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Milky Moor posted:I have some experience with LARPing - I did it weekly for maybe six months. I hestitate to call it a LARP, though, because there was very little actual roleplay - it was more like the medieval reenactment battle people but with foam weapons. I'll be following this thread although I don't have that many stories to tell - just the fact that everyone involved was weird, gross and creepy. And the people who made the rules would regularly change them in order to keep their group more powerful. I actually like the idea of boffer LARP (foam weapons in a field), because at least you're flippin' outdoors doing something physical. But I imagine it has the same political issues and social cringes as theater LARP. Milky Moor posted:A fair few of my friends still do it and it hasn't exactly been the best influence on their lives. It combines the worst parts of a competitive sport with dozens of people who never grew out of being insecure high school nerds and can't handle competition. This was an awesome comment because it brings up one of the biggest toxicities of WoD LARPing - it IS a competition. They'll tell you it's not. Again and again you'll hear 'There are no winners or losers' ("Oh, there are losers," says Jim). Again, total and complete bullshit. You compete constantly, both in and out of character, and the system is grossly unfair and actually cruel. The club I was in had levels of member status out-of-character. Basically it was your 'rank' in the organization. You went up in rank by - guess what - being more involved in the club (hosting game, bringing snacks, cleaning up after a game, participating in the club's charity events). And as you went up in rank, you got bigger perks for your characters - more points to spend on your character sheet to make them stronger/more powerful/cooler, the privilege of playing special kinds of characters (like ancient vampires), that sort of thing. And so the club actually rewards you for becoming a Lifer. And if you're lonely, insecure, or even desperate for some form of power to negate being bullied or abused in your past, this is like loving nectar of the gods, as well as a one-way ticket to Delusionville. I once asked why it was that way. I didn't get how hosting a game or participating in a food drive equaled your character getting to be more powerful. I thought you should earn that perk through really good roleplay or exemplary behavior toward new people. I was told that the ranking system was the only way to get LARPers to actually do poo poo like bring snacks and clean up and donate canned goods. It was true. Unless you fed the addiction, why would a player bother to do anything? So, on paper, the highest ranking members of the club were supposed to be super responsible, very nice, upstanding folks. They were supposed to step aside and let the focus of the game be on the new folks to ensure a good initial experience. They were supposed to take new characters underwing in-character, and help get them involved with the plots that were happening. Basically, they were meant to be the best of the club, the paragons of the whole shebang. Instead, they bullied, cowed and used new players, hogged the spotlight and took all the plot, and were generally awful. I brought three friends to a game one night and the trio were playing these inept detectives who were hilarious and, admittedly, a little too silly for the theme of this particular game. One of the high-ranked players went off on them in-character and threatened to kill them (the characters) over and over. Afterwards, my friends said they wouldn't come back. They had a really bad time, and were unnerved by the nastiness of the high-ranker. When confronted, the high-ranker said 'It's what my character would do'. Which is the most infuriatingly wretched cop-out, and it was used ALL THE TIME to excuse the worst behaviors. So, what ended up happening is the new folks would come in, but because they were so low in rank, almost everyone else's characters were more powerful. And the older players would immediately subjugate, dominate and bully the new guys in-character. The higher-rankers would even use the fact that the new players weren't as familiar with the game system to their advantage in-character. I saw one new character get humiliated and punished in front of everyone because he used the wrong form of address to some ancient character. (Oh my god, this is such a rant, sorry. Almost done...) Which leads into 'Things that happen in-character don't affect out-of-character', another favorite bit of sputum horked by LARPers. In other words, if someone's character hates yours, it doesn't mean the player hates you. Lovely concept. Such such such bullshit. I saw hundreds of instances where people used out-of-character motivation to be douchecanoes in-character and get away with it. So, in the above example - I don't care what you say, if I'm in a room with people I've just met that night and they're standing around me hurling insults and threatening to cut out my tongue, it's gonna hurt whether it's directed at me or my character. It's gonna be humiliating. It's gonna suck. But LARPers have no issue doing it, and justify it by saying 'It's what my character would do'. Two guys cornered me one night and took the piss out of me in-character. They were so vulgar and said such horrible sexually-violent things I was reduced to tears. And my character has never even met theirs. They did it just because they could. Because it was in-character and they wouldn't get in trouble for it. This happened a lot, to many people, on many occasions. It was just awful. Sorry. I'm done. That was a doozy.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:16
