Open worlds and closed worlds

Community Larp discussion
#1

There’s a lot of discussion scattered over various threads about open world and closed worlds.

Open world - you can play any character from anywhere, and it will be worked into the larp somehow.

Closed world - the setting is fairly closely defined, and you have to create characters that fit it.

There are advantages to each.

Open worlds (like the German larps, Lateral Worlds, and to some extent the Gathering) let players be anything. You can have characters from novels, anime, and battle games like Warhammer in a grand crossover alongside original characters. This gives ultimate flexibility to the players and lets them take ongoing characters between any open settings, and use the same gear and background.

The advantage of closed worlds is fiction emulation and closer integration. Most fiction takes part in closed worlds. Multi-dimensional fiction that crosses over with everything is rare (even the Multiverse setting that Mike wants to use has a specific set of dimensional cross-overs, you couldn’t play Warhammer orcs in it). So if you want to play a larp that feels like some fiction you like, most of the time a closed world will get closer. Closed worlds also promote integration between characters, locations, items, and events. In a closed world it’s more likely that you’ll have things in common with other PCs, and having things in common (even if it’s common hatred of each other) makes for reasons for interaction. When the walls are closer together, everyone has to figure out how to relate. Also, in a closed world you can write rules that work perfectly with that specific setting, rather than generic rules that don’t work perfectly with any setting.

Personally I much prefer closed worlds. I like settings that feel real. Infinte mash-up settings don’t feel real to me. I want what everyone is saying and doing to fit together. There’s no reason a closed world couldn’t be used nationally, so long as it inspired enough people to create characters that fit within it. Different locations in the country could be used to represent different parts of the closed world, and be managed by different organisers.

#2

In German larps your character should be based on a medieval / fantasy background. Haven’t seen an anime character or something like that on a German larp, that wouldn’t work.

#3

Really not even Guts from beserk? Who looks like this - http://www.marlkitty.net/img/Berserk_v25c211p101%20copy.jpg

#4

I am really not into that anime stuff and thought of something along the lines of Sailor Moon, but if there is an anime with a certain setting, it might fit, I don’t know. But propably nobody would take you serious if they realise that you adapted a character. It is not common to re-enact someone from novels or comics or movies, some do though and it is along our community regarded as pretty silly. Don’t really understand why, it just has a negative touch. If you take someone from a movie or like that as an ideal lookwise but choose a different background nobody would mind though if you don’t go for the exact costume.

At the last Mythodea, there were a lot of men dressed up as Jack Sparrow (yes, we do have pirates although the setting medieval), and we had fun counting them. They all had good costumes and looked really similar to Jack Sparrow, but some were shorter, some taller, it was so funny. Don’t think anyone really took them serious though.

#5

I like the points made both about open & closed worlds.
There is still a happy medium to be had between the two however.
By having a open world you could include different concepts but also have it closed enough to suit the system. I find people have concepts they like rather than being totally rigid like wanting to play an ork from warhammer.
You can always play an ork who has the mannerisms you want providing he fits the game mechanics.

#6

I like the semi closed world - where the main games are set in a closed environment with the ability to have people from another world join if needs be.

The voidspace theory where characters can travel to different kingdoms.

#7

Most historical periods that people try to reproduce arre not totally closed worlds. There has always been travellers that visited other realms. It is whether you allow the other characters to totally dominate your realm. Even then that is a great campaign.

I agree with the semi closed game. If you go for a toatlly closed game then you are destroying the realism that one is trying to establish.

#8

You can define all of these other realms in a closed world. You can define the whole planet, or whatever the boundaries of the setting are.

For example, Mordavia was a closed world even though it had numerous planes - Mordavia, the outside world of Earth C14, the Demon Realm, the land of Fairie, the Dream Realm, and so forth. A PC couldn’t invent a new world to have come from. And certainly not one borrowed from a fictional source like a fantasy novel.

They could invent towns within Mordavia to come from, but that’s a question of resolution (low resolution invention was okay). Just because a world is closed doesn’t mean you can’t invent within its parameters.

#9

I kind of wish I had got to some of the Mordavia games, I never experienced the game, which I think is a bit of a shame.
I will be keen to talk to Mordavia players about my own little project once I’ve completed a little more.
In fact the Mordavians out there are probably a large portion of my target audience & I am really keen for your input. This thread has already helped me make some decisions, so please people keep posting.

#10

Basically, I reckon this is a good idea.

BUT: GMs may want to make up their own realm and not have to choose from the world pool. At least, I wouldn’t like that. And even if you would enclose in the world all realms that want to join now, there might be new people wanting to organise a game in their own realm, but still be part of the system…

I think I got the point now why a system like that wouldn’t work in NZ as it does in Germany: we just have more people. And the larping people found groups / realms. On the average German larp game you have about 150 PCs, maybe 3 main groups from three realms as guests in the realm the game is set in, which make about 30 people per group and the rest is made up by people from other realms, travelling adventurers or whatever. I guess in NZ you just wouldn’t find the people to make up groups of this size, so the enactment of your group / realm wouldn’t really work, if you understand what I mean? It just works to enact a realm in NZ if everybody, or nearly everybody, is part of it, as you just have so little players…

So my idea: Let’s get more poeple to play larp!!! :smiley:

#11

I say cheers to that.

There are a lot of people out there that play tabletop roleplaying, Magic the gathering etc that could be a potential market and as yet is really untapped.However, i have found it difficult to get them interested because LARP seems to be seen to be even “weirder” and far stranger than what they currently do which is already considered a Geeky fringe activity

#12

It’s probably true that there aren’t enough larpers here for a range of GM and player-created worlds to be fully populated at one event.

