Captain Anorak's Guide to Gaming
Live Roleplaying
I've never done live roleplaying. I've known a lot of people who did, and I was always put off by what they told me about the games. It always seemed to me that people were trying to replicate table RPGs like D&D or Vampire in a live form. To me this seems a big mistake.

Every form of game should be played to its strength. The strength of a table RPG is that everything's imaginary, so you can make something happen with no problem as long as it can be imagined and described. Having characters throw fireballs or move at three times normal speed by magic is easy to do in a table game, but very difficult to represent in a live game.

I reckon the strength of live roleplaying is in the adrenaline rush of real action. When those orcs jump out of the bushes you must get a taste of the panic, chaos and excitement of actual combat, as you do in paintballing.

So here's my idea for a live roleplaying system:

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A character starts with six Character Points. Each point can be used to buy either one Hit Point (HP) or one Magic Point (MP). Thus a starting character might have HP6 and MP0, or HP3 and MP3.

COMBAT

Blows to the head and neck are illegal. Players who hit others on the head or neck should be cautioned by the GM, and thrown out of the game if they keep on doing it.

A player has a number of Hit Points (HP) which he must keep track of in his head. When a character takes a blow to any part of the body (except for the head and neck, which are illegal target areas and so don't count if hit), this causes the loss of one HP.

When a character reaches zero HP he is knocked out. This can be represented in one of two ways:

(1) The player falls down and plays dead. Other players should make an effort not to step on him, though that might be difficult in the heat of battle.

(2) The player puts up his hands, says 'I'm out!' and moves out of the field of combat, trying not to get in anyone's way as he does so.

Hit Points never drop below zero.

After the battle, any knocked out characters who are left the the mercy of the enemy are considered to be killed. This can happen if every single player character is knocked out, or if the survivors run away.

Knocked out characters not left to the mercy of the enemy recover after the fight and are restored to full Hit Points.

TIME OUT

At any point during the game, the GM may call a Time Out by shoutuing 'Time Out!' Game-time is then suspended and characters should stay where they are. This should be used to settle any rules disputes or accusations of cheating. The GM ends the Time Out by making sure that characters are ready to restart, then shouting 'Restart!'

MAGIC

At the start of a game, any character with any Magic Points (MP) may choose one spell per MP. A spell is cast once and then lost. It can not be regained during the game. Spells should be represented by cards or tokens which will be handed back to the GM once the spell has been cast (though not in the heat of battle). To cast a spell, a character will normally either point to the target character and shout the name of the spell, or shout the name of the spell followed by the name of the target character.

SPELLS

RESTORE: The caster must be touching the target. The target is restored to full Hit Points, and is not knocked out. This may be cast on the caster himself, but not while knocked out.

BLAST: Blast causes 4 Hit Points damage to one character who is not protected by a Ward.

WARD: Ward is considered to be cast at the beginning of the game, and its effect last for the whole game. It can only be cast on the caster. It gives protection from certain spells. It is impossible to have multiple Wards.