Why we like plot: Our Job as DMs

[maddman75]

This is somewhat offtopic, I believe, but I am not quite certain I understand how LARP works.

For example: How does one regulate success and failure? Does it use rules such as D&D, and the players simply represent the 'minis' that one would normally use? Does the player's physical actions have impact on their 'mechanical' actions?

I've never seen any LARP and the like so I am entirely ignorant of how it 'really' works.

I just ran my first LARP, a halloween Cthulhu Live game. Our awesome LGS let us take the place over, giving me three rooms to work with.

In those rules, yes, it wasn't too dissimilar from having players walk around instead of using minis. They were also in costume and there were lots of props. As stated, the rules in LARPs can vary. In this one, players had attributes rated 1-20. Something simple required a 5, challenging 10, hard 15, and impossible 20. If you have a skill in something, you apply the relevent attribute. If you don't, you subtract 5. It is all kept very minimal, so the GM can have everyone's stats on a clipboard.

For combat, the GM calls Action when people declare their actions. You gesture your prop toward the person you want to attack. Make a fist to attack, applying all of your Dex to attacking. Make a peace sign to put half on defense and half on attack. Make a palm to put all on defense, and turn around to flee. Works well enough.

But everyone was in costume, and we made use of props. When they found the old journal, I'd actually written up a journal for them to find and read. Characters with weapons had toy versions, and even connived hiding the shotgun in a trench coat. The 'photographer' used a modern digital camera rather than something old-timey, but that's okay because we have in-character pictures.

Plot-wise, you can make use of anti-characters. In the plot that I had, a wealthy man invited some investigators to a dinner party to discuss the manner of his father's death. After the dinner but before they could get many details, the lights wend dark and he was dead (He had a ripped shirt on under his button-up, and some fake blood worked wonderfully.) My roommate had offered to help out, so she served the dinner dressed as a maid.

When they got to the kitchen, they say that the roast beef they'd just eaten was on a plate along with a severed head and foot, covered in blood, with bloody torture implements hanging nearby. The maid was also here, armed with a pistol and opened fire. A journal informed them of the plot - the father has infected Malcolm with his curse and a monster was after him. He plotted to do the same to the PCs, only making a human sacrifice out of the butler this time, and bribing the maid to help him.

They get the key to the library, go upstairs, and start reading. I'd laid several books around and hidden papers and newspaper clippings inside them. They found a ritual that would let them summon the monster and kill it. They lit a candle, poured a circle of salt on the ground, and did a Latin chant. The guy from the first scene put on a cloak and mask, and appeared in the center. They'd armed themselves with silver and managed to finish the monster off.

Everyone had a lot of fun.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

EDIT: To be clear, if you want to claim that Hussar's (thus far unsupported by an actual ruleset) "game" in which the end is known, and in which the activity has nothing to do with the outcome of the goals, is "an amusement or pastime" (as in "children's games") I will certainly agree. I believe I have said it was an amusement or pastime already. But it is not a game in the sense that Monopoly, RCFG, or D&D are games: "a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators."

But it is you that is choosing to ignore a definition that has an applicable definition to others. I'm not asking you to make a case as to why other definitions of the word "game" are not applicable to this discussion, it is obvious we can agree on those. But you have failed to prove the first definition of game invalid and thus you are dismissing it. You may not be saying that that type of amusement is inferior, but you are coming off to me as inferring such by dismissing the possibility that someone could create a game in such a sense outside of your definition.

Besides, by the literal definition you've chosen, RPGs in their current form are not games because they are not intended to be competitive.

Since no real world example exists I will try my hand at it:

Framework: Batman is after the Joker. How does he catch him?
Players: 3, 1 as Batman, 1 as the Joker, 1 as other world inhabitants
Structure: Each player assumes the role of their character and describes what he or she is doing.
Conflict Resolution: Mutual agreement.

If the players' intents are not to present this in any form of media to an audience and are solely playing for their own enjoyment, then the above would qualify as a game in my opinion. Could this be just a discussion? Yes, if the people involved were talking about the characters instead of taking their roles. Many things in life are not games in and of themsleves, but could be made into a game. Drinking. Not a game, but certainly turned into one by teens, college students and nostalgic adults.

 

[pawsplay]

Emphasis mine. If I as a person am trained/taught swordfighting techniques, how would this affect a LARP that adjudicates anything through 'boffing'? Example: Say I'm fighting someone who is statistically better than I am, but I'm actually the better swordsman. Am I supposed to hold back or is there some other method for levelling that playing field?

Depends on the game. In NERO or IFGs, higher level players do more damage and have more hit points. In Dagorhir, eveyone has the same stats and there are only two classes, people who fight, and people who say healing poems. In Amtgard, it's about in the middle, where classes and levels do matter, but personal skill matters more. Unless someone has lots of armor or a protective spell, Amtgard combat is almost identical to a Dagorhir type game (solid hit to the torso kills, shots to the limbs wound and potentially kill).

Since Amtgard emphasizes actual swordsmanhip more, the one and only time I played in an IFGS game, as a 1st level character I killed basically everything in my path, including skeletons with more than a dozen hit points, until some death knight or something cast a fireball on me. Then I died. While every combat game has different nuances, people with martial arts backgrounds or experience with other combat sports who join Amtgard are often able to get up to speed within months or even weeks.

