FinalHavenLarp.com

Takki has a great point.

We all carry with us what we feel is fair, and when we think something is not fair we get angry. I personally feel that this feelin of fairness is the root of most human issues, nevertheless it is with us.

Even if a player was RP'ing to the hilt, if they ganked another player that player would feel he/she was treated unfairly.

The funniest examples of this are when a person is ganked by a player and comes to complain to NPC camp about how unfair it all was. It is then I remind he/she that they were planning just an act themselves, but somehow that concept always alludes the intellect of the player base.

I make a great effort to RP with the NPC's just as much as the PC's, but it's hard to make headway.

Fon instance, during the last one day, when stuck in the portal limbo, we encountered a tribe of cavern-dwelling guthries, who demanded that we give them payment to get through "their" area, and then they would help us. The payment? Three food and healing of their sick. So Dallid promptly ran off to heal them, and Garritt and Ingram set about asking for food donations.

The wide opinion of the PC's? Kill them all, they're probably weak anyway, and then just go through to where we need to.

My personal best RP'ing I think is when the woman two falls ago (I can never remember her name, played by Karen), came into the Inn, and Durgan and Voralen managed to sway her from violence on the people there just by calmly talking to her.

Heck, I even 'try' to distract things as lowly as spider goblins when I'm fighting them. Or taunting big things with just my voice, no taunt skill. God forbid dealing with the LARPers alongside Serith a couple events ago.

i cant help but feel that this thread has decended into just ragging on the players for being whiney and stupid.

now, dont get me wrong, there are quite a few stupids in town, but that doesnt mean the players and being bad rp'ers.

of course your going to be upset when you lose a character, you invested money and more importantly time into him/her and the loss of all that can feel quite disheartenning. and of course your going to vent that in some way. some decide to whine about it, some decide not to. but its not the fault of the player that they react to the death of somone they were very empathetic with, they are grieveing in their own way and trying to get back what they lost, so they complain about it, even though they dont mean too. but in complaiining about the players griping you become no better than them.

Taki, I can assure you that Roland, Ug and I would all have done the same things if the Orcs were NPC's If all the same things would have gone down before hand. Same as if PC's were to attack certain NPC's I'd stand with those NPC's because they've shown to be good allies. Where there is the biggest difference is in how brand new PC's and brand new NPC's are treated. And personally I don't really have a problem with that. If someone pays for the event and costuming and then gets ganked because they are the "new (insert current hated race)" in town that sucks ass. However ganking some brand new NPC elves in town can be cathartic to the character.

But, there are definitely times that OOG considerations are taken when talk of ganking PC's comes up. some people you are pretty sure will handle it in a mature way, some you aren't sure of and some you KNOW will not.

Thats all part of LARP though, it's never going to go away and it's never going to change, it just is whether each person considers it right, wrong or indifferent.

chris i know that was not pointed at me, i also know im a horrible RP'er and am trying to work on it.

*making npc friends- good idea, at first, except the majority of the npc's out there are not out to be your friend but to gain your trust, i feel that almost every npc group thats good keeps its distance and dosnt talk or want to get involved, while the ones that are bad send people to town to infiltrate our group or attack us from the shadows, and of course we kill more npc's, if only for the reason that you dont take it personaly when we kill you, i agree with taki that oog and ig seem to clash alot on this subject.

*on the debate on random monsters, i know there is no reason for monsters to just come looking for a fight, but you show me one fantasy game that is boss after boss and i will apoligise, i played a game that was almost that and it was fist through the wall horrible, but i still played through it twice, there are always random monsters, the best joy people have in a game is killing something fast and easily, makes you feel tough, i belive atrum called that ego pumping but i dont come to a game that makes me feel like im weak and cant do anything, wich brings me to my next topic.

*Single player game- I know it has been stated that this is a team oriented game, why? why was the option to be self sufficient in resources through path and discipline choice removed from the game, to me i hate that aspect, it dosnt matter if we beat the end of the world device but we still starve, i wouldnt mind being weak in exchange for not having to worry about that, some of us dont want to have to be part of an organisation, and that should be okay, and if people want to be part of a group, more power to them, but the choice should be there.

