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Camrath
Mar 19, 2004

The UKMT Fudge Baron


My Man Shran posted:

"I may appear to be a 350 pound bag of fat enclosed in skin that has never known the touch of soap, but you need to remember that I have level 69 charisma and and +7 to sexhaving while we're in this house. Okay?"

That's the part of LARPing that will always render me unable to participate. The gap between character description and the person playing it seems like it would totally ruin the suspension of disbelief.

Edit: What is the absolute case of this you fine LARPmen have ever seen? I hope it's something on the level of a rascal-bound fatty roleplaying noted Camarilla prince, Johnny Bravo.

In fest/'boffer" LARP (for the record I loving hate that phrase) there's generally a certain level of 'hard skills' required to play certain roles- as there are no stats for charisma or appearance or poo poo like that, if you're a munter you just won't be able to play a super attractive character. Yeah, some soft skills can fill in gaps but the number of supposedly amazing fighters in heavy armour with a well loaded stat sheet that I've taken to pieces with just a frock coat and rapier gives the lie to that. To be fair though, if people's soft skills are defeated by hard skills I've only really seen respect and a desire to improve come as a result.

Some people do however think they're a lot more cunning and Machiavellian than they actually are though- my housemate is infamous for coming up with sneaky political manoeuvring, bragging about how devious he is to people and then being surprised when it all blows up in his face.

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Pron on VHS
Nov 14, 2005

Blood Clots
Sweat Dries
Bones Heal
Suck it Up and Keep Wrestling

Everblight posted:

Oh man, the race thing. I have played in LARPs for over a decade now (all political/vampire-y ones) and it is well over 98% white. I have seen all of two black people, ever. It is the pastiest, whitest crowd. It's whiter than PC gaming, because at least that has Asian representation. It does have a fair girl/boy spread (maybe ~40% female, not bad for playing make-believe as a grownup), but the fact that there is literally no minority representation is really obvious.

Yeah, figured something this pathetic would be the exclusive domain of white ppl

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."

My Man Shran posted:

What is the absolute case of this you fine LARPmen have ever seen? I hope it's something on the level of a rascal-bound fatty roleplaying noted Camarilla prince, Johnny Bravo.

The worst case in my LARP was a guy named Earl. He wasn't rascal bound, but he was really damned close. His gut eclipsed his waistband by several feet.

The first time I saw him wasn't in the main game, he was actually out of town for that fiasco and the restructuring and reshuffling of players that followed. There was a one-off Changeling: the Lost game in between.

This in an awkward period when White Wolf was slowly putting out MET rules for the new WoD systems, but some people were still clinging to the old rules (both were clunky in their own ways), and there was a lot of resistance to transition over to new Vampire. New Changeling was totally new, and the STs were totally divorced from the massacre drama, so everybody was on board for an interlude game.

Earl played a Troll (the type with horns) King of Winter. Earl, as I would learn, INSISTED on being a character in some position of power. He had to be a primogen at the very least in vampire games.

Because he was a mythological troll kith, he painted his face blue for the game. The thing is I had never met Earl before and didn't know this was part of his costume, so I just saw this morbidly obese guy trudging up, wheezing with corpse blue cheeks. The very first thing I ever said to Earl was "Oh poo poo, are you okay? Do you need to sit down? Do you need a drink of water?"

Earl and I never got along, but then—as I later found out by stumbling upon a manifesto he'd written online, Earl despised women, lesbians especially, because he felt they all owed him something yet were denying it. My gang tang feels leery serendipitous now.

I'm not sure if I want to dig up my fetlife safari account to dig up screenshots and such. These dorks are all still local to me, and I really don't want them finding out I'm talking about them. I've gotten enough grief from them as it is.

Suffice to say, the majority of the LARP had fetlife accounts, as I found out when I joined in GBS' fetlife safari. I actually found that out AFTER I quit the LARP, cause if I'd known exactly how weird poo poo got I would have quit a lot sooner. I also would not have recommended a friend rent a room with one of the players (she didn't, thank god).

