Great White Games/Pinnacle Entertainment Group

[Erskin]

So, I'm curious. How does the Savage Worlds community feel about LARPs?
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Erskin L. Cherry
Promotions Director
Talisman Studios (www.talismanstudios.com)

[starwars1138]

It's a bit "far out" for me. I appreciate re-enactors and the like, but I can't seem to wrap my head around LARPing.

[palehorse]

"Hate" is a little strong, but they're really not my thing.
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Butch Curry
Zombie Nirvana Games

[Mike McCall]

LARP is one of my passions. Unfortunately, my approach to LARP doesn't match the majority of the local players', so I don't play a lot.

[Redeucer]

Can't stand it. I...

[time passes with lots of typing and frantic deleting]

I can not come up with a way to say this without being offensive, so I'll just put in my vote and back away from the thread slowly...

Maybe not offensive to all, but to those who feel strongly about this topic it can be taken that way and usually is.
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a trai en pace,

Redeucer
Darth Squirellious, Dark Rodent of the Sith!

"Mediocrity has never been so EPIC!"
- SlasherEpoch

[Mike McCall]

Redeucer, on behalf of all mad LARPers, I'd like to say that I personally will not take offence to any assessment of LARP that doesn't attack me for loving the living hell out of it.

(contains sadness that more Savages don't seem to share my tastes, which are brilliant)

[Erskin]

[Savage Jedi]

I've done RenFairs, and WWII Reenactments. So when a friend invited me to a vampire LARP I thought “Hey! This will be right up my ally!” But it wasn't. I don't know why... it just felt silly, and I'm the last person to every feel embarrassed or silly about anything (if there's booze and a lampshade at a party, guess what I'm wearing). And it wasn't the people there either, they were great. It just wasn't my cup of Irish coffee.
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I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion. - Neil Armstrong

[Erskin]

[Dahak]

Colour me lazy, but LARPing involves too much standing up for my tastes. I like sitting down for my gaming.

[sagaston]

I didn't see an option that suited me, so I'll explain:

I like the idea of LARPs, I've played in a few Vamp ones over the years. (But then, I've run Vampire tabletop for over a decade, so I obviously don't feel silly about it.) On the plus side, you can get lots of interesting plotting and scheming that you can't find with only 5 players and a GM, and having cute goth girls in corsets around is never bad.

But I just found there's waaaaay too much out of character drama and BS going on. That and I have the same problem with large larps that I do IRC games or MMORPGS or other online games, and that's there are a lot of tools out there, a lot of jerks and idiots and people I would never, ever invite to my gaming table. In a game with 5 players, it's very easily to make sure I don't game with those people. In a game with 100 players, I'm forced to deal with them, expand this even more to larger games.
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Clockworks - a Savage Worlds powered Steampunk webcomic. Updates hopefully twice a week.

[Ian]

If you leave out the LARP games which involve a mainly (totally) social aspect then I do not want to play a game with a character who has my stats and inabilities. I roleplay so I can be the action hero and not my uncoordinated self. Ian

[Boulder]

I played a fantasy LARP for a while but it got REALLY irritating to spend all that money and use vacation time just to see the friends of the organizers get all the XP, the cool swag, and all the cool adventures.

Did that sound bitter?
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Mark Swafford
Gaming Director, Connooga
Shaintar Community Liaison, Talisman Studios
Our Shop!!!

[Clint]

<sigh> Ah, the pitfalls of the term, "LARP."

See, in my experience, when you say "LARP" the majority of gamers don't hear Live Action Role-Playing in that term.

In the US, they usually hear "Vampire" first and/or "Boffer game" second. Outside of the US, those tend to be reversed. (All in my experience again.)

Either way, the generic term, "LARP," is lost to a specific sub-category of setting, style, or system, and people end up missing out on other options available.

Some of the most fun I've had gaming has been in a non-contact, non-Vampire LARP. Heck, two of the most popular things at GenCon are the True Dungeon and True Heroes events, which are LARPs (even if the people who play them say they've never "LARPed" in their lives).

Obviously, I'm mostly a table-top gamer, but I just hate to see all LARPs get a bad rep just based off the most popular ways to play them. To me, that'd be like discounting all RPG's (including Savage Worlds) because you don't like Dungeons and Dragons.

Note, I'm not saying everyone who dislikes LARPs has that viewpoint, just that I see it a lot.

Opinions and all that.
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Clint Black
Savage Worlds Core Rules Brand Manager

www.peginc.com

[Sean Patrick Fannon]

I think it's important to note there are two types of LARPS:

1) Action LARPS

2) Social LARPS

The Action LARPS involve the use of physical skill for at least part of the activity. This is normally boffer weapons and NERF arrows in a fantasy setting, but I've also seen LARPS done with Laser-tag weapons (with much less success, sadly).

As stated by another, these events unfortunately cater to the younger and more physically fit crowd. In fact, it has been my experience that you end up with the equivalent of medievally-garbed skater punks taking over the game, turning it into a costumed sport.

Much as I love the concept, the execution inevitably leaves me very sad and disappointed.

Social LARPS can have a lot of action, but it is resolved in an abstract fashion that relates much more closely with tabletop RPGs. While this is a great thing for people to play things they are not, it does often suffer in that, once bullets and powers start flying, you sometimes have 30 people all scrambling to take an action, thus freezing time for about 2+ hours.

It doesn't have to go that way (I've given a lot of thought to LARP design in my time), but it does tend to.

Another issue is that there is an unfair bias towards the concept of social LARPS due to the most well-known of them, the ones featuring the World of Darkness. Bearing in mind that while I was a Lead Storyteller for a rather large one (Triangle By Night, in the Raleigh/Durham area), I do understand the resistance many have to hanging out with the "I'm so goth, I'm dead" and "Please enable my drama!" crowds.

I think it is entirely possible to build LARPS that shy away from those conventions, and encourage a large level of immersion in a complex weave of interaction and discovery. In fact, there are a large number of LARP groups that specialize in running such games at conventions.

I know where Erskin is going with this, and I feel strongly that it could be very, very cool for our collective interest...
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Sean Patrick Fannon
Evil Beagle Games
Shaintar: Legends Arise

Bad Dog. Good Games.

[Boulder]

Spaceballs, the LARP maybe?
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Mark Swafford
Gaming Director, Connooga
Shaintar Community Liaison, Talisman Studios
Our Shop!!!

[dap6000]

There's no option for don't like them but have played them.

[Savage Jedi]

In my post above I mentioned WWII reenactment. My question: would that be considered LARP? Even though it's scripted (sometimes loosely, sometimes severely), there is a roleplay aspect to it. If one could extend LARP that far then I would say that some of my most enjoyable times have been LARPing.
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I hope you become comfortable with the use of logic without being deceived into concluding that logic will inevitably lead you to the correct conclusion. - Neil Armstrong

[Erskin]

[Erskin]