*making npc friends- good idea, at first, except the majority of the npc's out there are not out to be your friend but to gain your trust, i feel that almost every npc group thats good keeps its distance and dosnt talk or want to get involved

I would agree that the majority of the NPCs that you run across are meant to be a challenge to the player base, but I bet the percentages are not nearly as lopsided as people think. If you take away the random monsters and the mass battle hordes, the individual characters that come into game are not only often good guys, but good guys that can be used in some way and are willing to help. You need only ask. There was one event I spent about 80% of the time as my "good" NPCs and was quite helpful to several people.

I know it has been stated that this is a team oriented game, why?

That's the type of game that we conceptualized. The philosophy behind the game is that it is a post-apocalyptic, devastated area filled with baddies and not a lot of resources for everyone. We wanted a game where people would work toegether and interact, where new players would feel useful if not immediately then by their second event at the latest, and not one where one person could kill high level plots while newbies and everyone else looked on and bored. Most other LARPS work the other way and we know this game is thus not for everyone and was a concession we made form the beginning.

i cant help but feel that this thread has decended into just ragging on the players for being whiney and stupid.

Hopefully that's nobody's intention with anything that was written. the whole discussion, I think, is pretty interesting to read, and I'm almost certain that Chris does not really believe that you all suck at role playing

The FH mechanics are setup to be group/team orientated. It's just that type of game. You will not get very far if you are a lone wolf in FH. I do not know why it has been created that way, it just is. For the most part, all PC's are at the same power level. The only difference is equipment which is based on good of a group you are part off. One of the goals of Fh was to have the PC's on the same power level and simplify the mechaincs of the game. On the surface FH mechanincs are simple, but it gets very complex when looking at combinations and what you can really do.

Now if you want to be a lone wolf and play in high fantsy, you should try CARPS. The rules are simple if you have a character concept

just for note one person can survive by himself nicley, see man v wild for info

Yes, it's not really that hard to survive alone if you want to.

GM_Chris wrote: Forexample, I am thinking the NPC pool of characters should decrease and be more finite for a year. Build off a core group of characters so that we can blur the lines between PC/NPC.

I misread that in my first post, sorry Chris. I think that's not a bad idea. I realized that we kind of do this at WH, more so just because it's more plausible due to it's kind of isolation...the pool of NPCs is smaller. More re-occuring characters is probably a good thing though...gives the PCs more time to empathize with them, or at least get used to seeing a particular face.

Rhul wrote: The wide opinion of the PC's? Kill them all, they're probably weak anyway, and then just go through to where we need to.

I commented on this in another recent post, so I won't go into it in detail again here, but this is a PC attitude I have seen a LOT in the past at FH. I think the only thing that gave the players pause at our first WH event was the LOW number of players...which I want to say was around 12 throughout the game? Maybe someone who played at that event can chime in on the mindset. I was impressed at how the players chose to address some of the issues they were confronted with. Was it because of the low amount of players? Did people just feel they had a "fresh" start without all the high end politics? I'm interested. Email or PM me if you don't feel the comments are relevant to the discussion or if you just want to remain anonymous. Like Chris, I too spend a lot of time in thought about this kind of stuff!

Atrum Draconus wrote: Where there is the biggest difference is in how brand new PC's and brand new NPC's are treated.

That's the best way I've seen it put so far.

Ark wrote: *making npc friends- good idea, at first, except the majority of the npc's out there are not out to be your friend but to gain your trust, i feel that almost every npc group thats good keeps its distance and dosnt talk or want to get involved, while the ones that are bad send people to town to infiltrate our group or attack us from the shadows, and of course we kill more npc's, if only for the reason that you dont take it personaly when we kill you, i agree with taki that oog and ig seem to clash alot on this subject.

I'll let the FH GMs address things for themselves, (although I personally feel there were a LOT of helpful, or at least entertaining, NPC personas at FH if you bothered interacting with them, just MY perspective), but from a storyteller point of view, you want the PLAYERS characters to stand in the spotlight. If NPCs are TOO helpful or heavy handed in their dealings, PCs don't get their chance to shine and stand out, or PCs don't bother trying as hard because they realize that "so-and-so" will sweep in and take care of things for them. So it's not fun either way. Also keep in mind that even NPC allies aren't going to want to throw their lives away either.

