Designing a larp

Community Larp discussion
#1

There’s a lot of talk about creating new larps at the mo, but I find one thing is missing from all the discussions: what do the player characters do in the larp?

It’s all very well coming up with interesting races, places, and rules but when the boots hit the grass the PCs can’t be sitting around picking their noses and talking about the weather.

The people writing up settings have probably got something in mind for the players to do. Perhaps, given that many of the settings are generic fantasy, they are assuming that the players will be going on quests designed by the organisers. Killing stuff, looting, getting more powerful, etc. Or at least attempting “missions” that the organisers write.

There’s nothing wrong with that (except that it tends to happen in a linear way, which I personally think is a waste of larp’s interactive potential), but if you’re making that assumption then please say so. That’s what Skirmish is about, that’s what Quest seems to be mostly about, and that’s clear up front with those larps. But some people here may not realise that classic D&D adventure brought to life is what you have in mind. They may have experienced a lot of other sorts of larp, and be assuming a different play style.

The D&D-style fantasy quest is what I think is known in game design theory as a control structure. In terms of larp I prefer to call it an interaction framework, because “control” sounds like you’re telling players what to do, which isn’t really the case.

An interaction framework is whatever gives players reasons to act and interact in a larp, and ensures that those actions and their results are satisfying.

Power Up
In this typical fantasy quest interaction framework, the players are provided with the goal of killing monsters and getting more powerful so that they can defeat even greater evils. The challenge is figuring out how to use your current abilities to beat the baddies. The result is seeing how beating them helps you to improve your character, so that you can beat even bigger ones. Some satisfaction may also be had from the theme of being a hero and helping people, and improving your ability to do so, or from completing missions.

The Mission
If the player characters belong to an organiser-controlled organisation or have highly predictable motives (e.g. “protect the innocent” or “rob the rich”), then they can be sent on missions. The process of attempting to achieve these missions can be complex and fulfilling. However, this type of framework requires constant organiser involvement to keep creating new missions that will maintain the interest of players. D&D-style play often involves a Mission framework alongside the basic Power Up framework.

Now this is all very well, and these frameworks can be applied to a larp as well as tabletop roleplaying - so long as the larp isn’t so big that the adventuring party becomes unwieldy, and so long as you have crew willing to play the opposition.

However, there are many other interaction frameworks that can be used in larp. None of them would work in tabletop role-playing, because they require more players and simultaneous activity than a game-master could facilitate in a room. But if you get everyone to physically embody their character and interact in real-time, then these other frameworks can be very, very successful.

You can’t just take away the Power Up and Mission frameworks, put a bunch of players together, and expect something interesting to come out. There’s a chance that the players are so inventive that they’ll create somethign enjoyable, but it’s unlikely to feel cohesive enough to keep people interested.

Here are some successful interaction frameworks for larp, as I see them. There are probably many others, but I haven’t heard of them. These frameworks can usually be used in conjuction with each other.

The Tangled Web
The player characters are all written to have specially-tailored goals that relate to other player characters and are likely to meet opposition from them. This is a framework often used in larps described as “freeform” or “theatre style”, such as the KapCon larps. Each character usually has secrets and secret objectives, and the players spend the larp interacting with the other player characters, uncovering secrets, figuring out how to achieve their goals, and then trying to achieve them while overcoming opposition from other player characters. There may be special items and places in the larp that can be manipulated to help achieve objectives too.

The Social Jungle
The player character all have places in a complicated social structure, usually with factions and sub-groups within it. Many of them may wish to scale up this structure, although some just wish to serve their superiors or fulfill a specific role, and some may even wish to retire to a lower status which can also have it’s own perils… just ask King Lear. This interaction framework is central to most World of Darkness larps. A character wishing to improve their status will naturally meet opposition from those they wish to displace, and from those who want the same positions. However, they may also find other PCs who can help them, perhaps because they don’t want that position for themselves (or not yet). If a PC achieves a social goal, another PC usually loses out in the process, and this causes a ripple of social effects that changes the environment for everyone, creating a dynamic challenge.

Economies
An economy can provide a loose but highly motivating framework for competition and cooperation between player characters. Players can aquire or create resources, pass them on at a gain, cooperate in trade, and deal with competitors. While fantasy questing also yields material gains, it is not really an economy as the process is unidirectional - acquire money, spend it on stuff. In a real economy the person who you give the money to then has it to spend themselves. While there should be sources and sinks of resources in a real eocnomy (e.g. you can grow wheat and eat it), there must also be transformation and circulation of resources (you can sell the wheat to somebody who turns it into bread and sells it again) to achieve an interesting level of chaos in the system. Put it all together, and you get an endless source of ever-changing challenge.

