Gooooood evening everybody! Today I want to talk a little bit about Tournament-based LARP events. I have attended a couple of LARPs that offer a Tournament one or more times a year in various flavors and I wanted to talk a little bit about my feelings on them here.
Now, for those of you who don’t know me... I am a stick jockey when it comes to LARP. I. Love. Combat. I enjoy playing characters who are based on combative ability as their primary focus and enjoy being able to show my skills when I can. That being said, with the exception of a few specific notes. I. HATE. Tournaments.
It’s not because I always lose, because as a very good friend and game runner once said, “If the only reason you are going to have fun in this tournament is to win, then perhaps consider not participating.” The issues come more into play with the interest of “fairness” when it comes to these styles of events both for those participating and those who are not.
For those who are not participating. Tournaments can last sometimes an entire period of game play, which for many games ranges from 4 to 6 hours and most often takes place in during the early afternoon of the game which takes the LARP up to Feast. This is normally prime-time for plot seeds and various encounters. When a LARP hosts a Tournament, they typically focus all of their attention on making the event feel big, important and weight-bearing. Which results in a limited need for NPCs, most of which are played to come out and observe or cheer on the Tournament to give it a bigger feel.
The players who do not want to participate though, are stuck forced to watch the Tournament in which they may have absolutely no interest at all, or wandering around doing their own thing. Before you say that it’s up to each player to make their own fun, I don’t disagree with you, but when you know the game all but shuts down to play this Tournament there isn’t a whole lot of your own fun to be had, especially if your friends DO want to participate.
For players who maybe do want to participate there are also large barriers. Most Tournaments these days do host a number of side games, but the big prize... be it a special item, a title, a ton of money or any number of other incentives almost always belongs to the main event. The main event is almost always some semblance of a Double Elimination, Round Robin style 1 on 1. These types of combat tournaments favor a specific type of character build and place many others are a huge disadvantage.
For example, a Rogue is fundamentally at a disadvantage for Tournament Play, even if the player would have enjoyed or even benefit the most from the prize based solely on the fact they are not an armor wearing, hp stacking meat tank with a shield. Their skill set simply does not lend to confined areas and singles combat. The same could be said for an Archer and a Spellcaster. I think this is a hold over from the real life notion that Champions are Warriors, but I feel like in Fantasy and especially LARP this doesn’t have to be the case.
The concept that you have to build your character to win a tournament shouldn’t necessarily be true. Anybody who can fight and hold their own in a Main Mod should feel like they have an equal chance to win in a more structured scenario in my opinion, or at the very least consider perhaps hosting more relevant scenarios that allow each archetype to play in their element, and all have relevant prizes. A Caster’s Dual, an Archer Showdown, a Rogue’s game of Assassin and Honor Duels for Warriors as an example.
Ultimately, you don’t want to make your players feel ostracized as a result of your desire to host a Tournament. Players both new and old should feel like if they want to participate they can, and that doing so provides a realistic chance of success. I don’t have any specific or surefire answers to deal with some of these problems, but I think that generating conversation and consideration into these things is the key to starting.
If you’ve read this far, then I want to thank you all for taking time to read through my random LARP rants and supporting me. You guys rock!
Let me explain... if you have a LARP System that has Classes, even if you have and encourage Multi-classing, there should be just as much merit to having a single focus and being able to play within that single focus. That’s not to say that I am against multi-classing, however if a player wants to play a simple character archetype they should not feel forced to have to expend into a ton of classes to achieve that singular focus with any semblance of efficiency.
Let’s say you want to play a Warrior. Being a Warrior should be well enough contained that while there could be great benefits to branching out into say Berserker or Crusader, a player should not feel like NOT doing so is just a huge nerf and an otherwise bad idea. I have seen a rise in systems where the ability to multi-class has lead to a lack of good conception for what should otherwise be core mechanics in the game.
Now if somebody wants to play some semblance of a Spellblade, then I absolutely understand a desire to see that player buy up into both the Warrior and Mage classes in some capacity. I think that the issue that I run into more and more is a desire to see “standardization” across certain things. We have gotten very progressive on both sides of the field with things such as Master Florentine, an admittedly very powerful combat style especially in systems that only otherwise allow for one swing per second per hand. I have seen and played in systems where the ability to Master Florentine is all but absent save for a very specific upper tier class, to systems where it is available at a EXP premium, to games where as long as you can wield melee weapons you can rock out with Master Florentine at a small penalty to damage.
However, you don’t see the same support these days for things such as Bastard Weapon, Single-Focused Sword ala Fencer-style or even the traditional Bow and Arrow. I have seen some attempts to bring a little bit of light to Bastard Weapons by allowing them to function as a Two or One-Handed Weapon depending on how you wield it, and that’s pretty great since it allows for a build-you-own style of combat and for that, I am pretty cool with it. I find there is sometimes a lack of positive support for 2 Handed Weapons, being fundamentally more clunky and awkward to use and by design and nature of that a bit slower. However... I digress.
If I want to go to a LARP and play a Rogue, I should be able to reasonably by into a Rogue-sounding class, and at the core feel like I am achieving my job as a Rogue in some way through that one class choice. The same should be said for Fighters, Healers, and Mages. Whenever I hear somebody say the game doesn’t really start for you until Level 5 or 7 because that is either when you can start multi-classing to achieve a playable and functioning character or that is the minimum level to achieve your Higher List and the game is so progressed that without a Higher List you are just chicken little constantly, it’s a total turn off. Flat-out, it sucks.
I understand games where Multi-Classing has a Build Tax. I may not agree always with how it is specifically implemented, but I do understand having something of a slow down for the sake of people who Power Game their builds to absolute insanity, so those games get a pass here. But I would rather pay a Build Tax than be told that I can’t be a real boy until I hit Level 5 in a game where leveling takes a lot of time and investment. As a new player, it really makes me feel shallow.
Ultimately, if your game is going to support standard archetypes, then I believe you should have a Class available that allows a highlight to those Archetypes. The fundamental 5 Archetypes being “Melee Physical, Ranged Physical, Healer, Rogue, Caster”. Usually I see Melee Physical broken down into Fighters and Crusaders/Cavaliers. Focusing one on big numbers and the other on big defense. Rogues in various flavors such as Thieves and Assassins. Mages with their plethora of magic, sometimes Healers being lumped in here, and Healers either through mundane or divine means. I see some games lump Ranged Physical Combat in with Fighters but with no actual support, making Ranged Combat an after-thought in an otherwise polished system; but that is a rant for another time.
If you are considering a Boffer LARP of your own to run and home one day, I plead with you to consider the styles of combat you want to see at your system, and put yourself in the shoes if somebody who might want to consider those styles. Again, I am not saying that person who wants to Gandalf Staff and Sword with his tons of magic and 50 damage swings... but if you want people to play Tanks, support Armor and Shields. If you want people to be Duelists, support single weapon and florentine-based combat styles. If you want Mages, make your Magic System something that they can access constantly and not force glass cannons. If you want Archers, make sure that Archery doesn’t feel like a foolish DPS style.
When in doubt, ask your players for ideas of what and why. Hell, consider going out as an NPC in your own game and trying some of these styles for yourself, identify if and when it gets to a point of feeling worthwhile, and ask yourself if it was a reasonable amount of time to get to that point.
If you’ve gotten this far, thank you one and all for your support in reading my insane rants! You’re all the best!
