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Puppy Time posted:My main point is, once you've already sunk a significant amount of time and money (and energy and socialization) into your hobby, it can easily become your main priority in life, so further investments don't seem that big a deal. Haha, this just reminded me of the time a bunch of people got banned from Lorien Trust for setting up a massive lammy forgery ring, so they could give themselves massively powerful magic weapons for free. The main reason they got caught was because they got greedy and made stuff that was so overpowered that when they got checked by a ref (a pretty standard thing) the refs immediately clocked that something was up, reported the lammy and found it was fake. Adult Dress Up with Swords is Serious Business
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Apr 25, 2016 12:30
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So at my new job I ran into two of my old World of Darkness LARP buddies. They played in a different city from mine and I talked to them about poo poo the other day. They told me they generally didn't have any problems, that the few people they had who more or less caused trouble A. never did anything too bad and B. have chilled since ten years ago. Also, the one time I was visiting one of their games and something weird and uncomfortable happened they both pointed out it was a one time thing and that it was quietly squashed and people were reprimanded. So that's good. After a while they all just stopped playing, for whatever reason, and moved on to other things, which is adult and healthy I suppose. They're actually talking about trying to start another one around here since they haven't played in a while. I might join in. Who knows. I'm kind of a sucker. All THAT said they told me a new horror story I had never heard before about a different city entirely where after the game several of the more prominent players would go have a "blood orgy." I kept making Woodland Christmas Critter jokes because I thought he was kidding but both confirmed it was actually a thing. I'm not even sure the way they were talking that fake blood was involved. This same group of people would also visit starting games in the global chronicle and destroy them by killing characters and disrupting gameplay to "establish dominance" in the area, or some such poo poo, making poo poo really personal. I don't know if I've talked to any of these people and my skin crawls worrying that I befriended one or something. Man, I'm just glad I never experienced anything that bad and that my experiences were more or less just annoyances that made me want to go do something else with my time. Sounds like with this stuff you're literally a dice roll (pun intended) away from a bad time.
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Apr 26, 2016 12:39
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my cat is norris posted:Back when I played NERO, monsters looked like this... The reason American larps are like this, from what I've read, seems to be that people in the US are a lot more judgmental about hobbies than Europeans are. The US tends to be more capitalistic, so putting a lot of time, money and effort into something that doesn't make one money is often looked down upon.
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Apr 27, 2016 03:00
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Skunkrocker posted:Sounds like with this stuff you're literally a dice roll (pun intended) away from a bad time. I think it's that way with any niche hobby, just with like anime and poo poo like that, you don't have to interact as much with the weirdos.
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Apr 27, 2016 03:00
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BiggerJ posted:The reason American larps are like this, from what I've read, seems to be that people in the US are a lot more judgmental about hobbies than Europeans are. The US tends to be more capitalistic, so putting a lot of time, money and effort into something that doesn't make one money is often looked down upon. Well, and as you note from the picture, it's a bunch of broke-rear end highscool and college kids that are their main audience.
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Apr 27, 2016 05:46
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Liquid Communism posted:Well, and as you note from the picture, it's a bunch of broke-rear end highscool and college kids that are their main audience. The problem is that those broke rear end high school and 20 somethings have grown older but nothing else has changed. The old timers seem to still encourage the piss poor standards, or they are still broke as degenerates. The small amount of new blood that trickles in has really been the bigger driving force in the promotion of higher standards of costuming and roleplay. Which is cool and most of them are chill.
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Apr 27, 2016 06:24
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BiggerJ posted:The reason American larps are like this, from what I've read, seems to be that people in the US are a lot more judgmental about hobbies than Europeans are. The US tends to be more capitalistic, so putting a lot of time, money and effort into something that doesn't make one money is often looked down upon. hahahaha what? Go to any given US hobby convention - be it fly fishing or anime loli furry poo poo - and you will see all sorts of people spending waaaaaaaaaay too much loving money on niche hobbies. There is certainly a stigma attached to some hobbies about it being nerdy poo poo for the 40 year old virgin brigade, but that has nothing to do with wasting your hard earned capitalist dollars on frivolous pursuits. If you really want to get all sophomore year political theory on it American culture loving basks and revels in conspicuous consumption to the point where people are thought odd if they DONT spend money on all sorts of stupid, useless poo poo.
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Apr 27, 2016 17:34
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I think the quality was mostly owing to the budget of the playerbase during that time period, mixed with lower standards (due to people not really knowing any better). I honestly can't speak to what the LARP chapter looks like these days, though a glance at some pictures* suggests more effort is going into things overall. Nowhere near on the level of a Euro LARP, but still improved over the t-shirts-and-tabards days. * The gallery is no doubt showing off "the good stuff" so my assessment may be very wrong.
