All About Troupe Larps and Kishar

We encourage guest posts from players and owners across the Larp genres.  They will not always express our views or fit every game. If you would like to do a guest spot, please email us here with your idea!  J Duncan runs Kishar and here discusses Troupe Larps and Kishar. 

What is a troupe LARP, and what does it have to offer?

Many of the people reading this blog probably play one of the large national LARPs, whether that’s a non-combat LARP like One World by Night (for White Wolf games) or a national boffer game like NERO, Amtgard, or Dagorhir. All of these games offer the ability to take a character from city to city, and possibly even attend many events a month, since different chapters can run on different days.

In contrast to that, troupe games have a much smaller presence, often running only in one city or region, and usually have only one or two games each month. So why would you play in a troupe game? Well, for starters, they have incredible variety. Many of the staff and player groups behind these games have written their own world settings and rules, and you make get a totally different experience in each. If you want exposure to new mechanics, new character types, and new cultures, sampling all the available troupe games in your area is the only way to do that. Secondly, they’re agile. If you’re in a national game, try to think about the difficulty involved in requesting that a rule be updated, or a new class added to the game, or could there possibly be a nation called X in the world setting so that I can be from there? In a troupe game, there’s much less bureaucracy, and the owners and staff are people you see regularly. They may still be busy people (they usually are!), but you won’t have to go through an elaborate chain of command to get to talk to them. Almost universally, the owners aren’t in it to make money – all of the money brought in by the game (and usually, personal funds as well!) gets invested right back in making the game great.

If you’re used to going to national events where there might be hundreds of players at a game, troupe games with attendance in the 10-50 range offer a more intimate setting in which every character can have a chance to shine. It’s easier to get to know people, and groups are often very welcoming to new players who bring new ideas and fresh roleplay to the game. Finally, troupe games are often very heavily RP focused. That’s not to say they don’t believe in fighting or have strong combat systems – but if you want to roleplay, a troupe game is usually very conducive to that.

So what is Kishar, and where is it different?

After my own experiences playing in Kanar and Triumph, with a little bit of exposure to the Nero community as well, I wrote (with assistance from my staff and players) a system called Kishar. Kishar has two central mechanics – the first is that most character powers refresh each encounter, and the second is that characters should be encouraged by the mechanics to work together. To handle the first, we break player powers into 4 categories: Sure powers, which are always on, Reliable powers, which can be used whenever the player fulfills some requirement, like a casting count, Difficult powers, which are usable once per Encounter, and Exhausting powers, which can be used only once per Event. To encourage the second, player character classes all belong to a Role and a Path. Players gain some abilities (called Rituals) that can only be used when they have multiple people on the same Path.

The four Roles are Guardian, Aggressor, Healer, and Savant. Guardians are the tough characters who don’t do much damage. Most of them have secondary mechanics to protect their allies, whether by buffs, by debuffing enemies, or by forcing enemies to attack the Guardian. Aggressors are high damage, but not very tough, and some of them also gain access to debuffs. The third Role is Healer. Healers, in addition to the job that gives them their name, also provide strong buffs and remove debuffs from their allies. Finally, we have Savants, who blur boundaries or provide other unique mechanics, such as Rogues with their lock and trap skills, Chaplains, who are mostly immune to weapon damage in return for being unable to take offensive actions, or Etheralists, whose powers allow them to rearrange the battlefield. Paths reflect the origin of a character’s powers, and we have 5 of them: Steel, Faith, Nature, Magic, and Mind. 5 Paths and 4 Roles give us 20 character classes, in addition to the game’s 20 races, so there’s a lot of room for unique combinations. Your role and path give you some built-in RP cues and motivations, and the game has strongly RP-oriented powers like Influence, a general-purpose mechanic reflecting the clout your character has in the setting.

Each class receives access to 3 power trees. Two of these are shared with other classes, and one of them is unique to that class. Finally, everyone gets access to the Crafting trees (Armorsmithing, Weaponsmithing, Tattooing, Jewelcrafting, and a catch-all for making art) and a Universal tree with general powers in it. Within each tree, most powers have a base version and a number of upgrades that might improve the effect of the power, or reduce the cast time, or provide some additional benefit. Thus, even two characters of the same race and class can have significantly different sheets and focuses.

What about the world setting?

Kishar has a highly unique setting. I wanted to break away from some of the normal fantasy tropes while still staying at a technology level that makes for good stories, so Kishar is an Asian/Arabian setting, and the game takes place in a major metropolitan city at the height of its wealth – Constantinople is a good analog. The PCs are members of the city’s Adventurer’s Guild – a sort of mercenary force for hire that takes small contract jobs. In addition to working jobs for merchants, they often find themselves embroiled in the affairs of the city’s vast nobility, or sent outside the walls into the desert or aboard ships across the ocean – wherever people are willing to pay a fee for their services. Traders come across the great roads or on ships, bringing word of foreign nations and the occasional PC from far-off lands. This Season we’ve been releasing more information on these foreign lands, and detailing the trade goods and rumors that make their way to the Jeweled Cities, where Kishar takes place.

Is it easy to get into the game?

We’re currently in our second Season – like many troupe games, Kishar is fairly young. New players can build effective characters right from the start of game, which makes it very accessible. Our events run in the Indianapolis, IN area (although some of our players travel from OH), and happen once a month with 20-25 people, of which ½ to 1/3 will be playing NPCs. Unlike some systems, players in Kishar are required to spend 1 out of every 3 games as an NPC (during which they still gain experience but don’t have to pay to play), so we make sure that everyone contributes to making the game great. We play out of a central building that’s climate controlled, with a kitchen, bathrooms, and showers, and there’s sleeping space for most players as well. Kishar runs day games (usually about 8 hours), but we run back-to-back with another troupe game called Wanderlust, so most people come out and make a weekend of it. If you want more information, visit our website here: http://kisharlarp.org/ or email us at kisharmarshals@gmail.com