When I first opened up the final printed edition of Rules to Live By, after having play-tested it, I was quite impressed. Its first few pages are similar to what you'd find in almost any "traditional" Role Playing Game. In fact, when I read the section "So, What is LARP, Anyway?", it reminded me a lot of what I'd read in my first edition of Advanced Dungeons in Dragons®, and Top Secret® rule books. It does a good job of explaining what LARP is (a cross between tabletop rpg's and improv theater), and why the need for a set of rules. If you've never LARPed before, the opening few pages are good. If you are an experienced LARPer, you can probably skip the introduction, as you already know why we all spend every free weekend and evening we've got playing whatever game we can find.

The Materials - Dice and Stars

The book then goes on to discuss the only two real things (other than paper and pen) that you need to play - two six-sided dice, and stars. RTLB is a mechanics system that depends heavily upon dice for many things. Many players in the LARP community loathe having to "Game Stop" briefly while you go through the mechanics of rolling the dice. While I understand those who say "If I wanted to roll dice, I'd play a table top", the dice mechanic, with the exception of combat which I'll discuss below, is an extremely efficient way to simulate skills, powers, and abilities that a player may not have, such as lock picking, seduction, or magical abilities. They even go as far as to show you a way to build a "bi-cubic randomizer" that makes dice rolling even less of a pain. Recently (since the production of this book), someone has come up with electronic dice, a little larger than a marble, that you just bump and they give you a result. These are good because you can see them in the dark, unlike dice.

Generating Characters - The fundamentals of RTLB.... Stats

Many LARPs, and "Live Combat" games in particular, have a disadvantage in that the skills you can play "in game" are limited to those you develop out of game. For many players this can be incredibly frustrating, as they want the opportunity to play characters that are "outside their type". For example, playing an archeologist, or a circus strongman, or the world's greatest jewel thief. Rules to Live By allows a player, generally in consultation with their GM(s), to use Statistics and subsequently abilities to generate the character they want to play, rather than playing a character similar to who they actually are.

Statistics are the immutable characteristics of the character, such as strength, intelligence, and dexterity. In RTLB there are four "basic" statistics that are used to describe these characteristics. These statistics are generally focused on physical characteristics, which, in an environment that may be combat intensive, use strength and dexterity, or in a problem-solving environment, where intelligence is a key factor. For most games, you'll find that these four statistics are sufficient to describe a character. However, I was disappointed that there weren't other statistics, such as charisma, and a separation of manual dexterity, like a piano player or locksmith would have, and physical dexterity, like a gymnast would have, that were missing. The authors are good to note that additional statistics can be added as the GM sees fit.

If the structure of a character is described by the stats, in RTLB, the meat on those stats is abilities. Abilities are divided into four types. Abilities are things like lock picking, combat, seduction. They also include "resources" such as wealth, contacts, property, etc. The book also includes handicaps within abilities which I, if I were had been one of the authors, would have separated out. Handicaps are things like being unlucky, missing an arm, being poor, etc.

When you generate a character you are given "points" to spend. Each GM will give you a different number (and may tell you how you can spend them). This "points" system is designed to keep all players effectively on the same footing, with the same chance of creating a character that will be successful in a game.

So, how hard is it to generate a character?

The first time I played a game using the RTLB system, I had never played a LARP with these types of mechanics. I had extensive experience in tabletop gaming, so the idea wasn't completely foreign to me. Before the game, the GM asked me to come up with an idea for a character and write it down, before beginning to look at mechanics. I recommend this for any LARP - decide what type of character you want to play before you start getting involved in the mechanics. About an hour before the start of game, the GM handed me a rulebook and a piece of paper and said, "Read, and generate a character." In about 45 minutes, I had a character sheet that was a reasonable facsimile of what I wanted to play. The GM spent about five minutes going over the sheet, checking math, making sure I hadn't gone completely off the deep end, and then we were ready to play. I figured out mechanics with the help of other players in game, and by the end of a weekend-long game, considered myself pretty adept at using the system. Not bad when you consider it can take weeks, or even months, to master some tabletop systems.

The mechanics for using your stats and your abilities is quite easy. Anyone who can add and subtract numbers (generally less than 20) in their head, can master the system quite easily. The rules give excellent examples on how to use your statistics and abilities in a variety of situations and, by reading them, you can quickly learn the ins and outs of the systems.

The Bad - Combat, Rules Lawyers, and Granularity

Combat

Having come from a "live combat" environment, I found that Rules to Live By combat can be, to say the least, one of the most painful experiences a player has to go through. While the mechanics look good on paper, and the system does in fact give you the ability to have skills that you wouldn't normally have such as martial arts or firearms skills, the result of dice rolling and resolution causes two things. First, because there is so much dice rolling involved, and there has to be an exchange of information, like stats, between players, RTLB combat almost demands that you drop "out of character." It's not that you can't take brief moments to do in character actions, it's that you have to intermix it with mechanics resolutions and that can be a hassle. Second, combat can be, and most of the times is, slow. A combat that in a live combat game that would last minutes or seconds can last 30 minutes or more in RTLB, because of the mechanics.