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Apr 27, 2016 17:50
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Cyrano4747 posted:hahahaha what? It's more like some things are considered weird and nerdy and others aren't.
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Apr 27, 2016 22:25
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And I don't even think many people say you shouldn't do nerd poo poo any more. You just aren't meant to be proud of it, aka buying £500 costumes or carpeting your house in plastic toys.
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Apr 27, 2016 22:48
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I was into the Magic card game, and there you see a lot of people spending way too much money on nerd poo poo. Decks can easily run over $1000, if you go to the largest tournaments there could easily be a million dollars worth of cards in the room, with minimal security.
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Apr 27, 2016 23:07
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Could be more influence from hardcore historical reenactors in Europe, there's a lot of kit overlap. Whereas the main reenactment groups in the US are civil war based, afaik.
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Apr 28, 2016 03:37
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Could be more influence from hardcore historical reenactors in Europe, there's a lot of kit overlap. Whereas the main reenactment groups in the US are civil war based, afaik. One of the ideas with the nation design for Empire was to try and attract re-enactors (and their cool kit) by having some of the nations draw really heavily on historical influences. The biggest examples are the Marches, which is essentially just War of the Roses England with druids, and the League which is a mishmash of renaissance Italy and the Hanseatic League, whose soldiers are basically Landschneckt. Another related goal was to try and attract foreign players by having countries outside of the Empire speak a different language, represented by a different real world language. So this means that if you are IRL bilingual/trilingual/etc. you can be hired to act as a translator for an NPC foreign ambassador who doesn't speak Imperial (English). Or you might be hired to listen in on the negotiations and make sure that the ambassador's translator is actually translating properly and not feeding him a load of horseshit and make the players look bad. It's a pretty cool little thing IMO.
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Apr 28, 2016 14:39
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MikeCrotch posted:
Holy poo poo seriously? Is Spanish one of those languages? I speak it fluently and being a translator/negotiator guy sounds like so much fun. Oh wait is it a good idea to express interest in actually playing one of these games in this thread? Ignore me, carry on, etc.
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Apr 28, 2016 21:01
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Could be more influence from hardcore historical reenactors in Europe, there's a lot of kit overlap. Whereas the main reenactment groups in the US are civil war based, afaik.
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Apr 28, 2016 21:06
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occluded posted:Holy poo poo seriously? Is Spanish one of those languages? I speak it fluently and being a translator/negotiator guy sounds like so much fun.
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Apr 28, 2016 21:49
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occluded posted:Holy poo poo seriously? Is Spanish one of those languages? I speak it fluently and being a translator/negotiator guy sounds like so much fun. Empire is okay if you have friends that already play. It's pointless and boring if you try to go on your own, as you'll never, ever find any plot. You might have an easier time if you specifically push the translation angle tho. As usual my advice is to Crew first. It's free, and the NPC crew would love more multilingual people to play foreign diplomats. http://www.profounddecisions.co.uk/empire-wiki/Crewing
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Apr 28, 2016 22:44
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:Empire is okay if you have friends that already play. It's pointless and boring if you try to go on your own, as you'll never, ever find any plot. You might have an easier time if you specifically push the translation angle tho. Yeah, this is the biggest issue with Empire from a player perspective. There are so many parts of the game that require you to have a big support network of other players helping you and resources that trying to go it alone is just a huge pain in the rear end and not a lot of fun unless you are some charismatic savant or just want to fight battles and get drunk all day. There is also the issue that has been developing for a while that power is increasingly accumulating in the hands of fewer groups, since once you get positions its easier to hold on to the positions you already have. Challenging an entrenched opponent means wrangling a whole bunch of people to try and dig them out which can be a real grind and make you question why you turn up if you're not having fun. Go crew, crewing is cool. You can either play dudes in the city like foreign diplomats, angry petitioners or shifty otherworldy beings, or dress up as an orc and beat on people all day.
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Apr 29, 2016 11:28
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I think that's a thing in all LARPs. Regular old human politics, cliques form, gain power, then work to consolidate as much power as possible to themselves in order to 'win' the game. People are really, really bad at recognizing that they're all out to just play a game, and sometimes not winning makes for a more fun story.
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Apr 29, 2016 16:07
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Do black people LARP? If so are they different than everyone else? I just don't see it happening. Also OP i'm not sure if it's something you want to share with the thread or anything, but you talked about therapy and your mental issues and everything but did you receive a diagnosis? You don't have to answer just curious.
