| Stage of the Open Air is a Live Action Role Playing game, or LARP. Role playing can best be described as group story telling, or improvisational acting. This means that all the people involved in the game are working together to tell a story, to create a unique environment that encourages creativity and imagination. Everyone in the game plays a role, that is, they portray a character in the fantasy game world. There are two types of characters in Stage of the Open Air: Player Characters (or PCs), and Non-Player Characters (or NPCs). PCs are the main characters, they are usually the heroes of the story. They play the same character from event to event, and that character grows and changes as time goes on. NPCs are the members of the supporting cast. They are the monsters that roam the forests, the peasants that live in the town, the villains, and all the extras that walk around and make the world more believable. NPCs are assigned their roles by a Host, a coordinator of an event. Hosts are the staff members that do most of the behind-the-scenes work and plan how an event plays out. Hosts are also the referees and at times, the narrators. The rules in this manual are the essential rules that every player, PC or NPC, needs to know. Hosts are expected to fully understand and have mastery of these rules. PC Concepts All characters in Stage of the Open Air can be described by their skills and statistics. When a PC is created, he or she starts with a certain number of points to be spent on learning and advancing their skills, as well as other factors that describe a character, such as perks. As the game goes on, PCs earn experience points, or XPs. These points can be spent on further advancing a character. The base starting XP is 15. When creating a PC, you can earn some personal plot by handing in a character background before the character’s first event. This is a write up of what your character has done leading up to his first event. It includes important information about the character, as well as his or her hopes and dreams. PC backgrounds must be somewhat realistic- they can’t give a character any more power than a new character would normally start off with. New characters cannot start as knights, nobility, be heirs to thrones, or begin with more skills than they have bought. They cannot have been made world-famous, or have accomplished mythical feats of heroism. Backgrounds can be rejected or modified by Hosts for any reason. How to Write a Good Background Backgrounds are very important for the overall plot line for your PC. It is a good idea to have one ready before your first or second event. Your background will help plot along with deciding what happens to your character, and what your character will get involved with. Writing a good background is fairly easy. You just need to think about what direction you want your character to go into. The first thing to put into a background is your character concept. What kind of person is the character? What is your character's trade? Is the character a good person? A neutral person? An evil person? Will the character do anything for a gold? This kind of information is good to include in your character concept. Next is the written background. Tell us a story about how your character came to our game. Tell us about his parents, tell us about what he likes, what he doesn’t like. How is your character motivated? Does your character have any hopes and dreams? What are your character’s goals? If you need more information about the game setting, please contact a host. It is in your best interest to have your character fleshed out before the game begins. Your background is also a tool for the hosts to get you involved in specific plots, and provide interesting situations for your character. One word of advice: Your background cannot give your character any special advantages unless you first petition a host. You will not start off as a noble, own magic items, or be a world renowned figure. Keep it humble. PC Creation Check List The following is a list of things to consider when creating a new character. The order they are presented in is merely a suggestion- you can go through the list in any order you feel comfortable with. You may not be familiar with a few terms- these will be explained later. (1) Character Concept: what is your character about? A fighter, a thief, a healer? What Alliance (if any) does he belong to? Write up a draft of his background. Thoroughly fleshing out your character will help you with the next steps. (2) Select a Race: What races interest you, and how much make-up do you feel comfortable applying? (3) Buy Skills, and Perks: Use the starting XP of your character to spend on a basic set of skills. Buying prerequisite perks, or one-time use skills at character creation isn’t wise. A weapon skill, and some extras is about all beginning characters should be looking into. Don’t worry if you can’t buy everything you want- if your character lives long enough, you’ll get the opportunity to. (4) Assemble a costume: Get together a set of clothes for your character. Make sure you have clothes that you’re not afraid to get dirty, and that you feel comfortable in. Under normal circumstances, you are allowed to bring two weapons (or a weapon and a shield) and one suit of armor into the game, which should be a part of your costume. Your costume should not contain anachronistic articles of clothing: jeans, printed shirts, sunglasses, or other items that do not belong in a medieval fantasy setting. Skills Skills are abilities that your character learns throughout their lives. Advancing weapon damage, adding to your mana pool, and being able to withstand more damage are all considered skills. Skills are bought with xp, and as a general rule are abilities which can be bought repeatedly. Some skills have a max rank, which represents the maximum amount of times the skill can be bought. Weapon damage is one such skill. In addition to the skills which you will find in this manual, there are many skills which may be found in-game, and