Kryptonite and Cold Iron: Damage Immunities and Combat
Warning: This post is perhaps more opinionated than some of my previous ones. But please hear me out, while what I have to say may be controversial I think it bears thinking on.
Stories are full of characters with immunities and weaknesses, we all know only silver can kill a werewolf, Superman is invincible without kryptonite and Wolverine can be fired into the sun without a problem. So it’s not a surprise that sometimes these mechanics show up in LARP. There normal manifestation comes in the form of blanket immunities to damage types.
Example: Player A is a Vampire and thus can not be hurt by normal or magical attacks. To physrep this they can ignore any damage call that doesn’t have the word spirit before it.
While every system is different, I have seen this particular mechanic pop up over and over again. Personally I think it is terrible game design. That is not to say I think having things with weaknesses or resistances is a bad idea, there are ways to do it which I will go into. But blanket immunities, while they are easy from a ref perspective are deeply problematic
The Problem with Blanket Immunities
I’ll admit right now, there is nothing I hate more in combat design than blanket immunities. I feel they curtail agency and ultimately make your fights really boring both as a player and a monster.
Combat balance
Balancing combat encounters in a delicate dance even in normal circumstances. How many players are likely to be fighting? How much damage are they doing? How much can they take? Fight design is complex and there is alot to say on the matter. Blanket Immunities really screw with this. If your monsters are only taking damage from 1/4 of the player base but only can ingure a different 1/3 of the player base, making an interesting balanced fight is suddenly incredibly difficult. This is before you start thinking about PvP and how having players who are functionally invincible in the same game as players who go down in a single hit is going to interact with that.
Example: Player A only takes water damage which only Player B can do. Player A thus just walks slowly through all fights and kills the monsters without effort.
Acessability of game
More important than combat balance however there is the problem of rendering a portion of your players and monsters useless. There is nothing more frustrating than a fight in which you *can not* have any affect. If you can not in anyway do anything what is the point of you being there? In terms of PvP if there is no way of harming the other player why bother trying?
Example: Player A is a warrior. They have a bog standard sword, and while they can do a fair amount of damage all of it is standard. They are at an event where they are fighting the spirits of bunnies past who only take carrot damage. After several fights Player A begins to wonder why they are bothering at all.
Sometimes characters can find a way to get around this, but I would argue that rendering a character completely useless is bad game design and is likely to make the game less enjoyable in the long run. It cuts players out of game, and especially if that player is intentionally playing something that likes to fight you are denying them both agency and game.
The Curious Case of Frustrated Calls
So people generally have two choices when being hit with damage that doesn’t affect them. They can call “No effect” or ignore it. Both of these options are problematic. Constantly calling no effect adds alot of noise into the fight environment making other calls difficult to hear. It also makes it harder for the person in question to make their damage call (assuming a system in which damage is called) On the other hand, just ignoring hits that dont damage you tends to make other people think you are not taking your hits for whatever reason. This is often met with people shouting their calls louder (this has the same problem as calling no effect ultimately, hearing anything becomes difficult) or, in more extreme cases people pulling their blows less as they assume the issue is that their blows are not being felt.
But I want to have a creature/character/thing that should have specific weaknesses and immunities. How do I do this without blanket immunities?
Sometimes it is both appropriate and really cool to have critters that are resistant to certain things. Afterall we all know it takes silver to deal with a werewolf and cold iron to banish fey. Things like this can add alot to your fights, make them more tactical and really cement the feel of your game. It can force players to make deals and alliances they wouldn’t normally. It can give non coms a really important role in figuring out *how* to beat the unbeatable thing in the dark and getting the warriors the appropriate things. I would argue there are two ways to accomplish this *without* hitting the problems inherent in blanket immunities.
Regenerative Hits
Having monsters that can only be *killed* by certain damage but can still be affected by other things is a good way of getting around the accessibility problem. Sure, you can’t do any damage that will make it stay down forever, but you can keep it down until the person with the appropriate flange shows up to deal the final blow. While it still makes certain characters essential to finishing fights, it does so in a way that still means everyone else can participate and be useful.
Example: The viscous Wereducks of Frolic Forest can only be perminantly hurt with silver. All other damage they will regenerate at a rate of X hits per Y seconds. While only one player can do silver damage, the rest of the players work together to damage the Wereducks enough that they are down until the player with the silver shows up to finish the job.
