This past weekend I ran the last major encounter in my stint writing plot for NERO Hartford. It was essentially the final fight against the first end boss of the campaign. It was a relatively elaborate encounter, involving a split field (based on level), and four self marshaled tasks for the PCs set around the field which dramatically affected the dynamics of the battle. The battle lasted for over an hour of straight combat, and the villain was defeated….without one single hold being called!

Now, I’m not going to say it went perfectly, but I did put a lot of preparation in to make sure it went as smoothly as possible. The players involved in tasks around the field were briefed before the encounter, and knew exactly what they had to do and what would happen (meaning no marshal standing over them). All OOG mechanics were reinforced in a notes section on the IG scrolls they were using to perform their tasks. An air-horn was used to signal the field effects making it unnecessary to call a hold to explain the change.

The most important preparation happened just a few hours before the fight though. During a moment of downtime I had an opportunity to sit down with a good chunk of the players. My exact words to them were “If any of you call a Hold, there had better be a compound fracture involved”. While this is obviously hyperbole, they knew my expectation. I have little to no tolerance for superfluous holds. I personally think they should be limited to medical situations ONLY. It should become the goal of all staff and players to run a game with no holds (which also means trying to run a safer game with less injuries).

Holds destroy immersion. You are wrenched right out of the game and brought back to the real world. Staff can do many things to avoid these situations. NERO in its first year always included a guy in an orange headband marked “MARSHAL” carrying a clipboard following the party and narrating huge chunks of the encounter. It was like playing half table top/half LARP. I have really grown to dislike this style of play.

My friends and I ran a NERO sub campaign in the mid-90′s called Kyrandal. One of our major principles was to never include anything in the game that we couldn’t rep in a reasonably realistic way. We had really grown to hate the phrase “What do I see?”, and wanted to run a game where this was never heard. (Cue to an old Ravenholt event where a kid who wasn’t more than 5’6” came running through the trees as a “9 foot tall T-Rex”).

I can’t stand hearing, “Hold, marshal, do I recognize this guy from the October event in blah, blah, blah?” or “Hold, marshal, I have 10 levels of Kobold Lore, do these look like Kobold droppings?” I have learned a great deal from Dan’s entries and the LARP Ohio blog how to create encounters with as little of an OOG component as possible, how to get in front of these problems and brief the party ahead of the encounter, or have envelopes prepared if an applicable skill would provide key information.

One of my favorite ideas of Dan’s is to include a marshal who is in fact an IG confederate traveling with the party, and explaining OOG mechanics or answering questions in a IG way. I don’t want to digress too far into a discussion of what helps or hinders immersion, but the two topics do go hand in hand. Many of the principles which help create immersion, and remove the need for an OOG marshal, help prevent that most offensive of all four letter words, “HOLD”.

Part 1: Footwork

Footwork is absolutely critical for polearm fighters. When your enemy is at maximum range, a single step can make the difference between a hit and a whiff.

• Keep your weight balanced between your feet. This makes it easy to step forward or back. If somebody swings for your foot, you can pull it up quickly without losing your balance.
• Always be ready to jump back. Make sure the people around you know that you need some room behind you to fight effectively.
• When your enemy advances at you, he will put his right foot forward. Strike as he steps. If he’s guarding his foot with a shield, go for the shoulder instead.
• If your enemy steps forward while taking a swing at you, step back while swinging at his sword arm.
• In many cases, stepping to the side is better than stepping backwards.
• When strafing or circling around your opponent, move towards his shield side. This forces your enemy to attack around his shield, which reduces his reach.

 Part 2: Offense

Whenever you attack, you telegraph a vulnerability to your opponent.

• Be sensitive to this weak point and correct for it in advance. For example, if you swing low, be ready to pull your weapon up and block your right shoulder. Make this part of your attack motion.
• Polearm style relies on speed and precision. You should only be hitting with the top six inches of the weapon. This is a “lightest touch” style – use your wrists and forearms, not your biceps.
• Feinting against a shield fighter makes him waste a lot of motion and breath. Feint for the foot to make them lower their shield, then go for the shoulder. Even if you’re not fast enough to land the hit, you’re making them spend their stamina faster than you.

