Open worlds and closed worlds

Community Larp discussion
#28

Supposing you’re right, can I come play a killer robot driving instructor who travels back in time for some reason at the next Quest game? She’ll probably also be a Viking princess, Darth Vader’s other long lost daughter and a worshiper of Cthulhu.[/quote]

I know you are picking a really extreme example . If you had to play this really limited character, had only 3 months to live, I just got laid and at least three planets are in alignment we would probably settle on a character based on a Iron Golem. If you want you can train people to drive wagons, but it seems pointless and people would laugh at you. If you wanted to pay the CP you could be a Count. If you want to pass that off as being a princess of one of the costal raiding tribes what the hell. the King will probably have you executed for impersonating nobility or being above your station. I could write a couple of modules about that. Darth baby is a well known Dark elf mage and we wouldn’t normally allow you to attach to a known character or NPC, but as I said if you have three months to live then it probably won’t have a long term impact on the game. We have had the occasional Cthulh worshiper in the game (Along with clerics of the Walking God, the God of Orcs, the God IRiS and other weirdball religions.) However as the Cthulhu Mythos is not in our game it will give your character no benefits.

Because you chose such an extreme example, you would end up with a very weak charcter, with predefined and limited skills, probably no or limited advancement and who would be on the run and executed as soon as spotted . While permanent death is difficult in our system, it is not impossible.

I, personally, would advise you to take a non-guild Dark Elf if you wanted to take that course.

#29

I would like to think that a long term game with the structure Ryan and others are wanting and a great system could work. Then you could transfer your character between the games and have much more scope. A Closed Diatribe writers forum where each writer interracts with each other talking about what is happening in different areas and where they want the nationwide plot thing to go. Then each year you could have the nationwide Larp NAAMA for example.

#30

nod sounds like a pretty good idea. :slight_smile:

#31

A council of writers is what I would like to see too, with a system enclosed within a reality with boundaries but enough also scope to for players to play most fantasy characters. That would be my goal, the whole purpose of me attempting a system of my own, is not to cloister my idea but to give it to everyone. Add that to the council of writers for such a system & I think we’d achieve virtually everything desired by players of fantasy larps. ANd it could be done for multiple genres I am sure.

#32

Just to stick in my oar, I’m philosophically in favour of closed system settings. Partly it’s the creator instinct in me (when I’m GMing), but also I think you gain something from putting people in a shared cultural context. The ‘anything goes’ approach can be fun, but in the long run, if everyone is trying to be different, then no-one is, and the cultural mishmash ends up less interesting to me than if the group dynamics are working well. Although, I agree that it’s a matter of taste.

#33

I said in another thread, that although people are allowed to play what they want, they still tend to form or join groups, propably because of the same reasons you would prefer it.

#34

From the discussions in this thread I’ve gone from somewhat open systemed to a mostly closed sytem. Closed but with some scope for uniqueness, your general culture will be set but open so that you can come from a village from the otherside of the world.
It’s great when we get a bunch of really good constructive posts, they’re just so useful.

#35

I don’t think, that is working this way.

You can’t play a sire or count without other guys. Or how would you display your serfs, squires and lansquenets? A noble character needs “staff”. And a typically pen & paper group needs more characters than one or two.

I reckon people find together, build up groups and travel around, etc. - most larp characters see so many scares - why shouldn’t they travel in other countries to flee from scares? My characters travel very much. One is a squire on the tramp and the other is an explorer - so they need to travel. In a closed system I only have the chance to play the journey if a GM made a neighbour country con. Normally my characters don’t stay very long in countries, where scare goes around! :wink:

#36

I do agree with you Isaac, However you have to admit there really is a disparity in game culture because of the size of the games. To Allow everyone the opportunity to make their own background and have an established one. Even if a two or three people go for unique backgrounds it reduces your game possibility because of you have 6-12 players theres 30 percent of your game with travellers. Here we would probably be ablke to deal with it more easily than mythodea becaise our scope and player numbers are so small but that a large percentage going away from the game concept the GM wants to create. Especially if you want to build on small player resources. Attracting players to a stable story is probably easir than a story with lots of low to medium strength story lines but not too many strong ones.

#37

In German larps the most PCs come from other countries and travel to the GM country. For native people we “use” NPCs as well as for native monsters. It’s the same in smaller games and bigger games (like the mythodea).

I see the attraction though for a GM to see his world enacted by PCs!