The reason this bypasses the problems with immunities is that it means everyone *can* have an affect in the fight. Sure its a lesser affect, but they are still contributing, they are still important. They are activly part of the fight instead of set pieces or spectators.
Weakness to specific things
Sometimes monsters are really hard and have alot of hits. While everyone *can* damage them the fight is still both long and hard. But if the monster has a weakness the fight is suddenly easier
Example: The players are fighting the ferocious ice kittens of venus, which generally have a lot of hits. However Player A remembers that the Ice Kittens really hate fire, and notices that fire damage seems to be having a greater affect in the fight. This is because the Ice Kittens take double damage from any sort of fire based attack.
Again, the important thing about this method is that while the fight is alot harder without the correct damage type, players still can contribute. No one is left on the sidelines. Tactically it provides a different sort of challenge to regenerative hits, as it doesn’t require the same aggression but similarly to the regenerative hits it does reward the players for finding and exploiting a weakness.
Lesser effects
Sometimes systems have calls that have a very large effect in a fight. Magic spells that instantly start your bleed count or damage calls that automatically knock you out of a fight. Rather than rendering these completely useless, it is I think better simply to lessen the effects.
Example: In System X arrows automatically do impale, a call which starts your bleed count immediately. Trolls however are immune to impale and instead take 3 points of damage and stagger back if it is safe to do so.
This works because while the call has a much lesser effect, it is still ding something. Again the archer is not rendered useless in the fight, even if they are far less effective.
TL:DR
Blanket immunities tend to render large portions of your player base unable to engage with fights
Instead it is far better to make it *harder* or *easier* to damage the monster with certain types of damage rather than impossible. That way everyone can still engage in the fight
The Times Between: On Downtimes, their purpose and construction
Downtime systems can take many forms, but are a fairly common sight in UK larp circles. Normally players write to the refs, in varying amounts of detail, telling them what their characters are doing in between events. The ref writes back letting players know the outcome of their actions. It is important to examine if you think your system needs a downtime system, as well as to think about the hows and the whys when you construct it. A badly written downtime system runs the risk of becoming more important than uptime and breeding a culture of inaction.
Do I Need a Downtime System? This seems like an easy question but seriously think about it. Don’t just add in a downtime system because the other systems you attend have them. I will admit at this point I am personally in the camp of not having downtime systems at all, but different styles of game require different set ups and I can see the merits of having them.
Reasons not to have a Downtime System
-They are alot of extra work on the ref end. Depending on how in depth the system you write is they can add a huge amount of extra writing.
-You run the risk of downtime actions becoming more important than uptime actions, which ultimately leads to stagnation in your game.
Reasons to have a Downtime System
-Downtimes allow you to target plot in much the same way ref-written characters do. Adding rumors and strange happenings to peoples downtimes is a wonderful way to add plot for them to explore in uptime.
-Many people say that downtime systems help the world feel more real to them
-Downtime systems allow for all the mathematical character advancement to happen off screen.
So I Want a Downtime System, What Now? The biggest consideration is making sure downtime actions work to support and encourage uptime actions rather than becoming more important. Uptime should always be more important than downtime.
The best way to implement this I feel is to make sure the prime resource gainable in downtime is information. Information can be acted upon in uptime, and can set up further actions which can happen when players are actually in the field.
It is important to make sure downtimes are not the best time to take care of problems. Plot should NEVER be solvable in downtime. Similarly actions which have a significant chance of failure for roleplaying reasons (bargaining with demons, killing npcs) should not be done in downtime.
I feel it also goes without saying that violent PvP should not be achievable in downtime. Social PvP such as spreading rumors in fine, but if players want to shank one another they need to do that in uptime. No one likes dying off screen.
In general, when figuring out your downtime system the key is to ask yourself What does this add to uptime? Downtime should be a support, not the main event. It is also worth quickly going through your system quickly to make sure there are no system breaks in downtime such as giving your players the ability to raise an unphysrepable army of the undead.
It is also worth thinking about how much work your downtime system is going to create for the refs. Don’t burn yourself out writing novels for the players if that means you cant sustain the system. LARP is a hobby, it should not turn into another job.
TL:DR
Downtime systems should act as a support for Uptime. If it doesnt add anything to do in Uptime then don’t bother. Downtime actions should never be more important than uptime actions.
