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Quest reserves the right to run games from time to time, but in an attempt to suppport the other fantasy campaign in Hamilton, it will not accept players in that campaign. It will only accept players that cannot play the Knightshade Realms campaign for various reasons.

Why?

Weapons in Quest must be approved and suitable for LRP use. Several types of weapons are not allowed, even if they are allowed in other groups.

Any sword with metal in front of the cross piece.
Cool - why not behind?
Any other weapon with metal in it. (Tin foil may be exempt)
Makes sence.
Wooden shields
Good Call.
Fibreglass core weapons.
Wait what?
Any practical bow
er - what - why?

Due to earlier response
-Fibreglass core weapons are deemed unfit for Qest use because they are not suitable for thrusts and other combat techniques allowed under the Quest rules.
But carbon fibre now are ok for thrust use?
-Due to their unrealistic lightness they have a distinct speed advantage of other methods of weapon construction. To create a level playing field it is easier at this juncture to remove fibreglass core weapons than it is to change all the weapons.
Irrelevant when people are supposed to pull their blows in larp. Light contact game not full contact, however if you are going for full contact attacks then let me know. I am sure I can rattle out a 3kg pvc core 2h mace head with a 2 kg pvc vinal filled core to twat people with. O, with 2 inches of foam.

Xercus, it really is Alista’s call as to what the standards are for his game. Quest certainly has some rules (such as thrusting and pommell strikes) that just wouldn’t be appropriate with respect to Skirmish weapons (and I’d say many of the Paddywhack-sourced weapons too).

I can understand not wanting to upgrade the entire Quest gear library, it certainly is a lot of effort to do this. One problem with the weapons restrictions is that it is very clear that the larp community is heading away from boffers, and favours fibreglass core weapons. If growth is an ambition of Quest, then restricting weapons to boffers is going to have an impact on the potential to attract new players.

However, an alternative approach to the upgrade issue is this:

  • Let players bring fibreglass core weapons. Since they typically only have to make/purchase one weapon, I think it isn’t too much effort to expect a player to get themselves a better weapon if that’s what they want.

  • To counteract the better weapons in the hands of players, you could make the monsters tougher (i.e. more HP). With a bit of tuning, this could be balanced out.

  • Overtime, acquire (make/buy) new fibreglass core weapons until the gear library has a mix of types.

Alista, some of the Skirmish weapons have boffer handles with a small section of fibreglass core on to which the blade section (think javelin, axe) is affixed. These handle like boffers, so would they be OK in Quest ?

[quote=“Xcerus”]Quest reserves the right to run games from time to time, but in an attempt to suppport the other fantasy campaign in Hamilton, it will not accept players in that campaign. It will only accept players that cannot play the Knightshade Realms campaign for various reasons.

Why?
[/quote]
Surprisingly, to support Knightshade Realms. By the way, these are players who have said they are not interested in another game and actively pettitioned me to arrange a game. I did not go to them.

It is assumed a lead counter weight inside the hand grip and properly secured is not much of a threat. It is usually the bit infront of the cross piece that hits another player.

We use a different bow system. Also I was mightly impressed of an archery competition in England where they put a LARP safe arrow through a sheet of 5 ply.

[quote=“Xcerus”]
Irrelevant when people are supposed to pull their blows in larp. Light contact game not full contact, however if you are going for full contact attacks then let me know. I am sure I can rattle out a 3kg pvc core 2h mace head with a 2 kg pvc vinal filled core to twat people with. O, with 2 inches of foam.[/quote]
Huh? What is your point?
By the way, we did have a subset that used to practice ful contact with the weapons you described. They got really, really good with boffers.

[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
Alista, some of the Skirmish weapons have boffer handles with a small section of fibreglass core on to which the blade section (think javelin, axe) is affixed. These handle like boffers, so would they be OK in Quest ?[/quote]

It sounds like the way that we have done Halberds and spears in the past. I’d have to check case by case, but they should be fine.

[quote=“Alista”][quote=“Xcerus”]
Any practical bow
er - what - why?
[/quote]
We use a different bow system. Also I was mightly impressed of an archery competition in England where they put a LARP safe arrow through a sheet of 5 ply. [/quote]

LARP safe means it can’t hurt somone. If it can go through a sheet of ply then its quite obviously not larp safe… I will be bringing my larp bow to some larps in nz and leave it up to them when they see my sexy arrows of safty.

Everything else makes sence appart from your restriction on player base.

I still don’t get why KS players are not allowed to attend Quest events… a larper is a larper right?

