Roses and Thorns
I do admit, I'm not up on the vampire terminology, so some of it's lost on me, but it does look like fun.
I'd be interested in Andrew sharing a little about how his LARP differs, for the better and for the worse, from our usual nonsense.
Thanks, Dave! I've worked pretty hard on it. Perhaps the biggest difference between LARP and a sit-down RPG is that there are so many players that they must be able to role-play with each other. That means they either have to be able to riff off one another, or I need to set up plot between them murder-mystery style.
ReplyDeleteI believe I've done a little of this at our group by giving different PCs slightly different and conflicting XP bonus goals during a session.
When all the players do get together and decide to act as one against an NPC it is bad news. Think of the biggest battle you've ever run in tabletop. Now imagine doing it with rock-paper-scissors instead of dice.
What I don't get is how there are NPC's. Who speaks for them? Do you have big cardboard cut-outs standing there? Or do PC's who aren't doing something right then become the NPC's temporarily?
ReplyDeleteIt depends on the NPC. The bulk of the NPCs (and particularly the "minor PCs") are nothing more than props or talking puppets controlled by the GM and the players. They provide plot points to the story, and get killed regularly if there is a fight.
ReplyDeleteThe major ones are a class of more powerful beings, and I typically play them. Although not all at once. I'll typically dress as one whom I think is important to the particular game, and then have the others appear either over the phone or not at all. This is one of the big limitations of LARP -- that the NPCs can't really interact "on stage".