Camrath
Mar 19, 2004

The UKMT Fudge Baron


Pron on VHS posted:

Yeah, figured something this pathetic would be the exclusive domain of white ppl

Anecdotally I know about ten or so black or Asian (as in, Indian/Pakistani looking) LARPers by sight, though that's admittedly because they really stand out.

I've actually often wondered why that is- as a hobby at least in the circles I move in it's extremely anti-racist and inclusive. I've never once heard of any form of racist abuse at an event (well, I tell a lie- one guy claimed he was racially abused by northern irish people for being from Eire, but given the dude in question is A. a pathological liar, B. extremely creepy and C. tends to make /everyone/ hate him in a short space of time, I'm not sure how much truth there is to that.)

In fact, given I've been overwhelmingly pro-LARP and pro-LARPer in this thread, in the interests of balance I might as well tell a brief story about him to show that there are bad apples in the systems I do too.

I got to know this guy when a new system called 'The Vale' was starting up- it had a very cool concept (effectively it's WoW's Arathi Basin in terms of style- two competing camps fighting over resources over several hundred acres of reclaimed quarry and woodland). I had a desire to play a musketeer type character and he was the leader of one of the groups which was based off renaissance Venice by way of Richelieu's France and Tyrras from Game Of Thrones. So I sign up to this group and attend the first event.

Now, I'm generally a pretty easy going guy- I tend to give people a lot of rope to hang themselves with and if you've seen my furry thread, my levels of tolerance sometimes even shock myself in retrospect. So I didn't mind too much the clusterfuck that our group became; okay, so the rest of our faction hated us for some reason. Sucks to be them! So we appear to be getting jack poo poo done, all the resource gathering we carry out doesn't seem to be translating into any in game benefits.. there must be some reason outside the group for this! And so on. Because if there's one thing I'm good at it's organising and leading groups of nerds, I ended up as the second in command of the group at the end of that first event.

I missed the next one due to breaking my shoulder last summer (at a LARP event in fact) and spending a month dosed up on tramadol and unable to even lift my sword arm. Later in the summer event 3 rolls around, and I'm fighting fit again. Now, Evan (I'm not going to bother using a pseudonym because frankly the guy's an utter twat) gets in touch with me. He'd lost his character at event 2 and wanted to try and get into the noble politics of the camp with his new character- given we were technically outsiders, this meant he'd have to arrange a marriage IC to get involved. Oh, as a side note he fancied himself as a massively smooth political operator and general manipulator when in fact he couldn't machinate his way out of a wet paper bag with a hole in it. But I digress.

My girlfriend (the lovely lady in pinstripe in the gangster pics posted upthread) was interested in giving the Vale a try, so decided as a favour to play a noble lady for Evan's character to marry and so on. To be honest, I should have figured this wouldn't end well, but eh. Hindsight etc. So we genned her character, put together a background, made/bought kit and the like and went along to the event.

Now, my other half is one of the most easy going people out there. She's very hard to offend or piss off indeed- we met in the furry fandom, and she checked out of it a while before I did, but that gives you an idea of how much idiocy she's able to cope with without it getting to her too badly. So when we got less than a few hours into the event and she told me she was already having second thoughts about the whole idea, I paid attention. Now, this is all stuff that I found out post-event, which is probably for the best (I have an amazingly long fuse, but it's also attached to an extremely powerful and violent temper, and loving with people I love is the best way to shortcut it entirely), but I discovered after the fact that this random (fat, ugly and generally unseemly) dude had A. tried to kiss her just after the wedding ceremony (as in, properly kiss- a peck on the cheek or whatever is pretty much acceptable, at least to us), B. That every time they were sitting near to each other his hands would start to spread out until he was full-on touching her arse and C. that he had repeatedly undermined her, fed her wrong information and basically tried to make her look stupid next to him.

In addition to this, this self-proclaimed political expert began to demonstrate why we were so hated. The entire aim of the game was to capture and control resources, then use them to power up each camp- however, Evan seemed more concerned with having them in a pile in front of him so he could run his fingers through them over and over. He had a massive black throne commissioned and built for him as well, which was frankly the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Basically everything about his group was intended to make his sad, fat, ugly, retarded and crippled self look impressive, powerful and cool.

