Mil-Sim LARP

[dier_cire]

...buying and selling stuff...

or you could remove the entire computer step and give the NPC a calculator... way simpler.

[Kalphoenix]

This adds nothing to the discussion but I just wanted to say I enjoy reading this construction process.

[General Maximus]

The computer idea is good once we get the system and costs fully flushed out.

Starting out I see us using paper money (laminated). I want to post the equipment list so everyone knows the costs. The PC's will provide a list of items they want and the money. The NPC gives them the tags. Selling would be the same but in reverse.

I was figuring there would certian times during the event where there will be a guranetted time where a NPC will run the shop. The rest of the time it will be hit or miss. PC do not go to NPC camp for buying and selling. NPC's come to PC camp for that. Keep the PC's out of NPC camp.

Most of the work is on the PC side and the NPC can get a quick feel if the PC's are paying the correct price. PC's must have everything ready for transaction to happen or they will be asked to come back. Give me the cash and list of item and I will give you the tags. I don't want to waste time counting out money all the time. Only do once in a while as a spot check.

The reason I see this working is we are going to foster a zero tolerence on cheating. You try to slip something by the NPC's and you will be kicked out of the game. What is expected of the PC's will be publicly announced and in written form in the rule book.

Some Rules
1. If you find a major rule break, ask for clarification from the NPC, and they say it is alright, no issue
2. If you find a major rule break, secertly use it your advantage, it is considered cheating

Something like this. Eric stated better than above.

[Dallid]

I don't want to get bouged down taking care of small paper work items.

There’s a breakdown in communication here. There is *no* paperwork. None. Zip. Zilch. Nada. The only exception is tags, and that’s only because players need to be able to access their inventory in the field.
I do well know what I consider fun about managing a game, and what isn’t. This game is being designed from the ground-up to eliminate all that isn’t. Paperwork isn’t fun, so it’s gone. I don’t like dealing with economics, so that’s all automated. The only skills that require GM participation are lore related.

My feeling is if you want full realism, play a sim.

Another breakdown. LARPS *are* simulations. The whole point is to simulate the game world as much as possible. Obviously some sacrifices are made sim-wise as the fun-factor must be maximized, but the goal is always to make the game as immersive as possible.

or you could remove the entire computer step and give the NPC a calculator... way simpler.

How is giving NPCs more to do simpler?

My way: Collect cards as specified by list and hand to PC. Press a button on the computer.

Your way: Listen to the PC describe what they’re looking for. Write them all down on scrap piece of paper or handle them one at a time. Look up basic cost of item(s). Look up PCs reputation with the region’s dominant and secondary factions. Find reputation chart, cross reference faction reps, check if player has any skills affecting the price, take out calculator and determine adjusted price and write it down. Do this for all items. Use calculator to add them up. Collect money from PC, place different denominations in different bins. Collect and give change to PC. Collect cards as specified by list and hand to PC.

In addition, create, store, transport, and handle monetary phys-reps and cost charts.

I don’t like any of this – it’s significant hassle and eats up a great deal of game time. Again, that’s precisely what this game is built to eliminate. Repeat – no monetary phys-reps, no in-game transaction handling by NPCs.

[dier_cire]

Listen to the PC describe what they’re looking for. Write them all down on scrap piece of paper or handle them one at a time. Look up basic cost of item(s). Look up PCs reputation with the region’s dominant and secondary factions. Find reputation chart, cross reference faction reps, check if player has any skills affecting the price, take out calculator and determine adjusted price and write it down. Do this for all items. Use calculator to add them up. Collect money from PC, place different denominations in different bins. Collect and give change to PC. Collect cards as specified by list and hand to PC.

Doug, why would status would affect shop price? I could see prices for things fluctuating from event to event (the Merc group moves) but not internally to an event. You wouldn't buy things from guys you hate, you'd go to your buddy who has the proper contacts. Some items may be hard to locate in a given region, but pretty much all the people buying them have the same access. All your system will boil down to is the guy with the best rep buying things for everyone, just like CARPS.

Again, with a printed price list, people shop, they buy, NPC gives tag and makes change if needed. Simple. Shop times are set by the GMs so NPCs only man this at given times so PCs don't come to them at random inconvienant times.

[General Maximus]

Here are a couple questions on the computer idea
1. How will the transfer of money between PC be handled?
2. I see a NPC still will be required to approve the purchase of items and the handing out of the tags. I want the tags to be premade and laminated so they can be reused and save time and money in the end. And I can use work printers to make the tags to save use some money
3. After a mission, I’m assuming the leader of the group would plug their card into the NPC computer and the NPC would give them X money for the mission? And than the leader would have to hand out the money?
4. How would the PC’s give money to NPC’s during a plot? Bribes can go along way to get out of a difficult situation!
5. Where will we get all the computers to handle all the transactions? I do not have a lab top.
6. How can the USD drives be setup so a person can not break into them to give themselves more money?


