LCO Crafting Rules: Denver

Graham Wolsey

Scholar
Marshal
New LCO Crafting Rules: Denver


Alliance Denver is excited to announce a new local chapter only (LCO) system that expands the crafting system for our game. This system allows characters to create powerful and plentiful new items as long as the character has the prerequisite skills, materials, and one of Denver’s new sets of item creation plans.

How does this work?

All new crafting requires four steps. Old crafting is entirely unchanged.
  1. Acquire a crafting plan and meet the conditions to use it.

  2. Acquire the materials for the crafting plan.

  3. Roleplay creating the item.

  4. Find a Crafting Marshal or Plot Team member (plan will tell you which) from whom to get a tag.
Crafting Plans

Crafting plans represent ancient techniques or exciting new developments in the creation and improvement of items. The vast majority of plans will require one of the following skills to use: Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Craftsman (Field Medic), Create Potion, Create Scroll, Create Trap, First Aid, Healing Arts, or Herbal Lore. All crafting plans require Read and Write to use. A small number of plans will require a Craftsman (Type), or even a racial or plot-related condition to be fulfilled (such as being elementally marked or from a specific family) to create the item.

Crafting plans may be acquired in play from a variety of sources, but in 2018 most plans will enter the game through guild plot, especially the Merchants Guild. Simple plans may also be copied by players with Read and Write and more complex plans may be copied with Create Scroll. A very small number of plans will require certain plot conditions to copy that may be difficult or impossible for players to achieve (such as use of dragon magic or a Copy Formal Magic scroll).

When a copy of a crafting plan is created by a player through any means they must receive an “official” version of the plan from a Crafting Marshal or Plot Team member. The process of copying a plan will also take an expenditure of inks and paper. It takes as long as it takes your character to actually copy a plan in-game. The copy must be legible and ideally should include diagrams and pictures of the finished product. Some plans will have required pictures that must be copied to be valid. The plans will say “Required” by the picture if copying that is mandatory. When a plan is copied, please bring all materials required to craft the plan to the marshal and note on the back of your character sheet the time in game you spent copying the plan. You may not copy plans between games or in downtime actions.

The template for a set of plans is on the following:

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<Primary Skill Name> Plans


Name: <Name of Plans Here>
Key Skill(s): <Name of Crafting Skill(s) Required Here>
Item Type Created: <Item Type Here>
Item Duration: <Item Duration Length Here>


Copy Requirements: <Skills required to make a copy of plans>
Copy Roleplay: <Description and bonus RP requirements copy>
Copy Materials: <Materials used to copy plans>


Crafting Requirements: <Skills required to use plans to craft item>
Crafting Roleplay: <Description & time RP to make item>
Crafting Materials: <Materials used in creation of item>

Staff Authorization: <Signature level needed, Battle Board or tag>

Item Rules: Description of item and associated rules.


Signature Line ________________________ Player Number __________

Crafting Marshal Name Crafting Marshal P#

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Crafting Materials

Crafting Materials are new tagged items that players in the Denver Chapter of Alliance will acquire in their adventures. Throughout 2017 the Acarthia Plot Team has seeded many of these resources into play and through research many characters have discovered uses for these items. In addition to those uses these items are critically important in the creation of new items with plans. Plans DO NOT use coin to create a final item like traditional crafting, instead they require raw materials that may be bought, traded for, harvested, and discovered in our chapter. While you may have opportunities to purchases these materials through the Merchants Guild and other sources, you will have to rely on other players to create items in the new system.

There are around 100 unique materials that may be used in crafting plans. Don’t be overwhelmed by that number though! Most plans only require a category of resource than a specific resource to craft. Only the most rare and complicated plans require a specific type of metal, usually any of a category of metals will do for example. Materials will be either Common, Uncommon or Rare.

There are 7 categories of crafting materials: (1) Animal Byproduct, (2) Elemental, (3) Herb, (4) Herb (Necromantic), (5) Herb (Poison), (6) Metal/Ore, and (7) Wood. These may be found in treasure or gathered in a number of new and exciting ways that will be discovered throughout 2018 and beyond. If your character owns land either because they are a member of the nobility or your character has a house (keep or castle), you will also receive materials by nature of your holdings. Certain businesses may also generate your character resources between games. The full rules for this will come out in a later installment.