Ecologies
The points about economies are all true for ecologies too. Player characters can form a kind of ecology, and interact over ecological niches like control of land and resources. In an ecology, everything is related. If you kill off predators, the prey will increase in number and cause problems. Ecologies and economies are closely linked, because the things that are competed over ecologically are often a material resource. However immaterial resources can also be relevant. The Buddhist concept of Karma is an example of a kind of spiritual economy or ecology, and this sort of thing could be supported by rule in a larp. Likewise a magical ecology could be created - an extreme example is the character Sylar in the TV show Heroes, he’s a predator who consumes other characters and takes their supernatural powers. In theory PCs or something else in the setting could also reproduce and create new characters that resemble themselves, thus creating an interesting natural selection effect. However most larps aren’t long-term enough for that kind of ecological consideration

Machines
Machines can provide a similar kind of dynamism to economies and ecologies. There’s an episode of the TV show The Fraggles (this will take you back) where water stops coming out of the pipes that run through their cave, so their pond dries up. This also affects the Gogs (those big ogres), who take water from the pond via a well. The Fraggles have this funny supernatural attitude to the water pipes, with special priests who bang on them to make water come out. But what really fixes the problem is a human turning the water back on in Outer Space (the world outside the cave). This is a simple one-way machine, but a more complex machine with many parts that affect each other in a variety of ways is possible, and it could play a significant role in providing a mystery in a larp to be solved, as well as an ever-changing situation as the machine is tinkered with. Imagine for example a fantasy world with ancient magical areas all over it that all inter-relate and have major effects in the setting in ways that are no longer understood. The PCs could make changes to parts of this magical “machine” that have major results in the setting. Other characters who don’t appreciate those results would be able to try their hand too. The Swamp in Mordavia was an example of a complex Machine interaction framework.

The Mission and the Tangled Web have some advantages in that they can be highly idiosyncratic (i.e. quirky and specific to the interests of the players).

However, the Social Jungle, Economies, Ecologies, and Machines interaction frameworks have a much bigger advantage. They are dynamic, chaotic cause-and-effect systems. When a character does something, they produce a believeable and consistent outcome. That outcome will almost certainly create a new environment that will bring about reasons for that character or other characters to act and interact.

In other words, they are perpetual plot machines.

Like a machine, the Social Jungle, Economies, Ecologies, and Machine interaction frameworks do not need to be built over and over for every event like Missions and Tangled Webs do. They just need a little greasing from the organisers, to make sure that all the actions in one event have their appropriate effects. The organisers can choose to interfere with the larp and add stuff (perhaps for colour or to help with the pace of play), but they don’t have to.

It’s worth noting here that I don’t consider these interaction frameworks to be the point of larp, necessarily. They help provide character objectives, but attempting to achieve your character’s goals is just one appeal of larp. For many people larp is mostly enjoyable for the immersion, the characterisation, or the emotional interactions. A dynamic interaction framework may seem like a dry thing that doesn’t provide these important elements directly. However, what it does provide is an environment that is constantly changing rather than being static, thus greatly increasing the likelihood of interesting interactions occuring that help lead to immersion, characterisation, and emotional play.

#2

Amen Ryan.

For me it was the mystery and intrigue that drove me to integrate with the setting in mordavia, I simply had to know the truth about the past, and hopefully stop others making the same mistakes again.

So both the mission and the tangled web ideas suit me :slight_smile:

#3

Yes. Although a system (Which were discussing) underpins some of the social interractions ie Classes are the basis of guilds which for political webs and economies and power structures etc…

I Think a nationwide game with enough work can use all of the above. And deciding on the system will then help build the rest of the setting around it. Think of the rulesset as the nucleus that the games and setting are formed around.

I would love a game that had the intrigue and plotting of a Masquerade game with the potential for combat (Paper scissors rocks just dont cut it)

Quests system could be tweaked which I think Jared is doing. The guild based class system (with non guild characters) are a good base for social and political interraction. The system of nobility and non nobility giving in game privelege are a must.

#4

In some ways the Mordavia NPCs (including historical figures) formed a tangled web and the GMs were happy to help players integrate into it. But also, the mysteries themselves were a kind of machine, with lots of levers that could be pulled for various results.

What sort of interaction underpins Serenity do you think? It seems like it could be economic, with smugglers trying to make a living and so forth. Do you think there’s an economic model, with resources circulating among PCs and being transformed?