 Part 3: Defense

• Footwork, footwork, footwork. The best defense is to not be there when they swing. Polearm is a very mobile style – if you’re getting hit, it’s probably because you’re standing still. Be a moving target.
• Scorpion Stance: Scorpion stance is a defensive posture. It’s a good defense against somebody moving directly towards you. Turn your shoulder towards your opponent and make your body as narrow as possible. Hold the polearm blade down, keeping your body behind the pole. One hand should be high, by the butt end. The other should be about halfway down the grip. Keep your legs wide and your posture low. From this stance, it’s easy to block your entire body and thrust at your opponent’s feet. You don’t need too much motion to block, just lean away from the attack and your polearm will already be in the right spot.
• If your opponent lands a few hits on you, switch stances so they have to re-learn where your vulnerabilities are.

 Part 4: Dirty Tricks

 Pythagoras, the Father of Polearms

Pythagoras, the Father of Polearms

Pythagoras was a philosopher and mathematician who invented many of today’s devastating polearm techniques. He is known as the Father of the Polearm style. The Pythagorean theory of polearm maximizes reach by NOT attacking along the hypotenuse (longest leg of the triangle).

You have the greatest reach when you are attacking straight forward. When making a low attack, you get another few inches of reach by ducking.

(tip of the hat to Ted Marston)

Hedge Clippers

In a line fight, a polearm is a weapon of mass destruction.

• Pair up with a shieldmate who will block for you. If an enemy draws too close, step back, adjacent to your ally’s shield.
• Don’t focus too hard on the person you’re engaged with. You can make an attack of opportunity against anybody within your reach. Swing when they swing.
• In a line fight, or if your opponent is engaged, you can often step back without giving your enemy an opportunity to advance. Stand a step out of reach, with your left foot forward. Step forward and swing, then step back.

High Road / Low Road

Here’s a teamwork technique—

• If you and an ally are engaging the same target, call either “high road” or “low road”. This indicates to your ally that you will be aiming at high targets (arms and shoulders), or low targets (legs and feet). Your ally will take the opposite height.
• Coordinate your swings so that you are attacking at the same time.
• Your opponent cannot block both spots at once without entering into a totally defensive posture. And he cannot win the fight without attacking.

The Byronic Hero

Named for Sir Byron LeVolant, notable dandyman and braggart, this is a two hit combo which is designed for duels against shield fighters.

• Start with a low leg sweep. This telegraphs to your opponent that he should attack your shoulder.
• Be ready for the incoming shoulder attack. Pull your sweep up into a high block. For maximum style, this should look like you are curling a barbell.
• As you block, step back and strike your opponent’s extended sword arm.
• If you time it right you will have hit them twice while they have only swung once.

Socialist Monster Design OR  Everyone Gets to Play

We’ve been talking about total game participation.  This means everyone from level 1 to level 50 gets to play.  Some of the ideas that have been bounced about this, such as transforms on lower level characters have been posted up here.

On the flipside of that would be monster design:  This is the portion of the game which drives the actions of the player base at a logistical and tactical level.  If the story keeps putting out creatures which encourage players to stick themselves in golems…or get silver weapons…or do more damage…that comes back to how the creatures being used to push that plot were designed.

Having been around since the end of 6th edition rules and the introduction of 7th, seeing how monster design has shifted to be more inclusive over time is a good thing, but some of us are still on a crusade to eliminate ‘you can’t play this game’ moments.

A good example of things which have fallen to the wayside would be “Old Threshold”.  Originally this was a skill which said “if you do not swing more than X, no damage is dealt”.  On monsters this was a pain in the butt, as it essentially eliminated lower level players from participating.  These creatures typically were also high body so casters had to overdo it to achieve anything or flip into bind-o-mancy.

These days we have more forgiving mechanics in monster design, specifically “Minimal” and “Damage Cap” .  Rather than saying “You do nothing” if you do not break that magical X amount, you do a minimal amount of damage.  So it’s something versus nothing. The other end of this is Damage Cap, which is to say that a monster will only take up Y value in damage, with exceptions within the rules for overkill (slays, assassinates).

There are still a few places where “you don’t get to play” applies.  A noteworthy example would be “Magic to Hit”.  Magical weapons are a rite of passage in NERO.  You made it, you’ve been adventuring long enough to either luck into or maybe if you have a team, build your own magic weapon!  Now you can fight death knights!  How many months or years were you hating life that you would, at best, get 3 swings in with an Enchant Blade spell?