Crafting materials never expire and may be traded freely between players. They do not need to have a physical representation in game, but players that are inspired by the materials may certainly represent them if they wish to. All crafting materials are LCO items and should not travel to other chapters. Games not using Denver’s crafting rules might be confused, so please keep them local.

Roleplay Creating the Item

All crafting plans will have a set of roleplay requirements and a time listed to create the item described by the plans. This roleplay does not need to be observed by a Crafting Marshal or Plot Team member unless the plans explicitly require that. Any time the plans require observation of the roleplay, the player is required to contact Plot or a Crafting Marshal at least by the pre-registration deadline and receive plot permission to create the item. Many plans will require plot resources (NPCs, props, and so forth) to craft, and Plot Team members will need to work with you to determine a time that is mutually acceptable to create the item. If such a time cannot be found, Plot may have to postpone your request to create the item, so giving Plot more time to schedule your crafting is much better for you! If your roleplay is interrupted (your character is prevented from using skills or you abandon the project), you must start the process over from the beginning, but you do NOT lose any materials. Using any skill for a purpose other than crafting interrupts the process, this includes weapon and shield use, reading non-related documents. Non-skills such as talking, eating, and so forth, do not interrupt the process.

Getting Your Completed Item

After you have your set of plans, assembled your items, and roleplayed the creation of the item you will need to find a Crafting Marshal or member of the Plot Team. If the plans say a Crafting Marshal is sufficient authorization, please DO NOT take your request to a member of the Plot Team as they are usually very busy during our events. We will post hours that Crafting Marshals will be available in the Merchants Guild to handle the creation of items starting at the June 2018 game. For April 2018, and only April, please find John Siadak for all crafting needs. Starting in June there will be a wide variety of crafting marshals and multiple plot members trained on this system. The Crafting Marshal or Plot Team member will log your use of materials in the crafting log including the times you spent roleplaying the creation of the item and the LCO Item Number. They will then clip the resources together place the item number on the top of the stack and put the resources in the “expended resources” envelope. The staff member will then check your character sheet and plans to make sure you have the required skills and materials to make the item. Finally, the staff member will hand you an item tag for what you have created. These tags will look slightly different than what you are used to by nature of the item being *LCO ONLY* and having the rules for the item written on the tag. As a player please make sure that your tag has three things: (1) A LCO Item Number; (2) A staff signature and player number; (3) The name of the item and rules description.

These items will have some truly unique effects, they are meant to be LOCAL CHAPTER ONLY and not travel to other Alliance chapters so please leave them at our local game if you travel. If you have ideas or suggestions for new plans you’d like to see in our game send your ideas to John Siadak at plot@alliancedenver.com. Not all suggestions will receive a response, but we know our player base’s creativity is a wonderful resource and we would like to implement it into the crafting system if it fits our vision locally.
 
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I understand the intention here, but I have to admit that I'm not the biggest fan. I really don't enjoy the crafting system in DR, and this feels like it's trying to copy the same system. It's okay at DR because I feel like, for the most part, I can largely ignore it but I'm a little concerned that since I have some of the skills listed, I might be forced to engage in a system I really don't have any interest in (or, in the case of same players, might be vehemently opposed to). By the same token, if it's the plot team's intention to make it so certain items can ONLY be obtained by creating them yourself, I am also being forced to engage in that capacity, as well.

I know that it's the intention to improve the game, and as always, I applaud your efforts to do so, I just feel like this is going to over-complicate things and it might chase away players in the long-run. I just feel like we have lots of folks at Alliance who don't play DR specifically because of complicated things like the crafting system. DR is a wonderful game with a hard-working team, but it's an entirely different animal. In my case, at least, I enjoy Alliance for the high-fantasy aspect and the ability to play the game how I choose for the most part.

Can you address the concern that this might force people to engage in a system they don't want to engage in? Are you able to put some of my concerns at ease with this? If I, for example, do not want to craft in Alliance, am I going to find myself in situations where I'm forced to do so?

I apologize if this seems rude, I'm just balking super hardcore at this and I'd like to understand what detriments, if any, it might cause to my experience. Thanks!
 
I also have several questions in regards to this policy change.

