In order to be successful, any LARP needs to recruit players. In order to make players interested in the game, they must be told somethign about it. They cannot be told too much, though, lest they have more information than their character should have and thus be unable to play the game. This is the same problem faced by the creators of a movie preview, or the jacket-description of a book, who wish to entice viewers/readers without giving away the story. The compromise for this situation is in the form of a blurb, which attempts to pique a player's interest without giving too much away.

All gamewriting is done in advance, and the players receive all of their information from the GMs in a character packet. Once the game starts, all character interactions are controlled purely by the players, with GMs intervening only as needed by the various mechanics that represent in-game systems and events which cannot be simulated perfectly in a LARP. To get an idea of what the game will look like when the players get their pregame information, take a look at all of the information which would be received in the character packet of a sample character.

The plot complete plot structure and characters of the game (still definitely a work in progress) are all described in files split up as follows:

• Overview of the overal setting and situation.
• Important rules and mechanics.
• How characters arrive in game.
• How characters can leave game or survive.
• Things people are trying to accomplish.
• Character descriptions.

Note that while these descriptions include all information directly relevant to game, some details of character history and personality which are known from Douglas Adams' books are left out due to lack of space. In the final presentation of the game to the players, some of these details could be included in the longer charactersheets, while some may be left out as unnecessary to the game. In casting, attention must be paid by the GMs to attempt to choose players who are familiar with the books for characters where that knowledge will help in role-playing, thus allowing the full character effects to be accomplished without the gamewriters having to duplicate large amounts of information from the books.

Any comments, questions, or suggestions are welcome. Send me some mail.