First off, it was _very_ clear that the designers and gamemasters of tBC had not done any previous LARPS. Or if they did, they were engaging in a lot of chancy experimental ideas. While I still had fun, and I'm sure many other players did also, this is the case with all but the very worst-run LARPS, and is more a feature of the players than the gamemasters.
First off, there was far too much wargaming and Live Action Trading Cards going on. James Polk says, in the game's defense, that it was _supposed_ to be a game of power preservation and acquisition. That may be so, but you can engage in preservation and acquisition by means of roleplaying, and that's what LARPS are best at. tBC had way too many rules.
The Auction for Osentalka was a shambles, for example. At the first auction we had eighty (80) different things to bid on, with no idea of how the system actually worked in play. I, as the Only Old One, was handed a huge sheaf of many dozen cards, rendering me a shambling mass of shuffling bits of colored paper instead of a keen-eyed hard-minded auction-goer. Instead of a couple hundred parts of the god, there should have been more like a dozen. And each bidder should have had maybe 2-3 cards instead of dozens. I say this based on my personal experience in many many LARPS, both writing, directing, and playing.
The Wargame in tBC was a near-shambles. My total lack of interest in this aspect of the game resulted in my handing over all my combat cards to Kwaratch Kang. So far so good. But it turned out that the damn wargame took up an entire referee the whole game, plus much of the time of a number of important players. I wish Palangio and Kwaratch, for instance, could have been available for a lot more negotiating, threatening, assassination attempts, bullying, etc., rather than wasting at least half the game hunched over a battle board. There were too many turns in the wargame and too many combat units available for the players to pore over.
The Council itself appeared to be powerless, yet numerous players were forced to expend the bulk of their time sequestered therein while other players pined for them outside. "I need to talk to the Earth Priestess of Dorastor" "Sorry, she's in Council."
Anyway, I rated tBC as, so far, the worst Gloranthan LARP yet run. Still many fun bits remained to be ingested, and I'm sure most of not all the flaws will be fixed for the rerunning.
David Gadbois:
>And why else bother to travel 1500 miles and dress up in a silly
>costume just to play Dorastor: the Gathering.
Precisely my point. I even shaved my head for it.
Brian Pinch asks about Chalana Arroy practices.
Despite the statement made in Runemasters (which was authored by a _notoriously_ minimaxing player), Chalana Arroy by long tradition is played as strict obeyers of their oath. They must never harm an intelligent being, and never needlessly cause pain to any living thing. They are vegetarians except under extreme duress. Cult members may not learn any weapon skills, normally including shields. Opponents slept or befuddled are under the healer's protection and cannot be killed once taken prisoner.
Now, given this, there is a lot o' variety to the various Chalana Arroy temples. Some temples do not permit their healers to wear armor at all. A few do.
>Could the Chalana Arroy pick up a two handed sword to slay these
>foul creatures (undead or chaos)?
Technically, a healer can permit a Slept or Befuddled chaos entity to be killed. In practice, many temples do not permit this, not because they like chaos, but because they fear for the moral effect on the healers. I think that undead are allowed to be killed even by the most conservative temples.
I do not believe that healers are ever encouraged to pick up weapons and fight, even against undead. But if they did use such weapons, they'd no doubt be forgiven afterwards.
>And what about the unintelligent creatures? What magics are there
>for the healer to aid in halting these creatures if they do not
>sleep.
I assume you're referring to undead. The Chalana Arroy sect does not presume to be some sort of universal organization that can do all, and to which all right-thinking beings should belong. It knows that there is need for death and violence in the world, even pain. The job of Chalana Arroy is to mitigate this pain, or at least try to confine it to your cultural enemies.
If a Chalana Arroy is trapped without any warriors to protect her, presumably she dies whether or not she picks up a discarded sword to swing at the oncoming horrors. She may as well die like she lived, unstained with violence. Chalana Arroy healers don't go out where there's undead or chaos without being accompanied by hearty warriors of one type or another to protect them.
David Cake:
>While I agree with the general Herbivore = Earth idea, the carnivore
>= darkness is far less clear.
Well, certainly in Prax most of the carnivores are darkness entities: troll raiders, Morocanth, Cannibal cult, and hyenas (which hunt primarily in darkness). Note that I also don't think that the Praxians define "dark" as strictly as would a Theyalan.
>But I specifically would like to agree that there are Eirithran big
>snakes. [Dave goes on to mention Ronance's snake-chariot, the
Serpent Guardians of the Paps, and the Bolo Lizard Folk]
Note that all these examples actually stem from an older culture than the Praxians, namely the Golden Age folk. It's quite clear that the Tada Shi accepted an Earth/Reptile connection. But the Praxians and the Tada Shi are not the same culture, nor are the Praxians descended from the Tada Shi. I just don't think that this particular connection survived strongly into the Praxian culture.
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