Sunday, 23 April 2017

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

How would I describe in as few words as possible?

High Science, no Fantasy, Merc Tactical Roleplay Encounters.

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