Kensei: A Boffer LARP in the making

The conversation began when my friend Kat mentioned he would rather go to a totally combat oriented LARP if it was well executed over a poorly executed Nordic LARP. This sparked in my head an idea. I've always love the stories behind tournaments. We've seen them all the time. Most of these are Martial Arts movies, Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon, Van Damme in Bloodsport, The Championships in the Karate Kid. Anime like Dragonball had the Tankaichi Budokai, and there were numerous Tournaments in Yu Yu Hakusho. Hell, movies like Dodgeball and Balls of Fury(which is ripped straight from Enter the Dragon) all share the tournament style story telling.

What about this makes it so appealing? Mostly, it's the use of the tournament bracket system to build suspense and tension. It allows casts of characters to be in the same place at the same time and see which ones would/could/and should clash with each other. It's a time for deals to be struck, alliances to be made, and rivalries to be forged/ended/continued. Tournaments are breeding grounds for interactions on multiple levels.

One of the most popular examples of this bracket is Bruce Lee's Enter the Dragon. In truth, their tournament was never described in terms of actual organization. It was clearly a MacGuffin to get Bruce Lee to his revenge and interact with hustler John Saxon and bad mothafucka Jim Kelly. But let's look at this clip:

In this clip we have Lee versus O'Hara. We as the audience realize that O'Hara is responsible for the death of Lee's sister and she responsible for his scar. There is no dialogue or pithy exchanges during their match. They know what is at stake here. In the background you have the other fighters watching, with the Tournament Organizer holding Court and shaming his fallen minion and leaving with his entourage and setting up for the next intrigue.

My thinking started going: Well, why can't we make this into a LARP? A Boffer LARP, for sure, but one that is designed to enhance and highlight the emotional drama inherent in these genres of films. Why are these people here? What is at stake for them? What are the consequences of their winning? Their Losing? What are they willing to risk?

I was also thinking to my Theatre LARP friends. There are a lot of opportunities in a setting like this. Social Opportunities, Support Opportunities. Just because it's a tournament doesn't mean the only Combat is physical. There is a competition of politics, of social ladders and skills that require. Why should the drama be restricted to the ring?

And thus, the Kensei was born.

The Kensei is a LARP set about a generation into the future. Reality TV and Internet Media has become the main opiate for the masses. Presidential Regimes are toppled with a blog post, new starlets are made with nothing more than a camera and a night on the town when you've forgotten to your underwear. While not overtly stated in society, sensitivity to Sex and Violence have declined. Out of the Internet fighting pits came a man known only as Honor Reigns. Reigns had the right set of martial skill, honest charm and business savvy. With it, he made his image and technique into a house hold name, creating a martial arts boom. Soon, other schools began to form, and a whole new subculture took hold.

It's been 10 years since the rise of Honor Reigns Empire. Rich, famous and arguably The First Authority on Martial Arts in the last three generations, Honor has decided to hold a Martial Arts Tournament to decide who the best in the world is. He named the tournament Kensei, after the japanese word. Depending on the characters used, it means Saint of the Sword or Saint of the Fist. Honor Reigns has found the middle ground and declared it to mean the Saint of Combat. Many media outlets and schools question Reigns motives for holding the tournament. Some believe that Honor is planning to retire or has become ill, others see it merely as a publicity stunt to take Honor Media over it's financial plateau, some think Reigns wishes to use this as a personal spring board to something much larger than running a top Five Media Group.

Whatever the reasons, the tournament has brought forth fighters from various schools, both major and minor and those who hold no ties to any school. They have also brough workers, crafters, doctors and medics to make a name for themselves and their skills, it has also brought the managers, the gamblers, and of course the reporters to vie and barter with currencies real and esoteric. Alliances form, rivalries forged, and the fighting in the ring.

So far a handful of us have been going over surface material, possible "Races" of Fighters, Classes of Crafters and Social Classes. We've looked a lot to DR for influences in combat while looking at New World of Darkness for Social Considerations (Ie; the Harpies of Vampire the Requiem are the Media Class). I want this to be something that, even if you aren't a combat player, you could be important in. Dystopia Rising has something like this, but even the most skilled politicians in game most likely have some proficiency in weaponry. What if the lines are a lot clearer, what happens then?

I want to explore themes around competition. Corruption, Cheating, Politics, Fame, Infamy, Violence, Sex. All the things we know are going on behind the scenes in sports and entertainment, but we never see happen. I also want to do something that hasn't been done so far as I've seen: Use Media to record the LARP in real time. Media Class players must Vlog, Blog, or stream the event live and in character. That is an ambitious statement, but one that is interesting.

So far, we're at the Logistics section, how do we do this? We'd need space, possible sleeping areas for multiple days, internet access, and the like. It's not so much the problems we see but what we don't see that worries me.

That is why I'd like to bring this to your attention, my readers and friends. I'd love to get my friends in on this and make this a thing. So I'd love your input.

Later.