 

[Raven Crowking]

But it is you that is choosing to ignore a definition that has an applicable definition to others.

You could argue that carrying is important when I am talking grizzlies, too, and you could equally say that I have failed to prove the first definition of bear is invalid. Equally so, but equally beside the point.

When I am saying "game" I do not mean an amusement such as a children's game. If you want to play that sort of amusement, all the power to you. But don't confuse it with a game in the sense that Monopoly, RCFG, or D&D are games: "a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators."

Or, if you are incapable of making the distinction, don't expect me to enable you in maintaining that they are the same thing.


RC

 

[pawsplay]

I think I'd like to claim that D&D is an "amusement or pastime," with its similarities to competitive games boosting that use of the word "game." Definition 1 and 3 are not exclusive, and the dictionary is not a technical reference but a linguistice one. I would not classify D&D as "competitive".

Main Entry: com·pe·ti·tion
Pronunciation: \ˌkäm-pə-ˈti-shən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin competition-, competitio, from Latin competere
Date: 1579
1 : the act or process of competing : rivalry: as a : the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms b : active demand by two or more organisms or kinds of organisms for some environmental resource in short supply
2 : a contest between rivals; also : one's competitors <faced tough competition>

Main Entry: 1ri·val
Pronunciation: \ˈrī-vəl\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle French or Latin; Middle French, from Latin rivalis one using the same stream as another, rival in love, from rivalis of a stream, from rivus stream — more at run
Date: 1577
1 a : one of two or more striving to reach or obtain something that only one can possess b : one striving for competitive advantage
2 obsolete : companion, associate
3 : equal, peer

The GM and players are not "rivals."

 

[maddman75]

The GM and players are not "rivals."

Except in Alpha Complex

 

[pawsplay]

Incidentally, Wikipedia has a wealth of definitions of game:

Game - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I like "A game is a form of play with goals and structure." - Kevin Maroney

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think I'd like to claim that D&D is an "amusement or pastime," with its similarities to competitive games boosting that use of the word "game." Definition 1 and 3 are not exclusive

Salmon is a subset of fish, as def 3 is a subset of def 1. That does not make all fish salmon, nor does it make all amusements into "games" in the same sense.

I would not classify D&D as "competitive".

Bus Depot Diner, again. Every player is working together, but they are working together to beat a challenge supplied by the design of the game itself.

Again, if you wish to claim that something is an amusement or pastime, I have no problem with that whatsoever. But I am not enabling the idea that "salmon" and "fish" mean the same thing, regardless of anyone's deeply held belief that sharks are really a kind of salmon. You can organize meaning in that way -- and if you do, hey, whatever floats your boat -- but unless there is a clear advantage in doing so, all you are doing is inhibiting clear communication.

IMHO, of course. YMMV.


RC

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

You could argue that carrying is important when I am talking grizzlies, too, and you could equally say that I have failed to prove the first definition of bear is invalid. Equally so, but equally beside the point.

And you are diverting the real topic here again. I'm not trying to argue any definitions of "game" that I do not believe are relavent to the discussion.

When I am saying "game" I do not mean an amusement such as a children's game. If you want to play that sort of amusement, all the power to you. But don't confuse it with a game in the sense that Monopoly, RCFG, or D&D are games: "a competitive activity involving skill, chance, or endurance on the part of two or more persons who play according to a set of rules, usually for their own amusement or for that of spectators."

Or, if you are incapable of making the distinction, don't expect me to enable you in maintaining that they are the same thing.

I am capable in making the distinction between two different kinds of games. But you are contenting that one form of game is actually not a game and therefore dismissing anyone who believes they are playing a game.

I've watched this over the years from all different angles. Some people who do not game look down upon gamers as outcast pursuers of immature pasttimes who aren't really playing a game but instead pretending to be an elf. Some gamers do the same to LARPers. This derision is unfounded and it is what you are participating in when you dismiss a less (or non-) structured game because it doesn't fit your definition.

[Edit: you answered pawsplay already] And what about my D&D example above? Have 1E D&D players temporarily stopped playing the game when they enter a social encounter? Can't you imagine a game that was comprised solely of social encounters like those in 1E D&D? I'm not asking if you would like such a game, but if one could exist using just social encounters from a system without a skill resolution system.

 

[Raven Crowking]

And you are diverting the real topic here again. I'm not trying to argue any definitions of "game" that I do not believe are relavent to the discussion.

Then I imagine that you and I are going to have a hard time discussing the term. "Any amusement or pastime" is far too broad a definition to allow any conclusions to be drawn about anything, eh? It works well to cloud communication, but little else. IMHO. YMMV.

I've watched this over the years from all different angles. Some people who do not game look down upon gamers as outcast pursuers of immature pasttimes who aren't really playing a game but instead pretending to be an elf.

So, some people drew a distinction that you didn't like, or thought was invalid, and therefore all people who draw any distinction share the same motives, and all distinctions are therefore suspect and invalid? Not what you mean? Then, rather irrelevant, isn't it?

Again, if you cannot see the difference, I am not going to enable you in claiming that there is none.



RC