Ever Shambling Onwards...

I've rejigged my web forum again. I decided that the split between system and setting that I was using was too artificial, so I've merged them. I've left logistics (venue booking, player rewards, etc...) as a separate board, but all general gaming discussion is now in the same board.

I'd like to see a few more folks signed up, so feel free to prod folks who are likely to be involved in any games (LARP or TT) in the area... I want to get some decent discussions going about expectation management and "how to make games better". Mainly because discussions about that kind of thing, you know, help people who run games make them better and meet expectations. Such discussions also help players get a better idea of what's reasonable to expect, and perhaps get some new ideas for how they can make games better themselves...

So, over the past week or so I've been messing with some messageboard code on my webspace. I've been doing this mainly because I wanted to fiddle with some off the shelf messageboard code, but I've decided now that I'm going to leave it there with OOC discussion boards for a few games (currently Dark Ages and Unknown Armies) and a couple of general "talking about games" type boards.

I'm mainly doing this for the latter boards rather than the former, because I'm interested in talking about games. Not in talking about this game or that game, but about games. The ideas and techniques that go on behind the scenes. Why people play them. Why people run them. What you get out of them, and what needs to be put into them to make them better.

What I'd like is for folks who are also interested in those things (or who play the UA or DA games that I'm involved with) to sign up and discuss things there. Discussion here on LJ only ever tends to hang around until the original post drops off people's friends pages, and rarely goes anywhere interesting because of that. Don't feel shy about posting in the LARP areas (I've already started them off with some posts myself) or in the TT area (I've not started those, but I'm interested in them too). If you want to start a discussion or make a (relevant) statement, go right ahead. See if we can get the ball rolling.

If this takes off, I'll look at reskinning the forum to something that looks a bit nicer and may pay the (small) fee to ditch the adverts.

Click here for the forum.

So, I was ill yesterday with a stinking headache. I've still got a bit of one today, but it's entirely manageable.

Other days:
Saturday was spent largely watching some episodes of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex - 2nd Gig, playing UFO: Aftermath and planning the UA game for Sunday... and having a headache.

Sunday was spent planning and running a UA game, as well as watching a bit of GITS:SAC2. I am also amused at that abbreviations. GITS is bad enough, but GITS:SAC just amuses me further. Anyway - UA game went well, and involved the first field excursion of the game... Which is also the furthest that I expect any players to have to walk at any point. I still think that location is fantastic to use in games, though. Oh, and I had a headache too.

A while back I mentioned the difficulties of getting hold of some FUDGE dice... After a bit of hunting around, I've discovered that you can buy sets of "Deryni Dice" from leisure games. Deryni is a FUDGE based game, and the dice are basically fudge dice.

So, I've created an LJ community for the UA game.

I can't just sign folks up, so I've sent invites to all of the players. You'll need to go to your "community invites" page and accept the invite. You might want to remember to add it to your friends list too, if it doesn't do it automatically. So far there's no posts, but I plan to copy a lot of my UA related posts over, or at least link to them...

This looks interesting.

[UPDATED AGAIN!]
Updated PCs and the like... groups:

barty - (Character has no name!) - Missing persons - Statted
cream_horn - Christopher Parker - Missing Persons AND Weirdshit Investigators - Statted
cryx - Alice Winters - Missing persons - Statted
izzy_stradlin - George - Weirdshit Investigators - Statted
lawrencegillies - Ben Fox - Missing Persons OR Weirdshit Investigators - Statted
lucifermourning - Laura - Missing Persons - Statted
thankyoukindly - Whitfield Keating - Weirdshit Investigators AND Missing Persons - Statted
themadone - Robin Slater - Missing persons - Statted

darklittlefox - (Character has no name!) - Group Undetermined - Planned

Additionally:
anonymous_james - Matthew Hammet - Weirdshit Investigators - Statted, but unsure if he'll actually make the games...

