~What do I do as a Ref?~

~What do I do as a Ref?~


It's fair to say that we all come to this lovely little hobby of ours to have fun, we all want to be rewarded for investing our time and money, not to mention our emotions.
And more often than not we're well rewarded for our efforts, we clap fellow players on the back, laugh and joke and chat on facebook and forums, develop real friendships out of our fun little hobby.


But what about those folks who run it?
How often does a player say “cheers for that, I had a blast, fancy coming for a pint after the game?”.


Sadly not as often as it could or should happen.


~It's a Hard Life~
Being a Ref, Story Teller, Games Master, Dungeon Master or what ever you happen to call them can sometimes be a bit lonely.
Ours are not the praises sung online, we're really nothing more than something in place to help the Players have all the fun.


Which can be very annoying to say the least.
How many hours do you think a Ref (for sake of simplicity we'll use just this word) spends crafting the epic adventure you've just been on?


There are those who can off the top of their heads run a Linear game, a simple one shot thing which doesn't connect to the major world plot in any way other than it exists in the game world as a whole.
And bravo to them, I truly envy that sort of Ref for how easy they have it.


For the sort of games where there is a constantly evolving story however a Ref needs to plot and plan for a long lot of hours.


~And Example~
As an example i'll describe what I do for Camarilla Invictus.
It has a healthy player base of around 30 people, sometimes lower and sometimes higher.
I run just 11 games a year, once a month with December being the exception because I understand that people need time to shop, drink, eat and be merry at work parties..


So, 11 games doesnt sound like a lot does it, how hard can it be to have 20-30 people in a room playing vampires...


~Stage 1: Player Submitted Actions~
After each individual game I receive a 2-3 page document from each player detailing what they will be doing in between games, this is known in our system as a Downtime. During a Downtime a player advances personal plots, goes hunting for blood (harder than you'd think in this day and age..) and also advances the over all Game Plot which affects the whole setting.


So, each month I have to read 40-90 pages of info from players. I normally allow them 7-10 days to send them in to me so I have time to read them all and process them.


Once i've received a Downtime I have to read it over, usually a couple of times, and I often have to IM a few players back with queries about some of their actions (they're currently allowed up to 10 distinct actions) and what skills or abilities they are using.
We have a specific format for Downtime Submission which some players keep forgetting to use, which makes reading them even longer and throws up more questions than it really should.


~Stage 2: Player Downtime Replies~
Once i've read all the Downtime submissions I then have to do a reply for each and every one of them, so I have to reply to 20-30 2-3 page documents, which then become a 3-6 page reply per person, depending on how well they wrote their downtime actions and whether some of their actions need little more than a stamp of approval on them as they are just confirming some things they done during the Live Action part of the game.


After i've replied to each and every document I then have to re-write some of them because Player 1's actions may effect Player 7's actions, which in turn means that Player 3 may have some actions which now Don't work how they should because of other players..


After i've cross referenced each of the Downtime replies I then double check them for any inconsistencies (and yet they still creep in some how..).


Well, all that sounds pretty straight forward yes? I just reply to every ones Downtimes and thats it job done!


Oh if only...


~Stage 3: Paperwork & Spreadsheets~
Once i've replied to all of the Downtimes, figured out how successful the actions were and whether there has been any reward, gains and losses I then have to go through each of the replies once more, and update a half dozen spread sheets which record what Influences people have, how much XP they have and they have spent, whether a local Influence Resource is now maxed or burned out which caused further plots and problems for the players and several other things besides.


This is perhaps the easiest part of the process, after all i'm just combing through data already presented to me and picking out what changes need to be made to the spreadsheets which define the world and whether there are things I need to add to the players character sheets..


~Stage 4: Rumours~
After the Downtimes & Spreadsheets I then have to comb through each of them and pull out tidbits of information which other characters may hear about, this tidbits of information in CI are known as Rumours, and each player gains a set amount based on what Influences they hold over the mortal world.
With our player base being what it is and the diverse levels of Influences each character holds I sometimes have to generate a further 50-60 pages of rumours.

I try to make all the Rumours different for every player, which is quite hard when you think about it, but thankfully i'm able to reword some of the Rumours a little differently, give one character a rumour about a drug dealer they know and another player a rumour about a drug dealer seen in their area and a third player a rumour about some one who was beaten up a local druggie for debts.. Rumours in our game are used like a form of currency, players can trade them with each other so that they can eventually piece together some part of the World Plot and work with it, against it or totally ignore it if they wish to do so..


However because CI is set in a darker version of our own world and times I also comb the local press for interesting news stories and from time to time work them in to the game as well, that way it helps to ground the characters in to the same reality as the players themselves live in.


~Stage 5: Damage Control (aka Spreadsheets pt2)~
This is little more than a quick double check that I have all the right info in the right place, and that sheets are updated which serves as a nice segue in to the penultimate part of the process.
That said, every month some things do still slip through the net, a player may not of had their new skill recorded or if they've lost an Influence they may not have had it recorded on the relevant spreadsheet..


~Stage 6: Keeping the World Turning...~
Once all the Downtimes are done, the Rumours created I then have to open up some other documents on the computer and update the world as a whole.
I keep tabs of things done, NPC's interacted with, plots generated by players which effect the world and world things which effect the players.


Camarilla Invictus is an evolving world, every action has a reaction in effect.
No matter how small an action might be there will always be some form of reward or consequence.


~Stage 7: Informing the Players~
Once all the downtimes are read & replied to, the rumours generated and the world edited so it doesn't blow up I then spend an evening informing the players the results of their actions.


Through out every stage of the process i'm also always available for the players to contact me, which can sometimes slow up the whole process if one or two players insist on asking the same question a dozen different ways trying to get plot leaks from me or try and metagame with out being seen to metagame.


~Mistakes..~
Sadly now and then mistakes or errors crop up, usually from where i've been chatting to players, lost my place in the process or forgotten to go back and update a highlighted bit of info..


Thankfully such mistakes are few and far between, usually one or two players contact me to say “Heya XYZ isn’t on my sheet... any reason why...” and i'm always upfront and honest with them, and they almost always have the updated information within the next hour (though usually within the next 10 minutes.. because I take pride in what I do)


~Why Do It?~
It is a lot of work, and CI is a very cheap game, we only ask for a small amount of money, either to cover the location costs or to build up a little bit of a kitty so we can use a bigger & better location with less over all cost to the players as a whole.
It can be a full time job with all the hours I put in to it at the end of the day, but I don't earn a wage for what I do, if I were to charge players for the time I spend keeping the world running i'd charge then CI would cost each player £10-£15 per game they attend.


Thankfully I'm blessed with a very patient partner who acts as my A-Ref and takes some of the work load off of me, she often tends to the Spreadsheets helps with the Rumours whilst I deal with the rest of the workload for the game.


It is a lot of hard work but I find it very rewarding to do.
I love being able to shock and surprise players, give them what they think they want and turn it in to something monstrous which they talk about for months after, even now in 2014 players talk about things that happened in 2012, some even talk about what happened in 2008 in whispers of fear and awe.


It makes me swell with pride after every game, seeing the look on their faces when they realise what's happening in the game around them and knowing that I personally am having that effect on them with what I throw in to the game.


~Dark Times...~
However, there are times when I want to walk away from it all.
A player takes an action done against them by another player in game and turns round and blames it all on me, after all i'm the guy that writes the replies to the Downtimes..


We've had players leave the game in the past and try to discredit us, every system has that in all honesty, but as we're a Small game and group many of us become good mates and it hurts to hear mates say such things.


There are times when several players may complain about another players Out of Character Actions, and as a Ref I have to be the person that tells them off, and once in a rare whilst I have to ask players to leave the game because of the massively disruptive influence they are having on the game as a whole.


Being the Ref of a game isn't all fun and sunshine, you can lose players who were mates because of how things turn out in game for them, you can gain players who make characters but then never turn up despite all the promises under the sun of “i'll be there next game...”.


It can be a thankless thing to run a game, but when one player in the game says “thanks” that's all I really ask for.


~Other Systems~
So, i've outlined what it is I do for Camarilla Invictus, which has only myself and an A-Ref.
Other systems use a lot more Refs for all kinds of things.
Some small systems, with a similar player base size as CI have a larger number of Refs, each overseeing some aspect of the game.