Having played in the RTLB system for over four years now as a play tester, there are some things a GM and players can do to help the situation. First, players should be familiar with the rules and resolution of combat actions. If they don't stop to ask the GM questions every round, things will go much faster. Second, have a "Combat GM" around to help direct traffic, call out rounds, etc. Third, allow players to resolve their own actions, without GM intervention, which is really what RTLB is strongest at. If two players get in a "fistfight" and know the rules, they can resolve their own combat without the need for GM intervention.

The book does discuss an alternative method of resolution rather than dice with "finger flipping," but, after having tried it, unless you've got a good memory and can memorize tables, etc., it really isn't worth the effort and doesn't speed things up. I'd ignore the finger flipping rules unless you are really opposed to carrying around 2 dice in your pocket.

Rules Lawyers

If you're not familiar with this term, a "rules lawyer" is someone who uses the rules system to either 1) generate characters of incredible power that the GM really never intended anyone to have, or 2) players who go to extreme lengths to argue rules, despite any GM ruling. While there's little you can do with any system to handle the latter (other than having GMs with strong personalities), Rules to Live By does have a problem with the former.

A character's ability within any given skill (like archeology, medicine, hand-to-hand combat) is generally defined first by a statistic and then the character's level in that ability. If you analyze the rules carefully, you quickly learn that it can be cheaper to "buy up" a stat, and keep the ability levels low. For example (and I'm not going into the specifics of this), a character with an Intelligence of 7 (which, for most games, is the highest score you can have), and levels 1 in Anthropology, Archaeology, History, and Current Events, is less expensive to make then a character of IQ 4, with level 3 in each of those skills. Yet, from a mechanics standpoint the characters are, for all practical purposes, equal. The result is over a campaign you're likely to develop characters that have low levels of abilities, and keep "bumping up" their statistics. In some RTLB games I've played, GMs have expressly set up the rules so characters can not increase their stats from the level at which they started, and place other restrictions on how you can develop characters. If you're the Game Manager of a game with RTLB mechanics, I'd advise you to think about this carefully before you send out a set of character generation rules.

Granularity

When discussing stats with the authors, I've always had an issue with granularity in statistics in abilities. They indicate that an "average" statistic for a normal human is five, and the maximum allowable for a human character has always been seven or, in one case, eight. I've found that when you compare this with dice rolls, the granularity is high and can sometimes present problems. For example, if your average human strength is five and the world's strongest man has a strength of 7, and they both go to lift a heavy object, both have a chance of lifting it; it's just a matter of probabilities, and it doesn't play out well. Most of the time this isn't a problem but, once in a while, you can sometimes see some very strange results. This could have been resolved by going to percentile dice instead of six sided dice, but then the math would have been more complicated. GMs can generally resolve these issues by simply saying by fiat, "I'm sorry, but you must have a minimum ability of ____ to even try this." I've seen this used in the past, and it works well.

What's Missing

Rules to Live By, on its own, can function in a "normal" universe. However, rules for things like Magic, the Supernatural, and similar things are conveniently absent. The authors have notified me that rules for these types of universes are contained in RTLB -Supernatural, which was recently published. Just be warned, if you're looking to run (or play) in a game that is in this setting, you'll probably need to buy an expansion to the RTLB book.

Conclusion

Rules to Live By is a fantastic attempt at developing a LARP system that: 1) Works across genres, 2) Allows people to play characters that are "out of type," and 3) Is easy to learn. It does a fabulous job of the first two, and does a reasonable job of the third. You can learn the rules "on the fly" as you play, but people who have taken the time to sit down and read the rules before hand are going to have a much better time, and will not be quite so mired down in mechanics. It's a rules system that I'd recommend for a campaign or in a stand-alone setting, if your group of players is familiar with the system. However, if you are running a stand-alone game and the players aren't familiar with the rules in advance, you may end up with a game mired more in mechanics with less time spent in role-playing.

All and all, I think the authors have done an excellent job at trying to provide the community with a system that has the flexibility to be used in a variety of games with a high chance of success in dealing with those "ugly mechanics."

Rules to Live By can be purchased from Interactivities, Ink, for $20.00 plus tax. Visit their Web site at http://www.InteractivitiesInc.com. RTLB: Supernatural - the Supplemental Rules for Psionics, Magic, Sanity, and Supernatural Beings is also now available for purchase for $18.00 plus tax. Further Supplemental volumes are in production.

Author's Biography: Scott Mohnkern has been involved in Live Action Role Playing since 1982, with the International Fantasy Gaming Society in Boulder, Colorado. In 1994 he relocated to the Washington, D.C., area, and has been involved in the local community since 1997. He currently serves as Treasurer for LARPA, and Treasurer for Intercon XVI. His most recent playing experiences include the 1936: Horror campaign by Virginia Interactive Arts (http://www.vialarp.org). His most recent Game Mastering Experience includes upcoming Intercon XVI, and 1936: Horror events. He served as a play tester for Rules to Live by throughout the Dark Summonings, Outpost Chi, and Mersienne Fantasy campaigns.