Okay before I start, I know how a lot of people feel about this form of roleplay.
Especially Boffer LARP.
The preconception of boffer LARP is something like this -
Unfortunately, this is exactly right. It looks lame...
Seriously lame. Videos and Photographs fully capture how unbelievably lame it looks. All i can say is its different when you're there in costume surrounded by others in costume. It feels great, Just looks lame.
Next point, The Setting for our local LARP Club was a mishmash of popular fantasy culture mixing Dnd, Warhammer and whatever took the DM's fancy. We almost always did this outdoors on nature trails (the UK being practically devoid of hostile wildlife, barring the odd savage badger). The club (usually consisting of 8-20 people) was separated into two groups. One was the party and the other the monster crew. The DM would brief the party (usually coming up with bullshit reasons for these random merc's to work together) and then the monster crew would set off in a random direction and set up the initial encounter. There were usually approx 10 encounters in total and they would take us on a round route through the nature trail back to our cars where we had lunch, swapped groups and embarked on the other party's adventure.
This was a full contact LARP system. Spells were cast using the honors system so long as a somatic component and point'n'click interface was completed, the vocals I.e. 'By my power... *spell name*' and pointing at who you're casting at.These spells were cast using spell points 1 point per level of spell and spells went from 1-10. Spellcasting was very much like it is in Dnd 3.0, high level mages and warlocks enjoyed night godlike powers whilst warriors of even level just hit very hard and had a lot of hit points.
No dice were used, combat was resolved purely by personal skill, character skill and again the honors system. We had character sheets, carried by one of the monster crew who would adjust the sheet according to what happened to us at the end of each encounter. It wasn't perfect but the system worked. I did this Local system for about 10 years until the guys who ran it (two of my current Pnp group) ran out of steam and looked to someone else to take the reins. It turned into something out of an AB3 rant and I didn't want to endure that ever again.
So now without further ado...
1-
Entilzarr and The Game breaking Blackpowder RifleBlackpowder weapons were a prized commodity in our system. Quite often they'd be brought in for a Boss NPC to use only for it to 'break beyond repair' before any of the PC's could get any use out of it. Most of the time they were one shot flintlocks which could drop most people on their ass before they closed in for the kill. They, Like arrows and crossbow bolts, went through armour and automatically hit thats why everybody feared and wanted one.
Entilzarr was a high level ranger, played by a very experience roleplayer. He was just one of those guys who knew how to play a ranger right. He'd cleave through wrongdoers without a care and barely breaking a sweat.
During a lengthly and painful campaign He and a few other high level characters (including my 'not yet' wife's and my own less experienced ranger) were tasked go to the geographical equivalent of japan from Plymouth, UK... why? I can't remember. But I can remember the blackpowder weapons, and oh were they horrific.
I'll never forget the Warlock (fighter mage) of the party being shot in the chest with a cannon and barely surviving (gotta love magical healing). Long story short, one of the prizes Entilzarr left with was a fintlock rifle. For the next few adventures he would covet this item as if it was integral to his personal survival and the player poured all his skill points into it (point buy purchase for training skills).
Soon he was the greatest and most effective sniper in the land. It got to a point where he had the god stick, it could kill nearly anything in one shot. well anything humanoid but thats besides the point.
Bandit encounters would end in simple intimidation -
Entilzarr "Who's your leader?"
Bandit leader "I am! and who..."
BANG!Entilzarr "Now who's your leader?"
Bandits "You are!!"
NPC's would fall after hearing 'Six Through Head
*' with a neat hole between the eyes and whoever was DM'ing would die a little bit inside, throwing away either the 4 pages of spells or special abilities that he chose specifically to screw the party over or the rest of the plot that NPC was integral to.
*- We had a locational hit point system. 1 hit point for each body part (Head,torso,each arm and each leg). You get hit on that location for x points, you lost that amount. More experienced characters could have more hit points but as the system went, 3 was the maximum. If your hit points went to 0 you fell unconcious and bled to death at a rate of 1hp per minute, if it dropped to -4 you died.
Only once did the rifle fail Entilzarr. As is common with most roleplaying games, there are times where the party will not get along. Evil characters WILL be evil and the Good characters WILL have a knee jerk reaction to finding out the evil crimes of their allies. PVP is sometimes unavoidable.
This one time a party member, A Wizard come Necromancer by the name of Lorr (...I know I know) was found out of being a dirty Necromancer and raising armies of skeletons and zombies, which was a capital offence in this system. Lorr was being physically held by Shifty (the party's fighter thief) and Entilzarr holding the rifle to Lorr's head.
I cannot remember what was said but the actions went as follows-
- Ent told Lorr to surrender to being gagged
- Lor refuses to be gagged threatening to tear Ent's soul from his body
- Ent tells Lorr that if he even utters one word of magic he'll shoot
- Lorr smiles and casts the one word short ranged teleportation spell he saved for special occasions and vanishes
- Ent fires
- the bullet flies perfectly through the space that Lorr's head once occupied
- Shifty requires immediate Healing from a bullet wound to the head
After this encounter Lorr soon became one of our most prominent and effective NPC antagonists, killing a good number of PC's and even a Full party wipe on one occasion.
Entilzarr never spoke of the incident, never lost the rifle but retired to an NPC role approx 3 years afterward. Thankfully the player preferred to DM more than play after that.
Shifty recovered but couldn't remember the incident.
