New Fantasy Rules?

Yes it did but characters still gathered experience (Through experience rolls) still started at the bottom and worked their way up to being a Storm Priest of Orlanth for example. Had area based armour more armour for plate less for leather but still able to be overcome by damage.

personally I dont think that Quest Is not any more rules heavy than Games like The Gathering etc. You gain expercience combat is simple, magic is simple. Throw the spell ball no effect if it misses. The spells are simple bolt spell 3 damage etc. There are not a huge plethora of skills. And enough spells to enjoy a rounded system. Things not covered in the basic rules are covered by common sense.

In fact i think new zealand systems are better. I agree with Jared that we have some great systems here and great games. Just not the current player base. Rugby rules supreme. In Europe being surrounded with Casltes and History it is natural to have some form of love for history with a knock off of fantasy and eventually LArps, Ren Faires etc In NEw Zealand we dont have that resource.

Whether the system is better because they get more players however is up for arguement it is just the system they use. I do think that for huge games the system needs to be simplified but not to the point you are aguing for. New Zealand is never going to get thousands of players at a game. However why do ourselves the injustice of using an inferior system.

What we need to do is foster the growth of Larp. Roleplaying would still be a fringe activity without D&D, although roleplaying has matured. I think of new zealand LArp like the 70’s still in its infancy with potential but the need to use an established method to attract player then maybe we can try for the very light un Rules SCA simulation you are promoting.

To be fair, I think Alista was referring to internal balance.

What Stephanie and Ryan are talking about is appeal. You are at an advantage in anything if it appeals to you.

Then again, Derek’s system presupposes that participants have the wherewithal to physrep their character’s gear, and this advantages those who are able to do this vs those that can’t.

It’s one of the reasons we purposefully lower the barriers to entry in Skirmish, to enable anyone who has no gear at all to play (and I mean, they can turn up with nothing at all).

I find the idea that wearing more armour makes you harder to damage in combat is just obvious. I don’t see it as unbalanced in any meaningful way, as anyone can chose to wear more or less armour. If you want to maximise your combat effectiveness in such a system, you have the option of either wearing as much armour as makes you most effective (which may not be complete cover) or using magic.

And the specific rules used (at least in that one-page version of the rules that Derek put up somewhere) are very well adapted to larp. Much better adapted than a Hit Point and Armour Point system.

Basically I can envision it working perfectly for some sorts of larp, and if implemented well I think it could be as popular as any other sort of fantasy rules. Although it may not appeal to exactly the same people.

So does quest we have quest larp weapons and some costume that players can use. However players are encouraged to have some form of costume. But poor uni students tend to be the biggest members or have been historically and cash is not exactly that flush. When they leave for their new jobs out of state you loose player base and have to start afresh with New players. This is why a National game would be great. We lose you gain, you lose we gain. Familiar system to play with and cohesive setting.

As for Appeal. Just because dereks way or the way others are suggesting appeals to those Larpers in this forum does not mean it will appeal to all or even some of the people we want to attract to make this a more regular common passtime with more players. We should be argiung what is best for everyone involved including those people we want to attract.

What system is going to attract the most players. Otherwise we are just butting heads because I like one way you like another.

I think a simple fantasy system done well would attract similar numbers to a complex system. But it might be somewhat different group of people.

It’s not just a system that attracts players, it’s the larp as a whole and how it is communicated.

On a related note, I think it’s wrong to assume that a larp with lower barriers to entry will necessarily attract a larger crowd. Sometimes a lower barrier to entry to reduce the perceived quality. For example, if steel armour representations and a high quality of costuming were required then the look of the larp may attract a large number of people who would otherwise not have come. Same goes for prices in general - if it costs more but those costs contribute to a really attractive larp, then the attractiveness of production may (and I think usually would) outweigh the barrier to entry of cost. Would you rather pay $5 for a movie made by high schoolers or $15 for a great blockbuster? There’s a balancing point for such things, you can’t just minimise.

On the flipside, the same could be said for rules. While a simple rule set lowers the barrier to understanding the larp, if it results in play that is not fulfilling then it will be to the detriment of the larp’s reputation. The real question is therefore not “will people come?” but “will they rave about it to their friends?”. And that depends on a lot more than the rules.

This is what you are purporting. I hit you in the hand your hand is disabled. Oh i have armour my hand is not even scratched. What about the broken fingers from the bludgeoning.

In SCA if you get hit in the hand by a singlehanded sword you are disarmed. SCA stops you from wearing no armour for safety reasons. This does not make a sword swung by someone ineffective. I reckon with a good whack to the knee or the wrist with a single handed arming sword you would disable a knight maybe he would drop weapon due to impact etc.

