[tomewilson]

The old MET staff banged our heads against the wall for months trying to convert Orpheus to MET (using both the old and new systems). We weren't able to jump a couple of the biggest hurdles, so it never got off the ground. Hopefully, this post will spark a couple of ideas in our fellow LARPers and smooth out some of these bumps.

For those not familiar with Orpheus, it's pretty simple. In a traditional Orpheus game, the PCs work for a company called Orpheus Group (OG). In the late eighties, the company that would be OG focused on cryogenics. They froze people with terminal illnesses until a time came when the illness could be cured. When they started thawing people in the late ninties when medical science had advanced enough to cure some of their clients, the clients described vivid memories of walking around the real world while asleep.

Orpheus Group followed up on these stories immediately and found that the details were astounding. Somehow, the cryogenic process brought some of their clients close enough to death that they were able to walk among the dead.

Some years, a lot of testing and a lot of dirty money later, OG started a corporate enterprise with agents that were able to leave their bodies as ghosts. The possibilities were endless for a corporation with a solid staff of employees that could cheat death. The Projectors (the term for people who flatline and leave their bodies as ghosts) are able to defy normal physics, are invisible to the living, can pass through solid objects at will and are able to call upon wraith-inspired powers in accordance with their personality.

Spooks employed by Orpheus Group fall into three categories:

• Sleepers - Those that are brought to the brink of death through cryogenics. Sleepers are able to leave their bodies for long periods of time (up to a month or more depending on the mission), but they require a fully trained medical staff to put them under and to revive them.

• Skimmers - Those that are able to leave their bodies in short bursts through focused meditation. The Skimmers are the most popular PC group in Orpheus because they can project where ever they like without the need for additional staff help. The downside is that they can't stay out of body for more than a couple of hours and their physical bodies reflect any spiritual damage they receive while projecting.

• Spirits - The self-aware dead.


Here were the inherent problems we ran into:

• Your basic Orpheus player can pass through physical objects as a normal ability. The real-world nature of LARPs prohibits players from doing this without stopping action every time someone passes through a wall.

• Skimmers are treated as astral projectors for MET purposes, but unlike Vampire, they tend to leave their bodies when ever they need to. The problem comes into play when the Skimmer is now in two places at once. The way to represent a full-sized body quickly and efficiently while projecting was never solved.

• Orpheus deals with two layers of overlapping reality. The real world and the dead world. They inhabit the same place and they look alike. We needed a way for all players to know at a glance which layer of reality another character was in because regular humans can't see or hear ghosts. We decided that bright colored gloves might solve this issue (e.g. If you're projecting or a ghost, put on a pair of yellow gloves), but it way never put into play.

• OG is a team-based corporation with specific missions for their employees. The players are linked at the start and screened for conflicting personalities, so this does not leave room for much PC on PC conflict, social or otherwise. The main focus of Orpheus is on problem-solving and investigation.

• Like Demon: The Fallen, when Orpheus players start throwing down, they can do a lot of damage to the physical world. The balancing factors for this are: the power behind their Horrors (supernatural powers) is also their health, and huge fluxes of ghost-power in an area draws attention from unwanted sources. Without the threat of the "unwanted sources" plowing the characters into the ground for being careless however, starting players tend to pull out the stops every time they can.

In the last case, the unwanted sources are Spectres (evil ghosts) that want nothing more than to rip apart, eat or forcibly convert other ghosts. They travel in packs and are not easily LARPed with a small staff.


Any ideas?

[Dolston]

Tome,

Thanks for the info on Orpheus. I will try to address you logisitcal and mechanical concerns with what you have told me.

Spooks employed by Orpheus Group fall into three categories:

• Sleepers - Those that are brought to the brink of death through cryogenics. Sleepers are able to leave their bodies for long periods of time (up to a month or more depending on the mission), but they require a fully trained medical staff to put them under and to revive them.

Basically what you would want to is have a basic character that you can layer either a spirit templat or mortal template onto. It maybe something as simple as X work on you as a spirit but not Y.

• Skimmers - Those that are able to leave their bodies in short bursts through focused meditation. The Skimmers are the most popular PC group in Orpheus because they can project where ever they like without the need for additional staff help. The downside is that they can't stay out of body for more than a couple of hours and their physical bodies reflect any spiritual damage they receive while projecting.

I would look at the Astral Projection Psychic Phenomenon from Laws of (the) Hunt. It is an entire power based on being able to leave the physical body with restirctions on time and distance you can travel.

• Spirits - The self-aware dead.

Should be easy enough to deal with.

