LARP Guidance

TBD

People interested in running a LARP (Live Action Role-playing) game should start here for advice on how to prepare for and run the game.

Planning:

• GM Same Page Sheet:
  • Avoid Large Group turn-based action
  • What to do if you need space or need to leave for an emergency
    • tell lead organizer or GM Check-Up
    • prepare a backup narrator sheet
  • Understanding the game’s power levels and importance of maintaining that power level
    • higher power characters run a risk of overriding lower power characters, and if they exist they should be in “administrative” roles, where leaving that role to personally solve things puts their position in danger.
  • Mystery Gumshoe style
    • give player characters core plot relevant clues without a roll
• Narrative Team
  • Prepare for missing players
    • Sometimes players don’t show up, but their characters were in-some necessary to facilitate the story or other player capabilities.
      • Identify the key components to each player’s story and ensure that they can be manipulated in a way to adjust for missing players. For example, if Player A wants to find a staff Player B stole, but Player B never appears, ensure that the story-important elements still exist within the game and that Player A has a clue of how to pursue them.
    • If a faction patron is missing, the GM’s can demote their character and declare the position open.
  • Avoid GM on GM in-game interactions and keep them short, with a predetermined result unless player characters interfere. Aka: don’t create cutscenes
  • Handling in-game Infections
    • Infections refer to anything that can be passed from one player to another, knowingly or unknowingly, such as by disease or from a cursed artifact.
    • Handle with a stack of cards that detail both the out-of-character and in-character knowledge a player needs for the infection. Generally this should describe how the infection spreads at a minimum
    • When a player is infected, they can be directed to pick-up an infected card from the table
    • Infections can have known effects that players actively roleplay
      • Gain a new goal/mission
      • Gain a new ability or penalty
      • Gain a character quirk to roleplay, an outward symptom of the infection
    • Infections can also have an unknown effect that players are unaware of until a specific event occurs.
      • When the event occurs, ask everyone with an infection card to take a new card which contains the additional information.
      • Allow specific artifacts to do something with/to infected characters.
        • Detect: “Who here has an infection card: I know where you are”
        • Purge: “When I activate the ability on you, remove your infection card”
        • Command: “If you have an infection card, I can give you 1 order per scene”
    • Have a method prepared to purge the infection
• GM Narrative Coverage per player count
  • 1 narrator per 5-10 players
  • The more stories are less dependent on NPCs (such as with inner politics, resource requests, scavenger hunts, puzzles, backstory myesteries, etc), the more players 1 narrator can handle
• New Player Preparation:
  • New players should have some stories independent from veteran players to avoid having them locked out of the game as veteran players pass them up
  • a “Start Here” for New Players. Sometimes simply a location will suffice. Sometimes a 5 min pursuit – “talk to this person” – that gets them something to immediately act on.
    • – New Players need goals/stories that are not connected (cannot be overwritten) to the stories of pre-existing characters. – The player analogy I was told was: “Someone told everyone ‘we need someone to get to the end of the road,’ so I got on my bike, but then someone else drove past me in their car, making my bike trip pointless.”
  • attempt to give all player characters at least 1 achievable goal
• Prepare Location Cards to represent the various locations within a game, including an in-between location (hallways, city streets, etc) where players not at any location can go.
• Starting the Game
  • Have factions start grouped together. OOC, explain that higher ranked characters can supply lower ranked characters with esoterics by giving them quests. Tell Rank 1 characters that a good place to start if they don’t know what to do is to find out if a higher ranked person needs help.

LARP Event Preparation Project Plan:

• • 6 months out, location, advertising, and storytellers
    • Setup core plot
  • 4 months out
    • Have at least 1 minigame per 15 players
    • Confirm GM Roles and organization
    • Confirm who’s in charge of administration / check-in for the event
      • alphabetical characters separated from spare characters
  • 3 months out
    • prebuild as many characters as possible
    • Start assigning characters to early players where possible
    • print handy item cards
  • 1 month out
    • review prepared characters
    • Confirm who will handle OOC announcements
    • Confirm Resolution mechanic and have tools (the portability of cards work well for larps)
  • 2 weeks out
    • print out character sheets
    • print out Blue and Green Sheets
    • Print out Post-On Doors
      • hand signs and shouts, who to go to for what, character death, ***
      • Lines and Veils
      • player end-of-night check-in options (if players want to give feedback, request help on, or simply share what their characters have going on
    • print out Quick Start Rules references
  • 1 week out
    • Plot review
    • Plan Meal options for long games
      • For GMs / Admins
      • For players
      • Snacks for emergencies (salty and sweet options, water)