One piece of my game-design history that doesn’t get out much today is that I used to design LARPs (Live Action Role-Playing games) for local conventions. The idea is that with character packets and minimal rules, players move freely around a big room to interact, rather than sitting around a table with paper, pencil, and dice. Games like this tend to be big, negotiation-heavy political things, and you often need two or three GMs to make them work.
Probably my best work was a “first contact” LARP, set in the late 21st century, in which half the players represented human factions – nation-states and such – and the other half were all factions from a Galactic Empire that had just met humans. The result was a four-hour social furball, as alliances formed and shattered, and everyone did their best to scheme their way into an advantage given the rules I had designed for them. The game almost ran itself, and it was wonderful to watch.
Today that piece of my creative brain woke up with a vengeance, while I was listening to my audiobook of The Silmarillion in the car, as one does.
Working title: “The Fall of the Noldor.”
The game would be designed for about 20 players. It would start with each player handed their character packet and a cheap flashlight. Players find that they are to take the roles of children or grandchildren of Finwë – only Fëanor himself is played by a GM. After everyone has a chance to read over their material, the lights are turned out and the next few scenes are played out in complete darkness, to simulate the confusion after the death of the Two Trees.
The game properly begins with a GM walking in and calling the Noldor to a meeting before the king’s house in Tirion. Once the players gather around, probably using their flashlights to see, the GM delivers Fëanor’s speech, in which he kicks off the rebellion against the Valar and the exodus back to Middle-earth. He closes with the Oath of Fëanor.
The rest of the game follows the debates and conflicts that follow while Fëanor leads the Noldor to Middle-earth. Who will follow Fëanor in swearing his Oath? Will all the Noldor agree to follow him, or will some or all of them remain behind? Will they recognize him as king, or will they choose another descendant of Finwë to follow? Will they travel light, or try to bring some of their treasures? Will they negotiate with the Teleri for their ships, or will they try to take them by force? What happens when the Valar intervene? How will the Elves survive, marching thousands of miles in the dark wilderness? How will they make the crossing to Middle-earth? What will happen when Fëanor himself turns against the people he regards as insufficiently loyal?
There should be a web of cross-cutting loyalties and resentments among the characters. I’d want to distribute specific resources among them, so they have to share and trade in order to succeed – also, so there won’t be enough of anything for everyone to succeed. I’ll probably need mechanisms for each Elf-leader to gather and keep a following among the Noldor population, carry treasures or supplies, and meet natural challenges during the march. I’ll need a mechanism for combat against anyone who might try to stop the Noldor – or, if worst comes to worst, among the Noldor themselves.
Since a lot of players probably know the story already, I might need to throw a few curve-balls into the plot. Hmm.
. . . Well, I’ll probably never actually design this in full, and if I do I’ll probably never get the chance to run it. Still, it’s a neat thought-exercise. Besides, any excuse to recite some of the speeches from The Silmarillion is welcome! Tolkien had a gift for dramatic dialogue.
