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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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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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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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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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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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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? I guess I'll answer this for the other extreme, using the Lorien Trust (a British 'fest' system) as my example. Generally these are held over a long weekend at a fixed site (a stately home in Derby for the LT). Many people turn up on the thursday night for an OOC social evening, and to get all their tents raised etc. But mostly to get absolutely shitfaced and catch up with friends in the field (as mainline events happen only four times a year there's not the continuity of weekly events, and probably why the social aspect doesn;t become as toxic as in the WoD games). There's usually one or more large beer tents or bars put on by the hosting company which gets heavy use on the thursday. Come the friday, everyone gets set up properly once the hangovers have abated with time-in for the game happening around 5pm. Things generally kick off with a muster in every faction (ten of them in the LT, each of them based around a fantasy/historical trope so you have for example the Dragons being Celtic, the Gryphons being french/italian, the Jackals being arabianesque, the Tarantulas being the This continues throughout the event; sometimes the peril level is very high with shitloads of monsters (all monsters by the way are volunteers, and every faction gets allocated a monstering slot to provide baddies for the others), other times (oddly, whenever it's raining or /really/ cold) the field will be incredibly quiet and empty seeming- that's when the most people tend to get mugged/murdered. And traditionally there's a big PvE brawl at lunchtime on the last day. Eh. It's late and I'm tired, and I don't think I'm explaining this as well as I could be. If anyone's interested in seeing, I have no end of pictures from my end of the LARP spectrum and will happily upload some tomorrow. Also, over here the convention seems to be that the type of game the OP and Skunkrocker are referring to is known as LRP, as opposed to the full contact LARP that I do.
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Aug 12, 2015 00:37
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Kashuno posted:I'm starting to think just going to LARPs high as gently caress is a great idea. It really, really is. There's nothing quite like hotboxing a bell-tent then stepping out to come face to face to some dude in a balrlg costume with a 15' wingspan laying waste to everything in site.
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Aug 12, 2015 16:03
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Victory Yodel posted:Interesting thread and thanks for the description. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it. I played D&D like every other nerd when I was in high school so I get the general idea of roleplaying, but how are things actually resolved? In the example above where someone is going to "hack into the tv station's computer to get employment records", does the character in question simply have "hacking skillz"? Does it automatically succeed or do they have to do something? (In the tabletop games I played, someone would have to roll a d20 or something to see if it was successful). Does the GM arbitrate? Speaking on behalf of multiple different systems, the way those things are dealt with in my experience are through a combination of so called 'hard' and 'soft' skills. Hard skills are what you, the player are actually capable of doing, soft skills are the ones listed on your character sheet that your character can do. So, for the hacking example (we had a similar situation in a modern horror game I played) you'd talk to one of the refs and explain what you wanted to achieve and why your character would be able to, together with possibly an explanation of how they'd go about it. Then a result would be decided by the game team. For the 'I want to kill you' situation you described, that would come down more to hard-skills for the most part- if you're able to get close enough to your target to stab them up and you have the weapon and skills to use it.. Then they get stabbed. I've seen some incredibly sneaky PvP violence before (and died to one particularly well executed hit); people can get very inventive and very sneaky. Then again I've also offed another PC by literally walking up behind them, pressing an airsoft 40mm grenade launcher into their back and firing. Which was anything but stealthy after the fact given the bang they make when they go off, but was considered a totally valid kill by the game team.
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Aug 12, 2015 17:07
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Victory Yodel posted:Thanks for this explanation. So if I'm in a session where there might be "somebody out to get me", I would have to essentially pay very close attention (e.g. not let someone sneak up behind me)? Exactly that. When you're doing a fest LARP in a field you can end up getting crazy paranoid- I don't even go to the shitters without at least a dagger in my boot, and have been thankful for it in the past. Likewise you learn to keep scanning peripheral areas, especially after dark. I know in the LT (which has been using the same site for something like 20 years) there's a well known 'murder tree' and 'muggers alley', both of which it's inadvisable to go down after dark without backup. And yeah, it's massive fun- though generally the PvP side of the game is sort of opt-in, except when it isn't. There was some IC/OOC drama earlier in this year when the drow faction reverted to type and started randomly murdering people walking past their camp and stealing their stuff (insert racist joke of your choice here, I guess). Given that to actually kill someone rather than just knock them unconscious takes a certain level of effort at mainline events (there's an effect called the 'ritual of peace' that stops characters bleeding out from normal injuries)- so you need to use either poisons, high level magic (pretty rare), extremely expensive sepcial weapons or a few sneaky tricks (taking you into a transport circle and then teleporting you out to make with the stabbing is how my last character died, for example) to get PvP kills. So it's unlikely people will waste the effort on someone for no reason, unless they're really just being a dick.
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Aug 12, 2015 18:51
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tweekinator posted:What sort of things would be stolen? Are we talking about actual, physical things with real-world value, such as some costume the guy spent weeks making, or "in-game" currency? For instance, if Sir Prancington IV was taking a late night stroll past the wrong tent, can he be knifed and lose his (actual, physical) cloak, boots, sword, and wallet containing $43 and Bill Roberts' drivers license, or just be relieved of his money pouch containing 49 gold doubloons? Again, bear in mind that I'm talking about a small sample of systems in the UK, so different countries/rulesets might run things differently. However, that said.. Any stealable item other than in-game currency has to have a small laminated card or scroll attached to it (called a 'lammie'). Normal weapons, armour etc don't have them (or any in-game cash value) and are totally off limits for theft. Lammies are cards which contain information on the nature of the item- for weapons and armour they'll list any special powers or properties that it has (whether it does magical damage, has extra hit-points and so on), together with the message 'this item looks unusual'. For other items like potions, poisons, scrolls and other stealable props, they'll have a collection of 2-3 digit codes on it. These can be looked up on an appropriate lore sheet to help with identifying the item- there's lots of different lore sheets, and I believe a fair few dummy codes too. This is so if one was to steal a potion bottle for example, you could have someone with the poison or potion lore skills identify whether it's say a healing potion or a poison that will kill you in 30 seconds- a useful thing to know! For weapons and other large items that aren't attached to the body, or anything with a lammie left unattended, you can just grab it and take it down to GOD (Game Operations Desk) with a suitable phys-rep of your own (a phys-rep is a 'physical representation', IE a sword, dagger, bottle, scroll, piece of armour or whatever that the lammie is attached to) and transfer across the lammie to your posession- security then take posession of the stolen item and the owner can go down to collect it at any point. For stuff like gold, or anything in someone's pockets then you have to search them first- you spend 60 seconds roleplaying the search after telling them what you're doing, and at the end they have to hand across any items that they're carrying (obviously, this works best if the target is dead or unconscious at the time!). Actual physical contact as opposed to weapons blows or whatever is an absolute no-no without consent.
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Aug 12, 2015 19:29
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tweekinator posted:Thanks for clarifying; it was not what I was picturing at all. Again, this is only true for the systems I play- but yeah. By attending the event you are giving your consent to be struck with larp-safe weapons- if you're unable or unwilling to fight you can use the call 'non-com', which puts you instantly at 0 hitpoints (IE unconscious). When we're talking about a field full of up to 4-5000 people it's the only way it can really work. However almost every system I've played has completely forbidden grappling etc (the only one that permitted it was a small modern horror system, where pretty much everyone already knew everyone else and even then, that was by consent only. That's the one where I whacked someone with a grenade launcher). Also, blows have to be delivered safely and pulled, rather than carried out full-strength, which is a big difference from a lot of the american systems (and also why we can use awesome looking latex weapons rather than loving pool-noodles). There's also a large element of self-policing involved as well- in the video I've linked below you can get an idea of what one-on-one combat looks like (rather than mass fighting), and at one point I pause to check my opponent's okay after I caught him across the cheek with a swing. That was a formal one-on-one fighting competition (still think I would have won if I hadn't had only two HP per location as opposed to his seven ;p) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbA0XG4W7bw
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Aug 12, 2015 20:06
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Victory Yodel posted:In other words, if I leave my nerf/latex sword, I can still get the physical item back but it is no longer in the game world? Where do the "lammies" come from in the first place? What's to stop someone from having the "bloody vorpal sword of killing you dead +5"? Do people every cry "no fair" on someone's items? Hey, they're all good, sensible questions The lammies are produced by the game organisers, and enter play in various ways- people can get crafting skills to make weapons, armour, potions, poisons and scrolls at the appropriate guilds; some are sent out on monsters to be looted, some are made in player-run rituals, some as given out by the organisers to groups and factions to share out and so on. Fake lammies are a pretty major issue (and considered really scummy by most players) which will result in people being kicked off site or banned from the game if caught with them. They all have specific codes on them as well as an official stamp to show they're genuine. And yes, you can do just that.. But you'd better hope you can handle them if they don't go down to the first hit! Edit: and once you get your weapon back you can use it just fine; it'll just be a normal sword or axe or whatever. Every lammie has a power rating and barring special abilities you can only carry a maximum of twelve 'thaums' of power without Bad Things happening, so there's a degree of balance involved. Camrath fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Aug 12, 2015 |
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Aug 12, 2015 21:11
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EATIN SHRIMP posted:Who do I have to larp as to get the most chicks? Roleplaying a pimp has worked well in that aspect. Or at least, would have if I wasn't in a committed relationship to an amazing woman (who also played my star whore). ;p
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Aug 12, 2015 22:01
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EATIN SHRIMP posted:How often do fights break out because people refuse to be killed in the sword fights? Like no bro you're sword attack didn't do jack poo poo and then I come back with a sword attack that fake chops their head off Never, in my experience. You have a certain number of hit-points (either locational; so arms, torso, head etc or global) and when they're gone, down you go. There's always referees and marshals hanging around to keep an eye on things in case of cheating but it's largely self-policed; if you're not taking hits people will call you on it and/or report it.