Because some of the new craft items require racial/plot conditions, will this be available to every player even without r/w? Or will players without the required skills be forced to give over the plans to those who have the skills? This is concerning as it seems fairly exclusionary to new players/kin players who either don't have the build to purchase r/w or who are required to pay more than the standard build cost.

In a setting where there is magic, why would copying scrolls take a real OOG amount of time? Why would the setting support this when magic can be used to copy most anything? Not only that, how long will the RP time be? Will players be able to purchase additional levels of skills in order to shorten the time as can be seen with Blacksmithing? Given that a blacksmith can repair a full suit of armor in the heat of battle in 60 seconds, will the crafting RP time be comparable?

Most concerning to me is how will this impact the resource issues we've already had in game, particularly when it seems some materials will be made more easily available to players who already have easier access to higher level gear and magical items (nobility, business owners, guild heads, etc). Particularly:

"There are 7 categories of crafting materials: (1) Animal Byproduct, (2) Elemental, (3) Herb, (4) Herb (Necromantic), (5) Herb (Poison), (6) Metal/Ore, and (7) Wood. These may be found in treasure or gathered in a number of new and exciting ways that will be discovered throughout 2018 and beyond. If your character owns land either because they are a member of the nobility or your character has a house (keep or castle), you will also receive materials by nature of your holdings. Certain businesses may also generate your character resources between games. The full rules for this will come out in a later installment."

There are a few issues in this particular paragraph that I am particularly worried about. The primary issue is that this is almost blatantly favoring the "richer" characters IG for...being rich or nobility? How is this going to help the "us vs them" mentality that there has already been a struggle over in regards to commoners/adventurers and nobility? Also, if we can't harvest or craft between games, why should players who are already rich IG be able to generate these sorts of resources between games?

As a personal note, this rings way too strongly of being the DR crafting system ported over. Given that the DR system is based on resource scarce economy, this doesn't really make a lot of sense in a murder-based economy. I'm worried that this will further the rift between noble characters and adventurers, which isn't conducive to an inclusive and fun game. I'm also worried that this will open a rift between new players and established ones. I would like to echo Leora's want to understand exactly how this will effect my fun in the game, and how much of a detriment this will be to newer players.
 
[QUOTE="Leora Wambach] By the same token, if it's the plot team's intention to make it so certain items can ONLY be obtained by creating them yourself, I am also being forced to engage in that capacity, as well.
[/QUOTE]

Items created through crafting can be bought and traded between players. In the same way that every player in Alliance is not forced to go on modules, engage in politics, or do BGAs this is another option for players to participate in the game. No one will be forced to do anything.

[QUOTE="Leora Wambach]
In my case, at least, I enjoy Alliance for the high-fantasy aspect and the ability to play the game how I choose for the most part.
[/QUOTE]

Alliance will remain a high fantasy game and you will have complete autonomy over your character, at least in so far as you have in the past.

[QUOTE="Leora Wambach]
Can you address the concern that this might force people to engage in a system they don't want to engage in? Are you able to put some of my concerns at ease with this? If I, for example, do not want to craft in Alliance, am I going to find myself in situations where I'm forced to do so?
[/QUOTE]

I don't really understand how having this system will force you to do so. One thing I will note is that this system does not have significant crafting times on any item. Unless there is a roleplay situation that goes along with the crafting (i.e. you are whispered prophetic visions as you craft by plot or draw undead to your location) most crafting times are 5 minutes or less. The intention is not to waste a player's time with unfufilling crafting roleplay, but allow players with a crafting rather than combat focus the ability to impact the world.

I would strongly caution you against bringing assumptions from other LARPs you might have played or play concerning this system and try it out if it appeals to you. If it doesn't appeal to you then by all means ignore it and enjoy the parts of the game that you do enjoy.
 
Last year when we introduced blue cards we got some pushback about it at first because they weren't the mod cards that people are used to -- and the Plot Team needed to receive feedback to make some adjustments to make their use more enjoyable. Specifically, your feedback taught us to include at least some useful information on every card even if you don't meet the special requirements, and be more careful in our placement to put these closer to town and easier to find. Those were great pieces of feedback for us - who mean well, but who don't see what you see from the PC perspective. We very much hope for your helpful and detailed feedback as we try to introduce another cool thing. These concerns right off the bat are great for us to read; they show us what we need to watch out for early on.