First game is This Sunday, probably starting around 2:30ish. If all goes to plan, one group will meet at HoP, the other elsewhere (themadone & darklittlefox? Your place likely to be usable by a group of three to five folks and a GM?). There is a chance that we'll start all at the same location OOC and then transport one mob elsewhere after a bit of a chat about rules and how the game will work etc... more information will become available through the week. Bringing packs of normal everyday playing cards would be handy!

Anyone not in the list above and wanting to play, leave a comment.
Anyone who needs to gen their characters, leave a comment with available times!

...and has an rpg.net login?

There's a thread about LARP on rpg.net's "roleplaying open" forum. More specifically, the thread had somebody asking how a LARP is run, how it "runs" and what actually happens at a session.

I've posted a fairly large and rambling "how we run things" kind of post, but I think a bit of input from players (or other STs) would probably help the thread along, and help the original poster get a decent idea. The thread's already had it's share of the traditional "your fun is bad wrong fun" type responses, and I think it deserves a few more responses from people who actually enjoy games.

The thread can be found at http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=232089
My post is post #60 (page 6 in the default view).

In my usual manner, I am having far more ideas than my meagre brain could ever conceive of holding. Despite already having LARPs queued up waiting to happen (Dark Ages in progress, UA starting soon, rubber-swording/fantasy lurking for future development, several one-shot parlour LARPs), I am having more ideas.

This time I'm getting a hankering for something that's neither modern day or fantasy. I'm thinking SF of some kind, although exactly what flavour of SF is still eluding me. Bizarrely for me, I'm also thinking of making it non-horror oriented. Post Apocalyptic is an option, but I'd prefer something a little less gritty. I'd also like something which is more adventure or story based rather than political/social backstabbing - we've had quite a lot of that already. Maybe a tweak of my Olive Branch setting, which would allow for varying player base and would focus on a mix of shipboard and planetside plots without much taking place floating about in space...

I'm also (as a direct result of this) wondering if I could come up with a basic LARPified version of the FATE system I've been using for Transhuman Space. Basically, if a larp friendly randomizer can be created for it - one which creates a bell-curved -4/+4 range - then there's no real reason that the system wouldn't just work pretty much as is. It's a pretty lightweight system, after all.

Venues would also need to be considered quite heavily...

Of course, this would not even come close to happening until after Unknown Armies is done, and possibly not until after the fantasy/rubber swordy game is up and running. Right now I'm just intrigued by the idea and was wondering what people would think...

Any comments or thoughts?

So... How will I be handling character death in my Unknown Armies LARP?

UA is a dangerous setting. You can easily die from a single gunshot. It's possible (but unlikely) to die from being punched. If your character gets into a fight without having the drop on their opponents, they will suffer for it. Even if you do have the upper hand it's entirely possible that you won't come out unscathed.

There is a reason that Unknown Armies is the game which has a section in the rulebook (in the player section) called "six ways to stop a fight". Getting into fights is risky. You get hurt. Even if you win, you quite likely get hurt. I expect characters who get into fights to quite possibly be nursing wounds for the rest of the game. Not the rest of the session, but the rest of the campaign.

However, I prefer dramatic tension to a sudden character death. As a GM, I won't be setting out to kill characters. Characters will die because they did something dumb or heroic, or got into a fight when they should have run away.

Punches won't be pulled, but there will be ways to dodge them, or punch first. If you walk into a straight gunfight, you are quite likely to die. If you walk into a gunfight with two snipers positioned nearby and aiming at your opponent, you are still quite likely to die, but he's more likely to. If you just send the snipers and trick your opponent into thinking you're there, you're not likely to die, but he's still quite likely to.

Of course, combat is only ever going to be a part of the game. You could go all through it and never get into a fight of any kind, if you're careful.

To sum up: Character death is easy, but avoidable. GMs will not godstrike you out of existance unless you ask us to, or unless you act in a way so foolish as to demand it. Permanent injuries and mental problems are a different matter, however. Those we can hand out like candy.

Additionally, if your character dies the GMs will try to ensure you understand why, provided that doing so does not spoil the plot. In general, you would probably already know.