SYSTEM 7 LARP
Grab 7 Cards and Go Play!
​WHERE DID ALL THE EXPANSIONS COME FROM?
System 7 LARP was finished and playtested and ready to go right before Covid 19 hit. During the year long lockdown, I played with System 7 revising it over and over again and I think I turned it into a much better product. By the end of Lockdown I had come up with the idea of many small expansions which would advertise the game by putting it on the front page of Drive Thru Cards every few months. I just had to finish the expansions which had turned from game from 300 cards to 900.
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WHY 7 CARDS?
It's because of the phone company. Before cell phones you often had to look at a number and remember it as you dialed it. The phone companies did research and discovered that people could remember 7 digits in short term memory. The 3 digit area codes were to be memorized in long term memory.
System 7 uses up to 7 Shards which change every game, plus a Character Card, which like area codes does not change and you memorize it. As you play more and more of System 7, you may get the limited ability to change Cards during the game, but by that point you should be familiar enough with the game that this is easier to do.
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HOW DID SYSTEM 7 LARP START?
I joined a LARP Club and played their game for many years. We took a pause while the rules were revised and put on a Wiki so anyone could add to them and rebooted the game. Over the next few years the rules ballooned into an 800 page online document which was just too massive to work with. When the game finally ended I revised the rules into very concise 200 page rulebook and ran a new club but I wanted to compress the rules even further. I was studying game design and watched several hundred YouTube videos. I stripped everything I could from the system and I had it down to 20 pages or so and then one line from a video inspired the next step.
"People want to be emotionally invested in the LARP and the way you do that is you make sure they never look at their character sheet.
Design a LARP that means that people never have to look at their character sheet or if they do make it as little as possible."
- John Wick, Aug 8 2012.
Video: Gl!tchCon - John Wick on LARPs (Jump to the quote at 4:29)
When I saw this part of the video, the idea of cards came to me. I asked myself how I could make the game so simple you never need a rulebook. Card games already used a compressed language. You would still need to look at the cards from time to time but using numbers and symbols and the art acting as a mnemonic reminder, you might only have to glance at it. At the very least it would be a lot more subtle than opening up a rulebook and hunting through pages of text for something.
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For years I watch every video this channel put out. Their advice has been invaluable. I've seen over a hundred of their videos and this one is my favorite (link below) because it taught me why some people like my games and other people don't. How many times have you heard someone say they love something you hate? This helps to start answering that question. It explores different play styles.
Bartle's Taxonomy - What Type of Player are You? - Extra Credits - YouTube
