point of view" that some LARPers prioritize (hmm, when added to "playing for power" and "playing for style" as priorities, one could derive some kind of threefold model...), can mechanisms ever enhance immersion or can they only aim to detract from it as little as possible? For example, if I wanted a character in a Cthulhu LARP to have an ability to translate a certain ancient language, that might take the form of handing the player the substitution cipher that decrypts in-game documents written in that "language." That, to me, appears a good way to "capture the spirit" of the activity being represented (decoding the text is somewhat laborious and solitary, with some suspense and surprise likely as the details of the text become clear) without requiring a real-world talent. But to some players it might be no better than some combat mechanism where everyone pulls out dice and tables.
Intresting idea. And yeah, I think it could and most probably would work. I'm prone to think that the "immersion" is just a little bit more about feeling and image of what you're doing than doing just that actual thing. In your example, I think using cipher to decrypt a text would be a good mechanic for translating a text. Almost as good as really translating something (for example, for me the most "real" thing might be trying to translate a text written in Swedish to my mother language - I know the basics of Sweden, and I know that the grammar has certain similarities with English, which I know a lot better).
It would have about the same amount of work and concentration, and the result would pretty much be the same. As a player, I'd know that I'm really just decoding a message, but I suppose my Suspension Of Disbelief could stand that.
Darn, I'll have to use that, some day. :)
On 10/1/2002 at 9:31pm, Mike Holmes wrote:
RE: LARPs
If you're interested in Nobilis and LARP, then, IIRC, the man to talk to would be Gareth Hanrahan, AKA Mytholder. In fact, if you're out there, Gareth, do you have anything to add to all this?
Mike
On 10/1/2002 at 10:02pm, James Holloway wrote:
RE: LARPs
wfreitag wrote:
James, I want to hear more about your Cthulhu Live game. (What a great name for a morning talk show...) How did this game avoid the problems that Merten describes in the vampire games he saw? Certainly Cthulhu player-characters would not be super-powered, but what about supernatural nasties? Was there a mechanism for sanity, or were players trusted to just act (and react) appropriately?
Right then. Now, Cthulhu Live as published is very explicitly designed for small groups doing sort of mystery versions of the "adventure obstabcle course": that is to say, the players mingle and interact and whatever in a particular area, gradually amassing clues by talking to one another, locating items, deciphering texts, etc., until the horror hits. The GM is frequently involved to adjudicate skill and SAN checks. Combat is a pretty typical LARP system (all attacks are simultaneous, attacker has an attack total, defender subtracts his or her defense total and takes the difference in damage), but in CL 2nd ed. there are just so few options (players can devote all their energy to defense, all to attack, split their efforts, or flee) that it moves very quickly. Furthermore, most combats last only one or two rounds, unless it's a boxing match (two unarmed combatants fighting mostly on the defensive). Otherwise, people end up in the hospital - or the boneyard - pretty quickly.
In practice, I felt that the SAN rules as written were not helpful to immersion, which is what I was trying to go for in a horror game. At moments of high tension, I would rely on the players to do their own reactions, bearing in mind what their character sheet told them about their character's mental state. This seemed to work pretty well, especially since the game is very focused on creating atmosphere - players often act freaked out because they are genuinely freaked out. SAN losses for reading books or seeing props were provided in the texts themselves or on accompanying cards. In some games, I just used a little sanity meter down the side of the character card which said something like BLISSFUL - CALM - NERVOUS - SHAKEN - UNSTABLE - BUGFUCK. When players got a shock, they could move a paperclip down the meter as a reminder.
Supernatural nasties under the combat system can slow things down if not properly handled - to be honest, I've never run a standup fight between a big monster and a group of investigators. It's not something that happens a lot in most horror fiction or films, and it's not something that I've really gone in for. I imagine the results might be pretty slow, since monsters typically have multiple attacks, special abilities, etc.
Some of the later supplements include "real time" combat rules which are pretty good.
wfreitag wrote:
Another question is, when talking about the "immersion in the character's point of view" that some LARPers prioritize (hmm, when added to "playing for power" and "playing for style" as priorities, one could derive some kind of threefold model...), can mechanisms ever enhance immersion or can they only aim to detract from it as little as possible? For example, if I wanted a character in a Cthulhu LARP to have an ability to translate a certain ancient language, that might take the form of handing the player the substitution cipher that decrypts in-game documents written in that "language." That, to me, appears a good way to "capture the spirit" of the activity being represented (decoding the text is somewhat laborious and solitary, with some suspense and surprise likely as the details of the text become clear) without requiring a real-world talent. But to some players it might be no better than some combat mechanism where everyone pulls out dice and tables.
