Hi all,
I’ve been sent the rules & scenarios for the Live games run at GenCon Indy this year for Spycraft and Fantasycraft, and I’ve got permission from the owner of Crafty Games to have them run at Chimera next year. It looks like each game will need 3-4 GM’s for 25 people, if you are interested in running the Fantasycraft Larp, or helping me run the Spycraft larp, please email me (t3hj00@gmail.com), or txt me on 021-0255-1452.
Chimera generally runs games for around 12 people, and 25 people is quite a large game and would take around half of the last chimera to play it.
Personally I would suggest running these games seperately from Chimera as a night game.
Best to let Anna say what games are and aren’t suitable for Chimera, it’s her show.
Can you tell us some more about the SpyCraft and FantasyCraft larps?
I can see from the website at www.crafty-games.com that they are usually tabletop games, and I can’t see a larp version there. So presumably it’s something special they did for GenCon? I can see the games they ran at GenCon here, but there’s not much detail.
What are the larps like? Do they include pregen characters? What sort of gameplay and rules? If a 25 person larp needs 4 GMs, presumably something complex is happening - are the rules somewhat complex? Do we have permission to run them from the authors?
z6.invisionfree.com/World_On_Fir … howtopic=2 is the site i’m using for a forum game that i’ve just copied and pasted the spycraft live rules into…
What are the larps like? Do they include pregen characters? What sort of gameplay and rules? If a 25 person larp needs 4 GMs, presumably something complex is happening - are the rules somewhat complex? Do we have permission to run them from the authors?
Haven’t read the fantasycraft larp, but the spycraft one is a rather complex one for 25 players. The rules are fairly simple. There are 25 or 30 pregen characters. We have permission from the authors 
The rules look to be stat + skill + random number vs. difficulty, with turn-based combat and a GM required for all challenges, which would make for more complex and slower resolution than most larps at Chimera and explains why so many GMs are recommended.
It could perhaps be adapted to a simpler system that might fit better into a three-hour format and into Chimera’s model of games that can be picked up quickly by new gamers.
[quote=“Ryan Paddy”]The rules look to be stat + skill + random number vs. difficulty, with turn-based combat and a GM required for all challenges, which would make for more complex and slower resolution than most larps at Chimera and explains why so many GMs are recommended.
It could perhaps be adapted to a simpler system that might fit better into a three-hour format and into Chimera’s model of games that can be picked up quickly by new gamers.[/quote]
The game definitely will need to be cut back a bit, and I have a feeling, better fleshed out for a one-off. It took about 5 1/2 hours at Gencon, which is far, far too long. I think that the game could be cut back to 15 or 20 players also if needed.
You could adapt it to the Kick Arse system quite easily. Just get rid of the stats, reduce the number of skills and replace the skill numbers like “Demolition 3” with skill cards like “Demolition” and “Demolition (Kick Arse)”. Then make a list of what result each skill can have when sucessfull, and what winners can do to losers in contests - in the classic Kick Arse system the winner can take the loser out of play for 5 minutes, take one item, or force a truthful answer to a question. Pretty much all there is to it, and easy for new players to pick up.
You wouldn’t necessarily need to make it much smaller, especially if you could GM it on your own or with just one other person. Which will be much easier once the players can adjudicate the rules themselves and combat is faster.
At Chimera 2009 the rule for size was “No more than 20 people per game. This includes GMs and crew.” But some games like Camelot were a little larger (Camelot had 24 people including me) and Anna has indicated that if Chimera 2010 grows as expected that having some games over 20 people available may be good.
With faster rules the play time should reduce a lot too. Turn-by-turn combat can be slow and painstaking, so replacing it with a system that runs at closer to real time speed will make the game run a lot faster.
Whether it’s worth running will depend a lot on whether the characters and setup are well-written, giving the players lots of reasons to interact and conflict. If not, it may need fleshing out as you say.