Just a Newbie with a Question!

N

newbishbynature

Newbie
Hello All!

I apologize if I am posting in the inappropriate spot, or if I should not be posting at all.

Anywho, I am a curious person, extremely interested in participating with the Southern Minnesota Alliance. I have been an online roleplayer since I was eleven, a comic book fan since my brother showed me his X-Men comics when I was a child, a video gamer since I could pick up a controller, and a costumer ever since I learned it was fun to costume at high school events.

I've watched various things about LARP on TV, and read about every once in awhile when an interest piece is done about it in a newspaper.

Well, I think it's time to finally make that grand jump into the real thing!

I have lurked amidst the mnalliance.com site, reading just about everything I could, and have decided that it sounds wonderful!

I noted that there WAS an email I could email to relating to newbie things, but I like a wide variety of information from different people, so you must forgive me for coming here rather than emailing that account!

I was thinking about different characters, and looking at the tidbits I have about your own. I was wondering what sort of characters are "needed" in the Southern Minnesota Alliance. I've always been the type to pick up an "evil" character in a roleplaying board devoid of evil; portray a "canon" character in a world full of original characters--you see what I mean?

BUT ALSO, I don't need to go CRAZY that way and play a character that would be way too difficult for a beginner to play. So now, acting as my first question posed to you folks:

What is a good character to play for a beginning female, but a character that perhaps the Southern Minnesota Alliance needs or wants?

Sincerely,
Ashley H.
of Kasson

p.s. I apologize again, but I like many different opinions.
 
Its a bit short notice, but if you can stop by our one-day event today in Jordan (directions are posted on the listings) nothing like seeing things first hand to get a feel for the game, otherwise I'm sure you'll get lots of answers later today once people start to unwind.

-David Glaeser
Owner, Alliance Southern MN
 
Hello :D Looks like I am the early morning responder today!

Hi my name is Brent :) And I am one of the newbie marshals here at SoMN Alliance! I will be able to post more about your questions later on tonight, but am flying out the door as we speak to head to the 20th One Day event that is taking place today in Jordan MN :)

I would strongly encourage you to email the newbie marshals so that we can write back and forth with you via email :) It helps a lot, but this is a totally perfect place to ask questions too!

Have a great day, and I will talk to you more in about 16 hours! :D

-Brent

And stop by the event today if you can :D (yes i copied dave >.>)
 
Why thank you for inviting me. I was actually looking at the date today, but sadly I must work later! :(

But I'll definitely be awaiting further replies once the bulk of the Southern Minnesota Alliance gets back from their great fun, lol!

I also DID end up emailing the newbie email account as well, just so I can get a variety, since I'm lame like that. :)
 
Oh biscuits... I can't PM for reasons of "not active enough" or some such thing. I was just wondering, Kevar/Brent, if you happened to be thinking of anything recently?

I know I'm awful, but when I saw "answer your questions in 16 hours" I was sad to not see my email or here filled with answers! Well, hopefully you'll get some time to pop on. I'm badly impatient like that :lol:
 
This is partly due to the security on the boards Ashley, new accounts postings have to be 'approved' for the first few posts and arn't immediately viewable, we do our best to keep ahead of things, but sometimes it can take me a day or so to catch that little ? mark floating in my moderation que.
 
Sigh...I have failed :( This is what I get for setting unrealistic deadlines for myself...I was answering the questions of my pillow 16 hours later lol

Ok, well I will write you an email asap :)

Sorry about that, feel free to hate me for life :)

-Brent
 
Alas I just realized that I haven't gotten an email from you, so feel free to contact me at Brent.Woodward.1@gmail.com if you have any other questions about...well anything lol

Ok so your question.
What is a good character to play for a beginning female, but a character that perhaps the Southern Minnesota Alliance needs or wants?
Click to expand...

First let me say this, LARPing is like nothing you have ever done before...assuming you have never done it >.> ok moving on. In online RP or Table Top you can simple be evil and do evil things without having to worry as much whether or not someone actually sees you commit something...well evil. HOWEVER when LARPing you are actually doing the act...so if you take the time to kill little Timmy the orphan, and there happens to be another player walking by...you don't get to come up with a easy out lol...they saw you dagger him in the ribs...and are most likely very very concerned lol. Now thats not to say there are not evil characters out there, but its just more of a challenge, which may be a good thing...depends on the player :D

Ok so for what we "need". Well I play a barbarian scholar (caster)...so I would simply answer this is "we need more barbarians...." but this is where I need to put on the Newbie Marshal hat! SoMN Alliance, and all the other chapters in the LARP work to create a tangible fantasy experience...provided you have a healthy imagination. So we play in an actual game world, and the characters are just as diverse as you could see in everyday life. We have characters who do just about everything.