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Apr 29, 2016 16:21
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Liquid Communism posted:I think that's a thing in all LARPs. Regular old human politics, cliques form, gain power, then work to consolidate as much power as possible to themselves in order to 'win' the game. The setup of Empire is particularly susceptible to this though, particularly due to the way things like senatorial elections work. Early on in the game people were trying to figure out exactly how things would play out and it wasn't totally clear what the best way to spend IC money was. The smart players formed big groups, pooled their money to get more resources which they can spend in auctions to get more resources, which they can turn into money, which they can spend in auctions to get more resources etc. The fact that PvP is very frowned upon and you don't have to engage in battles if you don't want (unlike say Lorien Trust where monsters can teleport into your camp and kill you) means that it is really hard to boot someone out of an entrenched position if they don't want to leave. Theoretically the priests of the Empire have the power to fire people if they are blatantly incompetent/corrupt, but it turns out a lot of LARPers are pussies and too scared to pull the trigger. So the whole situation continues. Veskit posted:Do black people LARP? If so are they different than everyone else? I just don't see it happening. Yeah, black people LARP but not a huge amount as you can probably guess. It's a big ol' bone of contention in the UK LARP community at the minute as to whether PoC are not interested in LARPing because at its core LARP is pretty loving nerdy and therefore the domain of white neckbeards, or if the actions of the LARP community like having drow in blackface parading around is turning PoC off the game. A mixed-race member of my group was unironically called half-caste to his face by a white guy so clearly there are some unresolved issues, although that could just be because a lot of British people are big ol' racists whether or not they are LARPers.
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Apr 29, 2016 17:49
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MikeCrotch posted:Yeah, black people LARP but not a huge amount as you can probably guess. It's a big ol' bone of contention in the UK LARP community at the minute as to whether PoC are not interested in LARPing because at its core LARP is pretty loving nerdy and therefore the domain of white neckbeards, or if the actions of the LARP community like having drow in blackface parading around is turning PoC off the game. A mixed-race member of my group was unironically called half-caste to his face by a white guy so clearly there are some unresolved issues, although that could just be because a lot of British people are big ol' racists whether or not they are LARPers. To throw another perspective onto the pile, I'm a New Englander who can be accused of (combat/boffer) LARPing while black, and yeah, there aren't many of us! I can think of maybe 6-7 people I know in the community around here that I'm in (out of maybe 300-400?), and in most of the games I've been involved in in the past year or two, I'm the only one. My real-life race hasn't been of much relevance to my gameplay, since most people aren't going to write "you need to be white to play an elf" in their rules, and people these days hopefully aren't going to try to give out different stats for people based on skin color. I'm not writing "Black" on my character sheet, I'm writing "Human Paladin" or "Elf Wizard" or whatever. However, in terms of barriers to entry for the community, you still have to get past things like the lack of minority representation in fantasy (or better yet, the thing where "black" = "evil" in many works) before you get more people of color interested in fantasy stuff as a whole, never mind getting into the hobby of spending a weekend in the woods pretending to be an elf with a padded sword. For me it's no problem, but I can see how many people wouldn't even consider it.
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Apr 29, 2016 19:43
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Veskit posted:Do black people LARP? If so are they different than everyone else? I just don't see it happening. Yes they do. Not as few as you'd think, either. Several played in Chattanooga's WOD larps.
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Apr 29, 2016 20:03
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Skunkrocker posted:Yes they do. Not as few as you'd think, either. Several played in Chattanooga's WOD larps. some black folks pull of some loving rad vampires if i might add albeit it being the dramageekiest of geeky things.
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Apr 29, 2016 22:18
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MikeCrotch posted:Yeah, black people LARP but not a huge amount as you can probably guess. It's a big ol' bone of contention in the UK LARP community at the minute as to whether PoC are not interested in LARPing because at its core LARP is pretty loving nerdy and therefore the domain of white neckbeards, or if the actions of the LARP community like having drow in blackface parading around is turning PoC off the game. A mixed-race member of my group was unironically called half-caste to his face by a white guy so clearly there are some unresolved issues, although that could just be because a lot of British people are big ol' racists whether or not they are LARPers. Jesus christ. Also a common theme was playing out your internal fantasies outwardly with others so I had to imagine when you put a mask on a mask on a racist, or a hood and made it somewhat anonymous then yeah... People could get carried away Taran posted:To throw another perspective onto the pile, I'm a New Englander who can be accused of (combat/boffer) LARPing while black, and yeah, there aren't many of us! I can think of maybe 6-7 people I know in the community around here that I'm in (out of maybe 300-400?), and in most of the games I've been involved in in the past year or two, I'm the only one. My real-life race hasn't been of much relevance to my gameplay, since most people aren't going to write "you need to be white to play an elf" in their rules, and people these days hopefully aren't going to try to give out different stats for people based on skin color. I'm not writing "Black" on my character sheet, I'm writing "Human Paladin" or "Elf Wizard" or whatever. Is there any extra camaraderie with everyone else or is it not like that?
