Downtime Role Play Rules?

General The Rules
#1

I know that this can end up being quite a complex or irregular question, but I was wondering if there were any rules or suggestions in place for Role Playing events or adventures outside of the main Empire Meets?

The reason I ask is that we are going to be attending our first Empire LARP this april and it is quite a large group of us - most of us know each other outside of Empire and so are going in a big gang. My thought would be to have a small adventure (either larping through it somewhere close to home or even table-topping it using DnD rules or some such) to get the Characters better acquainted with each other.

Case in point: I know Bill and Lucy and have known them for a year, maybe more. We hang out every week to watch movies and we banter quite a lot. Bill and Lucy have been dating for as long as I have known them, if not more. However, Bill will be playing a Suaq lumberjack whilst Lucy will be playing a Kallavesi Chirurgeon. (sp) The Characters have never met, nor would they, IC, have interacted before… yet pretending that you don’t know you own girlfriend for four days will not only be awkward, it’ll be downright uncomfortable.
The group we have coming numbers at about ten people, and we all have history together, so my thought was having a small adventure would get us used to our characters and would let us see how our characters would work together - more than that, we would, IC have some tales to tell and some history to share.

I am aware that no real resources can come of these adventures, but perhaps our outfits or even weapons would be slightly different from the adventures or they would have a bit more meaning or history. Perhaps one character would have a great scar across his eye which he earned by defending one of the other team - making it more than just a visual prop or even a basic character background; it would make it a shared memory for the team?

Anyway, back to the question - would this be allowed at all and are there any suggestions for how to go about it? Thanks! :smiley:

#2

[quote=“Shevek”]I know that this can end up being quite a complex or irregular question, but I was wondering if there were any rules or suggestions in place for Role Playing events or adventures outside of the main Empire Meets?

The reason I ask is that we are going to be attending our first Empire LARP this april and it is quite a large group of us - most of us know each other outside of Empire and so are going in a big gang. My thought would be to have a small adventure (either larping through it somewhere close to home or even table-topping it using DnD rules or some such) to get the Characters better acquainted with each other.

Case in point: I know Bill and Lucy and have known them for a year, maybe more. We hang out every week to watch movies and we banter quite a lot. Bill and Lucy have been dating for as long as I have known them, if not more. However, Bill will be playing a Suaq lumberjack whilst Lucy will be playing a Kallavesi Chirurgeon. (sp) The Characters have never met, nor would they, IC, have interacted before… yet pretending that you don’t know you own girlfriend for four days will not only be awkward, it’ll be downright uncomfortable.
The group we have coming numbers at about ten people, and we all have history together, so my thought was having a small adventure would get us used to our characters and would let us see how our characters would work together - more than that, we would, IC have some tales to tell and some history to share.

I am aware that no real resources can come of these adventures, but perhaps our outfits or even weapons would be slightly different from the adventures or they would have a bit more meaning or history. Perhaps one character would have a great scar across his eye which he earned by defending one of the other team - making it more than just a visual prop or even a basic character background; it would make it a shared memory for the team?

Anyway, back to the question - would this be allowed at all and are there any suggestions for how to go about it? Thanks! :smiley:[/quote]

Maybe
profounddecisions.co.uk/empi … ned_events
or
profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Downtime
are the wiki pages you’re after?

If you’re talking about tiny events for just your group - My group have certainly got together down the pub or over Skype a few times to assist with creating our shared background and fiction.
Another place is the empirefiction.livejournal.com/ LJ community, to which people post short stories about their characters.
Collaborating with friends to make your shared background more awesome is absolutely a thing, and I can personally recommend it as great fun! :slight_smile:

You may also want to mention one another and your group in your personal backgrounds, and to submit a group background for your group. I can personally attest that PD do read these and if they’re looking to run plot in your area then they have been known to make use of an eyecatching background.

#3

Firstly, yes there are profounddecisions.co.uk/empi … vent_rules

You probably don’t need to worry about much of that if all you are planning to do is a tavern style social, but if you want to run a small in group skirmish before hand it might be more useful. (As long as you keep it low key I doubt you will have any problems getting official approval if you ask for it.)

Now the table top would be more of a stretch, but you are basically just writing shared background and as long as you keep to the rules about background generation you should be fine. It’s just a different creative process than most people go down.

On a tangent there’s no reason why the Suaq lumberjack and the Kallavesi Chirurgeon couldn’t have met before. If they think it would be awkward to begin as complete strangers. There is presently a Thule force in the north of Sermersuaq, if they would prefer to have met that might be a good starting point for shared background.

#4

Bearing in mind that the three peoples of Wintermark aren’t quite family lines, they could quite happily be family or have grown up in the same place - you’re not a Suaq because your parents are Suaq, you’re a Suaq because you decide on coming of age that you value cunning, pragmatism and survival more than the Kallavesi mysticism and wisdom or the Steinr boldness and directness.

Whether you decide to have your characters having known each other for a decade or two or have bonded over surviving a dangerous situation last week, and however you decide to build those links up, backstory links in your group are great. :slight_smile:

#5

“You guys all seem to know each other, What’s with that?”

“We campaigned together when Skarsind was retaken. Where were you then?”

Job done. :slight_smile:

#6

Nobody is going to force you to start the game not knowing each other. You can choose this option if you wish but it is your choice.

If you look at this page profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Legendary_beasts you will see that encountering some of them in your background is perfectly allowed. A band of heroes that laid low a Mandowla a few years ago and meet up again in the taverns of Anvil to toast the pair that never made it? Sounds like a good start to a tale to me.

#7

Cool thanks for the advice! We’ve already got some history down and have maps to give us some background - the rest we’ll come up with on the Journey (drive) to Anvil. :smiley: