Cambridge Larp Society - User contributions [en]

Constitution

2014-10-24T09:23:37Z

MorkaisChosen:

The following document is the society constitution:

== The Constitution ==
The Society shall be called Cambridge Larp Society.

The Society will run and maintain a live action roleplay system ("The Game") for its members.

The Society will run regular adventure and interactive events within The Game.

The Society shall be governed by this Constitution and ultimately though the members at General Meetings, and run day-to-day by the Exec.

The Game shall be run day-to-day by the Referee Team.

Upon dissolution of the society any saleable equipment owned by the society is to be sold off if necessary to pay for any debts incurred and the remainder of useful equipment and money to be donated to an appropriate Society to be decided by the members at the time such an event occurs.

=== The Executive Committee ===

The Executive Committee ("The Exec") is to consist of a President, a Secretary and a Junior Treasurer.

The Members of the Committee shall be elected individually at The Annual General Meeting in the order in which they first appear in the constitution. All the Members of the Committee shall take office at midnight at the end of the the last day of the Full Easter term in which they were elected, and shall hold office until midnight at the end of the last day of the following full Easter Term. All Members of the Committee shall be eligible for re-election.

The Exec shall collectively have responsibility for all matters relating to the Society, other than those relating directly to the Game, which shall be the responsibility of the Referee Team. It shall consist of the following officers:

The President, who shall oversee the running of the society and will present a report to the Annual General Meeting. Nobody who has been a member of The Society for less than six months may hold the office of President. The President shall take the chair at all official meetings of The Society. If the President is not present then the meeting shall elect another member of the exec as chair to run the meeting. The President shall also have the casting vote in any official meeting of the society. The President may not be a referee.

The Junior Treasurer, who shall look after the Society's money and keep accounts. The Junior Treasurer may authorise spending up to 20 without consulting the remainder of the exec and any amount with the majority approval of the Exec. The Junior Treasurer shall keep accounts of all income and expenditure, which shall be open to Members on two weeks notice, and which shall be audited annually. The Junior Treasurer shall present a report on the Society's financial position to the Annual General Meeting each year. The Junior Treasurer shall submit the accounts to the Senior Treasurer for approval and auditing by the Proctors once a year.

The Secretary, who shall be responsible for communicating with members. The Secretary shall be responsible for calling general meetings and producing agendas and minutes. keep the minutes of all General Meetings of the Society, and of all meetings of the Committee. These minutes should be published within two weeks of the meeting. Minutes shall be open to inspection by Members on two weeks notice. Where required to do so, The Secretary shall notify the Junior Proctor of all changes in the Officers and Constitution of the Society.

Should any vacancy occur on the Exec during the year, the remaining Exec must call an Emergency General Meeting of the Society to elect a new one subjust to the rules for sufficient advance notice given in the Constitution.

The quorum for the Exec is all 3 members.

The Head Referee will act as a non voting advisor to the exec and is to be invited to all Committee meetings.

=== Membership ===

Ordinary Membership shall be open to any Member of the University of Cambridge; membership will be made open to any non Member of the University at the discretion of the Committee.

Membership shall not necessarily grant the right to participate in The Game, which shall be subject to the conditions in this Constitution.

The Executive Committee shall set a yearly membership fee for students. They shall also set a yearly membership fee for non-students, which shall be the same or higher. Additional charges may be added for extra facilities.

A person may be made an Honorary Member by a majority vote at a General meeting and as such does not have to pay a membership fee but cannot vote at a General Meeting or hold any committee position unless they are also an Ordinary Member.

=== Conduct of Meetings ===

General meetings of the Society shall be open to all Members except Honorary Members who do not hold Ordinary Membership. 1/3 (rounded up) of the current Membership, or fifteen Members, whichever is the lesser shall form a quorum.

The Annual General Meeting shall be held not less than seven days before the end of the Full Easter Term each year, upon a date to be determined by the Committee. Should the Annual General Meeting be inquorate, the Meeting may proceed nevertheless to the receipt of the financial report and the Chairman's report and the election of officers only. Any decision made by such a meeting shall be subject to ratification by a quorate General Meeting.

The Exec may summon an Extraordinary General Meeting at any time subject to the rules in the Constitution for a purpose which must also be published to the society.

If the Secretary shall receive a requisition stating a subject to be brought before a general Meeting and signed by not less than ten Members of the Society, s/he shall forthwith inform the President who shall appoint a date for a Special General Meeting. This meeting shall take place not more than thirty days after the receipt of the requisition, or if the meeting would thus be held outside full term, not more than fourteen days after the beginning of the Full Term immediately following.

No General Meeting of the Society shall be held outside of Full term or outside Cambridge.