That's certainly one way to do it, and plays to one of the game's strengths. Characters in CoC are deciphering things, investigating mysteries, etc. This is pretty easy to simulate and maintain immersion. It's not as if they're flying starships or fighting in battles.
wfreitag wrote:
That's very true. And thinking about those constraints reminds me of some of the constraints I accept in tabletop gaming when I'm aiming for "congruence" between GNS modes (that is, attempting to prevent differences in GNS priority between participants from visibly affecting play). For example, fictional LARP settings work the best when they are caricatures whose details don't impinge much on play. ("You're all in a castle" is effective, but "this line on the floor is a portcullis and this spread-out bedsheet is a bottomless pit" is not). Similarly, "who narrates the setting details in event resolution" is one frequently-seen overt distinction between Narr-focused and non-Narr-focused tabletop play.
This is just an idle observation with no hard evidence to back it up, but it's possible that certain aspects of LARP play (esepcially with large groups) puts real GNS coherence and focus more or less out of reach, making congruence a more sought-after goal.
- Walt
Right; these concerns are also addressed in how the GM stages the game. For example, I have played in two games set in a castle. These were played in a castle. The fact that much of the castle was obviously much later period than the setting of the games was ignored; the castle constituted a "closest reasonable approximation" (a phrase which sums up pretty much what I'm going for in LARP locations and props).
I think modern LARPs (Vampire being a good example) benefit significantly from players being allowed to narrate event resolution. However, in the conflict-ridden atmosphere of most LARPs, this can be impractical. The bigger the group, the more likely the game is to fall into an incoherent mess. I'm not a huge believer in GNS, but the sight of factions of Vampire players tugging against each other along Game/Sim lines (in total mutual incomprehension, needless to say, and each proclaiming that their way is the "right" one) did a good deal to convince me.
- James
On 10/1/2002 at 11:55pm, John Wick wrote:
RE: LARPs
I haven't read anybody's post on this subject... wait, that's a lie. I read Jared's because he's neat. You asked for personal experience, so here's mine.
Most LARPS bore me. People dressing up and pretending to be people they aren't so they can flirt with people doing the same thing. If I want to do that, I'll go to a dance club.
Then, I find most LARPS are extensions of the GM's ego. If I get invited to a LARP, I find out if the GM has an NPC. If the answer is yes, I decline the invitation.
I used to run L5R LARPS when I was working at AEG. One day, we were planning a game for the next LA convention, and I was talking to Jennifer (then Mahr) about the game. "A bunch of people walking around, half-bored, hoping someone will talk to them," she said. "Fun." She suggested a fighting LARP, but without the boffer stuff. We talked about it, shared some thoughts and designed one of the most exciting, loud and jumpin' LARPS I've ever been involved with. And I ain't tootin' my own horn. It wouldn't have worked if we didn't have the kick-ass LA L5R fans backing us.
THE (now famous) GOBLIN GAME
Forty players. Ten samurai, thirty goblins. The scene is the Shadowlands, a place where evil lives and breathes. The ten samurai are in a fortress with the goblins outside. The objective for the samurai: survive three hours until reinforcements survive. The objective for the goblins: get into the fort and kill the samurai.
We used a simple hand system (Trait + Skill + random number). If you got hit, you took a hit point. Everybody had 1, 2 or 3 hit points. If a samurai died in the fort, he had to join the goblins as a goblin. If he died outside the fort (the goblins pulled him over the wall, through the door, etc.), he joined the goblin army as an undead samurai.
If a goblin died, he had to go to the Goblin Penalty Box. The Box had a timer. Every five minutes, the goblins in the box could come back to the game. As the clock ticked by, they chanted the seconds.
The goblin leader was The Exaulted Ugu (an L5R personality) who had goblin magic. The power of the magic depended on how many goblins he had chanting with him (we got complaints from the hotel - hee hee!).
Other systems were designed on the fly by Dave Williams and myself. There was no conversation, no bargaining, none of that. Just three hours of pure survival.
In the end, only one samurai survived. And everybody was laughing and saying we should run it again the next night. The hotel recommended we not do that.
I share that story a lot. It was a boffer LARP without the rubber swords. A lot of players playing together without a lot of worry about rules. We even had one samurai throw himself at Ugu, just so he could be a goblin (he did do 1 hit point to Ugu, not enough to kill our little shaman).
That's the best LARP I've ever seen. Nobody was ever bored.
