Og?

I was heading towards Ryan’s idea, although I thought we might just assign armour points based on what people had in their costume.

As far as teaching words goes, the RPG allows word teaching under very restricted circumstances. I was not going to allow it at all. The RPG is also much more restrictive on vocabulary, where your vocabulary is controlled by your intelligence and 18 is the Maximum. Some characters can have only one word…

I thought we might give everyone the whole vocabulary, but maybe a Smart caveman could have an extra word (you choose what), and the Banging Caveman could have one less (you choose which).

Tough caveman: +1hp, can use 2h weapons
Fast caveman: can run away (like Wild Evade)
Smart caveman: can draw, 1 extra word,
Banging caveman: 1 less word, can do double damage, stupid

I’m trying to avoid the requirement to should ‘double’ as you bang someone. Maybe shout ‘bang!’ when you cause double damage, like if you’re the banging caveman or tough with 2h weapon?

Also, may just merge the Tough and Banging cavemen together.

Most of the character stuff in the RPG disappears in LARP since its part of your character’s personality.

I reckon you could do away with the evasion skill and the double damage. Just let people actually run and let them buy different length weapons rather than doing different damage. Weapon length makes a massive difference, especially when there are no shields.

I’m trying to tie it in to the original rules as much as possible, so that is why the different ‘classes’. The ‘evade’ would be the analogue of giving the character double movement points. Banging caveman could have 2 weapons (as single damage), but strong caveman could have a 2-h club.

I also thought of getting rid of 'pointy thing’s entirely, and having just club (1h weapon), big club (2h weapon), and rock (thrown).

The RPG doeshave shields, although I’m not sure if they should be in the game. Also, there is no healing at all in the game.

I was thinking that, instead of healing, I could do it this way.

If you reach 0 hp, then you fall unconscious. You can come back to life (with full HP) after either 1 minute, or having water splashed in your face (more fun that way), or being taken back to the medicine man. However, if you are made unconscious, then you lose one word from your vocabulary. At random. Muahaha.

This is more a puzzles/communication/comedy game than a combat one, I wouldnt expect much combat at all except between players. The main reason for this, is that it is really hard to make a dinosaur costume.

I have started on a draft scenario, which requires a minimum of NPCs. Its called “Smelly!!!”.

Ideal would be about a dozen players and 4 or so NPCs. Might even be able to make many NPC roles as players.

Costumes would be easy. Wear a pair of shorts (for modesty, if you have any), and make an over-the-shoulder caveman thingy out of leopard-skin print furry fabric or that cheap furry fleece stuff. More daring females can make coconut lingerie, or else do something similar of course. Bone in hair, skirt of sticks, no problems.

For throwing rocks, could use tennis balls covered in foam and sprayed grey. Maybe a strong cavman could use an extra-big rock (football covered in foam etc)?

Clubs would just be simple large boffer clubs.

Hey, maybe move this into ‘One-off LARPs’ since the odds are its going to happen.

I like the idea of just different size clubs and rocks. Nice and simple.

I’m not really sure what the point of armour is in a game like this, or how it would get repaired. Maybe just skip it entirely?

I like the “throw water over face” way of reviving people, nice and cartoony. And it takes out all “healing during fights” concerns if you can only be revived after you’ve been knocked out.

You could do away with Hit/Health Points entirely and just say that any hit knocks you out. Especially if it’s not about the combat. Again, more cartoony that way.

I don’t reckon you should worry to much about sticking to the original game in terms of abilities, just take the spirit of it. A lot of tabletop stuff really doesn’t transfer well to LARP. The evade skill doesn’t work terribly well.

Hmm, I really want to keep evasion and double-damage in there because they are the essence of the ‘Fast caveman’ and ‘Banging caveman’ character classes. I don’t want to over-simplify… but it may come to that.

As far as weapons go, I think small and big clubs and rocks is the way to go. Only Stong cavemen can use big rocks, though. Need to find some old tennis balls and footballs to cover in foam and spray grey…

I’ll start on a costume some time, and see if I can’t give a rough pricing for people to do it for themselves. At least it can be very rough, they didnt have sewing machines in those days!

Anyone got any coconut shells?

Also, I really need a venue to run the game. A beach with caves and some trees behind would be the best (hmm, maybe the far end of Piha beach would be perfect? But that’s too far away…) There were a couple of suggestions earlier, maybe give a more detailed explanation of where to find these places…

Also, once we get this thread moved to ‘One-off games’, then a more definite indication of people numbers and how much you’d be willing to shell out for a day game, would be good. I’m going to need a whole lot of new props for this one!

This sounds like a hoot to me. How long are you planningto run it? a few hours? a week? Please keep me posted.

R

In January, ish. A one-off afternoon game, probably have to be a Sunday. If it gets really popular then more of them.

The name of the beach I was talking about is Karekare.

It’s near to Piha, but the distance is worth it for the caves. Carpooling.

Look just south of Piha:

wises.co.nz/map/?d=0&svctype=1&id=57420%7C2

It’s not very busy compared to most west coast beaches. I think that might be because it has dodgy surf and no lifeguards.

If you visit, I think the caves are on the right of the public entrance (when you’re facing the sea). There are several caves along the cliff face, the largest being at least 6 meters x 10 meters and around 3 meters high. They have sand floors, and I think the rock is scoria. You can’t see the sea from the caves, I think, and there is a swampy area in between.

