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A Disclaimer: This is the first time I have talked/written about this, and I know it’s going to deviate from the usual MO’s of Ask/Tells, so I am hoping people will bear with me, I know I’m going to muss something up in the protocol of it. I promise it’s ignorance and inexperience, not willful provocation. My husband has seen this thing through from beginning to end, and has been talking to me for a while about doing an Ask/Tell regarding my time spent totally submerged in the LARP scene, and the things I saw and experienced, and how it pretty much nearly killed me. I think it could be a good thing all ‘round, but I also know it may be a little grim for an A/T. It does kinda seem retarded. The idea that some dorky hobby that’s good-naturedly ribbed by the general populace could do severe damage to someone mentally and emotionally, to the point where they’re this unglued by it is just...I know. I know. But the point here, I think, is twofold - tell people the sometimes really ugly truths about the scene from someone who was deeply, deeply involved and not swallow it silently, and maybe use this as a scouring tactic for myself. Bullet bits -
I had LARPed for 18 years by the time I quit, and had table-topped for 23. I was a member of a global LARP organization for five years, played in a troupe (singular LARP group) for two, and ran my own troupe for over a year. I did the freeform/theater LARPing, not boffer LARPing was the main focus of my life. I was a Lifer. LARPing’s toxic environment did not begin my illnesses, but did enable them, made them much much worse, and kept me from getting well. I do not believe everyone who LARPs is sick, but I believe all Lifers are unhealthy either mentally, emotionally or physically, often all three. I am not angry or bitter, and accept all responsibility for the choices that led me to, and kept me in, LARPing. I am out, in therapy, and on meds, and I believe I would be dead now if I had not quit LARPing. Thank you, no matter what the outcome is.
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Aug 10, 2015 04:36
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Sounds like healthy fun.
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Aug 10, 2015 05:25
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Hey, done a little LARPing myself, although fairly mild theatre style at a once-per-month game. Don't worry about not doing a big exposition if you're not up to it yet. You can always start explaining your story by questions, and I've got a few basic ones. What game(s) did you LARP? How old were you when you first started LARPing? When you became a Lifer? And on a related note, what were the approximate ages of the groups you played in? And this one might be a little vague, but Could you go into a little detail as to what the LARPing toxic environment was like?
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Aug 10, 2015 05:53
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1. If you don't mind me asking, how much did the average larper weigh? 2. Why ?? > I believe I would be dead now if I had not quit LARPing.
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Aug 10, 2015 05:57
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Man. Nerds being crazy are in my experience the weirdest of weird. Tell me your craziest story, or at least begin to lampshade it with others.
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Aug 10, 2015 06:08
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Ghogargi posted:My husband has seen this thing through from beginning to end, and has been talking to me for a while about doing an Ask/Tell regarding my time spent totally submerged in the LARP scene, and the things I saw and experienced, and how it pretty much nearly killed me. I think it could be a good thing all ‘round, but I also know it may be a little grim for an A/T. The venerable 'anime husbando' thread took some dark twists that quite often involved RP (there's one about halfway down page 88), as has the 'furry' one, and recently there have been threads from people fresh out of prison, and recovering from being beaten near to death. I don't think grimness will be an issue. That said, you're on the Ask/Tell discussion board of a comedy site, and I wonder if this is the place for you to write about this unless you do want to let it all hang out (others have done this and even seemed to find it therapeutic, but it's probably not for everyone). People are going to want to hear all your most toe-curlingly awful tales, in forensic detail, with harrowing turns that would unnerve the Ancient Mariner himself. Ghogargi posted:[*]I know there are going to be LARPers who decry everything I say, call me a liar, and tell you guys not to believe a word. That’s cool. But I absolutely swear what I tell you is the truth as I know it. LARP Lifers (those in as deep as I was, where it’s central to their lives) are, to me, like cult members. Harsh, but that’s exactly how it felt when I came out. They go utterly berserk if someone impugnes their lifestyle. If they seem to have the more compelling, reasonable arguments, though, I’ve no problem not being believed. I just want it clear that I am not going to lie or embellish. At all. What will happen is that LARPers will come out of the woodwork to share their own most hideous stories. Ghogargi posted:[*]There’s going to be a lot of self-castigation, I think, because my being a Lifer meant I was complicit and participated in some gruesome stuff and I am ashamed. It’s not a pity party, and it’s not White Knight Bait. It’s the truth. It’s cool, I’m doing okay, but I am not a victim. I'd keep the self-castigation brief. It's not going to be amusing or horribly fascinating, just sad. Ghogargi posted:I did the freeform/theater LARPing, not boffer drat, hardly anything is absurder than two grown adults earnestly whacking each other with pool noodles (note that I am not saying I've never tried this, just that it's innately absurd). Ghogargi posted:I am not angry or bitter, and accept all responsibility for the choices that led me to, and kept me in, LARPing. This isn't therapy; bitterness is permitted. If LARPing gradually ruined your life over 18 years, there must be something you're angry about, something that you didn't choose. But that sounds heavy. So my question is: What's the most abominably awkward, embarrassing LARPing moment you've ever witnessed? Preferably one that didn't involve you directly, so it's not stressful to write about. In fact, if you just wrote keyboard portraits of various LARPing denizens*, and not about yourself directly, it might be easier. * leaving out any very identifying details, of course. But if threads like this have taught me one thing, it's that someone will write 'I knew this uniquely bizarre person', and three or four people will chime in to describe a person almost exactly the same. Carnival of Shrews fucked around with this message at 11:15 on Aug 10, 2015 |
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Aug 10, 2015 11:07
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Hey there! Just dropping by to say that I'll be watching this thread with interest. I'm a LARPer myself, though likely from the other end of the spectrum (European contact LARP)- by comments you've made in your OP I'd hazard that your experience was with the Camarilla or whatever the post-Gehenna equivalent is? I also posted a very similar 'confessional' thread about the furry fandom, where I had what on the first glance appears to be a similar experience to what you have gone through. So, just put up with any trolls or what have you- ask/tell is a lot more accepting and friendly than I thought it might be.
