8.16.2000
This letter is meant to brief you on what you need to know BEFORE you get to the game site. By the time you come to the game, you should have a character, this letter and any handouts which your character sheet says you should have. If you do not have these, contact me by e-mail and I will see what I can do. You will want to at least be familiar with the Dramatis Personae for your city – these have been posted on the web for a month or so – they will be posted in the Green Room at the game, but we won’t have extra copies to hand out (I recommend printing them out if you want a copy at the game).
Also, please arrive in character to the game – I don’t want a big game of “Start your engines!” We’ll hand you an envelope with your stuff in it as you walk in the door. If you want to peruse it out of character, that’s what the Green Room is for (see below).
If you are going to be late, please let us know. If you do not show up by 9:15, we will consider recasting your character.
There are multiple in game sites, all on or near the Fairgrounds. Everything is taking place “in character” – if you want to go somewhere where you say “We’re not here.”, you have to go somewhere else. The Green Room is the only place for you to be out of character. The Green Room is the kitchen off of the Conference/Check-In room and clearly labeled. There you can hang out, out of character, talk about the ballgame, play cards, bitch about the storytellers, whatever. One note: while you are free to go anywhere on the Fairgrounds that you can (legally) get into, there is a Trailer Park on the north side of it and we ask you to keep quiet while you are outdoors on that side of the grounds.
We are doing something very, very different this year. We are having a live concert/rave happening at the same site as the game. The rave is open to the players and can be used as a site, but the rest of the site is not open to the concertgoers. The character nametag this year doubles as a VIP badge to the concert, and Security (hired security goons, not players or storytellers) will let you go more or less anywhere if you have this badge on – DO NOT LOSE THE BADGE.
If you need directions to the Fairgrounds, they are elsewhere on the website. When you arrive at the game site, there should be signs directing you to VIP check-in. It’s on the south side of the Auditorium building – near the Fairgrounds office. If all else fails, the people at the front door of the Auditorium (on the east side) can point you around to where you are going. All players should go to VIP check-in, where you will register, get your VIP badge, ribbon, discipline cards and influences. We are also asking for a donation of $10. We are aware this is higher than average for a LARP, but we certainly expect this experience to be worth it. We are also going to need help setting up before the game and, more importantly, clean-up after the game.
The doors for the game open at 8:15. The doors to the general public opens at 8:45, the first band starts playing at 9:00. Simultaneously with the Final Match of the Tontine, the Rave ends at 2:00 AM, when Security will be kicking all the non-players out, and as soon as they are all gone, we’ll have the Black Lottery and end the game.
The Small Animal Building is the Tontine House, where the elimination rounds of the fighting and the combat tournament will take place. Somewhere there will be the Old Dutch Cemetary, and the Chapel will play host to a variety of events, notably the Poker Game and the Slave Auction. While there aren’t any scheduled events at the Covered Bridge merely a half-mile away, since the game is in Sleepy Hollow, we just might incorporate it somehow…...
The combat rules are simple. Last year, we had the same system. You have a black ribbon – you get into a physical challenge with someone, you need to compare ribbons. Whoever is longer, wins. If you don’t have a KILL card you cannot kill someone – we’re enforcing morality a little bit here. This is a little bit forced, but every one shot without a similar mechanic seems to end up in a huge game of “Let’s see who lasts the longest.” Since I use most of these same characters every year, I want continuity, not mass death. Change from previous years: to get a KILL card, you have to petition a storyteller. Thusly, you can acquire them over the course of the game. There will be some at the beginning of the game which are from pre-established character histories, but if you don’t have one, you have to petition us. If you do acquire a Kill card, you still have to beat someone in a physical challenge (whose ribbon is longer). And if you unsuccesfully use a Kill card on someone else, they automatically have a KILL card on you. And even if you successfully kill someone, that doesn’t mean that certain Princes won’t hunt you down and kill you. If you kill someone, Grendel gets a KILL card on you if he knows about it…...