can only be taught by skilled teachers. Upon completion of learning a skill, the teacher will issue a scholar card to the student, who may take it down to Host Quarters where it will be authorized and added to the character’s card. Perks Another concept that must be considered when creating a character is the character’s perks. Perks describe special bonuses that make a character unique. Perks cost a number of xp to buy, and can only be bought once at any time. Perks may also be learned by obtaining scholar cards from a teacher in game. They give a character advantages or abilities that unlike skills, cannot be rated by times bought. Level A character can also be described in terms of level. A characters level is an numerical indication of his or her total experience in the world. To determine what level a character is, look at your total xp. Level is defined by 15xp + 10xp per level above 1. So level 1 is 15 xp, level 2 is 25 xp, 3 is 35, 4 is 45, 12 is 125, etc. Level is mostly important to hosts for logistical reasons, and for gaining xp on the xp chart. Experience Experience points, or xp is gained and used to buy more skills, and perks. Xp gained at every event is measured by the characters level. The more the character experiences, the less things will drive them to learn new skills. This makes it so low level characters will advance fast, and high level characters will advance slowly. After every event, look up on the chart, find your level, and add the new amount of xp earned. Level Xp awarded per event 1 (15 – 24 xp) 10xp 2 (25 – 34 xp) 8xp 3 (35 – 44 xp) 7xp 4 (45 - 54 xp) 6xp 5 (55 – 64 xp) 5xp 6 (65 – 74 xp) 4xp 7-9 (75 - 104 xp) 3xp 10-15 (105 - 164 xp) 2xp 16+ (165+ xp) 1xp Combat and Hit Points When worse comes to worse, a fight will break out. When someone swings a weapon at someone else, they will call out the amount and/or type of damage the weapon is doing. This is usually a numerical representation, though in-game calls are often used as well. The amount of damage a character can sustain in combat before passing out is abstracted with a hit point number. Each character starts with a maximum number of hit points (most races start with around 20). Things like weapons or healing spells may add or subtract from a character’s hit points, healing cannot increase a character’s number of hit points beyond his maximum hit point number. Combat is described in more detail in the Combat section. Cycles Game play is divided up into cycles. The average length for a cycle is an hour, unless otherwise announced at the beginning of an event. At the beginning of a new cycle, most skills and powers that the character has “used up” during the course of the previous cycle come back. Individual skill descriptions read “This skill may be used once per cycle.” These skills are reset at the beginning of each cycle. In Game and Out Of Game If a player is in-character, and is participating in the game, he is considered ‘in-game’. If anyone is not playing, but is at an event, they are considered ‘out-of-game’. If at any point during the game, a player needs to go out of character and leave the game, he must indicate this by putting his hand or weapon over his head, or by donning a white headband. Characters with a hand or weapon over their head or a white head band should be ignored; any character who is in-game does not see them, and should not interact with them. White headbands may not be included in a character costume, though it is recommended that every player has a white head band. A character can go out-of-game at any time, but needs a good reason to do so. It is not fair to go out-of-game just because you want to avoid a fight, or because you feel like taking a break. Cutting If a rules question comes up, a safety violation occurs, or any out-of-game issues need to be dealt with, a cut may be called. A cut is a hiatus in game play in which everyone in the area stops where they are and freezes until whatever situation that caused the hold to be called is cleared up. For example, if someone drops their glasses, a cut may be called for them to pick their glasses up. Once the glasses are found, the cut should be ended. A cut can be initiated by calling “Cut!” loudly enough so that anyone in the area hears it. As soon as the cut is called, game play stops. The cut ends by someone calling “Action!”, which resumes the game at the point which it stopped. The X-count Some actions require an amount of time to complete. This amount of time is signified by repeating a descriptive phrase a number of times. The number varies. some actions take longer than others. If mixing a drink, for example, takes a 3-count to mix, the mixer says, “I mix the drink 1, I mix the drink 2, I mix the drink 3.” Longer actions, such as digging a hole, may require longer counts. Many actions that require an x-count can be ‘interrupted’ by disrupting the counter. For example, if player A is cutting down a tree, which takes a ten-count, and player B wants to stop him from doing this, all player B has to do is force player A to stop cutting. This is often represented by hitting the person you wish to interrupt and calling ‘interrupt’. Any x-count that produces in-game effects, such as building a wall, or regenerating hit points requires an in-game skill to do so. Any character can dig a hole, but it takes special a skill to slit someone’s throat. These in-game skills must also be learned about in-game, they are not available to new characters. Props Though a padded ‘boffer’ weapon may not look much like an actual sword, it does function as a physical representation of one. The characters in the game don’t see PVC pipe, foam, and duct tape, they see a fairly dangerous weapon. The term “Prop” refers to an out-of-game object that represents an in-game object. When you come to the game, you will be given a tag for each of your props. This tag represents that you have the item in-game. For simplicity’s sake, the tags should be attached to or kept near their items. You must have the tag and a prop for any item