Am I alone in my prejudice?

[azrianni]

So I have plenty of RP cred: been doing it for over 25 years, have at least passing familiarity with everything from GURPS to Polaris, have posted a fair bit on the boards. I've played live and online. But I'm prejudiced against LARPing.

I feel ashamed about it. I know that I'm thinking in ill-founded stereotypes and condemning a hobby I don't understand just because it's not mine. But I can't help thinking it's ... weird. I seem to feel about LARP the way a lot of people feel about RPGs. It's too geeky.

I'm not saying I'm right, of course. I'm sure I'm wrong. But I can't seem to get past it. And I doubt I'll ever try LARP either way, but I guess I wish I could think of it more generously, or at least more accurately.

[pawsplay]

Ha!

One difference between LARPers and tabletop games is that in tabletop games, you see the same college buddies every week, in a LARP there is a very real possibility of getting laid.

[Jerrythehun]

So I have plenty of RP cred: been doing it for over 25 years, have at least passing familiarity with everything from GURPS to Polaris, have posted a fair bit on the boards. I've played live and online. But I'm prejudiced against LARPing.

I feel ashamed about it. I know that I'm thinking in ill-founded stereotypes and condemning a hobby I don't understand just because it's not mine. But I can't help thinking it's ... weird. I seem to feel about LARP the way a lot of people feel about RPGs. It's too geeky.

I'm not saying I'm right, of course. I'm sure I'm wrong. But I can't seem to get past it. And I doubt I'll ever try LARP either way, but I guess I wish I could think of it more generously, or at least more accurately.

Your honest self-examination of your thoughts and feelings are all you need.

You have a feeling of discomfort. Reason tells you your feelings may be wrong, or based in an error. But your feeling remains. So, you go with your feelings.

That's what I call the personal choice of a reasonable person. Not a thing wrong with it at all!

I used to be into in huge LARPs. Then I got sick of them. Mostly I tabletop and I play in one very small LARP with hand-picked friends. And a couple times a year I play NPCs in the big LARPs around town.

[Peter Svensson]

Personally, I know folks who think that tabletop is too geeky compared to LARP, since they can compare LARP to the theatre. It's all the same really.

[pawsplay]

Too geeky for you:

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/pot-07.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/mud-surge.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/mr-taldak.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/sw-war2.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/ic-kahl2.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/sw2-squeak.jpg

[Jerrythehun]

Yeah, the sex is pretty fantastic. :D

[weasel fierce]

Way too many hairy dudes in the LARP I played in >.<

[tetsujin28]

Ha!

One difference between LARPers and tabletop games is that in tabletop games, you see the same college buddies every week, in a LARP there is a very real possibility of getting laid.Halleluja! Sing it, brother! :)

[Kid Twist]

The sexual remarks seem to underly my larger problem with LARPs; they're always more about just getting together and geeking out. While I understand that tabletop gaming does that a lot, too, it seems like a lot of trouble for me to get dressed up and all that and then half to deal with half the people there just showing up for the possibility of getting some tail. It always discourages me.

[Shawn]

Too geeky for you:

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/pot-07.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/mud-surge.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/mr-taldak.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/sw-war2.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/ic-kahl2.jpg

http://www.amtgard-eh.com/ehphotos/sw2-squeak.jpg

Dear god yes.

Ok, the first picture is kind of cool, but I can see that any night at Roxy's on the east side.

The rest of that is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too geeky for me.

[Levi]

In LARP, people put on dumb-looking clothing and run around acting like twits.

This is also true of, say, paintball. Or nightclubs. Or...

...*shrug*

Everyone is a twit, in the right light. The only real question is "What kind of twit are you?"

[tetsujin28]

Dear god yes.

Ok, the first picture is kind of cool, but I can see that any night at Roxy's on the east side.

The rest of that is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too geeky for me.I think the last girl's pretty cute.

[tetsujin28]

Everyone is a twit, in the right light. The only real question is "What kind of twit are you?"I am a LARPing twit.

[Levi]

I am a LARPing twit.

Same.