Well that didn't work out for him. We ousted him from the group on both an IC and OOC level, and he ended up banned from the system for his behaviour towards Jo and (as later transpired) several other ladies who had felt too scared to make a fuss before word got out about it. And I will say that even though I don't play that game anymore (lack of time and money, lack of engagement with the system and frankly the site is almost entirely 60-degree slopes and too loving exhausting for me to do much on in heavy armour) that the game team did listen to our concerns and problems and provided a /lot/ of support to help deal with the OOC harassment issues. To be honest, the individual I'm describing stands out because he was so very different from the vast majority of LARPers I've encountered over the years.

Now, I knew that there was something up but then I got home and the full story emerged. I hit the loving roof, and while she's very much a person who doesn't like to make a fuss and has a great tolerance for bullshit (hell, we've been together four years, so she must do!)

MikeCrotch
Nov 5, 2011

I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese

Camrath posted:

Now, Evan

Omigod I know this guy, he is such a shitstain

At a different system you got bonuses for having a bigger group, so he bought himself a ticket and then paid for 25 sockpuppet characters to turn up, who were 'totally his friends and were real people, they just couldn't make it to this event you see'. So that's like £1300 on tickets for fake people in order to say he was king poo poo on the field, essentially.

Eventually he trashed a several thousand pound tent and got banned.

betaraywil
Dec 30, 2006

Gather the wind
Though the wind won't help you fly at all

Anoia posted:

I'm not sure if I want to dig up my fetlife safari account to dig up screenshots and such.

No please don't do that. That would be weird and also a really clear example of failing to leave the scene behind completely, which might make the OP sad :smith:

I'm curious about the music. Does every Vampire Night just have nondescript chamber music going in the background? Does the host make a playlist? Is it one of those "scary Halloween sounds" CDs or late-era Danzig or like pagan fiddle metal like Eleuveitie?

Camrath
Mar 19, 2004

The UKMT Fudge Baron


MikeCrotch posted:

Omigod I know this guy, he is such a shitstain

At a different system you got bonuses for having a bigger group, so he bought himself a ticket and then paid for 25 sockpuppet characters to turn up, who were 'totally his friends and were real people, they just couldn't make it to this event you see'. So that's like £1300 on tickets for fake people in order to say he was king poo poo on the field, essentially.

Eventually he trashed a several thousand pound tent and got banned.

Yeah, he tried to do the same at the Vale- though for some reason I ended up footing the bill for several people he left in the lurch.

Edit: I'm sure we have mutual friends as well as a mutual object of hate and derision, if we've not actually met and not known it.

Camrath fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Oct 1, 2015

Skunkrocker
Jan 14, 2012

Your favorite furry wrestler.

betaraywil posted:

No please don't do that. That would be weird and also a really clear example of failing to leave the scene behind completely, which might make the OP sad :smith:

I'm curious about the music. Does every Vampire Night just have nondescript chamber music going in the background? Does the host make a playlist? Is it one of those "scary Halloween sounds" CDs or late-era Danzig or like pagan fiddle metal like Eleuveitie?

We never had music at our games. Some games had some soft mood music in the background. Others have had like pro wrestling style entrance music for people and that was it. I guess it varies.

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."

betaraywil posted:

No please don't do that. That would be weird and also a really clear example of failing to leave the scene behind completely, which might make the OP sad :smith:

I'm curious about the music. Does every Vampire Night just have nondescript chamber music going in the background? Does the host make a playlist? Is it one of those "scary Halloween sounds" CDs or late-era Danzig or like pagan fiddle metal like Eleuveitie?

Those images are burned into my brain forever, anyway. :smith: One of the more redneck dudes made his own BDSM gear and had a picture of a red white and blue whip that looked more like a giant beginner's woven keychain (lanyard?) craft project. The caption was "The Patriot ;)"

Another guy posted a picture of a blood soaked shirt in a kitchen sink with the caption "bloodplay got a lil out of hand 2nite lol" (he was the one getting cut on)

My only consolation was this poo poo never happened in the context of games. No one even spoke of it at games. All the kink poo poo was totally separate, though everybody has stories of other games in other cities where it happened as part of the night events—night for all to see, usually as a back room thing.