On 10/2/2002 at 2:12am, Le Joueur wrote:
Scattershot LARP
wfreitag wrote: Fang, your group's characterization of the different GM functions in LARPs is spot on (that is, it agrees with my experience). My group never actually enumerated these functions explicitly, but they were all there. I would add a sixth category, "off-camera NPC contact actor" who often had complete gamemaster powers to originate information and had their hands directly on the information flow, but whose efforts could be orchestrated by the person who is gamemaster in your parlance. Your own designs tried to turn more of that function over to players, I see, but that wouldn't work in my style which apparently is more dependent on information gradients.
Actually that is meant to be a part of the role "gamemaster."
Le Joueur wrote: Third is the ‘gamemaster’ (I know using this name can be somewhat confusing, but we wanted to stay away from pompous titles like Moderator or Storyteller), who is kept abreast of the major goings on and introduces ‘agitation’ in areas that are losing the players’ interest or becoming overwhelming.
That would be the "agitation." Any kind of interference or information flow "agitates" play in that area, but the advice is well taken. It also speaks to something we (in our 'closed game, all NPCs are played by players' game) have been recently considering. Instituting a 'closed economy.' Instead of just letting players bring in significant resources whenever they want, there has to be an 'out flow' of equal value. Secrets, money, property, blood, 'heat' (both guns and police), all these things balance out. If too much blood is being spilled, more 'heat' enters the game. Secrets are paid for, one way or another. Only player 'work' creates 'value added product.'
It's only just a theory at this point, but it is pointed at keeping what 'off the street' players have from having a spirallingly smaller value. It also keeps life from losing its value (we hope).
Fang Langford
p. s. Who quite probably spends too much time thinking.
On 10/2/2002 at 8:10am, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
John Wick wrote: Then, I find most LARPS are extensions of the GM's ego. If I get invited to a LARP, I find out if the GM has an NPC. If the answer is yes, I decline the invitation.
Out of interest: what if the GMs play multiple NPCs during the course of the evening (as they do down our way in our weekly freeforms)?
On 10/2/2002 at 7:50pm, James Holloway wrote:
RE: LARPs
Wart wrote:John Wick wrote: Then, I find most LARPS are extensions of the GM's ego. If I get invited to a LARP, I find out if the GM has an NPC. If the answer is yes, I decline the invitation.
Out of interest: what if the GMs play multiple NPCs during the course of the evening (as they do down our way in our weekly freeforms)?
I think there's a difference between a GM jumping in to play, say, Johnny the Shoeshine Boy or Officer O'Malley or whoever the scene calls for - even J. Random Passerby - and the horrible GM ego-stick beating that is most GMPCs in LARPs.
Is this problem confined largely to Vampire? That's sure been my experience (well, World of Darkness, anyway). I've literally spent whole combat scenes watching NPCs beat the tar out of each other...
- James
On 10/2/2002 at 8:06pm, Wart wrote:
RE: LARPs
James Holloway wrote: I think there's a difference between a GM jumping in to play, say, Johnny the Shoeshine Boy or Officer O'Malley or whoever the scene calls for - even J. Random Passerby - and the horrible GM ego-stick beating that is most GMPCs in LARPs.
Is this problem confined largely to Vampire?
It has been a problem in some of our weekly Oxford freeforms, sufficiently so that in many recent game contracts (which tend to be written and published on the game website for Oxford freeforms) there's been a clause saying "The GM team promise not to throw smug unbeatable NPCs at the players".
The problem seems to be when an NPC turns up that is
a) damn powerful.
b) damn smug, expecting PCs to go "oooh, you're so big and powerful, we must pay a lot of attention to you".
When the 2 symptoms turn up together you can be sure there's a GMPC on the rampage. (Powerful characters as such not necessarily being bad, it's the way they're delivered.)
On 10/3/2002 at 5:21pm, John Wick wrote:
RE: LARPs
Wart wrote:John Wick wrote: Then, I find most LARPS are extensions of the GM's ego. If I get invited to a LARP, I find out if the GM has an NPC. If the answer is yes, I decline the invitation.
Out of interest: what if the GMs play multiple NPCs during the course of the evening (as they do down our way in our weekly freeforms)?
What I object to is the GM playing the most powerful NPC in the world, absolutely powerful, too powerful for any player - hell, even all the players ganged up - to overcome or deal with.
A friend of mine used to ask me to play a powerful NPC in his Mind's Eye Theater game. He asked me to play - get this - Tu Tu the Doubly Evil, a super bad ass evil mummy. He asked me because he knew I'd walk around scaring the PCs, but staying in the background. The FAR FAR background. I'm backdrop.
The bottom line: PCs are the stars, not the GM. I've found this is the opposite in a lot of LARPs, and thus, I avoid them unless they're run by someone I trust. I'm there to have fun, not watch the GM play with himself.
Take care,
John