Consider if Magic to Hit monsters were made instead to “Cap 5 VS Non-Magic Damage”

Suddenly a magical weapon is the preferred weapon to use again this creature, but you can still inflict some damage.  This is not something to be applied to ALL instances obviously, a boss monster should not have a gaping weakness to slays just because.  Where “Cap VS Non-(damagetype)” would shine is on field and woods encounters where you cannot predict scaling.  It would allow for the use of ‘Cool’ monsters, without the fear of removing a portion of the player base from participating.  In a module situation (or for an appropriate Boss monster) using the standard “Magic to hit” would be fine.

Where else could you think of places that would encourage more participation without sacrificing the quality of experience for all levels of players?

Boost Transforms can be conceptualized in other forms than as an enchantment which turns a character into another creature. This framework can just as easily be used to create Boost Artifacts or Boost Boons (granted by an NPC). Technically, the Boost can be treated like a Curse of Transformation. (9th ed rulebook p90)

The goal of a Boost Transform is to provide about enough power to let a player face the enemy NPCs on fair terms. It shouldn’t make him the toughest character there. But it should give him a unique trick, a way of supporting his allies, or a cool moment.

A Boost Transform can be measured in terms of how many effective levels it adds. Calculate the level difference between the party and the low level player they’re bringing. If a level 8 character is tagging along with a party whose average level is 28, you can build the Boost Transform with a budget of about 15-20 levels.

Add a certain amount of defense based on the Boost Transform’s level. For each level, add a point of body, physical armor, arcane armor, dexterity armor, body points, or a mix.

For fighters, the simplest route is to add a strength bonus. A quick rule of thumb is to add 2 point of strength for every 3 levels. (roughly equivalent to granting 2 profs at 15 build) If the other fighters on the module can drop a monster in 4 swings, then a boosted fighter should be able to kill it in 5 or 6. A level can also be spent on a parry/slay, 1-3 physical weapon attacks (ie “physical strike flamebolt (20)”), or the ability to swing 10s as a critical attack.

For scholars, the basic idea is to make sure that they can throw a lot of spells without expending all their resources for the weekend. One method is to allow spellcasters to treat the adventure as if it’s a full day of spells. After it’s over, their spell pyramid will return to what it was before they began the module. Another method is to add a pool of of 20 healing or elemental damage per level which they can cast in increments of 5 or 10 at a time, similar to the element’s fury cantrip. You can grant a few times-ever spell-like abilities such as Dragon’s Breath or Cure Mortal Wounds, or allow the caster to regain a certain number of spell slots by meditating after each encounter during the adventure.

Templars Boost Transforms combine the building techniques for fighters and scholars.

Boost Transforms for Rogues are built similar to fighters, but substitute assassinate/dodge and waylay, for fighter skills and grant twice as much backstab damage as you would strength.

A Boost Transform’s stats are clustered around a theme. This often reflects a role in combat such as melee, ranged attacks, healing, buffing, debuffing, or ambush. They usually also incorporate a setting flavor such as golems, fae, necromancy, celestial magic, earth magic, tyrran forces, lycanthrope, or one of the elements.

Our game makes it difficult to design an appropriate challenge for a group of people with widely different levels of power, so we segregate our players into bands based on level — even though this does not necessarily reflect the real social groups they’d like to hang out with.  It’s very frustrating to be told that you haven’t been playing long enough to join your friends on the adventure into the mummy’s lair.  This is another possible use for Transforms – allowing low level players to participate in more of the game.

A Boost Transform is designed to allow a lower level player to go on a higher level module. Because they’re designed for newer players, these types of transforms  are not complicated; they don’t add wacky powers or complex abilities.

These don’t necessarily have to be enchantments cast on a specific character. The transform can be conferred by an item or other artifact that players may pass around. It might also be bestowed as a Curse of Transformation by an NPC.

Boost Transforms can be treated as a team resource. Perhaps the team has a spare golem back at the manor, or an enchanted mantle they can throw on a newcomer. It allows them to bring an extra person on a module, as long as that person is under a certain level.  The team will be on the lookout for low level players to bring along so they can use their resource. This is an opportunity to give a new player a taste of the high level game and get plugged into the weekend’s plotlines.

Boost Transforms could also be granted to a specific player through their character concept or history. This makes that player an attractive choice to bring on a module.

Boost Transforms may also be linked with a plotline. For example, whenever characters visit the forest of Fae, they are greeted by a Trickster Riff who wishes to tag along and assist somebody. Consider giving Boost Transforms a power or ability which is necessary to complete one of that plotline’s challenges. This insures that a newer player gets the opportunity to be in the spotlight as the hero of the adventure.

