Roleplaying instruction philosophy in LARP

SO, big deep topic here.

Spurred on by a whole bunch of personal research, international discussions, Nordic larp theory etc.

Todays deep topic is the LARP tool of the roleplaying instruction as a mechanism for delivering in character game mechanics. I also acknowledge earlier knowledge of it from Ryan Paddy’s Dark Hart of Camelot, which used the tool I am about to describe, albeit not exactly in the same form.

Philosophy of the role playing instruction

The philosophy of the role playing instruction is that rather than focus on a list of individual mechanical calls and what they do precisely, to instead focus on the role playing experience itself. So even if a player or crew or who ever doesn’t remember exactly what they are meant to, they know that if they role play the spirit of the effect then the experience will actually be richer.

Or put another way, role playing instructions are a challenge to the people involved to role play an effect, rather than just react to a call because it is a mechanic for X effect.

The instruction

So, I was told about a Finnish larp in which they used ‘Veritas’ as part of their in game dialogue. Whenever players hear ‘Veritas’ worked into the game, they know that what is being said is a "instruction’ as well as part of whatever rhetoric is being used at the time.

In Dark Hart of Camelot there was an instruction called ‘verily’, which was used as part of a magic effect. What ever was said in the sentence containing ‘verily’ was to be believed as true by those spoken to. In this instance it allowed for the use of a ‘suggestion’ type of effect (I think).

So let’s grab hold of ‘verily’. It is not in common use in modern language. It is suitably flowery and fantasy sounding. I’ll use it for my instruction word. Forget it’s use in Dark Hart for now. For now, ‘verily’ is now an instruction. Whenever you hear ‘verily’ being used, it now becomes a statement of effect. A role playing instruction to react to what is said. It is not intended to make whoever hears it believe what is said absolutely, rather it shows that something is something which you have a opportunity to role play with / react to. And you should, to the best of your understanding, do so.

Now this is no different from any other call or mechanic, so it is no more or less ominous than anything we’re already used to. And better, we only really need to remember this one thing. Now, you would still list a number of effects using “verily” for clarity. But you don’t need to remember them all.

Now, by itself it could potentially be all of the rules needed for in game “calls”, if say, we take it as a given that the person has the right to use said instruction (this is a given for mature role playing and like all larp, the effect is unraveled if it is misused…see cheating). To strengthen it as a fantasy mechanism, a number of concepts can be introduced, like “all magic effects last for 1 minute” and “all combat effects last until the end of the encounter”.

Again. Role playing instructions are a challenge to the people involved to role play an effect, rather than just react to a call. You lose none of your desired clarity (if otherwise wanting to use a call) because the word “verily”, which doesn’t need to be “verily” by the way, it could be any standard term you chose. All it is there for is to say “there is an in game instruction coming up, please role play the effect”.

An example

Say for instance you go cast cast cast by the power of Greyskull, VERILY you shall FEAR me! (Fear is just an example)

Now, fear is the effect… most people have an idea what fear means. And remember, you could preface the spell section with a statement like “spells and effects last for 1 minute unless…” So instead of having people go “ahhh fear, ok, what does that do and for how long? Oh it, um” break of immersion and game flow people then go “ahh it is a spell effect which I must obey because they said verily before it… and oh right all such effects last 1 minute… ok I can role play a reaction to that even if I don’t remember exactly what the players guide says”, which I believe is less disruptive overall than naked called words.

Now this might seem confusing to some larpers. People are confused by large numbers of calls and mechanisms. No doubt they would be confused by ‘verily’ as well. People can also lose count counting up to 3 HP. I trust that nzlarpers can get past that small barrier.

So. Please discuss. Do you think we could remove a large number of calls and mechanics from our larps by using a ‘role playing instruction’?

Actually, it was pretty much as you go on to suggest: whatever came after “Verily” was a description of an effect e.g. “Verily I appear to be Guinevere”, “Verily your weapons do me no harm”, “Verily you may not approach” and “Verily I bind you to your oath”. Its an extraordinarily powerful mechanic which reduces the rules load considerably while giving you a lot more flexibility.

I like this verily idea. It looks like will make dealing with those many calls and effects easier indeed.

I really like it too, I think it is simple enough to remember, doesn’t break emmersion and is cool sounding… not sure that about the combat use, but for spell uses definitely!

It’s not really there for combat “calls”, though if you are say limited to a once per day or once per encounter type usage then bundling it up with verily would work (IMO). Again the idea is that as long as you remember the philosophy behind the instruction word, which is reactive and dramatic roleplaying of an effect.

I have been working on a rules minimal system and setting (because my brain won’t shut up once I have an idea) which has a different approach to combat calls. You can look at it here - open fantasy system and my thoughts on a magic system to go with it here - open magic.