Which wood?

[lisefrac]

Originally published at Lise Fracalossi. You can comment here or there.

This past Saturday I NPCed for Witchwood at 4-H Camp Middlesex in Ashby, MA (a.k.a. Camp Stairmaster, Camp Fuck-That-Hill). As I said earlier, this destination was chosen mostly due to its proximity to my house - it’s about ten miles away, which on twisty country roads is about

Comments

[offside7]

I think the element of it that most makes me want to try NPCing for it for a day is that there are so many theater LARPers I have yet to see in a boffer LARP, and I'm very curious about it. Maybe one of these days I'll NPC for a Sunday for Witchwood.

[qnmark]

At Legacies, there's no flurry rule either, and there was never any line to speak of. The number of PCs is at the high end by Accelerant standards - there are around 60, I believe - but the number of NPCs is in the single digits, they're just incredibly powerful and they like attacking the PCs' base inn when all the really powerful PCs are out on a mod

[lisefrac]

Just to be clear, my issue wasn't so much with the flavor as the intelligibility of the call. Something about a longer call makes it easier to make out from context if you miss just part of it. It was not something I expected, but there it is. I suspect with more experience with this system, I'd get better at recognizing the shorter calls, though

[qnmark]

Well, Legacies comes from a tradition in which there's an event every month, games last indefinitely (with rotating sets of writers - even the owners are usually regular PCs), and people usually play just the one game. So the bespoke mechanics aren't a problem.

But even then, the dark elf incant, "know your fear" is pretty clear that you're in fear. Now, you as a player need to know what this condition is, but that's equally true of Accelerant. So if Accelerant prefers "agony" rather than "pain," the in-game incant could mention agony somewhere: "you're in agony now," or something more dramatic.

Re offside7's point, fear is a discrete condition in Legacies, rather than a type of attack - in other words, if it used the "___ by ___" system, it would be "fear by magic" or "fear by fire" or whatever and not "agony by fear" or "paralysis by fear." But the same principle could port to things that are discrete conditions in Accelerant, like agony and paralysis.

[offside7]

I don't think Lise was saying that bespoke mechanics are a problem, but I don't want to put words in her mouth.

Yeah, in Accelerant they chose to make the discrete conditions largely be physical states/effects, I think to try and make things a little more intuitive, which I found helpful both when learning the effects and remembering them on the fly in chaotic combat.

[lightgamer]

As a player in what we players are now referring to as the Teahouse of Horrors incident, I will say that the reason I was Reposing in the front room of the teahouse was that I was outnumbered three to one and didn't have my weapon. I'd been playing cards with my back to the door and my staff had been against the far wall when the first skeleton came through the door, so I literally dove out of my chair to avoid its attacks and then turned around to find three undead between me and my weapon, so I Reposed in the corner. As soon as a Mystic walked in the door, I broke Repose to tell her "Undead in the back room!" grabbed my staff, and joined the fight

[lisefrac]

Teahouse of Horrors, ha!

I can see how you probably had no sense of how many skeletons were outside, since it was a dark, moonless night, and the numbers did fluctuate. There were eleven or twelve of us originally, I think, but we lost some on the hill someone (I have no idea who; again, moonless night, and we were all wearing skeleton masks) sent a bunch of undead down to harass the tavern after a while. I think I was the last undead there, actually -- someone gave me the instruction to "harass the back door" for a while, which I did, and then I left when I got repelled a last time, I think. I seem to recall that someone was hollering down the hill "OAK HARBOR. UNDEAD AT TEAHOUSE. SEND HELP" about when I rolled out.

Anyway, I'm glad it provided a fun fight for you! I was mostly worried that so many players Reposing meant that the combat was boring rather than fun, which is always a concern. I have a vested interest in you having fun! :)

[offside7]

"Teahouse of Horrors" -- I love that.