New LARP Rules?

A recent Redbrick blogpost revealed details of the VP3 system.

It's pretty awesome. Here's the best bit:

We chose 6 attributes: 2 physical (Dexterity & Vigor), 2 mental (Wits & Will), and 2 social (Intuition & Presence). These are rated on the standard 1 to 10 scale, but may exceed these limits with racial modifiers, cybernetics, or theurgic influences, etc.

We also expanded the Vitality health track, dividing it into Vitality, Resolve, and Reputation, and essentially providing 'hit points' for the areas of physical, mental and social conflict. In addition, these health tracks are considered 'ablative' or non-life threatening -- only when the track is completely depleted do characters suffer real injuries and risk death.

When a character takes an injury that depletes his Vitality he suffers a Wound. A wound can be almost any type of permanent damage... perhaps losing an arm or an eye. Of course, with cybernetics and wonder medications like Elixir, even these can be restored, but they don't grow back without help. Resolve, when depleted, leaves mental scars, derangements, etc. Reputation leaves the character marred by social embarrassments or a bad reputation that just will not go away.

Finally, there is a new system of 'pool attributes'. Pool attributes accumulate or diminish over time. Every character has a Faith Pool to start with, but characters with occult abilities also have a pool related to the dark side of that ability... a Hubris pool or an Urge pool, for example. Pool attributes have two tracks: a permanent score and a temporary score. All goal rolls using the attribute work from the permanent score. As characters progress through their adventures, their temporary scores will fluctuate. If they increase their temporary score to 10 they immediately gain a permanent point, but if they lose all their temporary points they lose a permanent point.

I haven't really said it before, because working a new LARP system from base sounded like too much work, but...the original rules sucked balls.

You know it's true, I know it's true. There are too many sub-stats and skills, with some serious complications. It's not a good LARP ruleset.

This, though...this I can work with.

Here's hoping I'll have the time. A couple of mates were saying that they would travel down the entire country to play if I run - how can I say no to that?

Downtime (Again!) [Updated xI]

OK, here's another crack at sorting out some kind of supportive downtime system. I've been pondering for a couple of weeks now and I think I've wrapped my head around the basics.

Basic Principles

• I still want to keep this as abstract as I can, while providing options for players to stiff each other interact during downtime.
• It needs to be an extension of player actions, not something they rely on.
  
• But it also needs to provide a more epic canvas, to give players the feeling of being in charge of something greater than they are.
  

The Fief

Each player (or group of players) can buy a fief at character development. The advantage of clubbing together is in having more actions per downtime; the downside is that you have to share power.

A Fief has the following basic characteristics:

Owner: Obvious if only a single owner, but groups have to pick one person as leader. This is important, because it defines the fief as owned by one of the factions.

Morale: Goes up and down. Once it hits negative, the rating is applied as a modifier to all the downtime actions. Morale can be attacked by certain actions and is lost when you lose battles.

After that, the character(s) can buy Holdings to increase their abilities.

Holdings are individual buildings that allow the character to project their power. The most obvious holdings are the ones that produce troops and spies, allowing the characters to harass and fight with each other, but they also produce money and equipment. Holdings are bought at Level 1 and can be upgraded, which costs time and money.

Holdings generate a level of whatever they build equal to their level

• Agency. These generate their level in spies. As a downtime action, spy points can be assigned among four stances - Internal Security, Sabotage and Passive/Active spying.
  
  Internal Security is the fief's defensive rating and Sabotage destroys Holdings levels, while Passive spying provides info on what holding an enemy owns and Active spying provides info on your opponent's downtime actions.
  
  
• Barracks. These produce trained troops who will die for you. Troops can be assigned to Garrison your fief (providing a defensive rating), or sent out to skirmish. They are better at damaging enemy Holdings than saboteurs, but have to wade through the enemy Garrison first.
  
  
• Counting Houses. No matter what the Church may say, money is too useful to give up. Your fiefs are generally self-sufficient - that's what serfs are for. Instead, Counting Houses provide spending money, needed to pay for building upgrades, additional troops for that downtime period, bought info and equipment - things that may otherwise be unavailable or where you've reached the natural limit.
  
  
• Fabricants. These are used for fabricating equipment, weapons and so on. Not so much in the sense of 'I want a new pistol' (that's what contracts are for), but on the scale of 'my army needs rifles. And tanks'. Of course, you don't have to keep them for yourself - you can always contract out to other players and make some money/cement alliances in doing so...
  
  Equipment provides bonuses and occasional special rules, but I'll talk about crafting in another post.
  

Player Actions:

This system isn't supposed to replace player actions, but supplement them. As such, players can spend an additional downtime action to join in the fun. They get to add an appropriate skill to the action - so if they're sending out a warband, they can throw in their tactics skill on top of the army's rating, or contract in an Engineer to add their technical skill to a science project.

The number of downtime actions per downtime come from averaging the lead character's Mind + Bureaucracy. If playing in a multi-player fief, the Mind rating comes from the ruler, while the Bureaucracy skill may be donated by another fief member. If there are more than two members in a fief, each further player adds +1 to the skill rating (unless they choose not to for some reason).

[Update x1]

Combat is something I'm a little uncertain on - not in general, but the specifics of which model to use.

My first choice is to have each Garrison point being ablative - each point must be assigned to defend against specific attacks, rather than simply providing a set defence number. Resolution is simply by who scores the highest, with the difference between scores representing the amount of damage the winner can throw around. The point is to give a small sense of realism in that troops can't be in all places at once and makes players think about what they wan to defend.

