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Glossary of terms
A list of words and terms you might hear people say from time to time, or see used on this website.
Adventure: A structured LARP event in which a character party with some sort of mission or quest encounters monsters placed by a ref or ref team and some sort of story unfolds. This contrasts to LARP events or interactives, which are more freestyle and have characters interacting by themselves as an end to itself (with occasional stuff thrown in for interest).
Armoury: A place where communal phys-reps are stored, often with items available for loan to new players until they buy/make/are given their own.
Background: Even though you may just have invented your character yesterday, supposedly they have been alive for a decade or two and in that time they might have done interesting things which shaped their personality. The more rich and colourful the background, the easier it is to roleplay the character and the more "alive" they become. You can email your background to the refs, or just keep it in your head to apply in-character. Backgrounds that have been used in the past include "just graduated from the seminary in Londinium, coming up here for my first posting", "ran away from my stuffy parents to study magic and music here", "I'm a Grob-worshipping shady pirate necromancer" and "everyone I know died in mysterious circumstances and I found myself here, I don't really have a job yet, do you need a mercenary?".
Bastard sword: A bastard sword is a LARP-safe sharp weapon of exactly 42" in length. It may be wielded in one hand and treated as a one-handed weapon for the purposes of skills, or in two hands and treated as a two-handed weapon for the purposes of skills. The wielder may always choose to treat it as a one-handed weapon if for some reason their damage call would be greater if they did so. The weapon length limits in TT are slightly flexible; 5% each way is a good rule of thumb. See 'longsword' and 'two-handed weapon'.
Broken: A broken phys-rep is one that doesn't work for its intended purpose any more, like a sword where the handle comes away from the blade. If the weapons checker says your weapon is broken or unsafe, it is; don't sneak it in. A broken rule or character is one that is vastly more powerful than the rest of the system.
Call: A call is a sequence of words that has a special meaning in the game rules. Please see the 'System Calls' section of the website, where the calls are defined; it is important that a player knows how to react to at least the damage calls and simple effect calls.
Canon: Most LARP groups have an archive of past happenings and plots, which may also supposedly sketch out the history of that universe. This provides a valuable and interesting resource for players writing new plots.
Cosh: A cosh is a LARP-safe blunt weapon of 18" or less in length. The limit of natural damage with a cosh is SINGLE. The weapon length limits in TT are slightly flexible; 5% each way is a good rule of thumb. See 'dagger'.
Character: When you LARP you invent a character according to a series of rules and then you pretend to be them. You can have several characters at once (though you can only play one at a time!) but most people prefer to have a main character who they focus on. Your character does not have to be anything like you, even down to gender and species, although many of the most successful characters have been very similar to their players.
Character Party: A group of characters all on the same mission is a character party, often abbreviated to 'party'.
Character Sheet: The abilities of your character are recorded on your character sheet, which is also a record of your XP. Character sheets are duplicated - the player has a copy so they can remember what skills they have and update as necessary and the ref has a copy so they know what characters they have in the system and can write plot accordingly. The ref copies of the character sheets are stored electronically, and many players do the same. Please do not feel compelled to publish your character sheet to the other players; this is not compulsory and may be detrimental to your character's health if they are someone particularly nefarious.
Class: In a class-based system all characters belong to a class, or stereotype. Each class has a different set of skills and is good at different things. Treasure Trap roughly follows a class system; the classes available are Warrior, Mage, Priest, Subterfuge, Wilderness and Alchemy. However, this is mostly for convenience in dividing the rules into manageable chunks, and it is entirely permissible for a character to have skills from two (or more) classes. The Warrior / Mage combination, for example, allows membership of the Warlocks' Guild and access to their special abilities and equipment.
DAC: Dexterity Armour Class. Each point of DAC allows you to ignore the first hit you would otherwise take in a combat encounter. A minute without fighting causes this effect to refresh. Although the third level Blessing miracle has a similar effect, it does not grant true DAC as this protection refreshes only at dawn and dusk.
Dagger: A dagger is a LARP-safe sharp weapon of 18" or less in length. The limit of natural damage with a dagger is SINGLE except in the case of the Backstab skill. The weapon length limits in TT are slightly flexible; 5% each way is a good rule of thumb. See 'cosh'.
