(Sort of) New Player

[Ignacius]

Hello!

I'm looking forward to my first real LARP event in September with the New Hampshire branch, and I had a few questions. But first, a little background!

I've actually been doing LARP for most of high school now (going into senior year), but it hasn't exactly been your usual LARP. The organization I usually play with it a middle school enrichment program that I volunteer at both to tutor academics and help out at the LARP classes. The benefit of being a smaller group (about eighty total, split about 1:3 on middle:high schoolers) is that we can severely bend the rules to accomodate what we want to accomplish theatrically. In addition, because we hold events on a per-grade basis, our events are generally tailored for pretty low character builds. Also, since I'm one of the oldest individuals in the program bar the two instructors, I almost never PC, and the one or two occasions I do, my character just starts at a fairly high level for purposes of not getting my *** handed to me by sixth graders. Lastly, we built our system around the NERO rulebook (in an effort not to be political by that I mean the one that the other claimant to the NERO name releases) and the only event we've had hosted for us was a private event by NERO (once again just using the name for simplicity's sake).

So basically, though I'm pretty experienced on the mechanics of the game, I have no idea how a normal entry into the game works. Thus springs the majority of my questions.

How is low-level entry into the game? It was quite astonishing to me just how difficult building a character with 15 Build Points is (those poor sixth graders). I understand that certain modules are scaled for the level of the player (which is quite impressive to me from an event-holder standpoint), but certainly that's not going to happen all the time. I love roleplaying, way more than combat, and just how hard is it to get involved if you put yourself out there as much as possible?

Does being a low-level healer work? I'd really like to be a healer, and it seems I'll be able to take that place in my little merry group of not-so-new newbies, but with the 15 BP the character seems extremely limited. I've got a seven-spell, 3221111 pyramid, and that's without even taking small weapon or the staff that I'd rather like to use. Staff would reduce me to a four-spell 2111 pyramid, so I don't think I'd go for that, but I'm very tempted for small weapon to prevent me from beind utterly useless once my spells run out. Any suggestions or experiences with the subject?

How many 'new' players are there at any regular event? My group's bringing in a handful of level ones, but it'd be nice to know that we won't be the only low-levels surrounded by the scary Level 25s. Not that I really mind just hanging around the veterans and gawking at the obviously famous adventurers our characters certainly aspire to be.

And this last one's more out of curiousity than anything.

What's the age/gender split in events? We've always had more boys than girls in the younger grades joining, but our high school ratio is at least even, and I think the gals might be up one at this point. And as for the age thing, once again, I have no idea what the typical age makeup of an event is, and I'd be curious to know how it breaks down.

Thank you in advance for entertaining my questions!

-Ignacius

Oh wow, that's a wall of text. :sweat:

 

[Dom]

Hello and welcome to the Alliance! It's always great to hear that we have new members.

How is low-level entry into the game? It was quite astonishing to me just how difficult building a character with 15 Build Points is (those poor sixth graders). I understand that certain modules are scaled for the level of the player (which is quite impressive to me from an event-holder standpoint), but certainly that's not going to happen all the time. I love roleplaying, way more than combat, and just how hard is it to get involved if you put yourself out there as much as possible?

level 1 entry can work however, it's usually recommended that all new players NPC an event or 2 before rolling out their PC. You get a much firmer grasp of the game and you get experience towards your PC character for NPCing so you will be coming into the game with more build available to you to start off. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper if start up money is an issue.

Does being a low-level healer work? I'd really like to be a healer, and it seems I'll be able to take that place in my little merry group of not-so-new newbies, but with the 15 BP the character seems extremely limited. I've got a seven-spell, 3221111 pyramid, and that's without even taking small weapon or the staff that I'd rather like to use. Staff would reduce me to a four-spell 2111 pyramid, so I don't think I'd go for that, but I'm very tempted for small weapon to prevent me from beind utterly useless once my spells run out. Any suggestions or experiences with the subject?

Being a low level healer can definitely work. I would personally go for the seven spell pyramid and forget the weapon for now. At low level, pure classes are far more efficient. Also, as an earth scholar, fighting with a small weapon at level 1 will get you into far more trouble than it's worth. You are much better off teaming up with friends and using yourself as a distraction so somebody else can get the advantage over your enemy.

How many 'new' players are there at any regular event? My group's bringing in a handful of level ones, but it'd be nice to know that we won't be the only low-levels surrounded by the scary Level 25s. Not that I really mind just hanging around the veterans and gawking at the obviously famous adventurers our characters certainly aspire to be.

