Reprinted from a Facebook post made on February 20th.
I decided to, as a change of pace, write a giant rant post on the advantages of the game. I have played around four other LARPs besides the Realms and the intention of this is NOT to simply talk about how great LARPing is, in fact I will not. I am instead listing the advantages the Realms has to ‘Other Competing Products’. These are my experiences and are backed by seven years. Some have longer and can dispute these claims, but this is my two cents and the postage was free.
First is accessibility of play. The game is cheap but it’s more than cheap, its Open Sourced. Anyone can run a game within the system we provide. Any idea is valid, we have had sci-fi games, camp games, I RAN FORTNITE GOD DAMNIT, THREE TIMES. In other games there is an “It”, and if you’re not “With It”, you are not “With The Game”. You may be too darkly humored, too silly, or even just too dumb to have the skills to win.
Second, gameplay. Our game is meritocratic in ways that other games are actually not. There used to be a ‘Bitching At LARP’ Facebook page, I don’t know its name, I don’t know if it’s still around. And some stuff was maybe more valid than others. But the edge of the tone, the bitterness in its words, was one thing. Nepotism. The idea that some people know the owner, or was in the game longer, or maybe just had a cute butt, and they got passes and secrets and blah blah. In many games the secret class skills, the fancy magic lore, the plots, can be locked away to be found, hidden away in the corners. And these can be fun on paper but then again, only if you can read the paper well enough. There are games with seven shadow plots running, and some people are in four of them and you can wind up being in none. And in our games, the typical format is one overarching story, with a single group working together, even if our nations differ. You all hear the bad guy, you watch the lore, and no one can gate-keep that from you. And maybe its hooey, and maybe its shit, but if you don’t like the game design or story you can go play the other event in two weeks with a totally different guy, you may not have “It” here, but “It” is out there and if you look long enough, you will find the event you are “With It”. And its going to have a stupid name like “place, verb” and it turns out, its not even at the place you are verbing, but you wont care because you got to stab a dragon in the butthole and crack a joke and everyone laughed about it. And thats magical.
Third. Forgiveness. Do not eyeroll, I am talking about SMALL things. Garb, shitty fighting ideas, blow strength, flubbed spells, general cringe. This is even tied to our spell book, which, even when we were not as generous with them as we are now, allowed people to unlearn spells and change paths. In many games there is a point where they will inevitably go “Sorry, you just have Protect the Soul forever now”. Our game’s got two things most products fail to provide. Long form story telling, and nation subcultures. You see, back to the ‘Competing Products’, if you don’t “Have It”, if your outfit’s shitty, if you cant jell, you’re off the brand a bit too much, if your character shit is just bad, you are not going to get a lot done or get much talking. As I said, seven shadow plots, you aren’t in any of them. You can write a PEL [post-event letter] that said “Nothing happened, but I killed a goblin, I’d like to spend my CP raising my vitality please”. The thing is, ‘Competing Product’ lasts five years and everyone’s on the same team. You didn’t read the book, you aren’t someone they know, you’re just some random schlub and by the time you get good, the game’s over, so why should they care? They have friends, they have plots. They have things to spend time on, and those things are not you.
However in the Realms those same five years amount to more game hours and yet less plot, because there's going to be like 20 different plots in those years, and yet the game just keeps going. No one says “This plot over I’m going home we will never meet again.”... I mean probably. So that random rookie is not some weirdo, he's an opportunity, he's money in the bank. You can be the guy who taught the newbie, you got someone who likes you, and you get to be a good person, and that guy may join your nation and you can finally beat up the Red Hats because if there's one thing we all agree on, it's that the Red Hats have had it too good for too long in the Smile Tournaments. Or you might be a Red Hat, and you want more people to be Red Hats because you want to fucking win, but you just sat down and you realize that you are never going to stand up again until the Sun goes Nova. So it would be nice to have someone to do the running and fighting you aren’t doing. There are actual incentives to be a good person, and thus people generally ARE good people, until they get upset. If your first game is ‘Competing Product’, even I, who enjoy a good ‘Competing Product’, can admit I probably would've gotten filtered and never played again after three events. I mean my first Realms game I got kidnapped, but people were willing to look past my “being bad at things” because I could be good at things LATER, and we have the framework both in time and width to invest in that stuff.