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faarcyde posted:I've read this whole thread and have no idea what actually goes on at one of these. Could you describe your standard LARP? Is it like what civil war reenactors do? There are some comments from other folks tackling this, so I'll give my standard abbreviated answer: The LARPing I did is live improvisational dramatic theater without an audience. That's the best way I can describe it.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:18
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Jeremor posted:This reminds me of some embarrassing poo poo I did when I was younger, too. Never LARPed or got into tabletop gaming, though I think I might have if I knew anybody that did. Very very glad I didn't. I know exactly what you mean about personal issues, self-esteem, and can easily see how an activity like this can let it get further out of control. It really is like a drug when you get addicted to a toxic community like this, because you're lonely as hell or have zero self-esteem or direction in your life or whatever. Instead of facing up to those scary problems, you just dive into a group of other people trying to ignore their own problems and you all, quite literally, make up a fairy tale imagination land to live in. Then the bubble finally bursts and you realize, poo poo, this has made me even crazier than when I started. This stopped being fun a long time ago. If I'd spent all that time going out and talking to normal people, I'd have way more of my poo poo together. All that time got you was regret and shame. This is so on-point for me. And not only does it make your crazier, it excuses bad behavior, so you come out of it not only sicker, but more evil. Yes, there is a LOT of shame. Boatloads. Wow, this tugged something out of me. Whuff. Ok. Lemme see if I can articulate it. (Might get mushy, forewarned fellows) LARPers boast that their games are full of magic and adventure and intrigue and drama. They're not. They're full of ILLUSIONS of those things. I didn't know that 'til I was out. LARP cannot, CANNOT give you anything substantial. It cannot offer anything tangible or soul-sticking. It cannot add to you, it can only subtract. And usually what it's taking away is your connection to the world. I didn't realize how horrible that cost is, again, 'til I escaped. I was out on my porch one afternoon and it was storming. One of my favorite things to do now is go sit on the porch when it rains like mad and have some tea and watch the storm (which I know that one dude called with his powers). And my dogs were sitting with me and my husband came out and smooched the top of my head and it just hit me, so hard - the world, the real world, has magic and adventure and intrigue and drama. It has everything I was trying to get out of LARPing, and it has it for realsies. But when you've been hurt really bad and are scared to go back out into that world, it's hard not to just dive into an illusion to sate you. There's a lot of risk and, just like you said, there's scary problems you have to face before you get to be in the world again. You have to be willing to be vulnerable, and so so so many people aren't. (By the way, Brene Brown does a TED Talk on this, on YouTube, and it demolished me in the best of ways). And, in the end, that's the real reason I can never go back. Not just because of the toxicity, not just because those people are in places I've moved on from, but because the veil's been lifted. The illusion's been shattered. I can never be satisfied by what LARP offers, or even interested in it. Ok. I'm a mess. I'm gonna take a bit, then come back and do more responses. This is gruesome and glorious and so hard, and thank you, guys. Thank you.
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Aug 11, 2015 20:32
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Ghogargi posted:LARPers boast that their games are full of magic and adventure and intrigue and drama. They're not. They're full of ILLUSIONS of those things. I didn't know that 'til I was out. LARP cannot, CANNOT give you anything substantial. It cannot offer anything tangible or soul-sticking. It cannot add to you, it can only subtract. And usually what it's taking away is your connection to the world. This is hilariously over dramatic. Like, if your mental state is so fragile that some nerds in capes can gently caress you up this much then something, anything, was going to get you. I guess at least if it was like model trains you could sell them to get some money back out of it.
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Aug 11, 2015 21:26
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Ghogargi posted:
What would stop the inept detectives from role playingly sticking a stake in the high ranker's chest?
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Aug 11, 2015 23:17
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joat mon posted:What would stop the inept detectives from role playingly sticking a stake in the high ranker's chest? Nothing. One of the meta plots of Vampire is that the old fear the young because they have numbers and one form of killing vampires gives you their power. The old manipulate the young to keep them off-balance and divided. In most games I played the bastard elder vamps that threatened death or heaped abuse on the young were ambushed and killed by large groups. A friend told me of one game where the elders (read long running players) were a united cabal. The young got tired of it and forged a pact with the Sabbat (enemy vampires) and joined them en masse and then led an invasion and used all their information on the older vamps to pull off a clean sweep.
