Live Action Role Playing

There was not a LARP thread before, so I decided to make one!

BECAUSE!

So, who here LARPs? Wants to LARP? Has LARPed? Hates LARP?

Somehow, I knew who started this thread.

I used to LARP. But there wasn't much roleplaying, it was more like just hitting each other with foam weapons.

Boffer groups are pretty cool. Although whenever I think of more pure boffer groups, I think of This movie.

There is one thing in this world I like more than tabletop roleplaying. That thing is LARP. Jesus fuck I love LARP.

Boffer LARP was fun. I would've kept up with it but I couldn't stand half the people that were in the group, though.

Which normally wouldn't have been a problem, except the ones I couldn't stand I also couldn't beat in a fight half the time, so I didn't get to express my dislike by way of swords to the face.

I was going to take a shot at SCA LAR Ping in some armour and the like that a group fbrought on campus, but they told me I needed a cup so I didn't get to.

You're probably better off, I hear SCA people are kinda douchey in general. Then again, I've never met any myself, but that's what I hear from everyone who has.

Fuck the SCA. (In the tune of "Fuck Da Police.")

a cup? O.o

Yeah, they'd said they didn't want to risk injury from people getting hit in the groin, which is understandable, but I still wanted to give it a shot. Just to see how well I'd do with arming sword and kite shield.

Oh. Groin cup. Ok. I was confused by that. I thought you meant a drinking cup. That's a...fairly tough boffer group.

edited 29th Jul '12 9:58:45 PM by MrAHR

I LARP. Going to one this weekend in fact.

Most boffer groups require cups, I thought. My Amtgard group "does not enforce the use of sports cups, but highly encourages it. And we WILL laugh if you get tapped in the balls."

Hm, well, the two groups I've seen have a:

Required actual armor,

or b:

had strict safety rules

but then again, I'm not that experienced in larp diversity so I am probably over reacting.

Oh, you boffers. I run a political LARP at a university, and one of our rules is that anything resembling actual fighting, however consensual it is between the participants, is groups for immediate expulsion. It's an insurance thing.

That sounds fascinating. Do elaborate.

I'd like to LARP, it sounds fun.

It really is. A good LARP is (ever so slightly) better than sex.

Hm. This would be the place to talk about my obscenely complicated LARP system idea, then, wouldn't it? Hm...

Also, am I the only person who actually spells out the acronym (L-A-R-P) instead of saying "Larp"?

edited 30th Jul '12 9:31:41 AM by Exelixi

Possibly. Everyone I know says "larp"

Less syllables.

So out of curiosity, what's larp-ing like for those folks on the side of the pond with cowboys?
I mean, I could probably check out the Useful Notes page but I'd rather hear it from personal experience.

@AHR: The LARP is about a group of nobles who get together on a monthly basis to collectively ignore the good of the common folk and engage in petty plots against each other. By the time we reach the ninth and final session each year, someone inevitably enacts a significant change in the entire political system. (This year it was a hostile takeover by a neighboring country. Last year, it was a democratic revolution.)

One of my older brothers does LARP (we have a page on one of the games he goes to), and I really want to. He says they're trying to set up a group for younger people, so provided I'm well enough that should be a lot of fun!

I really hope my weekend boils down to this.

So! Time to bother you all with my idea for the most awesome LARP system ever.

First off, it would be a combat-heavy LARP. Roleplaying would happen, and ideally would be a big thing, but you don't need rules for the roleplaying- that would just be a thing for each individual group to figure out.

There would be no class and level system. Whatsoever. What you can do is what you can do. There might be some form of "loadout" feature- IE, different abilities, magical stuffs, et cetera that you can only have a certain amount of. How many of these things you have would be variable, with the caveat that everyone in the game has the same amount. You could have one special ability, two, five, fifty-six, or none; it wouldn't matter. This is the bit I'm still working on.

There would also be no mathematics involved. You'd die when you should be dead. See below for more on that. Cheating would be met with permanent expulsion; mistakes are one thing, cheating is another.

Everything would be done with live steel. Yes, you heard me, live steel. Everyone and I do mean everyone participating would be in full HEMA safety gear at all times. You can wear clothing and such over top of it, but under no circumstances is the armour to come off. *

-Ahem-

Anyone who wished to join would spend a while beforehand learning:

• HEMA basics. How to handle a weapon, how to put on your protective gear, etc.
• Safety. How to keep from injuring people with the very real sword in your hands without sacrificing any of your ability to fence (or do fencing-related actions, like this). Ties in with weapons usage.
• How to figure out what a given strike would do to you. Essentially, basic anatomy and physiology. No, that arrow in your bicep will not kill you; yes, that slash to an important artery will. This will make your arm useless; this will put you in some much agony your best best will be to just lay there. That kind of thing.

As far as what the individual games are? That's up to the groups that run them. One might have epic Heroic Fantasy; another might just have weekly free-for-alls or tournaments; another might have highly tactical mass-scale battles lasting hours or even days at a time. Personally, I would favour the last option, but the system would be flexible enough to handle anything.

Thoughts?

edited 2nd Aug '12 12:52:57 PM by Exelixi

I'm (finally) joining the urban fantasy LARP at the college. We got invited a month ago, but shit kept coming up.

That's basically SCA style heavy fighting (magic aside).

edited 2nd Aug '12 1:04:40 PM by DrunkGirlfriend