Downtime: Downtime is the time that elapses in the gameworld between interactives and adventures. As well as any roleplaying that occurs during this time, it is possible to perform certain actions. The most usual downtime actions involve gathering information, communicating with various other characters and NPCs, creating potions, researching spells and so on. Certain classes have explicit systems for certain types of downtime action (potion and other item creation and spell research), but in general there is no system; the players submit downtime actions by email and receive replies written by the Refs.
Double-Buying: You "buy" skills for your character with XP. If you double-buy a skill you generally increase your proficiency in it compared to others of your class and level. However, this comes at a price: the second time you buy a skill in a level it will cost twice as much XP, the third time will cost three times as much and so on.
Dramatic Hits: An old practice still occasionally found is that very powerful entities on adventures will be statted to 'Dramatic Hits' rather than given a specific number. The ref playing them will judge when they have taken enough damage to kill them, rather than allowing this to be decided by a pre-agreed number. The term 'dramatic' may also be applied to mana or spirit points, or any other resource; this means that they run out when it feels right that they should and not before.
Flange: A sometimes derogatory term for an item, person, object, or ability not immediately covered by the basic rules, introduced by the Refs. One purpose of the call system is to allow the players to react correctly to Flange when it occurs, rather than being confused.
God: See the 'Pantheons' page. The Gods of the Treasure Trap setting are neither omnipotent nor omnipresent, but they are powerful. By long-standing treaty, they awaken certain of their best worshippers as priests rather than acting directly.
Global: The opposite of 'locational'. Global hits mean that a monster has one hit point total for their entire body rather than separate totals for each hit location. Armour granted by spells and miracles is global.
Hits: Hits, or hit points, represent the amount of physical punishment someone or something can take before being incapacitated. Characters may gain more hits by purchasing the Health, Fitness and Fortitude skills.
Inflict: An 'Inflict' is any effect with the call INFLICT attached; unless its duration is stated, it has effect until the sun next crosses the horizon. Inflict effects may be up to permanent in duration.
IC: In Character. Anything which would be perceptible to anyone in the world of Treasure Trap under any circumstances. Whenever you are pretending to be your character, you are IC.
Invisible: While invisible, an entity is immune to targeted effects (but not Mass or Wide effects), touch-ranged effects and weapon damage; invisibility is not distinguishable from not being there, both of these being denoted by putting your hand or finger in the air. If you are invisible you are not inaudible - you can be heard talking. Invisibility is broken if you attack anything, you begin the vocal for any spell or miracle, you are within the area of a Mass or Wide Detect spell or miracle to which you must respond, or you attempt to take an item from someone's hand.
Immune: A creature that is 'immune' to a certain type of damage takes no damage from sources of that type; such damage does not break HALT.
Kit: Your kit is your costume and your personal phys-reps. Most players eventually acquire vast amounts of kit, much of which is slightly yet fundamentally in need of repair. This tends to be a disadvantage of having distinct kit for each character - when they die you are left holding a blood-spattered shirt/pair of elf ears/four litres of blue hair spray with no use to you or anyone else yet with great sentimental value. It gets added to the pile of kit until your partner or mother throws it away in several years. Some of the society members own more than their body weight in kit. Kit can be donated to or borrowed from the armoury at need, but please ask ref permission before doing this.
LARP: Live Role Play or Live Action Role Play. Possibly derived from phonetic pronounciation of "LRP". Also a verb "to LARP", eg: to take part in a LARP event or "to be LARPing".
LARPer: One who LARPs.
Level: In many LARP systems, the structure of a character sheet is based on levels. This is a hangover from table-top systems, but it works (mostly). The level of a character denotes its strength/power/age; therefore a sixth level character is pretty tough and established while a first level character is a new player. Confusingly, skills often also have levels denoting ability in that skill, which bear only a passing relationship to the level of the character using the skill. Therefore a 5th level Mage who had Elemental Skill level 6 could cast a 3rd level spell on a 2nd level Warrior, or something. It is generally obvious from context which meaning of the word 'level' is being used. Character level has no in-character effect, and is not in-character obvious at all; it is purely a book-keeping device to prevent characters from becoming too unbalanced due to Treasure Trap's experience system.