Ark wrote: i know there is no reason for monsters to just come looking for a fight, but you show me one fantasy game that is boss after boss and i will apoligise, i played a game that was almost that and it was fist through the wall horrible, but i still played through it twice, there are always random monsters, the best joy people have in a game is killing something fast and easily, makes you feel tough, i belive atrum called that ego pumping but i dont come to a game that makes me feel like im weak and cant do anything

I still disagree that LARP is like (or should be) a fantasy video game. If it was, I could do it with far less involvement and trouble than LARPing offers. I'm still of the mind that if you feel there isn't enough combat, you can always ask to be given Wandering Monsters to play. If combat is something you really like doing and feel you can do it both following the rules given to you AND impartially, it would be a good thing to do. Since it would be seperated from the actual agenda, most people could do it without spoiling themselves for the weekend, but that player still has to have a certain amount of trust from the Staff to do so.

Ark wrote: *Single player game- I know it has been stated that this is a team oriented game, why? why was the option to be self sufficient in resources through path and discipline choice removed from the game, to me i hate that aspect, it dosnt matter if we beat the end of the world device but we still starve, i wouldnt mind being weak in exchange for not having to worry about that, some of us dont want to have to be part of an organisation, and that should be okay, and if people want to be part of a group, more power to them, but the choice should be there.

A LARP involves a certain social aspect, also consider that there is only so much staff to go around. While I AGREE with you that if someone wants to "specialize" in self sufficiency they should be able to do so, WITH the understanding that they may be missing out on other aspects of the game. But the solo player will miss out on a lot of content that they would have access to, otherwise, because it would be certain death for them to go it alone.

no time to read but FYI this can be applied equally to the NPC's so it not even pointed directly at players alone. This is a talk of philosophy more than anything

I'm going to try and get the thread back on topic, lol.

While it seems odd for random monsters to attack the "town", remember what the world is like. The world is quite a bit wilder than during the CARPs timeline. We know how hard it is for people who know how to take care of themselves to deal with the new flora and fauna and enviroment changing catastrophies (like the giant crevasse opening during the Nov event).

Now put yourself in the place of a goblin, or a tribe or wild Orcs, or even some down on your luck bandits. I would imagine they are even more desperate than normal. Groups/individuals that tended to gravitate towards places where they could scavenge have a whole lot less of those places now, so the pickings are slim. Who are bandits going to attempt a raid on: Elven-held Haven, Fortified Caledonia, or us, a rebuilt border fort and Inn surrounded by refugee camps?

As an addendum, I think it would be more interesting if for awhile we were attacked by bandits and raiders instead of monster 'A', or 'B'. It allows for more roleplaying (their emissary shows up near the fort, demanding food and steel, backed up by a group of thugs. After killing many of them in a fight, we track them back to their lair possibly to find they were attacking in desperation to provide for their families....or on the flipside they were simply a group robbing bastards, too lazy to provide for themselves)

Where there is the biggest difference is in how brand new PC's and brand new NPC's are treated.

That is very true. I was shocked (and dissapointed) that there wasn't any kind of difficulty in the group accepting Rhul when he showed up. If he would have been an NPC, ther would have been trouble, I'm pretty sure. But on the other hand, maybe I should take it as , In-character, the players have gotten so jaded it's hard to shock them with something as simple as an ugly mug, cause they like Trusk, too.

Also, for being at (or near, above elves) the bottom of the rung on who Caledonians respect, they are downright chummy towards Rhul. If I ever get down on my silver, I think I should try my hand at babysitting.

I only mentioned ego pumping monsters because Casey brought it up and I don't see how you can bag on power gaming in one paragraph and then say you want your ego stroked in the next. They're two sides of the same coin.

I don't have a problem with either, everyone gets their own thrills and chills from the game in different ways, and that's ok.

i understand that it is a team based game, and the majority like it that way, but if someone wants to be self suficiant for out of game or character reasons they should be able too, in the old rules it was possible but you were weak, obviously the only reason you would choose to do it is the same reason someone chooses anything else, they want to, and atrum i wasnt saying you were being negitive i was useing it as example, back on topic, THE OPTION SHOULD BE THERE, not being mean i just belive thats a good statement