When it comes to structuring a robust lore game, many games include knowledge or lore skills. These skills serve, on one level, as background: a character-sheet indication of who the character is and what she does. On another, they represent a path for additional exposition. In some games and to […]
Your shadow at morning striding behind you Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you; I will show you fear in a handful of dust. –“The Waste Land,” T.S. Eliot Now that another DtD event has been put to bed, I can get back to writing here – and […]
The Eclipse campaign has successfully concluded its first story arc. Their six-year mission: to boldly go where no LARP of its lineage has gone before. This is far from the end for the campaign, however, as they have announced that the second story arc begins in September. Arc structure, especially in the […]
Today I thought I might say a few words about the design of combat encounters in LARPs, and some rules elements to treat with greatest care during rules design so that creating enjoyable encounters in years to come is as easy as possible. Chalk this up to a lot of […]
A couple of weeks ago, Harbinger Readers JohnKazuo and Ms. J replied to my post on PvP design to specifically address the dynamics of PvP in LARPs, and now I’m returning to the topic. To state a few things up-front: this has a lot to do with pure aesthetics, and I […]
I’ve been thinking a bit lately about some of the high-level principles of PvP design. These principles readily apply to video games and LARPs. I want to be clear from the start: this is not master-class level stuff – for that, you want to talk to Stands-In-Fire. Quite seriously, the […]
A couple of posts ago, I discussed economics in tabletop games, with some specific elements that focus on the ways that game-economics are like and unlike the study of real-life economics. This time around, I’m shifting the focus to LARPs. CI/Ro3 and Wildlands LARPs – the ones I have real […]
In many live-action games, there exists a mechanic to represent the players’ actions between events, since otherwise players can only take part in the world and its goings-on for maybe twelve (for some games, as many as twenty-four) days out of every year. Since the plot committee is dedicated to […]
It’s interesting to me how conversations about specific topics sometimes crop up in multiple unconnected places at the same time. Just as Ryan Macklin is discussing disadvantages and experience points in his blog, there’s also a lively exchange on experience points going on in Google Plus. The G+ conversation is, […]
Several weeks ago, a Conscientious Reader commented that I have a long history of giving a lot of design consideration to spellcasters of every type, at the apparent expense of fighter and rogue characters. My Swordplay series of posts aside, I’m comfortable calling this an accurate observation of a blind […]