Light Armour: Armour composed of either unhardened leather or fur, not reinforced or studded, which grants 1 point of armour. Some skills in the Subterfuge and Wilderness trees only work in light or no armour. The 'Fur and Leather Hardening' skill allows one to create light armour which grants 2 points of armour per location.
Linear: A type of adventure where the encounters are laid out along a set route which the characters follow. Usually an NPC "character ref" accompanies them as a member of the character party to ensure they don't stray off course by accident or design.
Location: As well as the usual meaning of "a place", a location is an area on the body distinct from other areas. Each location has a number of hit points representing its health and vitality. These go down if the location is injured and up (but not beyond the normal maximum value) if healed. If hit points on a location reach zero, bad things happen, but not as bad as if they go into negative numbers. See the 'Hit System' page for more details.
Long mace: A long mace is a LARP-safe blunt weapon between 36" and 42" in length. The weapon length limits in TT are slightly flexible; 5% each way is a good rule of thumb. See 'longsword'.
Longsword: A longsword is a LARP-safe sharp weapon between 36" and 42" in length. The weapon length limits in TT are slightly flexible; 5% each way is a good rule of thumb. See 'long mace'.
Machine-gunning: Machine-gunning, or drumrolling, is forgetting that your light foam/latex weapon (usually a sword) is supposed to simulate a massive iron bar with sharp edges and therefore moving it impossibly fast in combat. No-one is perfect, but if someone accuses you of machine-gunning then you probably are. Machine-gunning is a problem because it is unfair for those who are role-playing well, as if their sword really were heavy, and more importantly because you are far more likely not to pull blows and therefore to hurt people. One blow per weapon per second is a good rule of thumb; if you cannot say your damage calls fast enough to keep up then you are definitely machine-gunning.
MAN DOWN: The most important call in LARP. If you hear "Man Down" stop instantly, come out-of-character and don't move around more than necessary. A Man Down call is used when someone gets injured and it is therefore imperative that everyone stop what they are doing, even if not very nearby. Hopefully you should never hear "Man Down" (it's the same call if it's a woman that is hurt too) but you might do as it is also used for temporary injury such as loss of sight when glasses are knocked off (so they don't get trampled while being recovered), and people falling in the river.
Magic: The energy of physical reality, channeled by mages.
Meta-Gaming: The act of using knowledge of a game to influence your actions within the game in a generally unsporting manner. For example: an ignorant stupid mercenary character would not necessarilly know the strictures of the gods, but the player might use that knowledge to solve a puzzle the character wouldn't be able to.
Miracle: A formulaic spiritual effect enacted by the spirits of a God on the orders of a priest.
Monster: Person who is not a character but who takes on a role or series of roles (usually decreed by a Ref) and interacts with characters to advance/provoke actions. Monsters provide the things which happen to the characters, whether they are fights, plot-dumps, or simply stalling them while the fifteen person team assembles the dragon around the corner. Also a verb "to monster", eg: to be a monster for an event. It is polite to monster at least as often as you character on adventures.
Multiclass: Characters who take skills from more than one skill-tree. Warlocks are one of the more common varieties (Warriors with some mage skills), but many other combinations are also possible. Multiclassed characters are somewhat more difficult to stat, in general sacrificing raw power for versatility.
Munchkin: Someone who is more interested in personal power than roleplay - the word comes from a description of the behaviour of 12-year-old D&D players. LARP, as with all roleplaying games, should not be played to win. Specific exanples include vastly optimising a charactersheet to create unrealistic characters, and using metagaming to figure out aspects of plot. "Munchkin" is also the name of a very good card-based game which fully explores the concept in a good-humoured way. Also a verb "to munch", eg: to act like a munchkin.
Natural damage: Damage calls granted to a weapon-wielder solely by use of a skill, for example a warrior's natural SINGLE by sword granted by Melee I, a priest's natural SPIRIT SINGLE granted by Empower Spirit Weapon or a scout's natural SINGLE THROUGH by bow granted by Targeteer I. Natural damage calls may be improved by spells or miracles, whereas unnatural damage calls (those improved by such effects) may not be. The opposite of natural damage is of course unnatural damage; neither of these terms are part of the call system, and they are separate from the distinction between magic and spirit damage.
