FI

[hariyos]

On the way up, I remember saying something about "Oh right. Derek's doing awards after this. Fine. Let's go in as though we were planning to win the 'I played this colony like a grand piano and now I'm going to Disneyland' award

Comments

[hariyos]

FI is basically MJ's response to the success ATF had. It's a far-future setting, you are colonists on a "new" planet. (The planet has been colonized multiple times before, which produces NPC badguy settlements for the PCs to go fight. This is a major plot point, as this is not really supposed to happen.)

Primary weapon system for the game is NERF guns, mostly the new clip-loading N-STRIKE guns. Battles can get relatively big, but typically are 15 PCs against 8 NPCs; they have been as large as 40 PCs v. 30 NPCs before. I'm leaving out a good chunk of the PCs in each of those as incompetents, same as in a typical boffer LARP.

Secondary weapons tend to be boffer weapons. No shields; there are "long blades" and "short blades" and that's it. You can buy a skill to dual-wield. Dedicated warriors can buy "Combat Armor" which makes you immune to "uncalled" weapon damage (anything that isn't using a skill). So relying on just blades is a bad plan.

So fine. I know the range, speed, accuracy, and aerodynamic characteristics of each type of NERF dart shot from each of my NERF guns down to the proverbial 5th decimal place. So does everyone on my team, given that we've been playing Guild games for a while. I can dodge, I know when I'm in and out of range. I'm reasonably good at strategy and tactics, but it really helps that I know my tools.

The rest of the game has either been playing paintball or has been playing woods boffer LARPs. They don't know their tools and they don't seem to make enough of an effort to get to learn their tools. They persist in attempting to use paintball tactics - massive cover, suppressive fire, running instead of dodging, and what we would consider 'playing Patrol when you really need to fucking ogg' - in all of these battles.

It's like shooting frosh. You give me my favorite one-shot and you put me in a battle against a typical CDF member with his favorite multi-shot gun and I will cream the dude. So will most of the people on my team.

The CDF is also full of itself, IG and a small amount OOG. I guess me wanting to teach them how to use their tools and fight usefully in small squads is kind of like if Ben Woods had come up to the New Galen Militia in 2002 or so and said "Hey guys. I just completely demolished the fighting tourney. Want me to teach you how to fight?" I'm not convinced we would have taken him up on it. These guys definitely are not going to let me help them, and I'm put off enough by the attitude that I'm not sure I really want to. Meh.

So I'm mostly torn between "Guys. Look, can I please show you how to do this so that the town has awesome fighters?" and "Well, eventually we are probably going to just kill all of you dumbasses, so fine, please continue to suck."