Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Living Fantasy Realm LARP Rules Part I of III

Here are the Living Fantasy Realm LARP rules.

What is a L.A.R.P.?

It stands for Live Action Role Play.


Taking the OSR (and Nordic) approach that simple is better and that most LARPs have huge hundreds of pages rulebooks that chase away players.

Here is my simple answer to LARPing.
These rules are designed for a LARGE LARP fest.
They have been tested for many years and are tried and true!

Try them out and let me know.


The Living Fantasy Realm
Presents
The Brotherhood of Steel and
Sorcery
Version 1.6
solomanwolf777@yahoo.com
The Brotherhood of Steel and Sorcery is a live action fantasy role-playing community and society
based on medieval society, fantasy literature, games and movies and is part of the Living Fantasy
Realm. The Living Fantasy Realm is a community and movement.
Personae
A person wishing to join BoSS must create a persona, or a character to become while at an official
BoSS meetings or fighter practices. The persona may be from any time and place from the medieval
era, fantasy literature, games and movies. The persona must have a name and a brief written history
registered with the seneschal one week after joining. A persona must also declare a class and may join
a house.
Houses
A house is a group of personae who wish to join together under a common name. Houses must register
a name and a member list with the Seneschal. A representative must be elected to send to the Council
and to correspond with the Seneschal on subjects such as house rules and current members.
Council
One member from each house is sent to Council. The Council is the body of decision makers. The
Council meeting will be held on the first Sunday of every month. After the meeting it is the job of the
representatives to return to the house and inform all the members of the decisions made by the Council.
Officers
There are only two actual officers in BoSS: The Head of Council and the Seneschal. The job of the
Head of Council is to mediate the council meetings and to cast the deciding vote in the event of a tie.
The Seneschal is the secretary-treasurer for the group. It is his job to keep records of the attendance,
dues, houses, etc.
Classes
A class is the field which a persona decides to devote his time and effort. There are four basic classes in
BoSS: Fighters, Wizards, Priest, and Rogues. Other classes may be allowed, but a persona must gain
specific permission to be allowed another character class. Class must be registered on the persona’s
character card. Once class is declared and Novice level is reached a persona may decide to join a guild
for his specific class. No one will be allowed to declare another class while continuing his current
persona. If a persona is killed, a person may choose to create a new persona in a new class, but it is not
advised to kill off a perfectly good persona.
Fighters – Anyone may fight, but a persona may choose to declare that as his personal
field of study and growth.
Wizards – One of the classes that can use Magic. This group studies the fine arts behind
true magic use.
Priest – The healers and holy men of BoSS. Their magic is a gift from their deity.
Rouges – Thieves, assassins, and generally sneaky personae.
Levels
There are three initial levels in BoSS: Guest, Novice, Veteran. A persona is a guest for his or her first
period. Guest Level 1 after 4 weeks he is a Novice level 2 after 8 more weeks he gets Veteran Level 3
and so on every four weeks. One may join another class(s) and split experience equally between them.
If a persona is absent one week, it does not count as a week of his or her period. During the guest phase
a persona may not join a house, vote, or hold office. At the end of the guest phase, the person must
choose whether to keep his current persona, or kill it and create a new one. Either way he continues
into the Novice phase. As a Novice, he is a full fledged member. He must pay his membership dues of
$5.00 per month, and he may join a house, vote, hold office, etc. Two periods into the Novice phase a
person should show his knowledge as a true and honest Marshal, and must have garb. These titles are
meant to show that a persona has been a member for a specific amount of time, and not to lord over a
person of lower level.
Skills
In order to use a certain weapon or skill, a person must prove that he knows how to handle the weapon
or use a skill correctly without injuring himself or another person. Then and only then, will he be
allowed to use that weapon or skill. The exception to this rule is magic. Magic may only be learned by
Wizards and Priest, and must be learned from someone suitable for teaching. Other non-class skills are
acceptable if approved.
Magic
There are two different level systems for magic, one for Wizards and one for Priest. The levels are as
follows. The magic presented here is a broad category of spells in one word. One must throw a pack of