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Aug 11, 2015 23:26
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Ghogargi posted:There are some comments from other folks tackling this, so I'll give my standard abbreviated answer: Here, I'll give a run down of the average game where I came from. Game starts at 8 PM, generally people show up around six or seven to start setting up and hang out. Sometimes there is a pre game meeting and if there is it'll be at like 6:30 and last for an hour. Nothing happens during this time other than people going on about how awesome their character is. At 8 the storyteller gathers everyone together, hits a few key points about the evening, reminds players of poo poo that happened the week before, and depending on the game something different happens. Let's say it's Vampire. 'Court' is held, and it's usually just a bunch of people sitting around in character talking business and politik. Usually new players have their characters introduced at this point, people act all weasley and show off for the new players in an attempt to make them think the game is really cool. This takes about an hour. Around 9 serious discussion of poo poo starts to happen, with characters discussing how they're going to handle the problem they currently have going. Some players break off from the main group at this time to go with an ST to make some actions happens ("I need to know where this particular reporter is who has footage of us, so I'm going to hack into the TV news station and bring up employee records.") At this point people not actively participating just devolve into dumb conversation usually about their characters and how awesome they are. Around 10 PM the ST usually introduces something to the plot; we call this the ten o clock monster. People deal with the issue probably for the next hour and a half, on average. Once again more time is spent with people talking about how cool they are as opposed to actually doing something or arguing with the ST when their awesome cool poo poo doesn't work the way they think it should. Most "fights" are over in game time like thirty seconds or so, but you wouldn't know that given how much figurative jerking off the players are doing. 11:30 soft RP is declared; no more actions are allowed. It's a time period for players to do more business and poo poo. Generally if there are any last minute things that need to be taken care of this is when they happen. Usually it's just more character wank. At 12 we would wrap up. Usually someone would declare they're going to Waffle House and a bunch of people join them. Conversation about characters continues there freaking out waitresses, and the next game is also discussed. People are supposed to help clean, but usually it's like three or four people cleaning everyone else's garbage while they play on their phones and update their character sheets. Everyone goes home and sends emails containing downtime information, or what your character does the next four weeks before the next game. That's it. It's really loving lame. Skunkrocker fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 23:44
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faarcyde posted:I've read this whole thread and have no idea what actually goes on at one of these. Could you describe your standard LARP? Is it like what civil war reenactors do? I guess I'll answer this for the other extreme, using the Lorien Trust (a British 'fest' system) as my example. Generally these are held over a long weekend at a fixed site (a stately home in Derby for the LT). Many people turn up on the thursday night for an OOC social evening, and to get all their tents raised etc. But mostly to get absolutely shitfaced and catch up with friends in the field (as mainline events happen only four times a year there's not the continuity of weekly events, and probably why the social aspect doesn;t become as toxic as in the WoD games). There's usually one or more large beer tents or bars put on by the hosting company which gets heavy use on the thursday. Come the friday, everyone gets set up properly once the hangovers have abated with time-in for the game happening around 5pm. Things generally kick off with a muster in every faction (ten of them in the LT, each of them based around a fantasy/historical trope so you have for example the Dragons being Celtic, the Gryphons being french/italian, the Jackals being arabianesque, the Tarantulas being the This continues throughout the event; sometimes the peril level is very high with shitloads of monsters (all monsters by the way are volunteers, and every faction gets allocated a monstering slot to provide baddies for the others), other times (oddly, whenever it's raining or /really/ cold) the field will be incredibly quiet and empty seeming- that's when the most people tend to get mugged/murdered. And traditionally there's a big PvE brawl at lunchtime on the last day. Eh. It's late and I'm tired, and I don't think I'm explaining this as well as I could be. If anyone's interested in seeing, I have no end of pictures from my end of the LARP spectrum and will happily upload some tomorrow. Also, over here the convention seems to be that the type of game the OP and Skunkrocker are referring to is known as LRP, as opposed to the full contact LARP that I do.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:37
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BiggerJ posted:How easy is it/can it be to unintentionally fall from being a Larper to becoming a Larp lifer? Super easy. I never thought of myself as a Lifer. I thought 'I am nowhere near as hosed up as this person having a screaming breakdown about their character'. I prided myself on not talking about my characters every single time I hung out with people. I actually did not try to up my rank in the club, because powers and stats weren't important to me. I really, truly believed I was better than the rest of them, but I wasn't at all. Here's where I think the line is crossed - when you take it home with you after every game. The sanest, most put-together folks I knew were the ones who showed up on game night, played, and then we wouldn't see or hear from them 'til next game. They played hard, they were involved during game, but then that was that and they went back to living in reality. For me, the pitfall was that attention and false validation. I put all my energy into writing forum posts, making elaborate costumes, and playing as intensely as I could, all to capture interest and get individuals to spend time with me and pay attention to me in-character. Wasn't terribly interested in the main plotline - I didn't want to be in a group going on adventures; I wanted intimate, emotional scenes that pantomimed real connections. Lots of back room, weepy, sexually-charged scenes. People who've LARPed World of Darkness will certainly recognize my stereotype. I didn't do any PvP roleplaying, because that would counter what I was trying to get from game. As soon as I saw what I could get from LARP, I plunged in headfirst and became a Lifer.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:43
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Xenocides posted:I have LARPed on and off for several years. I know you said people would say they doubt your stories but I do not. Some of the people I played with were refugees from the bigger WOD games you describe and they had stories like what you shared. I was lucky with good GMs who enforced rules and were not afraid to boot people and tell them not to come back. Oddballs and deviants rarely lasted more then one night. Troupes (standalone roleplaying groups) were much less toxic than the global club, absolutely. And as I mentioned, folks who just played casually were usually fine. Happy to know you didn't get enmeshed in it.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:45
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Camrath posted:Also, over here the convention seems to be that the type of game the OP and Skunkrocker are referring to is known as LRP, as opposed to the full contact LARP that I do.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:51
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quote is not edit.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:56
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joat mon posted:So what does one do in the non-boffer LARPs? Is it like court intrigue/queen bee games?
