Oh yeah, I was gonna say that sucks. I knew people like that (okay, my former roomie) but his only commitment seemed to be to LARP and the occasional tabletop. The rest of the time was playstation, pot, beer and hockey. He could barely keep a job (the longest lasted 8 months while I lived with him, which was good… the rest maybe 2 weeks.)
And I’ll cut that rant there.
Our Storytellers basically said, you can come or not but miss 2 games in a row and we reserve the right to say your character has died/gone off to another country/gone into torpor (we played Vampire Dark Ages) whatever. It was also only once a month, with a downtime system so you only had to meet up one Friday to play, easy enough for even the casual player.
This made me laugh so hard, I had a few snorts in there. Before reading all of the thread I was wondering about giving the benefit of the doubt, too. I still play computer RPGs, but haven’t done a sit down RPG since it was just D&D. Anyhow, I wondered if the OP maybe wasn’t one of those DM/GMs, so controlling, people participating begin to drop like flies.
I played with a DM who killed my friend’s character lvl 1 thief (fighter/thief?) within the first 3 minutes of game play. I’m sure it can happen, but c’mon, we were all level 1 and had never played before (6 players). He (the friend) scouted ahead, he and the DM rolled quietly in a corner of the table, and that was that. Now that’s my idea of a good time! heh
Meanwhile back at The Hall Of Justice, the game continued, but less and less people showed up each week. It finally came down to me and the poor guy who lost his thief in the beginning. I stubbornly held on, I could see how this could be a fun game, with live characters that is. So there’s the guy who lost his thief and ended up creating a new character, and myself. We are attacked in a hallway of zombie statues come to life, die, and that’s the finish to that game.
I tried to play D&D one more time,with a new DM. I was so hesitant and sure each and every monster was going to be way over my level, I annoyed everyone else to no end. They could not understand my flinching at descriptions of, “It’s a bare room, not much to look at,” or “You search the room and find nothing.”
Glad to see my suspicions about the OP were wrong, and yes another vote for hypocritical.
Sorry I didn’t answer this part when I answered the other part. G used to be a close friend of mine, and I’m reluctant to cut ties entirely. And as they’re married, they come as something of a pair. Currently, though, I’ve not heard from them in a while… their phone’s been off, again, and the last time I spoke to either of them was Early March. In fact, I haven’t seen either of them face-to-face since last April.
I suppose my tactic regarding them will be to make them welcome to come visit for movies and things, where their unannounced absence will make little or no difference.
And while it’s not hard to find new roleplaying gamers in the area, it is difficult for me to socialize with ‘new’ people. So I don’t have a huge pool of players and GMs.
For the record, out of the 20 or so folks I’ve run games for, I have only lost four to anything but ‘had to move away’. Two were people behaving like annoying jackasses in the game, so I had to tell them not to come anymore, and then these two.
This is how a usual roleplaying session goes in our house (tabletop, not Live Action (LARP)). Our sessions last between 6 and 12 hours.
Dungeon Master (DM) spends a few days or weeks setting up a complicated setup for the characters to traverse.
Player Characters (PCs) (Bob and Joe are the players, while Asfaloth the Great and Inky the all knowing are “characters”) roll up their characters (a combination of traits from tables and random rolls of the dice) and decide how to play them (evil, goofy, wise, etc). All their stats and equipment and the like are recorded on character sheets.
All these crazy people come together in a frenzy of Mountain Dew, cheetos and cheap college town pizza.
The DM sets up the scene (as in: You are all standing at the mouth of a dark cave. The air smells foul, and there are few signs of life.) The PCs decide what to do next (run away, listen for sounds of beasties in the darkness, go charging in, battleaxe raised with no thought to the sancitity of life or limb… etc.) The DM decides what happens after a character makes a decision.
Most of a session is taken up with talking, choosing paths to take, selling loot, etc. Combat is done in turns decided by a roll of the dice. Everything is done while sitting around a table, unlike Live Action, which is done with costumes and the like. I’ve never LARPed, so I can’t be sure. (and yes, my sig is a joke)
It’s incredibly fun…
If you’re really interested, Zette you should drop by a bookstore and thumb through a copy of a D&D player’s handbook. You’ll get a better idea of how the dice play a part in the actual gameplay.
Ah, a Pitting after my own heart. Hear hear, CandidGamera!
