Starlight LARP Design Blog

Hello again!

As most of you know, over the last few months I’ve been writing Starlight, a new Oxford linear system. We’ve had one (fairly successful) playtest of the system so far, and I’d like to invite you all to the second playtest.

You can read more about the system elsewhere on the design blog, but for those of you who don’t want to trawl through the articles there here’s a quick summary of the setting (shamelessly filched from the note about the first playtest):

The Heroes have left, leaving behind the stars in the night sky. The world has fallen into disrepair and the forests are reclaiming the land, as those left behind abandon the will to change the world. But with the stars the Heroes left a legacy that a lucky few are slowly learning to control, and the almost-forgotten heroism of the past is rising once more…

And the system:

A simple and intuitive linear system focused around dynamic combat and character stories. The combat rules are designed to be simple and promote roleplaying as well as leading to interesting and varied fights. Characters are extremely flexible, progression is outwards rather than upwards, and death is not always the end.

We’ve had one playtest already (which you can read about here) and we learned a lot about the game and how the rules could be substantially improved. Of course, there’s probably a lot more that could be improved, and I’m conscious that we missed a number of things in the first playtest. I’m also hoping that through more playtesting we can get a wider spread of people involved and therefore get more feedback.

We’ve been given the date of Saturday 24th September, again occupying the traditional White City slot. This time I’m hoping to run it more closely to how I envisage a regular game panning out, so we get a better look at whether we need to change anything logistically. That is, we will be running a pair of mini-linears written by different GMs, and with different parties. This should mean that almost everyone will hopefully be able to play if they want to. We’ll have lunch and a Q&A/rules wrangling session between the two.

There will be a few more updates going up on the design blog between now and the event so be sure to check back to see more content as it goes up (you can also subscribe via RSS).

—

The when: Saturday September 24th, meeting up between 11-12 and continuing until 5-6ish, with an optional pub visit afterwards.

The where: Initial meet: the Magic Cafe, Oxford, 11am. After midday, we’ll be heading up to Shotover where we’ll be until we finish, and thereafter probably the Angel and Greyhound pub.

The who: Anyone is welcome, whether you’re one of the regular White City crowd or not. If you’re planning on turning up from outside the city, please let me know so I can get a decent idea of numbers. Crash space in the city is usually easy to find, but contact me if you’re struggling and I may be able to help.

The what: The society can lend LARP weapons to some extent. If you have them, please bring your own, especially shields and/or bows (the society has a number of these but they’re more heavily featured in this system than in White City so the more to go around the better). Makeup and kit aren’t provided by the society, so whilst you may be able to borrow some if you’re lucky, please bring your own if you can. You’ll want solid and comfortable footwear, and maybe a couple of layers if it’s cold/wet. Hopefully the weather will hold out but it’s a good idea to be prepared.