NERO - Merits and Demerits

Community Larp discussion
#1

I’ve started this thread to take the discussion of NERO away from the Community In Crisis thread because I can see it veering it vastly off topic.

[quote=“FauxCyclops”]I would also like to chime in about the comment regarding running a NERO game with the intent of drawing in new people.

neroatlanta.com/nero/

I don’t think there is a single word I can use to encompass how bad of an idea it is to use NERO at all, much less perceive it as a simple system that is easy for new people to get their heads around. The NERO rulebook is nothing short of an epic monstrosity, with multiple kinds of elves, two magic handbooks, and a separate pamphlet of rules for each of its eleven official playable races.

NERO is also responsible for the photos of furry players and the “Lightning Bolt, Lightning Bolt” video, both of which garner more derision towards the hobby than anything else in the history of the genre.[/quote]

[quote=“Carl”]
I had a feeling that the comment about NERO was going to be met with derision[/quote]

Okay, go!

#2

I personally don’t like the NERO system, but there is much in it to inspire fantasy Live Role Play. Now if only we could hook up the good things in NERO to a good LRP system.

I’d rather have a successful NERO campaign than no large scale fantasy campaign at all. If you think it crap, don’t dump on it, get a better campaign going.

#3

Working on it

#4

Cool !

#5

To me, NERO seems astronomically rules-heavy.

That makes it excellent for young players, inclined toward powergaming and rules-lawyering. People who have enough time to spend hours learning the minutae. The same people, in fact, for whom AD&D is good.

However, as I played role-playing games more and more, I moved towards less rules-heavy systems and more into the role-play aspect of it all. This may be just my personal preference.

Simpler systems that can be picked up fast appeal to people without the amount of free time necessary to learn complex systems. People who are more attracted by the role-playing aspect will be put off by a complex ruleboook.

NERO looks like it will attract tabletop players and AD&D players, people used to rules-heavy competitive systems. This doesn’t make it bad, it just makes it a system for people of that mindset. Similarly, Nibbles (eg) will attract people who are more in the Role-playing freeform mindset, and will appear horribly random to the NERO crowd.

The whole point of NZLARPS is that we promote and support BOTH types, as they appeal to different people. No value judgements as to which is ‘better’ as you are comparing different things aimed at different people - it is by definition a personal choice.

So, by all means run a NERO game and attract the tabletoppers. We’ll support you. Alternatively, run a freeform game and attract the artsy crowd. We’ll support that too. We want everyone to be larping, after all - it doesnt matter which genre. In fact , the more variety we have, the more range of people we can attract into the society.

#6

Steve’s point makes me think of an interesting question,

Alista -

This bewildered me. The Auckland LRP scene, by and large, seems to deplore large and unweildly rulebooks and complex systems such as NERO and as Steve says, it is these systems that lend themselves to powergaming and rules-lawyering.

The reigning philosophy up here that I’ve noticed is “Can’t munch rules that aren’t there!” and more often than not, there is an atmosphere of “Spirit of the rule rather than the letter of the rule” encouraged. We’re here to tell a story, not win a game, right?

Given our tendency for rules-lite, role-play heavy games, how do we come across as powergamers? While we’re at it, how do you define “powergamer”? (I’ve had debates with people who defined powergamer completely differently to me, so our discussion never got anywhere)

#7

Part of the benefit of a rule-heavy system is that - if well designed - it can control powergamers. A rules-light system, like Mordavia, in part relies on you controlling yourself.

In the past, certain Mordavian powergamers (you know who you are!) were controlled by the GMs being able to rule on the spot (as there was nothing in the rulebooks to be argued). I don’t think the system in any way let them ‘run amok’, though, and they were certainly not actively encouraged by the GMs.