Sanctum: The Fallout / Ends and Means

Week 2 - Coffman Student Union 7PM-Midnight.   "Day 1" in Sanctum. 

Real-Life problems plaqued the play-test size in week 2.   Two of our players were MIA due to a sick kidlet, and several more could not make it due to Real Life obligations, Work or Illness.  In short, our second training session was not needed, but proved useful in letting our early arrivals prepare for costuming, talk about thier motivations for playing and get to know each other.   Our overall count was the same, with three additional spectators who haven't decided yet if they are prepared to take the jump from table-top to LARP yet.

There was some initial worry; Would this play-test end up like so many other play-tests?  Would we have a good first game and then fizzle out before we even got going?  It happens alot in even pre-established games, so being optimistic was the only thing I could really do; People would either want to play, or they wouldn't.   Optimistic or not, I continued to worry until people started showing up, finding relief as I realized, not only were they showing up, but showing up in costume and talking about thier characters while we waited for game to start.   I'll post a seperate entry with a gallery of our play-testers and the costumes they sported.

As Stage-Hands, Me and Adam opted for a white T-Shirt with Black Pants. Our Supporting Casts characters would be identified by an assessory.  Adam sported a shoulder harness with holster and black leather hat for his "Communist", and a white sheet for his "Librarian", while I had a tie and jacket for my "Vice Dealer.", A Skirt for my "Match-Maker", and stole Adam's sheet for my "Oracle"

concerns: My main one was attendence.  It seems to be a false worry for now, but Adam has warned against assuming it won't change.  So far, so good; we'll see if it continues to be that way. 

The Pre-Game Huddle: 

We called everyone's attention at about 7:10, only a few minutes behind our slotted schedule.  We had full attendence, not counting those who let us know ahead of time that they'd be missing this game but would be at next. 

We started out by handing out character sheets, which were no bigger than a index card...in fact, they WERE index cards.   We had the testers assign thier Ends and Means and Adam  handed out the tokens that would represent plot points.  (Adam had typed the Opposition Brief up, along with our supporting cast characters on a single sheet of paper, which was to be our own character sheets.)

observation: It never ceases to amaze me how fast people will lower thier numbers when they realize that they get more plot points that way.  The look on people's faces were priceless...absolutely priceless.

Ready, Set...

We then determined that Coffman University would be the main rooms, the garage would still be the prison and the cafe would be the grocery store.   I had meant to establish an OOC room, but I don't think we did.  This could have been bad, but it turns out no one really seemed to need one, as anyone who wanted a break, went and sat at the registration table...which worked just fine.

Adam ran the floor with an Explanation of Cues - See Adam's Post for more information -  and then after he went through a few more details, he turned the floor over to me to set the floor for game to begin.

I re-stated the conditions of Sanctum, and what people would be waking up to, ran through what was inside of Coffman and what things could be expected from the world...and answered a few questions. 

concerns: There was some hesitation on my part when the question was raised on if the protagonists would ever find out what put them in Sanctum.  Adam has been prodding at me for awhile for this question and I have been reluctant to say one way or another.  Sanctum itself has any number of possibilities and I was hoping to reserve having to decide one way or another until I saw where the players seemed to want to go.   Since this is a beta game and is unlikely of branching out into other games, I chose "Fate/Time" was the abductor and that the conclusions characters would draw would never be a lack of information, just a possible 'not what they expected to get for an answer' instead.  They seemed fine with this, but it's going to take some considerations on my part on why it was so hard for me to just pick one.

Game!

Having gone through everything we could think of, we then called "Game on" and told people to go find where they would be waking up, because they'd be doing so in 1....2.....3.....4....

I've never seen people run so fast.   

concerns: When I first started talking about how and where they would be waking up, I found myself feeling as if I had repeated myself so many times that I was being redundant.   I stumbled over the introduction and it seemed awkward, although players didn't seem to mind that much;  I need to work on the execution of what is in my head into actual explanation!

Monday, January 15th - Preparation.

With the Ends and Means system, the supporting cast (NPCS) are determined by the Ends that players have chosen for themselves.  So, Adam and I got together for dinner and to familiar ourselves with just what kind of world the players have created. (After creating the Opposition Brief, I have to agree with Adam, that Sanctum is a cold, cruel world!....AWESOME :)

We started by posting each and every Ends that was created by someone on a post-it note; one ends per post-it.  It just so happened that the mini post-its that I had brought with me were mulit-colored.  Adam ended up with blue and I ended up with pink and that's when Adam had yet another devious idea.  "Let's sort them by gender" He comments, grinning at me.  I start laughing and agree; sorted by gender it is!   Adam takes the guys, I take the girls and both of us note that there is almost an even ratio of guy and girl in our beta-test.  Once we're finished, we start sorting them into piles that suggest a theme, clumping similar Ends together until we feel it is about as organized as it is going to get.  At this point, We grab a different colored post-it note and start giving each one a title that might best explain what the mean could be and when we are finished with that, we go about labeling it with the exact opposite as well.   ie: Loved ones : Isolation.   Create something of worth: Destroy things of value.   The first title is what the players are attempting to achieve, the second title is the opposition.

 When we finish, we then write down each of the opposition values on a sheet of paper, which are now "our"  Ends and then we brainstorming for possible Means.  ie, men of violence, disease,  The list is almost a full page long, with two columns when we are finished, and so we start picking from among them.  We want to match the number of Ends pretty closely, but do end up with a few more Means than Ends.  It turns out this is okay for now; we may be creating more as we go, or changing the ones we have.  

 We now have a list of Stage-Hand's Ends and Means for use in making our supporting cast.

Keeping this list in mind, we begin to make some protagonists of our own, and end up with the following.

Sara - Vice Dealer, Prophet.  -And coming later, The Match-Maker.  (I reserve the right to change these before Friday)

Adam - The Librarian, The Dictator

And so we wrap up the night, Our Opposition Brief complete.

----Goals before Saturday----

Type up Character sheets, Census Descriptions and Atlas Descriptions.

Create and Type up Supporting Cast.

Here are some links that may be useful.

Ends and Means - www.grapevinelarp.com/EndsAndMeans

There's been a few concerns in general that I have with Sanctum: The Fallout.  Some of them I'm dreading the answer to while it's just too soon to say for the others.

•  Ready to Play

As is, Sanctum: The Fallout, is NOT a ready-to-play product.   To make it a ready-to-play Product is stepping into a brand new world and inviting so much work and cardboard cut-out that I'm pretty worried in general.   I'm going to have to decide what is more important.  The sheer adaptability, or a ready-to-play product?

Will I be creating 'versions' of Sanctum by creating some "Ready-to-Play" Versions?  In a way, this is really what I was trying to avoid when I re-created my world from thirteen years ago.   The very first version of Sanctum, was really alot like D&D, but set in a different world and with different characters and concepts for magic, fighting, herorics and villians.   On one hand, this creates tons of books and endless genre if done right; but that's not what I was going for this time.

 Adaptability, Undefined Elements that are left to the Story-Teller's Imagination with no 'rule' to tell you that you couldn't have certain elements within a game.   I was creating the world, the core-rules for that world's existance in order to still be Sanctum, but I wasn't actually creating the THINGS within the world.  I thought it was great...A "Make it your own way" World to do whatever you wanted with and then run with it...

But is this a bad thing?

Everyone really seems to just expect that Sanctum is "Ready-to-Play" and honestly, that isn't going to be true; unless I create little versions of Sanctum for people to pick from.

Does this mean my idea in general is flawed?