LARP Battle Event

During these events, players are equipped with foam weapons, they made or bought, and optionally armor. They are split into armies (in this case four), each army has its own commander, who is organizer responsible to pass battle scenarios to players.

Theme:

Our theme for this event was Age of Empires, well known game with many fun features, we projected into the game. However players does not represent units in the game (so they can have any weapon or equipment they want).

Players are encouraged to wear costumes to create better atmosphere. They are given sash of army's color to differentiate them from other armies.

Basic rules:

Players can fight, by touching others with their foam weapon, within allowed area.

Strictly restricted areas are:

• Head
• Neck
• Crotch

Hands and Feets does not count as valid hit.

Players are not allowed to stab with their weapons.

Each player has 3 hit points, when he reaches 0 he can refill HPs on set respawn point, if scenario allows it.

In this instructable I want to cover

• Battle scenarios, that are fun and time proven
• Organization tips, how to make things easier for yourself
• More Fun, how to twist things up, to squeeze more fun

How it works:
Easiest scenario ever. Merge players into two armies (commanders will explain, that it is convenient to have allies in this quest), let commanders form players into two lines and ONWARD!

Respawns:

No respawns, are best and most fun. Otherwise battle will split into uncontrollable chaos.

Line battle is great as the first scenario, or final one.

Also known as sheeping :-). Just like in the PC game, players can obtain sheeps as well as loose them. We made bunch of (around 20 for all 120 players) plush sheeps. Some of them had surpriese snack inside them. Sheeps counts as victory points.

Props needed:

• Sheeps, or something similar, players can collect

How it works:

Each army starts in their respawn point (each army has its own, red dot on the map). All around the battle location are randomly placed stray sheeps, players can grab. They are not allowed to throw them. Grabbed sheeps are not counted as victory points, until they are placed into the sheepfold (each army has its own, green point on the map above). Sheepfold is nothing more than 2x2m area, marked with pins and strings. Tell players, that they should not enter the sheepfold. When player who carries sheep has 0 HPs, he has to drop sheep on the ground.

Now comes the twist.

Players CAN steal from each other's sheepfolds, so as a player, you have to decide whether you want to protect your sheepfold, search for new ones or raid other's sheepfolds.

This scenario can be run as long as you want, but good length is somewhere around 20-30 mins. Just make sure players are not overly exhausted.

Winning condition:

Whoever has the most sheeps in their sheepfold when game ended, wins.

Respawn:

When there are five players at respawn point, they are all ressurected with full 3 HPs. Its good idea to have someone there (commander?) who controls this rule.

Bonus:

We made four special sheeps with scarf, the scarf was same color as the army. In these specials, there were packages with some grape sugar tablets. After this scenario commander of each army cut sheep open with knife, and fed his army with it.

Less troubling alternative of this scenario:

We made "bushes" from pile of brushwood. Players had to bring apples that randomly spawned in one of the bush into their base (Organizators placed apples in random intervals into bushes.). Stealing from base was not allowed, and base also served as a respawn point. Army with the most apples wins the scenario. We let players eat the apples as the snack, after this scenario :-).

Respawn is same as in the sheeping.

This one is the most complicated of them all (organization as well as props needed), but is also the most fun.

We bought 2mx500m of geotextile (which is relatively cheap), which served as walls. These walls formed a fort, players were conquering. Inside these walls, there was a contraption hanged on a tree. This contraption had four color coded ropes (for each army one), when player pulled the rope, a flag raised and the fort was in their possession. Whoever possessed the fort longer, was the winner.

Props needed:

• Geotextile
  • or something else to form the walls of the fort, for example strings
• Flags
  • with mechanism players can use
  • or a someone with four flags, who indicates, who possess the fort
    • not ideal, Someone will hinder the battle

How it works:

Fort has one less entrances, than count of armies. So when you have enough people for four armies, make three entrances. This will force players to battle for the fort even more.

It is neccessary to have dedicated someone for a victory points count. His only responsibility is to watch the watch, how long has each army possessed the fort.

Respawn:

This one is really tricky. To make most fun out of this scenario, we need players to keep battling for the fort, and not to get stuck (one army holds the fort, others cant get through). Best way to do this is make strongest army weaker, when they hold the fort.

Just like in the "Sheeping" scenario, players have their respawn points near the point of interest (fort in this case). In this location there is their commander, who determines who is gonna respawn. This is the key. In this scenario, five* players will respawn with 2 min cooldown - that means, when first player arrives, commander starts the 2 min, when time passes, he chooses five* players, of all who waits to return to the battle.

BUT!

To make stronger armies weaker, commander first checks if his army is the one, who holds the fort (their flag is raised) and instead of spawning five players, he only sends back three.