Harlow by Night for example has a Rules Ref, an A-Ref, a Boons Ref and a Rumours Ref, all of which perform a small selection of duties.
Labyrinthe has a Ref and an A-Ref for each 'Dungeon' they run, a Games System Manager who over sees the Rules adjudications, a Ref for their Online/PBM setting (Heroes of the Empire, aka HotE) and one who oversees something known as “Yellow Papers” where players can request new abilities for a small fee. They also have Refs that over see a selection of different Campaigns.
Empire, Odyssey and the like all use a Team of Refs who keep the world turning, some focus on character creation, others only on Crew.
Wasteland also operates a small team of Refs who handle everything in a similar manner as I do for CI, however they also have people who source props or make them from scratch, something i've recently ventured in to myself..




The Refs are the behind the scene people, often over looked and forgotten.
They're they guys and girls who strive to make sure that everyone has as much fun as possible regardless of the length of the events being run.


The work they do is 90% unseen by players, the paperwork, the data sifting, the props sourcing and building, the event writing itself (Linears don't write themselves..), the rewriting of plots when specific players are unable to attend or the sudden mad dash to get crew for an event..


It's tough to be a Ref it really is, but it's rewarding if you can pull it off.




So, after the next event you go to, make sure you offer a little thank you to the fine folks that run the game, your thanks will go a long way!




Written by Nick Sands, who's given up trying to find the Perfect Battenburg and has decided to hunt for the Legendary Tiramisu of Doom...

~Does size matter?~

~Does size matter?~


There are many genres of games for us all to try out and enjoy, everything from glorious mass battles to zombie hunting in old army camps and more besides.


One thing you should always take in to consideration however is the size of the game.
How big is its player base?


Why so I hear you ask, well really at the end of the day not everyone is suited for the very big games where you have hundreds or thousands of people all playing at the same time, just as not everyone is suited to the smaller games, where the player base is little more than say twenty or thirty at a push.


~Bigger is Better~
There are some who claim that it's only the big games that are worth going to, after all they're bigger, which means more will be going on, more plot, more drinking, more fighting, more chance to back stab another character and make off with all their loot.


For some the “national” sized games, such as Empire or Odyssey are the only thing they enjoy.
They get to be lost in all that rich lore, another face in the sea of faces all partaking of their hobby.


After all, if so many people go to the game of that size it must be the best thing since sliced bread yes?


~Good things come in small packages~
On the flip side of that however are those who feel lost at the big games, and they find that they're more in their element at the smaller games, they feel they can connect to the plot a lot more, or have more of a chance to shine if there are less players present.


A small game often has less personal rivalries in it, they can be very welcoming and always happy to meet & greet new players to their small group.


A small game may be small simply because of its geographic location, after all players may only be willing to travel so far to play a game of a specific genre.
It may be small purely because it was designed that way, and that if it grows to much it would become something the people running it no longer recognise or wish to have connection to.




In today’s society however it cannot be said that a game is small due to its advertising, given the way social media works and word of mouth trickles info out there is always a way to get the word out about the game.




~It's not the size that matters~
One thing games of any size has in common are its players.
Those staunch supporters of the system, who love the lore and the rules regardless of how simple or how complex they are.
There's something that draws those players to that game and keeps them hooked.


They go out of their way to never miss a game, and even trudge along in the worst of weather and even when ill.. (Man Flu is nothing compared to Larpers Flu!).


Something else every genre & system has is its haters.




~H8rs gonna h8!~
Sadly, as the internet is fond of reminding us is that haters are gonna hate.
It doesn't matter how good your game is they will find something to complain about.
The worst of them are the ones who have never played the game in question and pour on scorn like there’s no tomorrow, and when questioned about it they will always have an anecdote to hand on stuff they'd Heard, but never seen for themselves, which they latch on to and try to ridicule it as much as possible, and before long they'll turn round and say “we'll I’m only giving you my opinion on it if you don't like it don't listen..”.


Orcs in one system may be green, monosyllabic, big and dumb, whilst in another system they may be based on feudal Japan, deeply honourable and well versed in poetry and arts.
A hater will find something to complain about either one of those types of orcs..
“Oh, yeah typical orcs, just hit stuff and go 'ug smash'” and “Really? Orcs with katanas... their hands are to big to make the armour, they can't lace it up, next you'll be telling me they have a slave race they treat well....” are two such comments I’ve seen online over the years about differing styles of orcs..


No matter what we do in life there will always be room for improvement and feedback becomes criticism and not the healthy kind. It starts to fester and before long some one could be ridiculing some aspect of a game they love playing just because they've been dealt some kind of loss in game recently.


No matter the game size or genre there will always be those who just want to bitch and whine about the system.




If you look at the various facebook groups and forums for the Big Games you'll find plenty of people on there complaining about them for one reason or another.
However, when you look at the small groups you almost never find that sort of behaviour.


Smaller groups tend to be a lot more close-knit, its a different feeling of camaraderie, and no less valid than that at the big games mind you.




~Choosing the right size~
It can often be hard to know what sort of group size you work best in, and its often not until you try both sorts that you learn what lets you have the most fun.
There are those who strictly enjoy the smaller groups when it comes to fantasy games as there is more of a sense of accomplishment when they win the day.
Like wise there are those who feel that being in a small group is to restrictive and they can't play to all their strengths as a person let alone a character.


Neither is one is right and neither one is wrong.
It really is a case of different strokes for different folks and it's not until you've had ago that you can really say what’s more fun.


After all, isn't it all about having a fun day (or weekend if that's your thing) and having some wonderful memories of the game you played.
And if the Haters are getting to you, put them on block online or kill them IC. If you're lucky they might just leave and make everyone happier that way!


Written by Nick Sands, Ref of the nicely sized Camarilla Invictus game, who may have found a good portion of Battenburg and a mug which holds just the right amount of Tea...

~Fun, Risk, Failure & Reward~

~Fun, Risk, Failure & Reward~


Not to long ago (volume/edition) I spoke about character death and retiring characters who've had a lengthy play time.


This is some what of a follow up to that article in a side step fandango kind of way..


There comes a time when the character we're playing takes on a life of their own, and you become heavily invested in them, emotionally and very possibly financially as well if you've bought a lot of kit for them which wouldn't suit another character.


This is great, it means you managed to reach that rare roleplay spiritual plateau where you have become one with what you have created.
And then some big monster comes along and snuffles them up with out even bothering to season or add some gravy. How inconsiderate of that monster right?
Don't they know you scoured the internet for The Perfect Weapon, don't they know that you spent weeks sorting through charity shops, jumble sales and bootfairs for that perfect bit of clothing every one associates with your character?


It's enough to make you cry! You died! Oh no! So unfair!


~Wind your neck in buddy.~
You want to play a game where there's no risk of failure or death?
Go play some computer game in god mode then, go on, shoo, get out of here..
I hear that quite a few MMO have lots of grey critters you can spend all day spam killing for fun!


Roleplaying & Larp are all about risk!


What good is it if you're never challenged?
What do you learn about yourself if you don't have to examine those grey areas you always ignore?
That comfort zone you spend all your time in is all well and good but as a person and a character you don't grow in any way at all other than notching up some XP and adding some more skills to your character sheet!


~Rule 1: It's all about having fun!~
Yes but who's fun?
Yours most certainly, but what about everyone else in the game, aren't they allowed to have fun as well?
What about the fine folks that run the games for you? Are they doing it just to provide a service for you and not allowed to have any fun of their own?


Never forget you're not the only one playing the game.
Don't try and bully other players in allowing you to “win” all the time, you're there to play with and against them.
No one likes bullies, and you can soon find yourself being ostracised or even being asked to leave the system by the folks that run it.


~Failure can be more fun than Success~
What better opportunity to prove your (and your characters) sense of worth than by winning against all odds. That moment when you can fist pump the air after some how managing to survive a session despite being low on health, mana & arrows (or other system specific measurements) is truly a wonderful thing.
It lends you an air of bragging rights, you get to have a bit of an in game Rep, a legend in your own lifetime!
Until of course some one else comes along and does a similar sort of thing and you're forgotten just like last fridays newspaper which doesn't even make it in to the chippy to wrap up a nice bit of cod & chips..


Playing a character who doesn't go out of their way to risk themselves and the things they hold dear is a bit of a lame duck. After all, why are you playing the game if there's no chance of losing something, be it your life, your fathers sword or the multinational corporation you built up from scratch?


~I Win!?~
What makes a Win situation in a game though?
Is it surviving week to week, month to month year to year?
Does your game have specific quests which are there to be done to gain bonus XP or other nifty rewards?
Do you set yourself some goals which are not related to the games main plot but follow a personal story arc instead?
Is your game all about co-operation or is there plenty of PvP risk involved with the things you might want to do?


Sometimes it's obvious what equates to a win in a game: the princess is saved, the evil warlord and his army are defeated, the wicked witch's curse has been broken.


