[_vamp]

Hõla
As a direct response to Dolston's thread I am creating a thread dedicated to discussions on how to run a good LARP.

I'm hosting an all-out Elysium Vampire LARP where I was hoping to get as many as 20 to 30 players. I'm quite sure that I know where to have the game, which is central but in a private place.

What are the pros and cons of running a game in a cabin out in the wilderness as opposed to a basement in the middle of the city?

How do you get people to interact when they're there? Especially inter-covenant, so that people don't sit for themselves and do nothing.

How do you keep off-chat to a minimum?

Do you have any suggestions for LARP-wide plotlines?

Is it worth writing up personal intrigues to all of the participants, or should you concentrate on rewarding those in coteries with soemthing like this?

What do YOU think makes a good LARP?

Do you have any tips and tricks? Some technique by storytellers that just made you drop your jaw?

And yeah.. Do feel free to ask your own questions in this thread.

[Dolston]

Wow. Lots of things. Iw ill answer what I can in the limited amount of time I have at this moment. Out of city and away from myt precious high speed internet.

What are the pros and cons of running a game in a cabin out in the wilderness as opposed to a basement in the middle of the city?

The biggest con to playing out of the city is getting people to the location. As a general rule, people are lazy. By making something more difficult to fo you have to increase eh quality of the event to make it worth their time. As a one of thing, it might be cool. As a regular thing, you could be setting yourself up for a downfall.

How do you get people to interact when they're there? Especially inter-covenant, so that people don't sit for themselves and do nothing.

Feed the more socially outgoing all kinds of plot hooks and seed relevant information with the people who are quieter. This will give people a reason to interact.

Additionally, fo the needed ground work to ensure people are connected in their histories. A city of 40 to 50 vampires does not just pop up over night. These characters have existed for years, maybe decades or centuries, so they would have made alliances and enemies of the other characters. Encourage the players to tie histories together to get this needed blend.

How do you keep off-chat to a minimum?

Penalites for going out of character. This system works better than rewards for staying in character.

Do you have any suggestions for LARP-wide plotlines?

In general, avoid them. Far too often plots will overwhelm the weak or underhelm powerful. Instead, run multilple smaller stories around the same theme.

Is it worth writing up personal intrigues to all of the participants, or should you concentrate on rewarding those in coteries with soemthing like this?

To avoid people having nothing to do you must do this. Look to get people involved actively.

What do YOU think makes a good LARP?

Consistency in the story, characters and rules.

Surprise twists are meaningless unless you hint at them. The last things you want is for all of your players to not understand what just happened.

Reuse the characters. Never introduce new ones unless they are truly needed. When you need a spooky Elder, look to already existing spooky elders. When you need a young vampire to fuck up, pick one that already exists. Your players will already have emotions invested in the characters making this new development more enticing and personal.

Make sure you are consitent with the rules. Do not start adding or changing the rules as you go so you can "win". Sometimes the players get lucky. Let them be lucky. Also, if you make a rule change, make sure you know that rule.

Be very conservative in all your decisions. Always denying is better than always accepting when in comes to MET. Keeping something from entering your game can not make it worse and it can make it better while the opposite very well could make the game worse. Make sure you fully understand what the implications of allowing something into the game really is - be it an AK47 or a weird, farked up bloodline - and if adding it does not clearly improve the game the best answer is no.

Stick to what you are good at. If you are good at running Cthuloid horror run that. If you are good at mysteries, run that. Do not do something you are not good at. Inveriabley someone in the game will be and will either finish the plot in record time or make you look stupid. It is good to expand your repitoire but do it by adding other elements into what you are already good at.

Finally, he honest anf forthright. This may seem obvious. It is not.

Do you have any tips and tricks? Some technique by storytellers that just made you drop your jaw?

Lots but they will have to wait.

[_vamp]

I'm much thankful for that reply. It actually put up a number of good points that I had to consider and reconsider.

[Dolston]

You are welcome. I'm hoping others will jump in too and touch on stuff I might have missed.