A LARP Conundrum: Skill Calls and You

Hello Readers! We are back with another blog post, and this one serves a couple of purposes; transparency and bringing attention to collaborative play.

The Ground Work

At DR:NY, we have been lucky enough to enjoy some bigger games over the past few months but as we push into the colder seasons we expect to see some of our warm weather friends take a bit of a break which leads to some more intimate games. As you might imagine, as a game runner, large and small games present their own types of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is smaller NPC groups, because we love to push you to that ‘oh shit’ moment, and that is a lot harder to do when we have 3 people rather than 10.

Here’s the Scene

So, I want you to imagine for a moment - you’re out playing your character. Things have been pretty quiet… and then HARK! Are these the harmonious groans of zed? Or perhaps the grunting rumblings of some raiders!? You can feel your adrenaline start to rush as you reach for your weapons. You can see them now - only 4 of them. They engage with a group of people who had advanced to intercept them. “Mangle, mangle, break weapon, mangle, break weapon, mangle, break weapon…” One by one, the raiders are quickly dispatched. You didn’t get a chance to swing on them. Maybe they’ll respawn?  There! From the treeline- more raiders! “Break weapon, breakmanglebreakweapon mangle…” dead again. They don’t respawn. There weren’t enough of them, you never even got close enough to swing. You watch the NPCs march away into the night, because after all, there are other players that also haven’t seen any action for a while and they need to be entertained as well.

The Dilemma

There are two major points to this blog. The first is really to point out that we (your game runners, your Ops guides) want to send you that threat, we want you to have fun engaging it, it’s literally what we are here for. We all have these skills, all this mind, brews, meals, all this build and time we have spent acquiring the aforementioned skills/items but when it comes to some of those smaller NPC groups, some of those lower threat baddies, the player may want to think about how using those skills could negatively impact the scene. We’re not saying don’t use your stuff - that’s kinda the whole point of playing. That being said, skill spamming can really suck from both sides of the aisle for a multitude of reasons. You’ve all been on the NPC side of things and heard the whole ‘don’t skill spam - it’s no fun for the players who have waited for something to fight and want to get in there and feel cool. You aren’t the hero, they are.’ We don’t think about how it is for the people on NPC shift and the guides when we try to bring a low to moderate threat out and it gets steamrolled in thirty seconds. It unfortunately ends up being not that much fun for most parties involved - the NPCs don’t enjoy being immediately potatoed and not being able to engage their friends, the guide has to try to figure out if there is something they can do that would be fair but more engaging for the players that are there, and the players that are not the ones who immediately engage in the fight don’t get in on any of the action.

What We Don’t Want

“Okay, well, why don’t you just up the stats of the NPCs?” Good question. A lot of the time we do. Being able to adapt on the fly is an important tool out in the field. If I know I am hitting a bunch of veteran players, you better believe those NPCs will be above threshold. But there are also variables ( weather, temperature, how much combat that group of NPCs has already done etc.) that impact us being able to respawn for long periods of time, and just making a threat immune to skills or having ‘yes’ body is something we avoid, or don’t do at all at DR:NY. There are also the cases where the groups of players we see are mixed build levels. If we want to send something out the low to mid build characters can engage with and they happen to be hanging out with a couple players that have high build, it is very difficult if not impossible to balance appropriately. You can see how all of this can be quite a challenge.

What It Boils Down To

So what is the moral of this ramble? I guess it boil down to three things:

• Spamming skills has a time and place, and that is with a larger or higher threat group of NPCs

• Be mindful of the people you are around, they want to get in on that combat too. If one or two players engage the threat and beat it down in 30 seconds, that’s not nearly as much fun.

• The people you are fighting against, the NPCs, those people are your friends too. And sometimes they just wanna play wacky bats and steal your bucket…

Emotional Damage

It’s clear to us that our players have enjoyed the “Fuck Around And Find Out” mentality and ability to opt in that came with Red Line. While thats still very much on going, we would like to offer another opt in for “Fuck Around And Find Out” that’s a bit more in theme for the spooky season.

How do you get involved?

Once during game a cabin may register with Ops a negative emotion in the form of an “I feel _____.” statement. This could be I feel aggressive, lonely, melancholy, hatred, etc etc. This is done for the entire cabin, so please make sure to discuss with your bunk mates before registering. Once a cabin has registered with Ops, we will (at some point during either night) find a way to represent, create or embody that emotion in the cabin at our discretion. This could be a scene, a threat, some fresh new trauma for your characters to bond over or other various things that come with the season. The sooner a cabin registers the more time we will have to plan a fun encounter for all those who are staying there so feel free to start those conversations before game !

Unfinished Business

Photo by London Belli

Sure was a lot going on during Honor's Fall. Time to wrap up some loose ends as we roll on into SEASON TWO.

False Idol

Tired of seeing all your faithful friends murder each other? Hunt down the False Idol, put an end to it and maybe find out what or who it was in the process.

Red Line

Everybody loves Redline, but has anyone managed to figure out what it all does? Compare notes, get high off your ass, experience insane side effects, but hey where is it coming from anyway?

Meet The Families

Now that the dust has settled check out and rub shoulders with your new family heads and see the faces that will be wielding power in a newly reshaped Requiem.