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Aug 12, 2015 00:57
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Skunkrocker posted:OP, right here with you. I've seen WOD LARP cause divorces. I've seen actual fist fights when a person "in character" took things too far. Nervous breakdowns from people mid game because 'poo poo got too real' for them. And everyone there is ready to bone someone or something. It's really a hosed up game. I honestly can't remember the last time I had fun with it and I played for years. The issue is, and I think this is why I'm steering gently away from the Crazy Tales, is people regale others with the madness that occurs at LARPs, but nobody addresses how worrisome those things are. It's like telling stories about your friend Blaine who gets trashed every weekend and ends up naked in a fountain or loses his car somewhere downtown. On the surface it's entertaining (and I used to really enjoy breaking out the ol' LARP stories), but no one ever says 'Hey, you know, maybe Blaine's an alcoholic, sounds like he's going off the deep end and really loving himself up'. I mentioned the girls who whipped off their tops, or blew dudes in a cabin, or traded sex for rides to game. And the mind does boggle on a social level. But after that - what the heck is going on with these girls? Prudery aside, providing oral sex for random people while at a public campsite has to be at least a little indicative of a larger issue, if only being totally unaware the consequences of your actions - gossip, the possible shitstorm if some kid from another campsite wanders in through the unlocked door, the organizers having to do damage control. Coupled with the behaviors, health and attitudes I saw every game night, there is no doubt something was broken. I'm not going to play Armchair Psychologist and pick it apart, but there were many, many players who needed to get some real help, burying themselves in a culture that made them sicker. I look back, and there's a lot of guilt that I didn't try to help them, especially the ones I considered friends. When I left the global club because of how rotten it was, I never contacted the players I liked and said 'That is a bad, bad place for you. Please think about leaving'.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:59
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The one and only LARP I was involved in was a playtest for a game titled "Speed Dating in the World of Darkness". The premise was that everyone in the room was secretly some sort of supernatural creature (apart from I think one human), and each person had a goal to 'win' the game. For example, I played a Faustian Demon of the Third House, and my goal was to get someone to sign over their soul to me. I spent the night chatting to various creatures, and getting hit on heavily by a lady playing an overly-sexual vampire. There was only one instance of combat, and it was completely hands-off. Note: I ended up sweet-talking a young mage into giving me her soul. Yay. I doubt I'd go back, purely because it was super creepy to be hit on like that.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:10
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Ghogargi posted:I actually like the idea of boffer LARP (foam weapons in a field), because at least you're flippin' outdoors doing something physical. But I imagine it has the same political issues and social cringes as theater LARP. Bingo. The big thing about the game I played in was that the people who created the homebrew ruleset also played the drat game as significant members of player-on-player factions. To anyone who has had experience with anything competitive, you don't let the people who make the rules play the rules. Particularly not nerds, who can't be guaranteed to remain objective about anything. Now, all these people who made the rules were also the sorts to throw down a ton of money on metal armor, good foam weapons and so on. This isn't surprising. This, essentially, made them very tough to beat on the field - and that's fair because, well, they're in armor and it cost them a bit. But let me tell you about magic. The game had a magic system. A player could chant for a certain amount of time and then throw a rubber ball at someone. This did a lot of damage and two to three of these would take out a heavily-armored player. Once people started stacking mages in their factions and decimating the slow armored rank and file, magic was summarily made 'consent-only'. Yes, players - in a competitive game - would have to consent to being affected by any magic. And then it was written out completely, to be replaced by healing - which, funnily enough, meant that people only ever spent time healing - surprise - the people with the most powerful sets of armor. So, the games would just devolve into shield walls and line fighting because it was the most powerful way to play. Nothing could defeat a shield (except magic) and all weapons, from the smallest dagger to the biggest warhammer, did one damage. So, why would you do anything except fight with the lightest weapon you could get, as much armor as you could carry on your body, and bear a shield in one hand? The game began favouring the lifers, though, and it's part of why I dropped out. You used to be able to show up in tracksuit pants, a tee-shirt, runners and you could just hire our a foam sword for a few bucks. It was a lot of fun to just beat on nerds as a fairly fit guy. But then they introduced a rule that you had to be period authentic (and the list of things that weren't period authentic included things like 'zips' and poo poo like that). Not only that, but the referees were all volunteers - sourced from the teams. A big reason I left was when, in a capture the flag scenario, we had pushed the enemy team into a river (instant-death) and won. Then, the referee - on the other side of the field, dealing with something else - said that we had actually lost because we had gone into the river too. Even though the other team went into the river first and therefore would have died before us since we pushed them back into it. Quell surprise, his faction was the one holding the flag. There was no way to officially question the ruling. And that's not even going into the fact that the people in charge were almost assuredly just embezzling the money from the weekly fee people had to play. Hundreds of people paying about twelve dollars each every week, and they couldn't even provide food, drinks or anything that you'd expect from a weekly activity with full physical contact. So, that explains that the game itself wasn't very good and suffered from, yeah, the political and social issues that regular LARPs suffer from. I'll get in on this on another post because this already feels long.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:11