Sample Boost Transforms

Here’s a few examples of Boost Transforms. If you have ideas for how they could be improved, or other ideas for Boost Transforms, hit up the comments!

Clockwork Harness

•  +10 Physical Armor
• +6 strength
• 1 Parry/Slay       or    (Steam Jets) 100 point pool of elemental flame. (May throw in bursts of 10)

Trickster Riff

• +15 Dex Armor
•  2 Assassinate/Dodges    or    (Quickling’s Trick) 150 point pool of elemental lightning. (May throw in bursts of 10)
• Magic Inspiration x 2

Dan asked if I’d share some thoughts I wrote about transforms and transform plot over here at NEROlogy.

Transforms seem to stir up a lot of mixed feelings, because some people associate them with less than stellar experiences. However, they offer some amazing opportunity for creativity and personalization when they are handled well. So here are some examples of great things I’ve seen done with transform plot in the past. I hope you’ll comment with your own examples and ideas too.

NPCs that are transform hooks AND something else

Transform plot can be really narrowly focused, so you don’t want to send out an NPC to do only that, if you can help it. So you double up. For example:

• A dream elemental NPC who is an IG marshal for dreamvisions, and is the guy who gently suggests that people go to bed when major plot is done for the night. He’s also the guy that people talk to if they want a dream transform, and who trains and tests PC dream elementals
• A life elemental who is delivering info for a major plotline can also be a point-of-contact for a PC who wants to become a life knight.
• An undead hunter can be a mod hook, and also answer PC’s questions about how to join his order.

This works best if you get a sense of what kind of transforms PCs are interested in, so you can make sure the appropriate NPCs are out there, doing various other things. Then it’s just up to the PCs to approach them. Having a variety of potential transform-hook NPCs also lets PCs learn about what’s possible so they can decide what they want.

Transforms as an opportunity for more cool costumes

How much costuming people do for transforms seems to vary wildly between chapters, but I really dig games where the transformed folk have special masks and costuming for when they go active. None of this “visibly a phoenix” stuff; the girl has red, feathery wings and fiery costuming! (Full disclosure: I’m a mask-maker, so I have a vested interest in convincing more people to get cool transform masks!)

Transforms as a part of ongoing plot

Transform plot doesn’t have to be something that happens instead of a main storyline; it can be a part of it.

There is an elemental NPC who will only give certain plotline information out in exchange for service. So to get the info the PCs need, someone has to accept a transform from the NPC (and possibly do specific tasks for her).

or

There’s a major plot arc that involves fae courts. The PC base is doing mods, encounters, and fights to help the various courts defeat a mutual enemy. As a way of thanking the PCs who helped them, the leader of a court offers the opportunity for PCs to join their court as knights or champions(possibly after some further questing). Those PCs who join the court receive some kind of appropriate fae transform.

This sort of thing can also be personalized- In one such situation, there was a PC who was interested in fae plot, but his character also really cared about money, to an obsessive degree. So he was offered the chance to earn a leprechaun transform. His stat card was custom-written so he could utilize his money to be more effective when his transform was active.

Plot for scroll-earned transforms, too

Some people draw a major distinction between transforms PCs gain from interactions with NPCs, or transforms cast from formal scrolls. However, for the most part, they can both be handled in similar ways.

A PC wants to be a treeant, but has no idea how to go about pursuing this through plot (he’s never met a treeant NPC), so he has someone get a scroll for him instead. He has the scroll cast on him, and on another PC. One of the staff members sees that they’re really into this thing, so he makes a treeant NPC to go talk to them and test them, teaching them what treeants have to learn. Even though they already have their transforms, this NPC can help them get them higher level/re-upped, as well as teach them IG what they need to know to be a proper treeant.

Plot that is fun for non-transformed folk

There also seems to be this idea floating around that all transform-related plot is destined to be unfun for non-transformed PCs: dull and envy-inducing. That isn’t necessarily the case at all though! You just have to come up with cool, useful, and interesting things for the other PCs to do.

So the treeant guys’ first test is to be able to conceal themselves in the woods, and they have the time between events to prepare. The guys get all their natural-colored costuming, and bark-looking masks. One of them buys a ghillie suit! The next event, they are told at the appropriate time to conceal themselves by the NPC treeant.