Each character has their own class, but that is totally an out of game mechanic...each character has its own backstory and flavor to it. Example:

My character is Hengin, and Barbarian Scholar... In the game I play him as a fairly young and naive tribesman who has been cast out of his tribe to face the trials of the world and pursue knowledge and wisdom so that one day he might become a shaman of his tribe.


Haha, well now that I have rambled on for a long time, the nitty gritty is this: SoMN Alliance needs any character that you would like to play, a character that you can immerse yourself in and stay in character. There is no cookie cutter need really, as a player myself I can always say that we need more healers, more fighters (tank play style not skirmisher), or more celestial scholars (boom boom mages) but if its not something that you can play whole heartedly its not something that I would want to see you play :)

Characters that are good to start are those with simple background stories, something that isn't so involved that it makes it hard for you to learn the basics of the game. I found that creating a character that has some sort of tie preexisting with someone helps a great deal, but thats just what worked for me :)


Well thats a whole lot of barely coherent rambling on about a question that is tough to answer...thats why they pay me the big bucks! Please let me know if you have other questions, and contact me via email if you would like.

-Brent
 
Couldn't have put it any better Brent, and I'm glad to hear our site is doing what it's meant for...but if you don't mind jumping off topic a little bit Ashley of Kasson, being a member of the Web Admin staff, I am curious as to how useful the site was to you...did it answer a majority of the questions you were looking for? We've got big plans for mnalliance.com and any third party help makes it better.
 
Well the site was quite helpful, but I would have liked to view character profiles and pictures so I have an idea of who's who and get a pulse as to what people play as.

Anyway, I don't remember who emailed me on my actual email account, but she said that it is easier to start as an NPC. I'd really like to know whether starting as an NPC is a good idea for someone just beginning LARP. I like different opinions as I said.

Thanks for all the information so far. I really really need help deciding whether to PC or NPC before I go to my first event, so this is why I bring this up.
 
I've heard that starting an NPC is the way to go, and I've heard that starting as a PC is the way to go. I personally started out as a PC, and I thought it was a blast, but my friend started as an NPC, and he thought it was a blast as well. There's no real "better" among them, it's really about how you want to learn the game system and those who play it. A helpful topic on the forum is this one: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=5880 because it gives a lot of the forum members' ideas on the subject. So if you want to sift through that to decide which sounds better for you, there you go.

~ Alexander
 
The other thing is that I would recommend not worrying about what other people play when you decide what you want to do. Game attendance can be very fluid from game to game so play what you think you'll enjoy. It will all fit together somehow. :)
 
Personally i started playing as an NPC and it was really fun costuming up and getting to come up with a couple different personalities for humans and other things that were humanoid. the on drawback to being an NPC is that your characters never get to be long lived. but that's also the great thing.

i'm going to PC for the first time in April now that i think i have combat down and i got to look in the rulebook enough to know what i want to do. i guess that's really what decides it. if you find something you like, do it. if you can't figure out what you like, NPC and you can find out.

i started with a couple other guys as NPCs and after he got to play a certain NPC with a certain ability, he knew that's what he wants to do in game and he got his character in the next session. i support being an NPC, but that's because i like being an NPC myself. and really everything i'm saying is purely anecdotal and may not be how the majority of people experience larp.

good luck! and you really can't make a wrong decision, because you can always come back with a new character. in the beginning that's always the easiest
 
If you are interested in PCing for your first event its definitely a great way to go, as is NPCing. However because when you PC you play as your actual character I would highly recommend meeting with myself, or another newbie marshal/plot member to talk about the different options and what you might expect. (Coffee, or by phone call, either works haha). As an NPC you are given roles and they are explained to you when you get them, so its a little less crucial to know these things...but if you have the time I would still REALLY recommend it.

Email me at Brent.Woodward.1@gmail.com if you would like to get together/talk about these things in further detail! :D

NPC or PC, both great options...but keep in mind what I said for whichever way you decide.

-Brent
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top