What about the things which in the short term look like a win but turn out a few months later to actually be a lose?
The princess you saved is actually a doppelgänger who's now ruining the kingdom.. Yay! You helped destroy a kingdom!
The evil warlord was actually fighting to prove the King is a dragon in disguise who ate all of the royal family.. Well done, you just became a tasty dragon snack!
That wicked witch you dropped a house on had a sister who's a lot more powerful and you've just made it personal for her.. Better escape to some other plane of reality because there's nothing you can do to stop the witch, she's just to powerful and has no known weaknesses!


Do you feel a bit cheated, after all you worked so hard to “Win” before and that's been snatched away from under your nose!


In some games there are no clear Win situations, all you can do is hold back the Lose situations.
But what if the point of the game isn't to win, but to struggle, to lose friends and allies along the way, to come under suspicion from others?
Wouldn't that be fun!


~Turn that frown upside down~
So, you're battered, broken and you've lost all your friends and allies, you're a wanted person and the world is now against you.
Great!
Now its time to really start playing the game.


You have to beg, steal and borrow, do things that the previous shining knight you once were would have found despicable and killed people for. You're having to learn as a player and a character where the oh so very blurred lines are in society, what makes a man become a criminal or the underdog?
You're stepping outside your comfort zone, and you know what that's the best thing ever.
That's where you can learn the most, that's where you get to find out who your character really is and just what they'd do to win no matter the costs...


Sometimes it's easy to get attached to a character because everything they do is golden and smells of roses, they never fail a skill check, everyone loves them and they know all the best restaurants in town and all the best clubs where all the girls are pretty.
In all honesty that's not a game where you learn anything, it's just fantasy and wish fulfilment and that can be really boring for other people to interact with.


Make sure your games are fun for you and those you interact with.


Fun doesn't mean God Mode Easy...


Written by Nick Sands, ST of Camarilla Invictus, who's on a holy quest to find the sacred Battenburg of Perfection and the Ever Full Mug O Tea!

So, looks like the Printed Magazine will go the way of the Dodo...

In this day and age a large amount of people within the Larp and gaming community arrange most things online, and i for one am very surprised that Seaxe did not embrace the digital format.

That said, it means i can publish my other articles now, which i'll do one a week starting from Monday Morning.

Well well well...

Had less published than i thought but i've got loads more pending publishing (if they get approved after a rather snotty email to the magazine..).

If none of my others are to be published then i'll simply post them on here :)

It's all Larp or Roleplay related stuff so it may not be everyones cup of tea..

Volume 2, Issue 3: Types of Larp, Son of Sam (one trick pony players)

Types of Larp: Pages 64-65

Types of larp: more than meets the eye


There was a time when Larp pretty much just meant “a bunch of folks in a field with boffers”.
Fantasy larp at its most basic, it didn't take to long for spells to be made, the good old fireball, lightning bolt and healing sort of spells.


Since those days however the realm of Larp has dramatically changed.
No longer mere fantasy, but as groups started making their own systems worlds and genres became as diverse as the players themselves.


Historic
There are some who feel that the Re-enactment scene is just a bit to structured and rail roaded, so instead they devised rules to allow themselves to play inside the world we know, during a key historic period and play out scenarios to see what would of happened if a slightly different tactic was used. After all, what would of happened in Hitler didn't try to invade poland but instead sent a small crack team of experts to remove the infrastructure of the country, who knows how differently the world would of ended up!


Fantasy
Perhaps the single largest concentration of the larp community fills the Fantasy section. There are quite frankly a staggering number of systems and games being run in the UK alone that are predominantly and quite clearly within the fantasy bracket.
Whilst they may not all have elves, dwarves and orcs they all follow a general theme.


That said, even within the Fantasy sector of the hobby there is a large degree of different genres...


;High
High Fantasy is what perhaps the large majority of games may count as. There are lots of different races, a really good selection of classes and it has a large number of magic user types, from the wise cleric, the sagacious mage, the charming bard or the pious paladin or vile necromancer, demonologist and unholy champions.
High fantasy is what the greatest number of larpers known if only because they come in to the hobby via tabletop gaming, and high fantasy can easily be identified with such games as Dungeons & Dragons, Pathfinder or even Warhammer.


What sets a High Fantasy game apart from other games is the sheer abundance of magic, weird and wonderful creatures stalking the land, potions to replenish ones health or even the ability to hop from one plane of existence to another with it almost being un-noteworthy.


;Low
Low Fantasy games however tend to have far less magic available to the players. Magic may require lengthy rituals to enact, strange creatures may only stalk the land in myth, and even those myths have a basis in the more mundane world.
Low Fantasy games game have a smaller selection of unusual races available to play, with more focus on different tribes of humans filling many of the niches other High Fantasy races may usually occupy.
After all, why have wood elves when you can have a tribe of humans who settled in the forests that fill the lands, and have over time become expert trackers, hunters and who happen to be just ever so slightly better with a bow than the humans who live in cities..


Low Fantasy games also fit the Fest style of games as many Low Fantasy games tend to be quite deadly, less about mass combat and more about politics and small skirmishes where you never know if you really will be going home on your shield or horrendously maimed but with a glorious tale to tell round the fireplace that evening!


;Alternative Historic
Falling between the Fantasy and Historic border are the Alternative History games.
The world is pretty much as we know it, but magic does exist, strange things do stalk the land, and a few key differences are in the time line of history.

Whilst not always confined to the Fantasy era the style does lend itself wonderfully to the genre as a whole.


After all, what if the Viking Jarls had a Stormcaller or Weather witch at their command? Perhaps the reason Winston Churchill was so successful was because he launched a series of occult forces against the Axis forces (which if you know anything about history you'll know to be actually true, but what if they could throw lightning bolts, summon back the soldiers slain on the battlefield to keep fighting and so on..)


Modern
Many modern games tend to be considered more along the lines of a Social Larp, more about personal agendas and less about running round the woods with a nerfgun and foam sword.
That said, like the Fantasy genre there are a large number of different types of Modern games.


By the term “Modern” we dont strictly mean the 21^st century, anything really from Victorian era onwards could count as a modern larp. Modern era based larps are significantly easier to find props, costumes and character concepts for, after all a quick trip to a charity shop or maybe a flea market and you can net a lot of good stuff for all sorts of games!


;Horror
Horror based larps are great, they encompass a little bit of Investigation and sometimes a little bit of politics or even combat.
Combat in Horror based games tends to be quite onesided, especially if you're just a regular human being going up against elder gods and ageless things that live in cities made from impossible geometries..


Horror based games tend to have a nifty little mechanic where it's possible for your character to lose their sanity from coming up against things that should not be, or from reading mystical tomes which impart a terrible knowledge and shatter the mental barriers against all the things we're told don't exist.


Within the Horror Genre are also the World of Darkness games, where you can play a Vampire, Shapeshifter, Mage, Mummy, Ghost or Fae. All of which have their own agendas to change or control the world around them. And whilst these games are also very political they are always based in the core theme of Personal Horror.


;Armed forces
There are those who like to play soldier, and whilst the genre can fit in anywhere it tends to be a Modern or Futuristic game where this character concept really comes in to its own.
You could get missions any where from invade the tank factory and steal the blue prints through to assassinate a major figurehead person (often based heavily on a known historical figure to be better able to give reason as to why your C.O want them dead).


Armed Forces games also encompass the very niche Spy setting, where espionage is the order of the day, indeed you may be flung in to a military group as the spy with your own objectives, or you could be the next 007..


Armed Forces based games also tend to use real paramillitary uniforms, a strict rank system and Airsoft weapons in place of the standard foam latex weapons.


;Noir
A Noir game is a rather unusual style of modern game. It's more of a specific setting that it is a game type. Set around the 1930's, with some defining substance that has been embargoed by the Government or the Crown, with gangsters, molls, hitmen and dodgy dealers of rumours being the chief style of character that is played.
Noir games tend to fit in to the Horror genre very well, there isn't lots of technology that allows you to instantly solve a clue, science and the scientific process is some what long winded and mankind is just that bit more reluctant to believe in certain facts than they do in our modern day and age.


;Steampunk, Dieselpunk & Victorian Futurist
Steampunk (and associated genres) tend to be quite fast paced, high on action, romance and more importantly Tea!
Strange things exists like walking tanks, dirigibles, machines that can tunnel to the center of the earth and even crude (by Cyberpunk standards) body replacements, gatling guns for an arm, or a steam driven vibrating sword inplace of a hand.


For many people who enjoy this style of game it's more about the look than anything else.
The iconic tophat with some goggles on them, ladies in leather jodhpurs and a corset with a parasol.
Indeed, it's easy to source outfits for, a well cut old suit, a tophat, a keyfob watch and cogs on everything!
You even need cogs on the cogs trust me!


