| News |
| 04/12/03 Well lookie here, we have done a whole lot of revisions on the site if you haven't already noticed. I hope that you have all had a restful break and are all ready for this season, it will prove to be very exciting and eventfull. I would just like to take this time to tell you all that for your characters, the better you write your characters back ground the better time you will have in the end. We are realy trying to gear this twords the players and have it more on a one to one basis. So make sure you take some time and write up those bio's for your character it will only help you have a better time in the end. Well I have finished my rant for the moment. Take Care GM/ [email protected] |
| 04/27/03 Well if you hadn't noticed the event date has been changed, this is primaraly due to the compleate lack of attendance on it's normaly scheadualed date. I hope that the new date will work better for everyone and I am sure we will have a great time. I hope to see you all there and remember, submit your character prior to showing to the event so that I know what I am working with and can adjust the plot appropiotly. |
| 9/17/03 Well check it out, it has been almost 5 months since our last offcial update and now that we have we have a ton of changes, for all of you who have been this game for a while shouldn't be surpised of this and for all the new people to the game you will understand with time. There have been several changes to our game. The largest that you will notice is the change from levels to Character Points. Over all you will have to re-read almost every section of the site so that you can see the full extent of the changes. Remember ignorance is not an exceptable plea. On another note I am requesting a full character back ground from all players. There is a bonus to doing this, we will be awarding Character points for the submissions. And remember guys don't cheese this out make them good and indepth. I hope you all enjoy the changes and that it makes our game better and more fun for all. GM / [email protected] or [email protected] |
| 10/07/03 I found this artical online and it realy did hit home, personaly I agree with almost every word in this passage. Give it a read over and you may understand more of why it is so hard for some of us to just run this game. Death of a LARP Can you tell that I am obsessed with death? Most of my columns deal with it in some fashion. It's the result of not having enough of it, you become obsessed. The tell tale sign of the death of a LARP system is when everyone wants to be entertained and no one wants to be the entertainer. I'll explain. When an ongoing LARP system first starts out, it usually has a small group of players. Most if not all of those player take turns throwing the events, which is to say that they each take their turn being part of the staff. They assume the role of entertainer so that they can contribute to the game and get to play when it's someone else's turn. When people put a lot of effort in to being an entertainer then you get really good events that everyone enjoys. These may include good stories, costumes, makeup, special effects, etc. The system grows because of this effort. People tell their friends that there is this really cool game they have to play. They come and they wait to be entertained. Nobody ever tells them that they should contribute to the entertainment. Eventually the entertainers get tired because they spend all their time entertaining, and they wish someone would put in as much effort as they do. They would like to have as much fun playing as the people who come to their events. When the major plot masters stop producing and join the entertain-me-crowd, lesser plot masters fill the void. A lesser plot master has good intentions, but lacks the resources to do a good production. Without the proper resources, they lack the ability to fully impress or entertain the players. The result is an event where everyone stands around saying, "That doesn't scare me. That doesn't impress me. I'm a super hero, why should I be scared of a troll? This blows. I'm just gonna hang out and make fun of everything, until someone entertains me." Pretty scary huh? A system like this would have died a long time before it got that bad right? Well not if that system rewarded people for throwing bad events. The worst thing a system can do is reward a person for merely throwing one lousy event. I play in a system that grew so large, that the original organizers decided to let the rules be amended by order of an Event Holders Council where every event holder who has thrown an event in the past year gets to vote on proposes rule changes. Sounds wonderfully democratic right? Well that system worked for a while but the above scenarios looms in its future. In fact some might argue that it is already upon us. The problem lies in the fact that people throw one lousy event a year and they do it for the power of amending the rules. They don't deliberately make this decision, they have good intentions. They want to throw a good event, but the culture of entertain-me-players means that they have very few people willing to help them produce a proper event. Rather than throw in the towel and admit that they don't have the resources to do it right, they move forward with the insufficient staff and materials they have accumulated. Fifty or more people show up expecting to be entertained by 6 to 10 people and the result is that no one has any fun and the event doesn't meet anyone's expectations, player or non-player alike. Why do they move forward with such inadequate resources? Because they know if they don't, they won't be able to go to the annual event holders meeting and vote. So we have two problems. One is that the community has become a community of players with no game masters, and the other is that the players are making bad attempts to be game masters to earn out of game power over the rules. The solution is simple but radical. The system needs to stop rewarding game contributions with power. Imagine the repercussions if the criteria for going to the event holders meeting changed. Instead of throwing one event, maybe they have to throw 10, or even better, maybe they should be voted into office by event holders or players. Now there's a truly democratic solution. The first effect would be that the event holders meeting would be smaller and more efficient. And you would only have council members who represent the interest of the people who voted for them. But the next and more important effect would be that the only people who throw events would be people who were genuinely interested in throwing an event! If they didn't have the resources they wouldn't go forward until they did! The final effect is that players would have a much better time at these events and they might be inspired to throw their own. Before you know it you are back to a community of entertainers who take turns entertaining each other. With all the rules and politics left to the individuals who not only want that job, but also have the support of the community behind them. Unfortunately, implementing such a radical change would require all those event holders to vote for it. Essentially, you'd be asking for people to vote to remove themselves from power, not too likely, unless they genuinely care for the life of the LARP more than they cared for their power within it. If you are designing or have control of a LARP, take my advice. Do not let game contributions equal power. Game contributions should be the ultimate sacrifice of people who care enough to do a quality job. Contributors should want to do the job for no other reward than the player following they get for a well-run plot, the credit for creating a rich game environment, and for the sheer fun of doing it. Author Michael Palumbo |