I’ll handle the Enterprise part of the question. I run a Star Trek game online every week. We’re celebrating our 9 year anniversary in June! We meet in an AOL Instant Messenger chat room, usually around 8 of us, and we have pre-determined characters (Captain, Engineer, Doctor) and setting (bridge of a starship, planet surface), but an open-ended plot, and we collaborate, in-character, to push the story along. We pick up each week where we left off, think of a serial or soap opera (no dice, no DM). If someone was around last week, playing the antagonistic alien race we were currently in a firefight with, and then doesn’t show up this week, we’re suddenly missing half the story. Very frustrating.
I used to demand 100% attendence, and throw temper tantrums when people missed for parties or dinners or whatever, because the more dedicated people are, the more fun it is. I finally gave up, though, because no rule or fear of retribution is going to make someone desire to be there. They have to want it. So some weeks we have 12 people, some weeks we have 5, and I just let it roll off my back. We’ve finally gotten the plot to such a snail’s pace that it doesn’t matter, and the core players (we of no lives) are always there.
I’m with Lord Ashtar. Whenever anyone quits, we get to write off their character–usually with gruesome assassination.
Actually the LARP varies from what game you play, who you play with, what time period it is and the individual preferences.
Note: All this is from my experiences playing White Wolf games, I haven’t played any others.
You have the Storytellers who usually guide what happens, they plan out any major events, setting (if where you play doesn’t quite match up to where you are supposed to be they tell you what it looks like) and often play NPC’s (Non-player characters which can be useful for fights or to impart some needed advice etc) or assign NPC’s to other players etc, they mediate fights, approve characters and just try to keep things running smoothly.
I’ve played a vampire game where all we did was turn up and play, some people would bring the odd prop or dress like their character might but it was a modern game so we didn’t often have that. This one was also more inclined to fighting with a faint bit of politics (not the greatest game but fun and something to do)
I’ve also played a Werewolf game which was more spiritual, the storytellers would play spirits or once was an Oracle and reading the cards for everyone. It was mostly casual, but we did have a certain amount of props and we also had food and firewood for a bonfire as we played outdoors near a fire pit. This was a great game for new players as you could come in as a cub and actually learn everything about the game while you played rather than having to pick up the books and try to cram then be guided during play. I loved it because it was fun, casual more like an afternoon/evening spent with friends just having fun.
Now the last one I played was a wonderful Vampire Dark Ages game… now THAT is where the costuming and props really came in. We had people come in in full dark ages regalia, roman dress (some of the Ventrue were Roman), priests, peasants, nuns, kilts etc etc. People had weapons (false and real, but the real ones were NEVER unsheathed). One lady was a blind seer and she ‘read’ entrails, which in fact was a pigs heart she had bought at the store, cleaned out really well and then created ‘blood’ out of corn syrup. That was suitably gory.
I met people who sewed their own costumes (I ended up being among them though I admit mine wasn’t as nice as some I saw), a guy who made chainmail, one guy made metal masks for his character, a couple had paper mache… serious hours and money were put into many of these costumes.
Fights happened, and were taken care of by our character stats (which for this game the storytellers had taken the character concepts and put the stats together with what you wanted and also took your history making it so maybe you knew this guy… this guy was an enemy of the clan… he had pissed you off a century ago… this one had killed your sire…) and rousing games of rock paper scissors…
This last game was an AWESOME game. It was amazing to play and take part in. We had some of the best gamers in the city… and upwards of 50 people playing. It still goes on too, only it has passed from Dark Ages to Elizabethan times and I wish I still lived in that city so I could continue to play. It was only once a month though, and there was a downtime system set up so we could do things because each month real time was a year game time. The downtime was done with our stats and dice based on what we wanted to do as submitted to the storytellers.
So yeah, that’s a bit of what LARP is like for you Zette. If you really want to know more ask me in chat and I’ll answer what I can
I know these people! Or actually I know so many couples with one or more of these traits that I feel I know them.
I have “friends” who I went out (as part of a group) for pizza with. I was subjected to a HUGE tirade about the Catholic Church (they are Wiccans). Every bad policy, bad decision, and bad act the RCC had done since the inquisition was brought up. Less than three months later, I get a wedding invitation. They are getting married in…(you guessed it)…the Catholic church. Guess a field of flowers just doesn’t have the same ooomph as walking down the aisle in a nice church with a white dress to Pachabel’s Canon.
The same couple believe that holding jobs is optional. They live off the money his father gifts them - not a great existance (mom has enough money to share, apparently, but not so much that they drive nice cars or live in a nice neighborhood). Better hope dad’s checkbook balance stays high.
Well, we have an update. I recently got to speak to them again. B, it seems, is still holding down a job he had several months ago… granted, he’s a telemarketing survey guy, but it’s a job. Maybe they wised up?
Then again, G had to drop almost all of her classes last semester… almost all of her theater classes, to be precise.