Steampunk is as much a lifestyle as the Gothic, Burlesque or Punk movement.


Investigative
Games based heavily in Investigation fit well in to many catagories, and indeed a large number of systems may host an Investigation based game as a prelude to other events that year, after all if you don't plan something well then who knows just how it may mess up..


Zombie
Zombie games these days are big business. Hollywood has done a lot in the last 10 years to help out. From the Resident Evil series through to shows like Walking Dead.
Zombie games, like many other genres, fit in to many different settings as a whole.


They can run as short as just a couple of hours (get through the woods and escape the zombies) through to a few days (you wake up and the world as you know it has gone to hell).
For many the Zombie game is about over coming that personal horror of “what if I got infected, what if my best friend or partner was infected, could I do what it takes to survive, do I have what it takes to survive in that sort of world.” and during the game you have a lot of hard choices to make. Ammo can become scarce, and you really don't want to get all up close and personal with a zombie..


For many the thrill of the game comes from being totally outnumbered, under prepared and with just not enough resources as might really want to have.


Post Apocalyptic
Another very good style of game, the Post Apocalyptic games tend to take their cue from the popular Fallout and Borderlands computer games.


Its however many years after humanity managed to press the big red button and nuke itself.
You play the survivors and descendants of that terrible time. You are constantly struggling to survive. Finding food, medicines and clean drinking water is a large part of the game. The land is filled with radioactive hotspots, where bizarre mutants roam, and other groups of people,like yourself who just want to survive.


Usually a Post Apocalyptic game is based around the more unmentionable (and least desirable some might say) sorts of people. Those who don't have a problem with killing, maybe some one who had a large family and now is a very good butcher and never seems to be with out some meat in the skillet. Traders also tend to thrive in these games, you never know what they'll have on them, perhaps they have exactly what you need or maybe it's all just junk. And they can often be about ensuring your encampment has enough to survive for just that bit longer and screw everyone else!


Sci-Fi
Unlike Fantasy there are not as many sci-fi settings in existance. A few notable ones are based heavily on tv shows or films, such as Stargate or the wonderful anime Ghost in the Shell.
They can be pretty easy to source props for and tend to fall in to the Armed Forces style of game play.


;Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk games are set just a short distance in the future. You're essentially a group of hired hitmen and problem solvers. Your bodies are not entirely flesh however, you may have bigger and better limbs, be able to go online with but a thought, or have a dozen deadly weapons hidden about your body. At the most extreme you may even just be a brain encased in a fully robotic body..
They lend themselves heavily to the Goth & Punk milieu, taking a lot of their look and feel of a dystopian world where large companies control every thing and you're all that stands between the common man and the march of so called progress..


These games are often about the struggle between the cold logic of machines and the emotions both warring inside the same body.


;Hard Science
Hard Science games are similar to Modern games, however the creators go to exacting lengths to ensure the game is as deadly as real life is.
Theres no holding your breath as you jump from an airlock in a spaceship and land in another one a hundred meters away. If decompression doesn't kill you the cold will, as might micro meteors or any number of other things.
Hard Science games tend to be about Exploration, discovering a new planet and going there to find out what its like.


There are very few settings that are Hard Science within the UK, especially when compared to the other game types.


;Far Future
Far Future games can often end up looking like a Fantasy game, strange alien races, unusual weapons, people who can kill with just a look or spit arcs of lightning from their fingers.


What distinguishes a Fantasy game from a Far Future game is quite hard to pinpoint.
Fantasy games tend to be set on one planet, where the majority of the races all dwell where as Far Future games tend to be galaxy spanning and use a lot more ranged weapons.


Other than that, at first glance they can look pretty much the same and its really just the background that distinguishes them as separate things.


Jeep/Nord
Still very new in the UK is what could best be described as an emotional theatre game.
You are given a role, lots of hints and tips on how to act, but there are no real “Rules”.
They do not play like traditional games and to be honest a large number of people liken them to little more than group therapy sessions.


In a Jeep/Nordic Larp you come pretty much face to face with your fears. Theres no letting up, no getting away from it.
For example one Jeep i've seen spoken about online quite a bit was as follows:
It's the 80's, you're a hard partier, you do drugs and you're in the gay scene.
One of your friends becomes HIV positive, unknowingly they spread it around, and they soon develop full blown aids.
You basically play a person at a party getting drunk and having unprotected sex.
Theres a brief time jump of 5-10 years, many of your friends now have HIV or Aids, and so do you.
For this part of the game you have to act like you're slowly dying and you know theres nothing you can do about it.
By the end of the game you may die, or you may not.
You may have already died in the first act of the game and thats it, game over for you..


Nord larps of this sort are still regarded with much scepticism within the UK and within the online larp community.
Whilst there are those who would love to try this sort of interactive theater there are a greater number who see it as little more than emotional torture and could cause some potential damage to those who're not stable enough to handle being emotionally broken down.
There are those who have done them and claim them to be incredibly cathartic, allowing them to see the world through truly different eyes.


~~



And whilst this list is not extensive it should give you an idea of the sort of game styles out there that you may have never considered before, and who knows you might like to go and try some..




Son of Sam (one trick pony players): Pages72-73
Ok, this one was a massive balls up of royal proportions!
They'd put in some one else's article which had been published the month before but with MY title..

Here's what it Should have looked like...


Son of Sam: 1 trick pony players

As some one who's been gaming for a good 25+ years i've come across a dearth of players, good ones, bad ones, ones who make you face palm so hard you're certain you hit the neighbour as well and so forth.

One sort of player i've always felt rather sorry for are those who play just one thing over and over again with little to no variation in the theme at all.

I've seen them in all sorts of places, tabletop games, wargames and especially at larp events.

The dreaded Son of Sam player!

What is a Son of Sam player I hear you ask? Well, at the core they're some one who plays one character no matter what system they are playing.
They try to keep it as close to the same background, the same class and same race.

So a pretty typical SoS player might always play the half orc fighter who doesn’t like metal armour and always fights with two stone axes.

Or they may always be the son of a wealthy noble who was dispossessed of their title and deeds and is now fighting to get what’s theirs back regardless of what system they play in (i've personally seen that one done by one player in a AD&D game, a DnD game, a Shadowrun game, a Battletech game, a Starwars game and even in 3 different MMO's. All had the same name, the same rough background and the same likes & dislikes.

I decided to ask the player about this little foible of theirs and they said they had never noticed it before, they just liked the concept and just wanted to play that.

Now theres absolutely nothing wrong with that in the slightest really, after all if the players having fun who's to stop him and pull him up on it?

After a few more games however the player began to not enjoy it anymore and asked me what to do about it.

I asked him why he was no longer enjoying it, his reply was pretty much “it's all i've ever played and it's all a bit routine now, I just didn't know it until you said about it”.

I gave what I thought to be fair advice: play what you know but with a dramatic twist on it.

Still play a dispossessed noble but instead of the chatty and charismatic character, play one who's sullen, angry at what happened and out for revenge, so much so they took up the sword and shield so they might be better able to turn the tide on the people who caused their downfall.

The player took that advice to heart, and with the next character they made they recalled what I said, and since then they've gone on to have a whole lot more fun again and have left the same old concept long behind them, no longer are they a dispossessed noble, but now they're a cunning bard, sowing seeds of rebellion, a jedi with a secret love, a troll shaman who sees mankind as the biggest threat to his beloved swamp and an ace WWII fighter pilot who came from very humble beginnings!

How Convenient!

One thing that's always really irked me as a GM and a Player is when some one dies in a game, goes off to make a new character, and some how all the magic items and armour the last character had is just so very conveniently perfect for the new one.

“Whats that, the plus 5 holy avenger our last paladin had and we're keeping to take back his church is exactly what you've been questing for.. here have it, the dead guy wont want it will they...” *Shudder

Players and GM's who allow that sort of behaviour from fellow players need a sharp slap round the back of the head. It really is lazy and adds nothing to the group at all, it doesn't change the dynamics of the party, it doesn't allow for old unsolvable challenges to suddenly be solvable, it doesn't allow for growth or real learning, and ultimately starts to kill the fun of the game.

How to handle it

GM's have the single greatest power to prevent this sort of play. The power to say “No, that character doesn't pass muster..”.

Plenty of GM's use that power, especially if they recognize that a player is becoming a Son of Sam..

However some GM's don't like to say no, ever. They think they're stopping the player from having the kind of fun they want to have.
Sadly at some point those sorts of GM's need to learn that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few and stand up for the good of the group.

