The Third Council was created over the course of 15 weeks in a group of 5 under the guidance of a professor. The full game is 100+ pages spread out over 3 handbooks. I played a role in every aspect of the game - inception, milestone setting, documentation, characters, script writing, rules, mechanics, the visual assets, iterating and playtesting. The area I focused the most on was readability of the documentation by players, including GMs, characters, story, and playtesting.
In addition to the 3 Handbooks, we kept a changelog of the LARP over its many iterations.
To read a brief description of the game, see the description in the upper right of this page!
This is the title page to the Bluesheet Handbook in the game. A Bluesheet is the information available to all players in the game. So it includes the background for the story in the game, the rules, the goals of the game, general information on the characters, and any other information all players should know before playing the LARP.
View the entire Bluesheet using the "View Website" link in the menu to the upper right!
This is a sample of the beginning of the character information of Alex Stone, one of the youngest Council Members, and the current lead supervisor of the mines. He firmly believes the workers are mistreated on Hephaestus Prime, and as such is a staunch advocate for better treatment of the miners. I did the initial write-up on his information.
Each character sheet states the character's name, age, a title describing what they're like, and a quote. The quote is used to help decided players who they would like to roleplay as. In addition, the first section is a brief summary to help players decide. Afterwards is their full background info, their opinions on their fellow council members, and their positions on existing issues the council must address.
Each character has unisex names and is referred to as "them" or "they" to be gender ambivalent so the player can choose how they'd want to roleplay the character.
All of the character sheets make up the second handbook.
This is a chart briefly detailing how the characters should feel about one another. This information is in the third handbook, the Game Master's Handbook, or the GM Handbook. This is to help the GM understand how the dynamic of the game should go between the players and their characters, but otherwise is not relevant to running the game. It is purely there to assist the GM.
This is a sample of the game script the GM will use to run the game. The game is divided into 4 council sessions. This is a sample of Session 3. As it is the council's last month together, each session represents their weekly meeting. As the game is a LARP, there are also "In-Between Sessions" where the players must take a short break and cannot discuss council matters as a group to simulate the time between meetings. It is found in the GM Handbook.
The script details how long each session should be, what the GM should present to the players, when during each stage of a Session or In-Between Session to present such information.
The sessions are also designed to become more and more intense as time progresses. As will be mentioned below in more detail, players have to deal with both Agenda Issues and Emergent Issues. As the game progresses, the Emergent Issues are designed to become more serious and more difficult to attend to as resources are consumed each week to address them.
This is an example of an Agenda Issue sheet. Agenda Issues are the starting issues that the Council is given to address. They were meant to address them earlier, but the sudden, serious earthquake delayed discussion of the matters in lieu of disaster relief. As such, they have to decide upon them in the last month of their terms. As mentioned above, the game takes place over 4 sessions. The Agenda Issues are presented to the players before play even begins in the Bluesheet and Character Sheets. They do not immediately consume resources, but will consume resources by the end of the game. This is found in the GM Handbook.
These form the starting point and the foundation of the game and council session play.
This is one of the more complex Agenda Issues as the solutions the players can choose from happens in tiers and is also tied to another Agenda Issue. Each Agenda Issue sheet details out what the issue is, the possible solutions to it, and their costs and any additional requirements.
This is an example of an Emergent Issue sheet. Emergent Issues are problems that arise as the game progresses and are typically limited time matters or serious matters that require immediate attention. As such, they require resources to spent immediately before the end of the current session. Leaving one unattended to could result in serious consequences. These are found in the GM Handbook.
These create extra tension throughout the game as they give a sense of immediacy and chaos. As mentioned above, they are designed to vary in seriousness. Some are serious problems while others are possible limited time investments.
Emergent Issue sheets are similar to Agenda Issue sheets. They present the matter at hand, who it is from, the possible options, and their costs. However, the repercussions of each are not known until the next session after the chosen plan has been enacted.
This is an email from an NPC that helps flourish character (in this case, Ash), the world the LARP takes place in, and create tension between characters and events. It plays off Ash's hidden involvement in a serious company scandal a few years before the events of the game, as well as foreshadows the problems that the NPC might create in the future.
From several playtests, this has consistently proven to be one of the most interesting events in the game as it added depth to the world, showed that it wasn't perfect, and alienated Ash from the rest of their fellow council members.
This is found in the GM Handbook and is received by Ash in between sessions. Ash then has the power to immediately share the information with the rest of the Council or withhold it and try to piece together why they suddenly received an email from someone they hadn't had contact with in years.
This is a very pivotal stat sheet that the GM must use and is found in the GM Handbook. It is used to keep track of several stats in the colony as the players make decisions on Emergent Issues and the Agenda Issues. The stats are then used to give a general idea of how the colony will end up post-game. As the game is designed to give the feel that the players are just cogs in a grand machine, the results of their actions are left open to interpretation and general discussion among the players and the GM. The stats in this sheet are there to help guide that.
The stats are hidden from the players during gameplay, but a general idea is given based on the numbers at the beginning of each session (their characters are living on the colony after all!).The stats are provided on a number scale and the chart details how each choice the players make in each decision affect the hidden stats.
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The Third Council
The Third Council is a 6-player LARP centered around what it would be like to experience being a bureaucracy during a time of crisis and nearing the end of their terms in office. Hence the title is "The Third Council" to indicate that there was a council before and there will be more after.
The game takes place far in the future on a corporate-owned mining planet, Hephaestus Prime, in the Major Dwarf Galaxy 25,000 lightyears away to mine the precious mineral that enabled FTL travel, Gravitite, that was discovered on Europa.
The players adopt the roles of the pre-made council members in charge of the planet in their last month before the members of the council are changed and after the colony just suffered the largest earthquake in its history. They have to decide how to allocate their limited resources, how to alleviate the harsh conditions of the mines, decide their sides on child labor, and more while managing pressure from the media, the corporation, and their colonists.