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Aug 13, 2015 07:17
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Milky Moor posted:I have the opposite view. In my experience, there was tons of people who wouldn't count their hits. They'd claim that they 'couldn't feel it' through their armor. This is a lie because I've worn a metal breastplate and I knew when I was getting hit. I've definitely seen people get pissed off and almost come to (actual) blows over it. Cheating douchebags do happen, but in all the systems I've played anyone acting like that would get pulled up by a ref or reported to one very quickly. In previous characters I've worn heavy armour and know the problem- it's why I pull my blows in a certain way so that while safe they make an audible 'thwack' on armour. Check out the video I posted up thread- that was shot from a good 10m away but it's very easy to pick out my hits audibly. quote:I didn't watch this whole video but seeing the girl in a corset (because they always wear corsets) made me remember how a corset added +1 armor point under the rules I was playing. No real explanation as to why (when chain and leather had to be a certain thickness and cover certain areas to count) but it prompted almost every girl on the field to go around wearing a corset. It was always pretty clear it was just a way for nerds to get to ogle cleavage. Girls and corsets go together in fantasy LARP. It's just one of those 'things'. My other half loves wearing hers- it can count as light or medium armour depending on the construction, she likes the look of it.. Admittedly she's rather petite compared to a lot of female larpers and doesn't do the whole 'mega cleavage' thing, but most of the women I know in the field are big fans of corsetry too. One of the other big UK LARPs actually has a 'no corsets' rule in its kit guidelines which has drawn a fair bit of complaint and scorn- from women.
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Aug 13, 2015 08:35
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EATIN SHRIMP posted:I would literally fake kill everyone there A lot of people come in with that attitude. They either end up dying over and over and getting bored or realise that there's more to the game than just random murder (which isn't to say that random murder can't be fun from time to time!).
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Aug 13, 2015 08:37
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Milky Moor posted:Yep, over in Melbourne. Wouldn't be too surprised that you know it because it's the only game over here. I'd go back to playing it if everyone involved treating it like a fair competitive game with a friendly spirit. But, nope, cheating is endemic and you can't count on the refs to be impartial, so, why even bother wasting my time? Ah, sounds like your rules are rather more in depth than the ones I'm used to- in the LT 'light armour' is basically any form of heavy clothing that could reasonably be 'padded' or 'reinforced' (for example I use a frock coat and leather trousers as light armour), medium is soft/flexible leather and heavy is rigid/studded/plated leather or metal. MonkeyBot posted:So how often did this result in men wearing corsets? Because if the answer is none, then clearly LARPers are very inefficient fake fighters.
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Aug 13, 2015 16:13
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Whiskey A Go Go! posted:Is the combat system based more upon character skill sheets or personal skill? I kinda wanna see someone with a kendo background go to a LARP meet in their Bogu and wreak the place. For the Camarilla it's entirely down to your character sheet- combat is played out with scissors-paper-stone. For the systems I play, it's a mix of hard and soft skills (as I defined earlier in the thread), but for the most part if you have the hard skills you can do better than someone with lots of soft skills and no experience. In my case I have about 15 years of sabre fencing under my belt, and at least up until I broke my shoulder last year (at a LARP event no less) I was confident of beating almost anyone in the field, all other things being equal- and I have a collection of tournament wins to prove it. Even now I'd put myself in the 99th percentile, though I can't use 42" swords anymore due to the risk of aggravating the injury. You find a lot of different styles of combat represented- fencing, kendo, escrima, HEMA and of course a lot of people who have no real idea how to fight (I also teach LARP fighting professionally and have run a fair few masterclasses in the subject). However no style is entirely suitable for field use unmodified- for example thrusting with swords is absolutely verboten; you have to pull all blows and so on. And sometimes someone with no formal training can surprise you with what they come out with! My biggest problem in the past few years is switching from playing a heavily armoured tank with a full warrior build to.. Well, playing a pimp. I only have 2-3 hits per location including armour, so I'm something of a glass cannon these days! Soft skills in the LT can make your blows have special effects- ignore armour, break shields, that sort of thing. So while they make you more effective, you still need to actually land the blows and defend yourself.