Then the NPC goes and hires a group of players (lower-level and out-of-chapter guys, if I recall correctly) to go find these guys who are hiding in the woods. They split up and canvas the area, and eventually locate both of the hiding PCs. 

The non-transformed characters had an absolute blast, though I’m pretty sure some of them to this day have no idea the people they were hunting for were PCs. The transform guys pass their test, and the the other PCs have a great time hunting for them, and get treasure. Win-win!

Transforms as player-directed plot

Few things get players as invested as giving them the reins a bit, and transform plot can be a neat way to do that.

A PC approaches a dream elemental NPC and tells him that he has had a lot of interaction with Dream in the past, and would now like to work towards getting a transformation. Over the next few events, they have conversations about it in which the PC is asked what he wants his purpose to be as a dream elemental. The PC says he wants to give people hope in bad situations.

So the PC is given a series of tasks, over the next several events, where he has to talk to people who are feeling despair, and inspire them. So the main plot of the weekend might involve a liche who destroyed a town, but this PC’s specific task would be to talk to the survivors and encourage them to persevere and rebuild. His transform quest is somewhat self-directed, but it’s integrated into the existing plot of the game, not divorced from it.

When the PC has completed all of his tasks, he gets a transform with a personalized stat card– he has some of the usual dream elemental abilities, but not all; instead he has abilities that let him cast inspiration or renew the abilities of others with a rousing speech.

Transforms as a level equalizer/social switch-ups

Part of the problem with character level in NERO is that it often restricts which PCs can do fun stuff with each other. Transforms usually draw those lines in different ways, so a transform mod can provide an opportunity to hang out with different people than usual. If they’re both transformed, a 10th level guy can be as effective as a 40th level guy. Also, rather than go on a mod with people your level, or the people from your barony, you could go on a mod with all the elemental-transform people, or all the nature-themed-transform people.

Transform opportunities from emergent plot

Sometimes you plan out in advance what transforms are available through a particular plotline. And sometimes things just come to you:

There’s a fairly new, very young player, whose character is a gypsy rogue. The weekend plot has to do with elementals attacking and some weird elemental gateways.

By happenstance, this rogue finds himself caught on the other side of one of these gateways on the plane of earth, with an angry earth elemental. The elemental rants about how awful Tyrrans are, and why he’s mad, and threatens the gypsy. In classic fashion, he talks his way out of it, promising he’ll be the elemental’s ambassador, and convince those awful Tyrrans to stop whatever they’re doing.

So throughout the course of the weekend, as PCs are dealing with the plotline, this gypsy is the go between for the PCs and the earth elementals. PCs do various tasks to close the gates and solve the weekend plotline, and the gypsy keeps reporting back to his elemental boss. They have a lot of conversations like:

“Ahh, so you have told the Tyrrans of our might, and have convinced them to surrender their puny efforts to attack my realm?”

“Uhh, sure, ‘zat ees exactly vhat happened.”

Of course the staff member playing the elemental knows that’s not quite what happened, but his NPC doesn’t, so the charade continues, until the end of the event, when the plotline is finally solved, and the gateway closed. The earth elemental then rifts into town to congratulate the gypsy in front of all the PCs (and to see if someone tells him the real story).

Elemental: “I have come to congratulate my ambassador, who has single-handedly crushed the enemies of the earth realm and destroyed the accursed gateways that were eroding our home. Huzzah!

Crowd of PCs: Wooo, yaaaay! Huzzah! Go gypsy kid!

(Seriously, not one person outed him or tried to take partial credit for what was obviously a joint effort. It was hilarious and awesome.) So the gypsy gets a boon from the earth elemental.

Later, after being encouraged by other PCs, the gypsy tells the elemental that he’d like to use his boon to get a transformation. However, he tells the elemental that he values his fair, delicate skin, and doesn’t want it to turn all rocky. So the elemental offers to empower him as the ambassador of the earth realm, to represent them on Tyrra. After a few diplomacy-themed tests, the gypsy gets his transform and a personalized stat card.

He’s a newish player, so it has to be pretty simple, but also thematically appropriate. He gets some immunities (like to control), a handful of defenses, and no offensive abilities, but he gets a special power that lets him negotiate with someone in safety. While he is negotiating, he can’t use any other skills, but he calls no effect to everyone expect the one he’s negotiating with. The effect ends if that person attacks him, or if that person is attacked.

It was perfectly apropos for the player, the character, and the IG situation, but it’s definitely not the sort of thing that would be in a standardized transform database. Nor should it be, I think. Part of the value of the transform to that player was that someone took the time to customize something just for him.

