[UA] UA larp

[James O'Rance]

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

 >>>What I want is a system where two players can work out a minor 
confrontation or scuffle without needing a GM on-hand.<<<

That's do-able. VBT was designed to be run with the absolute minimum of GM 
intervention. It ran twice, and I actually played the second session in 
order to replace a missing person. Apart from explaining the rules and 
making announcments every half hour or so (took about 2-3 minutes) I didn't 
need to do any GM stuff.

So it is possible, if you have people who play in the intended spirit of the 
game. If you don't, well - even chess can be ruined by bad sports.

 >>>I also want the system to have a randomiser, be appropriate to UA, and 
not rely on any physical objects or stupid hand gestures.<<<

A randomiser that doesn't involve objects or hand gestures? You could use a 
guessing game, but that seems a bit silly.

I'd advise restricting randomisers to GM-only stuff. Maybe randomisers are 
only used when people do adept or avatar type magic crap. If this is always 
handled by the GMs, then players don't need to carry any objects (a good 
thing).

 >>>Oh, and ideally I should also be paid a billion dollars everytime uses 
it.<<<

*laugh*

 >>>I feel like there's some obvious solution I'm not seeing.<<<

Interesting and workable ideas can be found by discarding your assumptions. 
Cthulhu Live discarded randomisers (either you're good enough to succeed or 
you're not), and it seems like it would work. I've thrown away ideas of 
"game balance" in freeforms as largely irrelevant, and been quite 
successful.

The thought that there is any one ideal way of running live gaming of any 
sort, a GURPS of larp and freeforming, is mistaken imho.

Thought: personality mechanics in freeforms are a bit problematic; eg, 
humanity in Vampire. Madness meters in UA Live might be a similarly tricky 
thing to translate.

Maybe they might work like Passions, where PCs would receive a numerical 
advantage for freaking out in stressful situations rather than 
("unrealistically") dealing with it as though hardened. For example, 
panicking or freezing when confronted by the supernatural might give PCs a 
bonus to avoid or escape from its effects. This might motivate players to 
react as a character might, as opposed to how a cynical gamer might.

Cheers,

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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