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Aug 13, 2015 17:13
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MikeCrotch posted:The answer is 'it depends'. Skills are defined as 'hard' (how good you actually are at swinging a sword/whatever) and 'soft' (how big the numbers are on your character sheet). Some combat systems favour one or the other. I used to play the system Camrath goes to (Lorien Trust) which has some hard skill but soft skill plays a big part. You can kill people with ranged magic, which in LT just requires a chant for a few seconds following by pointing and shouting the call at your target. Also, there is a huge power difference between characters statted for various jobs. A basic person in light armour has 2 hits on each of their locations, someone in heavy with extra body hits, magic armour and a ritual might have something like 10+ per location, so even if you are the best swordsperson in the world you are going to have trouble chewing through that many hits without going down yourself. What faction did you play in in the LT? There's a strong chance we have friends in common. And I totally agree about stab-safe polearms being a loving bitch to fight. I'm just waiting for someone to make a practical stab-safe sword, personally- I know the Calamacil ones are nominally so, but I really REALLY hate their styling and balance. Edit: also, very true about the possible power-differentials in the LT. My previous character was a 12-hit per loc monster waving a 7' spear around and smashing people off their feet. Now.. well, I'm 2-3 hits depending on gear with a few nasty spells up my sleeve. Try to avoid using them in PVP though, because frankly the corruption spell-list is pure dickishness. Camrath fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Aug 13, 2015 |
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Aug 13, 2015 18:10
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Ice Phisherman posted:Why sneakers exactly? There's a longstanding joke about people larping in jeans, sneakers and an inside out Metallica t-shirt. Basically if you make minimal/no effort with your kit, chances are you're going to be lovely in other ways too
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Aug 13, 2015 20:21
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de la peche posted:This is quite interesting, you've kind of already answered my question! I've done a bit of Kali/Arnis/Escrima, and was watching your video thinking that whilst you'd obviously done something related to fighting, the other guy really didn't know what he was doing. I've got a few friends that do some LARP (it's not my thing), and they always hold that knowing what they're doing in an actual fight makes the pretend fighting loads easier. I guess it's like you say, the 'hard' skills make a whole lot of difference. It's an interesting thing to learn. I've always found the whole LARP thing cringey as gently caress, in fairness. Each to their own, but it's not my thing. However, one of them died recently, and guess where his wake is going to be? I'm going to be borrowing some armour... If you're scottish/from the Aberdeen area, colour me scared at the smallness of the world.. (a close friend of mine from Uni and LARP died last month and we're holding his wake at the Gathering this year.) And yeah, having any sort of background in a combat sport helps. I'm not sure about how well unarmed martial arts would transfer across directly, though I guess even just the concept of maintaining your balance and responding to incoming blows would help. I've seen some truly awesome escrima-based ambidex fighters in my time; my own ambi style is more a combination of my fencing background and being genuinely ambidextrous rather than any formal training. Fun fact. I broke my shoulder at the start of a linear (I guess the equivalent of 'an adventure', where a smaller group goes to deal with plot/monsters in a seperate location of the site); my right arm simply stopped working so I switched over to my left, fought on for the next hour until I was the last man standing and THEN went to first aid. Not my smartest of moments, but eh.
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Aug 14, 2015 00:03
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de la peche posted:No, I'm from Cornwall! The Kali two-sticks (or stick and dagger) type stuff seems to be great for building a bit of ambidexterity, you just get it forced on you till it makes sense. I think my friend went to something called Dumnonni (I'm not sure)? Yeah, Dunmonni chronicles. A game I've always been interested in checking out- I've heard nothing but great things about it. Condolences about your friend. It shouldn't surprise me that two larpers died in the same summer; the community is actually pretty big in the UK. Still feels weird to think about though.
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Aug 14, 2015 00:12
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Ghogargi posted:This is a long one. The links are all optionally clickable - just for people who want to see/hear the actual events. Some friends of mine run a modern horror game called SlenderLARP, and this sounds almost exactly the same as what they're trying to achieve, just rather more technically advanced. Kudos, I'd play that game in a loving heartbeat, and I normally get bored by zero-combat systems!
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Aug 21, 2015 21:55
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Vagon posted:So.. What happens when a good looking, charismatic person shows up to one of these events? Do they already? Do the pitchforks come out by the other guys/girls(Depending on the gender of said newcomer) or does some insane cult of personality prop up around them? Speaking for the events I go to, it's mostly just normal looking people; perhaps with a preponderance towards facial hair and nerdy hobbies, but barring a few outliers nothing you wouldn't see down your normal town centre (y'know, except for everyone wearing chain mail and poo poo). When I started larping I was tall, blond, slim and ripped (now I'm just tall and blond with the biggest shoulders in the field) so I came in for a lot of flirting, but nothing ever came of it. I did have one toothless crone from the unicorns faction try to interest me in a threesome (the Unicorns have a reputation for such things, like the Bears do for alcoholism and the Vipers for being potheads), but I didn't take her up on it despite not having had a sniff of pussy in eight months at the time. ;p Given I play a pimp in-game I've had some people make and female not know where the line lies between IC and OOC but generally just a friendly 'not interested' or 'inappropriate' solves the issue.
