New Blog on the Block: Gamesthetic

I'm always a fan of new LARP blogs that come out, no matter what the information is about.  I'm also a bit of a nut for theory on rules and game design.

So it's no surprise that I'm pretty excited about Rob Ciccolini's new blog, Gamesthetic.

For those of you who are not familiar with Rob's work, you need look no further than the Madrigal and the Accelerant ruleset.  He's been involved with LARPing for a very long time and has played in tons of different systems, and those experiences have shaped the simple and intuitive nature of his game.

Even though he only has a few posts so far, I find that most of them contain some gem of information that sparks insight in my mind, such as his suggestion to focus on player interaction rather than plot interaction if you want to become involved.

If you consider yourself a connoisseur of game design, or are running a game and really want to take it to the next level, I highly suggest that you subscribe to his blog and read it religiously.

You can get to his blog at http://gamesthetic.blogspot.com/ or in the blogroll on this blog.   

Internal Conflict Between Character and Player

Everyone's run into that moment. You know, the one where your character wouldn't do something but you totally would? Or maybe vice-versa?

In a recent podcast (which I assume will be posted soon), Mickey told me all about some of the mechanisms that are used at Madrigal in order to mitigate these internal conflicts between player and character, and I must say, I was blown away. Something that wasn't even on my radar before that conversation is now very prominent in my field of vision.

The big example Mickey gave me was "the plague." If a player isn't feeling well or doesn't want to go on a module due to OOG circumstances, they might say something like "The plague has taken me." That is a sign to all the other players that while the character would definitely go, the player isn't up to it. The plague exists as a concept in the game, so there's very little break in immersion. And what might be more important, other players cannot refute or "dog" that person into going, because he or she has the plague!

So without stealing any thunder from the podcast, I'd like to talk about some important points to remember when trying to implement these conventions into your game.

1. Everyone Accepts the Rule
Obviously, if someone says they've got the plague and someone else tells them to tough it up or starts trying to convince the player that they should go on the module, the convention doesn't actually save immersion. All players need to understand that conventions like this shouldn't be challenged or discussed. If players aren't going to be willing to do that, then your game might not be the kind of heavy immersion game that would benefit from mechanisms like this.

2. Build It Into Setting
These mechanics should fit somewhere in the setting, so that they can be discussed IG and so that all characters understand the meaning. This trick can also be used in reference to use of various pieces of anachronistic safety equipment.

For example, Babylon (Knutepunkt 2011) used airsoft equipment which required face protection. In that game, the world was known to have poisonous gas/airborne viruses that characters had to protect themselves against. So whenever fighting was going to commence, sirens went off indicating that the air was contaminated, so players put on their masks.

Osiris Sanction uses this mechanic to explain all the laser tag equipment on the players as well as why players don't really feel pain. All of the fighting in that game takes place on a surreal data network, where a person's avatar is very close to their real self.

3. Empower the Player to Control the Character
Now, these mechanics are designed to give the player the comfort level they need at a LARP. So when you're designing these systems, try and find ways of actually empowering the player to invoke the mechanic, rather than the system or the character. I know this might seem like a no-brainer, but some games would rather put those controls in the hands of the staff running it rather than an individual player.

Simply put, you have to trust your players to use these mechanics appropriately, and just deal with players that you think might be abusing a system. This is definitely one aspect of the game that shouldn't have to be micromanaged by the staff.

What do you think? Does your game use any concepts like this? Do you think they would benefit from having a mechanic like "the plague?"

Geeking Out: The Accelerant Ruleset

I had a serious geek out moment yesterday. I was speaking with the author of another larp blog about a game system and he pointed me in the direction of the online ruleset. I read over it and found that it was amazing, easily the best boffer larp set that I have ever seen. The core rules and effects fit neatly into 28 pages of text. The math is simple and the flavor potential is huge. I love the Accelerant rules set. I am going to go ahead and post the link and then I will look at a few of the things that make it so great.

The first thing I must dispense with is the question I will get, why is the book 179 pages long when you said the rules fit into 28 pages? The answer is that all of the core effects and combat mechanics fit into 28 pages, the rest of the book is fluff specific to the system that I linked. The limited number of effects might seem to some NERO lags as a detriment, I am here to tell you it is not. Having as many takedowns and durations as NERO is a mistake. It heightens the learning curve of the game for vitually identical effects. In the Accelerant system, you can be Drained by fire, or drained by law, these are both drain effects with different roleplay. The fact that the effect and the cure remains the same but the flavor can change even more than in NERO is probably my favorite part about this system.

Low math is probably one of the greatest concepts that has come about ins some recent boffer larp systems. In the past the math for combat has always been fairly high, characters in NERO regularly swing 10s or 20s. In a low math game all swings are for 1s except for special attacks. The Accelerant system is low math, vitality stays fairly low even in more powerful characters, which serves to make combat more dynamic. People are up and down more, more of the combat is decided by special skill use and many of the skills that are used are refreshable after combat. This type of system has several benefits, the lower math makes it far easier to keep track of health and conditions. 5 vitality and 4 armor is far easier to keep track of than 50 body and 40 armor. The refreshable skills allows for a different sort of scaling, a damage over time scaling rather than a total effect scaling. Because a character does not have a hard limit on healing and curative effects, the limiting factor for plot becomes how often players are attacked rather than how many takedowns the NPCs have. This allows for a more action packed game and a simpler feel, faster respawsn and more frequent battles = harder.

This system is very customizable, as you can see from the Madrigal ruleset a great number of classes and spells can be created using the effect,flavor system laid out. These classes can be similar but have a totally different feel based on the flavor of the effects that they use. The same is true of both NPCs and traps. NERO and the other big larp systems tend to have a fairly large number of effects but a small degree of flavor, in this system the reverse is true.

With the combination of simple math, limited effects, a simpler scaling system and great flavor, I believe this ruleset would lend itself to running amazing games. Oh and the best part, apparently the cost is significantly lower than the royalty based cost of NERO international. If I were going to start a new campaign or convert an old campaign to new rules, this would be on my shortlist of rule systems to consider.

Please read through the rules, let me know what you think!

Edit: Tim posted a link to the Madrigal Ruleset, which includes the Accelerant rules as well as their own stuff. To view just the Accelerant rules, follow this link.