Brosme 9,9 kg, a reaction to Dogme 99

Community Larp discussion
#1

I’d write one but I cant be sodded[/quote]

Here is someone elses,
Brosme 9,9 kg.

(Please excuse any strange formulations as a poor effort to translate this text from Norwegian, Egil.)

  1. It is Permitted to Create.
  2. It Must be Fun to Larp.
  3. All Characters are Essential Characters.
  4. The fewer pre-reveal situations about the Larp and its plan of action, before the Larp, the more interesting and exiting it will be to participate on that particular Larp.
  5. The Creators of the Larp Must be active in the Larp and Use the Participants Creativity to Change the Larp during its course to something better than intended.
  6. The Larp Must have action and progress.
  7. All inspiration must be taken advantage of to the maximum, and if possible to a paradoxal and humorous manner so that it will be fun to create a Larp.
  8. All accessories that can make the Larp better is Permitted.
  9. The Larp Must follow a storyline and have mechanics to enhance it.
    (Violence can be educational for both victim and perpetrator when both is in understanding of what is happening, is informed of it happening, having accepted it to happen, and are able to discern it to be an act outside themselves and not within).
  10. Every participant of a Larp is Responsible for its outcome, not only for their own experience, but for the experience and adventure of all.

morigel.laiv.org/english/Brosmeeng.html

#2

What does this mean?

#3

What does this mean?[/quote]

I didn’t actually write this, but I would presume that one tends to initiate a plot (even if only a meta plot), that acts as the characters push. The pull can then be created by the characters themselves if required. In SCA this plot could be a tournament or a banquet. In Quest it could be a little more elaborate or as simple as kill the vampire.

As to the mechanics. I know there is a movement towards zero mechanics games, however if I want to play any role except that of a university student living in a New Zealand city, then there will be some game mechanics somewhere, even if they are unwritten. To me this says let’s have fun and put in a few rules.

#4

Plot is just such an ambiguous word. At it’s worst, it means the organisers have a set idea of what is going to happen in the event and what the PCs do doesn’t really alter anything. I’m not keen on that, I think that larp is an interactive and spontaneous medium and if you have set preconceptions of what will happen it limit the improvisational nature of the thing.

Is “we’re having a tournament” a plot? I’d call it a background or setup. But if that’s what is meant by plot I don’t have a problem with it.

I’m not sure if I’d say there’s a movement towards no rules. Some people would like to play some larps with no rules. And I’d like all the larps I play in to only have as many rules as they need, and no more. Minimal rules. I haven’t heard anyone here suggest that all larps should have no rules.

#5

I think the Brosme manifesto suffers from lack of drive and foresight.

  1. It is permitted to create
    OK, whatever.
  2. It must be fun to larp.
    Really? Why? Does my larp fail if it is not fun, even if people want to do it again?
  3. All characters are essential characters
    Wait a second - essential to what?
  4. The fewer pre-reveal situations about the Larp and its plan of action, before the Larp, the more interesting and exiting it will be to participate on that particular Larp.
    I’m guilty of this technique all the time but I don’t think it’s a particularly good one.
  5. The Creators of the Larp Must be active in the Larp and Use the Participants Creativity to Change the Larp during its course to something better than intended.
    This is a very messy rule that begs more questions than it answers.
  6. The Larp Must have action and progress.
    Define!
  7. All inspiration must be taken advantage of to the maximum, and if possible to a paradoxal and humorous manner so that it will be fun to create a Larp.
    Is that funny IC or OOC? While I appreciate the sentiment here, I don’t think you should design larps that are primarily a piss-take.
  8. All accessories that can make the Larp better is Permitted.
    Since they don’t define “better”, anything that makes the larp better is permitted (duh).
  9. The Larp Must follow a storyline and have mechanics to enhance it.
    (Violence can be educational for both victim and perpetrator when both is in understanding of what is happening, is informed of it happening, having accepted it to happen, and are able to discern it to be an act outside themselves and not within).
    Get back to this.
  10. Every participant of a Larp is Responsible for its outcome, not only for their own experience, but for the experience and adventure of all.
    Yeah, I like this idea. I think the keyword is “responsible”.

Vow 9 (on story):

The whole feeling of this manifesto is that larps are like all too many video games where they’re an interactive story on rails. You can alter the details but not really the plot. The complex (and beautiful) thing about larp is not that “the story” can go anywhere, it’s that you have X many characters and each of them has a different story that could go anywhere. But like many things here, the idea of “plot” is ill-defined (Brosme doesn’t have the explanatory information like Dogme has). I think they’re wrong about who “plot” should be “up to”.