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Aug 24, 2015 09:13
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BiggerBoat posted:
If you don't mind an alternative perspective I'll answer some of these myself from the other side of the LARP hobby. quote:- Anyone ever break into your game and gently caress with you guys or aggressively make fun of you? People and families walking through the same park or campground or drunk frat bros making fun of nerds and loving up your game? For the mainline LT events they take place at a stately home with public rights of way running through parts of the site, so you do get some ransoms passing by (and often quite a crowd of onlookers for the major battles). Generally the worst response is slight bemusement, but most people are genuinely interested in it all. Sadly there is a group of locals who have been known to come onto site and steal from unattended tents- we have a pretty strong volunteer security team but obviously they can't be everywhere at once. Fortunately during 'time in' outsiders stand out by the simple fact of not being in costume. quote:- Anyone ever get physically hurt in the play fights? Or hurt themselves? Threaten to? Like, "my character is going to attempt suicide" sort of thing? Sadly this does happen. I broke my right shoulder in combat last year (I believe through a weapon-lock that went bad, putting too much torque through the top of my arm) which was absolute agony and crippled me for several months. Most common are concussions from overenthuasiastically swung pole-arms, foot and ankle injuries from people slipping, tripping or getting their feet stomped on in heavy line-fights and heatstroke/dehydration from people not taking proper care of themselves on hot days and forgetting that beer=/= water. There's a very good first-aid team on site, as well as very strong marshal and referee presence during heavy combat. The community is also largely self-policing; if people are fighting like assholes and not pulling blows etc, they will almost always get reported or 'corrected' by other players. quote:- I know you mentioned sex, but how common was drug usage and drinking? Did people load up on wine and rationalize it by saying it was blood or that they were in character? There's a massively strong drinking culture at every UK fest system I've attended. Aside from a large site-run beer tent pretty much every group will have its own supply of booze and cracking a beer is considered absolutely standard hospitality. It's actually surprising there aren't more visibly smashed people around at any time of the day; mead, beer, ale, cider and spirits are consumed in absolutely colossal quantities. As for drugs; weed is absolutely everywhere and every faction camp will have multiple hotbox tents. Generally smoking dope falls under so called 'Rule 7'- that is, 'don't take the piss'. Officially there's a zero tolerance policy on it, but many MANY larpers toke and the only time I've heard of people getting in trouble for it is when they were doing it in the open during daylight and around kids or faction musters when it simply couldn't be ignored. Harder stuff I've never really encountered before in the field, except for one mad woman in my group who was a full-on morphine addict and was loudly shouting around that she had Valium for sale. She was a full-on nutcase though and didn't stick around long. To be honest, heavy narcotics, hallucinogens and so on aren't really compatible with LARP from both a safety and practicality viewpoint. quote:- For the people with kids, what did they do with them? Hire sitters or just leave them in a tent and go play make believe? Did anyone ever involve their kids in the game and say "this is Alucard! My spawn! son of WhatevertheFuck and make he or she into a character? At what age(s)? Did the kids like it? Both the LT and its main rival Empire are considered family systems- they have specific kids plot for those aged 7 and up, and there are always lots of small people around during the daytime. I personally love it (and monstering for kids plot is amazing fun, though it's a good idea to wear a cup- small ones swing at groin height for me!). There's also a lot of second-generation larpers- the LT has been running since the very early 90s and the kids of the students who attended back then are now hitting mid teenaged years or more. I don't know of any 'three generations in the field' groups, but if there aren't some out there already then there will be soon! It's actually the biggest event of the season tomorrow- I have to drive about 500 miles tomorrow in a lovely hire van to collect people and tentage, and my girlfriend is working hard finishing off a kobold costume for her new character, so things are a little fraught. Gonna be worth it though when I get there and crack the first beer in my brothel. There's going to be anything up to 4500 people in the field, and the Gathering is when you get the most casual players appearing; I'll make sure to keep any eye out for any particularly hilarious (or for that matter, awesome) costumes and get some pics to share for people's edification and amusement.
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Aug 26, 2015 11:50
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CheeseThief posted:This has been a very interesting thread, every story has been very engaging. To be fair, the 'sitting around in the camp till something happens' is a common experience of brand new LARPers- you don't have the connections, IC knowledge or OOC knowledge to really get out there and hurl yourself into poo poo, and (at least in my case) shyness is a big factor too- I spent the first couple of years of LARP IC bullshitting and drinking in my group's tent, and going out for a mosh whenever monsters appeared or PVP happened. This Gathering just past though, I was so unbelievably busy I couldn't begin to describe everything I did. As you spend more time in a system you get to know what you can and should do so much better. MikeCrotch posted:LARPing is destroying my life and soul because the pictures just came back from the last event and i'm eating in pretty much every one of them. I am the fat LARPer stereotype Amen to that. I use the photos from each year's august event to compare myself year on year, and gently caress I'm looking older and chunkier than I have for a very long time. :/
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Sep 15, 2015 11:19
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Milky Moor posted:Basically. Very few people, when doing roleplay - LARP, MUSH, forum, IRL, whatever - ever think about what type of game they'd want to play beyond the genre of it and what sort of message they want to send to their players through it. To be honest, it really is a case of same-poo poo different system. As I mentioned in the furry thread, I had a longtime and very unhealthy addiction to MU* games for years- to be honest, my experience of them is probably closer to what the OP of this thread describes than my experience of LARP (in the circles I play in, it's altogether a more healthy hobby). I'm actually curious as to which MU*s are still active out there- the last few I played on were StarwarsMUSH and GarouMUSH up till about 2010 (actually now I think about it, all the OP's points about Lifers in WoD LARP /very/ much carry through to some of the player base of GarouMUSH).