Oh, and the beach scenes from The Piano were filmed there.

with the amour, and this would make it more special as well, is you could have an NPC come past every now and again as an animal, which would be wearing the animal hyde. If you manage to kill it (it has plenty of hit points and can away quickly) you get 1 hit point healed from its meat and you get the hyde, which adds 1 amour point.

Karekare sounds good, and if it is full of mundanes, then the far end of Piha is not too far away.

To get there, I could hire a minibus and have people pay a couple of $ for a ride from the nearest place on the route (eg - pick up from auckland central, Ryan’s place, and all stops to Piha…) That would be about $5 a head, though, I think, at least. I know my UK driving license lets me drive a minibus, I dont know about my NZ one…

I’ve got to get some funding from NZLARPS to help pay for all the props this will need, although of course LARPS will end up with a bit of gear from it.

Here is the first draft of the LARP versions of the rules. I’ll update it as things go on.
http://www.steveshipway.org/writings/Og.doc

Let me know your opinions, etc.

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]The name of the beach I was talking about is Karekare.

It’s near to Piha, but the distance is worth it for the caves. Carpooling.

Look just south of Piha:

wises.co.nz/map/?d=0&svctype=1&id=57420%7C2

It’s not very busy compared to most west coast beaches. I think that might be because it has dodgy surf and no lifeguards.

If you visit, I think the caves are on the right of the public entrance (when you’re facing the sea). There are several caves along the cliff face, the largest being at least 6 meters x 10 meters and around 3 meters high. They have sand floors, and I think the rock is scoria. You can’t see the sea from the caves, I think, and there is a swampy area in between.

Oh, and the beach scenes from The Piano were filmed there.[/quote]

Are you sure the name of the beach you’re thinking of isn’t Karekare? Maybe its Whatipu? Karekare doesn’t have any decent caves I can think of, and there is no swampy bit before the sea, just about 150 metres of sand dunes.
The Whatipu caves are much better and theres a sting of about 3-4 all fairly close together and quite large.

This is Whatipu looking North.

The car park is just off the picture about centre right. The caves are along the base of the mountain top right, facing the sea.

Whatipu looking East:

You can see the car park on the centre right of the picture and the caves are around the corner of the mountain on the left.

This is one of the caves:

Inside another cave:

You might be right, I went there around 10 years ago so it’s a bit fuzzy. Your description and the photos match pretty closely to what I remember.

Those pics look good.

So… where is Whatipu then? Near karekare?

wow! I’ve been to those caves. They’re great. Though go vis the beach and not the swamp. God damn it crossing the swamp is not fun.

In the rules, you talk about having the word ‘sky’ (“for example, ‘sky’ can be used to mean ‘up’”), yet sky isn’t in the full word list.

Rules

  • You may want to emphasis that this is a “cartoon caveman” game. It’s based on popular misconceptions of early humans, not scientific evidence.

  • You don’t state how many words characters get by default

  • the Banging caveman class seems underpowered compared to the Strong caveman class, assuming you’re aiming for balance. I can’t see any reason you’d want to play Banging as written unless you had some perverted desire to use two clubs.

  • Perhaps the Fast caveman class could say something like “go go go” when he wants to get away from things? That way he’s only using the standard word list.

  • Maybe when you Bang someone they get knocked down rather than taking extra damage? Or immediatley reduced to 0? I hate math in live combat.

Clubs

If we can make these so they’re usable for other LARPs that’d be ideal (i.e. not too cartoony). I have a decent idea of how to make some. Fibreglass core, then an outer core of closed-cell foam, then a surface of open-cell foam.

Oops, thats what comes from trying to do 2 things at once and rush it. I meant ‘sun’, not ‘sky’.

When I started talking about ‘banging cavemen’ and hunting dinosaurs, I thought it would be obvious this wasn’t supposed to be historically accurate :slight_smile:. However, I can certainly add that.

By default, I’m giving characters all the words. It would just be too difficult to communicate at all otherwise.

Banging caveman can do double damage, and use 2 weapons. I think this is a fairly hefty advantage. I’ve tried to give everyone two advantages.

I like the ‘go go go’ idea, much better. It also lets a pursuing Fast caveman show that he, too, is fast.

The original rules let banging caveman do more damage, and I’d prefer to stick to that. I know you don’t like damages to be anything other than 2hp, but thats just a difference of opinion I guess. A knockout wouldnt be any good since that is effectively a kill. And reducing to 0 would be like doing 7 damage to a fully armoured strong caveman…

I definitely would want any clubs to be reuseable in other games. Any ideas on how best to make them gratefully received. I was hoping to dump the problem on our gear librarian… also, since we’ll probably have to make a few of these (players can make their own, or mug another caveman…), I don’t want it to cost LARPS too much.

Strong cavemen get Bang (by using a 2H club), extra health, and no loss of words (despite the fact that is says they have little brain).

Banging cavemen get Bang, can use two weapons, and loose a word.

So the only reason you’d choose Banging is that you want to use two weapons. Or you don’t want to use a longer weapon, which is unlikely. You’d have to be pretty silly (or focused on having two weapons) to choose Banging.

How can Smart cavemen choose an extra word if everyone gets them all?

I like the trade in beanie babies.