The Secretary shall send to each Member (except Honorary Members) notice of the Date, Place and Time of any General Meeting and of any subjects to be discussed at that meeting not less than seven days before that meeting. If notice of such business be given to the secretary not less than fourteen days before the meeting, then the Secretary shall be responsible for giving notice to the Members. The accidental omission to any Member entitled to receive such notice shall not invalidate anything done at that meeting.

The election for members of the Exec are to be conducted in the order stated above. No person may offer themself as a candidate for an Exec post if they do not comply with the rules in the Constitution for the post concerned. All candidates for the Exec must hold Ordinary Membership of the society. A candidate may be proposed in advance of the Annual General Meeting in writing to the Secretary bearing the name of the proposer the seconder and must be countersigned by the candidate. A candidate may also be proposed and seconded verbally up to the election of that post at the AGM. The candidate must consent to the nomination for it to go forward. The proposer and seconder must be Ordinary Members. The ballot for each post will take place by secret paper ballot with the single transferable vote system. Candidates are allowed to vote. The President has the casting vote in the event of any ties. The President may appoint as many Ordinary Members as tellers as deemed necessary and is responsible for seeing that the vote is properly conducted.

No member of the Exec may propose a candidate for election to their current position.

Ordinary Members who have not attended more than a third of the interactives in the academic year of the AGM may not vote for President.

The procedure for voting on motions in General Meetings and meetings of the Committee shall be as follows: each motion shall require a proposer and seconder. If there is opposition, then after discussion a vote shall be taken by a show of hands, each person having one vote.

Motions at quorate General Meetings may with a 50% approval of those present and voting, provided that at least five Members vote in favour:

*Submit for serious consideration by the Referee Team a proposed alteration to the Game Rules
*Instruct the Executive Committee
*Discuss and make resolutions on any other issue related to the Society or the Game

With a 2/3 approval of those present a Motion may:

*Remove any Exec member of the Society from office
*Remove any Referee from their position
*Change this Constitution.
The President is responsible for seeing that the Referee Team give serious and proper consideration to any proposed changes to the rules but that the Referee Team do not overstep their mandate in so doing.

General Meetings shall elect officers other than those specified to be appointed in some other way and annually approve the accounts of the society.

The President may call a meeting of the Exec at any time with 5 days notice and must call a meeting of the Exec if the other members of the Exec agree that one is needed.

The Exec shall be the sole interpreter of this constitution for the purpose of any meeting with the President having a casting vote and their decision shall be final. The chair of any meeting shall have a casting vote in the event of the equality of votes for and against any motion or election.

=== The Referee Team ===

The Head Referee may not be on the Exec but may attend Exec meetings as an advisor to them.

The Referee Team (Ref team) shall be led by a Head Ref and shall consist of as many Refs as are deemed necessary at the time of the Ref Team's appointment.

The Refs are responsible for the direct running of The Game and the Head Ref's decision on any aspect of the Game World and interpretation and clarification of the rules is absolutely final.

The Refs are responsible for maintaining the set of rules that govern The Game and ruling on clarifications and contradictions; they may amend inconsistencies and errors and add clarifications without consultation of the society.

The Refs may make changes to the rules where it is deemed absolutely necessary subject to the majority approval of the Exec.

The Refs are to seriously consider and, if in agreement that a motion is sensible, implement any motions regarding the rules that are passed at a General Meeting, the President overseeing this as stated in the Conduct of Meetings section. The Refs must supply to the satisfaction of the President the reason for any motions passed by the society that were not upheld by the Ref Team and the reason is then to be made public to the society.

=== Appointment of the Referee Team ===

The Refs also must be Ordinary Members of the Society.

The appointment of the Ref Team at the AGM is to take place directly after the appointment of the Exec.

Anyone who is an Ordinary Member of the Society may offer themself as a candidate for the new Referee Team by expressing this to the Head Ref in writing. If they are elected President and accept the position then they may not become a Ref.

Anyone who would also be willing to be Head Ref should make this known to the current Head Ref in writing and offer themselves as a candidate for the new Ref Team.

The current Refs are responsible for seeing that nobody who may wish to be a Ref is overlooked.

The current Refs in consultation with the new Head Ref are to decide how many people are necessary for the new Ref Team.

The current Ref Team in consultation with the Exec and taking into account the societies opinions are to appoint a Head Ref whom they feel is the best candiate.

The current Ref Team in consultation with the Exec and the new Head Ref and taking into account the societies opinions are then to appoint a Ref Team which they feel will be the best team to run the Game the next year.