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Sep 16, 2015 15:48
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Cyrano4747 posted:Whoa. You're the first person I've ever met out in the rest of the world who was on that. I was active for about 3 years in high school, probably ~1999-2001. Holy poo poo. Then our times crossed over. I was Kizuka on there, in the Empire from like 2000 or so.
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Sep 16, 2015 16:19
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HopperUK posted:Holy poo poo, I was on GarouMUSH back in the day, though not for very long. I remember they took forever to approve applications. Goddamn. I've had players from Starwrsmush, Garou and the Lion King Muck all turn up here (though there are a few others who play on Garou here, or did- Nerdymcnerdnerd I know for sure). And yeah, they had application times down to about a week or two when I was on there from 07-10, but some of the long term players (some who had been there for more than 20 years) really were loving toxic individuals. The whole 'lifer' poo poo that the OP has talked about was very much there, though I didn't recognise it as such. There were some good folk there too though- in the summers of 09 and 10 my best buddy and I did two huge us road trips which largely involved visiting players from Garou. Had some good tImes.
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Sep 17, 2015 08:43
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Kerafyrm posted:I was on GarouMUSH for a long, long time (2008-2013 or so), but finally kinda woke up to the toxicity of MUSH RP in general, especially in the WoD circles (The Reach, anyone?). Those places practically require you to focus your life around the game or else you don't get anywhere, and while as a high school/college student that was doable, it kinda fed some of my introverted tendencies and made them so much worse. Dropping MUSH RP has been one of the most freeing things I've done. Oh, who were you? That'd overlap with my time on the game. Totally agree with you about MU* RP though- I pretty much wasted most of my 20s and my entire university career through being logged into a multitude of games throughout. Only stopped in 2010 when I realised A. that I was caring more about my Garoumush character's relationships than actually trying to find a girlfriend IRL and B. that it was full of broken, weird people for the most part (there are and remain some people who play on that game who I care about deeply though) and it'd only drag me down to their level. Edit: Wait, think I have you. Kimpe?
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Sep 27, 2015 22:13
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HopperUK posted:Goddamn yeah. Ugh the waste. It's not like you even learn to write well. Yeah, I used to write for pleasure before I got into MU*s.. I then didn't produce /anything/ for more than a decade as it used all my creative energy and also taught me a really loving stilted method of description. Oh, and forgive the double post but last weekend I went to a local LARP event which showed everything positive that such games can be. It was actually pretty amazing having a game with zero drama, an absolute minimum of character breaking and everyone just getting on together and having an amazing time creating a fictional world together. Very different from the Fest systems that I'm used to playing, but just as different from the WoD stuff that the OP has been talking about primarily. Really, I'm still processing it all- I only went along as it was an event a friend had thrown together at short notice, but it turned out to be one of the most amazingly fun weekends of my life. Gangster-themed game, high kit standards, a perfect location tucked away in the country.. The way I've been describing it to non-LARPers is 'A load of friends got together in 1920s costume to play cards, drink whiskey and listen to jazz all weekend. It then got even more awesome'. Have some pictures.     
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Sep 27, 2015 22:33
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Mr.Bob posted:Are you guys pointing real guns at each other? Airsoft, replicas or deacts, no gas or BBs permitted on site. It /really/ aids immersion. Biggest sadness was that no blank gas shots/PFC weapons were permitted, but that's down to insurance reasons.
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Sep 28, 2015 18:01
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My Man Shran posted:"I may appear to be a 350 pound bag of fat enclosed in skin that has never known the touch of soap, but you need to remember that I have level 69 charisma and and +7 to sexhaving while we're in this house. Okay?" In fest/'boffer" LARP (for the record I loving hate that phrase) there's generally a certain level of 'hard skills' required to play certain roles- as there are no stats for charisma or appearance or poo poo like that, if you're a munter you just won't be able to play a super attractive character. Yeah, some soft skills can fill in gaps but the number of supposedly amazing fighters in heavy armour with a well loaded stat sheet that I've taken to pieces with just a frock coat and rapier gives the lie to that. To be fair though, if people's soft skills are defeated by hard skills I've only really seen respect and a desire to improve come as a result. Some people do however think they're a lot more cunning and Machiavellian than they actually are though- my housemate is infamous for coming up with sneaky political manoeuvring, bragging about how devious he is to people and then being surprised when it all blows up in his face.
