[UA] UA larp

[James O'Rance]

"Gareth Hanrahan" <hanrahag at iol.ie> said:

 >>>I've been vaguely trying to some up with a ruleset, but haven't had any 
deep insights (I think the game needs a randomiser, and there just aren't 
any good ones).<<<

In my experience with Australian freeforms, the more streamlined the rules 
are, the better the game will run.

Dice and other things that flip or roll are just annoying when you have to 
stand up. I've always created rules based on cards, usually numbered 1 - 10. 
If two players are trying to do something, they summon a GM who deals each 
of them a card. All other things being equal, high card wins.

I've used a Saga-inspired system that tied the four suits of a standard deck 
to four character abilities. If the card drawn matched the ability that you 
were using, you got a trump.

This could be applied to UA in the following way:

Attributes and skills are rated from 1-9 instead of 1-99. otherwise, they 
remain unchanged.

If you're trying to do something, you draw a card and compare it to your 
attribute or skill. If the card is equal or less than your rating, you are 
successful. If you are opposing someone else, the highest successful card 
draw wins.

Each attribute and skill is associated with a particular suit of cards. If 
the card drawn is of the appropriate suit, it is a "match." Matches can be 
good or bad, as usual.

Flip-flops are a bit trickier - you could use a redraw, but you'd want to 
keep track of how many times the player had used that ability.

Wounds might be represented by a negative to the card draw of some kind - 
perhaps a wounded person can't beneft from positive matches. I tend to have 
only three "wound levels" - hurt, incapacitated, dead. I hate games where 
half a dozen people stand around making "challenges" for half an hour.

Magic would be annoying, because there are so many different effects to 
remember and I hate games where people have to carry around books. It might 
be neccessary to prepare one-page cheat sheets for each school.

"Realistic" combat, of the sort popular in UK LARPs, would be at best a 
distraction and at worst a mood-breaker in a UA game, so I'd drop it. Every 
freeform I've written has been based on character dynamics and 
character-driven plotlines, and excessive combat starts to hurt the 
structure of the game, anyway.

Opinions?


James O’Rance
“Divine being creates petting zoo. It gets out of hand.”
- The Bible (summarised by John W. Mangrum)

http://www.geocities.com/dragon-dreamer/



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