The other disciplines are slightly different, although there are no blue ribbons this year. If you have a discipline which says you can do something to another player, you can do that UNLESS they have the counter discipline. For example: “Dominate: Command the Wearied Soul: You can make one player perform one simple command. Useable ten times a night against Willpower 5 or lower.” Unless the other player has a Dominate Resistance at a Willpower greater than 5, it works. No flip, no nothing. Yes, it’s automatic, yes it’s static, but we don’t care. There are also a number of discipline cards which manipulate the length of your ribbon, in which case little pieces of ribbon would be taped to the card. Each piece of ribbon is usable once and the card will state if they can be used all at once or not. Please note that there will not be a lot of Dominate or Auspex at this gathering, so don’t panic if you have no WP resistance – it probably won’t be that big a deal. If we feel your character will be unfairly abused without one, odds are good you’ll have one. In general, specific stats and generation are not important. If it becomes an issue, we’ll deal with it then.
There will be different colored 3”x 5” index cards – purple cards will be Tontine Moves (see Tontine rules), green cards will be influence, white cards information chits and pink will be disciplines and resistances.
All of these mechanics (with the exception of group combat) are designed to take place WITHOUT the storyteller. If you need one, you’ll have to find one. Or call one (but see below). We would prefer that both players came to a mutually satisfactory conclusion, or got a third party to arbitrate the conflict, but we are here for that reason. With only 4 Storytellers and probably over 80 players, I don’t know how much time we’ll have.
The Tontine Rules are posted online, and the combat system is different and completely non-associated with all the rest we have here. When you get to the game you will have a handful of purple cards which are Tontine Moves – read the rules for details.
There were three goals of the Tontine combat system:
In writing 75 unique characters over the course of the last 5 months, I am confident that I have made some errors despite repeated proof reading. I apologize for that – also the name of the character is more important than the gender; we underestimated the number of female players and some of the pronouns may not have gotten changed here or there.
In addition to the white VIP badges that all the players will wear Storytellers, members of the band, concession booth operators and certain others will have orange buttons that will identify them as “Event Promoters”, “Band”, “Crew”, or whatnot. The orange buttons mean that they are not susceptible to the laws of the game – disciplines will not work on them and they may brush you aside or blow you off so that they can do their prospective job. This especially applies to the members of the band when they are playing. We are putting on a concert which people are paying money to get into and we don’t want to screw up the bands.
The “Event Promoters” are your Storytellers – myself (Kurt Sahr), Scott Shanks, Stephanie McMechan, Dan Barnack.
Also, as a forewarning, the cellular phone towers are going to be blown up by a character to be named later on the night of August 19, shortly before sundown. There will be no cellular communication between players…..the Storytellers’ phones are purely OOC.
Also, this is a “Masquerade” event – there is a live concert going on here, if you pull shit in the view of mortals, especially in the concert auditorium, there will be in-game consequences. And don’t think that Grendel’s ghouls won’t tell him…...
I know I don’t have to say this, but I do every year, and that’s to please be courteous of our hosts. The Benton County Fairgrounds was nice enough to rent us this site and cut us a couple of breaks, and the property belongs to them. I don’t want to get kicked off the property at 11:00 pm because we’re too damn loud or somebody’s breaking shit or breaking into shit.
Soft drinks will be available for sale as will concert/game T-shirts and CD’s for the bands involved.
Joe Sherlock, a local filmmaker will be playing the part of movie director Bill Blaze and will be filming a lot on the property, including some of the game. He IS an in-game character but wearing an orange badge. Nothing he films you doing will threaten the "Masquerade". Point being, if you don't want to allow your image to be used in any film projects that Joe is shooting extra footage for, I need to know now. Thank you.
If there is anything I am forgetting, I am sure I will be reminded of it shortly. I will be sending this to all players as an attachment as well as posting it online…
If you have any further questions, please e-mail myself at kurtsahr@home.com or call me at 541-753-7008 BEFORE SATURDAY and I’ll be happy to answer those questions. If you have questions Saturday, use e-mail or save them for the game.
Thanks a lot. Have fun role-playing.
Kurt