I just started playing at the beginning of this year and of the 5 events I have been to, I have seen at least one person new to the game at each one. However, most new players do NPC for their first event so you may not see too many on the PC side of the game.

What's the age/gender split in events? We've always had more boys than girls in the younger grades joining, but our high school ratio is at least even, and I think the gals might be up one at this point. And as for the age thing, once again, I have no idea what the typical age makeup of an event is, and I'd be curious to know how it breaks down.

For the most part this is a 16-18+ game depending on which chapter you go to. The male to female ratio for the most part is pretty even though I would say there are a few more guys than girls (but isn't that just how the gaming world always is?)

 

[phedre]

Unfortunately, you can't have any sort of 1-1-1-1 progression. Everything has to be a true pyramid (with a minimum base of 4 spells): 4-3-2-1, for example, is the minimum needed to have a 4th level spell.

With a 1st level Earth Scholar, you can have read/write, first aid, healing arts, and a 4-3. If you NPC an event, or donate (see the request thread in the chapter's OOG section) and get a single event blanket, you can start second level, 25 build, which gives you more options for spells and weapon skills. That 10 build will get you One Handed Edged, for example.

Small weapon, IMO, isn't very useful. The only effect you can cut someone out of is an Entangle, which is an NPC only ability, and you can carry a dagger or knife rep without a weapon skill. I rarely, if ever, see anyone with a dagger, so trying to fight with one would be ineffective. Staff is usually taken by celestial scholars, who can use a High Magic ability to use it like a wand and throw additional damage packets. If you're playing an elf, you can buy archery for half-cost, and it's effective at blocking.

New Hampshire usually runs the range up to a single level 40+ player, but being low level in that chapter is playable. There are several PC nobles that will usually help point you in an effective direction, and town tends to fight as a unit. As for ages, we have a couple regular players in the 17-19 range, all the way up to the site owners who are actually the parents of the former NH owner, they're somewhere around age *mumblestuttercough*.

 

[Ignacius]

Hello and welcome to the Alliance! It's always great to hear that we have new members.

Thank you, it looks like the Alliance is a nice place to be!

level 1 entry can work however, it's usually recommended that all new players NPC an event or 2 before rolling out their PC. You get a much firmer grasp of the game and you get experience towards your PC character for NPCing so you will be coming into the game with more build available to you to start off. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper if start up money is an issue.

Hmm... I did see that it is recommended to do that, but I'm hoping that my prior knowledge to the game system should sort me well enough so I'm not tripping over my own feet. And it really would be nice to PC again. Though I'd definitely be interested in NPCing in the future to see how you guys run it. Might take a few things of note back to our little world! And there's no issue with start-up money, the costume company pays well enough and gets me most of my costuming for zilch (thank you Boss!). I've got most of my weapons, boffers, and packets made from our previous events so all I really need to pay for is the event, thankfully.

Being a low level healer can definitely work. I would personally go for the seven spell pyramid and forget the weapon for now. At low level, pure classes are far more efficient. Also, as an earth scholar, fighting with a small weapon at level 1 will get you into far more trouble than it's worth. You are much better off teaming up with friends and using yourself as a distraction so somebody else can get the advantage over your enemy.

Hmm, yes I think you might be right. If my character's the type who would actually be so selfless! I'll probably have to think about that. Thanks for the advice!

Unfortunately, you can't have any sort of 1-1-1-1 progression. Everything has to be a true pyramid (with a minimum base of 4 spells): 4-3-2-1, for example, is the minimum needed to have a 4th level spell.
With a 1st level Earth Scholar, you can have read/write, first aid, healing arts, and a 4-3. If you NPC an event, or donate (see the request thread in the chapter's OOG section) and get a single event blanket, you can start second level, 25 build, which gives you more options for spells and weapon skills. That 10 build will get you One Handed Edged, for example.

Did I misunderstand the Alliance rules on spellslots? I didn't see any real difference from the NERO rules which I've made all my pyramids off of before, and now that I look back I still can't find anything. To me, it seems like the pyramid is correct. I build a 3-2-1 pyramid and then started from the base as if I were building a 4-3-2-1 pyramid. Of course, I only has the BP to get me another first level spell so I ended up with a 4-2-1 pyramid. Am I looking at this the wrong way?