OOC: Out Of Character. Anything which is not perceptible to anyone in the world of Treasure Trap. Going OOC is denoted by raising one index finger in the air (visibly and obviously, please), and is in general discouraged in the middle of play except in emergencies. All system calls (throughout this website, they are written in capitals) are OOC, though they do not need you to put a finger in the air to say them, whereas vocals (q.v.) are IC.
Phys-rep: A physical representation of an object (these are called "props" in the theatre). Debate exists over whether all props and costume are technically phys-reps, or only "pretend" items. Eg: a latex sword is clearly intended as a physical representation of a metal sword, but is a proper suit of reenactment-quality metal chainmail a "representation" or an actual suit of chain? Regardless of the outcome of this debate, they are all referred to as phys-reps. Communally-owned phys-reps are often stored in an armoury, even if they aren't weapons.
Plot: The story that the characters and refs are telling. Cooperatively. Honest.
Plot dump: If it is important for the characters to understand and react to the plot, but they are so thick or misguided that they are unable to do so, it may be deemed necessary to use a Plot Dump. This generally involves a meeting with a helpful character who explains everything, or happens to possess a vital powerful object which they are willing to give to the characters free of charge. It is possible for a really stubborn character party to require more than one Plot Dump before they get the idea, usually because they killed the first one without giving it a chance to speak. At this point they may find themselves suddenly fixed to the spot by an unknown force while the next one addresses them, or alternatively with words burnt into their arms (depending on how frustrated the Ref is feeling by then). It is considered bad form to highlight the need for plot dumps with awkward questions such as "How come a humble border guard knows quite this much about the Queen then?" since one should never ask questions one doesn't really want answered.
Priest: A person chosen by a God to do their work in the world and empowered to do so.
Plot Stick: When lots of plot centres on YOU or when a large and pointed event happens to YOU then you are being hit with the plot stick. Characters have been known to die from plot-stick attacks, but usually they work it out in the end.
Pulling Blows: LARP is a game, therefore when you fight you are not actually trying to kill (or even slightly damage) each other. So when you are swinging your six-foot polearm at someone (or your tiny dagger), try to inhibit the blow before impact - aim slightly short of the target so you have lost force when you actually connect. Then you will have pulled your blow. Please ask for examples of good and bad blows if you are unsure.
Ref:The Ref Team run the Treasure Trap system; they try to provide all the relevant bits of the world not provided by characters. They run interactives, organise linears and answer downtime emails. Refs also come in different flavours: some act as invisible marshals, others may "monster ref" (direct monsters and setting up encounters) or "character ref" (play a character to guide the party) or "story ref" (do all the panicing) on linears.
Resistant: A creature that is 'resistant' to a certain type of damage (for example, elemental elves taking their own colour of damage) takes one less degree from sources of that type.
Rite: A non-miracle spiritual working created by a priest. There is a prescribed script for a rite, and the quality of the roleplay in a rite is not judged beyond how closely the script was followed.
Ritual: A non-spell, non-laboratory magical working created by a suitably skilled mage. There is no prescribed script for a ritual, but the quality of the roleplay in a ritual is judged.
Round: A 'round' of hits or DAC is four purchases of a skill that grants one of those things, such as Health or Combat Awareness.
Rule 7: Do Not Take The Piss. Rule 7 is the foundation of all interpretations of edge cases of the rules. Examples of Rule 7 violations would be a Warrior with Melee V doing DOUBLE by dual-wielding 18.5" 'shortswords', or a character with Hide & Sneak 'hiding' behind a six inch tuft of grass with their hand in the air.
Short mace: A short mace is a LARP-safe blunt weapon between 18" and 36" in length. The limit of natural damage with a short mace is DOUBLE. The weapon length limits in TT are slightly flexible; 5% each way is a good rule of thumb. The refs would like to encourage clear demarcation between coshes and short maces; rule 7 applies. See 'shortsword".
Shortsword: A shortsword is a LARP-safe sharp weapon between 18" and 36" in length. The limit of natural damage with a shortsword is DOUBLE except in the case of the Backstab skill. The weapon length limits in TT are slightly flexible; 5% each way is a good rule of thumb. The refs would like to encourage clear demarcation between daggers and shortswords; rule 7 applies. See 'short mace'.
