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Apprentice
 
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| Edit: Since it´s already a little bit off-topic, I let this thread turn into the discussion about the different styles of LRP in Sweden, UK and rest of the world. Hello! As it says in the subject: I´m a Swede. I´m a Larper. I´m interested in what you got. I started larping in 2004 (if you don´t count V:tM, and you don´t)when I was studying in UK. A friend of mine said he was going to monster at an event (LT sanctioned Wolfs), and wondered if anyone was interested (we were a group playing LotR). I thought it seemed fun and thus I made contact with the world of liv action roleplaying. (Unfortunately?) I also made contact with Lorien Thrust, and for a whole year, I thought that was how larping was supposed to be. Then early January 2005, I moved back to Sweden and started looking for larps over here. It didn´t take long to reallise that there were other ways of larping than the "drink beer and bash baddies" style I´ve been doing thus far. 2006 I went to my first larp in sweden, and 2007 I went to 3 more. I will be visiting UK again this summer and thought I´d see if I can visit a larp when I´m there, so I´m posting here to see if you can recomend something. There´s alway LT of course, but I´m looking for something with more substance. I´m not yet sure when I will be in UK. 20 - 22 June, 24 - 27 July, 3 - 17 Aug are dates already booked for larps/other events, And I´m planning on a longer stay. It feels like between 25 June - 20 July would be the best time, but nothing is set in stone yet. About the Swedish way: I´ve been to 4 larps in Sweden. On one of those I played a soldier, another a military officer. I were never in combat. Was it boring? No! The focus of most swedish larps is on the roleplaying, not the action. On the other two larps, I was a slave. On one I was the only slave for a group of dark elves and took care of everything in camp, apart from cooking. The other was more like a prison camp with a few humans, controlled by dark elves. I dug holes and refilled them, were forced to watch torture and was tortured myself. Was i fun? Hell yeah! So what would you recomend? Anything more hardcore and realistic would be cool. Anything with a bit of action would also be a nice change. I´ll be back
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Champion
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If you want something of a higher standard than the LT, where you'll get both excellent role-playing and some action, I'd recommend Maelstrom. In fact, I can't recommend it enough. Website is here, and there's a board for it further down these forums. It runs 4 main events a year, and there are a fair few unofficial "player events" dotted about too. The first main event is easter weekend.
Ias
Maelstrom: Then: Regimental Sergeant Major Mdjai, Havocstan Army
Now: "?"
DUTT: Then: Commander J.W. Cranstan, Durholme City Guard
Now: Justice
RL: Ias
I was going to run for parliament, because I want to make the world a better place, but I ran into some old friends and went out for a beer instead.
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Apprentice
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| I can´t say I´m much of a fan of points-based character creation, as Maelstrom is using. From what I´ve read of the rules so far the game seem more focused on geting advantages and gaining political positions than on roleplaying a character that you like. seems better than LT, so I´ll keep on reading.
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I do talk a good fight
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Play an Eidolon -- no points to worry about, plenty of action (especially if you play a Fallen), politics entirely optional.
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
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Wag
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Tarnfire (1/12/2008)
I can´t say I´m much of a fan of points-based character creation, as Maelstrom is using.
Do you normally prefer more/less complicated character creation systems? Depending on what you want to do, you can get away with being entirely ignorant of the skill-trees - the rules for being on the recipient end of effects are mercifully brief and clear. I think I used a skill on the order of once per three events. Blessing is a nice option if you want creed-flavoured pot luck.
Tarnfire (1/12/2008)
From what I´ve read of the rules so far the game seem more focused on geting advantages and gaining political positions than on roleplaying a character that you like. seems better than LT, soI´ll keep on reading.
"Getting advantages and gaining political positions" could reasonably describe all human activity. I'm not quite sure how you distinguish that from roleplay.
Do you mean that the advantages and political positions you see in character creation seem like very offstage stuff (political influence back home/farms on land on which events are not likely to hosted)? Without going into detail, offstage stuff generally provides much more grist for uptime interaction than might immediately seem to be the case.
It's possible that you're used to more 'narrative' games where the organisers are expected to provide a strong narrative core to the game and administrate explicitly in terms of what they think will make a good narrative (less focus on in-game consistency, more focus on players submitting involved backgrounds which the organisers then try to integrate with their principal narrative). Maelstrom is explicitly player-lead (there is a plot-team, but it's at a volume set below player action) - if you've never played that sort of thing before, you might find you really enjoy it (or you might find you don't).
I'm still not quite sure what you mean by less focus on 'roleplaying a character you like'. The LT has an 'open setting' (with inconsistent attempts to persuade people to keep the vague genre) - you can play practically whatever you'd like. Maelstrom has a 'closed setting' - there are a limited number of races/cultures/religions/multi-national groups each with a broadly defined background. Personally, I think closed settings allow a _broader_ range of effective characters than open settings (all historical characters and the vast majority of literary characters existed in the context of a culture (that existed outside of their head) - that's something you only get in an effectively closed setting) - but some may disagree.
If you're looking for a tightly-plotted narrative game, then you really need to be looking for something smaller than Maelstrom/LT/CP (although the LT will have more narrative elements, they are usually going to apply to big groups of people) - some are advertised at the bottom of the main forum page. If you're looking for a game where you have - more or less - complete freedom with character creation (i.e. get to reuse some old costumes/characters without too much adjustment), then you want LT (or CP, I think).