Thanks for bringing up the goblin point donation system thing, I was curious about that as well. I will definitely donate stuff, I have plenty of extra stock from various events, but I thought we could only use the goblin points to purchase experience points from events that we missed. Since I'm not technically an Alliance player yet, I would have thought that I couldn't get the experience points for 'missing' a July event. Did I misunderstand that?

Small weapon, IMO, isn't very useful. The only effect you can cut someone out of is an Entangle, which is an NPC only ability, and you can carry a dagger or knife rep without a weapon skill. I rarely, if ever, see anyone with a dagger, so trying to fight with one would be ineffective. Staff is usually taken by celestial scholars, who can use a High Magic ability to use it like a wand and throw additional damage packets. If you're playing an elf, you can buy archery for half-cost, and it's effective at blocking.

Interesting, interesting. I think I might stay weapon-less and trust in my companions to cause the damage. My previous worry is probably just an old habit of playing revolutionaries to not trust anybody, I suppose! I was thinking of either going as a human or as a frog-kin. Unfortunately, the frog-kin would be impractical if I had only 15 BP. However, granted that 'banket' event you referred to, I'd love to try it out.

New Hampshire usually runs the range up to a single level 40+ player, but being low level in that chapter is playable. There are several PC nobles that will usually help point you in an effective direction, and town tends to fight as a unit. As for ages, we have a couple regular players in the 17-19 range, all the way up to the site owners who are actually the parents of the former NH owner, they're somewhere around age *mumblestuttercough*.

That's good to know. Tactics, even amongst the high schoolers, has been a hard thing to get down in our game. But if the group has a tendency to rally I'd definitely be more comfortable going weaponless and being low-level in general for that matter. And the age thing will be interesting. The better to make the roleplaying more challenging!

------

Thanks for your advice and welcome, as well as the quick response. I'm feeling more comfortable with this already!

 

[Warlok]

When I first came to Alliance in November last year, we had a group of 5 Level 1 characters (20 Build because SF gives one event blanket for writing a character history), 2 @ Level 2 (a couple event blankets from donations and histories), and 1 @ Level 5 (he played a few events before we all showed up, but this could also be achieved through donations since you can blanket events up to 3 months past).

Our level 5 was a Sword&Board Earth Templar (High Orc). We also had a weaponless Earth Scholar (Dryad), a Blacksmith (Dwarf), and a bunch of fighters with different weapon combos: Sword&Board, Spear, 2-Handed Sword, and Polearm (High Orcs and Barbarians). Most of us had First Aid, since that could be used to keep each other from dying as a last resort and a few had basic Blacksmithing (other than the Dwarf), so we had them make a few arrows at each Logistics to sell. The fighters who could do so took Racial Proficiency for more damage, as well.

We spent a lot of our time killing crunchies that wandered up to the tavern and pooling all our loot together for the good of the group. We used the loot to buy potions and for the cost of the Blacksmith to Silver our weapons. We also went on a few mods that were scaled specifically for us. In the town battles, they put us right up on the front lines (mostly because of our shields) and just pumped a bunch of potions into us when we dropped.

We always felt extremely useful and incredibly welcomed by everyone both IG and OOG, even when our "Shaman" (the Level 5) got put in jail :lol: (funny story for another time). Granted, NH is a different chapter with different plots and characters; but I'm sure everyone there wants to make sure that everyone else has a chance to have fun.

I hope that helps!

-Luke

 

[Warlok]

Unfortunately, you can't have any sort of 1-1-1-1 progression. Everything has to be a true pyramid (with a minimum base of 4 spells): 4-3-2-1, for example, is the minimum needed to have a 4th level spell.

With a 1st level Earth Scholar, you can have read/write, first aid, healing arts, and a 4-3. If you NPC an event, or donate (see the request thread in the chapter's OOG section) and get a single event blanket, you can start second level, 25 build, which gives you more options for spells and weapon skills. That 10 build will get you One Handed Edged, for example.

I think what he meant was that at 15BP, his spell pyramid would look like this (plus all the pre-reqs):

Level 3: *
Level 2: **
Level 1: ****
(usually written as "4-2-1")

That's the max you can get without a weapon as a Level 1 Scholar. With Staff, the pyramid gets cut to this:

Level 2: *
Level 1: ***
(usually written as "3-1")

With a single Day event "blanket" (30 Goblin Points), you get up to 20BP. With a single Weekend event "blanket" (60 Goblin Points), you get up to 25BP. Those 25BP could get you set up to have a "massive" low-level pyramid:

Level 4: *
Level 3: ***
Level 2: ****
Level 1: *****
("5-4-3-1")

OR ready to learn your first Level 5 spell:

Level 4: **
Level 3: ***
Level 2: ****
Level 1: ****
("4-4-3-2")

Of course, if you add in a weapon skill, your progression slows slightly. Also, I think most people would recommend getting your "4-up tree" (4 spell slots at each level up through 9th) before building out the base of your spells further, so I'd personally go with that last option if I were making a pure Scholar.

