100 Things: Larp.

Here is a list of things that I am no longer allowed to do in a LARP game.

  1. Wolves do not have the mass fear spell, even if it is dinner time.
  2. I am no longer allowed to play the fey of anything other than "Standing very still and saying nothing at all."
  3. After the incident with the Italian Igor chef, the Igor doctor with the special adhesive bandages and the Igor coachman who just had a need for speed, I am no longer allowed to play Igors.
  4. The rules do not encourage me to shout "SPELLCASTING" and then spell out the name of the spell I want.
  5. I am not allowed to defect to the character party during the final encounter unless explicitly briefed.
  6. Space Marines do not use crossbows. Even if they are "retro".
  7. In character documents physrepped on bleached white paper are not "the undead ghost forms of documents that have been burned to death".
  8. I am not allowed to play characters who use dice to determine the outcome of social encounters.
  9. I must not refer to low flying aeroplanes as Dragons in a fantasy setting.
  10. I must not refer to Dragons at all in a futuristic setting.
  11. Characters I am playing are not allowed to have a hobby playing role-playing games. They are especially prohibited from playing middle aged physicists with too much time on their hands.
  12. The correct response to an ally being paralysed does not involve a feather duster.
  13. No number of gratuitous 'e's on the end of words or uses of the word "Ye" can turn an out of character briefing document into a holy artefact.
  14. Punning does not give me an advantage in combat.
  15. I am not allowed to brand criminals with special offers.
  16. Wolves do not have "Gust of wind" even if there are buildings made of straw or wood.
  17. The level of realism required to physrep drugs stops at sherbet.
  18. I must supply the referee team with a valid reason why my character gives a different name to each character they meet.
  19. Leekspin and Nyancat are not hymns.
  20. I am allowed to assault characters by throwing my own internal organs at them, but I must demonstrate an understanding of how many of each I possess in the future.
  21. Crossbreeding an Orc and a warlock does not generate an orklock.
  22. I am not allowed to excuse setting my allies on fire by telling them the fire is "friendly".
  23. Bandits operating an illegal toll-bridge are not bright enough to realise they're outgunned before the party get close. Thusly, they do not claim to be carpenters repairing this "hideously unstable bridge" before setting the party a sidequest to retrieve their stolen mallet from the nearest goblin cave before the bridge can be fixed.
  24. When being interrogated for crimes by the character party, I am not allowed to place the blame on unfortunate passing members of the public.
  25. I might be able to talk to animals, but I must acknowledge that there are only so many dog words for "down the well".
  26. Gluing zombies together to form a conga line is not appropriate religious behaviour.
  27. Rulers of nations don't generally leave a ten second pause between "Off with his head!" and "only kidding!".
  28. There's a limit to the amount of collateral damage that's appropriate for interrogation scenes.
  29. If a character is going on a quest, I must now choose between selling them life insurance and running a gambling ring on their chances of survival.
  30. I should not madly cackle "It's alive, IT'S ALIVE" every time we meet a zombie. One in five is enough.
  31. Real heroes do not sell signed portraits of themselves.
  32. Monologues are not for complaining about the poor standards of adventurers these days.
  33. I must not replace all of the copies of the IC newspaper with one I fabricated earlier.
  34. While Wights might have a fight or flight response, they certainly do not take slight at the sight of white tight tights or take fright at bright white lights. And it won't be all-right on the night whenever there's plight.
  35. Necromancers do not traditionally offer relationship advice to the recently bereaved.
  36. Wolves do not normally dress in old ladies' clothing, and they also don't class short fire-mages as priority targets.
  37. I am not allowed to play a dwarf with septuple-personality disorder.
  38. My villain is not sensible enough to cast invisibility and run away with the plot artefact rather than fight the characters. Neither does he direct his second in command to take the plot item and run away to bury it in a far off place.
  39. I should not convince half of the playerbase to all stat peasants, and then go and have a "sit-in" in the bar until the pig-swill tax is reduced by half a penny.
  40. Pelvic thrusts do not count for damage in a bar brawl.
  41. While poisons do often come with side-effects, vaudeville is not one of them.
  42. "I challenge you to a breakdancing competition" is not a valid spell vocal for earthquake spells.
  43. Giant wasps do not have rastafarian accents, neither do they have a "hive of jive", neither does coffee turn them into "jitterbugs".
  44. I must not replace the third riddle with a 64-bit encrpyted key.
  45. If a priest performs a supernatural act, I should not respond by shouting "It's a miracle!" and then demand that they touch me.
  46. Underclothing is not a valid target for any spell.
  47. There are no camp elven pirates. There are no orcish wedding planners. There are no Dwarven Ballerinas. The kender village does not hold annual pogo-stick races.
  48. I should not talk my squad of goblins into the idea of retiring from banditry to "go straight" before the party arrive.
  49. If I am to mark my arrows in order to identify them as mine, the personal mon of "+1" does not increase their damage call.
  50. 'Mime' is not the only language my character understands. Neither are "Love", "violence" or FORTRAN.
  51. "You with the green face" is not a valid target identifyer when my opponents are all goblins.
