A personal thought

I remember when...

For prior parts of the game, when we didn't have drop box and indeed well before KBN/CI, players would get all their printing on the day and not get stuff in advance.

This usually meant that people turned up early to read things, soak up the importance of the words and then go in to game with it all fresh in their mind.

They were rather different days for the game, and part of me sort of misses that aspect. But nowadays CI isn't seen as any ones "Must Attend" system, its simply that little social game of vampire and if other things come up the other things take precedence.

Not IRL things but just other games.

There's a general lack of urgency in CI and i will in part take blame for that myself because i am the Ref of the game and it would be wrong of me to not do so.

However.

The saga has been running for 25 years (very nearly) and there are few games that can boast that level of achievement.

Indeed even other vampire games can't really boast that.

The game started when i was 16. Sat on a friends floor or where i was living. Sometimes round a table. Sometimes in a pub. Once in a playing ground opposite from where i lived at the time. The game progressed on to rooms booked in pubs.

But now we use caves and university rooms.

And that makes me proud.

CI is a second job for me, and sarah, an unpaid one at that. We get no perks or payment from it, often we're personally out of pocket but it's the choice i made when the game carried on running.

Its been through thick and it's been through thin. We've had clashes with all the "big" systems, but when i look at it the big systems are just ones where people camp out. They cost so much more so i guess people feel they Have to go to them and they Have to take priority.

Want to know a secret, thats fine.

Really it is, but i'd at least like a little respect for the work we do.

Saying "great game, thanks" is all well and good but they're just words.

You keep coming back over and over and thats cool, but when did you really add anything to the game?

Not just new players, but when did you go out of your way to say "the Refs have done this thing, i'm gonna add to it and do some amazing plot" because it doesnt happen often enough and the game will stagnate unless something happens.

We do our part every month. Month in, month out, even when we really cant we still do.

Some of you've seen me when i was ill, but i still run the game. Some of you have seen me and sarah really stressed or over worked but we still delivered. And even when i have my son i always do my best to deliver for the game, only once or twice in the last year can i say it wasnt enough and thats only because i just run out of time.

I'm tired of CI being the "after thought" game. Folks do everyone a favour and step up to the plate.

Commitment Issues

Now, I've been larping for "some time" and I've worked more often than not in my life, earned an alright wage and rented.

I can afford may be one game a month if I'm lucky.

Every other person, with the exception of my partner, that I know seems to fill every Friday through Sunday at a larp. Some even go from Thursday instead of Friday.
Every weekend.

A couple of things confuse me.

Firstly, the Cost.
These other folks I know are in national minimum wage jobs just like me, or on a selection of govt benefits.
I've got a loan repayment also going out of my wages every month, and I have a kid.

Even when I didn't have those things I couldn't afford to larp every weekend, travelling from one end of the country to the other, usually by public transport and not cadging a lift, even then I wouldn't be able to afford it.
Seriously people where does this money come from?

Am I missing some trick here or something?
Just what the hell.

The other thing.
The commitment required.

Maybe it's the style of games that they attend that make the difference, the "big event" games with triple digit numbers of players.

Now, I run a small game, thirty or so active players.
The behind the scenes stuff is a second job for me.
One I don't get paid for either.
I make no money from the game at all.
It's not run as a business.
But as a ref I'm on all of my players social media profiles.
I know all of them pretty well, same as I know their characters pretty well.
Indeed it's been shown a number of times in the past that I knew their characters better than they did. Go figure.

I wandered off track there for a moment. For good reason.

See in my game when players start to drift from the characters goals, methods and such I notice it pretty quickly.
Often I'm able to steer them back to where they wanted to be.

They got lost due to what I see as Commitment Issues.
They've got a half dozen or more other larp systems on the go at the same time that they're losing track of what each system is and who each character is.

All the plots start to get jumbled up.
I've had it happen at my game.
A player convinced that I ok'd an action.
I didn't.
They got confused with the other system.

How many systems do you play, perhaps even run.
Ever had that problem?

As a ref in a small system I also notice the lethargy and, well let's call it what it is, the laziness.
Big systems take up a lot of people's time, understandably so.
But when you start turning up to other systems not bothering with the physical requirements, the right kit and costume and even the right mind set.
That right there is not on.

You're not only doing the players who turn up as they should a disservice but you're also telling the gm's that you don't really care about the thing you're at.
And that right there is well out of order.

I've seen a lot of games fold over the years because of the mental rot that sets in when players start to over commit to many systems.

When you start to commit to a few systems at first it might be fine, different settings and rules to learn, maybe even a few players from those other games you attend so that's all cool too.