But as for music! When the game switch to Vampire the Requiem and was held to the head ST's house, he would tune the living room TV to a music channel relevant to wherever Elysium was being held that night: Classical music if it was a fancy art gallery. Trance if it was a club. Hard rock for biker bars and so on. Elysium constantly rotated venues for security purposes in our setting so it was different every game.

G1mby
Jun 8, 2014

MikeCrotch posted:

Omigod I know this guy, he is such a shitstain

At a different system you got bonuses for having a bigger group, so he bought himself a ticket and then paid for 25 sockpuppet characters to turn up, who were 'totally his friends and were real people, they just couldn't make it to this event you see'. So that's like £1300 on tickets for fake people in order to say he was king poo poo on the field, essentially.

Eventually he trashed a several thousand pound tent and got banned.

Yeah, I remember that first incident from the ref side. He wasn't, unfortunately, the only one who did that.

Domus
May 7, 2007

Kidney Buddies

Mr.Bob posted:

Are you guys pointing real guns at each other?

Several years before I met them, the vampire group I was talking about played a game of tabletop paranoia...with real guns. Yes, they were unloaded, and yes, they were all checked and supervised by a navy arms master, but that's the very definition of stupid.

Shrecknet
Jan 2, 2005


Domus posted:

yes, they were all checked and supervised by a navy arms master
Forgive me if I don't believe the Vampire LARP group member that claims to be an ex-Navy 'arms master,' but it's sort of that person's job not to let shenanigans like 'playing with guns' to occur, not facilitate it.

Skunkrocker
Jan 14, 2012

Your favorite furry wrestler.

Everblight posted:

I don't believe the Vampire LARP group member that claims to be an ex-Navy 'arms master,'

Well... I was once told one of our local larpers was not just ex EOD, but also nuclear waste disposal, and that's why he was so "hosed up."

feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

Skunkrocker posted:

Well... I was once told one of our local larpers was not just ex EOD, but also nuclear waste disposal, and that's why he was so "hosed up."

Told.

ScratchAndSniff
Sep 28, 2008

This game stinks
This thread is amazing. More stories about LARPers!

Some part of me thinks I could actually enjoy that kind of thing. I've done a few murder dinner party things, and I love doing improv even though I'm terrible at it. Reading these stories makes me glad I never got involved in that kind of community.

Hello Sailor
May 3, 2006

we're all mad here

Everblight posted:

Forgive me if I don't believe the Vampire LARP group member that claims to be an ex-Navy 'arms master,' but it's sort of that person's job not to let shenanigans like 'playing with guns' to occur, not facilitate it.

"Master at arms" is just naval military police.

Domus
May 7, 2007

Kidney Buddies

Everblight posted:

Forgive me if I don't believe the Vampire LARP group member that claims to be an ex-Navy 'arms master,' but it's sort of that person's job not to let shenanigans like 'playing with guns' to occur, not facilitate it.

He actually was, as far as I can tell. Might have the job position name wrong. I never met him, but my husband knew him. He died about a year after I met the group, but he lived in another state at that point. Fell asleep at the wheel and went head on into a semi. Didn't wear a seatbelt. So maybe not a guy who made the best choices anyway.

Funky See Funky Do
Aug 20, 2013
STILL TRYING HARD
I still can't actually visualise what's going on at these vampire larps. I've seen video of the fantasy style ones where they're in the woods running around with foam swords throwing bean bags at each other so that makes sense to me. Is it just standing around talking as though it was one of those chatrooms in the 90s where people would emote at each other?

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."

Funky See Funky Do posted:

I still can't actually visualise what's going on at these vampire larps. I've seen video of the fantasy style ones where they're in the woods running around with foam swords throwing bean bags at each other so that makes sense to me. Is it just standing around talking as though it was one of those chatrooms in the 90s where people would emote at each other?

Yup. That's it. And since there's no touching you have to pause and describe if you do anything more involved than a handshake with someone.

