Month: January 2014

S1E2 The Quest: New Players

Published on by Jeff

Getting into Role-Playing can be a daunting task. There are a few things you need to understand before you start playing in any game.

Things to Remember

Remember, it’s just a game and games are meant to be fun for everyone that plays.If you are not having fun, don’t ruin it for everyone else.

Be on time! Nothing will anger your GM faster than being a flaky player. Not to mention that all to often your fellow players are going to be stuck waiting for you.

Be consistent! If you don’t have time for a game, just say so. GM’s write story for your characters (or they should), and if characters are sometimes “absent” for no reason, the story gets messy.

Bring your character sheet, note paper, pencils, and your own dice!

Know your group. Before heading to a new game or starting an adventure with a new group, it’s your responsibility to ask about what’s expected with you.

Ask questions! When you ask questions, actually learn the answers so you don’t have to keep asking the same things over and over. You are playing a game that requires you to use your imagination, and the fewer times you have to step outside of your imagination to ask a question you have already asked, the more time you can spend rapped in the story.

Don’t metagame! Metagaming is when you use information or knowledge learn out of character in an in character way. DO NOT DO THIS! It is cheating and it will make the storytelling experience less entertaining for everyone else.

Be a team player! You are a unique and special flower, just like everyone else. Part of being in a collaborative storytelling game is cooperation. Don’t be “that guy”.

Your character isn’t always the center of attention! Sometimes the story will be focused on you, sometimes it won’t.  Help the players around you by being respectful of their time in the spotlight. You are not a reality TV star…you don’t need constant attention to be validated.

Try Something New! When something doesn’t work out the way you want, do something different.

Play Your Character, Not Yourself! The very essence of Role-Playing is to take on the role of someone other than you. If you are just playing you, what’s the point?

Bring appropriate “Snackrifices”! You heard me…snackrifieces must be made!

And most importantly…Don’t be a tool. If people are not having fun, look around and see if you are the reason. The last thing anybody wants is to be “that guy”.

Final Thoughts

Again, have fun! Go out of your way to help others have fun and never forget that it’s just a game.

Also…don’t record podcasts in the middle of Ragnarok. You end up losing a lot of your show!

The post S1E2 The Quest: New Players appeared first on The Quest.

S1E1 – The Quest: Character Creation

Published on by Jeff

Building Your Concept

Ego Types

The Innocent

Motto: Free to be you and me
Core desire: to get to paradise
Goal: to be happy
Greatest fear: to be punished for doing something bad or wrong
Strategy: to do things right
Weakness: boring for all their naive innocence
Talent: faith and optimism
The Innocent is also known as: Utopian, traditionalist, naive, mystic, saint, romantic, dreamer.

The Orphan/Regular Guy or Gal

Motto: All men and women are created equal
Core Desire: connecting with others
Goal: to belong
Greatest fear: to be left out or to stand out from the crowd
Strategy: develop ordinary solid virtues, be down to earth, the common touch
Weakness: losing one’s own self in an effort to blend in or for the sake of superficial relationships
Talent: realism, empathy, lack of pretense
The Regular Person is also known as: The good old boy, everyman, the person next door, the realist, the working stiff, the solid citizen, the good neighbor, the silent majority.

The Hero

Motto: Where there’s a will, there’s a way
Core desire: to prove one’s worth through courageous acts
Goal: expert mastery in a way that improves the world
Greatest fear: weakness, vulnerability, being a “chicken”
Strategy: to be as strong and competent as possible
Weakness: arrogance, always needing another battle to fight
Talent: competence and courage
The Hero is also known as: The warrior, crusader, rescuer, superhero, the soldier, dragon slayer, the winner and the team player.

The Caregiver

Motto: Love your neighbour as yourself
Core desire: to protect and care for others
Goal: to help others
Greatest fear: selfishness and ingratitude
Strategy: doing things for others
Weakness: martyrdom and being exploited
Talent: compassion, generosity
The Caregiver is also known as: The saint, altruist, parent, helper, supporter.

The Soul Types

The Explorer

Motto: Don’t fence me in
Core desire: the freedom to find out who you are through exploring the world
Goal: to experience a better, more authentic, more fulfilling life
Biggest fear: getting trapped, conformity, and inner emptiness
Strategy: journey, seeking out and experiencing new things, escape from boredom
Weakness: aimless wandering, becoming a misfit
Talent: autonomy, ambition, being true to one’s soul
The explorer is also known as: The seeker, iconoclast, wanderer, individualist, pilgrim.