Others get different mileage. What they do may look silly or foreign to us - what we do will look silly or foreign to some of them.

Different strokes...

...But you already know all that.

[woolTECH]

I spent several years like the OP, mocking larpers for dressing up and pretending to be elves in a big field and stuff.

Then I actually went along once.

Now I'm hooked. I even grew a beard just because I'm playing a dwarf.

Larp - It sounds stupid, it looks stupid, hell, it probably IS stupid. But it's fun, and damn if that's not what games are supposed to be.

[JustinCognito]

I was the same way about LARP, mainly because my first exposure to it was that damned "Lightning bolt! Lightning bolt!" video. Then I got into my first tabletop group, and talked extensively about LARPing with a member who'd gotten into tabletop gaming through being dragged to a V:tM LARP by a friend. So, I decided to give it a try, saying to myself, "Okay, if I find this too weird, I can just back out, no questions asked."

I didn't. I loved it. I'm definitely keeping it up.

[Redfeild]

Everyone is a twit, in the right light. The only real question is "What kind of twit are you?"

Yes, and in LARPs you have so much more twit to choose from. :D

[daemonica]

Well, I was very uncomfortable with my first experience in LARP because I'm fairly shy when it comes to meeting new people. So pretty much every game I walk into I "overact" to compensate. You know, be the annoying power gamer (Can I have more guns, please!).

I didn't really let loose and have fun until the third or fourth time. I found it was extraordinarily important to find the right game. I'm very partial to horror and dark fantasy, so I've been on the writing side for Obsidian: the age of Judgement and have helped editing their LARP Quickstart. I had a lot of fun playing a stodgy character last year, but who really helped me out was the other, more experienced players. I tend to be a behind-the-scenes kind of person, so I used that to my advantage and allowed myself to be overlooked. The big reveal at the end was high-larious. :)

Now this year for GenCon I'm going for some nifty Cosplay for the first time ever!

I play tabletop and the occasional LARP--but I do see it as being more theatrical (LARP) than the tabletop.

The way I see it? There are problematic players in both LARP and tabletop, and even though I've always said it's personal preference get me into the right group of people and I'll be more apt to play well, interact better, and have fun.

[Requiem_17_23]

I used to say you'd never get me LARPing. I went along to my first LARP night mostly to get to know a girl I'd met.

A year later, I'm involved in starting a faction at a fest LARP, I'm helping to run the LARP I started attending a year ago, and I consider myself almost as much a LARPer as a tabletopper.

It's not the dressing up, for me - it's the characterisation. I get much futher into a character in live-action than I do in tabletop - even (especially) my NPCs. There are fewer OOC comments, the mechanics are a lot less visible (well, they are in our game) and by default it's more atmospheric.

Then again, I'm also an actor so I'm used to this kind of crap.

[Old Geezer]

Hmm.

1) I feel much about LARP as the OP.

2) I met both wives in Tabletop Gaming, so I've got myself laid a-plenty tabletop gaming. Not on the tabletop, I'll admit.

3) I played in one LARP just to try it. It was ghastly. I'll never do that again.

[Samhaine]

Larp - It sounds stupid, it looks stupid, hell, it probably IS stupid. But it's fun, and damn if that's not what games are supposed to be.I hold that LARP is the kind of thing that you can't get by being shown, you have to participate. From the outside it's almost always going to look embarassing, whether that be seeing it in video or as a bystander. These are not professional actors and they don't have a script, so if you attempt to watch it like a movie or like theatre, it will fall way flat most of the time.

However, from inside, it's different because you're part of the shared experience. Things that look stupid from arm's length can become very meaningful to those who are involved. Everyone contributes to creating a shared space where the point of view of a normal person is ignored. It's hard to be embarrassed if you forget that you should be, and if you aren't receiving disapproving cues from the group.

While videos and being a bystander are not good ways to experience a LARP secondhand, storytelling is. One of the most enjoyable reasons for LARPing is the shared stories that come out of it (usually from events completely unplanned by the staff). When LARPers are going on about the cool things they did in their imaginary world, it sounds larger than life and very fun, even to most who aren't terribly interested in LARPing themselves. Hearing about the gist of LARPing, or seeing it in a video, is nothing compared to the vicarious sense of participation that you can get from hearing a good game story.

