Re: LARP stuff

From: Sandy Petersen <sandyp_at_idgecko.idsoftware.com>
Date: Fri, 10 May 96 19:11:28 -0500


This is just a few LARP tricks that David Cake may not have come across yet in Australia.

David
>Most of the ones I have been involved in have been run in one big
room over 2 to >4 hours.

        All but the Gloranthan ones I've played in lasted 48 hours, and had most of an entire hotel or old house to play in. I'm sure my experience has differed from Dave's as a result.

>TTRP has the strength that literally anything can happen.

        With proper preparation, the same is true of LARPs (the kind I'm talking about -- we call the rubber-sword crew Live Roleplaying).The following occurrences all happened in LARPs. They are not particularly unusual.

  1. several thousand ICBMs rain from the sky while superpowered-PCs tried to stop as many as they could.
  2. A "War of the Worlds" Martian invasion of the Earth.
  3. A PC firing coastal artillery at a boat full of 7 other PCs trying to escape the harbor, while flares lit the sky and the town burned.
  4. A mass battle between dinosaurs and army men. (The dinos won.)
  5. the sinking of the Titanic, with all PCs struggling to get to the grossly insufficient lifeboats.
  6. A player sabotage a crucial military installation and escape from the explosions by diving into the harbor just as they were going off.
  7. A firefight aboard a submarine. Underwater.
  8. A player steal a fighter plane, strafe the town, then land with wheels up, flip over, and skid to his death in a fiery explosion.
  9. Paris, 1638 "To the barricades!".
  10. A player swing down on a rope just in time to smash into the king's evil brother and prevent his murder.
  11. A four-way battle between 1000-foot high robots.
  12. A human sacrifice, followed by the transformation of my own PC into Yog-Sothoth.
  13. A big game hunt. Etc.

>There are no bounds of set or casting or danger to worry about - the
>Bolivian army can teleport in, the players can dangle from the
guard rail
>of flying warcraft thousands of feet above the ground, etc. Whereas in
>in freeforming, you are restricted to very minimal interaction
with the >environment,

        The environment is a crucial part of a good LARP. You _must_ travel from place to place to get things done. You are _required_ to leave your doors open a crack in the hotel rooms when you are doing game activities within, so that other players can eavesdrop (of course, you can post guards). In Cafe Casablanca, any non-native player trying to travel through the Casbah was in serious danger of mugging. In The Titanic, sets of chairs were grouped to symbolize lifeboats. Etc.

> most of the same casting problems as LARP.

        In games with unusual characters, serious casting problems are handled by means of a simple button -- reading "I Look Unusual". Sometimes accompanied by another button with a picture of what you "really" look like. Admittedly it takes imagination, but heck, if you lack _that_ you may as well go back to TV. Sandy

End of Glorantha Digest V2 #555

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