  52. I am no longer allowed to patent, market, manifacture or sell "Brain on a stick Zombie Lures" to budding adventurers.
  53. No matter how good my divination spell research is, it does not give me the access password to the referees' private wiki.
  54. I must not beat anyone to death with the judge's gavel during a trial.
  55. Ritual circles don't always have to be hotwired.
  56. I am not allowed to play a scottish avian duck with the sole aim to collect all the money physreps and keep them in a giant vault.
  57. Even if my evil overlord did get a two-for-one offer on ninjas, he doesn't have to tell the party.
  58. My evil villain does not own a colelction of "shaven skaven", nor does his castle have an "elf shelf" a spice rack full of "human cumin" or a kitchen containing a "kender blender"
  59. Golems do not play musical instruments.
  60. You cannot claim in your spell vocal to be attempting to "disarm that arm" and then cast a fireball.
  61. There are no "chance" elementals, neither are there suprise elementals or suspense elementals.
  62. My hermit doesn't normally refuse to give the party any information until they've helped him weed the garden.
  63. My nobleman does not carry around an illustrated instruction manual explaining how to fight with a sword, or engage in diplomatic negotiation. He certainly does not read out each step of the instructions before performing it.
  64. I must not use a dryad for half of a fake ventriloquist act.
  65. There's a place for poetry, but kobold society isn't it.
  66. "Airship Pilot" is not a default assumption to make about the profession of everyone you've never met before. Especially if airships haven't been invented yet.
  67. Murder is not a proportionate response for lackadaisical spell gestures.
  68. We are not covering the stargate with a stargrate, so we can make starpate.
  69. If I do forge IC money, I should make sure that the forgery is flawed enough that the refs can spot it.
  70. I cannot improvise the feather-fall spell by fireballing a pidgeon, no matter how convincing an argument I pose.
  71. Nobody wants horny unicorn porn, and I will destroy both the woodcut physreps and the rainbow paint.
  72. I should not draw the party's attention to the fact that my minions decided to assault them in waves of size 1-5 up until now.
  73. If I must play another dwarven baker, he must at least have a good enough grasp of common to say he uses "virgin oil" as an ingredient, not "oiled virgins."
  74. Going adventuring is not called "raiding". My last words are not "res please!"
  75. I should not devise a list of products that act as homophones for the names of each character, then play a street peddler loudly selling shouting out the names of his wares.
  76. The linear's encounter list does not read: 1. Fire mages. 2. Trolls. 3. Bandits with clubs. 4. Spam salesmen.
  77. My character's illiteracy is not such a powerful force that it spans universes and infests my downtime reports.
  78. No matter how much the refs want me to delay the character party, actually convincing them to go back to the first field to search for an item that doesn't exist is going too far.
  79. Just because I have website access doesn't mean I can replace the costume guide with "everyone must wear a corset, a loincloth or codpiece and a tophat."
  80. My nobleman does not employ a team of butlers to carry his crossbow and fire it for him. Neither does he carry around a golfclub and whack small rocks at his enemies.
  81. I must stop loudly complaining about the weather IC whenever it happens to be different to the actual OC weather.
  82. My dryad does not distribute flyers advertising "leaves for rent".
  83. Just because the last animal I fired a spell at took the effect doesn't mean I should expect other animals to do so as well.
  84. I should at least tell the other refs what the magic items I've put into play actually do, rather than what the labels say they do.
  85. The talisman of invulnerability was not secretly one of the cookies the old druid lady offered the party in encounter 3.
  86. Intelligent cat beasts don't refer to drow as "drowowowowowow" neither to they spent the entire event waiting by doors to be let into and out of buildings.
  87. My scout was not the first being to ever discover dwarves, and he did not thus name their race "stumpybumps." Likewise, elves are not "cranky-lankies" and orcs are not "booger-golems"
  88. Being a goblin is not "a skin condition". Being a bandit is not "a sad but inevitable result of the failing feudal system." Being a god is not "differently mortal".
  89. If the refs tell me to go and hide in the woods until the characters find me, I should not just leave the site and go to the pub.
  90. My paladin can have the name of his god writ large in mirror-writing on his headband. My bookish librarian mage cannot.
  91. My Artificer/Talismancer character should not refer to every pouch and sack as a "bag of holding" just because it holds things. Neither is an unidentified wand a "rod of wonder" simply because he wonders what it does.
  92. If I'm going to run away from every monster on the adventure, I should at least be playing a character with some non-combat skills.
  93. If I get married again, I will not actually throw the bouquet with a trebuchet.
  94. My werewolf was not originally just a wolf before he was bitten.
  95. I am no longer allowed near the lammy machine after I secretly replaced all the regiment's "musket" lammies with "muskrat" lammies.
  96. My characters should not pretend to be zombies just because I'm bored and want a fight.
  97. Not even the top level of the larceny skill-tree will let me pickpocket the stick from up the Paladin's arse or steal someone's heart.
  98. Cotton wool is not a mystical alchemical substance that'll make you immune to injury if you stuff your ears with it.
  99. I should not spend an hour pretending to do a massive ritual when I am not actually a mage at all.
  100. I must not distribute copies of this list to new players behind the referee's backs.


Back to Socks and Puppets