Huge larps - your ideal?

Community Larp discussion
#28

Anyway, the point is that Mordavia is over as a campaign and as a story and that it was decided, almost unanimously, that there is no point in churning out a sequel.

The ‘fantasy/Mordavia will attract lots of people!’ discussion is an old and boring one. If someone strongly feels that a big fantasy game is going to be the instant and roaring success that we need, then they need to get off their ass and actually write and organize a good, original, interesting setting and set about running it.

GMing is just as fun as playing, shit or get off the pot. Better yet, get toilet trained.

#29

Basically, Ryan wants to draw a line under it.

The Dark One, and integral component of the mystery and excitement in the game, was defeated once-and-for-all, so a huge aspect of the game was resolved.

Running a game in the without the Dark One would be, frankly, lame.

I like your idea about a game that spans Orkland and Hamiltonia. I had the good fortune to spend some time in Memorial Park a couple of weeks ago, hadn’t been there since I was a kid. What an awesome place to have a larp !

#30

Ok so re-use of the ruleset is not out of the question? I’d personally love to help run a game but barely have time to play myself.
I like generic high magic fantasy over virtually all else, it is maybe old & over used but I like it damn it.

#31

Adapting the rules is fine. 2014 uses an adapted version of the Mordavia engine.

#32

So does St. Wolfgang’s.

#33

But the crux of the matter is, does anyone want to run a fantasy game of some type, since this is a highly favored genre, all else aside? I’d love to but don’t have much time to do so.
Mordavia based rules or Quest or something new is not the real issue but do people think Mordavia sized turnout is possible if this was to be attempted?

#34

This is, again, treading over old ground. Several ideas for new fantasy campaigns have sprung up, received attention and promptly vanished into obscurity without a word from their organizers. The issue is not lack of desire to run a new fantasy game, it is someone coming forward who is willing to lobby an interesting idea for a new campaign and then stick with it for more than a few weeks.

#35

These are valid points. I’ll have to network this line of thought further I guess. Generic high fantasy here we… err… come…

#36

I think if you want to have a really big larp battle in NZ you need it to be as simple and encompassing as possible. It needs to be attractive to as many of the existing larp and re-enactment groups as possible. There are dozens of groups all over NZ that would probably participate if it was billed correctly.

I believe that you could pay for the whole event from food and beverage sales.

I’d suggest that you could probably get a lot of the existing groups attending if you offered the following:

  • weekend event with the focus on “The Big Battle” on Saturday afternoon
  • free camping
  • free breakfast
  • a licensed Inn (beer tent) where you buy beer, cider and food when you want it
  • a VERY simple ruleset (if you’re hit, you die and must return to your campsite, where you can come alive again)

Many existing events require pre-booking and/or charge a premium for door sales - this is a barrier to attendance. It mitigates risk, but it is still a barrier to attendance.

#37

The venue would have to be pretty cheap for that to work, I think. Basically a big field somewhere hired for the campout. Facilities would be the major issue with a venue like that. I’ve looked into hiring whole camping sites, it’s tricky as most of them are open to public bookings and don’t do private functions.

One problem with your suggestion is that when people are camping, many of them are happy to cook for themselves and bring their own alcohol. That’s what most people do at the big larps in the UK, although there are restaurants and bars on-site as well. So the income from sales might not cover the venue. Also, it woudl be easier to let third party “vendors” do catering than try to organise it all centrally.

#38

In my first three years of LARP in the UK I played Lorien Trust games (Simple system)

Lorien Trusts Game world is massive and supports a player base of over 5000 people.

The Main Event 'The Gathering" Is always the same time each year is a four day event culminating with a huge battle of up to 1500 - 2000 people one each side. There are an amazing array of side p[lots going on dues to the size of the event.

In the year leading up to the event there are faction Moots, smaller events that each faction has of their own with their own faction side plots. All culminating with “The gathering of nations”

This style of system would work splendidly in New Zealand. Localised LARP groups using the same game system would be the equivalent of a Faction in The Lorien Trust game. With their own agenda’s. Players would have the benefit of being able to transfer characters to other groups because the system would be the consistent with each other. (Skills, Experience). Social Organisations could be the same across the country etc.

A Church could have yearly conclaves, Mages Guilds could meet, Assassins could meet in secret with their own plots.

At a particular time of the year all groups across the country could meet at a place that never changes for a gathering, culminating in a large battle. It gives everyone time to save for travel and take leave from work for the event.

The Localised/National nature would allow for bigger games but still allow local Identity and game uniqueness as each area would have their own plots. There would have to be collaboration between the games masters though.

What do you think?

Hamiltonia Forever
Count Drax D’Armagnac Out….