Some games don't even allow you to shake hands because some nerds can't even be trusted not to make that creepy. My troupe wasn't that bad, but there were many sweaty palms.

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."
Vampire LARPs, to the other houses on the host's street, probably looked like the earth's most boring recurring house party.

There was a church at the end of the street that let us use their parking lot, so there was that.

Funky See Funky Do
Aug 20, 2013
STILL TRYING HARD

Anoia posted:

Yup. That's it. And since there's no touching you have to pause and describe if you do anything more involved than a handshake with someone.

Some games don't even allow you to shake hands because some nerds can't even be trusted not to make that creepy. My troupe wasn't that bad, but there were many sweaty palms.

And people do this..why? That doesn't even sound like fun when you can do it from home in your underwear and a good movie on TV.

Ytlaya
Nov 13, 2005

Funky See Funky Do posted:

And people do this..why? That doesn't even sound like fun when you can do it from home in your underwear and a good movie on TV.

I would assume it's giving people who otherwise receive no respect from their peers the ability to have power/influence over others in person.

Skunkrocker
Jan 14, 2012

Your favorite furry wrestler.
It was fun the first few times. Then it gets super lame really fast when you realize all these people are exactly as described above. You go to a few more games hoping for that same spark you saw originally, then you get a life.

Error 404
Jul 17, 2009


MAGE CURES PLOT

Skunkrocker posted:

It was fun the first few times. Then it gets super lame really fast when you realize all these people are exactly as described above. You go to a few more games hoping for that same spark you saw originally, then you get a life.

Or you become a Lifer.
Those are pretty much your only two options. The number of games you make it before you stop/fall down the rabbit hole is the only real difference between folks' stories.

Milkfred E. Moore
Aug 27, 2006

'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Skunkrocker posted:

It was fun the first few times. Then it gets super lame really fast when you realize all these people are exactly as described above. You go to a few more games hoping for that same spark you saw originally, then you get a life.

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."
The only reason I was technically in for years was I missed a lot of games on account of my health, for what it's worth.

Puppy Time
Mar 1, 2005


Reading this, I am at once a little wistful for my brief LARPing days and yet glad I never got the opportunity to really get into anything. I super love the acting aspect, and getting into the mindset of someone else, but it's just about impossible to find a decent group of any kind of roleplayers. I probably should just look into community theater, but I really like the opportunity to make up my own people. Oh well, at least I have a good TT group.

Ghogargi, thanks for sharing your stories! Showing us all the really vulnerable parts must take a lot of emotional fortitude, so I'm really glad you're at a place where you can manage it.

Could you expand on these from the OP?

quote:

* A girl’s tit popped out at game and she didn’t notice.
* A player had a screaming, insane breakdown in my living room because of what someone’s character said to her character. I was too scared to leave my bathroom.
* A guy I knew was kicked out of the club after being arrested for child porn.

JcDent
May 13, 2013

Give me a rifle, one round, and point me at Berlin!
Having read through the thread I'm massively disappointed with LARPs. Like, the first time I've heard of it was when I was little, probably before the turn of millenium. There was an interview with one Vamp LARP dude and what stuck with me was that the said they had to warn the popo before playing that there might be reports of people running around with guns (this is Europe, you know, but it would probably be prudent in the US, too, seeing how Vamp larpers look like columbine shooters). So I imagined larp being this grand organized game with impressive kit, or at least a foam sword/trench coat and a plastic Chinese M16.

I never got into any LARPs (small European country, anti social nerd) and that's a good thing, I guess. Even with "LARP Bicycles", getting some (which is important when you're young and fat) wouldn't be guaranteed, and that would make it worse. Plus, the way most of your stories depict Vamp LARP sounds lame as all gently caress. Sitting around in a room where everyone is dressed as a goth and talking goth poo poo? Why not just go to a goth party? I'd rather break out character sheets and do everything by dice rolls, at least then the no-touching, staying in the same room would make sense and wouldn't break immersion. "Oh yeah, I'm totally going to the abandoned graveyard to do ritual stuff" *enters kitchen* *steps into cat's waterbowl*

Some of you made it well, especially the teleevengelist goon. Isn't the feeling of power a lot more tangible when you have under-vampires running your bidding? Isn't fun to be an underling, when you're running fun and interesting mission (woo, VtM Bloodlines)? Isn't it a lot better than a goth lounge for fat folks?

