Props and Guns
Despite the amount of work involved, many GMs will go to great lengths to provide physical representations, or “physreps,� of various items that are important in the game. Simply known among stage circles and other live-action roleplaying groups as “props,� these tangible objects are designed to give players an immediate understanding of the size, weight or potential uses of the object.
Physreps can greatly clarify certain game interactions. If players are told that an eighteen-inch foam tube represents a medieval sword, they will generally understand that they should not roll it into a coil and fit it in their pocket. They will also assume that other players holding eighteen-inch foam tubes represent characters that are armed with similar swords. Of course, compared to item cards, props require much more advance preparation on the part of the GMs. However, item cards are difficult to distinguish from a distance and require players to read the text on the card to gather basic information. Players may reasonably expect to be able to distinguish between a character carrying an electric stungun or a character with a huge bar of gold; item cards do not facilitate that process. The following paragraph in the Standard Rules addresses issues surrounding non-physrepped items: …be reasonable with items. You can’t carry a hundred rocks in your pocket, you can’t fold a sword in half, you can’t hide a life-sized statue in a fire hose. Your Character shouldn’t either. Only do things with item cards that your Character would be able to do with the actual items; use common sense.
The weight and size of physrepped items can effectively encourage players to think of game items as real objects, not as random MacGuffins. A 2002 ten-day science-fiction game named L5 written by Jake Beal, Jim Waldrop and Joseph Foley used several large PVC pipes filled with cement to represent objects that would normally require two people to carry. Upon discovering these physreps, players naturally began to look for carts or for trustworthy allies to help move the objects. In this way, they had to strategize about the transport of the items in the same way that their characters needed to think about them. In A New Deal, a 2002 film noir game of my own, several characters were looking for a stolen government computer. The physrep was a heavy, seven-foot-tall steel rack filled with scrap electronics and squeaky wheels, deliberately sized to remind the 20th century players of the size of computers in 1948. Physreps can also have an emotive impact, even if they are not immensely large or heavy. When one straps a “sword� onto one’s belt, wields it with both hands, or holds it up to another player’s neck, Janet Murray would call that length of foam a “threshold object,� a tangible entity that has a presence in both the physical world and the virtual world, helping players to imagine across that threshold.
The Guild places great emphasis on the safety of props, particularly with regards to sword-like weapons, as GMs realize that some players may get carried away and start swinging them around. However, games set in the "Star Wars" universe tend to include officially licensed toy lightsabers that are available at larger toy stores. A toy lightsaber is made of hard plastic and could easily hurt somebody if it is swung fast enough. They also tend to be more expensive than the usual soft foam tubes. However, these toys not only look the part but also have the ability to retract and extend in a fashion reminiscent of the lightsabers in the movies. In the 2000 "Star Wars" game named Wretched Hive of Scum and Villany by Brian Sniffen, Ariel Segall and Charles Leiserson, the GMs added the use of the double-ended lightsabers as introduced by George Lucas’ "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace". They gave combat bonuses to Sith characters wielding these lightsabers with both blades extended and similar bonuses to Jedi characters who wielded these lightsabers with only one blade extended. In this way, the GMs included certain props based on their functionality and designed their game mechanics to take advantage of that functionality.
In the Guild, no other prop comes close in popularity to the toy gun. Rubber dart guns and plastic disc guns launch disposable, lightweight projectiles through the air, requiring players to aim straight and dodge quickly. Players often fail to feel the impact of the dart or disc through their clothes but the Guild usually sticks to “shooter calls the shot� rules on two rationales: only the shooter can be counted on to actually see the trajectory of the shot, and players can be trusted to be honest about their hits and misses, since so many mechanics of Guild games already rely on the honor system. Toy guns have a tendency to jam and make a lot of noise when firing. It can be more difficult to pull out a toy gun from concealment and fire the gun, compared to the use of any other physrep. These problems should make toy guns unlikely candidates for performing Guild assassinations, especially if there are other mechanics for ranged combat. Yet, every time a GM team announces a new game, some Guild member will invariably ask, “will there be guns?�
Toy guns are the threshold objects of choice for the Guild because they succeed in representing both the physical and the functional attributes of real guns. They are the right size and can be concealed in pockets just like real guns. Their projectiles actually fly through the air and players know that their aim can affect the outcome of the game in the same way that their characters’ aim can affect the course of events in the game world. Furthermore, a toy gun, at close range, can actually sting if it hits unclothed skin. Even though players know that no one is allowed to shoot at another player’s head, holding a gun up to someone’s head can generate a real, instinctive fear that will make most players flinch, deepening the immersive experience considerably.
In dialogue with the popularity of toy guns are mechanics that dictate the effects of being hit by one of their projectiles. Many Assassin game rules make toy guns powerful in combat, disabling most characters with a single hit. Considering that most martial combat mechanics in the Guild include a probabilistic chance of failure, toy guns become the weapon of choice at close range and the "only" choice at long range. In games where guns make little sense, e.g. if every character is a supernatural being, toy guns may still be used to represent some sort of non-ballistic ranged attack, such as a magical spell.
Toy guns have a firm grip on the imagination of members of the MIT Assassins’ Guild. GMs realize that if they want to write a game that does "not" feature toy guns, they need to have an extremely good reason for their decision. It is worth noting that games in the MIT Assassins’ Guild that disallow violent solutions to conflicts are even rarer than Guild games without toy guns.