The second method is to make the Garrison stat apply to all fights, but resolution isn't 'who scores highest'. Instead, the victor must achieve a multiple of the defender's score, as in Games Workshop's Battle For Armageddon. The higher the multiple scored, the greater the devastation.

Downtime Thoughts Part 2: Nailing the Basics

Here are my basic thoughts for a downtime conflict system.

• Each player who has the Asset Benefice gets their asset transformed into the capital of their own province (note that if you buy a small asset, your Province may not be very impressive).
  
  
• The capital Asset has three basic stats: Piety, Trade, Court. The first three represent the influence of each faction (Church, Guilds and Nobles, in that order).
  
  
• All Assets (including the Province's capital) also have Attack and Defence scores. These can be upgraded by buying add-ons to each asset - for example, a guard wall would provide a defence bonus to the Asset.
  
  
• The Piety, Trade and Court stats represent each faction's influence in the area generally. They also have a direct value in that each has a special rule. For example, Trade generates additional income, while Piety can be used when losing battles to keep up morale and Court can provide law enforcement against illegal contracts signed in their area. (These special rules may change when I think of something better). Other characters can attack these stats, allowing them to move them up or down if they win.
  
  
• The asset's controller is in charge for as long as they keep their faction's stat higher than the others; if the other faction stats are risen higher than the controller's stat, the other faction has more influence, they may barter it in game or simply attempt a coup.
  
  
• Players can also use actions to attack others' non-capital Assets. If they win, they bring the Asset into their Province and gain its effects.
  
  
• As well as buying troops, technology and structures to add to their Assets, there are a number of NPC Muster merc and unaligned pirate groups hanging round. Merc contracts are open for bidding every downtime, with the highest bidder gaining the mercs for that period (or one action, I haven't decided yet).

Next I need to look at crafting and trade, to fit them in.

Downtime Thoughts, Part 1

Downtime is a part of the game where players continue to act. It is the 'off screen' section of the game, something that happens but isn't shown. It is not used in all games, but is common in political games, most notably the Minds' Eye Theatre games Vampire: the Masquerade and Requiem, both of which have dedicated subsystems.

Passion Play also contains a brief downtime system, which runs as follows:

"Due to time constraints, players might not be able to finish everything within a game that they need to do. In that case, players can turn in a list of actions they would like their character to perform between game sessions."

To be honest, that's not as in depth or thought out as I'd have liked - hence this essay.

The first thing is to ask "what are downtimes supposed to do?"

Let's try a few answers:

• Downtime provides interaction between players while the game is off. Given that LARPS tend to be monthly, this is important for maintaining interest.


• Downtime allows for a type of gaming that doesn't fit the actual LARP session, namely empire-building.


• Downtime also gives players something to aim for, by giving them the time to set up long-term plots. These plots can be set up out-of-game, with the coup de grace played out in-game, for dramatic effect.


• Downtime should be simple. I'm a GM who believes that all system calculations should be simple enough for mental arithmetic and that the use of charts is ungesund

So, given all this, what do we do? Well, the first thing to do is see what systems are already out there and what elements are steal...uh...researchable.

The obvious place to look is Vampire: the Masquerade/Requiem (I haven't played Requiem, so my understanding of it is sketchy, but bear with me).

In this system, characters can buy the Influence Background in certain areas (government bureaucracy, crime, etc.) and then spend their influence for certain actions such as furthering their plans, attacking their enemies, or to grow their influence further. They can also use servants for various functions, such as espionage.

In the Requiem system I believe the number of actions available per downtime are rationed through use of the Humanity stat, with bonuses for various skills and vampiric powers.

Either way, this system does not really translate well into Passion Play - as nobles, priests and guilders tend to claim influence in a discrete unit (a fief, company or diocese), rather than the more amorphic 'fingers in pies' form of influence used there.

That said, the actions system makes sense, although obviously the limit would have to be linked to an appropriate stat/skill, which would be Bureaucracy, with a new Metier of something like Seneschal, or some other skill defining the ability to run a fief (technically that's what the Seneschal did, but work with me here). In addition the Assets benefice suits our purposes by defining the size of the character's land and with it, income.

There is also a fief management system in the Lords & Aliens sourcebook. While it is more aimed towards roleplaying and therefore too handwavey here, the basics push in the right direction so we'll ignore the mechanics but try fit in the idea.

OK, let's make a start.

• Characters gain a number of downtime actions equal to their Bureaucracy skill plus the Marshal metier (it sounds better than Seneschal and means roughly the same thing).



• An alternative to this system would be to base character's actions upon their rank, representing the ranking person's power. At this point Rank only really serves for contract mechanics, so it gives it something else to do and emphasises the power of the feudal system.


• An action can be anything from interacting with a third party (no internet or mobile phones here, so it takes time) or recruiting mercenaries, to invading an opponent's fief, hosting balls and other large-scale events.


• The resources with which a character has to play with comes either from their territory, contracts or other RP sources. Territorial funds come from the Asset Benefice, which determines the fief's income, defence and offensive ratings (Income will have to be tweaked here, to divide by 12 months instead of by 10, as per the rulebook).


• This Benefice will also be expanded to suit the system - each fief gains a defensive and offensive rating based on the size, representing the forces available to defend it. Other elements will be introduced, such as the ability to bid for mercenary contracts, with Mercs having their own stats. Other Benefices will also be thought up, such as the ability to build defences and recruit other assets, such as spies and assassins (think of Shogun: Total War)


• The Ally Benefice allows the player to gift one of their actions to their ally, allowing the player to use their ally's social rank for that action.

Anyhow, those are my initial thoughts. What do others think?