Here were the inherent problems we ran into:

• Your basic Orpheus player can pass through physical objects as a normal ability. The real-world nature of LARPs prohibits players from doing this without stopping action every time someone passes through a wall.

Play in large open spaces where walls and other large barriers are repreented by things you can pass through or over like beaded curtain walls or duct taped area that is labeled as what it is. Alternately, play in large open spaces which is admitedly boring. But there will always be issue with this.

• Skimmers are treated as astral projectors for MET purposes, but unlike Vampire, they tend to leave their bodies when ever they need to. The problem comes into play when the Skimmer is now in two places at once. The way to represent a full-sized body quickly and efficiently while projecting was never solved.

If they are not aware at both locations a jacket works great. Hell, if this is something that could happen regularly ake up some large, brilliantly coloured item cards - I thinking yellow bristol board here - and write in thick, noticable letters that this is charcter X's body. Since you will know who the Skimmers are you can have these "cards" prepared well before game.

• Orpheus deals with two layers of overlapping reality. The real world and the dead world. They inhabit the same place and they look alike. We needed a way for all players to know at a glance which layer of reality another character was in because regular humans can't see or hear ghosts. We decided that bright colored gloves might solve this issue (e.g. If you're projecting or a ghost, put on a pair of yellow gloves), but it way never put into play.

Hand gestures could work but is likely too difficult to work since some characters will spend the entire game in the spirit world. I would suggest a sash. It is easily visible from most angles and is simply slipped on over one's normal costume when in the spirit world and folded up and put away in a bag or pocket when in the real world. They are also fairly cheap to produce.

• OG is a team-based corporation with specific missions for their employees. The players are linked at the start and screened for conflicting personalities, so this does not leave room for much PC on PC conflict, social or otherwise. The main focus of Orpheus is on problem-solving and investigation.

Each session would have to be episodic in nature and you will likely need to have a large staff to represent antagonists. A good way to get the large staf is to ensure that you have multiple teams. each session can focus on one or two teams while the other teams play the NPCs for that session. So long as each player gets regular turns to play as PCs getting them to play NPCs, epecially if everyone knows this is what happens when they join the game.

• Like Demon: The Fallen, when Orpheus players start throwing down, they can do a lot of damage to the physical world. The balancing factors for this are: the power behind their Horrors (supernatural powers) is also their health, and huge fluxes of ghost-power in an area draws attention from unwanted sources. Without the threat of the "unwanted sources" plowing the characters into the ground for being careless however, starting players tend to pull out the stops every time they can.

Then give them outside sources to pound on them when they are careless or set up situations where pulling out their powers won't help them necessarily.

You may also want to consider an XP penalty if people use their powers as a crutch. If they use their power, it costs them one XP for the night. Use them frivolously and they get no XP.

In the last case, the unwanted sources are Spectres (evil ghosts) that want nothing more than to rip apart, eat or forcibly convert other ghosts. They travel in packs and are not easily LARPed with a small staff.
Any ideas?

When you are running large groups of villains with a small staff you have a few options...

1 - Each staff runs more than one villain and make the players use their imagination

2 - Get more staff or at the very least extra hands.

3 - Increase the power of the enemies so a smaller number of powerful villains is needed to equal the power of a larger number of weaker villains.

[tomewilson]

Hi Dolston,

Thanks for bouncing those ideas so quickly. I really appreciate it.

If you haven't played Orpheus before (TT version), it's really something to look into as it can be played in so many different ways without bending the main themes beyond what they can handle. Horror, Action, Mystery & Investigation, they're all included.

With the standard sales pitch aside, let's see if we can hammer down some of these ideas.

Basically what you would want to is have a basic character that you can layer either a spirit templat or mortal template onto. It maybe something as simple as X work on you as a spirit but not Y.

This isn't too big of an issue. In Orpheus, your powers are solely dependent on whether you are projecting or not. If you're in your body, you can't use your Horrors or spirit advantages.

I would look at the Astral Projection Psychic Phenomenon from Laws of (the) Hunt. It is an entire power based on being able to leave the physical body with restirctions on time and distance you can travel.

I'll have to ask Pete if he has a copy of that laying around. It was from before my time and I never paid much attention to it as it was crafted during the "what were they thinking" years. Kind of like Laws of Ascension Players Guide. *shudder*

Play in large open spaces where walls and other large barriers are repreented by things you can pass through or over like beaded curtain walls or duct taped area that is labeled as what it is. Alternately, play in large open spaces which is admitedly boring. But there will always be issue with this.

Most LARPs are played in the home, so while this may work in a convention environment, it has limited use in the smaller play environments. Damn physics getting in the way.

