Player skills vs. character skills

Community Larp discussion
#1

Over on the Stargate LARP topic Derek raised the question of character skills and to what degree they should be based on player skills.

In some circles this is seen as the great divider of larp types, and indeed larper types. The gung-ho people who want to really act everything out are sneered at by the people who want to do pen-and-paper RPGs standing up, and vice versa. On one side of the fence are people who want to test their own personal mettle and for the larp to feel as immediate as possible. On the other side are people who want to be able to play characters that are completely different to themselves in terms of capability.

There are larps that exist at either end of this spectrum, being largely based on player or character skills. But for the most part, the two approachs exist side-by-side in the same larps and people don’t think about it much.

For example in Mordavia, the Armouring system is entirely a character skill, as there is no player skill component to it (except the decision of when to use it). Magic, Righteous, and Sapping are in the middle ground - you can only do these things if you have the character skill, but reading a scroll quickly and accurately, pointing your holy symbol in the right direction, or positioning yourself to sap someone is to some extent a player skill. Fighting is almost completely based on player skill, although the Tough, Steadfast, and Knock Down advantages can help. For a larp with significant fantasy elements Mordavia is very low on character skill, especially compared to similar games in the UK, USA, and Western Europe. Compared to Nordic no-rules games it’s very character-skill heavy, but they don’t tend to have strong fantasy elements. It’s all relative.

My personal stance is that everything that can be represented by player skills, should be. This results in the kind of immediacy and rule simplicity that I enjoy most in games. I like testing my own abilities in a fictional settings, and I hate dealing with rules when I could be just getting on with a larp.

In fantastic or high-tech settings there may be elements that just can’t be represented by player skills. My first inclination is to drop such skill use from the rules entirely, if that’s possible without destroying the feel of the setting. If not, implement character skills in the least intrusive way possible. Again, that’s just my personal preference.

At the top of my personal hate list would be the use of character skills instead of player skills for social abilities. Why bother roleplaying at all?

#2

You do have to also take into account someone could do the reverse when it comes to playing a character that is different to them in real life.
Take someone who is compitent with a sword or similar weapon, then for their character they say they have never used one so fight badly to illustrate this point. This is using an idea of a soft skill (the character cant use the weapon) to counter a hard skill that they have.
Which I think will be a very good example of somebody larping well.

#3

Unfortunately, this isn’t going to be much of a discussion, because I agree with everything you said.
EDIT: I agreed with everything Ryan said, somehow Marcs post arrived above mine…?

#4

Sure, we need some people to argue the character-skills side.

#5

[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]Sure, we need some people to argue the character-skills side.[/quote]Bah! I think that some of them can be kind of silly, so it’s hard to argue the side for them.

A while ago I was browsing through overseas Larps rulebooks and in one 80 page epic was the skill “Small Unit Fighting”. What it meant was that if you had the skill and a couple of your mates did as well, you could call “Small Unit” and as long as you were standing within x feet of each other, your blows did an extra y damage. Just Silly. (Or at least, far more suitable to be implemented in a computer roleplaying game.)

#6

Now I am far from a Nightmare Circle expert, but when turned up to the one game I have played in, the role playing was fantastic and there were very few times where skills were even mentioned.

Even the magic was very freeform. At one point we did a “ghost summoning” spell and I’m pretty sure the spell wasn’t written down in a rule book. Someone may have had a skill to do with magic but if they did, I never heard them talking about it.

This game rocked! I never felt constrained by rules. The rules never got in the way if the role playing and the role playing was excellent.

I read the combat rules beforehand and I’m happy to say they were pretty much ignored by players and monsters alike. Rather than soak up the 3-4 bullets they were allowed to (according to the rules) most players/critters would take a dive after the first close-range-torso-shot and act out their wound.

The guns were cap guns with no projectile and they really added to the atmosphere. They were very unreliable and often didn’t fire (perfect in a horror game!)

