Centralized Local Race Packets

Hey everyone!

So I'm looking to start up my 4th character and had some ideas and wanted to go looking for a packet that I felt would fit my playstyle and character concept the best. And then I realized, that there's so many more packets than just my local chapter packets but I would have to go and email every plot team and request a copy of their packet for that race and there's two problems with that:

1- I'm wicked lazy and that's a lotta work
2- It's another email in an overworked plot inbox

So I've got a question. Why don't we all just post our packets somewhere on the boards? Makes it a lot easier for people to find a packet they like, might bring some more people to the game if they don't have to try and jump through hoops just to learn about something they'd like to play, share ideas between chapters (maybe how that plot team wrote this thing, inspires this plot team to write this story line), and let's not forget that it's one less email in a volunteer staff member's inbox.

Just an idea!
 
Hello Dave,

Not sure if that is applicable to all chapters but that is applicable to Calgary. The race packets are only made available to people who are playing the specific race. They contain information that is only known to that one race from that chapter and for that reason the information is controlled. That also means that the same race in another chapter would not know about it either.
 
Absolutely valid reason to do such a thing! Racial secrets aren't for everyone. But how do you know who's going to play what race? I could ask for your High Ogre packet and totally love it and be all ready to play one, only to find out I'm allergic to yellow make-up and would have to play a High Orc instead. I could be on the fence about playing an Elf or a Dark Elf and it's going to come down to the packet to help me choose. I could play a Kin and after my first event, realize that my make up requirements are a little too much for me and have to re-roll.

I do understand the need to keep the racial good stuff for the players who actually play the race. Maybe there could be two version of the packet then: the public one being general knowledge for people who want to play the race which talks about general culture, costuming, mannerisms, markings and the private one for people who have committed to the race (playing their 2nd event as the character which locks in their racial choice) which talks about everything else like villains, secrets, meanings to the markings, etc?

Also, anyone who would use a resource like publicly available race packets to metagame isn't someone I'd like to be playing with.
 
Fully support this idea. Racial "secrets" are kindof a joke- what is REALLY secret after someones played for a milions years?...but really anything legit "secret" could simply be parcelled in other documents while actual racial content that is relevant to a world setting should be readily available to inspire new and experienced players alike and help make informed choices about play and world ecology. I know that when I reveiw any given new RPG game, the first thing I go to, is the racial info 'What can I play and why would I want to and what does that mean to the setting?'<--- making local racial content available online would help with those questions since the national packets only take someone so far and say nothing at all of what any given chapter is doing wich is a regular point of confusion for new players. It could also help with cross-chapter play and world dev.
 
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Seattle has published "Culture packets". See here:
https://alliancelarp.com/forum/threads/alliance-seattle-culture-packets.27625/

Seattle is of the opinion that every culture has some knowledge of the other cultures. Some of it is public knowledge through books and documents, others is through word of mouth, but ultimately everyone knows the basics of everything. Secrets associated with the various races are held by the Plot team and only revealed for plot-specific reasons, i.e. it guides the story or the new character is of an appropriate standing in the culture to know some of the secrets. The second part is rare because most new characters are also new players, and therefore too low of standing in their culture to know anything significant.

Edit to add: Also, we have felt that providing the culture packets before character creation gives players the info they need to make an informed decision about which race they believe would suit their character concept.
 
I will have to mirror what Philippe said. The national packets are for general knowledge of what the races are suppose to be. The Local packets are actually not allowed to go against anything in the national packets. This actually caused us to have to rewrite the race packets from the previous plot team. Luckily, they hadn't been public.

Asking for the race packets doesn't overload us in Oregon. Those emails aren't that difficult to respond to. We also don't mind sharing a little information on the general areas in our chapter if a player chooses to come from somewhere other than the nation we are playing in. This allows us to help guide players in the stories they write for their character from our chapter.
 
So the national race packets do give me an idea of how each race is supposed to work. But that local race packet truly defines the flavor of what I will be playing. And putting time and money into.

Culture packets are a great idea I think. Unrelated to this topic but my biggest fear of every LARP I play is not knowing enough about the current state of the world and totally botching things up for other players. It's primarily why I NPC a few games before I fearfully decide to play a character in a new world. Back on track, I would in fact feel that this would be a "general knowledge" packet of the local chapter and would be able to make an informed decision based on that.