Pesonally, I'm excited about this crafting system since I perceive that it adds more items onto an already existing sald bar, really, it's just new flavors of treasure. Some of these have already been introduced last year, like the new tags for things like Eska Fruit, Apopheosis, Argentum, and so forth. You saw how we wove these into our stories, like the Vilker hobgoblins feeding the Eska Fruit to their thunderlizards to addict and control those beasts. That's a great example how "crafting" elements can enter the story in a way other than commodities trading and things that some players might think are boring. New resources means their inclusion in story. You may not care about Eska Fruit, but if Sark is willing to kill for it, that opens new doors to ways of interacting with this stuff (as an example).

I think that this inclusion can be likened to the addition of blue cards, or our team's emphasis on Legerdemain. If you like hunting blue cards for your use or to tip-off othes, or you like locks and traps or at least seeing the Rogue on your team happy when they're included -- yay! If these things aren't your cup of tea, you may still play the game the way you're used to.

Nobody is turning this game into a new version of the stock market where you HAVE to participate in the new crafting stuff, or you "lose." This is just another toy, another tool, to play with.

We sure hope that you'll enjoy this new inclusion. Some characters will be way more into this than others (just like blue cards or locks). This isn't intended to entertain all of the people all of the time, but we hope it adds beneficially to the game as a whole.

We appreciate reading about your concerns, and you've brought up some great points. Like with any new system, some of this we'll have to figure out through trial and error. Team Daedalus will rely on the players to provide constructive, detailed feedback especially in our first few events as we implement a new thing, and try some stuff out.

I think that this will be cool, and I'm excited about its inclusion personally! Let us know what you think after you see how it's woven into the game.

Thanks much,
Trace Moriarty
Team Daedalus
2018 Acarthia Plot
 
I also have several questions in regards to this policy change.

Because some of the new craft items require racial/plot conditions, will this be available to every player even without r/w? Or will players without the required skills be forced to give over the plans to those who have the skills? This is concerning as it seems fairly exclusionary to new players/kin players who either don't have the build to purchase r/w or who are required to pay more than the standard build cost.

The use of items created through crafting will generally not require the ability to read and write though some items such as books or scrolls may require this skill.

The crafting system will not make any requirements for what your PC does with plans regardless of if your PC can make an item or not.

In a LARP environment no one character can do everything. Players need to pick and choose what their characters are good at, the ability to read and write is a pre-requisite for most crafting skills including Alchemy, Craft Potion, and Craft Scroll. There may be rare blacksmith plans that come from a culture with less literate individuals that can be used without the Read and Write skill for example. Plans for illiterate scrollmakers will never exist though.

In a setting where there is magic, why would copying scrolls take a real OOG amount of time? Why would the setting support this when magic can be used to copy most anything? Not only that, how long will the RP time be? Will players be able to purchase additional levels of skills in order to shorten the time as can be seen with Blacksmithing? Given that a blacksmith can repair a full suit of armor in the heat of battle in 60 seconds, will the crafting RP time be comparable?

All copying will take as long as it takes to copy the set of plans. There won't be an arbitrary amount of time required to copy a thing. If you have access to a spell that allows you to use magic to copy a scroll you may use it in this fashion.

Most concerning to me is how will this impact the resource issues we've already had in game, particularly when it seems some materials will be made more easily available to players who already have easier access to higher level gear and magical items (nobility, business owners, guild heads, etc). Particularly:

"There are 7 categories of crafting materials: (1) Animal Byproduct, (2) Elemental, (3) Herb, (4) Herb (Necromantic), (5) Herb (Poison), (6) Metal/Ore, and (7) Wood. These may be found in treasure or gathered in a number of new and exciting ways that will be discovered throughout 2018 and beyond. If your character owns land either because they are a member of the nobility or your character has a house (keep or castle), you will also receive materials by nature of your holdings. Certain businesses may also generate your character resources between games. The full rules for this will come out in a later installment."

No rules for acquisition of materials between games from land or otherwise exist currently. If you have strong feelings on this I encourage you to submit that feedback with the form for the April event. This is not important to the crafting proposal and is more important to some members of plot than others. In short we are open to your feedback.