If they are not aware at both locations a jacket works great. Hell, if this is something that could happen regularly ake up some large, brilliantly coloured item cards - I thinking yellow bristol board here - and write in thick, noticable letters that this is charcter X's body. Since you will know who the Skimmers are you can have these "cards" prepared well before game.

Our original idea was yellow punching balloons. They're reusable, small enough to collapse into a costume when not in play, and the time spent inflating them could simulate the time needed for meditation before projecting. The availability of punching balloons came into play with this option, but it did solve a lot of our issues. How did they handle it in LotH?

Hand gestures could work but is likely too difficult to work since some characters will spend the entire game in the spirit world. I would suggest a sash. It is easily visible from most angles and is simply slipped on over one's normal costume when in the spirit world and folded up and put away in a bag or pocket when in the real world. They are also fairly cheap to produce.

A sash is an awesome idea. We fooled around with an armband idea, too.

Each session would have to be episodic in nature and you will likely need to have a large staff to represent antagonists. A good way to get the large staf is to ensure that you have multiple teams. Each session can focus on one or two teams while the other teams play the NPCs for that session. So long as each player gets regular turns to play as PCs getting them to play NPCs, epecially if everyone knows this is what happens when they join the game.

That's the norm for good players, but it's a good point to bring up.

You may also want to consider an XP penalty if people use their powers as a crutch.

This isn't really an option, as the threat of Spectres is supposed to be a suprise in Orpheus. While they are almost omnipresent, new OG employees don't know jack about the spirit world. The little nuggets of information would be represented by a "Spirit Lore" option (oWoD) or through the Occult ability (nWoD). Slapping them for actions that seem relatively smart, given their ignorance of the dangers, is too harsh. It's like two PCs have a gunfight inside of a spacecraft. If they don't know about decompression, then they won't hesitate to shoot one another. Increasing the power levels of the Spectres compared to the available staff size seems like the best option. Even if it's just one Spectre sent to "check out what that flash was," it's enough to get the point across.

[Dolston]

Hi Dolston,

Thanks for bouncing those ideas so quickly.  I really appreciate it.

If you haven't played Orpheus before (TT version), it's really something to look into as it can be played in so many different ways without bending the main themes beyond what they can handle.  Horror, Action, Mystery & Investigation, they're all included.

With the standard sales pitch aside, let's see if we can hammer down some of these ideas.

Sounds good. I may have to kick Frances to run Orpheus so I can cehck it out.

This isn't too big of an issue.  In Orpheus, your powers are solely dependent on whether you are projecting or not.  If you're in your body, you can't use your Horrors or spirit advantages.

Damn. That makes things easy!

I'll have to ask Pete if he has a copy of that laying around.  It was from before my time and I never paid much attention to it as it was crafted during the "what were they thinking" years.  Kind of like Laws of Ascension Players Guide.  *shudder*

Could be a good idea. The book is pretty poorly laid out but it has good stuff if you are willing to dig.

Most LARPs are played in the home, so while this may work in a convention environment, it has limited use in the smaller play environments.  Damn physics getting in the way.

When playing when it is warmer try to use the backyard to help mitigate the problems with real world physics

Our original idea was yellow punching balloons.  They're reusable, small enough to collapse into a costume when not in play, and the time spent inflating them could simulate the time needed for meditation before projecting.  The availability of punching balloons came into play with this option, but it did solve a lot of our issues.  How did they handle it in LotH?

Punching balloons are a pretty spiffy idea. As for how LotH handled it, poorly. No MET book addresses the logisital issues of the powers they give you. They just say "Here! Good luck!". Hence the red-headed step child syndrom that some MET player feel.

A sash is an awesome idea.  We fooled around with an armband idea, too.

If you us an arm band, make sure there is one on each arm.

This isn't really an option, as the threat of Spectres is supposed to be a suprise in Orpheus.  While they are almost omnipresent, new OG employees don't know jack about the spirit world.  The little nuggets of information would be represented by a "Spirit Lore" option (oWoD) or through the Occult ability (nWoD).  Slapping them for actions that seem relatively smart, given their ignorance of the dangers, is too harsh.  It's like two PCs have a gunfight inside of a spacecraft.  If they don't know about decompression, then they won't hesitate to shoot one another.  Increasing the power levels of the Spectres compared to the available staff size seems like the best option.  Even if it's just one Spectre sent to "check out what that flash was," it's enough to get the point across.

Fair enough. The only other option is to have peope around to play specters and do other gritty work. Unless you have a better idea.