[UA] UA Larp mechanics

[Peter Hindman]

   I've been mulling the idea of running UA as a larp, partly because my
new UA tabletop game is running like gangbusters (yay!) and the vampire
LARP I help run is dying (yay?).  Thus, I've been pondering how to make
the rules work in a live setting.  Just had a few ideas in the shower, so
I'll throw them out for discussion.

   First off, dice are out.  Dice require a level, stable surface, and
those little numbers can be hard to read in poor light.  

   Mind's Eye Theater-style rock-paper-scissors, while it works passably
in my experience, is probably too grainy, and leads to peculiar
contortions (the whole MET system of overbids, and local house-rule
variants) when one tries to make it less so.  I'd also like to get some
distance from MET just because I'm tired of running it.

   Cthulhu Live's system is an option, and has the advantage of being
tuned to a more-or-less similar type of game.  But CL is mostly
deterministic--as I understand it, non-combat skills are deterministic;
the only random factor in combat is a rock-paper-scissors choice of
tactics.  This would cripple large parts of the UA setting.

   So.  That said, here's a sketch of what I'm thinking (and I doubt it's
original, but who cares?)


   Get a deck of playing cards for each player, plus several spares for
each GM.  In each deck, shuffle out the queens, kings and jokers; leave
aces through jacks.

   The basic mechanic:  Take the tabletop numbers, divide by 10 and
round (Firearms-24 becomes 2, Firearms-25 becomes 3; Body-50 becomes
Body-5, giving a player the starting skills of General Athletics-2,
Struggle-2, and 5 points to allocate as they wish).

   The resolution mechanic:  the player fans out her/his/its deck; the
opposing player (the GM for a skill check, an opposing player or NPC in a
fight) draws a card and reveals it; the face value of the card is the
value of the check.  The card is then put in a 'discard' deck (the
player's coat pocket, a purse, whatever.)

   Of course, if cards are taken out of the deck as soon as they're
played, a clever player is going to count cards--if they've been having a
winning streak for awhile, Something Bad Will Happen Soon. This may or may
not be bad, depending on the kind of mood you want.  If you don't want
this kind of effect, then shuffle cards back into the deck as they're
drawn, rather than putting them aside in a discard deck.

   Hunches:  Hunches are easy in concept--the player draws a card, looks
at it, sets it aside and uses it for the next draw.  In practice, there
has to be a way to make sure the player is honest about using the hunch.  
This isn't a problem in a small game with one GM, but in a large game
using multiple GMs, it could be.  I can't think of a good mechanism off
the top of my head.

   OK.  Now what about matches, OACOWAs, BOHICAs, cherries, flip-flops,
obsessions, and passions?

   Matches:  Matches in tabletop occur roughly one time in 11 (9 out of
100, since 00 is a special case); correspondingly, we have four jacks out
of 44 cards, or one in 11.  If a jack is drawn, draw again; the next card
is a 'matched' success or failure, and activates cherries/sour cherries
just as in tabletop.  If the next card drawn is a jack, it's a BOHICA or
OACOWA-- draw one more time.  On the third draw, black suits mean a
BOHICA, red mean an OACOWA.

   (Here's an alternate mechanism:  When you prepare the decks, shuffle
out queens, kings, and _one_ joker.  The other joker by itself is a null
card;  if you draw one on a skill check, shuffle it back into the deck.  
When you draw a jack, draw one more card; if the next card is a jack, it's
a BOHICA if the suits don't match, an OACOWA if they do.  If the joker
comes up, it's an automatic OACOWA.  If you do it this way, you probably
want to shuffle cards back into the deck as they're drawn, rather than use
a discard pile.
   [The reason for doing it this way: Suppose you take a fresh deck and
draw a jack from it.  Then there are two black jacks in the deck, and one
red jack, making a BOHICA twice as likely as an OACOWA.  Putting the joker
in the deck and letting it 'match' the red jack evens the odds up.]
   [Yes, I am a professional mathematician.  I make no claims as to the
validity of my arithmetic, however.])

   Flip-flops:  If a player could flip-flop a skill check in tabletop,
they can draw a second card to replace a failure.  Jacks _cannot_ be
replaced this way (they correspond to matches, which can't be
flip-flopped), with one exception:  If a player could flip-flop a skill
check, draws a jack, and then draws an ace, they can 'flip-flop' it into
an OACOWA (this corresponds to flip-flopping a 10 into a 01, and the
general idea that OACOWAs come up more often than BOHICAs on obsession
skills).

   Passions:  A player gets three Passion cards--a Fear Passion, a Rage
Passion, and a Noble Passion.  On the card is written a capsule
description of that character's stimulus.  Using a Passion is pretty much
the same as tabletop--the player declares the use of the Passion and hands
the card to the GM.  If the GM approves, the player can draw a second card
to replace a failure; furthermore, Passions _can_ be used to replace a
failed 'match' or BOHICA.  The GM then takes the Passion card for the rest
of the game.

   Madness:  Adjudicating the Madness Meters is a problem of bookkeeping
here; it's easy to call out 'Everyone who saw that!  Unnatural-7 Madness
test!', and have people draw against their Mind stat.  The problem is
keeping people honest about their levels.  Like hunches, this isn't likely
to be a problem in a small game, but could be a big one in a larger game.
I'm open to suggestions here.

   Geez.  I didn't expect to write a whole article here.  Um.  Well.
Anyway.  Comments?   


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