Aim to Misbehave

Photo by London Belli

Requiem doesn’t really have laws… it has rules. The Treaty of the Fold binds the Families of Requiem together under the rule of the High Lord Executioner, but historically, people ended up here because they got run out of somewhere else. The Families more resemble a crime syndicate than traditional government, and the setting encourages sketchy activities like drugs, theft and murder (as long as you don’t get caught). While the staff talks a lot about Character versus Character (CvC) conflict quite a bit, there’s actually not much more CvC in Requiem than in other chapters. Most of the conflict remains CvE, which poses a question: if we’re not harming each other, how do we misbehave in a setting appropriate manner? Here are some ideas for both locals and travelers as we approach Honor’s Fall.

Rule 0: Consequences, not laws

Requiem is governed by a treaty, not a constitution or a charter. In most governments, there’s an authority figure who has “legitimate” power over everyone who lives there. In a treaty, various groups agree to abide by the same rule and suffer consequences enforced by their peers. There’s not a whole lot that the High Lord Executioner can do to go after Seraphis Volkov if she kills someone in the streets of Requiem… except that the other Families would back him up, and possibly destroy the Seraphis’ entire family if she didn’t submit to his judgment. The threat of war (as seen during our last plot arc, the Reckoning) keeps the peace.

While all the Families care about the Treaty, it’s out of self-interest, not a sense of justice. If someone disrupts the peace, they’ll be dealt with quickly, but there’s not a police force investigating crimes in Requiem. Therefore, you have an unspoken rule that exists in many places, but is even more true here: don’t get caught. 

Vice Is Part Of the Setting

We’ve just introduced a new drug, Redline. The local bar, the Wilted Rose, is a brothel. We have heavy metal raiders. Sex, drugs and rock-and-roll are integral to the setting, and we encourage players to indulge their character’s vices. While we have to be respectful to real-world addictions and player boundaries, vice is one of the best ways to role-play Requiem’s lawless nature. It’s not that Requiem has vices you can’t find anywhere else, it’s that in Requiem, locals focus on vice as an enterprise. It’s not a Hedon paradise, because in Requiem, vice is a business.

How do you get involved in vice? Buy intoxication brews (and then role-play the effects). Do Redline. Frequent the brothel (just don’t expect actual sexual contact with the players!) Or start your own rackets: maybe you can learn three-card monte (and run it as an actual grift with a partner). Do some gambling and lose some bets. Cheat at cards. Find something that feels good, then charge characters in-game money to indulge.

Criminal Conspiracies

Requiem has a strong emphasis on Criminal Influence, as well as societies such as Murder Inc. We typically have our meetings early in the gathering, to provide guidance to players throughout the event. Our Criminal Influence meeting usually has over half the event in attendance (we currently have 110 players checked in with at least basic Criminal Influence), while our Murder Inc meeting usually meets in a smaller group that requires more effort to attend. These groups have a strong presence in the Families of Requiem, and typically offer an opportunity to get involved with plot in a setting-appropriate manner.

Remember, Criminal Influence is not a rare skill in Requiem. While it still values secrecy, when most of the game has the skill, it’s not an exclusive club. When you go to the Criminal Influence meeting, expect to see high-ranking Family members (both player and NPC) expressing political opinions, a couple of job offerings, and probably people fencing some sketchy items. Murder Inc, however, generally requires more commitment: you’ll be asked to use proficient Stealth to make a disguise, and then meet at ops to be escorted to the meeting location. There are often in-depth discussions of what the organization will do over the course of the gathering, and if there’s to be an assassination, this is where it’ll be decided.

Honor Amongst Thieves

The single best way to engage in Requiem’s setting is to embrace the idea of “honor amongst thieves.” The people of Requiem have various codes they live by. For example, they don’t rat people out (or at least try not to get caught doing it). If they shake on an agreement, they expect it to be honored; this isn’t a “Rover deal” but rather a realization that the other person might do violence if they welch. And they value loyalty… loyalty to their family, in particular… above all else. 

At Honor’s Fall, we’ll bring in a new item to focus on this theme, as we introduce special challenge coins. Extremely rare, these coins were inspired by the gold coins in the John Wick movies: they represent a favor more important than life itself. We’ll explain more about them in an announcement, but realize that they’re only given out to players on rare occasions, and if you have one, you can return it to an NPC to call in just about any favor you can think of from them.  

But I’m Not A Crook

Not everyone plays a criminal, but everyone in Requiem is playing in a town built by crooks, con artists and scoundrels. While, we don’t create plots that focus exclusively on these scoundrels, apart from a couple of Criminal Influence mods, realize that to a majority of players, the criminal aspect of Requiem is an important part of the game. If you’re playing a character who doesn’t have Criminal Influence, who doesn’t indulge in vice, or even plays law enforcement… cool. That’s also part of the setting, but we do expect you to interact with others with the knowledge that all the rackets, grifts and conspiracies that are going on around you, are important to other players. There are ways to get involved indirectly, with many criminal organizations maintaining strong ties to people otherwise on the up-and-up. We’re committed to not gate-keeping our plots and modules behind Criminal Influence or that sort of role-play, but realize that many of our plots are going to have that sort of aesthetic. By engaging with it, even in an antagonistic manner, you can get involved in a uniquely Requiem way - by indulging your vices, acknowledging the sense of honor amongst thieves, or even by refusing to give up your sense of law and order.