The Rebel

Motto: Rules are made to be broken
Core desire: revenge or revolution
Goal: to overturn what isn’t working
Greatest fear: to be powerless or ineffectual
Strategy: disrupt, destroy, or shock
Weakness: crossing over to the dark side, crime
Talent: outrageousness, radical freedom
The Outlaw is also known as: The rebel, revolutionary, wild man, the misfit, or iconoclast.

The Lover

Motto: You’re the only one
Core desire: intimacy and experience
Goal: being in a relationship with the people, work and surroundings they love
Greatest fear: being alone, a wallflower, unwanted, unloved
Strategy: to become more and more physically and emotionally attractive
Weakness: outward-directed desire to please others at risk of losing own identity
Talent: passion, gratitude, appreciation, and commitment
The Lover is also known as: The partner, friend, intimate, enthusiast, sensualist, spouse, team-builder.

The Creator

Motto: If you can imagine it, it can be done
Core desire: to create things of enduring value
Goal: to realize a vision
Greatest fear: mediocre vision or execution
Strategy: develop artistic control and skill
Task: to create culture, express own vision
Weakness: perfectionism, bad solutions
Talent: creativity and imagination
The Creator is also known as: The artist, inventor, innovator, musician, writer or dreamer.

The Self Types

The Jester

Motto: You only live once
Core desire: to live in the moment with full enjoyment
Goal: to have a great time and lighten up the world
Greatest fear: being bored or boring others
Strategy: play, make jokes, be funny
Weakness: frivolity, wasting time
Talent: joy
The Jester is also known as: The fool, trickster, joker, practical joker or comedian.

The Sage

Motto: The truth will set you free
Core desire: to find the truth.
Goal: to use intelligence and analysis to understand the world.
Biggest fear: being duped, misled—or ignorance.
Strategy: seeking out information and knowledge; self-reflection and understanding thought processes.
Weakness: can study details forever and never act.
Talent: wisdom, intelligence.
The Sage is also known as: The expert, scholar, detective, advisor, thinker, philosopher, academic, researcher, thinker, planner, professional, mentor, teacher, contemplative.

The Magician

Motto: I make things happen.
Core desire: understanding the fundamental laws of the universe
Goal: to make dreams come true
Greatest fear: unintended negative consequences
Strategy: develop a vision and live by it
Weakness: becoming manipulative
Talent: finding win-win solutions
The Magician is also known as:The visionary, catalyst, inventor, charismatic leader, shaman, healer, medicine man.

The Ruler

Motto: Power isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Core desire: control
Goal: create a prosperous, successful family or community
Strategy: exercise power
Greatest fear: chaos, being overthrown
Weakness: being authoritarian, unable to delegate
Talent: responsibility, leadership
The Ruler is also known as: The boss, leader, aristocrat, king, queen, politician, role model, manager or administrator.

Fantasy

Fighter – focused on combat abilities, but almost entirely lacking in magical abilities
Rogue – focused on stealth and social skills, and capable of high-damage special attacks balanced by sub-par resistance to injury
Wizard – featuring powerful magical abilities, but physically weak
Cleric – specializing in healing and supportive magical abilities

Other Notes

Remember, when you are designing your character, be sure to understand your GM’s vision for the campaign. The one thing always will ruin your fun, and the fun of others in your group, than having a character that breaks immersion at every turn.

Another good trick when making your character is to ensure you are playing something that is compatible with, or even compliments, the other characters in the party. Be sure to talk to the other players to get ideas. Creative storytelling is what Role-Playing is all about, and you have at least 1 other person you can bounce ideas off of when making your character. Use them.

It often helps the GM, and the other players, if everyone agrees to a predetermined “connection” to the other characters. This can simplify writing a back story and can make it easier to get started quickly. Also, a particularly harsh GM can always manipulate that connection for a better story.

Character History

Never limit yourself to the basic information under your “class”. There are always ways to expand, and deepen, your character.

7th Sea’s “20 Questions” is a great place to start. I could not find an actual copy of these (without Piratingstuff, don’t do that!), bvut I did find a link to a form where they listed them: http://vaelis.forumotion.com/t79-seventh-seas-twenty-questions

Another great resource for both players and GM’s, when making characters, is http://www.obsidianportal.com/

Alternative Methods

Advancement/Development

  1. Don’t be afraid to change something that’s not working
  2. Roleplaying beyond your character sheet
  3. Grow your personality based on what happens to your character
  4. Set goals for your character

Specific Types of games

LARPing

When creating a LARP character, please keep in mind the physical considerations such as,
Racial features – i.e. height & weight. Its ok to be short or tall as an Elf, but long beards and obisity are not really Elven triats.
How you look is how you look, you don’t get to look like the dashing hero if you look like Michael Cera, but that doesn’t meen you cannot ACT like the dashing hero.