That's all, of course, assuming that you're playing in a decent game with decent players. Bad games often never reach the level that they can make you forget to look at them from your normal POV.

[JakeMorley]

I developed, if not a prejudice, at least a distaste for LARP after participating extensively in MET (about 5 years) and NERO (about 2). I like to think I'm a fairly persistent person. I was active, I was involved, volunteered my time to "help make things better". I just got sick of the crap from other participants, whining and out of game politics and the like. The same sort of thing kept happening over and over in different areas (this wasn't just one group of people). And it's not that LARP is the only place you find these sorts of toxic personalities, it's just that the idea that more people are always better was a common idea. These days, I'm occasionally tempted to go try it out (as I'm in a different location than any of my previous experiences), but when I look at the actual games I see the same warning signs, and my worse if wiser self suggests that maybe just playing WoW or something would be a less frustrating use of my time. So I would say the OP is not alone, and while it isn't fair to just issue a blanket condemnation of all LARPs, there's certainly plenty of reason to give them a miss. These days if some one talks about their fantastic LARP, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt, but don't expect me to be there on game night.

[Samhaine]

it's just that the idea that more people are always better was a common ideaYeah; it's not necessarily so much that a game can't be good with a lot of people, it's that the dynamic changes quickly once you go over a couple dozen players. It's probably a monkeysphere type of thing; once the game exceeds the number of people that you can know well enough to be comfortable around, you get deep factions. Players go from "us" to "us and those other guys." The more people you add, the more likely that cliques will form around RL ties; new players have a harder time getting to do anything because the big groups are able to monopolize the interesting parts of the game and don't want to let new players in. It stops being about roleplaying and becomes an out of game competition between groups where it's much harder to stay in character.

The LARP essentially becomes a MMORPG; there are a lot of people who do nothing besides kill monsters/NPCs for loot and save up their exp for more cool skills. The connected and important few are able to have cool roleplay sessions with plot, but most people get left out and may not even know that the roleplay is going on. People join the game just to play it like a game, not to roleplay, and it becomes harder to stay in character.

You can mitigate this by adding more staff and guiding the dynamic of the game. Since factionalism is inevitable, it's important to create plots that build on these factions in a way that reinforces the goals of the game rather than just letting them do what they want. And it's important to give newcomers that aren't coming in with a large group of friends enough plot that they aren't excluded from participating in the actual game.

Unfortunately, success and a large playerbase tends to sneak up on LARP organizers and they don't take the steps to preserve the original intent of the game. Some always intended the game to play this way; unfortunately, these huge games that are only a little bit about roleplaying tend to take over the local markets and make it harder to find or start the smaller, RP-intensive games.

[gschneider]

There is also a difference between disliking LARPs and disliking LARPers. When I was watching LARPs from the outside, I always thought to myself "LARPers are scary." What does that mean?

Well, usually when I saw "scary" I really mean lacking social skills. And, I think, that a lack of social skill is a bigger problem among a LARP then at a tabletop. There are more people and more people without social skills acting like they have social skills, or like they know what social skills are.

And, as was mentioned in a previous post, the people who responded about sex are right up there in the "scary" department. And they wonder why people often think unknodly of LARPers. I don't know anything about their social skills, but I play Role-playing games to Role-play, not socialize. Something that is probably less true in LARPs then on the tabletop.

I had a ladyfriend of mine quit LARPing, frustrated with LARPers. When asked to explain herself, she said "They just can't get it into their heads that when I ask them back to my room to plot, I actually want to plot, not have sex."

With that all being said, I am enamored with the LARPing medium and what I might be able to accomplish in it. I drool over "Legend of the Five Rings" LARPs and similar things that are unlikely to come to Montana any time soon.

So, I decided to run a LARP. I had only ever played in one. But, I made up a system (with a little help) and talked 20+ people into playing it at the local con last year, many of who were not standard LARPers but were willing to give mine a try.