Some players may not like that, accuse the GM of bullying or of playing favorites with others in the group, and theres not much that can be done about that. We all play to have fun, but anyone who thinks only of themselves is being rather selfish when it comes to the game.

Maybe that group isn't right for that player, or maybe, just maybe everyone else is right and that player is wrong and the player needs to learn that.

No matter how a group approach the matter it should always be done in confidence, with no heated arguments, but with reasoned discourse and friendly banter.

No Means No

Some players however will not heed all the most well meant and well given advice the world has ever seen, not even Ghandi could reason with them, and they will keep pushing and pushing until something breaks.

Usually it's the GM and other players that and just allow the behaviour to continue, after all they may feel like they owe it to the person to keep them in the group, they don't want to be accused of bullying or being bad players by some one with sour grapes.

At times like that though they need to recognise what they're doing and stand their ground.
No one likes it when a group loses a player, it can be campaign breaking (and some players will use that sort of threat to get what they want) and ruin the game entirely.

Some times however you have to accept that, the GM needs to stay firm to the rules and guidelines they have in place.

Article written by Nick Sands, who's been gaming for the last 28 years and still forgets some rules. He's also in desperate need of a decent Battenburg and mug of Tea...

Volume 2, Issue 2: So Long Old Friend: Retirement and Death

Found on pages 64-65

So long old friend: Retirement & Death

Jerreck the mighty, despoiler of the Black Temple of Sog, raider of the lost Dragons Graveyard and Baron of Millia stood there, blood seeping from a dozen wounds, arrows piercing his chest and back, his armour all but rent apart after a savage blow from the Black Ogre Chieftain.

So, I took six doubles to the torso, a quin to the torso, three singles to the legs.. that makes a total of twenty damage, minus for armour from the locations... twelve damage over all..

Jerreck slid to the ground, struggling for breath but finding none there, his lungs to pierced through and his ribcage shattered.. the Black Ogre Chieftain was perhaps one foe to many for him to take on.

I only had eight left, and because of that Shattering Blow I couldn't soak all of the chiefs hit.. i'm dead, thats put me in to minus numbers. Can't say it wasn't an epic fight though.. god i'm sore all over from that one..

The warrior slumped forward, dead and unmoving.

Jerry don't be a jerk, let me raise you...

Asra the druid, who was his companion and wife, knelt beside the body, watching as her magic failed over and over to bind the spirit back to the body..

Sorry guys, I think it's time started something new, I really like some of the other options in the new books.. and beside i've been this guy solid for four years now...

Asra wailed long in to the night over the passing of her husband and friend. But deep down she knew that some where in the world a new hero was starting their first steps and perhaps their paths would cross one day..

~~

We all larp for pretty much the same reasons.

Fun, excitement and challenge.

Anything else after that is just a nice bonus, a personal goal though perhaps one that many others share.

But what about when it starts to not be quite so fun? After all, theres really only so many times that you can go slay the evil demon, save the princess and save the world.

No, seriously there is..

So, what next? Say good bye to it all, hang up the sword, fold away the robes and put the books, character cards and daggers for good?

Well, for some that might be the answer, but for others who want to keep playing in the game there is always the option of Retiring the character, if you're lucky they may make it in to the lore and background of the game. If you've got a great Ref who thinks it'd be a great idea that your character settles some where, and their lands become a hub for new adventurers and tales of daring, then fantastic!
Not every Ref is able to do that though, they may not be the people who own the system they just see to the rules on a game by game basis, there may be a team of Refs working together, keeping the world going through lots of small campaigns or linked adventures and through group discussion they decide that perhaps the best thing over all is that you just remain dead and the game moves on.

It can often be hard for players who've played for any amount of time as the same character when it comes to them shuffling off the mortal coil, but as a player its your duty to remember just why your character became an adventurer after all, they were risk takers and they were ultimately caught up in one risk to many.

But a games no fun if there's no real chance of defeat when you think about it, that’s worse than perhaps a high mortality game.

In a game where there's no real risk it often becomes stagnant and fast.

Your character might have all of the best weapons, the best enchantments, the best allies, the best armour and the strongest fortress.

Day in and day out you go kill a few thousand goblins.

Yay.

Fun.

It's a Ref's (Games Master or Story Teller if you prefer) duty to challenge you, keep you on your toes enough to know that you might not survive, to throw in a good selection of challenges, social, mental and physical and make sure that something slithers in the darkness just round the corner from where you are.

Death: The Final Frontier

One thing i'll always remember was reading a Chick Tract and in it was the immortal line of “Go home marcy you're dead..”.

Most roleplayers become deeply invested in their characters lives, they're heroes (or villains) in their other lives, that thing they do at the weekends that they dont always like to share with every day folks.

After all, how can you really explain to people “oh I dress up as an elf and go killing snake men from the city of Kah on weekends..”.

That other life is a little bit secret, and it's personal. We invest time & money in to it, we do it to challenge our selves.

And sometimes we lose that challenge and pay the ultimate price.

We snuff it.

Kapute.

Done for.

Dead.

The question is, did we have fun? Did we get to kill the mighty Black Ogre Chieftain and save the land with our sacrifice?

An ignoble death is something most players are worried about, we go in to battle side by side with our brothers and sisters in arms, only to be the first man savagely cut down by a dozen sneaky archers.. a senseless death, no rhyme or reason to it, just death for the same of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Here's the thing, Death doesnt care. One way or another we'll have to face them in the end.

What matters is how we deal with it.

Some players will sink in to a bit of a depression for a little while, that other side of their life has just come to a rather brutal end and they need time to let it sink in.

Those other lives of ours are just as every bit cherished as our Real Lives, so it's only natural that we'll feel saddened by the loss.

Other players will shrug their shoulders, and the next day will have a new and different character all ready to play and be in that mind set, not trying to be a Son of Sam style character, because there's nothing worse than a group losing say a powerful warrior or sneaky rogue only to find that the next day some one just as powerful or sneaky was hidden in a cell and they just happened to discover them.. look all that equipment the old guy doesn't need will be perfect for the new guy... how convenient... And very lazy.

There will be those players who plan ahead, they know that sooner or later they'll snuff it, so they have a contingency character all ready created and ready to go at the drop of a hat.

Indeed just like regular roleplaying games a player might look at a newly released book and say “Hey I didn't know I could play that, I might give that a go next” and start getting ideas for a new character.

Cheating Death

A great many systems these days allow for characters to return from death.

In fantasy systems this might be a Resurrection spell cast by a cleric, or perhaps a not to evil necromancer will summon the spirit back and bind it in to a new body, that body might have unusual memories or skills all of its own..

In Sci-Fi systems some piece of alien technology might be able to genetically reconfigure the corpse and instil in it some semblance of life through sheer dint of technological supremacy and power beyond human understanding.

In many Modern or Post Apocalyptic settings however Death is final. Once you're dead, that's it, there's no coming back.

Unless of course you happen to be playing in a modern setting where there is a high amount of magic or strange ritualism, then it could be possible to come back from the dead as well.

However, you go about doing it, if you do cheat death you should play that fact up.

You might, for a while, be filled with a sense of indestructibility after all its not every day you get to give the Grim Reaper the finger.

Maybe when you come back you're haunted by nightmares, after all you've seen whats on the other side.. have fun with that when roleplaying!

The question is, is it right for you to come back. Just because your system lets you, should you?

There are some systems where you have essentially unlimited lives, you just come back again and again. But after a while you might be forced in to a new body after the system says you've taken one on the chin to many times.

Other systems let you have one, maybe two chances (and its not always guaranteed either) at coming back, but your companions will have to be quick, they might have only minutes to stabilise your body, to capture the spirit and then prepare a ritual to bind it back, and if anything goes wrong in even the smallest of ways then you're gone for ever...

Some groups may have a whole story arc comprised of travelling to some other plane of existence to retrieve the spirit of their friend they thought dead, putting themselves in great peril at the same time, after if they all die who'll rescue them?

Retirement

However, you may after a while just become bored of the character. Some of your OOC mates might have dropped out from the group and the synergy and spark has just died out, or perhaps there's a few people in the same group who're all the same sort of class or function and you just feel like a spare peg.

Perhaps you've levelled up so high that you're god like in power and there's no real challenge any more except once a year, and even then you know that you probably wont die because if you do then loads of the games plot will be dead as well (Yes there are players and systems like that!).

What ever the reason, sometimes its better to bow out gracefully than be remembered for some half-arsed death scene which was little more than committing suicide by monster..

If your character is important to the over all plot make sure you speak to the Ref before hand, let them know you're thinking of changing character for what ever reason. The ref might actually agree with you that it's the better thing to do and give you a great send of game so that every one talks about you for years to come and and become some part of system myth..