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Apr 29, 2016 22:35
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Veskit posted:Jesus christ. He did get to put the shoe on the other foot though when his character became an undead wraith, and he got to make the event manager squirm while asking if he was expected to 'white-up' for the race. IC racism in LARP is a funny issue that seems to be able to go a few ways. Empire was supposed to have the Orcs be a downtrodden near-slave race fighting for emancipation and equal rights (the only two actual races being Orc and Human). However, things went a lot quicker than expected since most players weren't really comfortable with being blatantly prejudiced against people based solely on their race, even if it is fantasy.
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Apr 29, 2016 23:03
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MikeCrotch posted:because a lot of British people are big ol' racists whether or not they are LARPers. Pretty sure it's this. And it's not just brits obviously, but I've noticed it's that sort of unthinking, "we're just having a laugh" "weyy banter", "I don't see what the problem is, there's no asians/black people/whatever around so it's okay to say" sort of thing. I think Empire is really trying to be inclusive to everyone, and it's doing a pretty good job IMO. But people are people, and some people are awful. EDIT: MikeCrotch posted:Empire was supposed to have the Orcs be a downtrodden near-slave race fighting for emancipation and equal rights (the only two actual races being Orc and Human). However, things went a lot quicker than expected since most players weren't really comfortable with being blatantly prejudiced against people based solely on their race, even if it is fantasy. Can you imagine how uncomfortable and borderline offensive the Orc narrative would have seemed if Empire was being run in the States, or anywhere with a history of visible mass-slavery? It's sort of hillarious. Gravitas Shortfall fucked around with this message at 23:44 on Apr 29, 2016 |
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Apr 29, 2016 23:41
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There was at least one black person in 2 out of the 4 LARPs I've played. I never personally witnessed anything hinky WRT race, but my impression from others' accounts is that nerdery ends up repelling a lot of black people for the same reason it does the ladytypes- there's a lot of underlying idiocy, ranging from "I am a sheltered shutin who has not been taught empathy" to "I am an actual bigoted piece of poo poo," along with a tendency to go all, "NO WE CANNOT ACKNOWLEDGE PROBLEMS EXISTING THAT IS FOR BAD PEOPLE LIKE JOCKS ONLY!"
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Apr 30, 2016 00:47
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After time out tonight a guy in my faction command mentioned that at Empire there was a thriving IC trade for food and drink, since it basically lets players put in the OOC time and money to offer something to other players in-game for IC cash. Except the link between what players are willing to spend in OOC cash to set this up and what they're willing to accept in exchange for IC cash is hilariously unbalanced and so the goods on offer are stupendously cheap, to the point that if you choose the right role to maximise the IC money you're given, you can basically stuff your face and get paralytically drunk at little to no expense all weekend long. Is that true, because if so I might start coming to Empire.
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Apr 30, 2016 04:15
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Veskit posted:Is there any extra camaraderie with everyone else or is it not like that? If you're asking "do the black folks in this circle associate with each other especially often due to race?", I'd say no. I hope I'm answering the right question though?
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Apr 30, 2016 17:47
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Taran posted:If you're asking "do the black folks in this circle associate with each other especially often due to race?", I'd say no. I hope I'm answering the right question though? Yeah that's what I was asking. I kinda get why they don't but I feel like they should ohhh well.
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Apr 30, 2016 18:26
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BiggerJ posted:The reason American larps are like this, from what I've read, seems to be that people in the US are a lot more judgmental about hobbies than Europeans are. The US tends to be more capitalistic, so putting a lot of time, money and effort into something that doesn't make one money is often looked down upon. If its anything like punk, insurance is also a huge issue. When I moved back to the US I was shocked at what pussies Americans are. After some investigation, its because of liability.
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May 1, 2016 01:19
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Shbobdb posted:If its anything like punk, insurance is also a huge issue. When I moved back to the US I was shocked at what pussies Americans are. After some investigation, its because of liability. I don't think liability plays that much of a part in it. I think most lightest touch/ story driven larders are just big whiny babies. Not only can you not hit them with anything but the lightest tap, but God forbid you call them out for being a lovely player/cheater/having terrible garb. Some of them just need to be coddled. That's how the "lifers" and people like the OP thrive on this environment. Broken people being coddled and hug-boxed by other broken people. The rest just roll their eyes and try to have fun playing real live elf games for a weekend.
