Ideal LARP Question 2

[Jaycen Blackhawk]

Actually, you would do it by each hit adds 60 seconds. So your job as a player is to count to 300. If you are hit add 60 to your count. Pretty simple.

And I don't know how you know what WILL happen in a LARP that doesn't exist, but I want that skill.

I've seen this system in effect at a LARP for over a year. It resulted in 17 players dead in one encounter because no one told the NPC's not to hit downed players. So NPC would walk around a dead player and casual hit him once, but with 3 NPC's this adds up.

Also we ran into injuries because of the hitting someone while they are laying there unconscious. Granted your system will probably be a "light hit" system.

We had skills that could alter the bleed out time to make it harder to kill someone, but over all the rules were changed after one year because of the increase in deaths and the lack of meaning behind any.

Here's an example of why it's deadly...

Warrior has 5 soak and swings for 1.
Ogre has 10 soak and swings for 2.

The third hit by the Ogre drops the Warrior to negative 1 Body. Rendering him unconscious and dead in 240 seconds (4 Minutes).

But as the Warrior is falling to the ground he is struck 2 more times by the Ogre (follow up swings).

Assuming that each hit removes 1 minute the Warrior now has 2 minutes to die. If the bleed time is reduced by 60 seconds per damage point, the Warrior is Dead.

The above example is why so many died.. they went from unconscious to dead before they could completely fall over.

[GM_Chris]

Some would argue that if you want to live you should leave combat prior to dropping to 0 or below.

[dier_cire]

yep, I wouldn't care on the first incident. If you have 17 people dumb enough to be in front with no life, they die. Basically, people like to play close to the line because they have come to know systems that death and negative is no big deal. People should be smarter than that.

As for the orc example, no, you'd be wrong. You think in terms of damage, not hits. Re-read and understand. In your example based on my rules the warrior would be down with a start count of 120.

And if you wanted to avoid that exact deal, however, you could just not start the count till you actually go down. Bascially, you'd have a 1-2 second time of being immune to damage. In fact, some video games already do this (in a sense though it's much much faster to the point where you can't see it).

[GM_Chris]

There is still the problem of counting and role playing. Both cannot be done effectivly and I rather have people RP over people counting time. You can count hits and RP though.

[dier_cire]

which would be the last line of my post two posts ago.

basically, remove the time element entirely and adjust your npcs accordingly.

[Ark]

how about this instead of "bleading out" when a person reaches zero its not becuase they are dying its because THEY ARE ABOUT to die, you put in the system were you can only take so much more damage or hits and then you die, how many people bleed out in real life anyway, woulnd it be cool if you saw someone trying to crawl away from an ogre and it smashed him to death with its club, just take out bleeding to death. call it "critical life" or something like that

[GM_Chris]

That was one of the options mentioned above. It is not a bad idea.

[General Maximus]

Here's another idea.

When you reach -1 you are dying. You must just sit there, but can talk while in negatives. You can take as much damage as you want. It won't matter. A person has to come up to you and do a death blow count 5-10 secs to kill you. Or there might be an attack that kill a person when they are in negatives. A person must be healed to get out of negatives.

This puts the count on the attacker and the victim is free to RP all day long. If you are not healed by the end of the event, you die.

Aka, you beat people down, and then have to purposfully kill them

[GM_Chris]

Or you can choose to die because your sick on ling on the ground.


I am really leaning that way. I really like the bag and I am thinking to get out of negs you need to draw from the bag. I think it adds alot or perhaps have 1 other way to not use the bag but it will be limited in some way,

[General Maximus]

The bag idea could work and make people not want to go into negatives. It all depends on how deadly you want the game.

After some thinking, I think you would die in 1/2-1 hour.
There would only be 2 life catergories, postive life/soak to zero (which you can use all your skills) and negative life/soak (you are dying and can not do anything)

Now a way to make negatives suck and for people to avoid them is, you can not use any skills for 30-60 minutes after you come out of negatives. None of I'm dying, I get healed and I'm up and running again.

My feeling is people should avoid going into negatives and should be leaving battle before they reach that level.

[GM_Chris]

I agree and I think your idea of not being able to do anything for a certain amount of time is a good idea.

I was almost thinking of having to catagories of negs but I am unsure if the added complication is worth it.

Say you cannot bleed to death but

0-5 you can be moved and you have an easier heal\recovery. Regen skills continue to work
-6 and beyond you cannot be picked up and moved, you have a harder time being healed, and you die at either the rising or setting of the sun. Regen skills cease to function.

[General Maximus]

It's a neat idea, but it forces a player to keep track on where they are at. Is it worth it, ??

Now I was thinking of skills that can reduce the death blow count for the attacker, reduce the amount of time you can not use skills after being in negatives, skills that can kill a person instanely if they are negatives, etc...

The more I think about this idea, the more I like it. It is simple and easy to understand and you still can have many skills that can effect negatives.

But in the end, people should not want to be negatives because you can die and when your healed, you are useless for X time.

Here's a fun skill idea. Death strike - drops a person to the negative catergory if hit. If hit with a death strike while in negatives you are dead.

I also like the idea of resurection being painful and hard to do. Aka if you are resurected, you loss X skill points/life/etc... PC's can res a person easly if they get to them very quickly (5-10 minutes of death). After that it would be hard questing to bring a person back.

I feel this could give a good balance between the fear of death and lack of fear of death.

[dier_cire]

Actually with the not being able to do anything idea, you could make bringing someone out of negatives fairly trivial of a skill. This would allow for people to drop and others to rescue them fairly quickly (ala modern video game trends). However, being at a reduced capacity (say no skills and you deal 0 damage) means no combat so you avoid the repeating 1 life guy bashing into the enemies.

This moves the bag into pulling someone from death, which means it's outside combat, which I feel is a more fitting location anyway.

And two categories just gets away from the removing the count from the dying player entirely which is just too good of an idea.

[GM_Chris]

Interesting I wonder what other people think.

I am cool with different skills that effect the negative player.

I still think I would inact a sun rises/sets policy for death to get away from possible between event arguments players could have with me.

I think a person must always physrep their body. You are not allowed, unles there is an injury to say you are "here" and put a coat down and walk away.

As for trivial out of neg thing. I dont know if I would make it completely trivial. I like the chip draw bag. I would like to continue to utulize it as it is a very unique FH mechanic that adds drama. Like say you hit negs and must draw 3 chips at a rate of 1 per minute.

[General Maximus]

A sun set/rise leads to people killing a person a couple minutes before that time so they die quickly. The same can be said for end of game killing, but I would make a ruling the peson does not die if they can get to a healer or carry over the scene at the begging of the next event. Not perfect, but it can work.

I personal did not find drama with the bag at FH. I found it an anyoance and created very complicated mechaincs for players to abuse and forget.

Now, I can see the bag being used to res a person which should be out of combat. The bag could be used to get out negatives, it just depends how deadly you want negatives to be.

I like the idea of healing a person out of negative being a simple skill, but maybe it should a higher skill in the skill tree. And defently no potion should pull a person out of negatives. When you are in negatives, you need other peoples help. You can not be self sufficent if you go into negatives.