I think Alista wants to ensure that Quest players are not in a position where they have to choose Quest over Knightshade, and therefore potentially affecting the turnout for a Knightshade event *.

Perhaps the easiest way to prevent players having to choose Quest over Knightshade is to hold Quest events on different dates to the (well-telegraphed) Knightshade events.

A bonus effect of scheduling games in an integrated (rather than competitive) manner, is that the nzLARPS gear library in Hamilton (which is there for ALL games, and this explicitly includes Quest) will be available in full to both Quest and Knightshade. Otherwise, it is likely that it could be oversubscribed if the games overlap.

  • Alista, is that a correct analysis of your position ? I could have misread it, so please correct if I am wrong.

What has happened is that Quest has officially gone into recess. However a group of players has personally petitioned me to run a game as they feel that, as far as they are concernned, there is no game in Hamilton for them. None of these players wants to play Knightshade so rather than just let them wither and die I will put on the occasional game for them. I still feel that there is not enough space in Hamilton for two high fantasy campaigns. I note in Auckland that there are not two Wolfgangs games, or two Serenity games, or two Stargate campaigns or two Ravenholme campaigns. If Auckland is not big enough for two games in the same genre, then I cannot see how Hamilton would be. So rather than get into a messy situation as has happened in the past I have said, there shall be one main campaign, and it shall be Knightshade Realms. However I also feel a pressure to serve those members of Quest who feel they have no game.

That still doesn’t really explain the restriction.

There are at least 2 space fantasy games.

Starwars and Serenity.

They will both run alongside each other. (We have even talked about the potential for a conjoined weekend event.)

Banning players because “There is not enough space” is just silly. New Zealand has a massive amout of land and a tiny weeny population.

Share and be open.

[quote=“Xcerus”]

Share and be open.[/quote]

We have and it lead us to this.

[quote=“Alista”][quote=“Xcerus”]

Share and be open.[/quote]

We have and it lead us to this.[/quote]

Try harder?

One can only come to one conclusion when it is apparent that KnightShade players have no such restriction put upon them…

[quote=“Xcerus”]
One can only come to one conclusion when it is apparent that KnightShade players have no such restriction put upon them…[/quote]

Which is?

I am trying help Knightshade Realms. Ok, so you think this is bad. You mentioned two games, Star wars and Serenity. This situation is more like a game of Star Wars and a game of Sith Lords in the same town at the same time. Of those who play Star Wars and Serenity, what is the percentage that play both games? 100%, 50%, 30%. Even at 66%, in Hamilton we cannot support two fantasy campaigns. Previous experience with fantasy campaigns in Hamilton shows that people that play both games is less than 20%, and this is actively trying to encourage people to play both campaigns.

I am sorry that you don’t think that my efforts to save LRP in Hamilton are adequete, but the alternatives are worse. I know this from personal experience and having seen this exact, (and I mean exact), situation three times before in Hamilton. Each time it took a couple of years and a hell of a lot of personal energy for LRP in Hamilton to recover. I tried the approach that you mentioned on each of the previous three occasions and it was not successful. Taking into account a definition of insanity which says" Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result", I decided to do something different and see if I get a better result. I thought this time we would let Knightshade Realms have an absolutely clear field to do their thing in. Unfortunately, even given this clear field they have only played one game in Hamilton since May. This has lead to some players asking me for a game.

Taking into account that I have tried the approach you have suggested three times in the past and it hasn’t worked once, what do you suggest I do with the players that don’t want to play Knightshade Realms and don’t want to travel to Auckland to play?

I dunno - what can you do with players who don’t want to play ks… er… run a game for them…

your missing the point here. Its not the players that do not want to play KS i am worried about. Its the players who want to play both.

All you are doing is restricting larpers to having to choose between the two - either or.

Instead of letting them go to either thus potentially expanding both games playerbase.

If you have people who don’t want to play knightshade in your game you must have people that do or indeed people who play knightshade who want to play quest.

Thus restricting your playerbase is killing larp by restricting the amount of larp availible.

It doesnt make you niche, it doesnt make you clever it just limits freedom of choice and the total number of events attended by larpers.

Decreasing the number of events availible does not increase the number of events attended (surprisingly).

Sorry if I confused the message. I’ll try and make it a bit clearer.

I have tried the approach that you have suggested the previous three times. It failed every time. Not wanting to follow a failed approach, I am now trying another approach. If you have another approach besides the failed approach please, let me know.