That game doesn't have to end in death, the result could be you being taken by the gods for some special purpose, or maybe you become a monarch or made part of the nobility so that adventuring is something that you can't really do any more because you're to valuable alive..

Even if you don't get made in to some myth or legend in your own life time the Ref will appreciate you going to them with your concerns, it's part of what they're there for after all, and they'll do what they can to either allay your fears or maybe offer some kind of solution, maybe they'll even give you a hand with making a new character.

But if you don't give the Ref any notice you won't be doing them or yourself any favours, you may seriously damage a game by not telling the Ref about your intentions.

And no one wants to be known as “That Guy” trust me.

When to start up a new character

There really is no real Golden Time to start a new character.

There are some good times, such as when the group have entered a new city or area of the game world and you fancy playing something local based.

Try and think what your new character will bring to the game, will they be some one who's from the city the party have just entered, who knows the back alleyways and all the secret places where deals can be made, or perhaps they're a traveller from even further afield and find themselves surrounded by the curious and wondrous but their eyes are caught by the group of strangers who also stand out in the crowd.

Perhaps your last character died at the hands of Psionicist and you think that playing one of them might be fun given how you died in an unexpected way, or maybe you saw some one in a different group playing a race and class combination that you'd never seen before and you can think of other things to do with a similar odd mixture.

There are those players who start up a new character every time a new supplement is released, they have a dozen characters all going at the same time in the same system and they're all different, but they don't spend a lot of time playing any one of them so they just hop from one thing to another..

But what ever you do, just remember the golden rule.

Have fun!

Article written by Nick Sands, who's the Ref of Camarilla Invictus, formerly known as Kent by Night for the last 20 years and is desperately searching for a decent slice of Battenburg and mug of tea...

Volume 2, Issue 1: The Moral Compass & when it goes Wrong

The Moral Compass and when it goes Wrong: found on pages 80-81

The Moral Compass and when it goes wrong...


If you've ever played Dungeons and Dragons, in any of its incarnations, iterations and editions, you'll of course know what i'm talking about.


Alignment!


The old tabletop game had nine distinct alignments, based on Law, Chaos, Goodness, Evil and Neutrality.
Law and Chaos opposed each other, so you had to be one or the other, much the same as Goodness and Evil.
Neutrality sat as a buffer between them all.
Law/Chaos would define how you reacted in general to the Laws of the land, whether you upheld them or would go out of your way to oppose and seek to over throw them.
Goodness/Evil determined how kind hearted you were or how vile a person you might be when pushed.
Neutrality between either Law and Chaos meant that you didn't go out of your way to topple governments or to stop brigands and criminals from committing their deeds..
Whilst Neutrality between Good and Evil meant that you wasn't going to overly go out of your way to help little old grannies to cross the road or go around robbing from the rich (or anyone else for that matter!) and giving it to yourself.


Over the years i've seen some very loose interpretations of what alignments allow, and i've been horrified by some players actions who turned round and said “But my alignment says it's ok to do it..”.
Interestingly i've seen more bad stuff done by people claiming to be Goodly or Lawful than I ever have witness by those playing Evil or Chaotic alignments..


And there somes a time when you have to wonder about whether the Alignment system really works, or if there should be some new alignments thrown in to the mix..


Chaotic Stupid?
There are those players who insist that by being Chaotic Neutral gives them reason to do suicidal and utterly stupid things. A Chaotic Stupid person might for example kill all of the NPC's in the game just because the frog told him to, and no one crosses Mr Froggy Wibble!


CN players seem to assume that they can play almost comedy characters, which in a great many games can be destructive for the players to the point of grinding the game to a halt and potentially ruining the game.


They dont try to understand that the character could be driven to acts of kindness just as much as they can to destruction, that they seek to be unconfined by the society as a wholes perhaps rather strict and confining methodology or caste system..


Lawful Nazi!
To play certain characters, such as a Paladin or Holy Avenger, you need to be a person who understands the system, who knows it may not be the fairest thing in the world but over all it does society right in the end.


But invariably you get those LG players who become baby killers just because, and their reasoning is “the king/god told me to do it so I have to...”.
They forget all about the GOOD side of their alignment, they don't seem to get that you can do something like in the film Schindlers List, ferry people out of the corrupt and clearly evil state and off to a better life.
Just because their god has decreed that everyone with a certain hair colour is evil theres nothing to stop them from falling in love with some one who's apparently evil, and helps them find precious roots to dye their hair because they know the god is wrong..


Neutral Meh..
For some people choosing Neutrality isnt about their character not having motivations or goals but because they think if they do a good act at some point they're allowed to commit some evil attrocity later down the line, or vice-versa.
I've witnessed this in a game of DnD a few years back, the player gave an old woman an apple as a random act of kindness and then whilst the rest of the party were sleeping butchered one of the other characters.
Apparently giving the old lady an apple meant he was compelled to do some great and evil thing..


Neutral is a much confused alignment, it's entirely possible to be whats known as True Neutral, where a character is Neutral in regards to Law and Chaos and Neutral when it comes to Good and evil.
You'll get those players who select True Neutral (NN) as a reason for their character to not get involved with any fights, ignore characters who need aid, walk by people drowning in streams and have no regard for local laws such as city entrance fees or a minutes silence on a holy day..


These players tend to turn round and say “Yeah but i'm True Neutral so I don't really care..”.


Dealing with these people
I'm sure if you look hard enough at any tabletop or even perhaps a larp group you'll find these sort of people.
The best way to deal with them isn't to just ignore them, however tempting that might be!


Instead get to know them a little better, see if you can find out why they're playing that way.
It might be that they seem to think that's how the alignment is meant to be played, in which case regale them with a tale or two from your gaming past of how you've played people with those alignments.
If need be dig out the rule book, high light a few key phrases for them, help them to understand that what they're doing is not only bad gaming but that it is really easy to correct.
Teach them to be a better player, after all we all were new to the hobby once!


Other Alignment Systems
DnD isn't the only game with this sort of alignment system in it, there are a few LARPs which also use them, as well as other roleplay games which use it or something very much like it.


Alignments are not a bad thing, they give a player a rough outline for how they can act and play when in character, but they're not the be all and end all of the character.


Some systems like World of Darkness (oWoD)has something a little similar, Virtues & Humanity.
However in the WoD system they represent not only the lowest depths that you will sink to when pushed but also a dicepool to resist sinking that low and become just that bit more evil, cold or emotionless!


The newer version of World of Darkness (nWoD) also has Vices & Virtues, things that you struggle to resist or find it easy to do for yourself and others.


Regardless of the system however they should be used as a guide as to how your character can act, in their best moments and in their worst.


After all, if we all played the same alignments regardless of race or class (which throws in other complications) then it'd get very boring very quickly...




Article written by Nick Sands, who's the Ref of Camarilla Invictus, formerly known as Kent by Night and is desperately searching for a decent slice of Battenburg and mug of tea...

Volume 1, Issue 6: The Day the Larp Died, Goodbye KBN

The Day the Larp Died: Found on pages 54-55

The day the LARP died...


I can still remember the very first combat based larp I went to, Labyrinthe!
The very name conjours up images of twisting caves, forgotten oubliettes and sexy goblin kings lurking round every corner.
It didn't disappoint in the slightest I can tell you.


That day spent in the total pitch black except where one or two people had glow sticks to light the way. Creatures faster than the eye could see, frenetic combat, and the loss of a good friend who died at the hands of a dark elf assassin!


In no short time at all I grew to love the game, it had everything I wanted that I could never get in the table top games.
I was in a group of friends, my table top group, who all had been going to Laby for some time even though I was new to the area they welcomed me with open arms.
During the breaks the sense of camaraderie was evident in many of the people down there, all of them on some alternate quest or vital mission of mercy and daring do!


Whilst I was there I came to make a good many mates and even lucky enough to make some friends, and eventually meet my girlfriend whilst there!


However, after a while, as I began to level up my character and play with other groups, not to mention Monstering (playing purely as crew for the day), there began a curious sort of rot which had started to set in.


I was suddenly aware of numerous small groups of people, cliques and elitists I thought at the time, which were often referred to as “The Old Guard”.
Each of these little groups had very little time or like for the other groups. At first I just thought they were in game guilds or factions and that the subsurface hostility I had noticed was simply some excellent roleplaying.
Before long however I found that the hostility was indeed a very real thing.


The odd tale of a drunken assault or bitter row on social media had begun to filter through to me.
Now i've always been a live and let live kind of guy, never anything bad to say about anyone unless the really had wound me up (which was a hard thing to do, i'm to fat and jolly to be getting annoyed!).


