I need a new project, and I have too many ideas for larps in my head and if I don’t do something about them I might just run something and then I’ll die.
So this is a way of me getting them out of my head and out somewhere they might be useful.
Many thanks to Idiot for the motivation and worked example.
Step 1: Design Specs
I have set myself the design spec of
- Space
- 3-6 hour episodes
- Minimising barriers to entry
- Something in the FitD/PbtA sort of phase-space
- Focus on inter-personal dynamics, and significant choice-points,
- Medium-density character-vs-character conflict
In the next few sections I go over these design elements
Space
Good arguments for Space
- It’s awesome
- It’s not been used much in campaign larping in NZ
- It supports low barrier for entry via
- Nerf Guns are cheap, fun and easily accessed
- Costuming for space is often seen as less intimidating than fantasy costume
- See: Han Solo
- It’s got a lot of room for “fun weird shit”
- Time - relativity, experience of time vis a vis suspended animation travel, and shenanigans
- Wormholes - endless possibilities
- Aliens
- Many other fun sci-fi tropes
- It’s got lots of room for social discourse
- Tropes are easy and fun
- I am super interested in seeing what IRL tech I can apply to game problems
Arguments against Space
- Boffer combat is weirdly out of place in space media
- This cuts out a way of playing that many people enjoy
- Not everyone digs a nailbat as much as I do
- It cuts out a genre of conflict
- Or maybe this space has swords. I dunno
- Community venues are often wood (very out of place in space) or excessively… community.
- This argument applies to nearly all larps though
- Set dressing should focus on most bang for buck anyway
- Space is big, is it ridiculous the player characters keep encountering each other?
- Spaceship fights
- Yuck. Shelving this problem for now
- Bounce the graviton particle beam off the main deflector dish
- The phase-space of problems gets weird.
- Because it’s science FICTION then whatever we say goes, but because it’s SCIENCE fiction, there should be a logic based in reality and player cleverness starts to interact with “this is how i wrote the problem so you being clever doesn’t solve it” in ways that need careful attention (unlike magic).
3-6 hour episodes
There are plenty of people who want to play games but that find a weekend away at a scout camp to be
- Just entirely unworkable given the rest of their lives
- Too expensive
- Just too unpleasant to make the game worth it
3-6 hour games can normally run in the $15-$40 bracket which makes them more accessible, easier to find venues for, lower barrier for entry.
It does leave the effort-per-episode quite high - my experience is that unless managed carefully the overhead of logistics can expand to be a significant fraction of that for a full weekend game.
6 hours is about the outer limit of what people can handle without a significant break, assuming that near-constant snacking is accessible.
Depending on the density of plot, 3 hours can leave too little time for “free roleplay”, which is something I definitely want to prioritise. (Adding to the spec list).
To be continued…