New Fantasy Rules?

A couple of corrections

The refinement was in the line above the quoted section namely “The above may be the reason that some people play some Role Play Games”. This changes the question from what people percieved as ‘Why do people play Role play games?’ to 'Of all the Role Play Games why do people play D&D?" which is the actual intent of the question. this is therefore a refinement of the question.

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
This whole “I’m not going to explain my opinion” might be zen to you, but it is getting tiresome to me. If you aren’t going to answer my questions, then just say so.[/quote]
I am asking a question of the Live Role Play community. While I know some people would like it that all the answers were printed on a test sheet or an exam paper, it does not actually convey any information to anyone.

If you don’t know the answer, just say that you don’t know the answer.

Ninja 123 :
Agree

Anna K :
Then why is D&D popular?

I take it that you use boutique to mean “doesn’t resemble live D&D very much”? In that case then I sure hope so. I much prefer that sort of larp, at whatever scale. Surely you can’t be be using boutique to mean small.

Quest is based off D&D. It seems to take the approach that you think should create the largest larp. So why is it so tiny?

I know the answer of why the venerable D&D is still very popular: it’s fun.

However, once again you ignore my question:

If you don’t know the answer, just say that you don’t know the answer.

I reckon you can’t comparing pen & paper rpg and larp? There are elemental differences…

But now where is the problem, I don’t see it.

Because it lets you play a role, and it helps you create that role through the means it has available to it - stats and dice.

When it comes to larp, we have so much more to make a character with thatn our character sheet. Our entire self becomes a canvas which we can use to protray a character. DnD uses stats and dice to create a world and interaction. In larp, we have a plethora of people to do that.

Thus, since in DnD stats create your character and define their world, it is understandable that people chase after stats to improve their character and their world. In larp, we don’t need to chase stats, because the character no longer only exists as an arbitary construct of numbers on paper, you make your character to exist. In larp, it’s roleplaying that changes your character and their fortune, because larp takes it off the page and removes the reliance on statistics.

All DnD has are numbers to create a world. Larp has almost everything else.

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]
Quest is based off D&D. It seems to take the approach that you think should create the largest larp. So why is it so tiny?[/quote]

It is based on D&D and Palladium, thank you.

The other question is, why is it so small at the moment? We play on a more the merrier basis. We are happy to play with between 6 and 100 players. It was originally designed for 10 to 20 players but can handle more. Compared to when we had between 75 and 100 regular players we are in a slump. A major part of the reason to your question is the fact that we have been going 18 years or so. When you go this long you go through pulses. We know how we got here and have a plan to keep going. See you on the other side

Being the first product in a product space to be marketed counts for a lot. You may think the product and the marketing are poor, but if a potential customer hasn’t heard of anything else, they will pick the only product they have heard of.

With success has come better marketing. But without the initial marketing, there would never have been any initial sales. Marketing is not just running ads on TV and radio, it is anything that brings the product to the attention of the potential consumer. This can be warnings in the Church weekly newsletter, word of mouth, a booth at a comic convention - whatever.

Gary Gygax marketed D&D better than anyone else marketed a competing product. When the potential consumer eventually saw the product in a comic shop, they were confronted by a wealth of material with glossy covers. They had heard of the brand and they voted with their wallets.

Even when games that came out that were technically “better” they could never knock D&D off the number one position.

D&D then kept the brand alive by introducing newer versions of the produce but always retaining those three magic words “dungeons and dragons”.

If you really wanted to make a larp successful, you’d call it “Dungeons and Dragons - Live”. You’d get on TV for free and you’d be in court by the end of the week :wink:

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]

If you don’t know the answer, just say that you don’t know the answer.[/quote]

Simple, it is designed to advantage one particular group of players and therefore to disadvantage all other players.

By the way. fair to middling means it is successful, just not huge, which from the feed back is a desired state for such a game.

I agree there are all forms of LARP

But for most people in the world Live roleplaying is an extension or hybridisation of tabletop roleplaying ie Masquerade etc. Rules, Experience, Drama and roleplaying.

I believe to attract more the largest possible player base a system needs to cater to all people not just the players that want Roleplaying in its purest form to be catered for. We also need to cater to the people that maybe want experience, rules, loot character advancement in a no biased system which i believe is our untapped market.

This system would attract the largest player base, because i am sure as a purist you could see the greater picuture and see through the rules helping people to hone the roleplaying aspect story and dialogue in game.

