Notes from the Lab

zrealm has been reviewing DotM material and asking annoying questions, like, "So, is this going to be a weekend long game, a 12-hour game, or what?" "What do you do when there's a wave of PC death?" Stuff like that.

The trouble is, we have a game that, with a minimal amount of work, would be runnable in a 12-15 hour slot. Not a 12-hour slot, mind, but a 12-15 hour slot. And, this doesn't really exist in the world of larping. We could probably shoehorn it nicely into 12 hours, but that too would be difficult.

See, 12-15 hours is just too short to go off and hold it solo at a hotel. And, I really don't think it should be held at an sf con. That leaves larp conventions. Larp conventions prefer 4-hour slots. Oh, you can swing a 2-hour slot, even a 6-hour slot. And I played in a lovely 10-hour larp last March. But, that was the exception, and it was a risk.

We could try for 3 four-hour slots, one Friday night, one Saturday morning, and one Saturday afternoon. But, I do not know if the committee for Intercon I (I think that's the 2009 one) will be eager to take that risk, given that we have a 57-person larp. We could probably run it with 20, but at that point, mnemex would rather we just turned it into a weekend-long larp.

So, we shall try to do that, and scale back if we get a 12-15 hour or 12 hour slot. Maybe cut an added plotline or two, or maybe just accelerate events.

In addition, I am creating bluesheets based on the things we've decided about the game world. That will give us other things that need to get rewritten in the character sheets.

We need to give the animal PCs more to do, and we are currently going to bite the bullet and make all in-game animals able to talk freely with humans.

We are seriously torn on the question of allowing gang-ups in combat. I think mnemex was talking about allowing it on defense, but not offense. Not currently my problem, as I let other folks thrash out the systems and then see if I can understand the results.

Then, there's the question of when to allow PC death. mnemex is pushing for endgame, and for making it clear, upfront and from the beginning, that PCs simply won't be able to kill other PCs until endgame. We want to emphasize the Be Melodramatic, Not Smart school of larping. If we stick to this, that also determines a few things about the rewrite.

But, we have a target date in mind: March 2009. We have first drafts of characters and of some blue sheets. We have vague ideas for a teaser game of 4 hours to test the system.

Michael Miller, you are my hero.