Social Contract

This Social Contract received Society Mandate at the 2010 Trinity TGM

General principles

  1. LARP is something in which we participate to have fun. Above all else, players should be friendly and helpful while out of character (OOC), and seek to create a positive environment in which all participating can have a good time.
  2. LARP is a high-adrenaline activity that deals heavily with issues of conflict both emotional and physical. All players should remember that tensions and events within the game are just that, and avoid allowing them to extend into the real world.
  3. Sometimes players may be uncomfortable with roleplaying around certain subjects. If someone asks you to stop roleplaying around a certain issue, then you should do so in order to maintain an environment in which all participants are comfortable.
  4. Different players are comfortable with different levels of physical contact. If someone says you are hitting them too hard, then you are hitting them too hard, and should begin pulling your blows more.
  5. Costume, makeup and other physrepping is usually not compulsory, but can increase enjoyment of the game, and is thus encouraged. The club has some basic costume that can be borrowed on request.
  6. When fighting, you should ensure that there is a reasonable pause between each blow. Drumrolling (attacking unreasonably rapidly into someone's back) is no fun for anyone.

IC/OC divide

  1. A strong boundary between in character (IC) events and OOC issues will create the best roleplaying experience for all involved.
  2. During time in, both players and monsters should attempt to behave in an appropriately IC manner. Defeated monsters who do not wish to continue roleplaying should move to one side, and refrain from any activity that would break player immersion.
  3. IC actions can and will lead to IC consequences. IC consequences do not represent an OOC attack on either the character involved or that character's player.
  4. IC actions should spring from IC motivations and IC information.
  5. White City has a relaxed attitude to discussing IC events OOC. Information gained in such discussions should not be used to gain IC advantage.

Running a LARP

  1. Anyone can run a LARP, as long as they organise a slot with the LARP organiser.
  2. Efforts should be made when writing a LARP to ensure that the events fit appropriately into White City's world and metaphysic. If in doubt, consult the LARP organiser
  3. OOC inspirations are acceptable when writing LARPs, but additional care should be taken to ensure that they comply with the second point, and that they will not break player immersion.
  4. A GM should not run a LARP that advantages one of their own characters.
  5. When writing a LARP, a GM should ensure that interesting monster roles are available to provide roleplaying opportunities to those not in the player party.
  6. The potential of character death is exciting. Inevitable character death is not. All encounters and traps should be balanced such that victory/avoidance is possible for the players involved with the resources that they have available.
  7. Less experienced GMs should choose an more experienced member as their co-GM to help with balancing monster stats.

Character Death

  1. Character death is, and should be, an inevitable part of a high-combat linear system.
  2. The White City system incorporates a skill called luck, that allows character death to be avoided at the player's discretion.
  3. If a player wishes to avoid the potential for unheroic or unlucky deaths, they should purchase the luck skill.
  4. If a player does not purchase the luck skill for a character, they accept that the character may die in combat or otherwise with no warning.
  5. Character death is an IC event, and should lead to no OOC recriminations.

Player versus player (PVP)

  1. Sometimes the only realistic way for a character to react to the actions of another is through violence.
  2. Antagonising another character is an IC action, and may have the IC consequence of violence, death, or worse.
  3. However, the White City system is poorly balanced for player versus player combat.
  4. Because of this, when putting together the player party for an adventure, including characters between whom PVP is inevitable should be avoided.
  5. Beyond this, sometimes PVP will happen.
  6. To mitigate the effects of this, a character with luck who spends it to avoid death through PVP should be IC removed from a situation where the aggressor can attack them again if the player spending luck wishes it.
  7. Therefore, players unhappy with the idea of death through PVP should buy luck for their characters.

Behaviour as a Monster

  1. The monster party should provide both immersion and reasonable challenges for the player party.
  2. Falling unconscious as a player should not be an automatic death sentence. Unless you have been specifically briefed otherwise, you should never attack a PC who is unconscious or on their death count.
  3. Consider how the monster you are playing would behave in a combat situation. Intelligent creatures should not hurl themselves into the player party's swords just to take off a few parries/armour hits.
  4. Be careful when choosing weapons that the set up you have will provide an enjoyable fight for both sides. In particular, polearms should be carefully rationed, as they are exceedingly hard to fight against with some weapon combinations.
info/contract.txt · Last modified: 2011/01/11 00:39 by joew
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