NPC Tracker

Matt from Mid-Level Crisis has started doing his LARP Thing a Week (LTAW) segment, and This Week's Piece is a pretty sweet idea.

I've run plot for multiple games, and I can tell you that NPC continuity is one of the most difficult things to keep track of. The biggest benefit of this is keeping the look of the NPC the same, in order to keep people from asking "Do I recognize...?" This is especially true in games where the costume options vary less, like Exiles.

Adding the table to something like Google Docs also helps when running a campaign on a grand scale, where the NPC may not be able to make it to all the games. This way, you could potentially run the same NPC at two camps on opposite sides of the US and still maintain some semblance of continuity.

Nice one, Matt!

Bring On the Costumes

The guys over at the Mid Level Crisis Podcast had an interesting conversation regarding the problem with trying to improve new player costuming. Clearly, you want to give positive reinforcement for new costuming, but you don't want to be so blatant as saying "Hey new kid, you need to work on your costuming.

As many know, you get costume armor, but is that really enough? Especially when you compare it to the armor you get for wearing football pads (don't wear football pads).

So what are some ways to get better costuming?

1.) Experience Bonuses
Five points of armor might not mean a lot, but additional experience can usually drive players to extreme measures. Exiles uses this, where you get an additional learnin' (build point) every event for having no anachronistic elements in your costume. If you go so far as to add to the town atmosphere, you get even more.

The downside is that personalized experience might cause players to worry about favoritism, and in the case of larger games, adds an extra level of complexity on logistics that are often overworked as is.

2.) Use Chapter Resources
This is an idea that Tim and I had a while ago. When you have players NPC for you for so many events, you can provide some benefits like a decent double-sided tabard. Sure, these are intended for use while NPCing, but these can also give a basic level of costuming that would prevent new player costuming from detracting from the game.

Of course, the downside of this is that you need to either pay for costuming (very expensive) or have some dedicated crafters donating time to make the costuming.

3.) Mentoring
In my opinion, Mentoring is the best way to improve new player costuming. Telling a player that he needs to get better costuming could create some negative reactions. However, their reaction would be completely different if a player who took them onto their team said "We need to work on your costuming so people can tell that you're a part of the team. I'll help you with it." In that case, you not only get better costuming for the new player, but they actually start to feel like part of the group.

Promoting this maker culture has worked pretty well for games like Amtgard, Belegarth, and even the SCA. The downside of this is that it requires a significant level of involvement from veteran players and willingness to mentor those players.

Any of these three should be able to get the job done, but each of them has possible downsides associated with it. Got any suggestions for how to improve new player costuming?

PS: If you're interested in trying Exiles out and are free this weekend, come out to the game at Lewis Arboretum this weekend. It's going to be an excellent, season ending event with a spectacular plot team (not that I'm biased or anything). See you out there!