When the Head Ref and Ref Team are presented they must be approved of by the society by at least 1/2 (rounded up) of the Ordinary Members at the Meeting. If they are not approved of at that point another selection is to be made and the Ref Team presented to the society for approval until a Ref Team is approved of. If it is not possible to find a satisfactory Ref Team at the AGM then the matter must be resolved by calling another General Meeting to deal with this as soon as is possible under the constutition.

Any candidate for a Referee position may step down immediately after their appointment so that a replacment can be found.

Should any vacancy occur on the Ref Team during the year, the remaining Ref Team must appoint a replacement according to the process described in this Constitution. The Exec must then call an Emergency General Meeting of the Society to approve the new Ref subjust to the rules for sufficient advance notice given in the Constitution.

Only Ordinary Members may vote for Refs.

No more than two members of the new Ref team may be serving as Refs in the current year.

=== The Game ===

Members must agree to abide by the rules in this section if they wish to participate in the game.

Members may participate in the game subject to safe behaviour, abiding by the rules and accepting the authority of event organisers.

Members must accept that the Game is a contact sport and that it has the risks associated with this.

All weapons must be checked by a member of the Ref Team before they are used. Any item deemed unsafe must be left with the refs or event organiser for the duration of the event and not brought to future events.

Metal weapons may not be used as props and should not be bought to events.

The Society will not be held liable for any loss or damage to your person or property at an event.

The Society may issue a temporary ban for person found to be knowingly breaking the spirit of the rules or behaving unsafely if the Exec and Refs collectively agree in a majority that it is necessary. If the ban is for more than a week a the person will be eligible to have an appropriate proportion of their membership fee refunded.

An event organiser may expel a person from an event if they are behaving unsafely or knowingly breaking the spirit of the rules and have already had advance warning. Any such expulsions must be reported to the Committee and Ref Team as soon as possible afterwards.

=== Finance ===

The Society will have one bank account with Natwest.

The signatories of the account shall be the Junior Treasurer, the President and the Secretary such that two signatures are needed to access the account.

The Senior Treasurer shall not be liable for any financial debt or other obligation of the Society unless he or she has personally authorized such a debt in writing.

The Society may not become overdrawn on its bank account without the agreement of a majority of paid members at a General Meeting. In the event of such an agreement, all paid members are equally liable for the debt to the bank.

A Guide To Roleplaying

2014-10-01T10:55:37Z

MorkaisChosen: TTness changed to NFNCness per Hark's instructions.

If you're reading this you probably know what "roleplaying" is as a concept, and have maybe done some of it. In particular, LARP roleplaying is a little like freeform acting, it's improvisational, and there's a lot more to it than just the mechanics of the game. While they play a part in what you are allowed to do, they're not really where the roleplay comes from. Roleplaying is about making sure you act in character (IC) - i.e. you do what the character you're playing would do, not necessarily what you would do in real life. It's also about not spoiling the mood, acting in an out of character (OOC) manner can break the immersion other players have at that moment. In some ways this is a co-operative thing, in order to keep the mood, you need to work with the other players. This guide contains a few pointers to help you out.

== Ignorance is bliss ==
Your character doesn't need to (and in fact shouldn't) know everything about the setting. There is a huge amount of information on the website, however if you are playing a fighter it's unlikely that you know much at all about priests and mages. Certainly not their strictures, miracles, spells etc - if you come from a rural village you are unlikely to have ever met a mage, and you might have had one village priest. If you're playing a mage, you're unlikely to have good knowledge of the workings of the other guilds. The same goes for most fields of knowledge - unless you have a really good IC reason to know things (you were brought up in the temple of the Explorer, you bodyguarded a necromancer once) you probably don't. If in doubt, always assume ignorance. This a) keeps things balanced for new players and b) makes the world more interesting. You can model information (and disinformation) flow if your knowledge about the world comes mostly from what others have told you IC.

== Don't Panic! ==
The nature of the game (not everything is defined, you are expected to adlib) means occasionally people have different views of how things work, and sometimes you'll come up against someone saying something about the world ('All Builderites hate the colour blue') that doesn't tally with what you believe about it. Whatever happens, don't panic, drop out of character and have a big argument about what's in the Church of the Builder page! Firstly, not everyone is playing from the same page, other characters may be trying to spread disinformation. They may have been told something incorrectly IC. 'I've never heard of that - it's not that way where I come from. Are you sure?' is fine - generally if it's an OOC misunderstanding everyone looks slightly embarrassed, changes the subject and goes to thrash out what's actually going on with the refs OOC after the interactive. The flip side of this coin is if you aren't sure and it isn't covered in the wiki, make statements that you can back up with your background rather than statements about the world as a whole. If it isn't covered in the website brief, it probably isn't something the refs think is important enough to need to be defined, but be aware other people may have defined it differently to you. Say 'I believe Celebrant thinks *this* about marriages', not 'The Celebrant Church thinks *this* about marriages' - then if people disagree you can argue your point of view in character.