Still waiting for data on the percentage of players that play both Serenity and Starwars. Canvasing the active players of Quest at the moment the number of people that want to play both systems is very, very small. Maybe even unity. So it is not a large problem. I am hoping that Knightshade will get its act together shortly and I can totally retire from LRP altogether.

2c with change…

I would like to point out that Knightshade has only been active since September (ie post-Chimera), and I know it’s not your intention to blame us for anything so please be careful with statements around how many games we’ve run in whatever timeframe, as it makes us all look silly :wink: Cheers.

I think of all people, I’m among those that can truly relate to your frustrations, Alista. We’ve both wanted great things to happen in lives past, but had completely different ideas on how to make them come to be. That alone caused a certain degree of conflict which probably hasn’t helped you, but there are other factors to be considered regarding LARP in Hamilton and the struggles we’ve/you’ve had.

1; Paul Budvietas (GM #1) was a thief who ran off with everything pocketable from Fantasy Quest he could put his grubby hands on and killed that game where it sat (which at the time was the only one running). Noone wants to play a game with thieves.

2; TK (GM #2) came down with some personal issues and regretfully disappeared taking his Killquest, Fan-Ad(? I might have the name wrong there) and presiding OWBN game with him. Noone wants to play a game when there’s noone to actually run it!

3; The blanket OWBN boycott, where the STs decided to actively discourage OWBN players from our flavour of LARP because “boffer weapons were just for kids wanting to play DnD outside”. There was actually a hell of a backlash from that, and to this day there are ex-Hamiltonians that carry that mentality in their current LARPing.

You’ve put a lot of effort into Quest, noone can deny that, and I for one think it’s great you’re willing to break it out for those that are asking - I hope this remains true for years to come - and I can certainly appreciate you only wanting to do it for those that are genuinely interested. In saying that, I hope (because this bit isn’t coming across so much) that KS players are still welcome at Quest games, even if to usually play monsters. Ok, you use boffers and we use fglass-core, so what - at the end of the day, the game isn’t about the weapons. You run as good a game as anybody, dude, and it would be sad to see you denying those that are keen just because they want more than one dish from the smorgasbord.

As for KS “getting it’s act together”, the last game was run in Auckland for many reasons, ranging from not wanting to have to move the golem suit all the way to Hams, to me living in the reclusive far north and not wanting to travel 4 hours to run a 4 hour game before turning around to head home, to wanting a freaking HUGE park to run amok in. It’s a similar story for the next one, and I’ll be looking at herding the Hammy-players into some semblance of car pooling to make life easier. After that Jared will be GMing largely as a solo act for a while, so the games should be in Hamilton more often than not - but as we’re trying to cater to both player groups (or the whole group, as opposed to implying any “us and them” mentality) there will be gaps where the game is in Auckland. Ideally though there’s some great plots of land around Taupiri/Gordonton that would make a great compromise if J-man can sort them easily enough.

And once the pattern is down, I genuinely hope retiring from LARP altogether isn’t really your plan. I think you still have more than a few good games up your sleeve, and I really would like to see you as a player at a future KS event - god knows you deserve a break from running things for a change.

As for your figures re Serenity/Star Wars, you will likely find the percentage quite high as the style and setting of the games are very different despite both being “sci-fi”. I think you might get more of a comparison if it were say, a Star Wars game and a Babylon 5 game, or as the case stands currently a Vampire game and a Vampire game (Requiem and OWBN, both run monthly :open_mouth:) - and even then you might be surprised how many people turn up for both if there’s a good game to be had :wink:

[size=85]Edited to remove the insensitive asshat content[/size]

I’d like to add to Daves points that KS & Quest, while both fantasy, aren’t so similar as one might think.

If we are comparing I would say it would be more like Skirmish/Mordavia than Quest.

KS and Quest do share similar combat systems but the core advantage/magic is far more like Mordavia or Multiverse than anything else (albiet heavily altered and expanded). The background story is also 100% unique and the character races have little resemblance to any other current system I know of in NZ.

I’d also like to point out that that the character races are the prime focus in this game KS, demanding a much higher level of costume investment, while Quest caters to the archetypical fantasy races in a much simpler fashion.

Also the development of personal and persistent items, both of mundane and magical types, is a big point of difference between these systems and even most other NZ systems.

While Alista has given KS as a reason to semi-retire Quest, it has never been my goal to be Hamilton’s sole LARP, nor have I intended to run solely within Hamilton. The player base in Hamilton is sorely depeleted from days past and the reasons are many. This is one of the reasons why KS also runs in Auckland, as there certainly players up there with a desire for a generic fantasy game. So KS will attempt to cater to both groups as best it can.