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Aug 10, 2015 11:20
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what the gently caress is a LARP, and I ask this after having googled it and read about it for a while
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Aug 10, 2015 12:10
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bewbies posted:what the gently caress is a LARP, and I ask this after having googled it and read about it for a while Live Action Roleplay; basically dress-up/pretend for grown ups. Can be great fun, can lead to extreme brokenness- like most geeky hobbies, some people go off into the deep-end while others use it as an excuse to camp for a weekend while drinking beer and hitting people with rubber swords.
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Aug 10, 2015 12:15
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Wow. Thank you guys for the questions and comments. It was a good, if intimidating, thing to wake up to. I'll start in on answering them now, and then more when I'm back home in the afternoon.
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Aug 10, 2015 14:21
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Krysmphoenix posted:
I played in a few different LARPs. World of Darkness was the main one, and it’s the focus of this stuff. Krysmphoenix posted:How old were you when you first started LARPing? When you became a Lifer? And on a related note, what were the approximate ages of the groups you played in? I played in my first LARP when I was fifteen. My stepdad ran a one-night little game for me and four of my school friends (two guys and two gals). We went to a nearby college at night and did a treasure-hunt kind of adventure. We didn’t really have characters, but we were on a mission and part of a made-up team and stuff. It was fun. He was getting his degree in Computer Science or something, so he actually set up a moment where we had to ‘break into’ the computer lab and hack into a computer in the dark, all covertly. I did my first real LARP when I was nineteen. My tabletop group did a special event and we moved our characters into a LARP setting for one night. I did one-shots off and on until I joined the global club when I was twenty-six or -seven, which was when I became a Lifer. Krysmphoenix posted:And this one might be a little vague, but Could you go into a little detail as to what the LARPing toxic environment was like? I think I’ll be talking a lot about this in replies, but a broad answer is that the entire culture enables and encourages sickness. You’ll hear some LARPers say that it’s a non-judgmental and totally accepting group, which is utter, UTTER poo poo. They may not judge you for being fat or crazy, but if you deviate even slightly from their worldview or question/criticize their rules (both game-wise and social mores), they’ll peel you. And for someone who is already unstable, depressed or without self-esteem, it’s like the end of the world. The excuse really awful behaviors, and I’ll go into why/how a bit down the road. And the hierarchy is filled with people who should never be given any kind of decision-making power. It’s abused terribly. And it isn’t some angry little dork screaming that you can’t have the special sword you want for your character; it’s a lot more sinister. Again, I’ll be digging into that as I go.
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Aug 10, 2015 14:23
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Krysmphoenix posted:And on a related note, what were the approximate ages of the groups you played in? Sorry, missed this. Everyone had to be 18+ to play. In my local group the ages ranged from 18 to 40’s, I think. But I saw some pretty old folks at conventions. One dude I think was in his 70's.
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Aug 10, 2015 14:25
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Ghogargi posted:I played in a few different LARPs. World of Darkness was the main one, and it’s the focus of this stuff. Oh man, say no more. Crazytown.
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Aug 10, 2015 14:26
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EB Nulshit posted:1. If you don't mind me asking, how much did the average larper weigh? There are, as far as I’ve seen, two basic body types for LARPers - overweight/obese and super gangly. Goes for guys as well as girls. The girls who are skinny in LARP are either mousy and super-shy, or really really sexualized in their costuming and behavior. The overweight ones actually seem to be a bit more stable in their personalities, but because they are in a culture where there’s more dudes than girls and most of the dudes find them attractive when non-LARPer fellows don’t, it can give them a lot of false confidence which displays itself irritatingly. This is the average, not the exception, and I know there are LARPers who don’t fit these descriptions. I have never met a Lifer who didn’t fit one of the above descriptions, though. EB Nulshit posted:2. Why ?? > I believe I would be dead now if I had not quit LARPing. The LARP culture (practices and people) promotes being unhealthy. I was using it to both self-medicate and as a coping mechanism for some serious mental issues. Of course, bad coping mechanisms and unhealthy self-medication just makes problems worse, not better. So, there was that - LARPing was making me sicker. And I think if I’d not stopped, I would have killed myself. I was actually hospitalized at the end for endangering myself, and I had totally bottomed out. And what’s really awful is that your so-called ‘friends’ (I’ve seen LARPers call themselves family, even) will never help you. They want you to stay sick, because if you start saying ‘Hey, I think this whole LARP thing could be super bad for us Lifers’, you’re threatening their illusion that they’re healthy and happy, as well as their own coping mechanisms and self-medication. You're also threatening an addiction, which is absolutely what LARP is to Lifers. I’ve never seen a larger group of people living in fear of themselves and the world. Only ONE person ever, in all those years, came to me and said ‘This is not good for you. It’s hurting you’, and I’m now married to him.