As a bit of background: the National Monster Database is a set of 319 monster stat cards which are distributed to all chapters of NERO. Chapters don’t have to use these monster’s stats, but it’s encouraged that they do so that there’s continuity in the creatures you encounter all over the country. During the game, the stats are often tweaked and tailored (this is called “scaling”) to adjust for players they’ll be facing – as well as other concerns of the LARP weekend.

So let’s take a look at some of the most important data: hit points, damage, and APL. All monster cards have an APL, or “approximate player level”. This is theoretically supposed to tell us which experience level players this monster is a good match against. When these monsters were created, there was probably some formula to calculate the monster’s APL, but I suspect this equation is lost to the mists of time. APL is a good method of ballparking a monster’s power, but shouldn’t be interpreted too literally.

This first chart displays the relationship between body points and approximate player level.

Based on this chart, a few things seem to pop out:

• The majority of the content in the database is designed to fight characters of level 15 and under.
• Past level 15, there is less fine differentiation between levels of monster power. Monsters are clustered around APL 15, 20, 25, 30, 35.
• Before level 20, it’s very rare for a monster to have over 100 body points

The second chart displays the relationship between approximate player level and long/short weapon damage. This may be a bit misleading because many monster’s weapon attacks are dangerous because of their carrier attack, not their damage number. And monsters with two handed weapons often have much higher damage than long/short weapon users due to the monster’s strength bonus. That being said, we can still get a rough idea of how monster’s damage input is related to their approximate player level.

This chart shows us:

• Before level 15, most monsters swing 5s to 10s.
• Not many monsters swing 20s before adding PC skills and other buffs. So if you’re fighting a creature that swings 20s, it’s probably been scaled up.

Here’s the relationship between weapon damage and body points. I thought this might be useful because in my experience, directors tend to scale based on body points rather than player level anyway. Level is a rather abstract way of evaluating a monster’s power – body points and weapon damage are generally a more reliable measure of what it’ll be capable of and how long it will last.

The rule of thumb I’ve seen in many NPC camps is to stat monsters with about 1 weapon damage per 10 body. For example, you tend to see monsters with 40 body swinging 4s, 50 body swinging 5s, 60 body swinging 6s, et cetera. This usually gets tweaked after adding abilities and other scaling factors, but that’s the template. On this chart we can see that this is more or less in line with the monster database up until monsters have over 80 body. It’s rare for a basic monster to swing over 10s.

And in summary, here are the averages for each level bracket:

Based on this, we can say:

• A mid level monster has about 3x as many hit points as a low level monster
• A high level monster has about 2x as many hit points as a mid level monster
• Weapon damage increases by about 1 point per five levels

Keep in mind that these numbers do not account for armor, carrier attacks, threshold, magic, player character levels, and other abilities which many monsters possess. But as a very rough thumbnail of the monster database, I thought this was very interesting.

Did you learn anything about our monsters from these data? Let us know in the comments.

But in reality, it doesn’t feel like we’re all playing in the same world, does it? You play in one or more chapters in your region, and the rest of the world is kind of irrelevant. Think about it: are you worried about undead taking over the chapter on the other side of the country? You don’t care — it has no impact on the game you play. You rarely hear news from chapters outside your region.

One of the ways that I want to combat this is to establish a real setting guide. I want to capture all the information about our setting in one place so you can see how your chapter fits into the world context.

In 2006, I wrote a manuscript for the Guide to Tyrra, a big book about the Tyrran setting. Part of the goal was to compile and index the hundreds of pages of history, race packets, and other documents hosted on nerolarp.com. I also wanted to document the setting as it exists now and chronicle recent Tyrran history. A lot of drama and real-life chaos has happened in the interim, but the book is slowly inching towards publication. (quick side note: biggest factor delaying this publication? lack of budget) I gotta tell you – it was really challenging to write! In part because it’s hard to find all that info and put it in context, and in part because of a weird philosophical problem: When we’re talking about an imaginary world, what makes something true? The source documents for our setting contain numerous contradictions.  Whenever you declare something as true, you end up alienating the people who believe it is false. For example, does anybody know anything about the NPC Kingdom Dar Khabad? Is it one of the “three sister kingdoms” or has it joined the kingdom of Evendarr? Is it ruled by mages? mercenaries? A king? Even basic information about Dar Khabad varies dramatically by where you’re playing.