I can see using a computer at first to have a list of mission for folks to look at. To use it to calculate your purchase item values. And use it to do minor faction status tracking. I like idea of using computers but have some logistical concerns.

I think a system of paper money and computer credit would be a good way to start the game and as the bugs are fixed going to a start computer system.

[General Maximus]

Doug,

What are your thoughts on the above question?

[Dallid]

Status affects shop price because the dominant faction in the region controls the supply routes. If the dominant faction hates you, they won’t sell to you. Now, you can always find what you’re looking for, but the worse your reputation with the dominant faction, the further off the beaten path you must go to find someone willing to deal with you. Price then reflects the difficulty in lining up a seller and the abhorrent prices they’re able to charge given how limited your options are.

Now, folks with bad rep can look to save money by having someone with good rep do their buying and selling, but that allows the good rep guy to make a few extra bucks on the side by tacking on a bit of overhead cost. He checks what the order request will cost, then require the buyers to transfer that cost plus 10% or whatever. That’s fine, and still handled entirely by the PCs.

Next event it may well be someone else who’s getting the best prices, as Base Camp moves every event.

Two PCs wishing to exchange cash can do so by plugging both their flash drives into a computer. When two flash drives are detected, they’ll be granted the option to perform a monetary transfer.

Agreed, premade and laminated tags would work best for handing out tags to PCs. The NPC handling this at the time would be considered to be the camp ‘Quartermaster’. The Quartermaster’s office may not always be manned, and PCs may have to wait a bit for someone to return to distribute their requisitions. Will probably have a printer handy to make basic paper tags as a backup.

Good question on mission payments. If all payment goes into one account (the merc company commander’s) they’ll have a lot of managerial work to do in making transfers afterward. If payment is evenly distributed amongst all company members, they have to deal with managerial transfers if they ever want to pool cash to by general-company gear.

I think the commander will have a company management screen by which he can set percentage payouts to individual members. NPCs then award the payment to the company (single transaction), and the computer automatically updates the individual accounts according to the management settings.

Now, that won’t immediately cover the situation where the company has taken on ‘outside help’ to perform a job. But I think it will still work. If the company commander decides to include non-company PCs on a job, he’ll just have to adjust the percentage awards so he takes in a greater haul, then transfers money to the outsiders from his own account. More managerial overhead caused by going outside contract standards, but it’s all on the company (PCs) and not the customers (NPCs) as it should be. Outsiders may not even get a reputation adjustment, as officially the job was still handled by the company.

Portable terminals will play a big part in some missions. Any mission involving computer hacking will have one, for instance. If bribery is possible, a computer will be handy for making the transfer.

I currently have two laptops, including one highly portable touchscreen computer. I’d like to have four or five at an event, though I don’t plan to buy any more, myself, until after the first event (so we can get an idea as to whether or not there’s enough interest to continue the LARP). Volunteers may provide additional laptops. An installation DVD will be available to download the PC terminal application.

Simple encryption (such as moving a bit on each byte of the file and/or adding a number to the hex value of each byte) will make flash drive account files unreadable to text applications. Such operations are near instantanious, so the required encrypt-decrypt routines will have no impact on performance.

The game application will be coded, tested, and ready to go by the first event. Much progress has all ready been made.

[General Maximus]

I'm back from vacation have have thought about this some. Here are some of my concerns.

Taking laptops on mission
1. I'm afraid of what a BB will do to a laptop screen especilay when it comes from a sniper rifle (450 fps)
2. I'm afriad of the laptop getting damaged during the fighting or if it starts raining.
3. Laptops are expensive

Flash Drives
1. What happens when a PC losses there flash drive? Do they losses all there money?
2. What happens when there flash drive gets busted in the fighting? Will there be a back up system and how much extra work will that be?

I'm personaly not a fan of the different percentages for buying stuff depending on where you are. It does some a small element to the game but the complexity for PC's and NPC's is not worth it. I preferr to keep it simple because so everyone understands it instead of a few like at Carps.
In the end the buying and selling of stuff boils down to a select few doing it for the town. So just setup a system to simulate this and keep it simple for game enjoyment. People come there to shoot and RP, not do finances.

