Running a LARP Event - Phase 4 - Abandonment

 

Okay. Now that you’ve got something that can keep you calm, let’s talk about what happens when things go a little big off script, or more likely when things go a lot off script and you are left standing in the shattered ruins of all of your wonderful and glorious plans.

Before we look at how to address each possible issue, let’s look at their root causes and see how we can handle them.

PC Revolt

Sometimes players just do stupid things. Sometimes they do completely genius and unexpected things that just screw up everything you’ve got carefully planned out. Since the PCs are your enemy, this is to be expected, and will require you to develop some improvisational skills. Really, this is something that you will get better at as you do it more often, but there are some tricks that I can help you out with.

Never force PCs to do anything. No one enjoys a scripted game.

If you lose, you lose. Live with it and try again later.

Players have more fun if PCs live longer than NPCs. Don’t over power them unless it’s to get them to work together.

They might be your enemy, but your goal is their enjoyment. Keep that in mind.

Have some back up plans.

If all else fails, do your best to get them to fight each other (IN CHARACTER)! This will give you some time tot think.

Let the players guide you. Give them the rope, and let them hang themselves.

NPC Revolt

If you’ve done a great job of recruiting good players to play your NPCs, then you won’t have to worry about this one, if you haven’t, then you might be really screwed.

NPC Revolt is when the people playing your NPCs decide to do something more PC like, which is screw you over in some way. There are some ways to avoid this:

Keep your NPCs as informed as possible, the more they know the better.

Keep an eye on how things are going down.

Make yourself easily reachable in case they need to make a decision you should be part of.

Of course, no matter how much you try to micromanage, this is probably still going to happen, especially at larger events with tons of players running around on the field. Once it happens, you’ve got a whole can of worms to work with.

So, how do you handle it?

Well, if you’ve got a good player playing the NPC, don’t worry about it, especially if you’ve kept them informed about what your goals are. A good player will take the motivations you gave the NPC and breathe life into it. There is a good chance that they’re following a plan that you just aren’t fully aware of yet and will fill you in when they get a chance. Roll with it, it takes a bit of burden off of you and everyone has more fun this way.

If you’re player isn’t as responsible, then you might have a real problem. Each problem has a completely different solution of course, they usually just take a bit of creative thinking. It’s more work for you, but nothing you can’t handle. Just treat it the way you would a player doing something unexpected and improvise.

Something you should NEVER do, though:

NEVER OVER REACT. No matter how tempting it might be to freak out, stop gameplay, scream at your NPC or try to retcon something, DON’T DO IT!

STORYLINE SHOULD ALWAYS MOVE FORWARD, ALWAYS.

Everything Else

Those two scenarios just about cover everything in your power. You can’t do much about weather or accidents except to recover and carryon afterwards. Still, be on the lookout for things that might cause a problem and deal with them when they arise.

You might be there to run the story, but player safety lets the story happen.

One last thing:

You are there to make sure everyone has a good time, but you are also the person in charge of the event. That means if you have to be the bad guy mundanely, do it.

I don’t think nearly enough game officers are prepared for that little fact.

You’re the Sheriff around these parts, be prepared to be the bad guy out-of-game as well as in it.