Posts Tagged ‘Incentivizing’

ST – Antagonists: Making it Personal

29 Oct 2012 at 10:53

larpdr

ST

1 Comment

If your antagonists aren’t connected to the goings on of your characters there’s a pretty good chance that they are going to be ignored.  If you want your players to really hate your antagonists and really want to engage with them you have to perform a bit of meta-psychology and connect your antagonists to chronicle [...]

ST: The Favour Infrastructure

24 Mar 2012 at 17:09

larpdr

ST

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I watch Once Upon a Time.  It’s a good show in my mind for a lot of different reasons, but the one I like best is how the show has created an environment where favours and contracts are a really big deal.  Favours are a great social mechanism for a LARP, as well, as it [...]

ST: 10 Pieces of Advice for New STs

18 Mar 2012 at 16:26

larpdr

ST

1 Comment

If you decided to get involved in storytelling for the first time it can be pretty daunting.  You’ve got multiple players depending on you to guide them through your world who have wildly different definitions of what entertains them.  While I could write thousands and thousands of words about how to run a game I [...]

Theory: Social Mechanics in LARP

21 Feb 2012 at 21:51

larpdr

Theory

1 Comment

The mechanics of role playing games allow us to be faster, smarter and stronger than we are in real life, so why shouldn’t they also let us be more persuasive?  This is an old discussion in RPGs, but it takes on a different life in LARP, where it’s far more likely for social mechanics to [...]

ST: The Signature Game

11 Feb 2012 at 15:28

larpdr

ST

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Some of the most talked about, most successful sessions I’ve ever run are what I’ve called signature games.  My old players still talk to me about my clocktower and vault sessions from time to time.  These are games where I’ve decided to raise the bar, in terms of preparation, set dec and plot.  I usually [...]

ST: How to Herd the Cats

08 Feb 2012 at 18:46

larpdr

ST

4 Comments

Players don’t want to start game when they’re supposed to.  Players don’t want to wander into the allotted game space at the very beginning of a session.  These two statements are like death and taxes, but if you take the proper measures you can inspire a culture where players expect the game to be on [...]

Theory: Theories on Power Distribution

08 Oct 2011 at 17:38

larpdr

Theory

3 Comments

  I’ve seen a lot of different ways that storytellers use to populate their new games with characters of different levels of powers, with varying levels of success.  This article breaks down my experience and distills them into different models and suggests why they may or may not be effective.

ST: Your Game is Your Product

18 Jul 2011 at 23:18

larpdr

ST

28 Comments

As a storyteller you are competing for your players’ attention. Out there in the world are a lot of other ways for them to spend their Friday/Saturday/Sunday nights, and as soon as you as a storyteller acknowledge that your game is a product you can begin to position it to succeed. The question you have to [...]