-Luke

 

[Avaran]

level 1 entry can work however, it's usually recommended that all new players NPC an event or 2 before rolling out their PC. You get a much firmer grasp of the game and you get experience towards your PC character for NPCing so you will be coming into the game with more build available to you to start off. It's also a hell of a lot cheaper if start up money is an issue.

I disagree with this sentiment. If anything, the hundreds of spells and abilities that an NPC is forced to interact with over the course of a weekend generally serves to overwhelm new players...or at least give them a very strong desire to try and memorize the rulebook for their next time playing (assuming they even want to come back).

Hmm... I did see that it is recommended to do that, but I'm hoping that my prior knowledge to the game system should sort me well enough so I'm not tripping over my own feet. And it really would be nice to PC again. Though I'd definitely be interested in NPCing in the future to see how you guys run it.

I am of the seemingly minority opinion that it is actually better to PC your first few times playing; though I recognize that things can be different in other chapters/parts of the country, so what I have to say may not necessarily apply. And I will say that when I started playing, I PC'd at level 1, and I had a great time -- it is what you make of it no matter your character level or level of experience.

TLDR: Do what you think you'll have more fun doing. It's your time and your dime.

 

[Vryan]

I am of the seemingly minority opinion that it is actually better to PC your first few times playing; though I recognize that things can be different in other chapters/parts of the country, so what I have to say may not necessarily apply. And I will say that when I started playing, I PC'd at level 1, and I had a great time -- it is what you make of it no matter your character level or level of experience.

I agree to this. I started this game as a PC from level 1, and I had never been to another LARP before. I loved it. But, then again, I much prefer PCing over NPCing, and when I started I had a firm character idea to go off of and I knew exactly what I wanted to play. If you know exactly what you want to play and have a character in mind, I would say PC.

Ignacius, I play the New Hampshire game as my main chapter. There is a lot of support for new players there. If you're going to PC as your first event, I will personally make sure you have a good time.

 

[Jevedor]

Ignacius, I play the New Hampshire game as my main chapter. There is a lot of support for new players there. If you're going to PC as your first event, I will personally make sure you have a good time.

Seconded.

 

[Michiko]

I've actually been doing LARP for most of high school now (going into senior year), but it hasn't exactly been your usual LARP. The organization I usually play with it a middle school enrichment program that I volunteer at both to tutor academics and help out at the LARP classes.

How cool! The closest I got to this in High School was just my group of theater geek friends who would run our D&D and Vampire games in a live action style. I'm so jealous!

As for build choices I'd say go for whatever you want. Fortunately as a new PC you can re-write the character afterward if you end up not liking it.

Can't wait to see you guys in NH!

 

[Ignacius]

@Luke: Thanks for sharing! That really reaffirms my hopes that things will go great as that's essentially exactly what we're doing except with a slightly different group makeup and smaller size. We'll likely be pooling our loot as well, and working similarly as a unit. A habit of basically doing everything LARP-related together for so long, I suppose. Oh and you got it right about the pyramid. Though I'm almost positive that I'm no longer a Healer. The Turtle/Tortoise-kin Fighter was far too tempting. XD

@Avaran/Vry_Young_Pup: Interesting thoughts. I'm undoubtedly going to PC, but it's good to know there's some sense behind the move as well! And thanks, Pup (And Jevedor), that means a lot!

@Michiko: Yeah, everyone's always telling us how unusual it is that we have a larp program for middle schoolers. Having grown up with that being the constant, it was rather confusing to me when I realized we're one of the only programs that go down that young. Except for maybe Guard Up. Depending on whether you count it or try to ignore its existence. :b

 

[Deadlands of Old]

Ignacius,

Hello, my name's Gary. If you shoot me an email I'll get you and your crew set up. New players seem to always have a better time if we've had contact before they come. It allows us to prepare some plot and mods for the group, based on their character concepts and interests.

alliancedeadlandsnh@gmail.com