LARP idea

[bluegargantua]

Hi,

This is odd. Normally after I run a game I don't want to think about running another LARP for at least six months.

Maybe it's just 'cause my game was so short or maybe it's because there are all ready games being bid for Intercon H (Intercon Hell), but I think I've got a doozy of a game. The only problem is that it'll be a tough sell to the Intercon committee.

Here's my pitch:

Highway to Hell -- It's Damnation Alley meets Mad Max meets Convoy meets Smokey and the Bandit meets Battlestar Galactica. It's a weekend-long game. The heroes are trying to drive from one end of the country to the other. Of course, America is mostly an apocalyptic wasteland filled with mutants and other crazy hazards. On the other side are the Muties lead by the evil Lord Kang. He's trying to track down the heroes and stop them.

There's a large map of America with a network of possible routes and destinations. The heroes have to pick a route across the country and deal with hazards on the road (usually a Mutie attack) and then accomplish some objective at each of the destinations (usually finding resupply or information or picking up new allies). Lord Kang has to decide how to divide up his forces to track down the heroes (and he gets to toss in some "bad luck" effects here and there too).

There has to be a core of people who will be in the game for the long haul but other people can drop in. Either they get picked up along the way, or they sacrifice themselves, or they "go to sleep" in one of the vehicles. If anyone gets left behind, they get killed, so pick your sleeping quarters carefully. Muties are generally run as a horde with only one or two lieutenant types to provided a "named mook" opponent.

I think we could work it out so that most people could play for some or all of the game but weekend-long games are a hard sell for Intercon because the joy is that you can play a wide range of different games over the weekend. Still, it's something to consider.

later
Tom

Comments

[bonisagus.livejournal.com]

Well, you could run such a thing at WPI or Brandeis or something in the tradition of AtKM or TMA.

[bluegargantua]

True, but it's just "theme appropriate" for Intercon H.

later
Tom

[bonisagus.livejournal.com]

True but if they say no there's no reason a good idea should go to waste. :)

[neuromancerzss.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a better board game than LARP. I like the idea of a number of games fitting together into something larger, but I think you'd need some reliability in their path to feasibly plan and more social challenges to make it a real LARP.

[bluegargantua]

The network of paths wouldn't be huge. Each "road encounter" would be a one-hour game (at most) and the "destination encounter" would be a four-hour game. We would probably write up a few generic encounters that we could use no matter which road/destination they traveled on/to.

later
Tom

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

I get to play Michael Landon.

[mikecap.livejournal.com]

You could do it Red Sun style, and write encounters on the fly!! And let people float in and out of the game all weekend - do it as a guerrilla game.

[drwex]

This sounds like a pretty typical MITAG game. I'd play, at least a bit part.

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Dude. We desperately need people to beta-test a LARP on Monday (April 2). Please come over and play? Bring asciikitty, too! We just need three more people...

*puppydogeyes*