As far as concerns about resources, I have to disagree with your analysis here. The current system means more powerful characters with better gear will have greater success and opportunities to get more gear. A crafting system allows nom combatants or merchant characters to build wealth through other means.

The system is certainly designed to encourage web-based play. This is true of Alliance as a whole not just the crafting system.

There are a few issues in this particular paragraph that I am particularly worried about. The primary issue is that this is almost blatantly favoring the "richer" characters IG for...being rich or nobility? How is this going to help the "us vs them" mentality that there has already been a struggle over in regards to commoners/adventurers and nobility? Also, if we can't harvest or craft between games, why should players who are already rich IG be able to generate these sorts of resources between games?

Being a noble character has no effect on the actual wealth of a character presently. Being part of a team or being a long term player have the largest impact on how much material wealth a character has acquired. Crafting is allowed between games, it is represented by the production you receive in your logistics envelope. Nothing about current crafting will be changing.

I'm worried that this will further the rift between noble characters and adventurers, which isn't conducive to an inclusive and fun game. I'm also worried that this will open a rift between new players and established ones. I would like to echo Leora's want to understand exactly how this will effect my fun in the game, and how much of a detriment this will be to newer players.

Your concerns about favoring noble characters are well taken and we will discuss them as a plot team before any rules concerning estates are implemented.

I have to strongly disagree with your analysis about new vs old players though. Allowing wealth to be acquired by ways other than murder is actually a critical catch up mechanism in a game where build never resets.
 
Hey folks,

Thanks for all of the feedback and concerns and questions!
Thanks to John for trying to answer all of them so fast and right before a game!

Let me try to add a few things here:
Our crafting system at current... is awful. If anyone creates a crafter character, they do it for RP reasons mostly, as it isn't lucrative enough to do it alone. With certain other rules changes over the years, it has become even MORE difficult to earn money doing things. I'm looking at you blacksmithing... what with your refits, removals of "breached" armor, and insane costs for strengthening! Our smiths are basically fletchers.... because creating weapons and armor just isn't worth it alone when you can basically wear one suit of armor your entire larping career. I digress...
Anyhow, with the popularity and appeal of certain resource gathering board games and MMORPGS, I tasked John with coming up with something that we could playtest as an LCO only and try to have more fun with crafting based characters and to TRY to create an actual economy using resources of the day. We did this years ago with the animal parts you could harvest like spider eyes, and creature blood, etc... those we just made into money tabs that decreased the cost of your crafting components for certain trades. It was a good start, but we hope this will be more fun for those more inclined to take trade skills. Heck, it might even make some folks WANT to take up crafting instead of sinking more build into murder related activities. This should totally be seen as an ADD-ON to your experience, and only if you wish to participate in it. You will find more of these throughout the game. Instead of seeing ALL of those rusty goblin weapons go to waste, maybe more of them will turn into a basic metal and wood for your smithing friend to use. Treat them as either another thing to sell, trade, buy, use, just like you would with any treasure you come across. We hope this leads to more trading and bartering. I imagine this has the potential to create a more fun market for our game that is really currently limited to magic items, catalysts, and rit scrolls. I would love to see shops open up for folks buying and selling these, and not just the merchants guild.
As this plays out , we are super interested in hearing your feedback and suggestions once you see it implemented in game!

Upward and Onward!

Jesse
 
I know I’ve only been playing Alliance for about a year, but I think what Leora and Blue are saying about crafting plans and materials can be said about rituals as well. A lot of things can be made with ritual magic, which requires a significant build investiture to even get started in, including R/W as they mentioned as one issue they had with it. Personally, I think this system could make crafting a lot more fun and more immersive (nothing bothers me quite like looting a sword or gold off a wolf). My point is that those who invest build into ritual casting reap a reward of being able to get loot “exclusive” to ritual castsers in that people without ritual casting can’t even read the scrolls. This feels like a mundane version of ritual castings with materials being components and plans being ritual scrolls. Just like ritual casting, if you personally can’t use a plan, you find someone who can and pay them or hope they’re a friend. And worst case, if you don’t want anything to do with the new system, just sell off the materials. I’m sure there are plenty of people who will be chomping at the bit to get a piece of this. And just like magic items, the newly made LCO items will enter circulation with people selling them.

