Hey everyone. Don't mind my grammar below, I've been up for about 36 hours.

I was just wondering... what's the general opinion on adventure-styled LARPs like NERO and LIONE, etc, around here? If you don't know, an adventure LARP is one where you use foam and/or latex weapons to act out combat or otherwise actually do what your character does (within reason). This is in contrast with "Theater" LARPs like White Wolf's Mind's Eye Theater that abstract combat and ability use to game mechanics.

I personally think that most adventure LARPs suck, but that the medium itself has potential. At the worst end of the spectrum you have the kids from the lightning bolt video, and at its so-far unrealized best*, you might feel like you're living out an episode of Farscape with its puppetry, costuming, and makeup or the Lord of the Rings movies in scenes without blatant magic.

I'm so convinced in the medium's potential that I'm seriously thinking of developing a LARP (Ok, I've already started writing the rules) that addresses the issues I see with the form, and tries to achieve what I think it can.

I have some experience in the area- I used to run something akin to a LARP; it was a bit like Amtgard--a live action wargame with no real plot. It was like capture the flag with foam boffers and hit points. We had a lot of fun. There's something to be said for the real terror you feel when you're low on hit points, it's the the middle of the night, you're about to take a leak in a bush, and someone you didn't see shoots a paintball at you with a blowgun. You don't get that in tabletop.

*Edit: I'm aware that many European LARPs have this standard of Excellence-at least with costumes, makeup, and gear- but they slipped my mind because of the sleep deprivation. At any rate, I have yet to find one of these high quality LARPs in the US. My goal would be to create and sustain one.

I don't like being hit in the face.
I find that non-physical LARPS, of the longer term variety, share a problem with MMORPGs - PvP in a cheap substitute for content.
I'd be into it more if I could find something with the sustainability of the oWoD Camarilla, minus the asshattery.

I played in a LARP campaign. Can't say I was really impressed, though it's only one data point.

Well, I've always thought it would be fun, but LARP is very much a large group activity which automatically increases the asshole factor exponentially.  Still, I'd rather play an action LARP than a theater one, though the Fading Suns Passion play or Cthullu now always looked interesting.

I am afraid of crowds, especially in small spaces. I also don't like dressing up in costumes. And I don't like showing strong emotion in public. Those three things keep me away from LARPs personally, though I do a lot of physical moving around during actual tabletop play.

The one time I did want to run a LARP-like thing, I planned it to avoid these things. It never came off, but it was a pretty simple idea. The PCs would be my regular group and we would be playing Mage the Ascension. They would be Technocrats, so they would wear suits and carry electronic devices, but nothing too obviously weird. We would do it in the local forest, so that nobody else would be around, and it would be a relatively small group. The game would focus on tracking weird phenomena through the forest (maybe it was a node or something - we never worked it out).

I used to participate in something LARP-like called Belegarth.

Honestly, though, it's not so much of a larp as it is hitting people with padded sticks.

It was a blast, seriously.  Very, very fun.

-O

SCA with game rules in other words?

 I already get enough "dressing up" in the other parts of my hobbies or fandom life. Role playing games are a welcome break from getting dressed up in a costume.

- Ed C.

I've had some pretty good LARP experiences. The Mafia wedding game at Dragonmeet a couple of years back was very good, for example.

I much prefer "freeform" games to the foam-weapons-and-elf-ears brigade, though.

I've never actually played in an adventure LARP, just standard story LARPS.  However I have watched a local group play a couple of times and wasn't impressed.  Maybe it was the people in the area around here, it seemed to pull in all the gamers that nobody wanted to game with.  Lots of argueing and boasting about 'combat skills' and little else.

Ah well.

Quote from: GRIMI don't like being hit in the face.
I find that non-physical LARPS, of the longer term variety, share a problem with MMORPGs - PvP in a cheap substitute for content.
I'd be into it more if I could find something with the sustainability of the oWoD Camarilla, minus the asshattery.

Well, that pretty much sums up my thoughts. I think LARP is medium that has the potential to create fantastic, mind-blowing, adventures. Sadly, it has been my experience that most people involved with LARP are content to use the medium as a venue to compensate for insecurities via exhaustive PVP combat (often used as a passive/aggressive means of addressing real life grievances). The adventures can and do happen, though theyseem to be the exception rather than the rule.

LARP is the opposite of what I want from my hobby.

Quote from: jdrakehWell, that pretty much sums up my thoughts. I think LARP is medium that has the potential to create fantastic, mind-blowing, adventures. Sadly, it has been my experience that most people involved with LARP are content to use the medium as a venue to compensate for insecurities via exhaustive PVP combat (often used as a passive/aggressive means of addressing real life grievances). The adventures can and do happen, though theyseem to be the exception rather than the rule.

Bingo.  Shards was fantastic until too many arseholes started coming

Wow. I'm impressed by the responses here. While not everyone likes LARP, no one has said that everyone who is interested in them are automatically freaks.

Granted, what some of you have said about there being a high Jerk/freak quotient may be true. I saw some of that when I tried to recruit Action LARP players from a Vampire LARP a friend was running. I do think that if the organizer was careful in inviting and disiniviting people, many of the freaks could be kept away.

I've only played one LARP, of the sort called 'freeform'. I wasn't thrilled. There were a few moments of hilarity amid two hours of standing around wondering what to do and hoping the chick with the hat wasn't going to talk to me in-character again. I just wanted to go for a cigarette.

Some of my friends and I used to beat on each other with metal swords made out of pipes, but I haven't done that since I was 16 (we started playing RPGs instead).

I've only played in one Larp* (See my Living Greyhawk AP report #2 right here) and it wasn't especially Larpy. Technically it was called an "Interactive".

My experience straddles the two styles:

1) It was an adventure Larp, but there were few to no costumes. Like, the guy playing the king had a crown and a scepter, and my sorcerer character had a prop for a familiar, and other people had like one item or costume element at most. (Like maybe a scarf or a hat.) There was a guy playing a bard that had a guitar strapped to his back.

2) There was no "boffer" combat, but there were missions, and once you gathered the group for a mission, you went to a tabletop and sat down. You pulled out your character sheet and dice and went from there.

3) The rest of it must have been about like a Story-larp (I guess?). There was a lot of intermingling, acting in character, and in-character introductions between players.  

It was pretty fun, I guess, although the high point was the missions.

The good thing about a Larp that I saw is the opportunity to interact with a cast of characters larger than just our normal group of six or so.