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Aug 10, 2015 16:18
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I'm really interested by what you term 'lifers'- though I've never encountered anyone like that in a decade or so of LARP over here, it sounds just like a /lot/ of the people I encountered in my time in the furry fandom. I guess this might be down to the different ways you and I interact(ed) with the LARP scene- for the fest events I play there's a very clear 'campaigning season' from May to September, and while factions might have smaller events off-season there's a very strict limit on 'downtime' activity (varying fr system to system, but it's very much a case of 'send in an email saying what you've been doing since the last event' for those that do allow it). It's sort of like.. LARP of the type I do is something you DO, rather than something you ARE. What you describe sounds way more similar to the furry fandom in terms of the drama, broken people and stifling of personal development- I guess this is a WoD thing? And of course, regular year round games must help foster this too; it's a different vibe from four or five thousand people camping in a field four times a year. While I adored oWoD tabletop, I never could get into the LRP side of it; seeing this makes me thankful, as I probably would have ended up as lost there as I was in furry.
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Aug 10, 2015 16:41
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Ice Phisherman posted:Tell me your craziest story, or at least begin to lampshade it with others. I knew the Crazy LARP Stories would be a big draw, and I don’t want to disappoint, so I think I’m going to talk about the funny/non-toxic ones in one spot and the scary/ugly ones in another. The funny ones I could talk about for days with no problem, the ugly ones are not as easy - some I’ve never even talked about to anyone. Here are some highlights, some funny, some not; I’ll tell the full stories as requested. * A guy pissed on my floor during a game. * I walked in on a woman totally naked. In my own house. * A girl whipped off her shirt in front of my husband and I. * A girl’s tit popped out at game and she didn’t notice. * A guy got caught with a girl during game, by his wife and the husband of the girl. * A girl would bring her mentally-challenged son to game and ignore him the whole time while he played on the ground with sticks and leaves. He pushed a baby carriage down a slope and let it go, with a baby in it. * Someone came to me while I was running a game at a campsite and informed me that one of the players was currently giving blowjobs in one of the cabins to various players. * A LARPer showed up uninvited to my New Years’ party already wasted, threw up on my floor, stole my bathroom trashcan and left. * A player had a screaming, insane breakdown in my living room because of what someone’s character said to her character. I was too scared to leave my bathroom. * A guy I knew was kicked out of the club after being arrested for child porn. * The biggest two rules at a con one year were 1. Take a shower and 2. Don’t have sex in public. Like, people had to be TOLD these things, because it had become such an issue. An hour later there was a flare up because apparently a couple were found getting it on in the back of a truck in the parking lot. And hotel stairwell sex was a problem, too. * A bunch of players would go to the beach every month for the full moon and get naked and splash around. I heard there was other activities that occurred, but never from any of the participants so it’s just rumor for me. *A girl had to be told by the hotel staff at a convention to put more clothes on, because she was walking around the lobby of a 5-Star resort wearing a scarf draped over her bare boobs. More are going to pop up as I dig into this. There are also just Weird Moments In LARPing, where I just couldn’t believe these were the people I was spending all my free time with. Like the dude who told me he could call storms to him. And the guy who bragged he was going to fly a jet in his friend’s private army, and that his genes were ‘too awesome’ to get cancer from smoking. And the night my husband and I walked into an after-party at a convention and there was only one girl on the dancefloor and she was humping the ground in a frenzy. You know - those little surreal moments.