Yes, I think the rules often do underpin the interaction framework. In Vampire you choose a faction as part of your character creation. In Derek’s simple fantasy rules there is no possibility of a mundane economic interaction framework, because players can give their characters any mundane material resources they like. There could be a magic item economy, because magic items are restricted by the rules.

There’s a guy in the UK who used to post on Pagga as “Lig” who I had some great discussions with about this. As I recall he called interactions involving the rules "hard’ and those that don’t “soft”. The interaction framework is supported by rules (including rules that the players might not know about directly, like Mordavia’s Swamp rules) which encourage ongoing hard interactions. The hard interactions may be quite dry (for example, buying or stealing an item from someone during a larp) but they in turn encourage soft interactions (bargaining, currying favour, begging, etc).

#5

With Quest because there is such a small number of players the linear adventure seems to work best and Gm’s can have a reasonable amount of input, but increase the player base and there needs to be more player input. This often happens when the Monster (NPC’s) are given a task and the players interract and to some extent the monsters to attain a goal.

Ie last game I was monstering a Nymph My glade just happened to be in the same location as a Guardian who guarded some money. We had both been in the same area for 10000 years.

Of course as a Nymph money equals deforestation to fuel the fires of economy not something I liked. The adventurer who came into the glade offered a forest regeneration process funded by the church in exchange for my help.

Of course I helped and the player completed his mission. This was not supposed to happen in the adventure and the player was supposed to challenge the guardian but this was a lot more fun.

I do believe there needs to be an economy. Quest does not facilitate this at the moment so characters can not really trade services/goods etc to the fullest extent. This of course could be facilitated by traders guilds etc.

there does need to be some form of linear adventures or a number of small adventures meaning there does need to be NPC’s. I think players could have NPC characters that they play if they wanted to monster for a day allowing a lot of varience in plot. Monsters would have their own goals and GM’s could call on particular Monsters and recurring Villains to drive Plot. Some players may even prefer their monster character and play that more than their normal character.

I would love to play an Orc but they are only a Monster Race ATM in Quest. The monsters could be brifed about the sistuation and have background info. May ally with Pcs or even be Neutral. Villain Vampires may build retinues of powerful allies over time or even player necromancers etc.

I think this would create a web of intrigue, plotlines and alliances.

#6

Money is funny stuff and it seems that the more people get of it the more they strive to earn more of it.

If people are genuinely role playing, saying they can have as much money as they want does not mean that everyone will have sacks of loot.

If I decided I wanted to play a mercenary down on his luck and wondering where my next meal was coming from, I would just play that. If I wanted to play a wealthy prince with a harem of slave girls that bathed in honey and sprinkled gold dust through their hair every day, I could play that as well. Providing I could convince some of the ladies to put on the skimpy outfits, get sticky and sprinkle gold glitter in their hair.

I’m very happy for a person coming along to their first ever larp to decide they want to play a wealthy Arabian princess with armour made from solid silver and a chain of camels carrying carpets, spices and sacks of gold - providing they can physrep them. Heck, if they can physrep a flying carpet, I’d be happy for them to have that as well.

I don’t believe that saying “if you can physrep it, you can have it” needs to destroy any hope of having an economy in a game. Unless you are playing it as a “competitive” game where “winning” happens when you have greater assets than the other players.

I think some of the complaints about people power gaming are actually around the wrong way. Rules where you have to carefully consider how you spend every last coin and experience point are much more likely to cause people to make decisions based on the amount of power they get rather than what their character would do.

Look at St Wolfgang for example. How many characters took EXACTLY three level one spells / powers so they could get the level two one they were after? Probably most of them…

#7

Without rules that limit resources, the harvesting/trading/transforming/consuming of those resources is just so much “make believe”. It won’t create a simulated cause-and-effect economy that motivates player actions. Players will never be in a position where they feel the need to do something for the economic good of their character. It’s not about winning, it’s about your character being in an environment that informs your choices about their actions.

I’m not saying there’s something wrong with having no economy in a larp. It’s fine, especially if materialism is not an important theme for the larp - which is why money and most goods did not persist across events in Mordavia. A lack of emphasis on materialism is common in many fictional fantasy settings (although not D&D), so your rules would work well for them.

But larps do need some sort of interaction framework, and an economy is one option. If your simple fantasy rules can’t simulate an economy (and they can’t, except perhaps for magic items) then you need something else as your framework or the character actions will not feel as grounded or motivated.

