Today, you find out the results of your survey and it fills you with excitement. You speed through check in and find that while you did not discover any ruins, a small group of bandits have taken residence in the hex. Your company's name is on the board as the fourth event down. One of the agents in your company who surveyed the hex discovers that the bandit camp is more numerous than your group, but are poorly equipped in comparison. While that still makes the encounter dangerous, you have the upper hand with the technology purchases you made. Your company is small and you have not hired any mercenaries, so its just you against whomever shows up.
You fight in one of the earlier battles of the day, but you and your company opt out to make plans on how to attack the bandits the two games before yours. You've got some grenades and you figure if you can close the distance with some cover fire from your agents, you should be able to knock out a lot of bandits at once. A few of your fellows are Man-at-arms and are carrying repeater rifles and low tech body armor--something to keep you all in the game. And with a field surgeon, you should fair well against a larger but poorly armed group of bandits.
The battle before yours ends bloody but quickly, and now comes the time to resolve your battle. You line up and bid nothing since no mercenaries exist for others to play, and about 15 other players line up, not in opposition, but in the neutral line which means they aren't against you, they just want to play. With no bids by the bandits, you have the added advantage of having something to really lose, while the players acting as bandits have nothing to lose.
You divide your group into two: one for support, and the other to soak up fire and push ahead. You have to defend yourself against 10 bandits. The field is open with a hill in the middle, and you set up opposite of the bandits you hope to defeat.
The OG signals the begining of the battle and your first group goes first followed by the second. You rush for the hill and spot the group of bandits spreading out amongst the brush facing the hill. You spot that half of them are carrying pistols and revolvers and the other single action rifles. This combination of weapons signals to you that they'll be easier to engage in long range combat rather than charging in and throwing grenades out. You line up on the ridge of the hill and start focusing on the group with the highest concentration of rifles.
The bandits have little in the way of plans or strategy and they remain stationary taking shots at your group in the hopes they knock a player out or two. A few players are hit, but with some quick reactions from the field surgeon, who keeps out of the thick of it, you keep everyone in the game while you whittle away the bandit group. In this moment you decide not to take any chances and charge the group; your patience pays off and only a few armed with pistols and revolvers remain.
Your CQB squad charges down the hill towards a clump of cover that is more than 30 yards away from the last group of bandits. You wait for them to get in their position and after giving a hand signal, lay down suppressive fire while they move to within effective shotgun range. The disorganized bandits can't handle two fronts and fold quickly to flanking fire. The air horn blares and you have officially won your first battle as a company!
The OG shows you the list of loot on the bodies and you take everything of value. The Field Surgeon ran through a lot of Medical Material Tokens (MMT's from here on out) healing your group, but the bandits' cache of ammunition means you can continue your expedition without going back for supplies. A great victory indeed!
You continue playing in other story battles gathering more bank notes for your company to fuel endeavors in the future as well as purchasing perks for your character. The day was quite productive for your company.
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When a player character dies in a story battle, that character will have to "respawn" at an ETC outpost nearest to the site of death, or wherever that character calls home, like a company owned barracks or house on the hex map. This penalizes characters on the field that die but has no permanent effects, so a player who makes a mistake doesn't loose their character because of it.
Every rank, a character can take a perk; to make money valuable to players beyond just the purchase of war materials these perks will have to be purchased to unlock them. These perks will vary from battlefield perks that gives a player character extra respawns on the field, to perks that increase the efficiency of personnel on a hex they are on.
Characters can have a perk for every rank they have up to 20, after that a character may exchange a perk every level past that. I'm thinking that a player can have more than one character active, as a reward for ranking a character past 20. (So your first character ranks to 21, you can have an additional character active, if that character ranks to 21 as well, you can have a third additional character active). This would work as an incentive to rank up characters, but if the game doesn't have an end then it would be possible that a player could have dozens of active characters and it would be a huge advantage over other players.
This brings me to another point that may be unique for a LARP: you can win the game. Since the ETC is supposed to be very powerful and acts as the buffer between the world and AP, if a player company could destroy the ETC, or be responsible for its loss on its monopoly on trade in and out of AP; then they could be considered the winners of AP. And in addition to this there could be a "final technology" that when researched and put to use causes a victory to the company who achieves it.
This is problematic because players can get really vested in their characters and companies, and if the game has an end, then it may lose that feeling of investment that is important to the game. Further, I think there should be rewards to those who win the game and what should those be is another issue. And if a group of players gets in on the game late it may discourage them from really getting into the game until it resets. In defense of my end game finale, the tech tree becomes a moot point when all technologies have been researched, and there will be a lot of less useful tinkerers and scientist personnel. I think when the time comes, it should be debated.
Now you got something to read! I would love to hear any ideas you all have concerning the end game issue, as it may prove controversial within the community we develop in this LARP.
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