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Aug 10, 2015 21:35
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Ghogargi posted:I knew the Crazy LARP Stories would be a big draw, and I don’t want to disappoint, so I think I’m going to talk about the funny/non-toxic ones in one spot and the scary/ugly ones in another. The funny ones I could talk about for days with no problem, the ugly ones are not as easy - some I’ve never even talked about to anyone. Just post them as you think of them
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Aug 10, 2015 21:40
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Carnival of Shrews posted:So my question is: What's the most abominably awkward, embarrassing LARPing moment you've ever witnessed? Preferably one that didn't involve you directly, so it's not stressful to write about. In fact, if you just wrote keyboard portraits of various LARPing denizens*, and not about yourself directly, it might be easier. The two things that come to mind are the incident with the spouses being caught at game, and the Doughy Tartlette. The former was grim. We all knew the dude would cheat on his wife - one Halloween at a party, he showed us a video of him proposing to his wife (she was still living out of state). He proposed at a con, of course. Anyway, while the video was playing, I saw him in a corner of another room licking some other chick's neck. Classy. So we knew he'd do it, we just didn't think he'd be stupid enough to do it AT GAME. And this was a big regional game so there were 30-40 people there. He and the girl snuck into another room (that was still part of the game space) and his wife opened the door and there they were in all their glory. It was an enormous scandal because he and his wife were super high up on the LARP echelon and they both had to immediately quit the organization over the shitstorm that followed. The Doughy Tartlette was, I think, the first really shocking thing I experienced at a LARP, and it's still up there. She was this plump, short girl who had some serious issues, and she loved to show up to game and flirt with the guys. She wouldn't even roleplay, she'd just giggle and prance about and tickle them under their chins and stuff. So, one night, I bring my friend to game. She's never played before, she's curious, huzzah. The D.T. shows up and begins cavorting. I'm distracted by my RP so I'm not paying too much attention. Suddenly, my friend grabs my arm and says 'Holy SHITBALLS'. I look, and the Tartlette is on the ground doing a split. A real live split. And she's in a tiny skirt. With no underwear. We were in the courtyard of a university building, too. Not in a private home. So, I kind of choke and blink. And then, she shifts and lifts her legs in the air, wide apart. The guys are all staring with their mouths open. My friend and I are just shell-shocked. Eventually the Doughy Tartlette closes her legs and prances away, but my friend said she was not interested in ever coming back.
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Aug 10, 2015 21:55
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Camrath posted:Hey there! Just dropping by to say that I'll be watching this thread with interest. I'm a LARPer myself, though likely from the other end of the spectrum (European contact LARP)- by comments you've made in your OP I'd hazard that your experience was with the Camarilla or whatever the post-Gehenna equivalent is? You were the one that prompted this whole thing. My husband sent your link and said 'You should do this about LARP'. So it's pretty exciting to have you drop by. I totally commiserated with you while reading your thread. And it's really actually uplifting to read about someone who 'made it out'. I haven't met anyone else who has. I lost almost all of my friends from this. I completely cut myself off from all LARPers, even the non-Lifers I actually liked and now miss. But it's like alcoholism; you can't be anywhere near the stuff. I'm not at ALL tempted to go back, but I just can't be around people who do it now.
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Aug 10, 2015 22:01
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Camrath posted:I'm really interested by what you term 'lifers'- though I've never encountered anyone like that in a decade or so of LARP over here, it sounds just like a /lot/ of the people I encountered in my time in the furry fandom. I guess this might be down to the different ways you and I interact(ed) with the LARP scene- for the fest events I play there's a very clear 'campaigning season' from May to September, and while factions might have smaller events off-season there's a very strict limit on 'downtime' activity (varying fr system to system, but it's very much a case of 'send in an email saying what you've been doing since the last event' for those that do allow it). It's sort of like.. LARP of the type I do is something you DO, rather than something you ARE. Yeah, I should clarify what being a 'Lifer' is, as well as the general schedule/MO for the LARPing I did. Which is going to lead into more stories, I think. Bear with me. This is the usual breakdown of how/when/where I LARPed, and what made me a Lifer: For the majority of the time, I played in a least two different venues, or kinds of games. They ran biweekly, so I’d have either two nights of LARPing every other weekend, or one night of LARPing every weekend. There were years when I played in three or four venues, too. So, my weekends were filled up with LARPing. For several years, I hosted games at my house. We also played at a local university, and occasionally in a park or something. I was very involved with posting on the message boards linked to the games, so I spent a lot of time in front of my computer. Pretty much every day I’d do at least something LARP-related. I also created and ran special LARP events, hosted/coordinated out-of-character social evenings, and spent gobs of money on costumes. I just got rid of twenty-six corsets, and that’s not all I had. I attended two of the big global conventions. The third time I went, the hotel was actually one that my great-great-grandfather had worked in as a chef. My husband and I arrived at the hotel, saw it full to the brim of loud, sweaty people in t-shirts with expletives all over them and no shoes on, crowded in the lobby and outside on the sidewalk smoking cloves and pipes, and I just couldn’t take it. I didn’t even check in to the convention. We just got our room, and spent the whole weekend walking around the city and sightseeing. I was so ashamed to be a part of that overbearing, obnoxious group staying in this very classy, historical hotel. We went to dinner one night at a famous, old restaurant and we saw a LARPer couple there. The girl was wearing a corset for her top (no jacket with it, no shawl, nothing) and her boobs were up to her neck and about to pop out and the guy had his trilby on inside the restaurant and…I know, it sounds kinda prissy, but this was an extremely expensive, century-old place. And I thought - what if I’d saved up all year to go to my 40th anniversary dinner here, and I had to spend the evening trying not to look at this girl’s tits because she couldn’t be assed to dress appropriately? Is that overreacting? I guess maybe it is, but I was so fed up by then. But I didn't quit altogether. I just left the global club and moved on to troupe games, then created my own group. There was a wedding one of the other years I attended the Big Con, and I felt so bad for the bride - her candid photos in the lobby would have big fat dudes in the background with ‘gently caress You, You loving gently caress’ on their shirts.
