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Prodigal
 
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http://www.srcf.ucam.org/~mh406/RPGs/CambridgeBelow/
I am toying with the idea of trying to run it somehow over the summer in Cambridge, but there's likely to be playtest linears for the new CUTT magic system and quite a few people going home / on holiday / to the multitude of other LARP events over the summer, so mostly it is a thought experiment.
Please pick to pieces / make insanely broken characters / laugh at outdated concepts / go 'huh, what is that?' at things which were obvious to me because I was writing it. I am aware that there is no character advancement system: there is, in fact, no points-based character advancement (instead, you try to acquire shiny things like rank and reputation and cool items and ownership of places).
This originally started as the idea 'it would be cool to hold a Floating Market in Cambridge', and got combined with 'economic and political-military PvP is not really supported by CUTT so let's focus on that' and 'seperate pools for uptime skills and downtime skills is a cool idea, does it work?'.
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Ref 07/08, previously Kallestra Lorelai Aostare of the Sapphire Tower
EOS: Study the Venin
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Overlord
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It seems to be quite a simple straightforward system with obviously the rich background of the Neverwhere idea. This makes me think, why limit yourself to a dozen people? On first glance your rules could accomodate quite a lot more.
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Prodigal
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The rules have come out designed for quite a lot more. A dozen is about the figure I'd expect to get if I made a serious effort with it in Cambridge, which is why that number is there.
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Ref 07/08, previously Kallestra Lorelai Aostare of the Sapphire Tower
EOS: Study the Venin
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Overlord
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| When we ran Twilight Gothic in Andover we used to run every two weeks and pull 30+. We had the Cam ST come down from Glasgow to play and he took one look around and said "Jeez you get more than twice as many people as us!" Make it simple and popular and you'd be surprised how many people come out of the wood work.
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Prodigal
Group: System Moderators
Last Login: Today @ 8:37 PM
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The 'problem' is that Cambridge has two regular LARPs (CUTT and Vampire) and I don't want to even look like I'm competing with them because I would need to enlist people from them to do set-dressing (I am good at and enjoy making up worlds, systems, making system rulings and desigining plot / briefing NPCs, but I am hopelessly awful at costuming and finding and booking places to run things, which means if I was going to actually run something I'd need at least two other people, one to handle props and costumes, one to handle logistics) and I don't want to irritate anyone by 'poaching' players.
Maelstrom: Jessily the Wemic, previously Tourmaline of Weaver
CUTT: Ref 07/08, previously Kallestra Lorelai Aostare of the Sapphire Tower
EOS: Study the Venin
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Squire
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| Just read the armour thread so this reply is probably more combat mechanics biased. Of course, my pref would be for a non call system and much smaller list of spells/abilities. You could even start with just one heal, one offensive spell and discover more in play! Why 'half'? Why not just give players six hits? Why 3 hits (which is a bit misleading as you can be crippled after taking two?). It is possible to not have hit points. Combat conditions could then simply be if you are hit you are crippled, if you are hit again you are 'out of the fight'. I think you're armour system may be too difficult for some - it's can be quite hard to count something different to what's called in a combat situation. For clarity, I'd make effect calls the same as the skill (eg, sleep for sleep, frreeze for freeze. otherwise you'll have players calling 'petrify' and 'sleep' which isn't the call the systems rules say.
___________________________ You gotta burn to grow!
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Prodigal
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| This looks VERY cool. I think it strikes a good balance between stealing some of the good ideas in 'Neverwhere' and being too closely tied to the book (at which point you risk having debates not over what's best for the game, but over whether the thing that you want to do contradicts part of the source material). In particular, I like the fact that it carries over the book's general atmosphere of a world where there are strange secrets hidden around every corner, many of them unpleasant. Some points: I like the fact that the 'Out of the Fight' mechanic gives you a lot of freedom to react in a character-appropriate way. But I'm not sure that it's a good idea to have different blunt weapons take different amount of times to execute someone who's Out of the Fight- it makes a certain amount of sense, but if you're someone who finds the prospect of lots of different numbers scary (like me), then that paragraph looks intimidating out of all proportion to the issue. Perhaps it would be simpler to say that if they have a blunt weapon, they just have to mime smacking you in the head pretty hard. I like the ability to kick people to death- very setting appropriate. When you say that you need to "call" "you are dead", do you mean that it needs to be audible to the person you just killed, or is it supposed to be loud enough for passers-by to hear too? Do the effects of 'drop' and 'freeze' last for a set length of time, or until someone cures you? Is this game likely to be played anywhere where there's enough OOC space for characters to wander off by themselves (if so, then you have to consider the possibility that it could make IC sense to drop someone and then run off, leaving them lying there by themselves, which gets dull fast). I really like the Favour tokens idea- to clarify, do they have the name of the character who owes the favour written on them? Is the writing on the Item Token not considered to be IC knowledge? Does this mean that anyone who plans to attempt to use an item (e.g. someone who randomly grabs the a mastercrafted replica sword and tries to stab someone with it) needs to read the Item Token and then make sure they don't act on the knowledge IC? Sorry if these questions reveal I've missed something obvious; I like the sound of this enough that I want to comment even though it's silly o'clock, and I won't have time tomorrow.
WARNING: the information above may have been subjected to dangerously high levels of ignorance.
OOC (and on Pagga): Carrie
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Wag
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| Don't worry about competing. Simply do what Omega did (when faced with competition from the Gathering and Renewal) and don't compete at all. Plan your events to not coincide with any other local systems and forget running an event if your regular slot coincides with a large national event. I ran a uni game with a steady player base for several years in Manchester with competition from SoS/NV and the local CamUK. We got a good few players each time, certainly more than enough to run each event. Liaise with the other systems and plan out a calender of events which slots you all in to dates and places which do not clash. Other event organisers then will not see you as a threat and may even come along to your game as it is a chance to play rather than have to be the organiser.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Whispering God is your friend... trust the Whispering God... Ruins of Empire 1st - 3rd Feb, 2008, Gladstone scout centre, Chester
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