FinalHavenLarp.com

Chris Wrote:

Policy Stuff
multiple characters, A person should check in with a character and that is the character they play the entire event. You cannot change characters in the middle of an event without a good reason from NPC camp.

NPC's.. Since we are forced to play multiple characters we should ALWAYS wear something to identify us as NPC's such as a the trail marking tape.

Disguise. We will be discussing this skill, but IMO a person who wishes to use disguise needs to wear NPC markings since they are in essence playing multiple characters,. I also want to talk about retribution here. Disguise IMO does not get you a "get out of jail card"

For example, the town in-game is populated with some 20 adventuring types and some 50 odd non adventuring types. There are people you come in and out of town, but for the most part it is a small town. Lets say you steel something while under disguise and while people are looking for you you change back into your normal cloths. In this small town people would notice every new person who entered town. Infact it would take no time at all to really round up all the peasants and determine that there is an odd person amoung the group. Also, disguise can be seen by inspecting a person. If I was incharge of town I would check people for disuises and kill every dam person I saw who was disguised. Heck I would run every thief\assassin out of my town simply by their profession.

Thoughts?

Physreps. If you do not have it, then it is not there. Forexample, lets say you need an arcane right cast on you, but your buddy stayed home. You cannot call him on a cell phone and have him perform the right over the phone simply because he would have if he was there.

I agree that multiple characters should not be played unless there is good reason (and that character should not be able to come back into game). If your character needs to leave town for a while, then do so. If your character is skipping town for all of Saturday, then go help NPC.

Disguise should not be a 'get out of jail free' card, that is true.

However, if you disguise yourself, leave town, remove the disguise, and come back into town, I'm not sure how it cannot be seen as a 'get out of jail free' card in that type of an instance.

If you are trying to hide from people and use a disguise so you can come in, and you are in hiding, and someone is checking every single new (or all) member of town for a disguise, yah, you're gonna get your butt tortured, that should be a given.

However, I believe that a disguise should only be able to be seen through with a skill and a count. (Search? / Spot?) As you would probably be getting REAL friendly with the person, this would have to be roleplayed (or just do the count outloud) so the disguised person would know what you are doing. Course, they run from you, they are obviously now a suspect in who knows what. They must have done something wrong to someone. But it also gives them a chance to weasel their way out of it. Though the Dark Lord only knows how.

You do not need a skill, you just get really friendly

In my many years of NPC;ing there has been one constant and that is PC's always tend to figure out the bad guy. I can recount several times when the players figurered out which NPC was behind the nastiness. IMO I think players tend to hold off punishing evil characters because they do not want to metagame when in essence they would reasonably figure it out anyways.

-Chris

I disagree with the switching characters thoughts. Our characters pretty much top out at level 16. Once you are there, there's really no new skills to look forward to buying, nothing new to experience as a player, aside from straight up roleplaying. While I'm not knocking the roleplaying part of it, I know that I'm always slightly giddy when I get to buy a new skill at CARPS and that will not happen at final haven any longer with Kathryn. So, while I enjoy playing Kathryn, and it is rather important that I do play her for her Guild's sake, it is nice to have a break from any character for a while to play another one that is different.

What I think the policy should be is that people should not be able to switch characters at the drop of a hat. We should have to report to NPC's, something along the lines of "Hey, Kathryn's taking a nap in the guild hall because she's resting for the big battle tonight. I'd like to play my other character for a while."

So long as the switching isn't to try to "get out of jail free" and isn't abused, I don't see how it is a problem.

Natalie

P.S. I don't see how fear is too powerful. Because it gives us time to fall back and regroup? The only thing about it that I see as too powerful is being delivered via either weapon or packet. I think it should be packet only.

Personally, I think disguise is a great idea but horribly metagamed since everyone knows the player. The orange tape is like a big caution flag saying don't trust me on it. The only way I even remotely see it working is if you change race. Then the act of putting on the makeup and what not helps cover the time anyway (since even if you weren't you'd be doing exactly that). But, in reality, disguise doesn't do anything in game since if you use it to kill someone, their buddies will just find a way to justify it anyway (been on both sides of that) so it might as well just be removed completely.

Another idea that could work, is if you use disguise, you can only use it from game on until you take it off and it cannot be used again. That way, you could be a new pc or you could be a disguise. Makes it somewhat tougher to see.

As for physreps, definitely agree here. This also goes for carrying of swords, shields, potions, etc. I don't care if you have 5 swords, if you only bring one physrep out with you, you only have one. Also of note, if there are rooms in a building, there needs to be 'rooms' in the building. They are very easy to make, just put up bedsheets (or a tarp) around a couple bunks (tuck them into the top) and have a tag if there is a lock. That way, when I walk in at night and slit all your throats, I never have to listen to 'there were rooms and blah, blah, blah.' Of course, that brings up a whole nother issue of if you use pass wall to enter a building at night, and then have to walk into the actual cabin to do anything, the door is going to wake people up. Now we've just metagamed since I gaurentee there will be someone who will say: "I'm a light sleeper and would have heard your footsteps anyway."

I dunno bout you, but I can open a door without waking people up

Not the point but yeah, I'm sure you can.

Personally I feel the onyl way to really kill a PC is to make them doubt if you really did that. The onyl way I see this happening is if everyone thinks you were a PC at the time.

Basically to really kill a person you need to spend a good deal of time NPC'ing so people get use to you with the red tape. You then set up a plot all by yourself using your disguised character as the plot deliverer. You then at some point kill the PC with this disguised character who is simply never seen again OR better yet figure out a way to blame either another PC or better yet an NPC so the players have someone to exact their vengence on.

Granted you can only do this a couple times before people figure out it is you.

Chris

The reason I originally didn't go to 4th level in the assasin path is because the pass wall is a really really neat idea but it doesn't really work for a LARP the way it should. If I passwall and then have to knock on the door to say hey I just passed through your wall over there, now you go back to sleep and I'll slit your throat just doesn't work. It also always will call for a game stop if you enter a place where people are up and about then you have to go to the spot that you entered the building and call game on while you've just walked past everyone in the room and even if where you passwalled they can't see you they know you are there.

Disguise is really tricky, I try and change to a different outfit for my disguises and use the orange tape, this time I didn't change to a different outfit for the gaurd I was diguised as because I intended on questioning a few people in town about a a few other people and going back to the guild hall and changing back to look like my character but I ended up being disguised for a large part of the night. It can be very hard to not metagame with someone that is disguised and even though I'd like to be able to do it without the tape it is almost neccesary because everyone may not wear the same exact thing for their character all the time, they may want to wear something different from time to time and it may be confused as a diguise.