Siivola
Dec 23, 2012

It's sort of odd (but terribly interesting!) reading this thread, as I'm friends with a bunch of happy, well-adjusted larpers and have heard nothing but good things of the games. Of course, I live in Finland and the Nordic larp tradition seems to tend more toward the one-off and the, uh, hardcore. :stare:

HEY GUNS
Oct 11, 2012

FOPTIMUS PRIME

Siivola posted:

It's sort of odd (but terribly interesting!) reading this thread, as I'm friends with a bunch of happy, well-adjusted larpers and have heard nothing but good things of the games. Of course, I live in Finland and the Nordic larp tradition seems to tend more toward the one-off and the, uh, hardcore. :stare:
that looks rad as poo poo

Anoia
Dec 31, 2003

"Sooner or later, every curse is a prayer."
drat, everything's cooler in Finland.

silvergoose
Mar 18, 2006

IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS




Anoia posted:

drat, everything's cooler in Finland.

Especially the temperature!

Anyway, there's boffer LARPs in the US northeast that are pretty well-adjusted; people don't try to use in-game to influence out-of-game and vice versa, role-playing is paramount, the fighting system is pretty fun, NPCs are focused on making sure PCs have a good time and are rewarded with a bit of credit towards a different game they PC which keeps NPCs and PCs very separate in a given game.

I dunno, my experience was pretty good. I don't play anymore, but I never really found issues like this.

Puppy Time
Mar 1, 2005


JcDent posted:

Plus, the way most of your stories depict Vamp LARP sounds lame as all gently caress. Sitting around in a room where everyone is dressed as a goth and talking goth poo poo? Why not just go to a goth party? I'd rather break out character sheets and do everything by dice rolls, at least then the no-touching, staying in the same room would make sense and wouldn't break immersion. "Oh yeah, I'm totally going to the abandoned graveyard to do ritual stuff" *enters kitchen* *steps into cat's waterbowl*

As a huge dork, I tend to put a fair amount of LARP elements in tabletop gaming just because I really like adding character details like body language and (occasionally) clothing choice. Though from my fleeting experience with playing Camarilla stuff in someone's house, it's kind of more boring than regular tabletop for the reasons you cite.

Boffer LARPs are pretty ace, if you can find a decent one. I've got fond memories of my youth spent hiding in the woods at night in winter, or getting beat up with glorified nerf weapons. I dunno about immersion or anything, it's just a lot of fun to run around acting like someone else with a bunch of other dorks.

MikeCrotch
Nov 5, 2011

I AM UNJUSTIFIABLY PROUD OF MY SPAGHETTI BOLOGNESE RECIPE

YES, IT IS AN INCREDIBLY SIMPLE DISH

NO, IT IS NOT NORMAL TO USE A PEPPERAMI INSTEAD OF MINCED MEAT

YES, THERE IS TOO MUCH SALT IN MY RECIPE

NO, I WON'T STOP SHARING IT

more like BOLLOCKnese

Puppy Time posted:

As a huge dork, I tend to put a fair amount of LARP elements in tabletop gaming just because I really like adding character details like body language and (occasionally) clothing choice. Though from my fleeting experience with playing Camarilla stuff in someone's house, it's kind of more boring than regular tabletop for the reasons you cite.

Part of the reason for that is that from the Vampire LARPs I have seen, you don't have costume requirements. You can just wear a nametag saying "I look like this" while continuing to exist as a fat, sweaty neckbeard in a trenchcoat. Also the fact that you have a big choice of skills and a character sheet means you don't actually *need* social skills, you can just dominate people to get around that problem! :downs:

Puppy Time posted:

Boffer LARPs are pretty ace, if you can find a decent one. I've got fond memories of my youth spent hiding in the woods at night in winter, or getting beat up with glorified nerf weapons. I dunno about immersion or anything, it's just a lot of fun to run around acting like someone else with a bunch of other dorks.