During character generation I took “skills” but I can’t remember them ever coming into play.

I just wish I’d not tramped through the mud in my tuxedo.

#7

I fell in the river in my $200 suit.

But I totally agree with you on the nightmare circle issue. I used my skills a fair bit during the game they were paranormal skills but they mostly involved a quiet word to Raoul.

#8

:smiley: Lucky it wasn’t a good suit then huh?

#9

Here are my approaches to these as a game-writer (as opposed to a player)

In May Day, I asked people to choose an expertise before the game, which they had to be able to wing. Winging this expertise was a fairly major part of the game! People mostly did very well at that, and I let things pass if people tried. One of the characters was skilled in physics, and to my delight, people consulted them on how to best destroy buildings. Their opinion wasn’t really very accurate but hell it didn’t need to be, everyone just had to roll with it. But that’s a “soft skill” that’s fairly easy to wing.

Anyone that was reasonably scientific and technically minded could diffuse the fairly simple bomb detonation mechanism, but unfortunately, this mechanism was imaginary. There was an unfortunate scene near the end where a couple of characters knelt beside a bomb “diffusing it” … which was really just waiting for the time value to run out. There needed to be a time value for game dynamics, and the lame part only effected one player character. Luckily, getting that bit “wrong” inspired a different way of looking at this in future games.

In a way you could say it’s also inspired by Mordavia’s combination technique, where there’s both character skills and player skills involved in doing a skill test - like if you throw a spell packet and miss, you miss, grand master mage!

The idea is that skills are puzzles based, and integrated into the game as tasks. AJ thought of a great example for me - if you’re doing molecular chemistry, you use a “microscope” physrep and assemble a cube puzzle with your hands. If you stop and talk to people, that slows you down. If you’re stressed, it makes a difference. It keeps you doing something other than waiting. Time delays are skill-defined.

Nibelungen is largely arranged this way, with constant individual and group puzzles to solve or construct or do. These are to do things like repair the ship’s engine or break out of a cell. I don’t want to give too much away :stuck_out_tongue:

But I’m also trying to have accurate phys-reps for the most exciting bits of the game, for example space-combat is represented (and I’ll shut up now).

This indicates my thoughts towards it - if you want to do something hard, it should be pretty hard. I don’t really like the idea of entirely preventative skills (eg. you CANNOT fire a weapon AT ALL). Julianne leaked a pretty good solution for that one to me tonight. (And I’ll shut up now)

Good things are coming…

#10

Skills need to be learned which means that someone needs to teach then to you, you cant learn them by osmosis, so how do you learn the skills and who taught them to you.

it seems that we have armourers that start with skills that in the real world would take years to learn to a proficent level. and then six months later they have more skills, there doesn’t seem to be any study or discipline put into the skill it just appears, much like the matrix, “i want to increase my armouring abilities ok then just plug your self into this database and BOOM you are now a fifth level armourer.”

I was interested in your comment about doing a way with XP derek, in the USCMC game i am working on i have made XP the same as wages and rather than buying skills with XP you get promoted up the ranks.

skills are expected to be known in the specialty you are trained in.

UMMMM? have i made a point here? sorry brain work not

#11

Don’t think of it as “doing away with XP” think of it as “designing rules that never had XP to begin with”…

If I can briefly give the SCA* as an example (even though it’s only kind of a LARP group). In the SCA people play “personas”. They often do this very badly and many people don’t do it at all. If I was looking at the SCA to evaluate it as a LARPing group, I would say it has failed to be a good LARP.

However, I believe they (we) have got some stuff right. For a start, armourers in the SCA actually make armour (radical huh!) The rules are the same for all fighters, there are no “mighty blow” skills. To be considered a “great warrior” you must in fact be “a great warrior”. You can’t just tick the “great warrior” box on your character sheet.

“Rank” is determined in part by contribution to the group. People who have contributed a lot to the SCA for a long period of time are elevated in rank. This encourages people to contribute because the “rank” is valued within the SCA. You cannot in the SCA call yourself a King, Queen, Prince, Princess, Baron, Baroness or Knight without the rank having been earned.

