Musings on the different types of LARPs

[Lord Minx]

I like LARPing, though I haven't played much yet. So far, my experiences were with small boffer-type fantasy LARPS: Camping somewhere in a forest near to a nice castle sorta-ruin, running around in the rain and mud, cooking together while following a bit of plot, socialising and so on. I liked it. :D

But that's just one way to LARP, and there are so many out there. Some of them are boffer LARPs, some use dice (or randomizers in general), some use a ressource allocation systems and some are just freeform. And that's completly ignoring the tons of settings and genres.

So, I'd like to know a bit about these other games. The giant con games, the MET-style social games, the artistic indie games and so on. What where your experiences? Do you prefer a specific style?

...

Damn, I haven't written such a noob-ish post in ages. Guess my inexperience in all things LARP shows. :D

M

[Ambrogino]

I've done loads of british boffer LRP, though it's rarely actually called boffer here in my experience. Whilst there's obviously a tonne of variety between systems, setting, etc I'd say most of these fall into two camps - High hits and Low hits.

High hits are more often used for linear adventures due to the added complecity of the system - one or two encounters happen in time in, followed by a (generally interminably long) timout while the referee records the damage taken and resources used my the perty on a character sheet or "battleboard". Call's are needed on every blow, and do not necessarrilly apply the same effect to a character stated as a PC to one statted as a monster - for example, in Labyrinthe a triple does three hits to a monsters global pool of hits. To a PC it causes 18 points to the location hit, 18 points to the total life of the character (a seperate pool mwhich can take damage from spells or using some abilities) both of which can be reduced by physical armour, abilities known, etc, to a minimum of 1. It only gets more complicated from there. It's worth knowing that most High-hit systems have levelled characters ala D&D, and that Treasure Trap, the first British LRP (now defunct) was a high hit system

More common now are low hit systems. Generally damage calls are only required on special occasions, such as the use of a magic weapon, special ability or spell. In a low hit system most effects are simple enough to be understood by all the players, so less direct referee attention should be required, although outlandish effects may requre game time to be "Time-Freezed" whilst a description happens. Players are also expected to keep a track of the damage they have sustained in real time.

I hope that makes some sense. If anyone want's me to clarify anything, or more info, let me know.

Edit: neede a thesaurus

[Lukas Sjöström]

I prefer freeform larping by far. If I take the care to create clothes, props and so on, and remove myself to some remote locale in order to avoid the outside world, I don't want to have some referee break my immersion every now and then by calculating the rules. Fortunately, most LARPs here work on a freeform basis -- the most we need in combat rules is "if you get hit, it probably hurts like hell and you're bleeding, so you want to see someone who can help you ASAP". Usually, everyone has some small rules to keep in the head -- mostly, if their armor would let them get hit any more than usual. I find this the most enjoyable form of play by far, and would never pay for a game based on a rules system that the players can not keep track of themselves and without character sheets.

[Raised by Chickens]

Most of my LRPing has been of the rubber sword variety, both high and low hits. I have to say I prefer the low hit style, probably because in my insane little brain high hits = high fantasy (and all the attendant High Fantasy stuff that just isn't my cup of tea) and low hits = gritty (that word gets used a lot ;) ), bloody, muddy low fantasy.

I've also done a bit of Freeform gaming at cons. One was a Glorantha game where a lot of us still wore rubber swords, but if it came to a fight we sort of waved the swords about and then got down to the serious business of rock, paper, scissors. Surprisingly, not being able to drub my foes didn't really bother me, although the opportunity to smack about various RQ luminaries was almost too good to ignore :D .
I suppose I'm not a complete rubber sword loonie, then. Although I think a lot of British fantasy LRPers, loving our latex weaponry as we do, would find the rps a bit too much to swallow.

I prefer freeform larping by far. If I take the care to create clothes, props and so on, and remove myself to some remote locale in order to avoid the outside world, I don't want to have some referee break my immersion every now and then by calculating the rules.

As Ambrogino said, low hit systems, where rules are simple enough as to require very little in the way of reffing seem to be in vogue at the moment*. It's always been the case with a lot of big fest systems where there simply aren't many refs to go round and even smaller, linear games are very timefreeze/ref exposition light. In my experience, a well run linear rubber sword LRP can get by with about the same level of ref interference as a freeform - maybe less.

*At least where I live, that is. It seems to be the fashion to have as little rules intrusion as possible. For example, damage calls are frowned upon in my local game and we get by without any kind of battleboarding.

That's not to say systems with battleboarders are shit or owt. This is just what I've noticed since getting back into LRP a couple of years ago after a longish break.:D

[Lord Minx]

High hits are more often used for linear adventures due to the added complecity of the system - one or two encounters happen in time in, followed by a (generally interminably long) timout while the referee records the damage taken and resources used my the perty on a character sheet or "battleboard". Call's are needed on every blow, and do not necessarrilly apply the same effect to a character stated as a PC to one statted as a monster - for example, in Labyrinthe a triple does three hits to a monsters global pool of hits. To a PC it causes 18 points to the location hit, 18 points to the total life of the character (a seperate pool mwhich can take damage from spells or using some abilities) both of which can be reduced by physical armour, abilities known, etc, to a minimum of 1. It only gets more complicated from there. It's worth knowing that most High-hit systems have levelled characters ala D&D, and that Treasure Trap, the first British LRP (now defunct) was a high hit system:eek:

Gah, sounds boring to me. So far, I've only played in a low-hit system where was virtually no GM calls necessary or used. People were trusted to keep count of their own (few) hitpoints and play it out fairly. It worked fairly well.

Are high-hitpoint games, or games with lots of GM calls in general, rather common or are they something unusual. So far, it's the first time I heard about something like that. (And it still seems counter-intuitive for me. :confused: )

M

[Merten]

I prefer freeform larping by far. If I take the care to create clothes, props and so on, and remove myself to some remote locale in order to avoid the outside world, I don't want to have some referee break my immersion every now and then by calculating the rules. Fortunately, most LARPs here work on a freeform basis -- the most we need in combat rules is "if you get hit, it probably hurts like hell and you're bleeding, so you want to see someone who can help you ASAP". Usually, everyone has some small rules to keep in the head -- mostly, if their armor would let them get hit any more than usual. I find this the most enjoyable form of play by far, and would never pay for a game based on a rules system that the players can not keep track of themselves and without character sheets.

Not suprisingly, same here. I don't think I have ever participated in a boffer game, but then again, fantasy live-action games I've been in can be counted with fingers.

A typical LARP I've been into usually has had a lot's of preparations for character backgrounds, character group backgrounds, relationships and setting. And very light rules systems, probably freeform. No or little combat, usually done by comparing some kind of combat value, players deciding what happens, and combat acted out.

[Ambrogino]

Are high-hitpoint games, or games with lots of GM calls in general, rather common or are they something unusual. So far, it's the first time I heard about something like that. (And it still seems counter-intuitive for me. :confused: )

They used to be all you could get, now they're not really very common any more apart from where clubs have directly evolved out of Treasure Trap.