I'll take a moment to touch on the "Not allowed to go against national packets". This is true yes but I can stay in compliance with the national packet but do things way differently. There are many paths to the same end. Plus, in my local packet I am allowed to write "Ogres hate Orcs" and that is not against the national packet at all. Someone else's local packet may say "Ogres and Orcs BFF 4 Life" and that absolutely changes how I would play my character and is still within the confines of following the national packet.

As a former plot member, those emails aren't difficult to respond to. But let's say one of those emails gets lost or left in a spam box or overlooked. That causes some bad feels and I could lose a potential player who's excitement just got a bit crushed because I took too long or never responded to what seems like a simple request. Easy way to avoid that, just put up what they're looking for online.
 
I love the idea of making local race packets more accessible. When I was making my wylderkin, I had to look at three different packets before I found one that suited the kind of character I wanted to play, because of how dramatically different each local flavor was.

If I were a newer player and didn't know the plot teams I had to talk to, the process probably would have made me give up on a character that I since then have come to really love, just because it was so difficult to find a flavor that worked for me.
 
The local race packets can be as public as each Plot team chooses to let them be.

In the PNW they are sometimes given as "rewards" for downtime actions. For instance, my character went as an envoy to a new land and as part of the downtime response I received that land's race packets. This gave me more information about those lands than others had, because my character had put forth the effort to learn about their people and history.

Perhaps to get around the potential customer service issues you could have them accessible to some staff members who aren't specifically on Plot? I know that my chapter's New Player Representative has access to them all and passes them out to new players to read as they narrow down their choices for characters.
 
If I was head of Plot, no offense, I wouldn't want my race packets to be used by folks not actively playing in my chapter.
 
If I was head of Plot, no offense, I wouldn't want my race packets to be used by folks not actively playing in my chapter.

Why?

Disclaimer: The below text is my personal opinion on the subject and not meant to be either defensive or antagonistic. I truly want to know why you would feel that way.

In my opinion, I have no issue with a character being created with racial packets used from other chapters, or use our racial packets for a character that will never play in the chapter where those packets are applicable. Here are my reasons:
  • The character may have a back story that validates why they are from those other lands. Or, more accurately, not from the lands in the chapter the player plays in. We did this all the time with new players where players would say none of the packets fit their character and we would say "You can write your own lands you are from and you fell through the mists, never to return", so using an existing packet from another chapter is not too different from that in my opinion.
  • The character would not represent the chapter. They would represent their particular packet, but that is it. If they have questions then they can ask the Plot team that created the packet, or they can make it up. This is a game of make-believe anyway, so making something up 1000 miles from the source likely will have very little bearing on the source. Even if it does, it may create great inter-chapter stories (i.e. "this guy over there is spreading lies about us! We should go teach him a lesson!" Contact the other plot team to ask them to send out a hit squad with a letter for the character.)
  • If the packet from another chapter fits the character concept better than any other packet in the vicinity of the player, such that they will have significantly more fun, why limit them?
  • There is very little difference between a character that starts in a chapter, but the player moves thereby relocating the character to another chapter, from a player that never played in the chapter the character is from.
  • There is typically more to the IG world than the few IG locations the players play at (Valley of Ghosts not withstanding). It is entirely possible for a character in the lands to decide to travel to far off places slipping through the mists to an exotic location.
Anyways, again that is my opinion.

I believe strongly in presenting all information for informed decisions. I never understood the need for "secret" racial packets. Especially for characters native to lands that would have mixed races, or cultural diversity; it has always seemed odd to me that other races didn't have even a basic conceptual knowledge of other races within walking distance of their homeland. I can understand stereotypes and stigmas, especially if a player wants to play a racist character, but if a player wants to play a character that is accepting of differences (or even curious about it), or if there are universities that characters could have attended prior to play, the concept of secret racial packets feels anathema to me.

With that said, I totally agree that each race likely has secrets. In fact, I would argue that if a race has secrets then likely most of the race in question would not know those secrets (many mouths make secrets known, and all). So I would submit that a racial packet should not have racial secrets in it, especially if that is the reason why the packet itself is being withheld from common knowledge.