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Aug 10, 2015 22:05
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This isn't a reply to a question, but I wanted to post something about me, and how I was no better than my comrades. I've done a lot of ranting and finger-pointing and talked about how grody and evil things were, but I was a very willing participant in that culture for a long time, and I want to put that out there. So, here's my shame. First of all, I was addicted to LARPing, full on. I ate, slept and breathed it. I was also a tremendous attention whore. Before the eyerolls, I want to just say - nothing is ever done without reason. Attention whores are that way for a reason, and the reasons are often sad, deep ones. There’s a desperation there that stems from a problem in the soul, and calling them out never helps. They’ll just deny it anyway. So, yeah, I wore corsets and paraded about and, because I was under 200 lbs and not crack-skinny and didn’t have acne, I got a lot of male attention. This isn’t a boast - these dudes would hit on anything that was bipedal, and I really am not particularly attractive. But I was sick in the head and I needed attention and validation. Instead of getting it a healthy way from healthy people, I used flirting with and manipulating LARP dudes as a coping mechanism. It was sad, and really pretty evil. I hosed up a lot of already-hosed-up fellows, and I prided myself on pretending I was some sort of succubus or whatever. It was gross and wretched. I had a daughter who had to stay in her room on LARP nights at the house, and while she never seemed to mind, I look back and see just how hosed up that was. It was her home and she should have been free to go about it. There were also some unsavory types that would attend game and I was an idiot to ever let them within 500 feet of my kid. Nothing ever happened and she and I have talked about it, and she says she’s unscathed from the whole thing, but I know it was the wrong thing to do. I actually withdrew a whole lot from my family, and put a real chasm in between them and me that’s only begun to close. If someone left the LARP, they were dead to me. Never talked to them again. Which is so rotten because I realize now the ones who left would’ve made good friends right about now. I put so much time, energy and care into the LARP stuff I did, I had no room for anything else. That meant I couldn’t pursue my writing or filmmaking, which I love, and I stopped caring about them. The amount of writing I did for all my characters would be equal to an entire series of books. It’s such an abominable waste. I stopped living in the world. All Lifers do. I lived for the next game and just put in my time until that night arrived. Here’s a funny thing, and sorry it's a bit of a tangent. Oftentimes, someone will comment that roleplayers, or furries, or reenactment people, or actors, take on a persona because they don’t want to be themselves, they want to be someone cooler or hotter or more powerful. I think that’s maybe true a little, but I think there’s more; at least for me there was. The characters I played weren’t people I wished I could be - they were all aspects of my sickness, manifesting unconsciously in this weird, very intense way. When I realized that a couple months ago, I just fell apart. It was a very painful thing to see that I was struggling so hard and trying with all my might to survive and to understand what was wrong with me, but I was too stupid and addicted to start making the good choices that would actually make me well.
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Aug 10, 2015 22:11
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I got invited to a WOD LARP, went once. After getting into table top I quickly learned of how quality games happen and started only playing with a specific friend DMing. Said friend was also a prince or something in the LARP community and started telling me about the national system for whatever the global story was for the Camarilla and how it all tied together. I thought it was pretty interesting and tagged along one day. The WOD equivalent of a DM (Story teller?) is a guy that I also am acquainted with through work. So we get there early and he sets me up a character, and apparently he is high enough on the foodchain (boss of the whole state if I remember?) to just grant me a bunch of cool stuff. Now the three of us are all military folk and so far this all seems reasonable. They give me the rundown on the rules and all is well. One of the things my character got given were some hefty boons, I of cource didn't realize this, barely knowing what a boon is or who they were toward. Me, Oblivious. So then people start to arive. And OHH boy were there some characters. Every range of nerd you can imagine. Fat, skinny, tall, short, dressed up, underdressed... Now my group of people was my friend, the DM, and their two wives (Who are both attractive women who like comic books and video games but don't LARP), and that was the mindset I was expecting. I guess I had unwittingly dodged the rest of the personality types by only playing tabletop with a closed group of friends before now. I just follow while they quickly get busy herding these crazy people on the days adventure. Now I get pulled off to the side by one cute girl, and I start to get to get a little hazy on when she's playing a character and when she's legitimately flirting with me. "no its ok, really bite my neck like a vampire, hard". Got my number, game goes on. She's starts to get more and more sexual to convince me to do something with boons that I have no idea about. Game finally ends, bunch of people hang around for beer. Girl continues texting me after she's left. On the drive back talking to my friend about it he said he wasn't surprised by her behavior at all. She's had like 9 boyfriends that year already and all of them were in some way related to getting ahead in the game. With rumors of far more going on, and some of the dudes being really gross and creepy from other local games. But that there was nothing he could do about it because it was just acceptable. tl;dr, Offers of selling your body for favors in game made me never go back to creepy LARP land.
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Aug 10, 2015 22:43
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I have some experience with LARPing - I did it weekly for maybe six months. I hestitate to call it a LARP, though, because there was very little actual roleplay - it was more like the medieval reenactment battle people but with foam weapons. I'll be following this thread although I don't have that many stories to tell - just the fact that everyone involved was weird, gross and creepy. And the people who made the rules would regularly change them in order to keep their group more powerful. A fair few of my friends still do it and it hasn't exactly been the best influence on their lives. It combines the worst parts of a competitive sport with dozens of people who never grew out of being insecure high school nerds and can't handle competition.
