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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.
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Oct 5, 2015 03:08
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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.
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Oct 16, 2015 14:24
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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! 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.
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Oct 18, 2015 03:53
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Generally it's good to make sure everyone in LE knows LARP stuff is happening. And to try and minimize contact with locals. One of the groups I played with had a rule that you had to take off makeup before going into town, because someone in red devil style makeup got shot at. (This was, of course, rural deep south.)
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Oct 20, 2015 20:23
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I think it depends on whether the story is an ACTUAL story, or whether it's basically "I rolled a good number and was happy."
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Oct 24, 2015 03:59
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I played a couple games where they had archery using foam on the ends of wooden dowels. No idea what the safety details were. My impression is that a lot of people don't consider it worth the effort because the balance of the arrows is weird.
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Dec 12, 2015 04:24
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Jst0rm posted:So basically larping is a place where a bunch of ugly fat people can have orgies. OH GOOD LORD YES Thankfully I managed to miss all of it, but I have heard Stories. Such as one of our group in a cabin loving his girlfriend who wasn't in the game (but was there for... some reason), and people commenting in-character that his character was banging a knothole. (As the girl was not really there, you see.) You're really not supposed to actually Do A Sex at game, but it's a bunch of geeks getting together with their own and sleeping in coed cabins, and a lot of these geeks have rather permissive and open attitudes about sex, so... yeah, banging happens.
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Dec 21, 2015 22:32
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LARPs in general are not a very profitable enterprise, and I expect it'd be even harder to get enough cash to keep it up if you don't have the draw of "I can play my superpowerful character with tons of backstory and importance to make up for the really mediocre life I lead" to keep big fish coming.
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Feb 5, 2016 05:05
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Skunkrocker posted:1. I did some tabletop, would do it again, haven't really done it lately though just because of time and poo poo. The biggest difference is answered in your second question. LARP is taken way too seriously. Tabletop you goof off, beer and pretzels, there's some music, you're comfortable, there are way more npcs you don't have to worry about so your core players basically form the party and kill anyone you don't like or whatever. It's great! I actually had the opposite experience with the local Camarilla group: pretty much everything was a bunch of gag characters and people having trouble with staying in character. For example, Player A was sitting with a photo of Player C in his lap for some reason, when Player B came up IC to talk about something C's character had done. A responded with, "Did he look like this?" and pointed at the photo, which for various reasons couldn't possibly have existed IC. B just paused for a moment and replied, "No, he didn't look like your crotch." By contrast, the most serious, "No Fun Allowed" person I ever encountered was in tabletop. He was otherwise a great GM and player, but yeesh, dude hated anything that distracted from the Immersion and Seriousness. To the point that, any time people got into an OOC tangent or joking, would proceed to lecture the group, which would invariably last longer than the tangent would've. Skunkrocker posted:3. I dunno how funny this story will be to you, but the super hardcore players hate IC suicide. They hate it. They hate it so much because in their eyes you can just retire your character. But I didn't want to give them the pleasure of that. They did some fucky business where my character was forced to owe one of the characters played by a total dick a boon, I forget how large, probably a life boon. I forget. So that guy left the room, some other poo poo went down, I grabbed a cigarette and a soda and walked outside and pulled the storyteller to the side. Seems to me the problem wasn't suicide, the problem was either you finding an easy, legal way out of his power, or that you were sort of metagaming to do it, rather than reacting in more in-character ways. Not that I blame you, because holy poo poo, what a dick move. (Then again, Camarilla is sort of "Dick Moves: the Game")
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Feb 12, 2016 15:56
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Rime posted:I recently came across a linkedin profile where, at 26 years old, the users only work experience was "Storyteller for local Minds Eye Theater Troupe" and "Warhammer painter". Yeesh. I mean, ST could be used as a sort of experience supplement, in that you're having to herd overdramatic cats, which is definitely a skill applicable to the business world, but at least try to disguise it with some jargon!
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Feb 12, 2016 16:36
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JiimyPopAli posted:There's a lot of horror stories in this thread, and even more generally when it comes to LARP. There are a buch of LARPs designated as kid-friendly that usually don't have the mess going on that we see here. (They have their own messes, but such is life.)
