Depending on the campaign, I develop quite a bit of detail on some aspect of the Majestic Wilderlands. For one campaign I fleshed out the details on the religion of Silvanus the Forest Lord. Then last year for the Gold Star Anime campaign I turned it into a booklet for one of my players. Last week I realized that I never posted it for the rest of you to use.
You can download the Gods of the Majestic Wilderlands, Silvanus from here. It also includes the relevant information from the Majestic Wilderlands for Swords & Wizardry.
One interesting thing about this particular bit of writing is that highly modified it served as the basic background of the NERO LARP chapter I ran a few years back. I got rid of the religious aspect and focused on the the rangers. Creating a code to express the philosophy of the Rangers. The players liked it a lot and more than a few of them decided to become members of the Rangers. You can download the packet from here.
Showing posts with label LARP. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LARP. Show all posts
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Friday, May 27, 2011
My Second Position
Over on Gothridge Manor, Rusty wrote a great piece on the idea of first and second position. It was very illuminating. I also know where he is coming from because of the years I spent managing live-action roleplaying events.
The basic issues is live-action is well... live. That means you need to have people in certain location at certain times with certain props and the set for the area all properly built. It also means if you don't plan well you find yourself in the middle of the event with your entire staff sleeping. All this means that live-action plot is basically a huge railroad. I ran some great live-action events but many of them would sucked badly as a tabletop session.
I lucked out with my first event in that my plot was heavy on NPC doing things (the roles played by staff) and roleplaying. As long as I didn't wear everybody out I was able to keep the event going at a fun pace.
The experience left me wondering what I hell I am going to do in the future. I was kinda aware of the limitations but didn't know how bad of a railroad live-action plot was until I had to do it myself.
So rather than wind up frustrated and return to being a player, I decided I was going to push on and learn how to run good LARP plot despite the limitations. And for the most part I feel I succeeded.
After the birth of Gregory in 2003 I no longer had the time or energy to run LARP events and tabletop gaming returned to being my primary hobby activity. I found the my LARP experiences really helped my tabletop. It helped my roleplaying (i.e. funny voices :D), being able to describe the action better, and finally made realize that I could make other styles of refereeing as fun as the sandbox game that dominated my pre-larp tabletop refereeing. As Rusty wrote about, I learned to play the second position in refereeing.
For those who are interested, the key techniques that worked for me in LARP events where
The basic issues is live-action is well... live. That means you need to have people in certain location at certain times with certain props and the set for the area all properly built. It also means if you don't plan well you find yourself in the middle of the event with your entire staff sleeping. All this means that live-action plot is basically a huge railroad. I ran some great live-action events but many of them would sucked badly as a tabletop session.
I lucked out with my first event in that my plot was heavy on NPC doing things (the roles played by staff) and roleplaying. As long as I didn't wear everybody out I was able to keep the event going at a fun pace.
The experience left me wondering what I hell I am going to do in the future. I was kinda aware of the limitations but didn't know how bad of a railroad live-action plot was until I had to do it myself.
So rather than wind up frustrated and return to being a player, I decided I was going to push on and learn how to run good LARP plot despite the limitations. And for the most part I feel I succeeded.
After the birth of Gregory in 2003 I no longer had the time or energy to run LARP events and tabletop gaming returned to being my primary hobby activity. I found the my LARP experiences really helped my tabletop. It helped my roleplaying (i.e. funny voices :D), being able to describe the action better, and finally made realize that I could make other styles of refereeing as fun as the sandbox game that dominated my pre-larp tabletop refereeing. As Rusty wrote about, I learned to play the second position in refereeing.
For those who are interested, the key techniques that worked for me in LARP events where
- Schedule staff in groups of five for two to three hour blocks.
- Pace the activity level so Friday Night estabilshes the plot, Saturday Late Morning, and Early Afternoon build tension, Late Saturday Afternoon has a plot climax. Follow by an early Sat Evening build tension, then a Saturday Late Evening grand finale.
- Build your event plan to allow the plot to have many paths but one destination. So if something unexpected comes up in Early Saturday Morning, I have stuff prepared to use in Early Afternoon and the subsequent time block that reflect what the players did.
- Over events of a season try to give each players a plot where they are lead. They won't have something occur every event but over multiple events the story unfolds.
- Realize between events you have a lot more flexibility to respond to what the players did.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Endless Star's Gear
I mentioned several times that I was a long time LARP player.
This is me as Endless Star. While NERO Larp didn't have paladins specifically I role-played him as one. This picture was taken around 2000 and shows me with my full set of gear.
From the top to bottom I am wearing
A cloth coif under a chainmail coif that has a two color braid tied with leather throngs through the links. The cloth is blue which is why it looks like I have a blue cap on. But there is chainmail over it. It not particularly heavy and as for weather comfort it is all about the cloth coif. In the summer I wore one that was more absorbment of sweat and in the winter I wore a heavier one to keep my head warm.
The Chainmail would provide some protection in real life as I found out. We were running up a path after a "monster" when we all tripped and fell on each other. There was a huge pile up on the bottom. I felt this enormous pressure on my head which then slid off. When I got up everybody was staring at me. Apparently there was a dramatic rip in the chainmail on my forehead as well as enough mud to show an outline of a footprint. Apparently somebody stepped full force on my head during the pile-up. All I can say after that was "Go Armor!".