Alternatively, it's possible that you've opened the webpage on the rules section - which are intentionally bland and rule-y - rather than the campaign section (which contains all the non-bland IC stuff):
http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/campaign/newworldmap.asp?NavID=123
Marios
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Prodigal
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| Hi Tarnfire, I was over in Sweden for Dragonbane, and I'm looking at coming over this year for (what sounds like the same) dark elf larp. I know exactly what you mean. Almost all UK larps use a points system for character creation; maelstrom's is probably one of the simplist. the game seem more focused on geting advantages and gaining political positions than on roleplaying a character that you like I think I know what you mean by this. It's quite accurate, through something most people don't appreciate until they have played a different kind of larp. Partly it's because UK larps tend to be part of long ongoing campaigns rather than one shots. Are you looking to come to big festival larp (in case, I'd also recommend maelstrom) or would you be interested in a smaller larp?
------ <insert really amusing sig here>
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Squire
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I'd also recommend Maelstrom.
Ok yes it is a points based system for player creation, but as others have said so are most other systems over here. I've played in 5 so far - a mixture of local and nationals, all of which use a points system for creation and of these Maelstrom is by far the best.
As previously stated it is a closed system with a limited number of races/cultures that can be allied to colonies, trade houses,churches or be independent - so theres something to suit pretty much everyone, and since it's PvP based you have to expect the unexpected more often than not - although with Maelstrom you don't get the massed battles you have in systems like LT and CP.
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Apprentice
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| It´s not that I thinkthe rules are complicated, cause thery´re not. But why use points at all. I mean what´s the point (pun intended) of using such a strict character creations system, in a game that´s focusing on political intrigue? Maybe it would be easiest if I just explained how I´ve done it over here when creating a larp character. Of course, how it works varies, but this is at least a pretty common way, if not the one most used. First I´d have of course to find a larp I like. Continuing a campaign or getting a tip from a friend or a forum is often how it works, but if not, I´d take a look at the "Game Calendar" ( http://www.spelkalender.se/  or the "Larp Norths" calendar. Anyone who runs a larp can post info about them here, ordered by date. Then I´d read the description, which often includes a short story to set the mood as well as giving a bit of info, and visit the webside if I´m interested. I´ll read through the description and the rules (usually less than one tenth of Maelstroms) before deciding on what kind of character I want to play. I send a short mail to those who runs it and tells them what I want to play, they get back to me and tell me what they think of my idea. They tell me any changes they think I should make, inform if they already got as many of that type they want/can handle and suggest other things to play. Or they just say ok, gimme more info. Character is fleshed out with a backround story and/or a number of questions about the characters life, friends, views and so on. Were done and I can start sewing any costume parts I need for my role, and discussing things with the other players on the forum. Some time before the larp they mail me with my personal plot, group plot if I belong to one and basic info. After reading it, and triying to remember the important bits, I´m ready to start playing. Now, this might lead to the game being unbalanced. I, for example, played a dark elf company master as my first (and thus far only) role in one campaign. Someone else was playing a human (in that world, it is like playing a rat, you´re vermin). And a third was a mage. Quite a leap in power levels between these three examples, the game being horribly unbalanced. Was this seen as a problem? Nope. The human played that because that´s what she wanted to. The mage wanted to wield power, discuss the world and how it worked and read some hundred odd pages of rules and information before the larp began. I wanted to play a soldier, and was interested in being a low ranked officer (things got changed cause what they needed was a high level officer). Quote: "Getting advantages and gaining political positions" could reasonably describe all human activity. I'm not quite sure how you distinguish that from roleplay. Well, I was a bit unclear I must admit. But it seemed to me, at least when I wrote that, that everybody was politicians of one kind or another. And anyone lower than that (servants, bodyguards, "normal" people) was played by NPCs. Not sure if my views have changed much. Is there really a need for NPCs? Couldn´t most, if not all, of those roles be played by (paying) players? I find it just as fun to play a slave as a commander, and I know I´m not the only one. The only role I´ve seen that has been hard to find players for is the common rank-and-file soldier (One reson why I´m always interested in playing one, to take a place noone else wants. Besides, I´ve got military training, and belive I´m god at that type of roles.) It does not matter much to me how much or little "narrative" control the organisers got. As long as they let me play my character as should be. At my last larp there were some set "things" that happened, and I belive these improved the game. And example would be when the main "baddie" (player of course), a dark elf half-demon came to our slave-camp. Real unpleasant guy. He was mocking us and so on, our priestess talked back to him, an argument ensued and he dragged her off into the woods, while his associates kept us away. Then the screaming began. It ended about five minutes later (even if it felt like ten) and he came dragging her her back. The prietsess and the half demons face was covered in blood, (When I say covered, I mean it. And when I say blood, I mean real blood, not fake. Reindeer I think it was.) and her clothes was ripped to shreds. Would this have happened if it hadn´t been planned? No! Since it was a live steel event where combat could be fatal for real, the organisers used things like this to add the spice that at other larps comes from combat or the threat of combat. Now I think this turned into an example why narrative is good, but in the large story, these small narrative things had no meaning at all. And the pristess and half-demon was acting just as their characters would. It was just that when things got heated, they knew what to do, and knew that the other was ok with it.
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