post Empire musing.
Empire made me really sit down and work out what I like about LRP, which is presumably a good thing.
I like survival games, where my char actions is the difference between life or death, or at least the difference between a really uncomfortable life and a prosperous life.
I enjoy camping in woodland, where the rustling in the long grass might be an enemy, or might be a fox. The collecting firewood, because we need a fire for light, heat, and cooking. (although I'm glad we now have flushing loos and showers, I don't miss the latrine pits of Guide camp. (one bucket of shit to every bucket of fire ashes))
To go to an event where all characters are happy, healthy, educated, with more resources than they need to survive, and are basically safe, I struggle to spot the game we are supposed to be playing.
Empire has fights, to get materials... to make more weapons... for the next fight... Sounds like a pointless circular action to me - at least Odessy had tactics.
There's the Civil Service, which is unwieldy, not as organised as it could be, and possibly dodgy/corrupt. I could join in and try to improve it from inside, but that's not Game, that's the day job.
I've never been comfortable with LRP religion, cultists are different, they can be great fun with their illogical tactics, but playing religion straight in lrp has never appealed.
Empire is like Vampire, no proper rulebook, unhelpful char sheet (Vampire used non intuative terms for skills, Empire just omits 2/3 of yer char skills, like your daily mana.) And both have the "this is an NPC with plot, but he won't even tell you what his name is, so you _might_ get something to get involved in if you spend hours trying to get him to actually talk to your chars, although that's being Meta, as there's no Ic reason to nag this random irritating bloke for info..."
Oh, and LJ crashes when I try to read comments, so pleas, email or text or facebook me instead. Ta.
I like survival games, where my char actions is the difference between life or death, or at least the difference between a really uncomfortable life and a prosperous life.
I enjoy camping in woodland, where the rustling in the long grass might be an enemy, or might be a fox. The collecting firewood, because we need a fire for light, heat, and cooking. (although I'm glad we now have flushing loos and showers, I don't miss the latrine pits of Guide camp. (one bucket of shit to every bucket of fire ashes))
To go to an event where all characters are happy, healthy, educated, with more resources than they need to survive, and are basically safe, I struggle to spot the game we are supposed to be playing.
Empire has fights, to get materials... to make more weapons... for the next fight... Sounds like a pointless circular action to me - at least Odessy had tactics.
There's the Civil Service, which is unwieldy, not as organised as it could be, and possibly dodgy/corrupt. I could join in and try to improve it from inside, but that's not Game, that's the day job.
I've never been comfortable with LRP religion, cultists are different, they can be great fun with their illogical tactics, but playing religion straight in lrp has never appealed.
Empire is like Vampire, no proper rulebook, unhelpful char sheet (Vampire used non intuative terms for skills, Empire just omits 2/3 of yer char skills, like your daily mana.) And both have the "this is an NPC with plot, but he won't even tell you what his name is, so you _might_ get something to get involved in if you spend hours trying to get him to actually talk to your chars, although that's being Meta, as there's no Ic reason to nag this random irritating bloke for info..."
Oh, and LJ crashes when I try to read comments, so pleas, email or text or facebook me instead. Ta.