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Champion
 
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I recently came across John Kirk's book 'Design Patterns of Succesful Role-Playing Games'.
You can get a free downloadable copy (in a 1.3 MB zip) from http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/Download.htm
Read through the Introduction (you can skip the section on Gauge Diagrams) and have a look at a couple of the design patterns in the catalogue.
Done that?
Good.
Now for my question, and the subject of this topic thread.
Would a version of this book that is specifically written to fit LRP be of practical use (as opposed to academic interest) to LRP system designers/engineers?
____________________
"Fantasy is the artificial sweetener upon the poisoned cake of materialism." - R. J. Stewart
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Squire
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I could see it being useful as a download, but for a printed book I think it would need to have 2-3 full system rules in it as fully working examples so people could buy it and start their own systems with friends etc. The one problem with having it printed is that unless you get some publisher involved that will give it worldwide coverage ("LARP for dummies" or "The Idiots Guide to LARP" etc) it's not going to get much coverage. As an eBook it would probably do better, though it would depend on cost how many people would buy it. As a free download it'd do best, but obviously won't make any money so would have to be a labour of love ;-)
The type of person who seriously thinks about running a system tends to be either pretty intelligent or able to find things out for themselves (to make a system that lasts) - or someone who gets in way over their head too quickly - but would buy this type of book. So the challenge would be making it appeal to both, but getting it well enough known that people find it easily when starting things up.
One issue for it is country. Now doing it just for the UK is easy, but that's a limited market (as is any single country really), so translations would increase the market. The problem with that is that while in the uk you can mention things like UK law, insurance (and first aid requirements for it) etc, this isn't necessarily legal for other countries. In other words you probably need a decent international publisher to tell you all the pitfalls ;-P
Robin
DNDLarp - LARP system (Unforgotten Realms) and OGL rules for d20 LARPing
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Champion
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| I think you may have misunderstood the question. I'm not interested in selling a book on how to run a LRP event, but in creating a free resource of successful LRP design patterns - exactly like the linked article, but for LRP instead of tabletop.
____________________
"Fantasy is the artificial sweetener upon the poisoned cake of materialism." - R. J. Stewart
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Squire
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Ah, when you put a download link I assumed it was an also-printed book and didn't go any further, rectifying now ;-)
I'd say do it - just remember that no matter what you do or say there will always be people who disagree (and others who disagree with the disagreements), but anything that improves the quality and quantity of larp is welcome - especially when it's easily found ;-)
Robin
DNDLarp - LARP system (Unforgotten Realms) and OGL rules for d20 LARPing
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Squire
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Going to make some random comments as I read this, bear with me ;-)
Firstly is that quite often LARP rules are not down totally in black and white. Some systems don't publish their rules, others don't update them. Another problem is that there are few LARP systems used by several groups.
When it comes to working out how popular a system is, does an event that has a lot of people playing because of socialising score higher than an event with a smaller number of people who play because they like the system.
In a large part anyone designing a LARP system would do well to read this - as essentially a LARP is just an RPG. The differences are probably more to do with playing the characters in person, and having npc's, monsters, or other physreps of the rest of the game world. It might be a nice idea having a free-floating space based LARP, but trying to play it without air tanks and a large lake is hard.
LARPs in general benefit from not being complex, as carrying large rulebooks (even in your head) breaks up the continuity when they're referenced. Even worse when a ref forgets a rule and one of the players forgets the "ref is always right" rule.
Highlighting where LARPs need to differentiate on the short-event as opposed to ongoing plots is useful.
Only got 1/3 of the way through the book (and out of time tonight), but I think doing something like this aimed at the LARP community could be beneficial to new systems, and hopefully even current systems. It does look like some system designers should be reading this already ;-)
Robin
DNDLarp - LARP system (Unforgotten Realms) and OGL rules for d20 LARPing
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