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Aug 11, 2015 01:42
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This reminds me of some embarrassing poo poo I did when I was younger, too. Never LARPed or got into tabletop gaming, though I think I might have if I knew anybody that did. Very very glad I didn't. I know exactly what you mean about personal issues, self-esteem, and can easily see how an activity like this can let it get further out of control. It really is like a drug when you get addicted to a toxic community like this, because you're lonely as hell or have zero self-esteem or direction in your life or whatever. Instead of facing up to those scary problems, you just dive into a group of other people trying to ignore their own problems and you all, quite literally, make up a fairy tale imagination land to live in. Then the bubble finally bursts and you realize, poo poo, this has made me even crazier than when I started. This stopped being fun a long time ago. If I'd spent all that time going out and talking to normal people, I'd have way more of my poo poo together. All that time got you was regret and shame. Anyway, didn't mean to ramble, but your story really resonates with me and I just wanted to say I appreciate what you're doing. Love hearing the awkward stories of weird people, but also hoping you can share some of the things you need to get off of your chest too, whenever you're up for it. Really do think it'll help. Sometimes it's good to be able to laugh at yourself, too, when you look back and can see just how ridiculous it all was.
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Aug 11, 2015 03:57
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I've read this whole thread and have no idea what actually goes on at one of these. Could you describe your standard LARP? Is it like what civil war reenactors do?
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Aug 11, 2015 04:25
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How easy is it/can it be to unintentionally fall from being a Larper to becoming a Larp lifer?
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Aug 11, 2015 06:44
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I have LARPed on and off for several years. I know you said people would say they doubt your stories but I do not. Some of the people I played with were refugees from the bigger WOD games you describe and they had stories like what you shared. I was lucky with good GMs who enforced rules and were not afraid to boot people and tell them not to come back. Oddballs and deviants rarely lasted more then one night. We always met at someone's house and never had more then one or two new players a night so we controlled the group. I imagine at a con you can't turn people away. Most players were leaning more towards late 20s to mid 40s in age with the occasional older guy or gal or young person. The sweet 60 year old lady who played a Tremere and always brought cookies to game was one of my favorites, she could go from her sweet grandma persona to "It's not a Masquerade Violation if you kill everyone involved" in seconds. It was kind of scary how good she was at taking on the persona but she didn't take it too seriously once the scene ended. She was just a good actor. Then again I did not obsess about it. It was my fallback plan on Saturday nights if I had no other real plans. I could see how it could suck people in and I am glad you got out of it.
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Aug 11, 2015 07:08
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faarcyde posted:I've read this whole thread and have no idea what actually goes on at one of these. Could you describe your standard LARP? Is it like what civil war reenactors do? A WoD LARP is usually Vampire. You basically take on the persona of a vampire (or possibly ghoul). Usually the game revolves around a neutral safe space called Elysium where Vampires politic, try to get others to kill each other or kill them themselves. Sometimes you try to suck another vamp dry and eat their soul to consume their power. Usually groups split off with the equivalent of a GM to get involved in adventures. You have things like rival Vampire sects, Vampire hunters, really old vampires up to who knows what, werewolves, breaches to the Masquerade (veil of secrecy for Vampires hiding them from mortals), etc. One player is the Prince and in theory has almost absolute power but others play the "Elder Council" (called the Primogen) who check him or herto some degree or sometimes even make him or her their pawn and there are other offices like Sherriff (enforcer) and Harpy (social status judge). You also compete for boons to get ahead, hunting territory, position, whatever. Conflicts are decided by paper, rock, scissors with various stats influencing the results. Basically your goals are for you to decide. Some people costume; some do not. Official rules are usually no physical contact or actual weapons (fake or real) and no actions like biting or the like. They were enforced at the games I played but I have heard stories of games where it was a free for all.
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Aug 11, 2015 07:16
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Interesting thread title, I used to be interested in LARP, did it for a for a few years. Let's see what's up. Probably some boffer larp poo poo.Ghogargi posted:I was a member of a global LARP organization for five years, played in a troupe (singular LARP group) for two, and ran my own troupe for over a year. Ghogargi posted:I played in a few different LARPs. World of Darkness was the main one, and it’s the focus of this stuff.  OP, right here with you. I've seen WOD LARP cause divorces. I've seen actual fist fights when a person "in character" took things too far. Nervous breakdowns from people mid game because 'poo poo got too real' for them. And everyone there is ready to bone someone or something. It's really a hosed up game. I honestly can't remember the last time I had fun with it and I played for years.
