If you're a tabletop RPG player hearing about Vampire LARP for the first time, there's a moment where someone explains the resolution system and you stop listening. "You resolve conflicts with rock-paper-scissors." That's usually where the skepticism kicks in.
It sounds childish. It sounds random. It sounds like it can't possibly support the kind of dramatic, high-stakes scenes that make Vampire: the Masquerade compelling.
It does. Here's why.
How It Works
When two characters are in a conflict where the outcome is uncertain, combat, using a supernatural power on someone, resisting manipulation, the players throw rock-paper-scissors. Win the throw and you succeed. Lose and you fail.
On a tie, both players compare the total of their relevant attribute and skill. The higher total wins. This means that in a dead heat, the character who is actually better at the thing they're trying to do comes out on top. Your character's mechanical advantages aren't decoration. They matter most in the moments that are closest.
That's the core of it. The full system has more depth (the Laws of the Night book and the free SRD at lawsofthenight.com cover the details), but the foundation is that simple.
The Objection: "It's Just Random"
This is the most common complaint, and it misunderstands what randomness does in a game.
Tabletop RPGs use dice for the same reason LARP uses RPS: to introduce uncertainty into outcomes. When you roll a d20 in D&D or a pool of d10s in V5 tabletop, you're generating a random result modified by your character's stats. RPS does the same thing. The throw is the random element. The tie-breaking comparison is the stat modifier.
The difference isn't in the math. It's in the experience. Rolling dice at a table is satisfying because you're narrating what happens next. Throwing RPS while standing face-to-face with another player is satisfying because you're living what happens next. The randomness is a feature in both cases, preventing the strongest character from winning every conflict automatically and keeping outcomes uncertain enough to be dramatic.
If you removed all randomness and just compared stats, the vampire with the highest numbers would win every time. There would be no reason to engage in conflict you weren't mathematically guaranteed to win. That's not a game. That's a spreadsheet.
The Objection: "It Doesn't Reward Character Building"
It does, just not in the way dice pools do.
In a dice pool system, higher stats mean more dice, which means a higher probability of success. The advantage is statistical: over many rolls, the better character wins more often. In RPS, the advantage lives in the tie. When both players throw the same sign, the character with higher relevant stats wins. This means character building matters most in the closest, most dramatic moments of the game, which is arguably where you want it to matter most.
Why It Works for LARP
The real reason RPS works isn't about probability theory. It's about speed and immersion.
Speed. A tabletop combat encounter can take an hour. In LARP, you might have thirty players acting simultaneously across a venue, with multiple conflicts happening at once. If each conflict required rolling dice, finding modifiers, counting successes, and consulting charts, the game would grind to a halt. RPS resolves in seconds. Throw, compare if needed, move on. The game keeps flowing.
No props required. You don't need dice, a table, a character sheet printout, or a calculator. You need your hands. This means conflicts can happen anywhere: in the middle of a conversation, in a hallway, in a parking lot during a chase scene. The resolution system never breaks immersion by requiring you to stop, sit down, and do math.
Immersion. This is the big one. In tabletop, there's always a layer of abstraction between you and the action. You say "my character attacks," you roll dice, and the Storyteller narrates the result. In LARP, you're already in the scene. You're standing in front of the person your character is confronting. The challenge happens in real time, face to face, and the result plays out immediately. RPS is fast enough and simple enough that it doesn't pull you out of that experience.
Accessibility. Everyone knows how to play rock-paper-scissors. A brand new player can participate in their first conflict on their first night without reading a single rule. The barrier to entry is effectively zero, which matters enormously for a hobby that's trying to attract people who've never LARPed before.
What About Depth?
A fair question. If the system is this simple, where does the depth come from?
It comes from the game around the system.
Vampire LARP isn't primarily a combat game. It's a social and political game. The most important conflicts at a Vampire LARP aren't resolved with RPS at all. They're resolved through conversation, negotiation, manipulation, alliance-building, and betrayal. The player who wins isn't the one with the best RPS record. It's the one who convinced three other players to support their bid for Primogen, or who figured out that the Harpy was being blackmailed, or who traded the right piece of information to the right person at the right time.
RPS handles the moments where the social game fails and things come to a physical or supernatural head. Those moments should be fast, uncertain, and dramatic. RPS delivers all three.
The mechanical depth in Laws of the Night V5 comes from character builds, discipline powers, and the strategic choices you make before and after the throw, not from the throw itself. When to use a power, which attribute and skill to call on, whether to press a challenge or back down: those decisions are where the system rewards knowledge and preparation.
It Works Because It Gets Out of the Way
The best resolution system for LARP is the one you notice least. Dice are great for tabletop because the table is where the game lives. In LARP, the game lives in the room, in the space between players, in the conversations and confrontations and quiet moments of scheming. The resolution system exists to handle the moments when those interactions need a mechanical outcome, and then disappear so the game can continue.
RPS does that better than any alternative. It's fast, it's fair, it's accessible, and it keeps the focus where it belongs: on the story, the characters, and the people playing them.
If you're still skeptical, the only real answer is to try it. Show up to a game, throw a challenge, and see how it feels in the moment. The tabletop player's objection almost always disappears after the first session.
Cities of Darkness is a fan-run chronicle network using Laws of the Night V5 by By Night Studios.
Cities of Darkness material is not official World of Darkness material. Portions of the materials are the copyrights and trademarks of Paradox Interactive AB, and are used with permission. All rights reserved. For more information please visit worldofdarkness.com.