Btw. if you see, there are too many players waiting for revival, you can lower the cooldown from 2mins to 1-1,5.

Winning condition:
Whoever hold the fort longer wins.

Less troubling alternative of this scenario:

You can make geotextile maze with button in the center. Enterance for each army, which serves as a respawn point. There is a man in the center of the maze, who counts the points (how long will army hold the button). Respawn cooldown is 2 mins x 5 players, fixed.

Players have sashes of their army's color, so others can tell which side are they on. This also gives us opportunity to force players to change side during battle! In the computer game, there is this wololo guy (you may know him from memes), who forces units to change side. Let's make him appear in our event!

Props needed:

• 10x foam ball for each army (4 armies = 40 balls)
  • could be cloth bag filled with sand

How it works:

One player of each army (could be commander) is the Wololo guy, he cannot attack with ordinary weapons but he can throw foam balls with 2 min cooldown. When ball successfully hits (no shield, no neck, head, crotch) the player has instantly 0 HPs AND goes to the respawn point of the Wololo guy's color (where he is given new sash).

Other player's quest is to protect their Wololo guy and hunt down one's of the other armies. Wololo guys respawns as normal soldiers, without foam balls.

Respawn:

Respawn point can be moved where needed (could be guy with a flag), but not close to ongoing battle. When five players reach the respawn point, they are all respawned. Wololized guys from other armies are given the right one by the flag guy.

Winning condition:

Army with most people wins

Props needed:

• Six pack of 1.5l water wrapped into jute sack

How it works

One of the two sides tries to transport precious (and heavy) goods to another. Other two sides tries to raid this caravan.

Respawn:

Movable, just like in the Wololo scenario. 2 min cooldown for 5 people.

You can easily create more alternatives of scenarios presented here. For example King of the Hill, you can take away the geotextile walls and change a respawning a bit and you have all new scenario.

We did exactly this and let commanders wait with whole army on sight from the flag contraption. They could only send one player (from each army) who fought in front of everyone. Commanders could respawn for each returning player with one extra - first one to respawn was replaced by two new players, second to respawn with three etc. Five players was the cap. So at the end, every commander could send five new players for each returning. This complicated respawning was made up, so the army holding the device changes often, players thinks that they are constantly beating someone.

The maze scenario could be altered, so that geotextiles are on the ground and cannot be stepped on, or jumped through. Only archers can shoot through them. Lets say the geotextile on the ground is wild water.

and so on and so forth...

This event was designed for 20-35 players / army. So 100-140 players in total. Many players had more than one weapon and wanted to change them during event. This inspired us and we divided game into sections - Ages.

• In the first Age (Dark Age) players were only able to use one handed weapons
• Feudal Age - small shields, one handed weapons, bows + arrows
• Castle age - large shields, spears
• etc.

This made scenarios more interesting, since players fight through them with different weapons. Every Age lasted around hour and a half and contained three scenarios.

One more thing to refresh similar scenarios was mixing players among armies! What we did was after each age, we took all the players into place we called barracks (location with walls made out of geotextile), where they had their belongings, were able to have some snacks, and after some time, we split them into armies randomly.

This made game more interesting, and players met new friends.

Its hard to compare time players possesed the fort with number of sheeps they collected. Since we counted all victory points from all the scenarios to get the ultimate winner, we had to have some kind of comparison of each scenario.

We used following method.

Lets say, we have the results, from the sheeping:

• Red: 8
• Green: 9
• Blue: 1
• Yellow: 2

We sorted results from best to worst:

• Green: 9
• Red: 8
• Yellow: 2
• Blue: 1

Army with most sheeps was given 4 victory points, one with the least 1 VP.

• Green: 4
• Red: 3
• Yellow: 2
• Blue: 1

This way, you can sort any type of results and compare between scenarios. All VPs from all scenarios were added up and resulting score was overall score.

First off, organization of event for this many people is not easy. Of course, to get this many people on your event, it is good idea to make good website, and invite many people on social network communities.

To make this little easier on spot, you need people to help you with the event and they need to know, what they are gonna do. So for example for the commanders, write down all the quests, with the specifics (what to tell the players, how will they respawn, what is the goal of the scenario...) and before every section of the game (if you decide to divide it) tell them again.

And btw. it is much more readable to place this information into a table, than into a mass of text (you can see example of the table above, sadly its in my native language, not english).

Another document you will apprise is order of scenarios, and what is needed to prepare for each one. If you have one, you can pass work of preparation to some of your helpers, and focus on something different (for example, resolving issue, that randomly appeared).

Not every buddy who promise help with your event, shows up. So I suggest organize small pizza sleepover party at your place (or whatever place is near your event location) invite whole organizational team and go together to prepare the location.

I wish you luck during your events!

Kudlas