Hamilton LARP needs a core of experienced gamers, either from Hamilton or from Orkland or both to relaunch LARP in Hamilton. I have yet to do any marketing of LARP in Hamilton and it is coming. It will be marketing for LARP in general as much as it is marketing to KS. SO from this standpoint, all LARPs should benefit.

So, people can’t choose which game they want to support on a particular day? Oh, and thanks for making the rest of us feel welcome.

And that sounds like a cop-out. There’s no reason why two games of the same genre can’t be successful.

[quote=“Ange”]

And that sounds like a cop-out. There’s no reason why two games of the same genre can’t be successful.[/quote]

I have yet to see it in Hamilton. Maybe Auckland can support two very similar games, but I see that there aren’t two this close in Auckland at the moment. I note that there are 6.5 active campaigns in Auckland at the moment, and that is a city with 10-20 times the number of players of Hamilton. Most of these are of quite different genres.

[quote=“TequilaDave”]2c with change…

2; TK (GM #2) became a paranoid delusional (who to this day resides somewhere in the forests of the east coast hiding from “big brother”, smoking his weight in weed every day) and disappeared taking Killquest, Fan-Ad(? I might have the name wrong there) and the presiding OWBN game with him. Noone wants to play a game with genuine loonies.

[/quote]
First of all Dave, Tk is not paranoid he hes been medically diagnosed as schizophrinic. There is a big difference, if you really want to know what really happened to FANAD ( thats what it was named in the early 90’s) I was there from the start and introduced a lot of people including TK and Paul Budvitas, stumpy my flatmate, jason saggers, jarod and alister and a few more others, When I left the group I donated all my weapons to Alasta and FANAD.

1 the weapons that were being used at the time were causing injuries, mainly fractures and sprains because some people weren’t pulling blows. a request was made to Alasta by me to use the same style of wepaons made by AMERICA who was run by Kelsie Mc Arthur and Derek Thomas, this was Declined.

2 A sanctioned night game which was held in memorial park, this nightgame had a sacrifice on the sandy area of memorial park, the flak that followed for weeks after was detrimental. the last was a new cult was sacrificing babies infront of the AOG church in Victoria street, Gave FANAD a bad name.
I left the group because my concerns were falling on deaf ears, after that FANAD as it was split up to the factions in 1993.

In Larp and with other groups ie medeival re-enactment they are generally run by one person because they wrote the rules, or they started the group off. But there is going to be a time when the group gets too big or when ideas for the group aren’t being heard, this what really causes the fractures in the group, this is when others will say enough is enough and form their own group. You can name them theives or paranoid delusions but that’s not the whole of it. The Organisers of the LARP need to listen to the concerns of their commitee if they have one or the core Roleplayers which helped formulate the Group, remember this ALsata had the idea, if it wasn’t for people like myself the idea wouldn’t have become possible he need players I was a player and brought with me alot of friends.

Ragnor

Actually, it was not declined, it was just pointed out that players would have to make their own. Most chose not to. The only fracture I know of caused by these when a person ran off a three foot cliff onto tarseal in a night game held by another group. Thankfully it was by the hospital.

It was at Wellington Sreet Beach, and the person was ‘rescued’ before there was a successful sacrifice. There was a sacrifice of a teddy bear that happened a little earlier when an ex-player (who latter set up his own LRP) decided to kill the poor stuffed toy even when he had been explicitly told not to. These two stories merged in the minds of the AOG of the time into human sacrafice in a park.

The rules in 1993 were decided by group vote and concensus. I did not have the final say on weapons choice or rules at that point. We have learnt since then.

Also, FANAD (short for Fantasy Adventurers and Dungeoneers Guild) did not vanish, it just changed it’s name to Quest Waikato. This was done after consultation with most of the players. Consultation with the players has always been a very significant part of how Quest/Fanad has been run. Unfortunately we have always had problems when a player puts forward an idea and they want that idea instantly put into a game with no regard to game balance or how other players feel. On average it takes a minimum of a year or so for ideas to percolate through a process of balancing, consultation and play testing before ideas are adapted. As it can be very hard to remove things when they are put in a system we have always veered to the the status quo in a toss up situation.

As you say it is the players that are the important thing. Making the game the best game for the greatest number of players is always going to be a juggling act. Unfortunately I have learnt you can not please all the people all the time. But thank you for your support and help at the time.