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enthusiastickI had a revelation today:
The LARP of the future will be electronic. I was thinking about the way chops are currently thrown, and how some people prefer to use chops decks or automated computer programs to randomize the outcome. From there its really just a short step from having everything automated to a certain extent.
Think about it... in the near future each player will possess a cell phone (or something like that) which at this point is complicated enough that its a PDA unto itself, essentially a low-power computer. What's to stop LARPers from utilizing those devices to their maximum potential? Each phone has a copy of the character's sheet and a program used for executing challenges. And the whole thing is networked through the Storytellers' laptop - meaning a record is kept of every single challenge thrown.
I'm not just talking about combat chops, although those could certainly be streamlined. I picture a utopian Vampire LARP where your cell phone vibrates when you're being summoned, telling you by whom. Where you engage in a Telepathy challenge to determine someone's Derangement or Negative Trait and the phones retrieve it automatically without needing to pause the game and search for a Storyteller to whisper it in your ear.
At that point there's not even a particularly good reason to stick to the clumsy rock-paper-scissors system, which is statistically unsophisticated only for simplicity's sake. Man, it could be so cool...
The LARP of the future will be electronic. I was thinking about the way chops are currently thrown, and how some people prefer to use chops decks or automated computer programs to randomize the outcome. From there its really just a short step from having everything automated to a certain extent.
Think about it... in the near future each player will possess a cell phone (or something like that) which at this point is complicated enough that its a PDA unto itself, essentially a low-power computer. What's to stop LARPers from utilizing those devices to their maximum potential? Each phone has a copy of the character's sheet and a program used for executing challenges. And the whole thing is networked through the Storytellers' laptop - meaning a record is kept of every single challenge thrown.
I'm not just talking about combat chops, although those could certainly be streamlined. I picture a utopian Vampire LARP where your cell phone vibrates when you're being summoned, telling you by whom. Where you engage in a Telepathy challenge to determine someone's Derangement or Negative Trait and the phones retrieve it automatically without needing to pause the game and search for a Storyteller to whisper it in your ear.
At that point there's not even a particularly good reason to stick to the clumsy rock-paper-scissors system, which is statistically unsophisticated only for simplicity's sake. Man, it could be so cool...