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Ghogargi posted:The issue is, and I think this is why I'm steering gently away from the Crazy Tales, is people regale others with the madness that occurs at LARPs, but nobody addresses how worrisome those things are. It's like telling stories about your friend Blaine who gets trashed every weekend and ends up naked in a fountain or loses his car somewhere downtown. On the surface it's entertaining (and I used to really enjoy breaking out the ol' LARP stories), but no one ever says 'Hey, you know, maybe Blaine's an alcoholic, sounds like he's going off the deep end and really loving himself up'. Yeah, the weekend roleplay events for the game I mentioned were basically drunken orgies under the guise of - as you mentioned - 'it's what my character would do!' Friends would come back from it and be like 'Oh, Person A and Person B had a three-way with a girl' or 'A bunch of people set up a "massage parlor" and got a bit too handsy'. And it would inevitably lead to these dramatic shitstorms because, as virtually anyone knows if they've been MUSHing or MUDding (which is much closer to LARPing than tabletop RP is), you cannot mix sex and roleplay without risks of OOC bleed-through. That's, of course, giving them credit that it was actually for RP purposes and not just desperate, needy guys picking up desperate, needy girls (who were, sometimes, much younger than the guys in question). Alchohol was, of course, involved. It's just skeevy. When I heard about all that stuff going on, there was no way I could go out there for something like that. The thought of being in a place where people honestly said 'What happens at LARP, stays at LARP' about things like this was just disgusting. If the prevailing stories that come back from an event like that isn't how cool the roleplay was or how awesome it was being in-character but rather how much sex people had and how drunk people got, well, I've got a girlfriend and I gave up drinking to excess about four years ago - what can the game offer a normal person like me? Apparently nothing.
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Aug 12, 2015 01:29
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bewbies posted:Can someone provide photographic evidence of these overweight or emaciated women in sexy clothing pretending to be wizards or whatever this is?
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Aug 12, 2015 02:32
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Ghogargi posted:The issue is, and I think this is why I'm steering gently away from the Crazy Tales, is people regale others with the madness that occurs at LARPs, but nobody addresses how worrisome those things are. It's like telling stories about your friend Blaine who gets trashed every weekend and ends up naked in a fountain or loses his car somewhere downtown. On the surface it's entertaining (and I used to really enjoy breaking out the ol' LARP stories), but no one ever says 'Hey, you know, maybe Blaine's an alcoholic, sounds like he's going off the deep end and really loving himself up'. Have you ever seen the documentary DARKON? I'm pretty sure its about what others are referring to as boffer LARPing in this thread but it really gets at the heart of what you're talking about : Something is fundamentally wrong with these people's lives and rather then trying to fix it they're putting a bandaid over the problem with this fantasy escapism that takes over their life while it falls apart. I've always been fascinated with this kind of stuff because it lines up perfectly with Sayre's Law, ultimately what was supposed to be a lighthearted way to blow off some steam with friends morphs into this huge melodrama that engulfs the person's life often with little to show with it by the end.
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Aug 12, 2015 03:55
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I find it both ironic and horrifying that from what i've read so far LARPing may be 100% more effective at finding orgy's than say, craigslist. e; So I caught up with the friend who I went that one time with. Turns out they had put a lot of work in culling the groups before the start of whatever the new ongoing story was. Like dictating that certain people are banned from certain game venues unless accompanied by the equivalent of a minder. All so that the people who made life hell could still play, just without being able to group together in crazy. M_Gargantua fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 04:01
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Do you think documentaries such as Darkon and Monster Camp are representative of LARPing as a whole or did they just strike gold and find some of the saddest people imaginable?
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Aug 12, 2015 04:07
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Funnily enough, my brother in law is a fairly prominent Darkon player. His "nation" all declined to be a part of the documentary because they felt as if the producers were only really cherry-picking the trainwrecks and painting the hobby as a whole in a bad light. I've met most of his nation at various parties over the years and they are honestly really cool people who enjoy going to the outings, drinking heavily, and hitting each other with foam weaponry (and by and large leave game chat to the outings). I expected to see the worst of geekdom but was very pleasantly surprised at how inclusive and gosh-darn nice they all were. Not one fedora to be seen.