== Keep IC/OOC Separate ==
There are two levels to this - the first, most important is to have as part of your mindset that '''what happens in the game stays in the game''' - if someone's character kills yours it is not an attack on you personally. The same if their character disagrees with yours. (In general an assassination attempt is a compliment - your character is having enough of an impact on the game for someone to feel they have to take such a risky action). If you are having problems with this, talk to the refs. If you really can't get around this, Treasure Trap may not be the game for you. Conflict is a part of our setting, and we expect characters to antagonise each other and have fights.

On a more mechanical level, your character only knows things they have found out IC. You, the player, may know that those wiggly blue things you monstered on the linear last week are about to shoot air magic out their nostrils and are only defeatable by spirit weapons, your character doesn't unless they were there, or have been told about it IC.

== Keep IC Secrets OOC ==
In general, if you have something you don't want people to know IC, don't tell people about it OOC. Things slip into IC knowledge easily, non intentionally - would you have made that deduction if you didn't know XYZ OOC? At what point would you started to have suspect, IC, if you didn't already know the answer OOC? Even if you are happy letting people know your secrets OOC, you may be inadvertently be messing up someone else's roleplay.

== Don't Use OOC words IC ==
Hit points, system calls and RESISTs (and hence '2 hit healing potions' etc) are all OOC concepts, really try not to use them IC. You should be able to convey any concept without resorting to describing the system OOC, if you can't explain them IC ('I have three hits left') it's probable you don't actually understand them in that level of detail IC. Although things have a definite system effect they aren't necessarily more certain IC than they would be in real life, it's acceptable to be slightly vague. Spells are 'lesser magics' (a level 1 spell). Potions are 'strong enough to bring an unconscious elf back to full health', 'strong enough to knock your average guy in the street unconscious'.

== Don't drop OOC when you're IC ==
On the most straightforward level, don't start discussing what you saw at the cinema on the weekend - if you're tired of roleplaying and want to catch up with someone, leave to the out of character area. Don't make OOC remarks when you're IC.

Yes, we've all noticed that there's a Tesco bag floating in the Pool of Wisdom, or that the person playing the evil witch is the same person who played the dying maiden 5 minutes ago; but if you remark on it, you might completely spoil the feel of an encounter for someone else, and probably for yourself. Just because your hand's in the air doesn't mean that it doesn't distract other players just as much as if you'd made the remark in-character. Try to build up atmosphere, not destroy it. Try to always act as in-character as you can, and communicate things in-character. Don't say, "I think I know what happened here (OOC, I'm using Knowledge 3)"; or "the mage is the one at the back (*hand in the air* the one played by Bryony)". If you can't get something across in-character, then your character probably can't either, so don't say it. If you need to talk to a ref, do it in the least distracting way possible.

== Roleplay when you fight ==
You've been hit with a sword three or four times. Yes, your character sheet may tell you that you still have at least one point, but you're hardly going to feel it top physical condition. When you are hit with a weapon, it slices into your skin, or crushes your flesh. You're not going to be thinking about your next hit for a moment - you're going to be thinking "OW that hurts". Roleplay your injuries, perhaps be a bit less effective when you're back in the fight; because, however many points you may have left, you're hurt. You might be angry about this, you might be upset, scared, or gritting your teeth; but you're going to have noticed. ... your character will develop personality in the way that they react to things like injury, rather than just going "5 hits... 2 hits... 1 hit... dying".

== Don't prod the setting ==
Turns out Mat Sellah isn't real. Yes, there are holes in the system. Yes, a real character living in Mat Sellah might start to notice that it was slightly strange the way nothing much happened in the world over the holidays. You are in charge of your character, and peculiarities of the game mechanics and the way we play just do not occur to them. In the No Flag, No Country world a peasant really can take a sharp axe and whang you over the head four times without knocking you out. This won't be surprising, because in the Treasure-Trap world that's the way the metaphysics works.

Large portions of this guide were borrowed from [http://www.dur.ac.uk/treasure.trap/roleplay.php Durham's Guide]. If you have any questions or want advice, just sit down with another player and talk about it. Most of our members are quite happy to argue about the philosophy of roleplaying and discuss it at length, and will only be too happy to help. Likewise, if you feel uncomfortable about something or are unsure if you're doing it right, just ask for some constructive criticism from your fellow players when you're not in character. Larp in general is a very different experience to most things, and we all learn new things every time we play.