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Oct 1, 2015 10:53
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Pron on VHS posted:Yeah, figured something this pathetic would be the exclusive domain of white ppl Anecdotally I know about ten or so black or Asian (as in, Indian/Pakistani looking) LARPers by sight, though that's admittedly because they really stand out. I've actually often wondered why that is- as a hobby at least in the circles I move in it's extremely anti-racist and inclusive. I've never once heard of any form of racist abuse at an event (well, I tell a lie- one guy claimed he was racially abused by northern irish people for being from Eire, but given the dude in question is A. a pathological liar, B. extremely creepy and C. tends to make /everyone/ hate him in a short space of time, I'm not sure how much truth there is to that.) In fact, given I've been overwhelmingly pro-LARP and pro-LARPer in this thread, in the interests of balance I might as well tell a brief story about him to show that there are bad apples in the systems I do too. I got to know this guy when a new system called 'The Vale' was starting up- it had a very cool concept (effectively it's WoW's Arathi Basin in terms of style- two competing camps fighting over resources over several hundred acres of reclaimed quarry and woodland). I had a desire to play a musketeer type character and he was the leader of one of the groups which was based off renaissance Venice by way of Richelieu's France and Tyrras from Game Of Thrones. So I sign up to this group and attend the first event. Now, I'm generally a pretty easy going guy- I tend to give people a lot of rope to hang themselves with and if you've seen my furry thread, my levels of tolerance sometimes even shock myself in retrospect. So I didn't mind too much the clusterfuck that our group became; okay, so the rest of our faction hated us for some reason. Sucks to be them! So we appear to be getting jack poo poo done, all the resource gathering we carry out doesn't seem to be translating into any in game benefits.. there must be some reason outside the group for this! And so on. Because if there's one thing I'm good at it's organising and leading groups of nerds, I ended up as the second in command of the group at the end of that first event. I missed the next one due to breaking my shoulder last summer (at a LARP event in fact) and spending a month dosed up on tramadol and unable to even lift my sword arm. Later in the summer event 3 rolls around, and I'm fighting fit again. Now, Evan (I'm not going to bother using a pseudonym because frankly the guy's an utter twat) gets in touch with me. He'd lost his character at event 2 and wanted to try and get into the noble politics of the camp with his new character- given we were technically outsiders, this meant he'd have to arrange a marriage IC to get involved. Oh, as a side note he fancied himself as a massively smooth political operator and general manipulator when in fact he couldn't machinate his way out of a wet paper bag with a hole in it. But I digress. My girlfriend (the lovely lady in pinstripe in the gangster pics posted upthread) was interested in giving the Vale a try, so decided as a favour to play a noble lady for Evan's character to marry and so on. To be honest, I should have figured this wouldn't end well, but eh. Hindsight etc. So we genned her character, put together a background, made/bought kit and the like and went along to the event. Now, my other half is one of the most easy going people out there. She's very hard to offend or piss off indeed- we met in the furry fandom, and she checked out of it a while before I did, but that gives you an idea of how much idiocy she's able to cope with without it getting to her too badly. So when we got less than a few hours into the event and she told me she was already having second thoughts about the whole idea, I paid attention. Now, this is all stuff that I found out post-event, which is probably for the best (I have an amazingly long fuse, but it's also attached to an extremely powerful and violent temper, and loving with people I love is the best way to shortcut it entirely), but I discovered after the fact that this random (fat, ugly and generally unseemly) dude had A. tried to kiss her just after the wedding ceremony (as in, properly kiss- a peck on the cheek or whatever is pretty much acceptable, at least to us), B. That every time they were sitting near to each other his hands would start to spread out until he was full-on touching her arse and C. that he had repeatedly undermined her, fed her wrong information and basically tried to make her look stupid next to him. In addition to this, this self-proclaimed political expert began to demonstrate why we were so hated. The entire aim of the game was to capture and control resources, then use them to power up each camp- however, Evan seemed more concerned with having them in a pile in front of him so he could run his fingers through them over and over. He had a massive black throne commissioned and built for him as well, which was frankly the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Basically everything about his group was intended to make his sad, fat, ugly, retarded and crippled self look impressive, powerful and cool. Well that didn't work out for him. We ousted him from the group on both an IC and OOC level, and he ended up banned from the system for his behaviour towards Jo and (as later transpired) several other ladies who had felt too scared to make a fuss before word got out about it. And I will say that even though I don't play that game anymore (lack of time and money, lack of engagement with the system and frankly the site is almost entirely 60-degree slopes and too loving exhausting for me to do much on in heavy armour) that the game team did listen to our concerns and problems and provided a /lot/ of support to help deal with the OOC harassment issues. To be honest, the individual I'm describing stands out because he was so very different from the vast majority of LARPers I've encountered over the years. Now, I knew that there was something up but then I got home and the full story emerged. I hit the loving roof, and while she's very much a person who doesn't like to make a fuss and has a great tolerance for bullshit (hell, we've been together four years, so she must do!)
