One rule to rule them?

Community Larp discussion
#1

I’m kind of on the fringe of this whole Larping lark, having played a couple of games and know plenty of the participants, so I’m by no means an expert, but the recent debates I’ve witnessed on the crucible ruleset has got me thinking…

Now, maybe this has been discussed already, and discarded for good reason, but isn’t it possible to come up with a general set of rules that can be carried across all games? Could the same ruleset not have been ported from Teonn to Crucible to streamline the process? Surely the mechanics for fighting with foam weaponry remain the same at least?

I’m genuinely curious…it just seems like reinventing the wheel each time.

#2

Relevant: xkcd.com/927/

And to answer the question: the Teonn rules were the latest iteration of a rulesset which has become fairly standard across NZ live-combat games (though every game tweaks it, of course). St Wolfgang’s, Teonn, Kingdom, Sabbat, 33AR and TWTI all use variants of this system. Crucible clearly felt it didn’t suit their needs and wanted to do something different.

#3

One thing I like about have slightly differing systems is that your able to give the rules a flavour of the setting, for example sanctuary in St Wolfgangs. But I can see why a standardised rules system could be beneficial, but of course its always up to organisers, and there will always be improvement that people want to make even using the system that past games have used.

#4

Thing is, everyone has different ideas about what they believe a good system should look like. Also, as Prema said, certain settings have their own flavour which doesn’t necessarily translate to other settings.

Having new rules systems developed each game means that over time writers can pick and chose the best of the ideas previously used and then add their own ideas on top, meaning that the systems never become stagnant. What one game might do poorly, another game might then find an excellent solution.

By and large there are some ‘core rules’ that have worked well in the past, or are so familiar to everyone that they’re easy to keep.

#5

In NZ, for better or worse, rules tend to stick pretty close to campaigns.

This is in stark contrast to groups like the Auckland based DG Guild. One of the things I like about the DQ (DragonQuest) RPG is the shared game and rules. Players keep their characters for many years and anyone can GM games using the world and rule set.

#6

There would certainly be benefits in not having to learn multiple rule sets for different games. However, I think there is a greater detriment; stagnation. Larp communities all across the world are experimenting with new things in larp, rules included. I think it’s important to ditch the rules that don’t work for your larp, and come up with or pick out the rules that suit, or work better for, your larp.

#7

We have been running the same basic rule set for 20 plus years now. During that time there has been a slow evolution of the system (New Character classes and skills) which has led to a very well rounded/developed system. Because of our longevity and evolution we have one or two features which we like, but are unique to our system. The basic system has been “borrowed” by about five or six other groups. There is another LRP using rules based on ours and we are hoping to make their characters compatible and usable in the main campaign. One reason that our rule set is different from the Auckland based games is because we pre-exist all other current games in New Zealand. We had to develop the whole concept of Live Role Play in Hamilton from scratch with no outside ideas or help. We do not want to give up a system that works well just because there is a newer system. Also the aims of our games are different. We are still a first gen of LRP. As has been noted our style of game is very combat heavy. This is because we are trying to do a live version of the classic D&D dungeon crawl. This is part of the reason why we have different weapons and different rules.