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May 1, 2016 03:48
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Those rare weenies hitting you with a multi-million dollar lawsuit is a pretty big disincentive. Some random schmuck breaking his arm and having to sue for a few thousand dollars in medical bills (and some tens of thousands more in legal) adds some extra violence.
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May 1, 2016 05:08
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trauma llama posted:I don't think liability plays that much of a part in it. I think most lightest touch/ story driven larders are just big whiny babies. Not only can you not hit them with anything but the lightest tap, but God forbid you call them out for being a lovely player/cheater/having terrible garb. In the UK at least this rings pretty true, at least for LARP communities that aren't moderated properly so that everyone's expectations are on the same page. Which is really the battle in pretty much any traditional gaming sector, board games, pen and paper roleplaying, whatever. Litigation isn't ever really a concern over here, and while getting injured sucks its not going to cost you anything directly thanks to the NHS. People running events are concerned about safety and not having people get hurt, but that's usually due much more to: 1. People not wanting others to get hurt, obviously 2. Organisers not wanting to get a reputation by word of mouth for running an unsafe system or going to unsafe sites. Quite a few people will not go to LARP event if it is being held at a site notorious for things like treacherous footing and being poorly maintained. It's a spectrum though - some LARPers like things to be really safe and comfortable - never fighting in muddy areas, no head hits, limits on things like archery - while at the other end you have systems that will allow shield barging, grappling and fighting full speed in muddy woods. To each their own and all that.
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May 2, 2016 17:50
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Milky Moor posted:I'm seeing a lot of rumbling about someone apparently trademarking the words and term 'LARP Australia' and therefore expecting people to rename any and all Facebook pages that could... infringe upon it? Or something? It's much smaller, pettier, and less interesting than you'd expect (even considering its LARP in Australia). To cut a really boring story short, there's a facebook group called LARP Australia for larpers across Australia to spread information, share interesting or useful links, and generally network. There's some cool stuff going on with blogs being set up people can submit to, and so forth. Anyway! A new organisation started up, registered the name LARP Australia, and asked the admin of the facebook group (Dave) to change the name of the group, hand it over to them, or delete it. Dave is very well respected amongst the Victoria LARP community, and has done a lot for their games. Dave put up a post asking for suggestions for name changes, and then got threatened with legal action by the person running the new organisation (I'll call him Steve) because Dave talked about it openly I guess? The community as a whole said "nah, gently caress off Steve" and it broke down. What came out, in the end, was the facebook group was created before the organisation registered the name, the name was registered as a business and not a trademark (so their claim to the name means jack poo poo), and the whole business idea for LARP Australia was.. really vague and kinda dumb? Steve tried to act like they had the moral high ground, but couldn't even say what the business was about, apart from the fact that they had multiple staff, it had something to do with advertising and information sharing for LARP, and they wanted to make money doing it. Steve got super defensive and snappy and basically managed to completely turn off everyone in the LARP Australia facebook group, another related facebook group, and poison the well for themself entirely. Basically everyone who runs a LARP in Perth, most of Canberra, Victoria and the biggest larp group in Australia said they'd never work with Steve or deal with him on anything. Steve then complained that the stress from this had caused two people working on his unidentifiable project to quit, and then closed down the new LARP he was TOTALLY GOING TO RUN YOU GUYS. Then people started posting pictures of their cats.
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May 14, 2016 05:32
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Cocomonk3 posted:It's much smaller, pettier, and less interesting than you'd expect (even considering its LARP in Australia). I'm glad to see Australian LARP drama is just as petty as NZ LARP drama, and presumably everywhere else's LARP drama.
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May 14, 2016 06:03
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So this popped up on my FB feed today. It's a pretty good look at UK LARP (though focussed on Empire, the fighting scenes are from a Lorien Trust sanctioned event- few of my friends show up in it). Worth a look at least. https://www.facebook.com/serge.tiley/videos/10153569635392555/
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May 16, 2016 21:11
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Camrath posted:So this popped up on my FB feed today. It's a pretty good look at UK LARP (though focussed on Empire, the fighting scenes are from a Lorien Trust sanctioned event- few of my friends show up in it). Worth a look at least. This really drives home that here is absolutely no way to make LARP fighting look good.
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May 17, 2016 06:53
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:This really drives home that here is absolutely no way to make LARP fighting look good. You can make it look better. But at the end of the day you're still wearing fancy dress and hitting people with rubber sticks.
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May 17, 2016 10:08
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