Seen the topic on game creation everyone?
Rules provide framework with which to interact, D&D provides a framework & one that is well marketed but also well accepted & real easy to access. If only I had spend the money I spent on D&D on larp, I’d have a ton of gear.
I believe there are some pretty big larps out there with crap rules in comparison to some of New Zealands.
Quest & Mordavia (and its subsequent offspring) are 2 great examples of good fantasy rules, both of which were very popular in their time.
Quest could do with some glossy covers & marketing but doesn’t have Gary Gygax, just a very dedicated Alista Fow, a dedication which most Quest players are very greatful otherwise we wouldn’t have squat here in Hamilton.
Mordavia has finished it’s campaign & never had one in Hamilton but from what I heard it’s players loved it.
I’m attempting to add another game to the manifold in the format of much loved fantasy games before it. I’m going to market the crap out of it & hope & pray this works. I won’t even bother with universal appeal, it just can’t be done, this thread is proof.

With less rules you still get a framework but one which relies on players to fill the gaps, which could be a good thing, it may not be, only time will show for sure. Market it. It may just work. Another game on the Manifold. Sweet.

Agree with Ninja

Actually what I’d be after is getting buy in from the biggest segment of fantasy larpers I can manage so that I could have a national larp system.
I will attempt this by leaving some rules out to appeal to players of roles & leave a whack of them in to please the role-playing gamers.
WEEEEEEE!

Aha, so you are saying that D&D has done very well because it is balanced !

I agree that this is a real risk in this game. If it turns out that becoming an armoured tank is easy, and they are practically invulnerable to attack, then the imbalance could affect the popularity of the game.

However, there are a few unknowns. These include:

  • spells that are useful against tanks may be relatively easy to acquire and use
  • the internal systems in the game (ie. implementation of the the design patterns that Ryan has posted about) may be such that some challenges can be resolved without the need for combat, so the advantage of being a tank is ameliorated.

So, while I agree with the risk you identified, I do not think there is enough information at present to determine whether the risk will result in imbalances.

[quote]However, there are a few unknowns. These include:

  • spells that are useful against tanks may be relatively easy to acquire and use
  • the internal systems in the game (ie. implementation of the the design patterns that Ryan has posted about) may be such that some challenges can be resolved without the need for combat, so the advantage of being a tank is ameliorated.
    [/quote]

So then that’s what we’re all arguing about then, the unknown? No I’m kidding. Maybe we need those answers to fully appreciate this argument.
Yes no maybe?

[quote=“Alista”]Simple, it is designed to advantage one particular group of players and therefore to disadvantage all other players.[/quote]So? D&D is designed to advantage the players who enjoy reading vast tracts of background material and memorising encyclopaedia length rules. Oh, and doing obsessive number-crunching on a regular basis. I don’t call that balanced, either.

This is so true. I played a D&D campaign recently, and I couldn’t compete in terms of effectiveness with the people who really studied the rules. I dropped out because it was too much combat and number-crunching for me. Not what I roleplay for at all.

I never said it was balanced at All. Jared could attest to my cheesiness at times. I am saying that sort of system of character progression, experience, loot and level up for ease of a paragraph to explain is what Most Tabletop players (who are non LARPers) expect and like.

So making a balanced system which is what the argument is about that has what players would like and will help attract the largest possible player base. This would take LARP in NEw Zealand out of the Doldrums (Just look at Europe and the States) as a Minority and have it compete for customer base with Tabletop gaming (I guess this is not too un PC after all it is the playersbase we are after)

And yes agreeing with Jared. I would have a full chain and plate harness and the best LARP gear in the world including probably solid gold Celtic Torcs if i capitalised my Tabletop roleplaying collection.

Also to agree with others I do not think that D&D was the best system either. Just the most numerously played game . Personally I am a fan of Runequest.

Larp does not Need to be a game of number crunching but needs to suipport a system that at least has some sort of rules.

Hey I could play Dereks game and go and buy some Togas and say i am a Roman god come join my religion or I will smite everyone. No one is going to take me seriously because there are guideline which is what rules represent… I could make up the cheesiest Roleplaying character ever (And believe you me they are) and take them into a starter D & D game and be laughed out too (I have tried) This is why rules were invented to make a game relkatively realistic and fair (although D&D has been warped somewhat over time especially after WOTC took over. Great system prestige classes (hmm some reservations)

I dunno about RPGs but if you want a successful LARP with almost no rules, try “Cowboys and Indians”.

For that matter, the fantasy larps in Sweden have similarly simple rules to Derek’s (or simpler). They get hundreds of people at most events, and thousands at some.

Which demonstrates that there is no reason a whole lot of people can’t get turned on by a rules-light larp.

Mmmm, Runequest II was my favourite RPG. You only needed the basic rulebook to play ('though some of the campaign material was pretty helpfull too).

The early editions were written by a couple of guys in the SCA who didn’t like the D&D combat system. They compiled the combat fumble table from their experiences on the SCA battle field :slight_smile: Things like “hit nearest friend” and “armour falls off”. I really enjoyed the way hit locations, armour types, dodging and parrying all worked.

The magic was very vanilla, but in terms of a ruleset, it’d be the best RPG I ever played by far. Pretty much any non-normal contest could be resolved by doing a STAT vs STAT roll.