People actually work very hard to improve their skills because they value the “rank” that goes with the recognition of excellence. I know fighters who have gone on diets, taken up running and going to the gym to improve their strength and fitness, and travelled to other groups to train because they want to get their fighting to the level to be considered a “knight”. I know armourers who have invested hundreds of hours in improving their skills so they would be considered a “master armourer”.

This works in the SCA and it allows for a VERY long term game. The SCA has been going for more than 40 years. If you looked at a game like Mordavia (which I consider to be an excellent game) the XP system pretty much prevents the game being played for 40 years. (Although “death” may in fact make this possible :slight_smile: )

I think this would particularly well for Mages. You start as an apprentice with a couple of piss weak spells and IN GAME pass certain requirements, which give you access to more powerful magics. This may be the accumulation of spells in your spell book or passing certain rites of passage. Rather than increasing your power between games by spending XP you’d role play it in game.

Likewise, you may start as a man-at-arms and after good service to a lord get taken as a squire. After years of service (or perhaps saving their life at great personal risk) they may decide to knight you.

*Oh my god! Will he just shut up about the SCA!

#12

[quote=“Derek”]
*Oh my god! Will he just shut up about the SCA![/quote]

I never mentioned them :confused:

but anyhoo, i can see what you mean but from what i see that would result in elitism, a lot of people who want to play but cant because they either dont have the time or the money to invest in something that can conceivably take years to accomplish, i mean you are argueably at the top of your game in the society at present, right, and how long has that taken you?

here is a question; is there a difference between Skills and Abilities

#13

Sorry, I was talking to myself. I seem to refer to the SCA a lot, because that’s where much of my experience has come from.

I can’t see how earning the rank of knight because you are a good fighter is any more “elitist” than ticking it on a character sheet. In both systems you have knights (the difference is that in one system they actually know how to fight).

You may decide to set the requirements differently in a LARP game. You may decide that a knight needs to own a suit of armour, a shield and sword and have heraldry on their tabbard and shield. This would be a way to encourage people to look the part (which should be what the rules push for). Or perhaps just have a tabbard and shield with their heraldry on them.

Correct, it means that those people who decide they want to play but who don’t put in the money or effort won’t be playing princes. People are already building excellent costumes for LARP. They build weapons and armour as well. I’d suggest these people be given the title of “Baron”, “sword smith” and “armourer”.

I’m not at the top of the game yet and I’ve been playing for about 13 years. It feels good to still have room to improve after 13 years of participation!

I don’t know. But I’m not arguing against either. I’m arguing against having skills/abilities in a game that don’t need to be represented by rules.

#14

This I agree with. But a Knight would be a type of character class (or something). Maybe instead of being a “good fighter”, instead they get a bonus health or armour point on top of their health or armour.

But I fail to see what this has to do with the subject at hand - namely the use of skills in a LARP?

OK so perhaps there shouldn’t be skills for some things, like shhoting a gun or riding a bicycle, but if you don’t know how to defuse a bomb (borrowing the MAY DAY example), are you gonna try?

Didn’t think so.

#15

Which is fine if I want to play a Fighter, Magic User, Cleric or Thief. But what if I want to play an Arabian Spice Merchant and the class isn’t covered by the rules?

If the game mechanics work, the armour by itself will be the benefit not the “knight” class. The armour may give them extra armour/hit points (if you use armour/hit points) but when they take the armour off and go to sleep they are as soft and killable as everybody else. It isn’t being a knight that makes them tough, it’s the armour/skill protecting them.

I fail to see any benefit to having a skill covered in the rules that people can represent in real life.

I once played a game where we found a chest of treasure. My wife (Kelsie) was playing a thiefy sort. She had brought along pieces of wire, little mirrors and some of my lockpicks :blush:
Kelise picked the padlock (it was a nice easy one) and disarmed the trap (the chest had a mousetrap in it that if you opened the chest would pop a balloon. Everyone else stood well back.