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Aug 12, 2015 06:24
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N'thing the 'excessive immersion in role-play is indicative of a deeper problem'. My ex-fiancée was heavily, heavily into written RP; she'd stay up for hours crafting posts, she invested herself into it utterly, and it became a fundamental replacement for real-world emotional and physical intimacy. Not just with me, but with anyone. It would, literally, reduce her to tears. The fights and fall-outs she had with RP partners were of an impossible, ludicrous nature. Ghogarg, well done on escaping that bullshit world, and that mindset.
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Aug 12, 2015 10:42
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The level of damage from LARP is really starting to look like a chicken and the egg kind of question.
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Aug 12, 2015 14:34
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mlmp08 posted:The level of damage from LARP is really starting to look like a chicken and the egg kind of question. It's like blaming the framed photo of Perry Mason the crazy old lady in Dunkin Donuts is screaming at for causing all the commotion.
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Aug 12, 2015 14:48
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mlmp08 posted:The level of damage from LARP is really starting to look like a chicken and the egg kind of question. World of Darkness tends to draw hosed up people and even if you go into it normal and sane, most people end up hosed up from it. Like OP did. Go join the SCA, call yourself Diddle Wheelshanks from 1400's wherever the gently caress, sew cool poo poo and thump people in full plate armor in the middle of summer on a tropical island with padded batons. Don't get involved with the nobility, enjoy LARP. Watch poo poo like Knight's Tale and make fun of the stuff they got wrong as you slowly descend from general cretin to knowing cretin. Maybe become a seneschal, herald, historian or a minister of something. Never become nobility. This keeps you kinda sane.
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Aug 12, 2015 15:44
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I'm starting to think just going to LARPs high as gently caress is a great idea.
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Aug 12, 2015 15:50
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Kashuno posted:I'm starting to think just going to LARPs high as gently caress is a great idea. It really, really is. There's nothing quite like hotboxing a bell-tent then stepping out to come face to face to some dude in a balrlg costume with a 15' wingspan laying waste to everything in site.
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Aug 12, 2015 16:03
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Skunkrocker posted:Here, I'll give a run down of the average game where I came from. Interesting thread and thanks for the description. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I played D&D like every other nerd when I was in high school so I get the general idea of roleplaying, but how are things actually resolved? In the example above where someone is going to "hack into the tv station's computer to get employment records", does the character in question simply have "hacking skillz"? Does it automatically succeed or do they have to do something? (In the tabletop games I played, someone would have to roll a d20 or something to see if it was successful). Does the GM arbitrate? How is bad behavior discouraged? So if I'm at one of these sessions and decide I want to kill some other guy do I simply walk up and jab a foam knife in his ear? Do I tell the GM that this is what I'm going to do and the guy can try to thwart it? Is it simply "you can't do that" or you'll never be invited back? I apologize if these are obvious questions, just trying to understand this culture.
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Aug 12, 2015 16:43
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Victory Yodel posted:Interesting thread and thanks for the description. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I played D&D like every other nerd when I was in high school so I get the general idea of roleplaying, but how are things actually resolved? In the example above where someone is going to "hack into the tv station's computer to get employment records", does the character in question simply have "hacking skillz"? Does it automatically succeed or do they have to do something? (In the tabletop games I played, someone would have to roll a d20 or something to see if it was successful). Does the GM arbitrate? Speaking on behalf of multiple different systems, the way those things are dealt with in my experience are through a combination of so called 'hard' and 'soft' skills. Hard skills are what you, the player are actually capable of doing, soft skills are the ones listed on your character sheet that your character can do. So, for the hacking example (we had a similar situation in a modern horror game I played) you'd talk to one of the refs and explain what you wanted to achieve and why your character would be able to, together with possibly an explanation of how they'd go about it. Then a result would be decided by the game team. For the 'I want to kill you' situation you described, that would come down more to hard-skills for the most part- if you're able to get close enough to your target to stab them up and you have the weapon and skills to use it.. Then they get stabbed. I've seen some incredibly sneaky PvP violence before (and died to one particularly well executed hit); people can get very inventive and very sneaky. Then again I've also offed another PC by literally walking up behind them, pressing an airsoft 40mm grenade launcher into their back and firing. Which was anything but stealthy after the fact given the bang they make when they go off, but was considered a totally valid kill by the game team.
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Aug 12, 2015 17:07
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After doing a GIS of "WoD LARP" I can affirm that it looks awful compared to foam sword battles in a field.