It’s rather like combat and magic. Why do we have rules for combat and magic? It’s not just to determine who wins. It’s to simulate the complex and interesting things that can happen in combat and magic. Because having those complex and interesting things defined by rules creates an unpredictable interactive cause-and-effect structure that the roleplaying can hang off.

You could have a larp where the players just decide what happens for combat and magic. One character decides that a blow has broken his leg, another decides that their magic has healed the leg. What you get is essentially unstructured improvised drama. The players will be much less inclined to put themselves in their character’s place and think “what action should I take to achieve my characters goals?” in relation to the combat or magic, because they can achieve those goals on a whim. More likely, they will think “what would make an interesting set of events?” Which is fine, but it’s less likely to encourage the players to think as their character than a simulation will, and there is a danger they will end up repeating themselves or creating a static situation in relation to combat and magic. A systemless approach is much less likely to create a big chaotic cause-and-effect system that drives endless permutations of interaction.

I’d rather play in a larp where my character’s actions have consequences not only because other players or organisers decides they should, but because there is a consistent system in place that determines cause-and-effect. Why should a warrior or mage get consistent rules to detemine the results of their actions, but a merchant just has to make stuff up? Is a merchant a second-rate role?

#8

I think not. Without merchants people dont get armed, buildings dont get constructed. Kingdoms fall into ruins because no one can supply the goods efficiently that make the world go round. Or at least it would more resemble a barbarian state where the strongest takes what they want.

#9

Ever tried to play a merchant in D&D? The rules are not built for it. Which is fine, the merchants are background colour in the D&D settings, and being a merchant is not the focus of play.

But if you want a setting where materialism is a theme and being a merchant (or any kind of materialist) is a viable play option, then the rules about possessions matter. Large larps are perhaps more inclined to want this than tabletop, because with more participants you often end up simulating societies rather than just adventuring parties.

#10

For example the new serenity larp is the first one I have found where playing a merchant makes sense…due to the fact that finances and possesions carry over from one game to another.

#11

I agree that there is an in game cost to saying “if you can physrep it you can have it”, but I think the benefits are greater than the cost. The rule could possibly be modified to exclude free money if people still wanted some commerce.

If I as a player can physrep a trebuchet (firing fluffy toys to be on the safe side) then a game that includes it is going to be richer. I can camp on the hill by the keep, raining death down onto the people inside and demanding tribute. In most rules I have no idea if I can have a trebuchet, but I probably can’t.

The fact that every person in the keep could potentially have a sack of gold if they own a can of gold spraypaint, some cardboard, sissors and a spare hour before the game doesn’t mean the value of gold will go down. They’re not going to say “lets just give him some gold (it’s free anyway) and he’ll go away.” They’ll role play coming out, hanging you and then giving you a quick trial.

#12

At the gathering the Bears faction had a Caber that was used for destroying swathes of the enemy and they had a Larp Ballistae - Arrow Kaster made the Ballistae

They dont have a website however they do Larp Crossbows

adventurersmart.co.uk/crossbow.htm

#13

I agree there are benefits to not having rules for possessions. It’s swings and round-abouts, and that’s a perfectly valid approach.

My point is if you don’t have rules that support economic play, then you need to support some other sort of interaction framework. Your system doesn’t really support Power Up either, except for spells. But your simple fantasy rules could support:

  1. Missions
  2. Tangled Web
  3. A Machine

Of these, only the Machine is really self-supporting. Missions and Tangled Webs need to be constantly created and updated by the organisers. That’s why I suggested making a Machine in a world for your system.

#14

Well there is certainly room on the A4 page to include some more rules about this type of thing. After all, we don’t need a rule saying there is no XP and skills, that was just there as a space filler. :smiley:

#15

Actually, your existing rules could support any of those three frameworks without anything needing to be added to them. It could also support a Social Jungle if the setting material had suitably structured factionalisation.

Missions are written by organisers and don’t require much in the way of rules. They only need enough rules that you can provide structured challenges to overcome, and the combat and magic rules would do that.

Tangled Webs don’t need rules, just masses of work to integrate player characters with each other and the setting.

Machines do need rules, but the players don’t have to know the Machine’s rules. In fact, they work best if the players don’t know them as it provides a mystery to uncover. Your spell rules and especially your magic item rules could easily provide the building blocks for a Machine framework. If I was building a fantasy larp campaign using your rules, it would use Machines extensively. And I would make it clear to the players in the setting material what the immediately visible parts of the machine are and the challenges it presents are, so that they know what the larp “is about”. Take Mike’s description of Multiverse for example:

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]Against the backdrop of the eternal struggle between Chaos and Law, players will find themselves drawn into mysterious events and challenging scenarios that have wide-reaching implications.