This was not an MET LARP. It was fantasy, set in Harnworld and was about courtly intrigue.

And when we were done with my one-shot LARP, I stood in a room of 20+ people, everyone of them with a huge grin on their face, and I was in heaven. It was the best game I had ever run. They begged me to come back next year and do it again, so I am, this time with a new plot. So maybe I'm hooked. But I can see 7th Sea LARPs and Amber LARPs and Fantasy LARPs and who knows what else in my future.

Greg

[Christmas Ape]

You're certainly not alone. I don't LARP, and I tend to treat LARPing as a very small black mark.

In my own experience, while the plotting is fun when someone bothers to actually do it, it's more everybody hooking up and playing hormone politics with new names and new, bitchier personalities. Every LARP I went to was like being the new kid at Funny Costume High School who showed up in blue jeans and a white t-shirt.

[Lethe]

I attended one Vampire:tM LARP that was ran by a college gaming group and really have no desire to go to another one. Not becaues of the people: most of them were alright and there was a high school kid who was actually a pretty damn good actor. But there was no coherent storyline... it was just a bunch of people dressed up and running around doing random things. One of the gms tried to explain to me the current course of events (which seemed to involve dozens of unrelated events), but to be honest it never game up during the game.

It was pretty weird getting into it, too, but I tried to forget that and did my best to stay in character for the two or so hours of the game. I spent most of the time calling a Giovanni a fake and a charaltan and trying to help a really insane Malkavian. But I'm damned if I know how the plot progressed, if at all, although I do remember a couple of girls getting the Giovanni a blow up doll for his birthday present.

Oh, and everyone was a vampire. Oh, and everyone was a vampire, there were no people.

The whole thing was king of amusing, but I want some semblance of structure when I game.

I will give you the cute girls thing, though. Definitely way more good looking girls into LARP than tabletop.

[Redfeild]

Well, usually when I saw "scary" I really mean lacking social skills. And, I think, that a lack of social skill is a bigger problem among a LARP then at a tabletop. There are more people and more people without social skills acting like they have social skills, or like they know what social skills are.

Greg

Who needs social skills when you have a stat to test for that sort of thing? :D

[tetsujin28]

Same.

Others get different mileage. What they do may look silly or foreign to us - what we do will look silly or foreign to some of them.

Different strokes...

...But you already know all that.What can I say? I agree with you. But that often happens.

[tetsujin28]

Who needs social skills when you have a stat to test for that sort of thing? :DI test for MAJOR BONER!

[Old Geezer]

I test for MAJOR BONER!


Major Boner? Wasn't he the C.O.'s adjundant in "Catch-22"?

[JJthorne]

I don't think larp is for people who worry about whats to geeky. Then again neither is RPG.

Maybe you should take up golf.

Larp however is much better than RPG cause when you hit people its not against the rules, or for that matter tha law.

[Michelle Lyons]

I used to play on MUSHes, back in the day. World of Darkness MUSHes, to be exact. I even helped run a few. My first LARP was a one-shot held at a real-life gathering for one of those that I helped run. Everyone played their characters from the MUSH, and we just carried over the storylines. We basically didn't bother heavily with system as everyone more or less knew everyone else's character, even if not stats. Where stats were concerned they were given and we worked out answers (I think rock-paper-scissors was used) but that's as complicated as it got. We ended up turning a 1 night event into 3 nights, and repeating the event for the next 5 or so years.

Those were the best LARPs I've ever been in.

[Burgonet]

As soon as they roll out "Guys and Dolls" style LARPS, or other periods of history that aren't attracting too much Ren-Faire action, I'm in.

Otherwise, it's not my thing.

[Levi]

As soon as they roll out "Guys and Dolls" style LARPS, or other periods of history that aren't attracting too much Ren-Faire action, I'm in.

Otherwise, it's not my thing.

In October, a good friend of mine is like doing a "Serenity" LARP.

In March next year, I'll be doing a "speakeasy" 1920s LARP.

In April next year, we'll be doing Shadowrun Live.

It happens.