I am not sure if Derek has fought with real steel full contact no pulled blows. Maybe Rattan I cant comment on your exact histyory and what you have or havnt done but if you have please answer me this how much pain was there from a full force claymore or sword hitting even armoured areas?

Armour does not make you invincible in combat. It merely makes it harder to kill you. That is what Hit point simulate.Two equal commbatants one has armour one not. If it was hit for hit the armoured person wins because they have more hit points simulating the superior defence that armour affords.

It felt believable when play-testing it. What more is needed?

If you are trying to make it realistic it is not. There are certaily people out there that could kill a knight in armour otherwise knights would not have died in wars.

Making a person in platemail or chain invulnerable in combat with another warrior just to get better costuming is not the answer. Armour and costuming needs to be made affordable.

I do not think the system is realistic at all. or even fun. If i hit someone on the hand with a sword i expect either for the blow to count. (Broken knuckes) But if he is armoured I do expect maybe to have to hit him more than he hits me if I am unarmoured.

“Geez he has armour (Only because he has a forge and made it himself) I cant beat him even though i am landing way more hits on him than he is on me. why come. No sense of acheievement I dont want to come back this is a four letter word I wont type here system.”

I don’t think we have the technology to make a realistic combat system that would adequately model a real-life combat.

Instead, we can identify aspects of larp combat that can be promoted and aspects that can be demoted, in terms of our combat model.

On a spectrum that ranges from Unrealistic to Realistic, the metal-armour invulnerability rule would move the armour aspect towards the Realistic end of the spectrum, but not by much.

It’s about what feels OK to use. Ryan’s right, it felt believable, and that means you can immerse yourself in it. Once you can do that, it doesn’t matter if real life physics would disagree, does it ?

I believe you guys have missed the boat on what i am trying to say

What is the point of playing a warrior (Not a mage) without any form of armour (you just cant beat someone with armour in combat at all - pointless) no matter how hard you tried you could be the best swordsmen in the world and you would not be able to beat them short of disarming or grappling them taking their helmet off and slitting their throat (I am sure a lot less safe than having a hit point system making the armoured guy harder to beat to the point that it may take 20 or 30 hits vs 5 with an unarmoured warrior. You had better expect a marathon battle and have stamina and loads of skill to beat even the worst armoured fighter but not invulnerable.

This is not realistic, Fair, enjoyable, or attractive at all. and feels a bit like

Well I have Armour you NOOB your dead. Nope your dead cant hit me at all.

I wouldnt even want to get immersed in combat if i knew it was fruitless. Afterall whats the point of fighting if you cant beat them. Didnt stop the Scottish and they killed their fair share of armoured folks Claymore to the torso can you say Shishkabob.

Unrealistic is what i call it.

Let’s see…

In a system that allows you to choose any kit that you want for your character, as long as you can come up with a background that supports it, you choose:

  • no armour
  • no mage abilities

Haven’t you purposefully gimped your character ?

To me, if you take no armour then in this system you could be a fighter-mage (my preferred class). Assuming that magik is useful against tanks, then you should be OK.

If it turns out you absolutely need to be heavily armoured to survive in this game, then I’d say that they magik system needs reworking, or else some limits need to be introduced on how much armour someone can wear.

I’m not you Mike, I’m not gimping my character and by assuming i am you have already created a disparity by saying dont be a fighter with no armour better be a spell slinger or your toast

You are assuming that others want to be a fighter mage or even cast spells some people want to be a fighter but dont want to be forced to wear armour for a character to survive. Dont have the money to afford armour and cant be bothered with spell casting.

When we play-tested the rules we had unarmoured people against those in torso, arm, and leg armour. We found that while wearing armour helped your chances of survival, an unarmoured person could easily hit you in one of the small gaps in your armour (by using their skill at arms to aim for the gaps, which is what a medieval warrior might well have done) and they would beat you.

So what you’re saying wasn’t true in practice. You seem to assume that “armoured” means armoured from head to toe with no gaps. In practice the vast majority of armour has gaps. So you’re arguing over a tiny minority of cases.

Then the issue is taking hits again which Jared and I have bought up.

With already indomitable ability to take damage and hits. What is to stop an armoured fighter from ignoring a few of the hists that his the areas unprotected? I have personally seen people ignore torsos and say they are legs to reduce the damage taken so they dont die.

At least with Hitpoints it is a little less open to interpretation. At least if you continually pound them they have to go down even if it is a point at a time.