that you wish to use in game for in game effects. For example, a player needs a tag for his sword and shield, but not for his boots. For example, if you have two tags for long swords, your character is carrying two long swords. But if you only have one padded phys rep, you can only really use one of them. The tag for an item lists what type of item it is, what type of materials it is made of, and how durable it is. Durability of an item is often represented as a number of resists. If a weapon is ‘crushed’ or broken, one resist must be checked off. If all the resists are checked off, and the weapon is crushed one more time, the weapon is destroyed and the tag must be ripped up. If you find or steal a weapon or item without a tag, find a host and see if you can get a tag for it. If you stole the weapon from another player, the host will try to find that player and take the tag for that item. For this reason, it is encouraged that you keep item tags attached to the item itself. This way, if someone steals your weapon, a host won’t have to track you down. If you have another player’s property, you must return it to it’s rightful owner at the end of the event. All phys reps owned by Stage of the Open Air must also be returned at the end of the event. For this reason, it’s usually a good idea to put your name on your items and/or costume. It may sound redundant, but be sure to take home everything you brought! Starting Equipment When you enter the game, you are allowed to bring in as many out-of-game items as you’d like, but you are somewhat limited in how many in-game items you may start with. When you come to a Stage event, your weapon will have to be checked by a Host for safety purposes. Starting characters may enter the game with tags for up to two weapons (for logistical reasons, a shield counts as a weapon), and one suit of armor. Armor will be evaluated and assigned a point value. Magic Items It is possible to acquire enchanted items that will endow their users with special abilities. Magic wands, potions, and scrolls are examples of these. Some examples of common magic items follow. Activation Items provide their users with a way to tap their stored energy. In order to use an activation item, one must be touching the item, and may have to say a particular word or phrase, or complete some other trigger. This will release one of the magics stored in the item. For example, a magic wand may allow the user to cast a light spell if the user touches it and says a special word. Scrolls are pieces of paper with a spell stored in them. Casting the spell will destroy the scroll. In order to cast a spell from a scroll, the caster must be looking at the scroll, and touch a spell packet to it. The caster must then read the incantation off the parchment, thereby casting the spell. The scroll must then be destroyed immediately after this. Spells can also be copied into spell books via scrolls. In order to cast a spell from a scroll, the caster must have the read magic perk, and must have the prerequisites (Spellcraft, or Religion) to cast spells of the same school as the scroll. (So an arcane caster who’s attempting to cast a divine spell wouldn’t work.) To cast a spell from a scroll, the caster must look at the scroll, read the incantation off of it while ripping the paper. Scrolls are destroyed by casting them, or by copying the spell from them. Potions must be drunk in order to receive their effects. Upon drinking a potion, the drinker must be informed of what type of potion they just drunk. It is possible to force feed a potion to an unconscious or immobilized character with a 3-count. Potions cannot be “stacked” in one container. The first person who sips a drink with a potion in it takes the full effects of the potion. Weapons can be magically sharpened in order to do extra amounts of damage. A +1 sword will essentially add a 1 point bonus to the user’s damage calls. An Example of Character Creation Don, a new player to Stage, is creating his first character. He wants to play a fearsome warrior who has no care for books and magic. Don looks over the races and decides he wants to play as a Goblin. His character will be a cold hearted mercenary who is only motivated by cash. He chooses the name Glibber for his Goblin PC. Don’s Goblin starts with 15 experience points to spend, which means he is level 1. Glibber buys Martial Weapon Blocking, and Martial Weapon Use, because he wants to use a long sword. These Perks costs 8 points together. Because he wants to attack for at least two points of damage, he buys Martial: Longsword Damage +1, which costs him an additional 6 points. He decides he’s going to save the 1 xp for a later event. Don sits down and writes Glibber’s background. From reading about the nine alliances, he decides that Glibber should come from the Chaos Hordes. Don writes that Glibber comes from a barbaric tribe of Goblins that lived off the buffalo of their territory. The core of Glibber’s background occurs one day, when his hunting party was assaulted by a nomadic tribe of humans, who sought to kill Glibber’s friends and take their food and equipment. Glibber ran from the fight rather than staying and valiantly defending his friends. Due to his cowardice, Glibber left his tribe out of shame. To this day, Glibber refuses to run from a fight when his friends are in danger. He has a secret grudge against humans, even though he knows that most humans mean him no harm. Don sculpts a large green nose out of soft cell foam. When he ties it to his face, it fits over his nose. He buys some green makeup, and assembles some clothes (with no logos or anachronistic details) for Glibber to wear. He chooses a green pair of sweat pants and makes a green tabard out of cloth. (A tabard is a six foot by three foot strip of fabric with a hole in the middle for a head. A belt is worn outside it to keep it from flapping around.) Don also makes a boffer long sword, and a cloth belt pouch. When the game begins, he is in costume, in makeup, in character, and ready to play! |
| Game Concepts |