An introduction and questions

Hello everyone! My name is Jon... but feel free to call me Jonny. I've been checking out the website for some time now and everything seems so in depth. And going through the photo albums, I love how you guys go all out with the garb. It's piqued my interest to say the least.

My good friend, I'll refer to him as GI Joe for now, got me interested with his desire to look into LARPing when his tour overseas is done. So I decided to do some scouting before he gets back home :) I’m almost completely green in concern to this. I’ve done some acting in community theatre and play airsoft occasionally… which I’ve heard people call LARP before… but if I were to call it that it would be with very little emphasis on the role-playing aspect. But I wish I had known that there was something like this around when I was younger. My friends and I would have hacked at each other with foam swords all day instead of hard plastic ones.  But I digress.

I read over the rulebook, but I have a few questions.

1) This may seem like a rather silly question... Well, because it is. I noticed under the weapons table part of the rulebook the different classes of weapons correspond to their lengths. My question is, can a one handed weapon be physically wielded with two hands? But still do the normal damage associated with one handed weapons, of course. Or would one have to purchase the two handed skill to physically wield the one handed (length) sword in two hands? Heh.. did I lose you? The reason I ask is because while the Katana and Wakizashi are different lengths the hilts are both roughly the same size and are long enough to accommodate both hands.

2) A few skills or actions require a Rules Marshal to oversee what you are doing.. I'm just curious, should you avoid breaking character to get their attention IG? Some… actions I would imagine you’d want to be a little inconspicuous about your intentions to other player characters. My point being that seeing a character lurking around with a marshal following them around would alert someone that they are up to no good. Particularly when non-rogue professions “go rogue” and don’t have the abilities to get out of trouble so easily.

3) I figure NPCing would be the best way to get some of my own questions answered. Something I’ll do first to get a feel for this new world. Other than an open mind, what else should a first time NPC bring with them in terms of gear? Somewhere I dug up dark or neutral colored clothing is a good idea. But is it required, or better yet, wise… to bring any sort of weapons or other goodies?

I have some other questions swirling around in my head, but nothing that’d make sense put to words yet. I’ll have to think about them a little more. But thanks a lot in advance for your responses!

Jonny

Hi Jonny!  To answer your questions...

1) The skills allow you to wield a specific size weapon, and the size also determines the damage caused.  So you could choose to wield a one handed weapon with both hands, but it would still do the same damage (2 Damage).  The skill and the weapon don't change.

2) There's two factors involved here.  Obviously, the rogue should have a bit of discretion when contacting a marshal ("Can I ask for your help with something personal?  We'll talk over here...").  The Marshal should also use discretion when marshaling.  I've been asked to marshal a few things, and I try to do so while still IG so as not to make it obvious that I am marshaling a rogue action.  Only when the action is large enough, or somewhere offsite, or PVP based do I go with a white headband, because at that point the presence of a Marshal OOG is a signal to BOTH parties not to break any rules and / or metagame.

3) Basic dark clothing is the best, but if you have other stuff, it can always help - as long as you don't appear to be the same NPC every time you go out because you keep using the same props.  Being able to swap up some fancy garb occasionally helps make the NPCs unique, and a basic weapon is always appreciated.  Personal makeup is always good, too.

Thanks for the responses - they were very helpful. But also bring about new questions haha..

So is the NPC's identity.. if you will.. determined by the person or people responsible for that event's plot line? And if so, are you told before hand to prepare for that? Or is it determined by the player, which is dictated by what sort of gear they bring and what kind of characters they can convincingly look and act like?

Also, I've been looking at the Khitans as my PC's race but noticed that other than the brief overview of their three kingdoms (Jade, Sun, and Night) it seems like much is left open-ended. I was curious though if there is any other accepted knowledge about each of the kingdoms, maybe commonly accepted in-game or otherwise?