Ability Cards
When players perform some sort of character action that is mediated by a mechanic, they may need to show an “ability cardâ€? to other players. Ability cards are slightly larger than item cards and specifically have a side that faces the player holding the card and a side that faces everybody else. The side facing the player with the card will list rules that define and limit the play of the card, e.g. “You may only play this card once a day.â€? The other side will tell other players the effect of the card, e.g. “Tell me your È statâ€? or “If you have a À memory packet, open it.â€? Some mechanics will involve the owner of the ability card and no one else. For those cases, the corresponding cards will not have any useful information printed on the outward-facing side. These cards serve to remind players of their characters’ more esoteric abilities and can be thought of as personal mini-Greensheets.
An ability card often represents a strategically valuable skill of a character that empowers a player to do what he or she cannot do or is not allowed to do in real life. The play of an ability card is an explicit abstraction that has no other in-game effects beside those listed on the text on the card. Ability cards possess the authoritative power of the written rules, they can conceal the extent of a character’s abilities and they differentiate characters by their capacity to interact with the game world and other characters.
Some other LARP groups use homemade weapons of stiff foam and fiberglass for the purposes of representing armed hand-to-hand combat. These “boffer� weapons require physical contact to determine character damage and inexperienced players may find the bruises raised by such combat to be painful and undesirable. The Guild often uses a variety of non-contact mechanics to represent mêlée combat, the most complicated of which involve modified ability cards known as “cinematic combat cards.� GMs use the text on these cards to describe all sorts of outlandish combat moves for players. In play, however, the characters are “fighting� in an entirely virtual arena. The resulting interactions are usually less visually exciting than the name “cinematic combat� might necessarily imply; conversely, ability cards such as combat cards can go a long way in helping avoid spooking non-players.
Ability cards are not in-game items; the play of an ability card occurs in the real world and not in game reality. Because of these qualities, ability cards can also be useful for constraining and abstracting problematic interpersonal interactions. Ability cards may duplicate activities that some players could achieve without the card, e.g. “I repeatedly shout at you, answer my question truthfully.� Players who have such a “Browbeat Witness� ability card realize that a play of the card is sufficient to achieve the desired game effects without actually having to shout at other players. These cards permit certain socially difficult but game-appropriate interactions to occur between characters instead of players. Players do not have to enact the actual ability to produce the results of the character interaction, thus avoiding emotional conflicts with other players. Even if a player chooses to roleplay according to the description of the ability card, the display of the card makes clear to others that his or her actions are strictly representative of the character, not of the player.
Similarly, when an ability card is played on someone, he or she realizes that the results of such an interaction is largely contingent on the prescribed abilities between characters and does not reflect on any player’s gaming ability or lack thereof. To be taken for a ride by a fast-talking opponent can be embarrassing for the player; to be similarly “deceived� by the play of a “Fast Talk� ability card is merely an unfortunate turn of events for the character and is much more likely to be accepted without argument by all the players involved. In this way, ability cards can facilitate socially difficult game interactions and advance the course of events by merit of their dissociative qualities.