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Aug 12, 2015 17:55
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not WoD Larp, but i gave another popular boffer larp a few tries over last winter. Here's what i found: 1. Staff getting on my case for camping outside in zero degree weather when i was rather obviously equipped. 2. General Behavior: saw people using it as an excuse to bully others, act like homicidal maniacs, etc (obviously without out of game harm) . Made me wonder what these folks are capable of if they can do this so easily in a game without any repercussions. 3. Sexual Dysfunction: seemed like the group was a large group of polyamory. Anyone not poly was frowned upon and underhanded comments made. Any of the girls would be in 3-5 relationships simultaneously. 4. Dislike for the "norm". As an established adult with a real job and career, other folks, those with no life or career skills (yes, think mother's basement stereotype) often held me in disdain. 5. Constant bantering about "safety" when the rules were clearly selectively enforced. 6. Apparently there's a HUGE overlap in the local BDSM community to the LARP community, still cant figure this one out.
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Aug 12, 2015 18:24
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Camrath posted:Speaking on behalf of multiple different systems, the way those things are dealt with in my experience are through a combination of so called 'hard' and 'soft' skills. Hard skills are what you, the player are actually capable of doing, soft skills are the ones listed on your character sheet that your character can do. So, for the hacking example (we had a similar situation in a modern horror game I played) you'd talk to one of the refs and explain what you wanted to achieve and why your character would be able to, together with possibly an explanation of how they'd go about it. Then a result would be decided by the game team. For the 'I want to kill you' situation you described, that would come down more to hard-skills for the most part- if you're able to get close enough to your target to stab them up and you have the weapon and skills to use it.. Then they get stabbed. I've seen some incredibly sneaky PvP violence before (and died to one particularly well executed hit); people can get very inventive and very sneaky. Then again I've also offed another PC by literally walking up behind them, pressing an airsoft 40mm grenade launcher into their back and firing. Which was anything but stealthy after the fact given the bang they make when they go off, but was considered a totally valid kill by the game team. Thanks for this explanation. So if I'm in a session where there might be "somebody out to get me", I would have to essentially pay very close attention (e.g. not let someone sneak up behind me)? To me sounds like it would be a lot of fun with the right people and in small doses, but based on this thread, it sounds like those two conditions are met only rarely.
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Aug 12, 2015 18:32
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Victory Yodel posted:Thanks for this explanation. So if I'm in a session where there might be "somebody out to get me", I would have to essentially pay very close attention (e.g. not let someone sneak up behind me)? Exactly that. When you're doing a fest LARP in a field you can end up getting crazy paranoid- I don't even go to the shitters without at least a dagger in my boot, and have been thankful for it in the past. Likewise you learn to keep scanning peripheral areas, especially after dark. I know in the LT (which has been using the same site for something like 20 years) there's a well known 'murder tree' and 'muggers alley', both of which it's inadvisable to go down after dark without backup. And yeah, it's massive fun- though generally the PvP side of the game is sort of opt-in, except when it isn't. There was some IC/OOC drama earlier in this year when the drow faction reverted to type and started randomly murdering people walking past their camp and stealing their stuff (insert racist joke of your choice here, I guess). Given that to actually kill someone rather than just knock them unconscious takes a certain level of effort at mainline events (there's an effect called the 'ritual of peace' that stops characters bleeding out from normal injuries)- so you need to use either poisons, high level magic (pretty rare), extremely expensive sepcial weapons or a few sneaky tricks (taking you into a transport circle and then teleporting you out to make with the stabbing is how my last character died, for example) to get PvP kills. So it's unlikely people will waste the effort on someone for no reason, unless they're really just being a dick.
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Aug 12, 2015 18:51
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What sort of things would be stolen? Are we talking about actual, physical things with real-world value, such as some costume the guy spent weeks making, or "in-game" currency? For instance, if Sir Prancington IV was taking a late night stroll past the wrong tent, can he be knifed and lose his (actual, physical) cloak, boots, sword, and wallet containing $43 and Bill Roberts' drivers license, or just be relieved of his money pouch containing 49 gold doubloons?
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Aug 12, 2015 19:16
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tweekinator posted:What sort of things would be stolen? Are we talking about actual, physical things with real-world value, such as some costume the guy spent weeks making, or "in-game" currency? For instance, if Sir Prancington IV was taking a late night stroll past the wrong tent, can he be knifed and lose his (actual, physical) cloak, boots, sword, and wallet containing $43 and Bill Roberts' drivers license, or just be relieved of his money pouch containing 49 gold doubloons? Again, bear in mind that I'm talking about a small sample of systems in the UK, so different countries/rulesets might run things differently. However, that said.. Any stealable item other than in-game currency has to have a small laminated card or scroll attached to it (called a 'lammie'). Normal weapons, armour etc don't have them (or any in-game cash value) and are totally off limits for theft. Lammies are cards which contain information on the nature of the item- for weapons and armour they'll list any special powers or properties that it has (whether it does magical damage, has extra hit-points and so on), together with the message 'this item looks unusual'. For other items like potions, poisons, scrolls and other stealable props, they'll have a collection of 2-3 digit codes on it. These can be looked up on an appropriate lore sheet to help with identifying the item- there's lots of different lore sheets, and I believe a fair few dummy codes too. This is so if one was to steal a potion bottle for example, you could have someone with the poison or potion lore skills identify whether it's say a healing potion or a poison that will kill you in 30 seconds- a useful thing to know! For weapons and other large items that aren't attached to the body, or anything with a lammie left unattended, you can just grab it and take it down to GOD (Game Operations Desk) with a suitable phys-rep of your own (a phys-rep is a 'physical representation', IE a sword, dagger, bottle, scroll, piece of armour or whatever that the lammie is attached to) and transfer across the lammie to your posession- security then take posession of the stolen item and the owner can go down to collect it at any point. For stuff like gold, or anything in someone's pockets then you have to search them first- you spend 60 seconds roleplaying the search after telling them what you're doing, and at the end they have to hand across any items that they're carrying (obviously, this works best if the target is dead or unconscious at the time!). Actual physical contact as opposed to weapons blows or whatever is an absolute no-no without consent.
