Rachel Skymoon and I are running a little adventure over at https://larpcraft.com/threads/arten...he-high-priest-brotherhood.18/page-5#post-496 to flush out some regional lore and some possible abilities for Broken Thrones.
The focus of Broken Thrones was to be as simple as possible to learn so that game hosts can attract as many possible players to make the game successful. Ufnar Kargaroth and I talked around the holidays about all the years playing larp and what we've done right, and what we've done wrong so that on this go-round, we can make the game efficient, fun to play, easy to learn, and massively expandable through the storyline people come up with.
I wanted to try and make things that are simple to learn, but everything in a new larp needs a ton of backstory and rules people will back. Essentially, we're trying to start over based on what we learned over the last 13 years of progression. Knowing how badly I screwed up in past games or systems, I'm not even going to attempt to bring back players from the old system(s) and just rebuild with a new set of potential larpers. There's going to be better structure so that the burnout and complications from the past don't end up destroying this again. We also have our own server and I've learned more about server management so we won't lose data or posts. On that note, from the time LarpCraft ended, to the time it was put back up, the software versions changed so much, I couldn't even get the data back up, and really, the old forums were comprised of a lot of outdated info and ways of doing things. Now, we'll have a much clearer forums, game systems, and all that to make this happen.
As you may have seen, we tossed back up the lifetime membership posts that I could actually get, and we will honor old lifetime and paid members if people do come back, along with their ranks, regions, etc. if they have them. However, this is not Myths & Legends Kim and Scott took that over so what happens over there is really their call more so than mine. I'm still friends with them both and would love to make LARP work here in SEWI no matter what that system ends up looking like. They also have a group that sorta replaces the SCA stuff around here, and while I'm not interested in full-contact stuff, I'll be joining their membership system to try and build more period wardrobe and hopefully join them at their stuff too. Not that any of that is relevant to this post, but it does kind of give a little better backstory.
So the question really becomes, how do we want to design this LARP. The skills and such got out of hand last time, too complex, and too many skills. However, trying to design a game that is fully roleplay based... that's too open and hard for new players to grasp as well, so it has to be something in the middle and then also blend with the forum-based roleplay stuff as well. This way, we have stuff we can be doing every night or between larps, which always worked out really well.
Our strengths we have as LarpCraft are our ability to put everything in video format, and to have a system to help new hosts start getting players to their games. I've started designing a medieval theme for the site, we have some ads up now, designed some backstory, images, got all the social media working again, I need to get some membership stickers made, we have a nice card printer here to mail out some of that stuff too, so most of what we had in place before, can be done again.
For this edition of LarpCraft... umm... 3.0 I think it would be considered (3rd times a charm) I switched copper coin to XP so that we can use to somewhat gamify what we did before, but in a different way. Trying to think of how you can earn stuff online, that's equal to stuff you'd need in game or through the forum-based roleplay. Things like food, mana, maybe health or herbs, etc. etc. mats.... thinking if the XP system could be used for money and expendables, that would better fit vs using xp to buy skills and all that. I'd like to toss up a points store again and unlike last time, you can "buy' what you need for your character anytime and now it'll be all automated. So before a game, you can "spend XP or coin" on mats for the upcoming larp, and then print off the sheet or use your phone to show what you have and the hosts will then transfer that into real mats and props.
As for abilities, the "cost" is the props, costumes, and actual knowledge. So that'll be way different in terms of what's required before you can do "the thing" you want to do. It'll take the props, the skills, and the roleplay, you may also have to submit a story on how you "learned" whatever your character can do, and that can be written in the online roleplay area or flushed out through an online campaign if needed.
You're going to see lots of story and some inkscape maps being made to really bring in the "online" areas and then toss them between the physical areas for a seamless system of roleplay kinda like what we were trying to do before.
What are your thoughts?
The focus of Broken Thrones was to be as simple as possible to learn so that game hosts can attract as many possible players to make the game successful. Ufnar Kargaroth and I talked around the holidays about all the years playing larp and what we've done right, and what we've done wrong so that on this go-round, we can make the game efficient, fun to play, easy to learn, and massively expandable through the storyline people come up with.
I wanted to try and make things that are simple to learn, but everything in a new larp needs a ton of backstory and rules people will back. Essentially, we're trying to start over based on what we learned over the last 13 years of progression. Knowing how badly I screwed up in past games or systems, I'm not even going to attempt to bring back players from the old system(s) and just rebuild with a new set of potential larpers. There's going to be better structure so that the burnout and complications from the past don't end up destroying this again. We also have our own server and I've learned more about server management so we won't lose data or posts. On that note, from the time LarpCraft ended, to the time it was put back up, the software versions changed so much, I couldn't even get the data back up, and really, the old forums were comprised of a lot of outdated info and ways of doing things. Now, we'll have a much clearer forums, game systems, and all that to make this happen.
As you may have seen, we tossed back up the lifetime membership posts that I could actually get, and we will honor old lifetime and paid members if people do come back, along with their ranks, regions, etc. if they have them. However, this is not Myths & Legends Kim and Scott took that over so what happens over there is really their call more so than mine. I'm still friends with them both and would love to make LARP work here in SEWI no matter what that system ends up looking like. They also have a group that sorta replaces the SCA stuff around here, and while I'm not interested in full-contact stuff, I'll be joining their membership system to try and build more period wardrobe and hopefully join them at their stuff too. Not that any of that is relevant to this post, but it does kind of give a little better backstory.
So the question really becomes, how do we want to design this LARP. The skills and such got out of hand last time, too complex, and too many skills. However, trying to design a game that is fully roleplay based... that's too open and hard for new players to grasp as well, so it has to be something in the middle and then also blend with the forum-based roleplay stuff as well. This way, we have stuff we can be doing every night or between larps, which always worked out really well.
Our strengths we have as LarpCraft are our ability to put everything in video format, and to have a system to help new hosts start getting players to their games. I've started designing a medieval theme for the site, we have some ads up now, designed some backstory, images, got all the social media working again, I need to get some membership stickers made, we have a nice card printer here to mail out some of that stuff too, so most of what we had in place before, can be done again.
For this edition of LarpCraft... umm... 3.0 I think it would be considered (3rd times a charm) I switched copper coin to XP so that we can use to somewhat gamify what we did before, but in a different way. Trying to think of how you can earn stuff online, that's equal to stuff you'd need in game or through the forum-based roleplay. Things like food, mana, maybe health or herbs, etc. etc. mats.... thinking if the XP system could be used for money and expendables, that would better fit vs using xp to buy skills and all that. I'd like to toss up a points store again and unlike last time, you can "buy' what you need for your character anytime and now it'll be all automated. So before a game, you can "spend XP or coin" on mats for the upcoming larp, and then print off the sheet or use your phone to show what you have and the hosts will then transfer that into real mats and props.
As for abilities, the "cost" is the props, costumes, and actual knowledge. So that'll be way different in terms of what's required before you can do "the thing" you want to do. It'll take the props, the skills, and the roleplay, you may also have to submit a story on how you "learned" whatever your character can do, and that can be written in the online roleplay area or flushed out through an online campaign if needed.
You're going to see lots of story and some inkscape maps being made to really bring in the "online" areas and then toss them between the physical areas for a seamless system of roleplay kinda like what we were trying to do before.
What are your thoughts?