Work and life have been pretty hard the past few weeks. My days have been spent doing the 9-5 grind, and my nights have been spent doing writing for various writing projects. Add the occasional con or event, and I'm more or less putting down three jobs with only one of them paying right now.
Meanwhile, I've been dreaming of Kensei, the world martial arts tournament larp I've been working on for almost three years now. It's been hard going. I knew that making a boffer larp that was explicitly Character vs Character was going to be difficult. Most boffers are made with the characters taken on the Environment taking on the fore, with most of the CvC having to conform to those rules, oft times with major imbalances in mechanics. I didn't realize what kind of animal I was trying to tackle.
I researched a lot of material, from martial arts movies up and down the gambit (the Jean Claude Van Dam library has a lot of these) , to movies about sports tournaments, to video games and comic book arcs. I've even gotten back in to watching WWE again (As I'm writing this, I'm watching one of the best women's wrestling match ever on Wrestlemania). I wanted to understand how one could tell a story through violence, what brings people in to these situations, what are the stakes entering and what happens after the fight?
I'm still working on the details. The devil is in the mechanics. The problem is to make the game 1) fun 2) balanced and 3) as inclusive as possible. I am not a mechanics man, but the scaffolding is slowly being built. Metatopia 2015 was a big boon for me, helping me narrow down my view on the game in terms of "this is what people do and are here for."
But what's been sitting in my mind recently is how I would love to have this game played. How I want it to look when this is all said and done. I see games happening four to six times a year, no more or less. It takes place on a campground somewhere, a place that allows for sprawling views (and relatively soft ground). It also allows for events that can go on for a few days as tournaments and matches can happen during the night. An ingame radio (or hell, a podcast, technology exists here) is playing music and keeping the grounds (and people not at game) aware of the goings on.
The fights go on, the merchants sell off their wares at a part of the camp while the med techs have taken over another section to work on medical issues that happen. The reporters have dug in somewhere in to some bullpen that's a cross between William Gibson and Hunter S Thompson. The Schools have meetings in cabins at night, run promos during the day. The local underworld elements make deals and sell on the side while hiding from the authorities or worse, the press.
And all the while, the powers that be play their games. Agents and Sponsors move about, watching for ways to lobby
I don't want this to be a game just about beating each other with sticks. That's stupid. I want this to be a story about competition told through violence. What brings people to fight and compete against one another? What are the stakes? I want the roleplay to fuel the matches, and the matches to create more roleplay.
And, at the end of the 'season' of events is the big event. The blowout, where storylines can change and the stakes really matter. Right now, I have the makings of a three-five year arc. It's in my head, and I'd love to get as many people involved.
But that's when we get this off the ground. First there needs to be smaller events, to tweak the mechanics, to build interest. It's going to need players invested. It's going to need people wanting to help make the game. This game is going to require a lot of marshalls on deck, both to officiate the matches and to make sure that the rules are being fulfilled in the spirit in which they are intended.
First we need to make it real, then we get to live the dream.
Later.
