Will there be IC reasons to justify why some target time destinations are more feasible than others (why it makes more sense to choose 1620s France over 1980s New York)?  If it were me, I think I'd be inclined to give the PCs a list of specific destinations, and then come up with some pseudoscientific reason for why they can't go anywhere else yet ("fluctuations in the integrity of the space-time continuum", or something).  You could also give some of the Core Time people the ability to research ways to get to new destinations, but make it so that have only limited control over the result (e.g. they could choose to research a new route to a time and place somewhere in the Americas and near a large amount of gold, and then wind up finding out how to get to Gold Rush era California or an Aztec shrine, but not Fort Knox).  I'm sure there are other ways around this issue, but that's the first one I can think of off the top of my head.

  Likewise, there might be some technical reason for why the time machine doesn't work if there are very large objects nearby (interference with the signal)- that would explain why the time travellers can never go directly to the Palace of Versailles, the World Trade Centre, or any other hard-to-physrep landmarks, and have to settle for visiting key meetings in secret remote locations which look remarkably like scout camps .

  If the PFAs go to the target time location and manage to IC fuck things up in the first ten minutes, is there anything to stop them from going back to Core Time, then travelling to the Target Time location, aiming to arrive at a point fifteen minutes before they fucked things up?

  Can PFAs in target time go back to core time whenever they feel like it?  Can the core time technicians bring a PFA back to core time without the PFA's assistance (e.g., if the PFA is knocked unconscious, tied up, or refusing to go back?)

  If there's a feature of the historical period that OOC historians still debate over, then who decides which version is canon in target time?  If for some reason you wanted to have an event where target time involved Richard III, who would have the final say on whether he was really a crazy hunchbacked child-killer- the person playing him, or the refs? 

  A potential issue here is: what do you do if someone has strong OOC feelings one way or another about the existence of the Christian God and whether he chose to manifest himself to Constantine?  Ditto for anything else involving real world religious events.  I'm not saying you're necessarily likely to have this issue come up in play- it's hard to say, since it's not something I've ever seen a larp attempt before.

  So, will it be mostly crew who end up playing IC servants, slaves, etc (I'm not saying that playing a slave can't be fun, but it seems likely that most people are more likely to want to play nobles).

  Something else to bear in mind is that the range of interesting female roles may be somewhat limited- there are lots of interesting female historical figures (you've mentioned Cleopatra and Emma of Hereford), but in general it seems likely that the interesting male roles will outnumber the interesting female roles.  This isn't as big an issue as it would be if the entire event was set in target time (since women who feel like playing something combatty can always play a chief security guard or something), but it may be something to bear in mind.

Edit: I posted that before I read this:

  Afraid I can't be much help there... apart from anything else, it might suggest I was doing something useful 

  Congratulations!

  Sadly I don't know of anyone who's currently looking to set up a new system- but I don't think there's any harm in discussing hypotheticals now and then.

  I apologise- I don't think I have the energy to go back through my post and change every "will you do X?" to "would it hypothetically be a good idea for the organisers of this or a similar game to do X?" ...so let's just pretend that I did.

  Oh yeah- I'm not saying that it's impossible for a female larper to play an interesting character in a historically accurate larp.  There are all kinds of interesting historical female roles.  You can be the power behind the throne, a tyrannical housekeeper, a crafter, a witch, a pickpocket, a servant who's having an affair with a bored aristocrat...  The thing that bugs me slightly is that male larpers can play all those parts too, *in addition* to playing roles like the pope, the general of the armed forces, the disgraced navy captain, the county court judge, the local rabbi, the bodyguard, the explorer, the Prime Minister, the scribe, the famous scientist, etc etc.  Obviously there are occasional famous exceptions to these things- Boudica, for example, is remembered as a war leader- but the exceptions tend to be famous for being exceptions.  I think that a much smaller number of people would remember who Boudica was if she had been male- she's famous precisely because she seems unusual to us.  This being the case, it doesn't make an awful lot of sense to have every other female larper playing one of the exceptions to the rule- wouldn't that lead to a situation that feels just as weird as a realistic Tudor setting where every other character is a firm atheist?

  Let's take the example you used of Actium.  Cleopatra is a great part, no doubt about it (not that I'd want to play her- I couldn't pull it off.  I know people who could, though.)  But she's likely to be the only overtly political female character there, no matter how much backstage scheming there is for women to get involved with.  And I wouldn't expect there to be any scope for playing a female combat character in that setting (sudden visions of Cleopatra attacking people wielding a larpsafe asp...)

  In summary- I don't think that historical accuracy condemns female larpers to playing Third Fishwife on the Right- but it does restrict their options to some extent, and I don't think that's an easy thing to work around.  Perhaps there's not really anything anyone can do about this other than warn people at the character creation stage.  I suppose you could allow female larpers to play male characters (perhaps insist on a small goatee as a minimum physrep?) -but in many cases the result is likely to be unconvincing.

chalicier (8/13/2006)

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[quote]
Currently undefined. I'm at the moment running on the basis that a PFA has some kind of genetic modification combined with an implant which allows them to be tracked through time (using Tachyon Flange Rays, obviously ). That means that a PFA can be recovered at any time - or at least at any time a Ref is available to go find them and drag them back.

  Would the PFAs be able to communicate with Core Time while they're in Target Time?  If so, would they need a special communicator for this, or would it be done via another implant?  If it's very easy to recover PFAs, then it becomes almost impossible for Target Time characters to kill them, hold them as hostages, torture them, etc (especially since the Target Time characters have no way of knowing about potential limitations of the retrieval technology, in order to incorporate this into their strategies).