Forsaken Larp Project

This won't mean a lot to a good chunk of people looking at this blog, I imagine.

I'm working on a thing which wont come to fruition for at least a year, but I want to be ready to roll out a proposal document for people to make a desicion about when the time comes. For the most part, its going to end up being a whole bunch of notes and reasons why I think its a good idea until we get closer to me putting my hat in to try and run it.

I'm a member of a Live Roleplay Society in the UK and one of the games we play is Werewolf: The Forsaken. We have... well, as of right now I think i'm confident enough to say at least 10 games with over 50 characters that play in them. Probably more. So for the Forsaken fans reading this going 'Jesus how many players is he planning for?'... well, a god-damn lot is the answer.

The Role of the ANST

As a start, i'd like to overhaul the job description of the ANST. As it stands, the ANST is a Direct storyteller as well as a team leader and an administrative organiser and rules-decider. While i understand that Teams do help with this serious spreading thin issue I think having the ANST write national level plots does take away from the personal, visceral nature of werewolf. Its not a story about how the Forsaken Nation won, its a story about a bunch of werewolves carving a place for themselves under the eye of an insane godess whilst trying to live up to the job they inhereted from their father.

 

As such, i'd like to put more power into the hands of the local ST's when it comes to plot and the freedom to write plot for their game and turn the ANST into a supervisory/advisory role. As such, my plan is to make the ANST responsible for the following:

 

• Creating and Modifying rules addenda
• Adjudicating Fetish Creation and Approval
• Adjudicating Renown at the Heroic and Legendary levels (4 and 5 respectively)
• Mediating the use of Venue Antagonists (Balehounds, Pure Society, Shifting Breeds, Hunter Organisation) at a national level to ensure the game does not suffer an oversaturation of various antagonist groups.
• Administrating for each of the local games in their purview to ensure that information is shared between games (such as when a non-local character acheives a renown-worthy deed or steals a fetish) and for ST handovers to be completed and passed along.
• Mediating ST/ST disputes and ST/Player disputes when they cannot be solved personally or locally.
• Helping local ST's organise games for Nationals and acting as a co-st during them.
• Translating local ST plot drops into Luna-Given Cahalith dreams and passing them down to players as the local ST requests them. (This is to give cahalith dreams more of a 'handed down by god'  feel)

Noticably, at this point there is no plans for the ANST to write plot at a national level.

 

Forsaken Character Creation Guidelines

• No Membership Class XP (This may change depending on society-wide desicions about how we use MC in the future, and I am using 'No MC' to represent my personal opinions and preferences until i'm told otherwise)
• Limited Fetish Ownership at character creation for the first 3 months of the new Chronicle. No fetishes at Character Creation after this point. (This is to give fetishes more of a feel of items of significance rather then useful tools and to ensure no oversaturation of fetishes occurs with the 'Fetishes don't cost XP' point in 'venue guidelines' section)
• No Renowns at 3 at Character Creation.
• Fighting Styles function according to the books except where stated. (... My plan is for a low powered game which actually makes fighting styles more applicable then a simple bonus or penalty applied to characters. This point is seriously subject to change and the fighting styles might be heavily addenda'd depending on the XP system we settle with)
• No Skills or Merits higher then 3 dots before XP is applied.
• No Attributes above 4 before XP is applied.
• No Pure, No Balehounds, No Shifting Breeds (The first two I am negotiable about, the last one no way in hell)

Forsaken Venue Guidelines

These will be a series of notes rather then a well organised thing for the moment as my brain meanders.

• Everything is owned. There should be no territory where a werewolf or a pack of werewolves can just walk in and claim it unchallenged. Packs new to the area should have to work towards gaining territory. Wether its held by Azlu, Pure, Forsaken, Claimed, Powerful Spirits, Vampires or Mages doesn't matter.
• There should be no gaps between player territories unless it is a serious plot point. Werewolf packs should be in close proximity to each other and causing problems on each others territories should be common. Werewolves should feel like everyone else is constantly on the border of invading their territory.
• There should be at least one neutral territory on a VSS to allow live games to occur.
• When a pack is created, they should have less then 5 points of Loci between all members. How this is distributed across the territory should be discussed with the pack and the ST.
• The entirety of a pack's membership should be on a single Vss, not split between multiple.
• The entirety of a pack's territory should be on a single Vss, not split between multiple.
• If the VSS has 5 or fewer local players, they should be a single pack.
• Totem Benefits only apply to your local VSS - Totem spirits won't venture far from a pack's territory and are NPC'd by your ST only. Yes, this means that travelling to other domains robs you of your totem benefits. Yes, this means that travelling to National Games robs you of your totem benefits. I am considering some sort of 'Temporary Lodge' for these national games which grant benefits that apply to the nature of the national game so that everyone has a way to get involved.
• Each Pack should make a short list of territories they would like. The ST should make sure that at least one of these territories is owned by another PC pack (if a Clutch or Tur game) or an NPC Pack (if a Pack game). One of these territories should be within the bounds of the pack's territory but as so far unclaimed/neutral by the pack or contested.
 
• Each VSS should decide wether it is a 'Pack' game, a 'Clutch' game or a 'Tur' game.
• Pack: All local players are members of the same pack and plot revolves around that pack's territory and local area.
• Clutch: Two or more packs who are often at odds if not downright agressive to each other. Pack on Pack conflict is common, co-operation should be begrudging. Plot should focus on causing conflict between the packs either requiring them to battle it out or come to a temporary truce to resolve the problem.
• Tur: Two or more packs who have created a Tur. Packs may be at odds with each other but a truce stopping them from downright attacking each other exists. Packs can also be genial to each other. Co-operation is common and Pack on Pack conflict is rare. Plots should focus on the Tur coming together to resolve issues.
• National Games should be Warbands, Moots or Revels. Each National Game should be based on a VSS's location with the local ST acting as the Lead Storyteller or as the decision making part of a National ST Team if they don't feel comfortable running a national game as the lead ST.
• Warband: The Game focuses on Forsaken Society in the UK having been called to a location by the local pack/s in order to battle or otherwise defeat a foe that cannot be beaten alone.
• Moot: The game focuses on a large gathering of the UK forsaken having been called together to discuss 'Political Matters'. Im not sure how this one would work but ideally there would be locally run plots that several games in close proximity to each other share that require deep thought from multiple werewolf packs.
• Revel: The game focuses on a social get together hosted by packs local to the area for the Forsaken of the UK. Cahalith Storytelling and Branding, Individuals and Packs bragging about their acheivements, Hunts (Competative or for Ritualistic Purposes) and perhaps music and a buffet.

• Combat should be quick, viscious and savage
• Fetishes should not cost Experience to purchase but require either a Ritualist to create them or for them to be stolen/looted from foes.
• Talens should be common
• Low level fetishes should be uncommon but present.
• High level fetishes should be plots unto themselves or inhereted from dead family/packmates.
• Renown should not cost Experience to purchase but after the first two levels they should require serious effort. A characters level 2 renowns should be able to be detailed by their Packmates, level 3 renowns should be able to be detailed by non-packmates on the VSS, Level 4 renowns should be able to be detailed by Cahalith from other domains and Level 5 renowns should be able to be detailed by every character living within the UK for any length of time.
 

And thats what I have had bouncing around my brain for a few months now. Finally written somewhere I can't easily lose it like my notebook...