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Aug 11, 2015 08:04
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faarcyde posted:I've read this whole thread and have no idea what actually goes on at one of these. Could you describe your standard LARP? Is it like what civil war reenactors do? If the OP doesn't mind, I'd like to provide perspective on the other side of LARP (European/British 'fest' systems), which (while still massively nerdy) is massively different in a lot of ways from the WoD stuff that she took part in. These are a lot closer to reenactment, and focus far more on mass combat and a strong drinking culture than weird sexual poo poo and acting out in public. Don't want to seem to hijack an interesting thread though, so I'll wait for her to give the ok. Ghogargi posted:You were the one that prompted this whole thing. My husband sent your link and said 'You should do this about LARP'. So it's pretty exciting to have you drop by. I totally commiserated with you while reading your thread. And it's really actually uplifting to read about someone who 'made it out'. I haven't met anyone else who has. I lost almost all of my friends from this. I completely cut myself off from all LARPers, even the non-Lifers I actually liked and now miss. But it's like alcoholism; you can't be anywhere near the stuff. I'm not at ALL tempted to go back, but I just can't be around people who do it now. It loving sucks having to leave your perceived 'happy place' once the scales fall from your eyes, but you have my respect for making that step, if nothing else. I probably understand better than most here just how ensnaring toxic social groups like this can be, so as one survivor and escapee to another, congratulations. Now you have the whole rest of your life to enjoy without the negativity being forced into you or having to internalise all the hosed up poo poo that goes on- the problem was with them, not you and your life is your own now. That's a pretty epic victory when you think about it  And reading what went down, it's odd- I really don't recognise LARP as l know it in your descriptions, but rather a 'what if furry was actually about vampires?!' Sort of thing- the public misbehaviour, the overruling GSFs, the enforces tolerance of disgusting behaviour.. Stick it in nylon fur rather than a corset and black lace and the two sound completely loving indistinguishable!
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Aug 11, 2015 09:07
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Man, loving tabletop games. I've only done LARPing the once, but finding out that of the original group I played in usually one or two were sex offenders. I learned that about them way later in life. I played with them for a few years before they cleared out and I started to bring in not creepy people. Later I ran games. Most people were pretty chill, but occasionally when I invite someone they think that I'm giving them carte blanche to be a creep.
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Aug 11, 2015 11:04
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This thread interests/scares me because I just got into a WOD LARP and actually had some fun the first time I went. Some of the people are definitely weird about it, but there were some pretty nice cool people as well. I'm looking forward to doing it again, but I would never want to become a lifer or anything like that it sounds horrible. Any obvious warning signs to be on the lookout for?
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Aug 11, 2015 14:09
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Not enough fun stories up here in this thread c'mon fellas
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Aug 11, 2015 16:48
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Ghogargi posted:Sexual shenanigans, gross exhibitionism and serial corset abuse. Yup, that sounds pretty bad. How much did you spend on clothes and other kit, if it's not too painful to calculate? I've only been vaguely in involved in UK boffer LARP, which as Camrath says, runs heavily to camping, beer, more beer, and daftness; these are the sort of people whose motto could well be 'Too rowdy for Sealed Knot'. I get the impression that whilst it attracts out-and-proud nerds, they're generally still confident enough to tell anyone trying to socially control them to sod off. 'Treasure Trapped' is quite a fun documentary about the better-run sort of outing ("In the early days, we had characters...but it was all about the violence") that's going to be released outside the UK later this year: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pz_1p1wfDOI Ghogargi posted:Here’s a funny thing, and sorry it's a bit of a tangent. Oftentimes, someone will comment that roleplayers, or furries, or reenactment people, or actors, take on a persona because they don’t want to be themselves, they want to be someone cooler or hotter or more powerful. I think that’s maybe true a little, but I think there’s more; at least for me there was. The characters I played weren’t people I wished I could be - they were all aspects of my sickness, manifesting unconsciously in this weird, very intense way. I know that WoD vampires are officially High or Low clan, or none at all, but when I vaguely looked at the game ages ago, it seemed that there were three main character types in WoD generally (though in nearly infinite, baroque variation): * Wish-fulfilment figures: aristocrats, sexy aesthetes, natural-born warriors in an amoral society, supernatural Mafiosi. * The unfortunate: the horribly disfigured, the deranged, and those doomed to devolve into an animal-like physical state. Probably the most interesting group IMO since in human society they'd be near-powerless, but not in WoD. * Unabashed monsters: repulsive sadists, experimenters in flesh, or worshippers of corruption, beyond the pale even by vampire standards. What was the ratio of those three types in WoD gaming? I'd naively expected the first group to be most numerous, but from what you've said, this may not be so. Not necessary to go into your own choices if that's still a stressful area. Ghogargi posted:There are also just Weird Moments In LARPing, where I just couldn’t believe these were the people I was spending all my free time with. Like the dude who told me he could call storms to him. And the guy who bragged he was going to fly a jet in his friend’s private army, and that his genes were ‘too awesome’ to get cancer from smoking. And the night my husband and I walked into an after-party at a convention and there was only one girl on the dancefloor and she was humping the ground in a frenzy. Now you're talking. I vote for Storm King.
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Aug 11, 2015 17:03
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Can someone provide photographic evidence of these overweight or emaciated women in sexy clothing pretending to be wizards or whatever this is?
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Aug 11, 2015 17:20
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Kashuno posted:This thread interests/scares me because I just got into a WOD LARP and actually had some fun the first time I went. Some of the people are definitely weird about it, but there were some pretty nice cool people as well. I'm looking forward to doing it again, but I would never want to become a lifer or anything like that it sounds horrible. Any obvious warning signs to be on the lookout for? Being overweight. Having walls full of collectibles. Doing nothing with your life except larping.