Fourth: The Economy. Our game has gold that is backed by armor, backed by food, alcohol, and even board games (Jason owes me one). ‘Competing Products’, to deal with production value and event costs, often have currency mostly regulated to donation based currency used to buy in game benefits, such as Work Points, sometimes lower level currency can be used to buy resources or magic items, but rarely anything you can take OUT of the game, and rarely is there true encouragement to put something IN to the game to buy with the economy (besides the obligatory two people who make money creating lunch). The Realms is the only place you can use it to do things like buy garb (this ties into point three about forgiveness, where in the Realms you can actually have shitty to no garb and buy it later with gold) with gold.
Fifth: Game variability, besides tone it is important to note that all Competing Products are an open game experience with occasional Micro Quests going on for groups of five or so people, roaming monsters, and a character progression system. Our games have those too, we also have Hallway Quests where you go through one dungeon where you grind through different encounters and some randomly placed puzzle to show the EH could make a puzzle if they really wanted to, Tournaments which tie into the sixth point so stick around (wink wink), we also have Feasts where people hang out and eat food and occasional quests are run. In theory the ideal ‘Competing Product’ is through the backdrop OF a feast, since most ‘Competing Product’ involves sitting behind at the tavern waiting for the content and talking to NPCs anyway… but so far none have really went that far, baring a winter one day thats not quite the same.
Sixth: Meritocracy. Many games use points, tiers, and other systems to create both martial and mystical skill. This allows people to feel like a Big Shot without actually being skilled at things. Contrariwise, people feel like a Big Shot without actually being skilled at things (besides understanding game theory I suppose). The Realms is one of the only games out there with a practice, and we have three of them. This ties into the sense of community, because people actually meet people outside of the actual game. Which probably is why everyone gets so pissed off in the first place, most LARPs just aren't worth it. This can make it hard to be a newbie, you don’t remember your spells, you don’t have armor, or at least can’t remember what hit you, or how to swing good. It’s true what they (nobody) says. The Realms is the Dark Souls of LARPing, but like Dark Souls, the actual reward is that you can say definitely that its your skill that put you were you are.
Seven: Justice. I waited for the controversial bit last because most people stopped reading before they get here. Shocking fact, other games have Toxic Elements. The Broken Stair has been brought up in every game I’ve been in at one point or another. In fact there was an odd incident where Joe Schmoe wrote a Facebook post calling Jeffery Chuck a Staircase. The immediately following post was ‘hey Joe, that's weird coming from you, because we put you in the admin position BECAUSE you've been bothering people and creeping guys out” so the consensus was that Joe was trying to throw Jeffery under the bus to distract from his own heat, and Joe was kicked from the game. Nothing ended up being done to Jeffery, and eventually he left for not feeling appreciated enough. The point is the mob in other games will either defend you totally, or turn on you totally, depending on the situation. And to be clear, it is POSSIBLE to throw an accusation frivolously for personal profit and power. (Just a general thing not even tied to ANY LARP), it may not be likely, but if you are the one “Not With It”, they are going to say that person was you. Some people are “With It” after all.
The Realms, tied to the same subcultures that have been embroiled in… honestly I have no clue what. I think the North hates the South because it's too far to drive? Maybe it’s a fae thing. EITHER way, SOMEONE will have your back, whether it's to believe your innocence, or believe you on another person’s guilt, it wont simply be “The entire game supports you” or “The entire game turns against you”. And I personally think that's better than gambling the death of your social life every time something bad happens to you. There is a reason the law decides there is a constitutional right to a public defender, and our game is the closest one where you can have people defend against accusations and defend your own accusations. Other games wouldn’t have long Facebook rants about EHC rulings, whether that ruling passed or not. They didn’t when the founder of one ‘Product’ got banned from his own game, at least not the second time that happened (and the fact he got to do double jeopardy on that probably says something), or when Joe Schmoe threw that bombshell on Jeffery Chuck. No one cared, at least not THAT much. Contrariwise I think it's safe to say if the latest drama went the other way, we would absolutely still have people mad and protesting the latest injustice, they’d just be in different positions.
We have people who quit the game over 4 years ago who are still more invested in the going ons of the game then people who actually play the latest ‘Cyber-noir Foray into Identity through Demonic Metaphor’ that lasts 2-4 years. And thats not nothing.
Last point, a while ago we all decided to help Dave Hayden with his lawn. We all went, spending our own dollars, bringing food and gloves and shovels, and almost broke cars over a stump, and helped a guy out. Many of the people who all worked together and laughed then are tearing each other's throats out now.
I think that's actually a positive, because I believe the next time someone needs their lawn fixed people will still show up.