Originally, I had intended on including a lot of chapter-specific information in the Guide to Tyrra. I wanted to have two to five encyclopedia-style pages about each chapter. That would really bring the setting to life, wouldn’t it? This proved to be a very daunting task. Some people were amazingly helpful, others went out of their way to be counterproductive. Seriously, people actually worked to make sure I’d fail at this task even though I was basically trying to publish a commercial for their game. There’s also this catch 22 that some people want me to prove that I’m trustworthy before they participate, thereby hamstringing cooperative projects and ensuring their failure. Long story short, the Guide is now focused on general setting info, including material on races and world history, but does not include much geography or chapter specific setting info.

One of the things I realized is that there are more efficient ways of capturing that chapter-level creative output than relying on a single contact point to index all of it. Luckily for us, technology exists for exactly this purpose: The Wiki.

There used to be a NERO setting wiki called Tyrrapedia. It eventually shut down for a variety of reasons, but it did succeed as a proof of concept of how this medium could be utilized.

I am creating a NERO setting wiki, another Tyrrapedia, and I want to go about it in a slightly different way. You won’t be posting as your character, you’ll be posting as a scholar who is studying the region you’re writing about. That scholar has visited the region, and he knows most of the stuff that you know out-of-game — except secrets and information you should really find out when you’re actually playing the LARP.

Why not just post as our characters? Lots of reasons. My character has an agenda and he is biased in certain ways which counter the goal of an information wiki. And by making Tyrrapedia a theater for politics and personal character goals, we would be setting the stage for edit wars. That strikes me as incredibly lame… an edit war is something that exists squarely in the 21st century – if I engage in one, what exactly is my character doing? When I tell people about this, do I say I traveled thousands of miles to a scholarly institute where I spent a few hours crossing out information that other people had written and plugging in my own notes? It’s a stretch.

The scholars who are writing the Guide are NPCs. Therefore we shouldn’t have to worry too much about player-characters who will be disruptive, wikiturf, editorialize, or portray events in a personally favorable way. And if they do, we can always moderate it.

I want Tyrrapedia (and the setting it describes) to be a true product of the NERO community. Chapter staff members will be able to moderate their own pages and make sure that their setting is presented how they’d like. We’ll also be open to players writing about the setting and filling in all those little details which make it come to life.

Part of this will involve coming up with policies which will settle the inevitable disputes. Here’s an example of the types of inconsistencies that will occur: a few weeks ago at Ravenholt, I was walking around my manuscript for the Guide to Tyrra. I showed it to Jade Marston, a veteran NERO player who wrote the bulk of the NERO Sarr Race Packet. I thought she’d be thrilled because the section in the Guide on Sarr is very closely based on the published race packet. But she was actually quite frustrated. She said that when she wrote the packet, she decided that Sarr have the same lifespan as a human. But at some point, somebody who was editing the packet decided that each clan of Sarr has a different life span. Some clans have long lives, others only live to age 10.

I’m not sure who made this change. My best guess is that the original race packet was modified to jive with information that had been established somewhere else in the country. Jade was really frustrated by this – she’s been playing her NERO character for longer than many Sarr’s lifespan. She feels responsible for this data and asked me to change it to the “correct” lifespan.

This is the really frustrating thing about standardizing conflicting information. If I were to modify this piece of information to match Jade’s intent, it will alienate the hundreds of NERO players who have Sarr characters and have been roleplaying a short lifespan. But if I don’t change it, I’ll have stepped on the toes of an author who cares greatly about that information. There’s really no way to satisfy everybody, so the best I can do is to satisfy the most people. This is par for the course when collaborating with this many people – no concept survives untouched.

And this is why wiki is the perfect format to collect information on a collaborative setting. If there’s incorrect information on the wiki, you can correct it yourself. If the community is working together on the setting, we can establish consensus and work towards a coherent description.

Assuming everything goes fine on the technical end,  the new incarnation of Tyrrapedia should be launched in the next few weeks.  We will be accepting applications for moderators. I would like to get as many NERO members involves as possible — so long as they are interested in cooperating and can roll with the daunting challenges of this project.

And in the end, if we succeed, we will have made our giant 40+ chapter setting much more tangible and accessible. It will feel like you’re playing in one corner of a large fascinating world ripe for exploration. We will have captured a lot of data which currently exists only as an oral tradition. And we will be standing atop the largest and richest setting guide of any existing LARP.