birdseed or tennis ball, hit the opponent and call the effect of the spell to work. You get one spell per
level. Magic resets itself after each battle. You can cast any spell you have as long as you have a
birdseed pack or tennis ball. Magic ignores armor. This is a very WYSIWYG system as we cannot cast
actual flashy spells. Guest gets Level 1, Novice gets Level 2, Veteran gets Level 3, Apprentice/Acolyte
gets Level 4, Wizard/Priest gets Level 5, Master/High Priest gets Level 6
Wizard
1. Pain – The person hits is paralyzed with pain for 5 seconds and can do nothing but scream and
writhe. Other sensations (tickle, itch, sneeze, etc.) can be substituted but Pain is the easiest to do.
2. Compulsion – This cause the victim to follow a simple command for up to 30 seconds such as drop
your weapon, look over there, you cannot move, you don’t see me, and anything else you can think of.
3. Harm – This kills or wounds the victim depending on where it hits.
4. Domination – This completely takes over the mind of the victim and is at the Wizard’s every whim..
This last until the Wizard cancels the spell or another more powerful wizard cast a more powerful
version.
5. Death- This kills another no matter where it hits.
6. Rite – This is the most powerful ability to cast powerful rituals. More to come in a future Magic
pamphlet.
Priest
1. Turn – A priest may turn an undead causing it to run away in fear.
2. Heal –With the touch of the priest and a small sermon of 30-50 words a persona’s wounds are
healed. Each wound must be healed separately.
3. Pure – This spell ends all poisons or diseases
4. Banish – A priest may banish most undead or demons hit with this spell.
5. Resurrect - A persona that has died may be raised with a ritual.
6. Ritual – This is the level of the divine ritual. Here is an example ritual: The Wrath of the Gods - This
spell calls the wrath of the gods down. It is at least a five minute long ritual that if completed will kill
or wound all opponents or some other desired effect. If disturbed the spell must be completely
restarted. More to come in a future Divine pamphlet.
Fighting Rules
-The fighting rules are meant to provide safety to all fighters.
-The marshal is the over-all law of the field.
-There must be a marshal on the field at all times unless otherwise noted.
-Every member (Novice or above) must have their own weapon(s) which are approved to be SAFE by
at least one member of a council. Once a person has his own weapons, he may borrow those of other
people with specific permission. If a borrowed weapon is broken or damaged, the person borrowing the
weapon must repay the owner.
-If a shot is made to the arm the fighter may not use that arm anymore. If a shot is made to the leg, the
fighter must go down onto his knees and cannot move anymore. A foot counts as a leg shot.
-Chest shots are automatic kills and the persona begins dying. He may scream for effect.
-A persona completely dies in five minutes unless a Heal spell is cast , a bandage (see pamphlet 2) is
applied, he uses a Healing Surge, or he is brought to a healing circle. After five minutes the persona is
fully dead and must be raised by a Resurrection spell or a (see pamphlet 2) Rez.
-A Healing Surge is a burst of heroic energy that allows one to stave off death. Healing surges only
heal the worst wound first. You must wait your full five minutes before using.
-You get one Healing Surge per level. You regain a Healing Surge every six hours.
-A dead persona may be HACKED by hitting the ground next to him 200 times to represent hacking up
of the body. This permanently kills a persona unless some great ritual or rite is performed to bring this
persona back.
-Head shots are only allowed on the back of the head if all agree. A persona can be blackjacked by a
sock within a sock knocking the persona out. A helmet completely protects the individual.
-Light Armor such as leather, absorbs one hit to an area.
-Medium armor such as chain mail, and banded armor absorb two hits.
-Heavy armor such as plate mail absorbs three hits.
-Any other rules instated within a certain fight must be agreed to by ALL combatants, and must be
stated to the marshal of that fight.
-There are some special effects that are to be noted. Magic weapons ignore nonmagical armor.
Poisoned weapons will poison a persona and he will suffer the effect unless first given an antidote or
Pure spell if they get through armor.
Punishment
The breaking of these rules will result in the loss of privileges. If a fighting rule is broken a persona
may be pulled from the field for a day. If the dues are not paid by the end of the month, then the
persona loses all privileges as a member (i.e. voting, fighting, attendance credit, etc.) until the dues are
paid.

1 comment:

  1. These were based on rules that were played mostly at a public park. I am working on a version for a private LARP Park.

    ReplyDelete