Monday, December 11, 2006
There's a thread on RPG.net right now where a LARPer is asking tabletop roleplayers about their perceptions of LARPs and whether or not they would play in a LARP if there was a local one. It got me thinking about the one time I did participate in a LARP.
In 1992 or 1993, when I was in high school, I met a guy named Chris Chesher, who I now play board games with. Chris had just moved to Pickering and was a roleplayer. He was also into LARPing through NARA. It was about this time that NERO started up in the Toronto area, and Chris became a member. He got me and another friend, Tom Sturges, to go along with him out to Etobicoke to participate in a NERO training event.
NERO is a D&D-esque boffer LARP. What I discovered that first (and only) time out is LARPs were certainly not for me. Far too many of the LARPers were jackasses, and a few of them purposefully went out of their way to be assholes to the newbies. I couldn't get into the roleplaying aspect of LARPing at all. What made it most difficult was the amount of numbers you had to have rolling around in your head. You had to keep a running tally of your hit points in your head at all times, and whenever you swung your weapon at somebody, you had to call out damage. Nothing spoils immersion like swinging a PVC pipe wrapped with foam and duct tape at a guy pretending to be a goblin and shouting "two! two!" over and over again.
LARPing didn't work for me. More specifically, boffer LARPing didn't work for me. Of course, I still have all those boffer weapons I made, and they still come out every once in awhile just for shits and giggles. ... Oh, come on, they're fun to play with. :)
For the last few years, I've occasionally wondered about the Vampire: The Masquerade kind of LARPing, and I still think I'd eventually like to try one eventually. The problem, as I see it, is that every story I hear of the Vampire LARPs is about cliques ganging up on newbies and loners alike, having your characters killed for no other reason than some jackass is on a power trip, and angsty whiners who actually think they're vampires. It sounds like creepy stuff.
Seriously, I'd like to try LARPing with a bunch of friends just to see how it works (but I'm not really interested in participating in such a thing with a bunch of strangers). The closest I ever got was the Society for Creative Anachronism, which has some similarities to LARPing (but withou that pesky roleplaying element). I suppose the murder mystery party that Rawl and I ran at Lawrence's place last year might also count.
In 1992 or 1993, when I was in high school, I met a guy named Chris Chesher, who I now play board games with. Chris had just moved to Pickering and was a roleplayer. He was also into LARPing through NARA. It was about this time that NERO started up in the Toronto area, and Chris became a member. He got me and another friend, Tom Sturges, to go along with him out to Etobicoke to participate in a NERO training event.
NERO is a D&D-esque boffer LARP. What I discovered that first (and only) time out is LARPs were certainly not for me. Far too many of the LARPers were jackasses, and a few of them purposefully went out of their way to be assholes to the newbies. I couldn't get into the roleplaying aspect of LARPing at all. What made it most difficult was the amount of numbers you had to have rolling around in your head. You had to keep a running tally of your hit points in your head at all times, and whenever you swung your weapon at somebody, you had to call out damage. Nothing spoils immersion like swinging a PVC pipe wrapped with foam and duct tape at a guy pretending to be a goblin and shouting "two! two!" over and over again.
LARPing didn't work for me. More specifically, boffer LARPing didn't work for me. Of course, I still have all those boffer weapons I made, and they still come out every once in awhile just for shits and giggles. ... Oh, come on, they're fun to play with. :)
For the last few years, I've occasionally wondered about the Vampire: The Masquerade kind of LARPing, and I still think I'd eventually like to try one eventually. The problem, as I see it, is that every story I hear of the Vampire LARPs is about cliques ganging up on newbies and loners alike, having your characters killed for no other reason than some jackass is on a power trip, and angsty whiners who actually think they're vampires. It sounds like creepy stuff.
Seriously, I'd like to try LARPing with a bunch of friends just to see how it works (but I'm not really interested in participating in such a thing with a bunch of strangers). The closest I ever got was the Society for Creative Anachronism, which has some similarities to LARPing (but withou that pesky roleplaying element). I suppose the murder mystery party that Rawl and I ran at Lawrence's place last year might also count.
// posted by Chris @ 4:33 PM 
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