Spell: A formulaic magical effect created by a mage.
Spirit: The energy of life, channeled by priests.
Strong Boots: If you are planning to run around outside and especially if you are going to fight, you need strong boots. It is strange how "strong boots" is often interpreted as "sandals" or "school shoes" - neither is suitable for LARP and could result in injury. "Strong boots" are also not "white trainers". Treasure Trap is set in a reality where white trainers are glaringly out of place and spoil the illusion which people are trying to sustain. Beware also of interesting "in-character" footwear from charity shops, even if it does look sturdy.
Tank: A Tank is a character who is particularly specialised in one area and/or wears heavy armour. It usually refers to a strong and heavily-armoured fighter with many, many hits and no other skills, hence "tank", but it is allegedly possible to be a Healing Tank also.
Time In: During Time-In all players are in character unless they indicate otherwise - usually by having their finger in the air.
Time Faff / Time Ish: Now and again the players go through encounters faster than anticipated and the monsters are not quite ready when they arrive. The ref may send someone back to the characters to call "Time-ish" - they don't want to interrupt the roleplay too much by cancelling the reality altogether, as in time out/time freeze, but they do need a moment before the next event. The characters are expected to dawdle where they are and talk amongst themselves for a few minutes or until someone gives an all-clear. Time faffs happen to even the best refs now and again, but generally decrease with experience as they learn to judge how long encounters will last more accurately.
Time Freeze: LARP time stops momentarily with regard to the Real World when a "Time Freeze" is called, although the characters do not notice. The players keep their eyes shut and hum loudly for the duration of the Time Freeze, which is ended by a Time In call. Time Freezes are generally used by the Refs to make things "appear from nowhere" or "instantly" to change the state of objects or characters. Time Freezes are usually immediately followed in game time by several characters getting a sudden and unprovoked urge to look around suspiciously: it shouldn't happen, but it always does.
Time Out: The "Time Out" call cancels the LARP world and returns all players to an out-of-character state. It is used to symbolise the end of an event, a safe rest period in an overnight event, or a short period for battle-boarding during a linear adventure. Some areas of a large LARP event are kept permanently in Time Out, for example, the first aid tent and inside the loos. Time Out is the opposite of Time In.
Two-handed weapon: Although any weapon may be wielded in two hands if the player wishes, only weapons of 42" and over in length are treated as two-handed weapons for the purposes of skills such as 'Two-Handed Weapon' in the Warrior tree and effects such as 'Harden Staff' in the Earth list. For saftety reasons such weapons must be wielded in two hands whenever they make contact with another object, be that a player, a ref or another weapon. One hand may be removed from the weapon for the purposes of shifting one's grip or showing off, but both hands must be on the weapon when a strike or parry is made.
Unnatural damage: Damage calls granted to a weapon-wielder by use of some effect (usually spell or miracle), for example a priest's SPIRIT DOUBLE granted by casting the fifth-level Valour miracle 'Spirit Weapon' upon her holy sword. Effects that grant unnatural damage calls do not stack; only one may apply to a given weapon at once, and casting of a second effect will remove the first one. Unless stated in the effect description, all spells and miracles that increase the damage of a weapon or change the type of that damage grant an unnatural damage call.
Vocal: An incantation of not less than eight words plus one word per level of the effect one is trying to evoke. Vocals are required for all spells and miracles. The use of a vocal of less than eight words (typically 'By my power') denotes the use of an innate power; these are typically not possessed by mortals.
Vulnerable: A creature that is 'vulnerable' to a certain type of damage (for example, elemental elves taking the opposite colour of damage) takes one more degree from sources of that type.
Weapons Check: A Weapons Check happens before each LARP event: experienced people look over each weapon and items of large kit going into the event to ensure that they are safe for their intended use and not about to fall apart or injure someone.
Weapons Practice: As the name suggests, a spin-off event for LARP groups which use weapons so that their members can practice safe combat and learn how to pull blows and avoid machine-gunning.
XP: EXperience Points are earned by adventuring and then spent on new skills for your character to reflect how their abilities improve over time.