Hi David,


>If there are only a few of you then you can probably afford to >switch
>guns if you find that the first ones do not work for you, but if >you
>build up to about 30 players it will start to get more and more
>expensive to change your mind. You can also face the problem where
>extra people want to come along but you can't get spare guns for >them.

>That wouldn't matter too much if you did short combats between two
>people, but if everyone was potentially fighting at the same time
>they would need a gun each (or two guns each).

At the moment Gun sau is only intended for two-person duels but i can imagine
the more elaborate long-range "Matrix-like" version involving teams. By that
stage I hope we'll either have the customised guns of we will have figured out a
way to modify an easily available system. The Sega Lock-Ons look promising and
they are quite widely availoable in NZ and Australia.

> ---------------------
> 2) If you are trying to appeal to existing taggers (which you
> probably are not) then they will probably want to bring their own
> guns. This means that you would be advised to use whatever gun is
> considered to be the standard by NZ taggers. However, as you seem
to
> be appealing to martial artists, you would probably be lending them
> guns and can use whatever system works best.
> ----------------------
It's quite hard to figure out who to "market" this idea to. There are elements
of martial arts, science-fiction and tag sport so I guess people who already
have those interests will be the most into it.

Unfortunately I still have not been able to locate any non-commercial tag groups
in NZ. The LTTO system has sold out from the biggest toy retailer here but I'm
guessing that most of them went to young kids.

>Sounds like you will be going down the customised gun route. I
>suggest you learn a bit about putting circuts into guns as you will
>almost certainly need to tinker with guns if you play long term. If >a
>microswitch connected to the trigger of a gun gives out it would be
>good to be able to repair it without posting it off to the guy in >the
>USA.

Luckily my brother has done some electronics at school and he is more into that
side of things than I am. I reckon our biggest challenge in the near future
will be to strengthen and/or pad the gun casing to cope with impact.

>The main reason to bring in the forcefield idea was to explain, why
>people wore flashing hats and why they could be shot six times.

>We found that it was easier to build the VE combat system around >the
>Lazer Tag system rather than try to fit a six hit flashing hat into >a
>simulation of real combat.

So you kept the sensors but disabled the LEDs?

>I would suggest using gun rules that fit in with the martial arts >as
>well as whatever tagging system you decide to go with. If you do go >with
homebuilt stuff you will probably also find that you can have
>the chips programmed to follow whatever sort of rules you use. I >know
>of people that make magazines with 99 shots and that sort of thing. >Maybe you
could put a fixed number of bullets into your guns and
>control the fire rate.

I wouldn't have a clue how to re-programme a chip but I've seen sound FX etc.
available as downloads. It would definitely fit the feel of the Equilibrium
fight better if the guns went BANG instead of Zap. We can probably live with
whatever number of hits, six works fine and when someone dies we just start
another round.

>However, if you cut down the amount of role playing until it feels
>right to you then perhaps they *will* like it.
>At a bare (and this is really bare) minimum you could:
>* Get people to come up with a game name for their fighter and
>* Dress up the arena or the players in some way, so that it reminds >people of
the films.

>You could even publish some sort of league table with peoples
>character names and scores.

I was kind of thinking about that, maybe developing training uniforms inspired
by the movie costumes and "character names" at least as far as Net screen names
go. So far we have GunFu, Tunde, Kyuzo, Drifter, Darkman and Artful Dodger
signed up to the Gun Sau Forum.

>It probably would be a long way off, but just be careful to watch >how
>much of your personal money you sink into this. You need to look
>after kit to try to minimise breakages and try to recycle things if >you can.
Have a look around the internet for websites telling you >how
>to make props if you decide you want to use props.

We will defintiely be careful about $$ because we don't have much! The website
and Forum are free but we sunk NZ$150 into the LTTO guns (oops) the Lock-Ons
will be about $NZ50 and we spent a bit on misc. equipment (pump-action water
pistols, wrist braces, etc.)

>Thanks for the offer. I don't think that anyone in our group would
>want to base a game on a film with martial arts in it as we have
>specifically banned *most* hand to hand combat from our game.

>Our universe is mostly based on space films and is not influenced
>much by martial arts films. (We have seven power blocs fighting to
>control the inhabited worlds.)

OK, but you should probably see Equilibrium anyway. I don't say that just
because I'ma fan, but it is definitely science fiction (think Brave New World,
1894, Logan's Run and farenheit 451). the basic premise is that after WW3 the
new World Government decides to ban human emotion so everyone has to take a drug
called Prozium. Deople who don't take the drug are called "Sense Offenders" and
the Govt. has created a kind of mystical police force called the Grammaton
Clerics to hunt down Sense Offenders and eliminate the Resistence. Of course
the top Cleric starts to question the way it works and ends up figthing the
establishment.

The Gun Sau that we are doing is based on the last fight scene in the movie but
most of the other fights don't involve hand-to-hand combat so much, it's more
like stylised John Woo gunplay. I don't know but the basic scenario might fit
one of your worlds.

>Sorry "faf" means fuss. What I mean't was that spending two months
>creating a LARP system, if your game lasts five minutes might not >be
>worth doing.

That's why I'm thinking more about touches like the uniforms, etc. being
inspired by the movie rather than doing it as a LARP per se.

>I stand corrected. I assumed that you were talking of japanese
>*style* martial arts similar to kung fu. If you mean all sorts of
>close up fighting then I assume that all countries have their own
>versions (assuming their culture has not been wiped out).

Sorry I didn't mean to be condescending! But yeah, when Japanese style martial
artists see the old German, Italian etc. fighting manuals they can't believe it
because they are so used to thinking of "martial arts" as just coming out of
Asia.

thanks,

GunFu





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