This system is a little more grey.

“No you didnt hit me there sorry”

From about the end of the 14th century, the second most popular way to kill a FULLY armoured knight on a horse was to shoot his horse full of arrows, drag him to the ground and stick a dagger through his occular. You might also knock him on his back with a maul or a bill hook if he was still standing. Poor living conditions, disease and infection was the number one killer. Just prior to plate, arrows (in combination with full time professional soldiers) was also a big killer. After the introduction of gunpowder armour was worn on limbs less because to make it “proof” meant making it too heavy. Soldiers today still typically wear helmets; and vests if their army can afford them. However, there were very few people that were 100% armoured.

I think you are mistaken to assume that people will suddenly get 100% cover. Almost nobody will manage this. I can think of ONE suit of foot armour in RL that is like this. It belonged to Henry VIII and was created for the field of the cloth of gold; and do you want to know something really funny? He never even fought in it!

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My experience with armour suggest to me that if one blow does not injure someone, twenty or thirty similar blows won’t injure them either. That’s a pretty rough statement and there are exceptions, like concussion and breaking fingers, but I’d hold that it is generally true. It’s a bit like dropping a china plate; it breaks or it doesn’t, five small drops aren’t the same as one big drop.

I’ll digress for a moment. When I joined the SCA I built a suit of armour and went to an event in Christchurch. In my forst day of fighting, I didn’t manage to kill anyone. I wounded one person and he eventually killed me. Day two, I got a few kills but I was still dying nine times out of ten. Part of this was because I couldn’t hit hard enough and partly was because I lacked skill. Some people probably think “this system doesn’t work, I’m off!” I didn’t. Getting so completely trashed inspired me to do better. If I’d gone to my first event and WON, I probably would have given up. I would have thought “that was easy, I’ve mastered this, I’m off to find something more challenging”. Maybe we’re just different people when dealing with a situation like that.

Assuming that armour gives you an advantage in combat that allows you to beat someone without armour most of the time, this sense of dissatisfaction will happen under any system. It also assumes that the poor n00b has joined a group of selfish bastards that won’t lend them some equipment when they start playing. This may be what you are used to, but in groups I associate with people lend each other kit and help each other build stuff. Heck I probably give away an average of a suit of armour a year.

Typically, my personal armour has spent more time on other players at larps than on me and I can’t even begin to count the number of people I’ve helped to build armour. I can see a more likely reaction to seeing the effectivness of armour and that is the person decides they want to attend an armouring workshop and build some for themself.

Also, you don’t need a forge to build armour, but I agree that the tools, expense and skills of starting an armoury are beyond what I’d expect from most players.

Ninja123, you seem to have a “glass half empty” attitude to larp. Is there a reason for this? I’ve seen so many different ways of doing stuff in martial arts, larp, sport fighting and reenactment that when I hear of new ways to do stuff I almost always think “that could work, sounds like fun!” But your attitude seems to be “Oh my God! It’s different to what I do so either it is wrong or I am wrong. I must find a way to prove it is wrong so my way is right!” I’m not trying to attack you here, I’m just wondering why you feel such a small thing will have such catastrophic consequences.

There are hundreds of ways of reenacting combat that have wide followings and they all have to balance up different factors to (hopefully) get something that works for them.

Cheating, whether deilberate or accidental, is hard to avoid in any larp system.

I’ve seen so much cheating in Hit Point systems that I’m dumbfounded by your suggestion. Hit Points systems are more open to cheating than anything else I can imagine.

This locational armour system is much harder to cheat at, because it is WYSIWYG. When you hit someone in a Hit Point system, you have no idea how many Hit Points they have left. So they can cheat like crazy and it’s hard to call them on it. But in this locational armour system, when you hit someone you can usually see exactly where you hit them, and whether it landed on armour, so you know what the result of that blow will be. And they know you know. It’s totally transparent.

My amateur psychoanalysis is that some people are focused heavily on creating one big national fantasy larp, and they want it to be like the fantasy larp they’re used to. They see this sort of very simple system as a potential competitor that needs to be taken out of the running.

I hope I’m being left out of that pyschoanalysis.
Yes I would like to see a national larp & am making an attempt at doing so using my meagre experiences.
BUT for pity’s sake don’t include me in the number of people who see this armour system as competition.
I’m on the pick n mix view of things, people will pick the one they want from a selection, so go nuts.

Didn’t mean to sound like I was judging anyone. Just pointing out the hidden context that this discussion is taking place in, that there has been a lot of discussion of nationwide larps of late so it’s probably in the back of people’s minds.