#38

I just can’t see this working. There must be SOME limits at least in terms of a genre of some description. Otherwise you could end up with a complete hodge-podge of characters (think Bart Simpson + Batman + Winston Churchill + Grog the caveman + Bender the robot + Thor + …)

You NEED a genre for larp, otherwise it’s just cosplay.

#39

It’s a must! Without a genre it will be an endless chaos.

#40

Sure, it’s probably a scale. Something like this perhaps?

OPEN

  1. Completely open - any genre, multi-dimensional
  2. Restricted genre(s), multi-dimensional
  3. Restricted genre(s), single-dimensional
  4. Defined world, allows high-resolution sub-creation
  5. Completely closed, character creation only
  6. Completely closed, characters assigned
    CLOSED

On that Mythodea sounds like a 3 and Mordavia a 4. Lateral Worlds was perhaps a 1 or 2 (there were definitely some non-fantasy things there) and I understand that the Gathering in the UK has gradually moved from being very open to around a 3. Freeforms/theatre-style are typically a 6.

Then again, that scale is mushing together various considerations. Can players create: races, places, cultures, items, historical events, character history, character relationships? And at what resolution: minor or major? It’s totally possible that half of these could be open and the other closed, and it could be either half.

#41

I think you got it.

I’m a level 3 or 4 player… don’t like level 5 and reckon level 6 would be interesting for me!

Level 1 conventions would be really scary!

But in conlusion it’s always a admix, due to the “players create points” Ryan had told.

#42

Level 1 would be great as a comedy game, and Level 6 is really fun and challengeing.

#43

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]Sure, it’s probably a scale. Something like this perhaps?

OPEN

  1. Completely open - any genre, multi-dimensional
  2. Restricted genre(s), multi-dimensional
  3. Restricted genre(s), single-dimensional
  4. Defined world, allows high-resolution sub-creation
  5. Completely closed, character creation only
  6. Completely closed, characters assigned
    CLOSED

[/quote]

Quest tends to be somewhere between 3 and 4. Though I have seen terminator style robots stalking the Quest realm and nasty they were too. We should point out that specials like ‘Gobohunts’ can fall into the 1-2 category.

It is nice to have a solid world to hang things on. It is nice to have variety supplied the characters. It is also nice to have someone with a veto in charge of the game world. 9 times out of 10 when someone mentions a “special” character they want to play it is sheer power player with cheese added. There are limits.

#44

Skirmish is a 5, although we welcome suggestions from players for modifications to the rules. Agree with Alista about veto - it’s useful to have final say in this kind of game.

#45

Sundereth is likely to be a 4 or 5 but with some of 2 mixed in.
Sundereth is set in multi dimensional space but only as a tool for GM’s to introduce flavour.
For the most part the intention would be for PC’s to come from Sundereth only, there is interaction between the Aether, Sundereth & the Void but it is more like the influence of Heaven & Hell on Earth in a religio larp like St.Wolfgangs.

Will deliberation with GM’s, character’s could come from anywhere on Sundereth, accomodating almost any culture of ancient earth that people might like to play. These however would be largely generic & may be shared by multiple cultures. This would allow GM’s in other countries (pipe dreams) to run their own setting within the rule set.

A PC’s ability to create background would be limited in scope.
Everyone will start at a low rank at creation, essentially being a commoner but will have freedom to have a nemesis or 2, friends, family & even which village they come from in a particular region. Region will set culture so characters will not all be totally unique, they should share some common grounding. All players originating from NZ would be encouraged to play a native of the Cloudy Isles, those from the Waikato encouraged to play a character from River-Shire but they could have been raised in the small settlement of SevenHawks (a literal translation of Whitikahu), like myself.

Perosnally as a system writer wouldn’t be keen to define the whole of NZ in this way. I would be happy to define River Shire.
Another GM, running Sundereth games in Auckland may define that region. We might confer on these issues, being that we are so close but ultimately game world expansion would be handled by local GM’s.

#46

[quote=“Derek”]You NEED a genre for larp, otherwise it’s just cosplay.[/quote]Cos-LARP. Muhahahahaha. :smiling_imp: Who’s game?

#47

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]Sure, it’s probably a scale. Something like this perhaps?

OPEN

  1. Completely open - any genre, multi-dimensional
  2. Restricted genre(s), multi-dimensional
  3. Restricted genre(s), single-dimensional
  4. Defined world, allows high-resolution sub-creation
  5. Completely closed, character creation only
  6. Completely closed, characters assigned
    CLOSED[/quote]I’m going to try and run Sulphur Skies as a Level 6 game on that scale. Should be an intriguing challenge for everyone (especially those gulli… uh, I mean, COOL enough to help me write it).