#39

I think … I think, you’re nor really a ninja! 8)

#40

Yeah a big open park area was where the Gathering was. It had Portaloos, Food, In character inn and Tavern, Merchants. Each Faction had their own area to camp. There was an in character Jail, Summoning circles etc. Very fun

But was a little expensive.

We would need a farm that someone did not mind us using and would need to be central to all groups. Maybe Wellington/ Taranaki etc. Although with the number of players in Auckland It may make more sense there since plane travel is reall inexpensive nowadays to that Hub.

#41

Here’s a trailer from one of the world’s biggest larps, Conquest of Mythodea in Germany. Around 5000 players at events.

uk.youtube.com/watch?v=yZa-V6t6K … re=related

I like the medieval feel of the start. Some over-dramatic acting further in, but overall an impressive sense of scale.

#42

Out of curiosity, was it the individual goals that each player had that would have made it unmanagable?
How do the large games in Europe work then, team/faction goals instead or such?

#43

There were lots of factors:

  • managing individual goals for players, and trying to tie them into the setting and ongoing events as much as possible, gets more difficult in a non-linear fashion the more players you have. For every additional player you have, they need to be tied into all the other player’s activities.

  • yes, large larps overseas are more faction-based. Mordavia had some factions that typically formed around nobles. That helps because GMs can tie a whole group into ongoing events, but we preferred to also have individualised integration as well.

  • leaving goals and integration aside, there are logistic issues with larger events. The amount of gear required (creating it, storing it, transporting it, maintaining it), the size of venue required, catering, etc. The large European events tend to involve everyone camping out in a field (with port-a-loos), players providing most of the gear you see (because there are few NPCs), players often cooking for themselves (or third-party catering), etc. All geared towards minimising per-player effort on the part of the organisers.

  • also, the faster you grow the harder it is to maintain the play culture you’re aiming for. New players show up who might wanna smack monsters or integrate stuff from Everquest that doesn’t belong, that sort of thing. The more of them there are arriving, the harder it is for the existing players to maintain the vision.

#44

sorry but LOL

300 = large?

Seriously… you guys have it good with small larps. Sure big larps are a barrel of laughs but at the end of the day you only end up socialising with your faction and a few key people from another anyway. Its no different to being in a small larp but with more crew.

Don’t cry plan a trip to europe and do a big one. Realise its alot of fun but that I am right.

Then realise it ain’t gonna happen here for a long time.

Got the t-shirt?

Cool - now get recruiting so we can have constant 40man larps. Much more fun in the long run even tho I voted big larps are better :wink: They are - like once a year. 40 mans once a month are alot better :slight_smile:

#45

300 would be large for NZ. Even on a world scale 300 isn’t small, it’s larger than the average larp. The huge majority of larps in the world have less than 100 players. And 300 would certainly feel fairly large, in terms of not being able to know everyone and having capacity for a number of groups and sub-groups.

As for 1000+? There are only a dozen or so regular larps of that size in the world, maybe less. In the UK, the Gathering may have two or three thousand (although they claim more), but Renewal only has 1000 or so, less by some accounts. The biggest larps at the moment are in Germany, with two annual larps of 5000 people each.

I’ve been to Maelstrom in the UK, the event had around 800 players. It was nothing like a “small larp with more crew”, it was an entirely different species of larp and the size played a big role in that. From what I’ve heard about the Gathering it fits your description, and it doesn’t make much use of its size except for big battles. By many accounts it is a bit shit.

So it’s what you do with it that matters, I think.

#46

Hey hey :slight_smile: It has been a long time since i had a look at this forums (shame, shame on me :blush: )

About huge larps and lotsa people: the larp i used to attend was Vampire the Mascarade in Europe. I remember having more than 300 people… khm… sorry VAMPIRES gathering in a theatre hall. It was fun, and it was extremely hard work for the organizers. Certain towns had their larper base, and they played their own larps on weekly bases (or fortnightly, or whatever). Once in a month, or once in two months, one of the towns called out for a countrywide larp event that was hosted by them. The key to be able to play together was this: the organisers kept in contact during the year, and let each other know about the main events of every town. The main characters, e.g. Prince and the primogens of certain towns were accepted and acknowledged by other towns’ players, so names, characters, even other town’s events happened to be built into the stories sometimes. So whenever it came to the countrywide event, the players might knew other players by character name, or at least they knew the Prince of every town, and some other main characters - this basic knowledge was really handy to get along with other players, it also generated some mini stories during the big event, etc.

So I have no clue if it is possible to organise One Huge Event that gathers all the larpers of the country, but i know that its possible to manage if there are other larpers in other towns with their own idea on the same world - and you unite them by crossing the storylines from time to time.

Is there anything like that here in NZ?

#47

The relevant population is probaly French-speaking Canadians. Wikipdia suggests that’s about 31% of the Candian population, so about 10 million people. So not too far out.

Though of course that assumes fluent speakers. How much of a language do you need for a LARP?