After a couple of years I had been down to the game enough to know who liked who and who avoided who and so I was suddenly aware of a massive social minefield.
But me being me, I just cracked on and kept chatting to anyone and everyone.
That was when it all really started to go wrong for me.


Some how, because I seemed to prefer to Monster and not play, a member of two of the Old Guard had decided I wasn't worthy enough to be part of what they saw as their game.
This hostility of course made me want to play less, and monster not quite as often as I might have liked, I would be asked a couple times a month to monster on a dungeon a friend was playing in or even running but I started to find excuses, so in the end I was only going once every couple or three months, then once every four to six months.


There came a time all of a sudden when I realised I hadn't been down to either play or monster for almost an entire year, though I was still active on the forums, checking them daily for interesting happenings and the like.
I resolved to start going again, after all I was in full time employment and had some spare cash.
So I found a low level game to get involved with, made an entirely new character, used up some of my monster points (a great little thing Laby does to encourage people to crew, which can be spent on making other games a bit cheaper or to purchase the latest game update books, of which there are a great many..) to advance my character a few levels and be able to use heavy armour which a friend had loaned me for the day, and then I managed to convince another mate to come along, some one who had been larping for a very long time and even now spends most weekends in a field or nuclear bunker some where in the country.


My mate was more than happy to crew for the day, it gave him a nice rest from being a player.
So off we trekked, I got painted and armoured up, much to the interest of some visiting italian grandmothers who were fascinated by a grey skinned demon warrior with boar tusks jutting from his face!
So, after a few obliging photos with the ladies, and what i'm sure was a rather cheeky pat on the bum from one of them during a picture, off I set, Jalagos the Grrtuck warrior who didnt bother with shields but relied on two mighty hammers and a rather dodgy germanic accent to get through most things.


And you know what, I had a blast that day, it was great to be back on the swing of things, smiting left right and center, protecting the squishies in the middle of the party, causing racial tensions with some of the local townsfolk who didn't like my folk..


All those worries of what the Old Guard thought had totally gone away.
Until that is I got home and read on the forums that certain people didn't think that people should be allowed to monster unless they had played in the system for a considerable time.
The post was directly aimed at my mate, the person had even referred to the dungeon he was kind enough to crew for the day!


This of course started up a rather heated debate as others threw their rather limited opinions in to the mix.
I spoke to the currant management team about certain player attitudes that bordered on bullying, and was told “oh thats just how they are, they're always like it, nothing we can do”.
It was the straw that broke the camels back for me. A good number of people had all complained about the same attitudes from the old guard and each been told the same thing.
At that point I vowed never to return as either a player or a member of crew to the system.


Since then I've used the caves for another system (Kent By Night/Camarilla Invictus), which all the players loved, and you know what, I started to miss the place, the ambiance of the location, the claustrophobic feel, knowing that if it were not for the torches and glow sticks you'd be in utter darkness..

I'd heard that some of the Old Guard are no longer playing, and I started wondering if its time to dust off the hammers and practice my rather bad germanic accent once more..


After all, Laby was my first love when it comes to smiting and I did have some good times down there..


Whether i'll return however I don't know. There are just a few to many negative memories as well for me. Despite having been playing for 11 years (with the exception of the last one and a half when i've not played or crewed for) I still consider myself an utter noob with their system, its hellishly large, and easy to get confused with how things are done.


If I could find a combat larp that used a similar location, didn't have 4 different kinds of armour class (Armour/Physical, Dextrous, Magical and Spiritual), where abilities didn't have a dozen names and all the same effect and was just a bit more affordable i'd like to think i'd be a regular combat larper once again.


As it is, i'm rather happy running my own system these days, which has no cliques, no old guard, people bring cakes for one another, is full of combat, both physical and political, and has a modern theme to it, not to mention it's 1 tenth the price for the same length of time of game play!


Article written by Nick Sands, who's the Ref of Camarilla Invictus, formerly known as Kent by Night and is desperately searching for a decent slice of Battenburg and mug of tea...













Goodbye KBN: Found on Pages 66-67

Goodbye Kent by Night...


Very recently as a Ref I had a hard decision to make about the system I’ve been running for the last twenty years.
It'd come to light that we were losing potential players because of our name.
Kent By Night.


Now, if you've played in other Vampire based LARPs you might be aware that “By Night” is a bit of a brand name much like Cam-UK and UK-Masquerade.
A great many people had have rather mixed experiences, as mentioned in the recent article a couple of months ago, with vampire LARPs as a whole and many vampire games, regardless of the system they're part of will use “By Night” as part of their name, to indicate that it's a vampire based game regardless of the Sect or Clans available.


With the “By Night” appendage there is usually the town or city in which the game is based and played in.
For example, you might find a London By Night game, as well as a Tottenham By Night or Chelsea By Night game, all of which run in close areas but are utterly unrelated (though you my see a few similar faces in them, after all the LARP community is quite small and its very easy to bump in to others you may well know..).




-A Game Unlike Any Other-
When advertising our game, either on various facebook pages, or by word of mouth, we'd constantly run in to the stigma that seems to follow all vampire games.
“Oh, you're a 'By Night' game... yeah, no thanks. Tried that before, didn't like it.. bunch of weirdos..”


Which when you look at it is a rather blanket attitude, it's like saying “Gemmel? Yeah don't like him because I read some Tolkein and got bored..” or disliking Angel just because it was a spin off from Buffy.
They're totally different beasts. Ok, theres a few similarities but not enough to pan one with out giving it a chance just because you don't like something it's linked to in some manner..


Kent By Night really was, and still is, unlike many other vampire games due to not only the rules, it's not a Minds Eye Theatre system, but it is a Vampire the Masquerade based game, using all the same powers, clans and sects. Unlike other vampire LARPs Kent By Night uses full contact combat rules and everything is Real Time, so once you're in the IC area nothings OOC, everything you say is considered IC, same as every action you take is also considered to be fully IC, as one player found out when he blew his brains out all over the surrounding players in a game of Russian Roulette..


Other people just didn't get that about Kent By Night.
Other By Night games were all strictly non combat, no death except when it drove the story.
There was little real PVP action at all except when it drove the story along.


Kent By Night was nothing like that, and no matter how both myself and the players explained that other people just didn't get the fact that we were called “By Night” but in name only because it was a clear indicator we were a vampire based game.


-The Dilemma-
So, the dilemma of Kent by Night was something along the lines of: Should we change our name to remove us from the other local games with similar names, or should we stick with the stigma of being confused with other games which we don't really resemble.


Myself and the A-Ref spent the better part of two months discussing the matter on and off, judging player reactions to the name, listening to their stories of other games which they have attended in the last or still do attend and how those games go with the “By Night” name.


We put together a list of some other names that were not to much of a mouthful, chatted with a couple of our long term players who've been with us since day one in the Chatham area based game.
One of them asked, initially, why we wasn't called Chatham by Night, and the very simple answer was “there's not enough people in Chatham to support all the vampires that will attend the game” we also made mention that given the history of the game that Kent was a very troubled Domain as a whole and as such the game will be set in Kent as well as East & West Sussex, again due to game lore.


After whittling the twenty potential names down to a list of 10 we then opened up a poll to the players to vote on, after all it was their game just as much as it the Ref Teams game..

The players as a whole took to the poll with great enthusiasm, and even offered up additional ideas some of which were also very well received.
So, being the fair Ref that I am, I reset the poll, using most popular options previously voted and some of the most preferred player ideas.
Within a couple of days of the new poll being up we quickly saw that the players were interested in a new name and began discussing just what it meant as a name for the game.
Camarilla Invictus.


-Hello Camarilla Invictus-
It sounded snazzy, it made it clear that we're a Camarilla based game and even made use of the Kent coat of arms motto (Invicta or Invictas depending on the age of the local council stationary..).
It also was a great way to lure in people who'd played the more recent New World of Darkness games where there was a sect called Invictus or something remarkably similar..


It was explained that the root word, Invicta, meant Victory or Strength, and players were agog at how such a seemingly random idea for a name had gained momentum and become the firm favourite of two thirds of the player base (the other third being spread between the old name, and a smattering of other ideas).
However the final third have now come to accept the new name, which is great news because it means that 100% of our player base is embracing (if you'll pardon the pun) the new name.


Myself and my Asst-Ref have updated all our Wiki as much as possible, keeping a few mentions of the old name and even having a page as to why it was changed.
We've had some one design some great new artwork for our facebook group and wiki, and we've got a few surprises for players next year..