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Mar 30, 2016 15:22
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my cat is norris posted:I'm not surprised someone would spend $125 on a +3 spirit-locked magic sword. Magic weapons were indestructible iirc, and so your investment would effectively be worth $125 spread across two years of multiple chapter games. If you manage to attend two events per month in the usual season, that might work out to 10 - 12 games per year -- up to 24 games over the lifetime of the weapon -- so if you think about it, it's only spending about $5 extra per game. It's a huge up-front cost, and that'll be prohibitive to a lot of players, though I can see some players finding it justifiable. Most of the really hardcore boffer LARP players I've seen seem to be already willing to invest buttloads of cash into it, from the event fees to costuming and makeup to props and so on. I would not be at all surprised that they'd spend that kind of money on an in-game investment.
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Apr 22, 2016 19:20
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Gravitas Shortfall posted:There's a difference between spending money on costume & kit, which are tangible items that can be used for multiple games/characters/systems and even sold to recoup some of the cost, and spending money on a bit of paper that gives your pretend elf +3 HP. Gravitas Shortfall posted:That is the calculus of madmen who value fake numbers over real cash. And also I guess want to pay to "win"? 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. Especially if you're one of those people who associates their character with their ego.
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Apr 23, 2016 22:27
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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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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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It's probably less "LARP makes you crazy" and more "LARP attracts people with preexisting crazy." A lot of folks with mental illnesses and problems with social interaction get attracted because it's a combo of 1) "I can be someone awesome, instead of the pathetic meatsack I am," 2) "I can get social interaction without having to be vulnerable, since I am shielded by being aformentioned awesome person," and 3) "I don't have to think about my lovely, lovely life for a while." You'll see variations of this with most escapist hobbies, where the broken people find each other and keep being dysfunctional at one another, while the people with enough self-awareness either give them a wide berth or just sneak off to continue the hobby away from the craziness. I think White Wolf (Vampire, especially) tends to attract more of these types since it's very much set up as a "be a complete manipulative douche to everyone and constantly jockey for social status" situation. As well as the "we are all secretly special creatures" thing.
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May 31, 2016 06:06
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my cat is norris posted:Ghogargi, are you trying to change that feeling of shame, at all? Is it something you're comfortable with feeling, or something you'd want to address in therapy? Feeling that strong of a negative reaction doesn't seem like something that's good to experience, though I'm not a therapist or anything, so maybe it's okay. Yeah, TBH the stuff you're saying in here sounds like you've gone too far in the other direction. Like, yeah, LARP has a heaping pile of lovely culture and lovely people, but you're sounding like one of those people from my youth claiming all role playing games lead to devil worship or some poo poo. Crazy people are going to latch onto unhealthy escapism no matter what. It's not the fault of their chosen form of escapism, it's the fault of their mental illness. Serperoth posted:How come people like that can't be the least bit original? Is it just "everyone wants to be edgy", or something more specific? The vast majority of people just aren't that creative, really. It's not just LARP, or even role-playing; you'll find the same trend in just about any version of genre fiction. It is soooo rare to find more unique backstories. And, since most of the players are getting their inspiration from genre fiction...
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Jun 3, 2016 00:17
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Still, I hope it eases up in time.
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Ghogargi posted:And I don't know if it was the disconnect from reality, or the fact that they were socially inept to begin with. I mean, if you're socially inept, you generally aren't too in touch with reality anyway, on account of nobody invites you anywhere so you just sit inside and watch animu/play vidya/read dumb poo poo/chat with other people who just don't get why people make such a big deal about social mores I mean really, man, we're all born naked, I shouldn't have to wear proper clothing if I don't want to! The former kind of springs from the latter.
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Jun 4, 2016 04:14
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Skunkrocker posted:Yeah, and I never said that so... okay, moving on. Close enough; "Can communicate only through song lyrics" is one of those gimmicks that's clever for maybe fifteen minutes, but gets increasingly grating in 99% of cases. I'm all for weird gimmick characters, but that's a one-trick pony.
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Jun 4, 2016 23:18
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Domus posted:Wow, I'm actually kinda weirded out by how similar everyone's White Wolf experiences are, both to each other and to mine, down to the whole inappropriate amount of violence and sexuality included in backstories. It's like people think they're being edgy, but they're just being creepy. Although I'm curious how much bad spelling people have seen, because that was another big feature of backstories. Sentences like "He surly had a gapping wood.", or translated from bad spelling, "He surely had a gaping wound". I think it's mostly that White Wolf's designed- from gameplay to aesthetic- to appeal to the edgelord demographic. Never saw anyone's backstories written down, but I tend to assume that the bad spelling is just a universal across all of humanity. Some people just can't grasp the mechanics of the written word.
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Jun 5, 2016 02:00
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