That’s just my take on it though.
-Nicholas
 
I would like to echo Blue’s thoughts though that I also am worried, but not expressly opposed to the whole “own land and you passively aquire resources”
-Nicholas
 
I would like to echo Blue’s thoughts though that I also am worried, but not expressly opposed to the whole “own land and you passively aquire resources”
-Nicholas

As the owner of a brothel, I am both amused and horrified by what land-appropriate tags might end up in our envelopes at checkin once the land ownership thing kicks in...
 
I will formulate a better response once I've collected my thoughts and organized some of the questions I still have :)

I would like to echo Blue’s thoughts though that I also am worried, but not expressly opposed to the whole “own land and you passively aquire resources”
-Nicholas

I'm sorry if I gave the impression I am expressly against this as I'm not, however I would like to see this sort of mechanic balanced out across the game (such as players can volunteer their characters for farming, for helping with local animal populations, flower collecting, etc) so that everyone has the opportunity to harvest materials between games.

If I see brothel fungus though, I'm definitely burning down the brothel. Sorry Lagarde <3
 
So...can I be an inventor, and work with plot to create my own plans?

......asking ..uh.. for a friend. Not that I ever did that kind of thing before a long time ago with magic.....
 
So...can I be an inventor, and work with plot to create my own plans?

......asking ..uh.. for a friend. Not that I ever did that kind of thing before a long time ago with magic.....

I am not drawing you recipes in crayon on toilet paper! ...at least not until the 2nd event...
 
Those of you "lucky" enough to have received a 712-page Trace BGA(TM) response about your brothel, vineyard, or other owned property offstage can attest that our Plot Team is definitely not all about, "All hail the nobles, forget the rest of you!" We see you pouring your hearts, creativity, and cold hard resources into the offstage properties, and we want to support that lovingly. (Equally as nobles turn in a lot of BGAs and do a lot of "LARP homework" about their offstage estates.) We'd like to come up with some tangible, fun benefit -- and thus encourage more resources ownership.

Check out pp. 32-33 of the Alliance Rulebook if you didn't know this was a thing, and you'd like more info!

Do we have all this figured out yet? Nope, sure don't! We're looking out for you, though - all of you - from barons to brothelmasters and everybody in between, and we hope to make this even more fun!

Trace
Team Daedalus
 
So...can I be an inventor, and work with plot to create my own plans?

......asking ..uh.. for a friend. Not that I ever did that kind of thing before a long time ago with magic.....

I think this is a very reasonable thing that will be a way for characters into a type of crafting to make a lasting mark on our game world. Opportunities to tell a story with the system like this are what the plot team really wants to focus on this year rather than complicated mechanical systems.
 
On the subject of existing businesses potentially producing materials for this system, will we be able to purchase things such as mines or logging rights if we decide that magic items are lame and we want to start the West New Acarthian Trading Company. Not that I'm thinking that might be an awesome idea. Or that I'm suddenly considering crafting skills and OCS Economist. I'm not snuggling a copy of The Wealth of Nations. That would be absurd.
 
Our crafting system at current... is awful. If anyone creates a crafter character, they do it for RP reasons mostly, as it isn't lucrative enough to do it alone.

Not to derail the thread, but as someone with a tri-journeyman (one mastered, and another close) artisan, I actually wanted to state a few things. I didn't make a crafter character for RP reasons... rather, for combat reasons. As in, I wanted a character that wouldn't see combat often, if ever. I think the crafting system could certainly use some re-tuning and polishing, but at its core it's solid and simple.

And lastly, I've never walked away from an event with that character with less coin than I brought. In fact, often, I come away with about 2-3 times as much coin as I brought to game with me.
 
Really really really not interested in having a debate about the state of the crafting system on the Denver boards. There are zero active artisans in our chapter and there is a reason for that.

I'm very glad to hear that your non- combat artisan is effective in your chapter and crafting is a supported playstyle there. I hope to be able to support this playstyle more in Denver.
 
While it's a systemic issue, it's not necessarily an issue with the crafting system itself. It doesn't exist in a vacuum, afterall. If plot teams in the chapters I've played in dropped more production and less coin, then I wouldn't be doing nearly so well.
 
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