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Aug 12, 2015 19:29
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Thanks for clarifying; it was not what I was picturing at all.Camrath posted:Actual physical contact as opposed to weapons blows or whatever is an absolute no-no without consent. Does this mean that weapon blows without consent are totally fine? If so, I'm assuming that it's considered part of the experience that everyone knows going into it, correct?
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Aug 12, 2015 19:53
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tweekinator posted:Thanks for clarifying; it was not what I was picturing at all. Again, this is only true for the systems I play- but yeah. By attending the event you are giving your consent to be struck with larp-safe weapons- if you're unable or unwilling to fight you can use the call 'non-com', which puts you instantly at 0 hitpoints (IE unconscious). When we're talking about a field full of up to 4-5000 people it's the only way it can really work. However almost every system I've played has completely forbidden grappling etc (the only one that permitted it was a small modern horror system, where pretty much everyone already knew everyone else and even then, that was by consent only. That's the one where I whacked someone with a grenade launcher). Also, blows have to be delivered safely and pulled, rather than carried out full-strength, which is a big difference from a lot of the american systems (and also why we can use awesome looking latex weapons rather than loving pool-noodles). There's also a large element of self-policing involved as well- in the video I've linked below you can get an idea of what one-on-one combat looks like (rather than mass fighting), and at one point I pause to check my opponent's okay after I caught him across the cheek with a swing. That was a formal one-on-one fighting competition (still think I would have won if I hadn't had only two HP per location as opposed to his seven ;p) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbA0XG4W7bw
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Aug 12, 2015 20:06
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Camrath posted:For weapons and other large items that aren't attached to the body, or anything with a lammie left unattended, you can just grab it and take it down to GOD (Game Operations Desk) with a suitable phys-rep of your own (a phys-rep is a 'physical representation', IE a sword, dagger, bottle, scroll, piece of armour or whatever that the lammie is attached to) and transfer across the lammie to your posession- security then take posession of the stolen item and the owner can go down to collect it at any point. For stuff like gold, or anything in someone's pockets then you have to search them first- you spend 60 seconds roleplaying the search after telling them what you're doing, and at the end they have to hand across any items that they're carrying (obviously, this works best if the target is dead or unconscious at the time!). Actual physical contact as opposed to weapons blows or whatever is an absolute no-no without consent. In other words, if I leave my nerf/latex sword, I can still get the physical item back but it is no longer in the game world? Where do the "lammies" come from in the first place? What's to stop someone from having the "bloody vorpal sword of killing you dead +5"? Do people every cry "no fair" on someone's items? Also, if I wanted to play a brigand, I could whack someone with my sword from behind to knock them out but I wouldn't be able to physically touch them? I have no idea why I keep asking questions, I just find the mechanisms fascinating.
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Aug 12, 2015 20:38
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Victory Yodel posted:In other words, if I leave my nerf/latex sword, I can still get the physical item back but it is no longer in the game world? Where do the "lammies" come from in the first place? What's to stop someone from having the "bloody vorpal sword of killing you dead +5"? Do people every cry "no fair" on someone's items? Hey, they're all good, sensible questions  The lammies are produced by the game organisers, and enter play in various ways- people can get crafting skills to make weapons, armour, potions, poisons and scrolls at the appropriate guilds; some are sent out on monsters to be looted, some are made in player-run rituals, some as given out by the organisers to groups and factions to share out and so on. Fake lammies are a pretty major issue (and considered really scummy by most players) which will result in people being kicked off site or banned from the game if caught with them. They all have specific codes on them as well as an official stamp to show they're genuine. And yes, you can do just that.. But you'd better hope you can handle them if they don't go down to the first hit! Edit: and once you get your weapon back you can use it just fine; it'll just be a normal sword or axe or whatever. Every lammie has a power rating and barring special abilities you can only carry a maximum of twelve 'thaums' of power without Bad Things happening, so there's a degree of balance involved. Camrath fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 21:11
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