Whew. Look at that. I seemed to have typed a wall of text. Sorry about that! I guess that just gives evidence I am passionate of the subject. :) I am also passionate that National Packets shouldn't give any more information than roleplaying requirements. Creation myths and societal development should be part of local racial information instead of National dogma; it seems valid that races seperated from each for hundreds or thousands of years would have different creation myths or develop differently ... just like our world where some people are still living in mud huts while others are in grand marble mansions.

Again, I am going on. Sorry! That's my two quarters. :D
 
^^^^ I liked that post, then unliked it just so I can like it again. Well put and I agree with each point!
 
During the Nine Towers experiment we posted all of our race packets online, but they did not include "racial secrets," just the things that Joe Hobling the Nondescript would know. Most of the races had extra stuff that maybe not even all of the members of that race were privy to, but if a player submitted a character history we as a plot team would usually give them extra information if it was appropriate to their history. Our race packets were complete enough that someone could look at them and play a perfectly acceptable member of that race, with the possibility of more privileged information if they worked with plot on their history.

Is this the best way to do it? No idea. But our players seemed to enjoy it, though we did have a major bit of game lore that never actually got out because we never got a PC of a certain race in our 3 year run.
 
The reason for my opinion is, primarily, I feel that individuals using the packet I or my team put together are, in fact, representing our creation. If those players never play in my chapter, I don't believe there'd be as much communication between us and them as I'd prefer.

It's just not something I'd be comfortable with. But, honestly, it's a non-issue. I'm not Plot, and unlikely ever to be Plot.
 
You know nothing is stopping any one to create A character in any chapters DB with any race. If some one realy, REALY wants to do all that work they can and they can then get the race packet for it.
 
You know nothing is stopping any one to create A character in any chapters DB with any race. If some one realy, REALY wants to do all that work they can and they can then get the race packet for it.

If someone really wants to go to the work of it, sure. But someone willing to mislead a Plot team is probably heading for a bad time in the Alliance eventually, anyways.
 
I would say the reason for not making them public is because if a player makes a character saying they are from our lands but they completely start making up their own history for our area, why even make a character with our race packet? Why not just make up your own lands? If they are truly wanting to make a character from our lands and make a concentrated effort to role play it that way, why not just ask that plot team for the race packet?
 
I would say the reason for not making them public is because if a player makes a character saying they are from our lands but they completely start making up their own history for our area, why even make a character with our race packet? Why not just make up your own lands? If they are truly wanting to make a character from our lands and make a concentrated effort to role play it that way, why not just ask that plot team for the race packet?

I mean, the whole point of looking at a culture packet from other lands is so I don't have to make anything up? If someone else just picks a packet and a culture and starts making things up, to quote Draven, probably heading for a bad time in the Alliance eventually anyway.

What it comes down to, and why I started this discussion, is that why don't we just make it public so we can share our ideas and our lands and our stories? Have an HQ Biata in Seattle. Have a XR Dark Elf in San Francisco. Have an Oregon MWE in Gettysburg. Why make players do the footwork and potentially create the bad feels of a missed email or message? Why not have more of your packet be represented by eager players? I'm not going to play a race packet because I hate it.

Potential pros- More representation of your cultures and local flavor. More characters in the overworld. More potential customers. *cough*Maybe-your-plot-team-will-update-that-packet-you've-been-asking-them-to-do-for-years*cough*

Potential cons- A person could misrepresent your lands and cultures. That could be done even by a well-meaning local player just as well as someone from a far off chapter.

Yes, I could just email a bunch of plot teams asking for packets. But I am also not a new player. As we are moving towards a new player friendly/lower barrier to entry game, this is one simple step in that direction?

For the record, I did pick my newest character's race packet from one available on the boards.
 
My biggest, and probably only, argument against your proposal from a new player perspective is this:

-A new player comes in, wants to play a Dark Elf based on the Rulebook racial overview, and their nearest chapter is X.

-They go to the boards and look up the race packets, which now include the cultures for every chapter.

-The player really likes the Dark Elves of chapter Y, and makes a character using chapter Y's packet.

-Player goes on to play at chapter X, never gets character history plot.

Might not be a huge deal to some players, but if new players are coming in I will always steer them towards making a character who is local to the chapter they are playing. It gives them an automatic place in the world, and plot can make their first game easier just by sending out an NPC the players already know to introduce the new player to the other PCs playing their race or class. Minimum effort required.
 
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