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Aug 11, 2015 17:24
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Carnival of Shrews posted:Yup, that sounds pretty bad. How much did you spend on clothes and other kit, if it's not too painful to calculate? Wow, saw at least three close friends in the Treasure Trapped trailer. I used to play the post-apocalyptic system they showed shots of (stopped due to one of its organisers being a loving mental dramallama who spread false rumours about me loving several other players), and know the site they're at well. What systems have you played? If you've done Lorien Trust, SlenderLARP, Wasteland, Vale or Spy! we've probably got some friends or acquaintances in common. bewbies posted:Can someone provide photographic evidence of these overweight or emaciated women in sexy clothing pretending to be wizards or whatever this is? I'll have a look through my photo collections. Though I get the impression it's not such a big thing as it is in the WoD gaming community. That said, well-endowed women in corsets with a full-on shelfboob is very much a meme of UKLarp.
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Aug 11, 2015 18:18
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M_Gargantua posted:I got invited to a WOD LARP, went once. Dude, one girl was notorious for offering her body in exchange rides to game. It really, really is like a drug addiction. You lose all semblance of dignity.
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Aug 11, 2015 19:38
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Skunkrocker posted:OP, right here with you. I've seen WOD LARP cause divorces. I've seen actual fist fights when a person "in character" took things too far. Nervous breakdowns from people mid game because 'poo poo got too real' for them. And everyone there is ready to bone someone or something. It's really a hosed up game. I honestly can't remember the last time I had fun with it and I played for years. There is a person I know in my judo club that used to take part in NERO and stopped due to his Masters, and training for Judo. People tried to pick fist fights with him at NERO meets when he used to go to them because he figured out the rules for maximum efficiency with his character. The man is a Heavyweight Judo champion, placed 8 times in Canadian Nationals, and 310 pounds of pure destruction. Maybe it is because I train with him,and feel the full force of his throws all time, that I could not imagine that someone would want to fight. Something tells me that LARPers might be the exact type who would pick a fight with someone that would bowl over them from first glance is like the happiest, nicest dude I know when you talk to him for 5 minutes. The guy on the left in white is the dude who did LARP: 
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Aug 11, 2015 19:39
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Calico Heart posted:Not enough fun stories up here in this thread There are no fun stories. These stories are disturbing and tragic. You want a story? Like I said before, this game literally caused a divorce. Two of the players were married. As one of the players more often than not had a child to take care of she would often miss games, and the husband was getting irritated with this because the games were held in his house. He was one of the lifers Ghogargi spoke of, was playing before he met his wife and kept playing after as well, but he didn't have anyone in the area to game with for a long time. Thanks to this other guy, a good friend of mine, the player base got built back up from nothing and they started gaming again and the husband really wanted his wife to play. The wife wasn't really all that into it anyway and would rather play online games like Rift and Warcraft, but she tried to appease him and it just wasn't really working. Before this they were fine, as they just played MMOs together and that way if she had to take care of the kid she could. Meanwhile he rubbed elbows with a few other female players; now he wasn't cheating on his wife with any of them, but there was definitely a tension building with the wife over it as he would constantly invite this girls over to plan out in character stuff and seemed to talk to them more than her. Now, a few other players who were being dickheads decided to start the rumor that this guy was banging one of the girls behind his wife's back. That rumor began to spiral out of control and the wife started to question things happening at games. This dude started getting really pissy about it because he would never cheat on his wife and she knew that and blah blah blah. Then she stopped going to games entirely because she didn't want the headache. The tension built up further and further from there, every game becoming more and more uncomfortable, and the husband started taking it out on other players and being quite the vindictive little assholes even for Vampire's standards. Even going as far as to cheat to make sure people he didn't liked weren't allowed to participate and such. It was pretty hosed up for a while. It caused several players to leave including the two girls I mentioned before. This started the ultimate fight, which I wasn't there for, but according to other players went like this. He's trying to get his wife to come back to the game now that the supposed harlot is gone. Her response is that he'll just go off and start RPing with some other woman. He flips out and starts screaming at her, she starts screaming back, everyone in the living room is really uncomfortable, she gets her things and heads outside. Several players get up to make sure she's okay (we didn't like this guy anyway) and she's walking down the street. Someone offers her a ride, and everyone else heads back in. The son is crying and hugging his father's leg saying "no no no no no" and he just looks at the players and says "Gotta cancel the rest of game tonight. Sorry." Everyone leaves, many angry because they had drove to this dude's house and had only been there for like ten minutes. They ended up heading over to someone else's house and the game continued from there. Next game was also held at said persons house where it was officially declared they had gotten a divorce. Over the next month or so it goes through, they're single, she gets a new place over on the other side of town and custody of the kid, he immediately gets a new girlfriend because of course he did (one who likes LARPing, imagine that), and he mellows out. Starts being a nice guy again. She drops from the scene entirely and apparently from gaming all together, becoming a painter or some such poo poo. I saw her at a gas station once. We talked for a bit. She still to this day blames the game, that everything was fine until he started LARPing. Skunkrocker fucked around with this message at 19:48 on Aug 11, 2015 |
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Aug 11, 2015 19:45
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