But even if there were, it’s not the kind of event I’d prefer. There are plenty of people to do that in the UK, but I’d rather go to a closed world larp like Maelstrom. I just prefer them, I like the consistency they have. I like it when the place that everyone comes from is on the same map, so to speak, so that you know how you relate to each other. And I prefer not to see stuff imported from various sources side-by-side (e.g. LotR-style Gondor warriors alongside Warhammer orcs).

#13

I agree with Ryan. I prefer closed worlds because the experience more closely reflects the vision of the GMs, and because the relationships between entities within the world are defined.

#14

On the other hand, a deliberately comical mash-up can work. Like Flight of the Hindenburg, which brought together lots of different pulp characters who fitted into a 1930’s setting. But all the characters were GM-written there. If they’d been player-created I think it would have just been a mess. And the characters all came from the same world, a heavily mashed-up fictionalised version of the real world. It was a closed world in which characters from disparate settings had been integrated into a cross-over setting. This was workable because all of the characters were originally from fairly similar “pulp” versions of the modern world. Unlikely a fantasy mashup, where the characters are clearly from different planets.

Viktoria, at Mythodea do you have characters from places like Middle Earth and Warhammer’s “The Empire”? Is it explained at all how they are coming together, for example is there some way of travelling between dimensions or worlds? Or is it assumed that it’s possible to get between all the homelands physically (presumably by land or sea)?

#15

Okay, just to clarify things a bit:

In German medieval larp, there is one world (whether one thinks it’s flat or round, depends on the character’s background and knowledge :wink: ). Most countries where characters come from and games are set are the Mittellande (middle lands), which are a sort of fantastic / medieval Europe. We do have a map and there is not much space on in the middel lands left. If you want to create your own realm and set it in the middle lands, you have to get in touch with the association who “manages” the middle lands and get it approved. There are other continents but they are undefined. It is basically as it was in medieval Europe, China was a legend and nobody knew of New Zealand. So it is easy for a character to say he’s from somewhere else. To travel around in this world you can use portals or ships or walk or ride or whatever.

Mythodea was created as a continent very far away from the middle lands and as players we were told how long a ship from the middle lands would take there. Portal travel to Mythodea from elsewhere is not possible. The GM defined the world of Mythodea, like natives and how things with magic or clerical magic work as deities are not very potent and how your spells or prayers work out or not. Mythodea in fact did have a different rule system than the most GMs of the other realms use, you had to adapt your character to it.

We don’t enact worlds like Middle Earth or Warhammer. Surely there are people who enact certain characters (although not really the character itself, just an adaption, and not really with LOTR, that got really unpopular). For example we have Scavens, rat people, who come from Warhammer, but invented a realm for themselves which has certain aspects of a Warhammer world but a certain place on our world map and an own name. Of course there are clashes between for examples Scavens who use a bit of low technical stuff and real medieval re-enactors. But it is all solved ingame. Like the medieval knight who mistrusts an elf because of his strange ears and because he has never seen anything like that in his own realm. It really is no big chaos as you might imagine, just high diversity and a lot of fun.

#16

Sounds like there’s a lot of effort to adapt the various sources into a single world. That’s cool, I’d be happier with that. Is it the same for Drachenfest?

It doesn’t sound like a big inter-dimensional mash-up. But I know that some larps are like that (Lateral Worlds was one). There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not to my personal tastes as settings go.

#17

Yeah, it is about the same with the Drachenfest, although I’ve never been there.

Nah, it really isn’t a mash-up. And always remember that your character is not required to accept everything he sees ingame. You can totally choose how he reacts, curious, ignorant, suspicios, with his sword… :wink:

Really looking forward to see one of your games, but I so wish we could show you one of ours.

It isn’t really. The GM makes up the setting, you make up your character, and the interaction between you and other characters or NPC just happens. Of course, most GMs look carefully at your character story and background to create fitting plots and maybe individual plots. If there are a lot of different characters on a game that don’t get along very well ingame, it’s possible they can’t solve the plot, but well, that’s their problem… :wink:

#18

The great thing about a semi-closed world is it allows input from the players. The organisers of the game ultimately have the final say, but they can get inspiration from many other sources.

In our campaign ideas came from many sources
The combat system and spell system, inspired by Wulfen
The Gods and Druids, Erin
The Trollin, Dave McIsaac
Elemental Mages, Alan Ridge
The New Fighter skills, Bardenzal et al
Black Mages, Jared
The Archer, Ninja123 et al.
and so on.

These people each have had a creative impact on the game, for good I hope. Thanks guys. If we had a closed campaign we would still be on our 2nd ed rules. The concept behind a closed game is that it is complete. All is known by the game organisers. A totally open game, while fun, has no essential feel. A semi closed game allows for strong player input.

#19

Mythodea is a lot more like what I was trying to accomplish with a nationwide game… similiar to the Gathering. Still with a game world but allowing some variation in it and some players also have the ability to create something unique within it if they wanted. Albeit with GM’s approval.

I had a look at the shop and there is fairly inexpensive fantasy plate armour my question though because the shop seems to be in German is whether it is Mild steel? it looks like polycarbonate to me.

#20

Closed worlds are equally able to benefit from player input, it is just that there are some parameters by which input can be considered to be consistent with the setting.

Mordavia had significant player input both in terms of setting and rules.

It’s not true to imply that a closed system is “finished”. Rather, it is “scope complete”. Significant development can take place within the scope of the system, and this can involve players.