#6

[/quote]
[/quote]
Mission Successful

#7

Amusingly enough (for me) this topic piques the GM in me… When I describe what I do as a GM to non players (DND3.5 or LRP) I say that I create a world in which my players characters and the rolls they play are able to interact.
I throw plot threads into this game world to give a sense of direction, however it would be entirely possible for them to ignore these and buy fish and make bread or something.
Idealistically this should be applicable to LARP or LRP or whatever aswell as paper based roleplaying, however LARP often has constraints such as time and population and infrastructure necessary to drive a non plot driven event.
So we jam in a vampire in, tell the players theres one and its causing a problem and they try to go rid the area of it. Simple, fun, but not the perfect ideal (or so it seems) that some manifesto’s strive for. Is that wrong?
So if we try our best, using the tools available, to create an enjoyable or at least highly compelling game world in which our player can interact with are we not satifying the reasons why people LARP or LRP?

Jared

#8

It ain’t wrong, it’s just one style. It’s the style that Mordavia used, with GMs interfering a lot in play. But there are other equally valid styles where players are empowered to do everything that matters in the setting.

#9

It ain’t wrong, it’s just one style. It’s the style that Mordavia used, with GMs interfering a lot in play…[/quote]

Why would a GM have to be involved at all? A Vampire is a big, grown up monster, it can look after itself.

The Gm’s are only to ensure that no one is cheating and work behind the scenes. They should only have minimal interaction with players once the game has started. For a good module they should not determine the final outcome of the game.

#10

Ryan means that the GMs make realtime decisions based on player actions and feed back responses into the game. He doesn’t mean that they micromanage a role (such as a vampire) - these are briefed and then set loose.

For example, when the players running the Keep at Mordavia: Reckonings decided to destroy the only road into Berium, suddenly there were NPCs arriving who were pointing out the need for the road. Plus the NPCs who were doing the road destruction were providing information on likely repercussions of retasking them from, for instance, repairing the dykes that protected Eranov. Ultimately, once the road had been destroyed, the location of the game had to move because Berium was no longer tenable in-game. Eranov got flooded by the swamp. This was all IC decisions with GM’s “interferring” by proving realtime feedback to the PCs via NPCs.

#11

Interesting way to run a railroad.

#12

Interesting way to run a railroad.[/quote]

But it works so well. It’s completely unrealistic if decisions have no consequences. If the players sudden declare that they renounce the King and are going to make war on the Crown, then the world they are in would have to react somehow - which is up to the GMs.

If nothing happens in reaction to this denouncing of the King, then it all falls hollow.

I really enjoy playing in a world that reacts to my actions.

#13

Interesting way to run a railroad.[/quote]Not a railroad at all. For the later games, most of our planning involved working out which NPCs wanted what and setting up some known events on the Friday night. Everything else was reactive. Granted, it didn’t always react in the way the players expected it to, but it did react.

Cutting the road… aye, aye, aye. None of us expected that.

#14

I usually find that if there is a king around, that if required the King will send in the troops, usually the adventurers are arrested (but sometimes they do escape), they are tried and executed. True sometimes they are executed then tried, but it usually all works out in the end.

Most players aren’t silly enough to bad mouth the King when he or she is around. And if they aren’t around, if you don’t get caught, they don’t get hurt.

Live Role Play usually has consequences to ones actions, they just aren’t always the ones that players expect.

#15

Cutting the road is a good example of reactive setting. The players set about removing the road, so the GMs organised the setting to react by sending in workers and adjusting things like “who can travel to Berium?”

I don’t think your “railroad” statement is fair, Alista. Not a railroad at all…

#16

“Interesting way to run a railroad” is a colloquialism.

Basically translated from English it means, “I have’t’ seen it done that way before.”

Therefore when used it does not explicitly or implicitly mean that there is an actual railroad.

The saying used to be in common usage during the 19th and 20th centuries. I’m obviously so last decade. Sorry about.

#17

AH HA!
Great, all people agree then, manifesto’s are irrelevant in the face of successful LARP! They’re just another idea for the resource wagon!

Jared.
PS Alista is old.

#18

[quote=“Alista”]“Interesting way to run a railroad” is a colloquialism.

Basically translated from English it means, “I have’t’ seen it done that way before.”[/quote]Ah. I’d never heard that one before. Thanks for the new expression.

It’s not a good one to use around roleplayers, though, because ‘railroading’ is usually taken to mean the GMs are forcing the plot to stick to a predetermined plan. We didn’t do that at Mordavia, hence the protests. Go figure.

#19

[quote=“Alista”]“Interesting way to run a railroad” is a colloquialism.

Basically translated from English it means, “I have’t’ seen it done that way before.”

Therefore when used it does not explicitly or implicitly mean that there is an actual railroad.

The saying used to be in common usage during the 19th and 20th centuries. I’m obviously so last decade. Sorry about.[/quote]

last decade… ??? :wink:

#20

[quote=“Wulfen (David)”]

last decade… ??? :wink:[/quote]

You’re right, the 90’s is so last century or even last millenia.