Ask me about LARPing destroying my life and my soul.

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Ask me about LARPing destroying my life and my soul.

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

BiggerJ posted:

Speaking of European Larps - it's well known that htey tend of be of higher quality. But what kinds of people do they attract compared to American Larps? Do European Larps have the same negative psychological effects as what we've talked about in this thread?

From my own experience, the average European LARP:er is around 25-35, fairly left-leaning when it comes to politics, and much more into improv theatrics and/or historical accuracy than beating each other over the head with rolls of foam. They also tend to be insufferably smug about it.

"Oh, American LARP:ing? Heh." :smug:

# ¿ Mar 20, 2016 12:19

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 13:32

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

Liquid Communism posted:

Oh, and that Joe would happily outright sell you EXP from the national website for cash. Even now they sell magic items and all sorts of hard to get ritual effects for straight cash. It's brilliant from a monetizing autists perspective.

http://nerolarp.com/e107_plugins/easyshop/easyshop.php?prod.64

Seriously? People pay $125 for what I assume is just a piece of paper that says that your foam-covered stick is now ~MAGICAL~? :stare:

# ¿ Apr 22, 2016 09:39

Comrade Koba: Jul 2, 2007

Mr. Sunshine posted:

I'm not what you'd call a LARP veteran (I've been to a total of three LARP events ever), but a lot of people in my social circle are hardcore LARPers. I'm also Swedish so it's interesting to read this thread and see the big difference between American and Nordic LARP. Nordic LARP seems to be more one-offs exploring weird concepts (like that hardcore survival LARP someone linked upthread) or long-running campaigns with maybe one or two events a year. They also tend to be pretty rules-light. The few I've attended basically had some bare-bones combat rules and that was it - no character sheet, no skill values, no special abilities, no experience points. Mechanical benefits are tied directly to what gear you have, and maxes out at plate armour and two-handed weapons. So it's impossible for veteran players to *mechanically* dominate newbies.

There's also a huge overlap between LARPers and reenactors in Sweden - and in Sweden reenacting means viking or medieval stuff. So there's a huge focus on historically correct clothes and gear in LARPing - not enforced by the organizers, mind you, but the LARP crowd is such that everyone knows someone who knows the correct thread count and colour of the fabric for a 14th century English tunic, which of course you have to have if you are playing such-and-such a character.

From what I've gathered the Swedish LARP scene has slowly (over the last 10+ years) attracted people more interested in ~emotional experiences~ than hitting people with foam swords, and have thus become increasingly pretentious. The result has been almost the opposite of how Vampire seems to work, but driven largely by (I think) the same kind of broken people looking for validation in all the wrong places. Instead of everyone looking to play a super-powered badass or special snowflake, there's a disturbing amount of people in Swedish LARPs looking to play slaves, prisoners and low-castes of all kinds. There's whole groups of players posting on event forums about how they want everyone else in-game to despise and harass them. Individual players genuinely posting "Looking for someone to oppress me at <LARP event>".

This has of course also resulted in a whole slew of LARP events focusing entirely on putting the players through uncomfortable or disturbing experiences. Organizers sell their events to players by literally saying "We promise you'll have a bad time".

Yeah, this is a pretty spot-on description of most Nordic LARPers.

While Vampire LARP people tend to be immature and annoying, "Nordic LARP" is a subculture obsessed with ~~smelling their own farts~~ attending drama workshops on the importance of fart-smelling in 14th century Bohemia.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2016 09:33

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