The other great thing about changing our name is that suddenly players are really interested in just what the game will change in to, and the last few months since we started the name change process the game has evolved in to a rather different beast.
Before it was a casual gathering of vampires, the option of politics against one another was there but few really took to it (and as such they became victims of those who did take to it, but isn't that what the games all about?). There was the ever present chance of random violence, after all vampires are creatures ruled by their passions and some are rather quick to anger..


Now however the stakes have been raised, almost everyone has suddenly taken an interest in the player versus player aspect of the political struggle in the game.
The game seems to have suddenly gelled in to what the Ref Team envisioned a couple of years ago when we started the game in the area.


For the players the game is now much more personal, their characters live in the domain and now they know that there are very possible threats in the domain, some from other players and some from things invading the place where they live and feed..


So, from January the 1^st Kent by Night is no more.
And Camarilla Invictus has taken its place as a vampire game with a little more bite!


Of course, if the Camarilla should lose Kent to the Sabbat...

Article written by Nick Sands, who's been running Camarilla Invictus and the preceding saga for the last 20 years. He's in desperate need of a decent Battenburg and mug of Tea...


Wiki link: http://kbn.wikidot.com/start
Facebook group link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/151976118247403/

Volume 1, Issue 5: The Mass Charade

The Mass Charade: a Review of the 2013 End of year "Special", found on pages 64-65

Volume 1, Issue 4

Nothing in this one.

Volume 1, Issue 3: Stigma of Vampire Larps

As found on pages 56-57

The Stigma of Vampire LARPs


In the Beginning (V:tM) & the System(MET)
Just over twenty years ago a game called Vampire: the Masquerade was released, people loved it. It wasn't the whole swords and sorcery thing, it was a daily grind to survive, night by night struggling for power, trying to find people to feed from, politics and even some great fights if you were lucky.


Then a LARP was made for it, known as Minds Eye Theatre (MET for short).
Back then LARP was still mostly guys in a field hitting each other with gaffer tape weapons, and whilst there were a few really special locations like castles or disused mines that could be used that sort of thing wasn't the right setting for MET.
MET was a highly social game, there was almost no combat and that suited its players perfectly.
However, unlike other LARP systems it had a very different set of rules, the ubiquitous “Rock/Paper/Scissors” way of resolving things.


If you wanted to fight some one you stood in front of them and told what you was doing, and they'd say how they would counter it, each of you would “draw” your rock, paper or scissors and that's how you determined if you hurt the person, or if you missed.


Some people really loved how the game worked, because it didn't mean you had to start buying weapons and armour, you could wear modern clothing. Others loved it because of the politics involved, and that's really where the game was at its strongest.




Interview with that dead guy
In VtM: MET you could be a hoary old man from the middle ages, who has survived by taking extended periods of “sleep”, waking every few years to check on how their mortal schemes were going, or you could play some one who was made a vampire just last week and they've suddenly been thrust in to a world of intrigue and horror. You had to pick a clan, which determined some of your special powers, and you then had to pick things called influences, which showed where you had some control over the mortal world.

In between games you'd use your influences to help or hinder other players or to advance the plot for the bigger game.
Yes, a bigger game, because by then there were so many players a global plot was set up, and players who were members of certain groups were subject to the global plot line. All the local plot lines had to be checked by a large team of refs who'd all mail each other, or as it was back then, use bulletin boards, and determine amongst themselves what the affect was for all the different groups. For example, players in London could do some kind of sanction on the transport influence, causing problems for the players in France, America and China. France, America and China would then have to retaliate in some manner.


The game was truly global.




Emo-Factor & The Red Headed Stepchild of Larps
Only, it wasn't. Some local GM's decided not to be part of one organisation, and split off to form their own, using exactly the same rules but changing a little bit of the world history.
The rot had started to set in.


It didn't take long for the MET scene start to get a bit of a bad reputation amongst other systems for one reason or another.


People who had been to the traditional systems that had sprung up were evolving their hobby, their world was changing, equipment was getting better, you could buy proper armour and weapons that looked amazing.
But MET was stuck with its much ridiculed resolution system, and it had started to become a bit of a joke system to many people.


I was recently speaking to a number of friends trying to drum up some new members for a local vampire game, Kent By Night, and the general response was “Vampires, yeah MET, no I don't like that LARP but I loved the tabletop game” though not always as nicely put as that..


“A Vampire LARP? Oh, MET, yeah no I don't do vampire games”

After asking around a lot of people I was surprised to find that so many people within the hobby see a vampire game as something less than any other game, it really is seen as the lowest of the low in so many circles.

When I looked further in to it, I found that so many people had had bad experiences at a vampire game that it put them of from trying any other system.

And there was the problem, there wasn't actually any other system that was being used, every one was stuck with the MET resolution system, and it didn't feel like a LARP, it was just interactive theatre with some rules for “bang you're dead”.

If you ask anyone who's been and no longer goes to a vampire game you'll probably hear some horror stories about players taking real weapons, or the really bad accents, the capes, the frilly shirts, the fangs and the fake blood.

Sadly all that is true, I've seen it all first hand in a number of different games.

And that's where Vampire LARPs got their bad reputation from.

Those one or two people who think all vampires are 12^th century noble men from some strangely names part of Europe, with dodgy accents and a predisposition for saying, “Ah the children of the night what sweet music they make..”

Oh The Horror...

Sadly a lot of people forget the premise of the World of Darkness, the main setting which it all came from.

Horror. Personal horror specifically.

Think about it for a moment. Last week you was Bob the doorman, you knew a few people in and around the clubbing scene had a few tarts you were friendly with, then one night some chump comes in to your bar, starts a fight, you throw him out, he glowers menacingly at you and stalks off.

Two nights later the guy comes back, pins you up against the wall, and savagely rips at your throat with these great big freaking fangs. He's inhumanly strong, there's nothing you can do. You die.

The next evening you wake up again, hungry. Hungrier than you've ever been, you try to eat some food, you're violently sick, spewing up blood and the food you tried to eat. You pet dog Snuffles cowers in the corner and suddenly you know what you have to do, what you need.

And that’s where the torment begins for a new vampire.

How soon do you succumb to the endless emotions of anger & hunger?

Can you control yourself long enough to get to work that evening? To look like normal? To then mentally control your boss in to giving you a raise, until a few weeks down the line you run a large group of night clubs, with the assorted trades you'd find in them (tarts, drugs and protection rackets).

How long before you start looking round for more of your kind, only to find that the one who made you owns a large selection of pubs and clubs, do you try and take revenge, to ruin his business and to see him dead at your feet or do you run away in to the night and set yourself up else where?

Think about the future. Your family, they're all going to die. You're going to have to watch them all grow old and die. Every single one of them.

How do you think that'll affect you? Will you crack under the pressure of it and go mad? Or will you distance yourself from them, make it look as if you've been killed in an accident.

The world you've woken up into is a bad place, and it's going to be a hell of a struggle to get anything achieved, sometimes you wish you were still mortal and that you didn't know about all of this. You was happy in your ignorance, but now you know what's out there.

And what about all those other things? If vampires exist what about ghosts, werewolves, witches, warlocks and tentacle monsters?

The current state of affairs

In the last few years vampires have become big business, there are toys, books, movies and TV series where vampires are the “good guys” and that's been a massive boost in some ways for the Vampire LARP community.

If you were told, “Yeah you can play stuff like Lestat,Tim, Selene, Sookie, Damon or Mitchell” and you loved those shows you might give it a shot because you have something to draw from.

You know what the shows and films are like so you get an idea of what you can do, what your powers might be and so on.

But what if you were then told, “It's quite political, a bit like Game of Thrones”.

Everyone knows GoT. If they don't then they've probably been living under a rock for the last three years with out internet access.

So, mix up the politics of GoT, throw in a dash of sexiness from True Blood or Vampire Diaries. Let that simmer for a little while, stir in a pinch of I Am Tim, and a generous helping of Being Human.

Like revenge, a vampire LARP is a dish best served cold...

There are now several different systems floating around, MET is still the biggest of them, so many groups use the rules because they're easy to use and it's what people know (it probably doesn't hurt that in the wake of VtM: V20 there’s now going to be a revised edition of MET).

Another radically different system that’s been slowly gaining popularity in the last couple of years is Kent By Night. The Ref Team behind it looked at all the different vampire rules produced by Whitewolf Studios and then looked at other LARP systems. Eventually they created a LARP which is the best of both worlds, combat like a “traditional” LARP with weapons, a large selection of abilities and no need to stand around saying “Rock beats scissors..” but all the horror of the world slowly falling apart around the characters who're struggling to maintain some form of control over it all.

Written by Nick Sands, who's been running Kent By night in one guise or another for the last 20 years.