But have you noticed that you tend to hang out with mostly the same people regardless of the system, that over time a lot of all your different characters start getting the same mannerisms because it's what you're comfortable with.
And besides you're surrounded by mates and they all do it to right?

Your characters in all the systems start to blur together.
You start to lose track of plot.
Plot that other people are involved in.
Plot that others are working hard for and on.
Plot that you can't really be bothered with, because you're thinking about that thing from the other game that was pure bants and well cool cos all the gang was there..

Ever noticed that?

Maybe there are times you can't be bothered because you're shattered from that thing you was doing last week, and hey its not like any one will notice if you're not there.
I mean it's not as if you're part of plot or anything right? Others can coast along with you not there right?

Seriously people.
Stop being such dicks to the rest of the player base.

Ever single thing that you play requires 100%.
If you can't do that then maybe step back from it.
There's a huge chance that your greedy playing style is holding others back from having a better game.

Health

I know a lot of people who larp.
I myself have larped, it's why I write this blog.

But I've recently been thinking about something that is in most systems where active combat is a thing.

The health pool.
Hit points.
Health.

Call it what you will. The thing that shows when we are alive or dead.

Seeing as most larp is essentially based off of Dungeons and Dragons what many People see is that you are either healthy or you are dead/dying.

Anything above one hp means alive.
Zero usually means unconscious and below zero means dying.

It's not really very realistic when you think about it.

But do we really want it to be realistic?
We're meant to be hero's aren't we?  Everyone knows that Grog the Barbarian can suffer injuries that would fell a normal man...

Is that why then a great many systems are instead going fir the low hit approach?

Who needs to be doing maths whilst fighting a group of villains intent on killing you?

Isn't it easier to say "get hit twice in the location and it's damaged, take more than five damage at all and you're ko'd and have two minutes for the medic to stop you from dying."

But then why bother being heroes.
Or is it more heroic for anyone to die a senseless death from a bad ricochet.

Is realism in health the new heroism?

Magpie LARP

So today I went off and done a different system.

This is quite big for me, not because I hate other systems but because I dislike the drama that goes with other systems.

I love other systems, I just happen to dislike some of the people that go to them there for I choose not to go, it solves many problems really.

After all you wouldn't go to something you know you're going to have a shitty time at, because when you get home you'd be in a shitty mood and that would further impact on your ability to play in that system or indeed various other systems again.

I've been interested in this other system for a little while, low hits, sci-fi, no magic.

Humanity is clawing its way back up after some bad stuff happened and now various Corps run things, technology is used but barely understood, a mere gunshot wound will kill you pretty quickly, and armour isn't as effective as you'd hope...

So there you are, a person doing his bit to survive, using tech he barely understands, as part of a Merc Group employed by the various corps to do various jobs.

Sometimes it's infiltrate, steal, exfiltrate, other times it's go in cause a ruckus to be the diversion for some thing else. The missions in it can be really varied.

The combat isn't just rush in sword & board, something that's crept in to so many other games as to be a joke now, it's pretty tactical. If you don't think smart you're dead and so are your team mates. If you don't have your squads backs you're all dead.

No magical battlefield resurrections. If the medic doesn't get to you in time you're dead.

It forces you to be a bit more wary, to weigh up the pro's and cons of what the chances of survival are in the situation.

I really enjoyed that element to it.

It's also a “hard skill” game in many respects, if you can do it then go do it, if you can't then sorry mate but your character cant.

Some people might baulk at such a thing. Apparently larping has to be all inclusive.

Personally I'm glad it's a hard skill game because frankly who wants to keep calling a ref over and saying “uh.. what does my character know...”, its really immersion breaking.

As a Ref myself I feel some what sad when players have to keep asking me stuff.

When I played in games I'd go and research and I'd check with the Refs before the game started to make sure I wasn't being meta with the system lore.

In the game I played today it was great because I was Crewing whilst my fiancée was playing so we both saw really different sides of the coin.

She went in blind having read the rulebook once and forgot most of it beyond “bad stuff happened humanity is struggling to get its place back amongst the stars properly again” stuff.

And that really worked, her character had no real interaction with aliens prior to the event, thankfully there wasn't any on the event either so she didn't have to know about the various aliens (hopefully next time she'll meet up with some and gets to look at them oddly, because, well they ARE alien to her..).

I enjoyed it, she enjoyed it.

We both recommend it.

Magpie

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How would I describe in as few words as possible?

High Science, no Fantasy, Merc Tactical Roleplay Encounters.