[Dallid]

The field laptop will be in a safe place (ie. building) when the shooting starts. It can be transported in a laptop bag, safe from the elements. In the odd case the laptop is at an outdoor objective (say, a SCUD missile launcher), it can remain in the bag even when in use – keeping it well protected on all sides. While I see little risk involved, it will still only be my laptop at risk. Frankly, there will be more value at greater risk in the airsoft weapontry.

Flashdrives are functionally little more than PC IDs. NPC and computer-generated updates (rep, money, build points), are made to character files stored on the main database. When a flashdrive is inserted into a terminal, the computer reads the drive’s character file and compares it to the corresponding fine in the database. If the database file is newer, it overwrites the file on the flashdrive. If a player loses his flashdrive, his database character file can simply be copied onto a new one.

When the PCs are in Russian territory, their reputation with the Russians will affect the cost of items. Pretty simple. If people want to just make their purchases and be done with it, no problem. If they want to take the time to compare their costs with what others are paying and make arrangements to pay the least amount, more power to them.

[Dallid]

Example: Tom sees Base Camp is now near the Russian border. He’s made a career of harassing the Red Army, so knows he’s going to take it in the pants this event. Sure enough, when he logs on to a terminal and goes to the purchase screen, he’s floored by the outrageous prices. He looks over at what Bill’s doing on the next terminal, and sees the prices he’s paying are a quarter of his own.

“Hey, Bill, would you mind buying a few things for me?”

“No problem, Tom, what do you need?”

Tom directs Bill on the items to select. Bill then looks at the total cost.

“Well, Tom, that’s going to run me $8500. Give me $10,000 and we’ll call it even.”

Tom agrees, unplugs his flashdrive from his own terminal and hands it over to Bill. Bill plugs it in to his own terminal, and, detecting a second flashdrive, the computer make the ‘Character to Character Transfer’ option available. Bill selects the option, specifies the direction of transfer as Tom to Bill, and sets the amount to $10,000. When the transfer is revealed a success (Tom actually did have the funds to fulfill it), Bill hits ‘Submit’ on his purchase.

No one’s currently monitoring the NPC terminal, but it speaks aloud “Requisition Request received from Bill Sharpshooter”. An NPC then comes over, opens the request, and begins assembling tags according to the list of items.

Bill and Tom arrive at the NPC table, where the NPC hands over the tags. After confirming the right tags are there, Bill and Tom leave with their haul, and the NPC selects ‘Complete’ for the requisition, closing out the request and subtracting $8500 from Bill’s account.

[Dallid]

NPC uniforms for three factions have arrived, along with numerous AK clips.

Flashdrives could be avoided all together if PCs just log in with name and password, but flashdrives would be faster, more convenient, and offer more freedom and possibility (such as transporting mission objective files). Still, manual log-in could be a backup in case a new player arrives without a flashdrive or a player loses his.

[Dallid]

LARPing season is about over, so work on this game will soon begin in earnest. After more thought, maintaining separate accounts on the flash drive and online seems prudent. Money can be transferred between the two, but the two files never account for the same cash. Otherwise, if money is added (or subtracted) to both the online character file and the flash drive at the same time, one (with the most recent transaction) will overwrite the other the next time the flash drive is inserted in a terminal, and the older transaction would be lost.


Also, I’m leaning more and more toward making guns free in-game. Your character arrives with your RL phys-rep(s), and that’s the weapon you then get to use (provided the character has the appropriate skill(s)). If damaged, it is unusable until repaired. It would certainly suck if a character can’t afford to buy or replace the weapon corresponding to the phys-rep owned by the player, and accounts for players still lugging around unusable phys-reps of weapons that have been blasted or shot up (gotta get bessy back to base to get fixed up!).

Can make for some intense scenes as well. “Enemy troops will be swarming over this place in a few minutes! Get that SAW operational ASAP!”

[Dallid]

Want to start putting together a website. Anyone have an opinion on Yuku.com, or can recommend another message board service?

[Dallid]

Significant rule updates have been made, but not yet updated in this thread. Got rid of inbetween event skills and added repair skills, among other things.

After a successful mission, NPC camp must make a payment to the account of the player who picked up the mission (who can then distribute the money to the accounts of all involved). To offset free guns and ammo, NPC Camp can declare expendatures which are deducted from the payment. NPCs set a cost on the amount of ammo they feel the PCs expended during the mission, and can include any other mission expenses, such as calling in a medivac. All expenses are subracted from the payment, and the mission leader can adjust team shares as wanted.

Also figuring on 20 factions with which the PCs may gain or lose reputation. Reputation will be on a character, not team, basis. Any character may then pick up a mission from factions with which they have good rep. A character with a bad rep with the Russians can still go on a Russian mission taken by a character with good rep, but it could go very bad for the team if the Russians identify him.