In this case the rules for the game were “if the balloon pops, everyone within three paces takes X damage”. They could just as easily been “thieves can pick locks and disarm traps”, but that would have been a worse rule.

You cut the red wire, everyone knows that!

Valid examples I can think of for skills are to do with areas where we wish to artifically deal with something. For example, we don’t want to use real sharp swords because people would die. So, we have rubber swords. People pretend to be wounded and people pretend to fix them. This (probably) needs rules so that the game can function.

However, for a bomb (where hopefully Craig didn’t really use real explosives) all you need is some kind of alarm to let you know when it goes off. If people can deactivate the bomb without the alarm sounding, they live. If the alarm goes off, they die.

Again, cut the red wire!

#16

[quote=“Derek”]

I don’t know. But I’m not arguing against either. I’m arguing against having skills/abilities in a game that don’t need to be represented by rules.[/quote]

the way i see it a skill is learned and an ability is something that comes naturally, so if you have a skill you need to make that skill known, if for no other reason so that you can be employed for that skill, i mean if you dont know that someone in your party is skilled in lock picking then what use is it.
an ability is for example; an instinct for sensing traps or danger.

i think that skills should be recorded so that you cant suddenly disarm a trap or whatever when in reality (or game reality) you have no idea what you are doing. and these skills should be represented in the rules for no other reason than because that way we can control them.

but by the same token i think that if you have a skill you should make the effort of making and using the tools your skill requires, lock picks for a thief and an anvil for an armourer…etc.

and take the time to use them

#17

That seems like an excellent distinction! So typically, an ability would be racial and a skill would come from a profession.

Are we still talking about character skills vs player skills?

The AD&D “sense ambush” and “sense traps” skills for rangers and thieves had a valid place because the players couldn’t look for them and there needed to be a way (in the game) to allow some people to be good at it. In a LARP I don’t believe this is the case. Players CAN look for traps and ambushes so you don’t need a character skill to do it for them.

But if (as a player) I kill the orcs and find the chest and decide “hey, it may be a trap” and I’m a Arabian Spice Merchant, I might just decide that I can take my time and disarm it without looking for a thief. Looks like a crossbow trap, I think I’ll stand behind it…

Ahhhhhh, the real reason comes out. You want control! “Players must not achieve more than they are allowed to given the XP points they have been allocated”. “They must be stereotyped into classes!”

If they only way for a player to succeed in a skill is to do it, they always role play it! You won’t get some “Ranger” character walking through the woods chatting away assuming the GM will pop out and say “your danger sense is warning you of an ambush!”

I think basing LARP rules on RPG rules is self defeating. I think you’re better to look at real life and say: we want to have an adventure, what parts of the adventure do we not want to be real life? Killing, wounding, violence, money, anger, fear and hate spring to mind. Then we can spice it up and say: what do we want to add? Magic and other races. Pretty much all the rest we can do. Hiding in shadows, climbing walls, backstabbing, cracking codes, listening at doors…

#18

I’m going to have one last try using logic to convince you. If that fails I shall be reduced to flinging insults. :open_mouth:

Imagine, in the real world, someone has set a trap on a weapons locker using a grenade.

Someone is going to open the weapons locker and they suspect a trap.

What would their occupation need to be to disarm the trap?
Bomb disposal expert? Policeman? Science teacher? Engineer? Builder? Mechanic? Student? Unemployed SF fan? Actor? Mother? Museum curator? Doctor of medicine? Murder mystery author? Terrorist?

Perhaps it’s not an occupational thing.
In which case, what skill would be appropriate?
Disarm Trap? Carpentry? Mechanical repair? Chemistry? Logic? Luck?

#19

You cut the red wire, everyone knows that![/quote]

Remind me not to stand near you. Ever.

#20

I give up. Whatever.