Immersion is something that is evolving over time as LARP matures as a hobby. A lot of 'boffer' (we don't use that term in Europe as combat LARPs are the norm) LARPs are taking more cues from the Nordic style and making immersion more enforced. So for example keeping in character canvas tents in a totally separate field to the out of character plastic sleeping tents, so when you are wandering around the in-character game area there is a minimum of distracting out of place poo poo. A number of games are also moving from having game referees in high-vis yellow jackets to more in-character things like spirits that you can interact with, or at least less obtrusive uniforms.

LARP in the UK is going through an interesting period as there has been a crop of new, high quality LARPS while the biggest 2 systems (Lorien Trust and Empire) have pretty opposite viewpoints on a lot of important stuff, so you are seeing a bunch of changes in a short time.

Camrath
Mar 19, 2004

The UKMT Fudge Baron


MikeCrotch posted:

LARP in the UK is going through an interesting period as there has been a crop of new, high quality LARPS while the biggest 2 systems (Lorien Trust and Empire) have pretty opposite viewpoints on a lot of important stuff, so you are seeing a bunch of changes in a short time.

There's also a profusion of smaller systems, especially high immersion ones. And some pretty out-there concepts. Mandala LRP ran a game called 'Zapfest' that was half cheesy 50s sci-fi movie and half playing the actors in said 50s sci-fi. Really wish I'd got a ticket to that one actually, it sounded amazing.

Puppy Time
Mar 1, 2005


MikeCrotch posted:

Part of the reason for that is that from the Vampire LARPs I have seen, you don't have costume requirements. You can just wear a nametag saying "I look like this" while continuing to exist as a fat, sweaty neckbeard in a trenchcoat. Also the fact that you have a big choice of skills and a character sheet means you don't actually *need* social skills, you can just dominate people to get around that problem! :downs:

For me, that was no different from the TT games. The boring poo poo came from combat being SUBSTANTIALLY slowed down, and from most of the plot happening to people who were not me. Also nerds trying their damnedest to out-cool each other. For a game that's supposed to streamline a lot of RP, it really takes forever for almost nothing!

quote:

Immersion is something that is evolving over time as LARP matures as a hobby. A lot of 'boffer' (we don't use that term in Europe as combat LARPs are the norm) LARPs are taking more cues from the Nordic style and making immersion more enforced. So for example keeping in character canvas tents in a totally separate field to the out of character plastic sleeping tents, so when you are wandering around the in-character game area there is a minimum of distracting out of place poo poo. A number of games are also moving from having game referees in high-vis yellow jackets to more in-character things like spirits that you can interact with, or at least less obtrusive uniforms.

I've never seen jacketed referees or the like in the LARPs I've been to. It's all been fairly immersive (and this was about a decade ago). It's possible I've just been going to all the right groups.

Armagnac
Jun 24, 2005
Le feu de la vie.

Camrath posted:

Airsoft, replicas or deacts, no gas or BBs permitted on site. It /really/ aids immersion. Biggest sadness was that no blank gas shots/PFC weapons were permitted, but that's down to insurance reasons.

Uhm... As cool as & fun this looks, and a 20's larp sounds amazing... There are *way* too many real guns in america, and I would not be anywhere near this if the guns looked anywhere near real. The second the cops are called, or some redneck stumbles upon the game, I can just imagine it turning out really badly.

I mean, when we shoot movies with prop guns anywhere *near* any roads or anything we hire cops to make sure everything will be ok. I can't imagine running a lap with real looking firearms.

Liquid Communism
Mar 9, 2004

коммунизм хранится в яичках
You've... never heard of Airsoft, have you?

ScratchAndSniff
Sep 28, 2008

This game stinks

Liquid Communism posted:

You've... never heard of Airsoft, have you?

In the history of the United States, police have never mistaken an airsoft gun for a real gun.

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feedmegin
Jul 30, 2008

Armagnac posted:

Uhm... As cool as & fun this looks, and a 20's larp sounds amazing... There are *way* too many real guns in america, and I would not be anywhere near this if the guns looked anywhere near real.

Camrath is British, fortunately.

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