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Oct 1, 2015 16:37
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MikeCrotch posted:Omigod I know this guy, he is such a shitstain Yeah, he tried to do the same at the Vale- though for some reason I ended up footing the bill for several people he left in the lurch. Edit: I'm sure we have mutual friends as well as a mutual object of hate and derision, if we've not actually met and not known it. Camrath fucked around with this message at 18:30 on Oct 1, 2015 |
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Oct 1, 2015 18:18
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MikeCrotch posted:LARP in the UK is going through an interesting period as there has been a crop of new, high quality LARPS while the biggest 2 systems (Lorien Trust and Empire) have pretty opposite viewpoints on a lot of important stuff, so you are seeing a bunch of changes in a short time. There's also a profusion of smaller systems, especially high immersion ones. And some pretty out-there concepts. Mandala LRP ran a game called 'Zapfest' that was half cheesy 50s sci-fi movie and half playing the actors in said 50s sci-fi. Really wish I'd got a ticket to that one actually, it sounded amazing.
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Oct 16, 2015 17:21
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Armagnac posted:Uhm... As cool as & fun this looks, and a 20's larp sounds amazing... There are *way* too many real guns in america, and I would not be anywhere near this if the guns looked anywhere near real. The second the cops are called, or some redneck stumbles upon the game, I can just imagine it turning out really badly. Others have already pointed out about Airsoft, and the same principle applies. This particular LARP (together with others that i'v attended using realistic looking guns) took place on a closed and private site, with the police already informed that there'd be a load of geeks in 20s gear with period firearms. Certainly you'd never run an event with gear like that say, in a bar in a city or what have you. The venue for that event (which is one of the best LARP sites I've used) is a Victorian school in the country which has been repurposed specifically to act as a LARP (and other outdoor activity) location. It's called Oakraven and it's frankly amazing. Even has secret doors cut through the walls and floors.
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Oct 20, 2015 12:16
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The French Army! posted:What the gently caress happened to people? They used to be forced to socialize and be relatively normal until the Internet came along and those folks who rightfully deserve to be shunned by society instead have a place where they can all pat each other on the back and reassure themselves that poo poo like this is normal. LARP predates the Internet by some margin (or at least the widespread use/popularity of it). Hell, the Lorien Trust (the system I mainly play in) goes back to the very early 1990s, and there are uk systems still running that go back to the late 70s/early 80s.
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Oct 22, 2015 14:58
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Milky Moor posted:But, really, I can't think of anything that positive to say about LARPing. I think it could be that, a., it promotes physical activity in people who need it and, b., it can help teach some people skills like tailoring, prop-making and so on. As I've stated at length, the type of LARP I do and the people I LARP with are very different from the Camarilla crowd (at least for the most part), but I certainly know people who have been positively affected by LARP, and I count myself among them. I've always been a loud, somewhat bombastic person who makes a big impression (for good or for ill, and that persona for a long time was a way of dealing with major social anxiety.. But I digress). So people would often end up looking to me for leadership in many different contexts. However I had absolutely no idea for much of my life how to lead, how to inspire or organise or to basically take any sort of position in charge of people. I learned how through LARP- being able to learn and practice these skills in what was basically a rl-consequence free environment did me a huge amount of good. And the skills I picked up through running what was basically a comedy fantasy police force (the Militia in the LT) have translated into all sorts of worthwhile and rewarding roles in the real world- hell, I picked up a promotion at my current job that basically doubled my salary by practicing the skills I learned shouting at people in a field. Likewise, I've seen several friends of mine manage to break through social or emotional issues via role play- a very close friend of mine is the most quiet, anxious and timid guy you could ever meet. But get him in a field in his skaven gear and he becomes my personal murderbot who takes poo poo from nobody. He's only been attending events for a little over a year but you can already see the changes in him in how he reacts to situations, in how he takes control of events and in how much his confidence has increased. Really, if you let it it can very much be a way to reinforce negative behaviours (and I think the regular weekly or monthly entirely stay-based systems are worse for this), but if you approach it as a way to try and break your habits in a safe space, then it really can be a force for good. I've written elsewhere at length about my time in the furry fandom, and my experiences there are far closer to most of the horror stories of oversexed nerds that people have been sharing here than my time in a LARP field. Basically in the circles I love in and the games I play, if you're a dick you're going to get called on it; if you're broken then people will try and help and support you rather than try and trap you in that brokenness, and frankly weird sexual poo poo is not considered to have any place in the game. And I say that as the owner and operator of the best in-character brothel that the LT has ever had. :p
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Oct 26, 2015 16:15
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MikeCrotch posted:Like, this thread is specifically about LARP horror stories. There are plenty of people who go to LARP because it is fun and good and do not get into super weird incestous gently caress webs. I'm soo sick of seeing that loving war rhino everywhere..
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Oct 26, 2015 18:31
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