On my upperbody I wore a white "Olde Tyme" style shirt that I picked up at a ren faire. Over that was a "plate" breastplate. I put "plate" in question marks because it was made out of the same thick plastic that plastic barrels are made out of it. I do have real armor in form of a "coat of plates." Which are 4" by 6" metal plates riveted to the a thick leather tabard along with two shoulder guards. I been whacked by a 2 by 4 wearing that and aside from the pressure pushing me I felt nothing from the blow. Note this was at home and NOT part of a normal LARP event.
Over this is my surcoat which has my coat of arms. A white eight pointed star of chivalry on a blue background. There are eight tenets of the code of chivalry in NERO hence the star of chivalry.
Over this was a belt on which I would hang a fairly large leather pouch. I kept my spellbooks, spare spell packs, string, a penknife, and some other small useful gear. Slung bandolier style is a leather strip that was a saddle belt. From this I hung my weapon holder, the black mug looking thing on my left at my waist. It is a thick cardboard tube wrapped up in black duct tape that a NERO weapons can be slid into. The one time I wore a real weapon (for a photo) I hung the scabbard of this. Also when I am going out in the field for a while I would hang a sack off of this with supplies. Once when I went to a site that we had to camp instead of using cabins I used this as the foundation for carry my gear in on my back. I can also take it off and untie it and use it as a rope to help pull somebody out of a trap.
On my arms I wear a pair of leather vambraces. Never owned anything more protective than that.
Underneath my surcoast there is a part of "plate" leg armor. They cover my thighs and knees and hang off a interior belt I am wearing. They are made of the same barrel plastic as the chest armor.
Finally I am wearing my "Go anywhere" boots. While not very period in construction it is important to have good footwear when doing strenous outdoor actitivies. They work in all kinds of conditions and I love them.
The comfort and manuveurbility of the whole thing? During the summer as long as kept moving I was OK. The layer flexed and flapped providing ventaliation. But if I had to stand for a while, ugh! The flexibility was good, the important thing was to keep the straps in good shape and pay attention to the tightness when putting this stuff on. If you did that you could do backflips in the outfit (Which I did exactly once, still not sure how). However it was heavy and if you didn't have the raw strength you would be quick worn out. A lot of my early versions of this outfit was spent swapping parts in and out to get the right mix. The bucket plastic was a god send in this regard.
I hope you enjoyed this little insight into adventuring gear.
This is me as Endless Star. While NERO Larp didn't have paladins specifically I role-played him as one. This picture was taken around 2000 and shows me with my full set of gear.
From the top to bottom I am wearing
A cloth coif under a chainmail coif that has a two color braid tied with leather throngs through the links. The cloth is blue which is why it looks like I have a blue cap on. But there is chainmail over it. It not particularly heavy and as for weather comfort it is all about the cloth coif. In the summer I wore one that was more absorbment of sweat and in the winter I wore a heavier one to keep my head warm.
The Chainmail would provide some protection in real life as I found out. We were running up a path after a "monster" when we all tripped and fell on each other. There was a huge pile up on the bottom. I felt this enormous pressure on my head which then slid off. When I got up everybody was staring at me. Apparently there was a dramatic rip in the chainmail on my forehead as well as enough mud to show an outline of a footprint. Apparently somebody stepped full force on my head during the pile-up. All I can say after that was "Go Armor!".
On my upperbody I wore a white "Olde Tyme" style shirt that I picked up at a ren faire. Over that was a "plate" breastplate. I put "plate" in question marks because it was made out of the same thick plastic that plastic barrels are made out of it. I do have real armor in form of a "coat of plates." Which are 4" by 6" metal plates riveted to the a thick leather tabard along with two shoulder guards. I been whacked by a 2 by 4 wearing that and aside from the pressure pushing me I felt nothing from the blow. Note this was at home and NOT part of a normal LARP event.
Over this is my surcoat which has my coat of arms. A white eight pointed star of chivalry on a blue background. There are eight tenets of the code of chivalry in NERO hence the star of chivalry.
Over this was a belt on which I would hang a fairly large leather pouch. I kept my spellbooks, spare spell packs, string, a penknife, and some other small useful gear. Slung bandolier style is a leather strip that was a saddle belt. From this I hung my weapon holder, the black mug looking thing on my left at my waist. It is a thick cardboard tube wrapped up in black duct tape that a NERO weapons can be slid into. The one time I wore a real weapon (for a photo) I hung the scabbard of this. Also when I am going out in the field for a while I would hang a sack off of this with supplies. Once when I went to a site that we had to camp instead of using cabins I used this as the foundation for carry my gear in on my back. I can also take it off and untie it and use it as a rope to help pull somebody out of a trap.
On my arms I wear a pair of leather vambraces. Never owned anything more protective than that.
Underneath my surcoast there is a part of "plate" leg armor. They cover my thighs and knees and hang off a interior belt I am wearing. They are made of the same barrel plastic as the chest armor.
Finally I am wearing my "Go anywhere" boots. While not very period in construction it is important to have good footwear when doing strenous outdoor actitivies. They work in all kinds of conditions and I love them.
The comfort and manuveurbility of the whole thing? During the summer as long as kept moving I was OK. The layer flexed and flapped providing ventaliation. But if I had to stand for a while, ugh! The flexibility was good, the important thing was to keep the straps in good shape and pay attention to the tightness when putting this stuff on. If you did that you could do backflips in the outfit (Which I did exactly once, still not sure how). However it was heavy and if you didn't have the raw strength you would be quick worn out. A lot of my early versions of this outfit was spent swapping parts in and out to get the right mix. The bucket plastic was a god send in this regard.
I hope you enjoyed this little insight into adventuring gear.
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