The Royal Manticoran Navy: The Official Honor Harrington Fan Association

Cory Williamsen wrote: ↑

Wed Apr 04, 2018 5:50 pm

In RPG/LARP, what constitutes a "win"?

Lance Corporal Cory Williamsen, KDE , RMMC

If it's not obvious that a single player can "win" then there is no single winner. If you are in a LARP where only a single Persona can come away with an artifact in a Quest, that Persona can be considered to be a "winner." If only a party can succeed, as in most RPGs, there is no extra credit for the winner.

ALCON,

For the record, the Army Marksmanship Program was a team effort to write, so not all aspects of it were my idea. Specifically, the extra point for "winning" and the need for a witness are contributions from other members and from the original Marksmanship Program the Navy created years ago. I will happily explain how they are intended to work, but if we get an opportunity to revisit the program as the manual comes together, perhaps I will go to bat on these two issues since they seem to generate confusion.

On that note, another issue that needs clarification regarding witnesses is how it interacts with tournaments. Under the current clarification of the rules if you hosted a tournament and counted each round individually (let's say it's a 8-man, single elimination bracket) then you would need an additional person for each round to witness the games (4 witnesses at the start) or you have to only run some of the games at a time, making the tournament run longer than necessary.

The spirit of the Army version of the rules is that if there is more than just two folks playing, no additional witness is required. We've run several Battletech tournaments in brackets as you describe. But since every player and the referees are all TRMN members, even though each individual bout is 1v1, we don't have an additional witness because the whole room is full of TRMN members playing in the tournament.

Taking off my official hat for a moment and offering a personal opinion: I trust my Dragoons not to make up game sessions. We Drill twice a month with each Drill having 5 gaming hours, and in addition most members are also in many other games throughout the month. There's no need to cheat or fake gaming hours. I'm not sure there would be rampant cheatery in TRMN if there were no witness rule. I mean, one would hope the second person involved in the game report would keep the first honest. That said, that is not how the rules are written, and in my official capacity as Army Marksmanship Director, I do my best to explain and enforce the rules as they exist.

I am looking for individuals who would be interested in "racking up points" playing Words with Friends. It's free, takes almost no time at all. Average game might run ten minutes a day for five days. Easy way to get the pistol marksmanship award.