Tabletop

You can do anything, be anyone. You are a butterfly in the sky! Fly twice as high; but keep in mind your roleplaying limitations. While there are skills you can get in games to help make up for your own shortcomings, try to play a character that you can actually achive. If you are not good at solving puzzels, maybe you should play Wattson and not Holmes.

Final Thoughts

Never be afraid to reach, but remember that Role-Playing is supposed to be fun for everyone. Its a colaberitive art form, and you get to be a part of the epic storytelling you and your friends can dream up. Role-Playing is about telling a story and sharing in a “choose-your-own-adventure” story where you and your friends get to be the kick-ass heroes that save the day! Your imagination is your only limit, and with a little tender loving care, even Scrouge can expand his thinking and imagine greater!

The post S1E1 – The Quest: Character Creation appeared first on The Quest.

S1E0 – The Quest: What is LARP

Published on by Jeff

Series:  1 – Episode: 0 – What is LARP

Show Notes

We would like to welcome you all our “pilot episode” of the The Quest. In this episode you will note that we called it “The Quest: Advancing Live-Action Role-Playing”; following this first episode we have decided to expand beyond just LARP and into all Role-Playing, including LARP, Table-Top, CosPlay, and anything else RP related.

What is LARP

LARP, first and foremost, is an acronym for Live Action Role-Play. Urban dictionary has 6 possible definitions ranging from “the closest internet addicts get to reality” to “a type of game where a group of people wear costumes representing a character they create to participate in an agreed fantasy world.”

But really, it can be boiled down to being a fancy name for playing pretend.

LARP’s grow out of a shared desire to experience fantasy storytelling in a physical way and is rooted in the games of “make-believe” we used to play as children. Its a way to act out play-fighting and costume parties in an improvised theater type of environment.

The history of LARP is a contentious one, but it dates back as far as 1976. Most people think of LARP’s as a place for a handful of nerds to get together and pretend to be wizards, but some major events in Europe have as many as 7000 players annually.

LARPers, or people that LARP, can range from your stereotypical basement dwelling Nerd to highly successful business persons, lawyers, doctors and even jock professionals like Firefighters and Marines. In the modern age of “Sheek Geek”, it has become not only acceptable to openly enjoy the things that interest you, but the geek sub-culture has become so pervasive that things like LARPing are becoming almost “cool”.

There are a number of types of LARP that use a wide variety of rules. Everything from “Storyteller” games like Minds Eye that resolve character interactions through Role-Playing descriptions or simple tests like Die-Rolling or Rock, Paper, Scissors, to groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism that is more of a reenactment group than a LARP.

Many of the most popular LARPs are what are called “Boffer LARPs”. These groups use custom made padded or Latex weapons and simulated combat, often alongside creative and collaborative storytelling. LARPs span all genre of fantasy including Medieval and Sci-Fi but by far, the most common tends to be European Medieval Fantasy.

LARPing has been portrayed in several films like the documentary’s Darkon and Monster Camp as well as feature films like Role Models, Little Brother, The Wild Hunt, and the up-comming Knights of Badassdom. While these films may not always portray Live Action Role-Playing in the most positive of lights, they do often show the social stigma of LARPing.

Despite the often ostracized nature of LARPing, it is a way for people to express their shared love of interactive, improvised fantasy storytelling with one another. It is a social escape, not that dissimilar to going out and getting drunk…only probably won’t find yourself hugging the toilet with a killer headache the morning after a LARP event.

Types of LARP

Some quick topics about LARP types can be found here:

Boffer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foam_weapon

Storyteller: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind’s_Eye_Theatre

Battle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagorhir

Places to Get Garb

Museum Replicas: http://www.museumreplicas.com/

The RenStore: http://stores.renstore.com/StoreFront.bok

eBay: http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2050601.m570.l2632.R2.TR2.TRC1.A0.XLARP+C.TRS0&_nkw=larp+costume&_sacat=163147&_from=R40

Final Thoughts

This is our very first show and we know we have a long way to go. We hope you enjoyed the show and we hope to be able to bring you more very soon.  Please bear in mind that this show was unscripted and we know it didn’t really cover anything substantial. Our future shows will be MUCH better organized!

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