Players would align with either Law or Chaos. Both poles would have factions, rivalry and in-fighting so the tensions would not only be between Law vs Chaos, but faction vs faction. Many of the factions will be patronised by a god, who will often make requests/strike bargains with their adherents.[/quote]

Here it’s made clear that there is a Social Jungle, one that appears to climb all the way to the gods. The factions are Chaos, Law, probably some balance-seekers, and various subgroups within each of those.

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]Action will be centred on mythical Tanelorn, a home to interplanar adventurers of all kinds. Tanelorn moves throughout the multiverse, settling near interplanar nodes. Adventurers will set forth to investigate the local planes and interact with nearby cultures.
…
Tanelorn shifts from node to node, sometimes more than once per day. Characters (both PC and NPC) may have an interest in where it goes, and there be ways to influence this. [/quote]

Here it’s made clear that Tanelorn and probably the entire multi-plane setting is a “Machine” framework, that players can probably influence in ways that have “wide-reaching implications”. So essentially you are like spiders in the center of a web, playing with the fates of multiple worlds. Some of those worlds will presumably be the PCs homeworld so they’ll have a vested interest in them. That’s a pretty appealing framework for play.

This is what I mean by “what do the player characters do?” In 2014 the players are uncovering clearly-stated mysteries and there is an implicit mission concerning the fate of the mutants, which many players are. In Ravenholme the house seems to be a kind of mysterious Machine, or perhaps an Ecology, or both (although I’m just guessing), and the Shakespearean event also had clear aspects of Social Jungle and Tangled Web. In the much-discussed but now-dormant-seeming No Man’s Land there were clear hints of Economy, Ecology (find a niche in the new world) and a Machine relating to the ancient mysteries of the re-discovered land. In St Wolfgang’s Vampire Hunters all the PCs have a clear global Mission, to defend Christendom from the forces of darkness.

In the latest round of fantasy ideas I haven’t seen many clues about what player characters do, let alone hints of what sort of framework there will be to support their actions and interactions.

#16

I guess the things to do vary from (RL city and Game place to place)

Gm’s may want to use thr framework to have a structured set of adventures

other GM’s may want a loose set of possibilities supported by NPC’s that players can interract and make their own destiny.

I would like those overreaching goals and mission possibilities with the ability for a trader to set up shop in the middle of the game. Players could vie for influence in a feudsal sense by attracting followers.

Rising the social ladder through politicking. Games where players just interract could make use of other setting such as buildings.

There could be gatherings of a particular guild where non members could come and lobby for help.

The monthly game could be left open with factions doing their politicking and GMs having possible linear module that players interract within based on the factions standing morals and agenda’s etc.

#17

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]
In the latest round of fantasy ideas I haven’t seen many clues about what player characters do, let alone hints of what sort of framework there will be to support their actions and interactions.[/quote]
I suspect the default interactive mode is Mission or Mission/Power Up. These are fairly straightforward to conceptualise, and are the typical mode of an RPG - mainly because the more complex modes require real-time parallel interactions and a single GM in an RPG is unable to accommodate this.

So, I posit that the default mode is an unwritten assumption.

Next, there is the question of pattern awareness and paradigmatic knowledge. The concepts you discussed in your initial post are larp design patterns that, when implement, enable a (potentially complex) larping paradigm.

I’m not sure too many larpers have considered or discussed game design in these terms, hence they are unlikely to include them in their game concepts / rules.

As an aside, do you remember the player action consequence/feedback paradigm that you used in Mordavia and documented in pagga or shades or similar ? How does it integrate with the larp design patterns discussed in this thread.

#18

I was hoping that by illustrating these patterns I could suggest options people might not have thought of, and some words to describe those options.

It was a Tangled Web that the organisers kept up to date both during the events and between events with constant intervention (mostly in the form of briefing NPCs and introducing objects). While we systemised some stuff like the Swamp (and the other main resources of the Dark One) so that could be considered a Machine, everything else was a highly customised Tangled Web between PCs and NPCs.

Mordavia also had a strong implicit global Mission: stop the Swamp from destroying Mordavia. Once players investigated that and discovered that the Dark One was to blame for the Swamp, then the implicit mission turned into defeating the Dark One. There was also an element of Power Up, although the power disparity between characters was deliberately kept slight.