LARP

[Abethedemon]

I think LARPing is fun. Plus, it's exercise, which a lot of these neckbeards who play these games, usually don't get.

 

[The Knife's Husbando]

Back in the day, I used to be a member of the most god-awful half-ass Vampire: the Masquerade LARP group. After about the third meet-up, after I saw that the game mechanics were so derped-up as to make the game basically unplayable, I just started showing up for the drama & hilarious bullshit.

Which there was in abundance.

First of all, the game was only nominally VTM, but also incorporated in the other (then) two White Wolf games, Werewolf and Changeling. We had four separate sub-storytellers that had almost no communication between themselves about anything plot-related, under a main ST who was more interested most nights on hitting on attractive noobs than keeping sober or directing the story along.

All of the above was run out of comics/gaming shop at a local strip mall, with no notice to any of the other shops as to when it would be going on and what exactly would be happening. And since this was the only LARP/WW gaming opportunity in about a hundred mile radius, the turnout was huge. A slow night was fifty something players. An average night was seventy-five or so drunk/high nerds in trenchcoats with real katanas & other fantasy swords stashed under them, Gothy girls in corsets and goth makeup, a few furry "werewolves" in bondage gear, and high girls in sundresses with Halloween fairy wings throwing glitter everywhere. All in one spot derping around, with the public at large having no idea what they were doing.

Let that sink in a minute.

I ended up leaving for good when the cops got called on a dude I know who got a gun pulled on him when he drew his sword at a guy who yelled at him for hiding behind his car during a scene in the parking lot when he was coming out a store in the strip.

 

[Four-Wheeled Fedora]

I have a friend who got into LARPing and I've been drinking with his LARP friends a couple of times and I have to say I honestly hate them all. They are like high school D&D nerds without the charm, just a gang of gross balding dudes trying to hook up with the one chick that showed up. There's also always a polyamourous guy trolling for dates there, who constantly throws out the fact that he and his ogre of a wife are looking for another woman to have sex with them.

 

[RJ MacReady]

Watch Darkon my niggaz

This. Darkon's a very good documentary about a LARP group in Baltimore. Most of the players are adults with families, so they have some interesting perspectives on their game.

If anyone wants a documentary that's easy to laugh at: Monster Camp. It's not very well made and it confirms every LARP nerd stereotype you can think of, being mostly about acne-blasted teenagers.

They're both interesting stories. I wonder where a lot of those people are today.

 

[MasterDisaster]

This was the video of LARPing that kept me from ever getting into it as an adult.

It's so edgy and hardcore how could any self-respecting adult not want to be a part of it?

 

[John Titor]

I'm just going to leave this here.

Does the airsoft scene count? My friends have convinced me that they are just larpers for pretend military action.

 

[Slowboat to China]

Eh, LARPing can be fun if you don't make a huge deal out of how srs bsns it is. Most LARPers I've met fall into two camps: the "this is something I do one weekend a month, because it's fun to camp out and hunt pretend zombies" camp, and the "I am so invested in my character that I have no self left" camp. The latter tend to be the loudest, so they naturally get more attention.

 

[Surtur]

I ended up leaving for good when the cops got called on a dude I know who got a gun pulled on him when he drew his sword at a guy who yelled at him for hiding behind his car during a scene in the parking lot when he was coming out a store in the strip.

Tell us more.

 

[TheMightyMonarch]

Eh. Like everyone else here, I don't think larping is as bad as a hobby. Like if you work a 9 to 5 job and want to blow off stream after work or on the weekends, that's fine. But when it gets to the point where it becomes the main thing in your life, then that's just sad. And to be fair, I think that could be said for any "nerdy" interests (Like being a furry or writing fanfiction).

 

[The Knife's Husbando]

Tell us more.

Well, the aforementioned incident was simple enough. Dude came out of the drugstore next door, saw a weirdo hiding behind his ride, and yelled WTF he was doing. "Vampire" dude was drunk, and pulled his sword. Dude then pulled his pistol and informed vampire dude he'd drill his ass if he took a step further & called the cops. It ended up with the dude that pulled the sword not only almost getting shot, but also getting arrested. And a huge panic when someone saw the fella that pulled the pistol yelled "GUN!" and everyone ran like fuck back towards the store. En mass. That ended up with a few goths going to the ER after getting trampled. I realized right then and there it was only a matter of time before someone actually got killed. IRL.

But that was just the cherry on the BS sundae. Crazy shit went down there on a daily basis whenever they were playing. People getting high in public, making out in odd corners, and it was an odd play-night when one in-game fight didn't spill over into a real-life brawl due to miscommunication and rule lawyer-ing.

If it tells you anything, it finally got shut down when the main Storyteller was caught by the owner getting a drunken hand-job from another player in his car, who was all of 15, in the middle of a big in-game battle.

 

[AnOminous]

Well, the aforementioned incident was simple enough. Dude came out of the drugstore next door, saw a weirdo hiding behind his ride, and yelled WTF he was doing. "Vampire" dude was drunk, and pulled his sword. Dude then pulled his pistol and informed vampire dude he'd drill his ass if he took a step further & called the cops.

If he'd just flat out shot him, he'd probably have gotten away with it, too.

 

[Surtur]

Well, the aforementioned incident was simple enough. Dude came out of the drugstore next door, saw a weirdo hiding behind his ride, and yelled WTF he was doing. "Vampire" dude was drunk, and pulled his sword. Dude then pulled his pistol and informed vampire dude he'd drill his ass if he took a step further & called the cops. It ended up with the dude that pulled the sword not only almost getting shot, but also getting arrested. And a huge panic when someone saw the fella that pulled the pistol yelled "GUN!" and everyone ran like fuck back towards the store. En mass. That ended up with a few goths going to the ER after getting trampled. I realized right then and there it was only a matter of time before someone actually got killed. IRL.

But that was just the cherry on the BS sundae. Crazy shit went down there on a daily basis whenever they were playing. People getting high in public, making out in odd corners, and it was an odd play-night when one in-game fight didn't spill over into a real-life brawl due to miscommunication and rule lawyer-ing.

If it tells you anything, it finally got shut down when the main Storyteller was caught by the owner getting a drunken hand-job from another player in his car, who was all of 15, in the middle of a big in-game battle.

So is pedophilia a common theme in LARPs?

 

[Strelok]

I dunno if this counts, but I know there was a big fuss in my highschool back in the day when some kid who was a civil war reenactor was stupid enough to store his musket in the bed of his pickup truck in the school lot.

 

[millais]

Here's a VICE documentary about an aspie autist and an ADF-lite tranny who LARP. Foam swords, rubber elf ears, face paint, you can't make this shit up.

 

[c-no]

I dunno if this counts, but I know there was a big fuss in my highschool back in the day when some kid who was a civil war reenactor was stupid enough to store his musket in the bed of his pickup truck in the school lot.

Don't think civil war reenactment counts as LARP though there could no doubt LARPers trying out civil war style LARP and no doubt making it be cringe.

Here's a VICE documentary about an aspie autist and an ADF-lite tranny who LARP. Foam swords, rubber elf ears, face paint, you can't make this shit up.

The ADF-Lite tranny brings Chris to mind.

 

[millais]

Don't think civil war reenactment counts as LARP though there could no doubt LARPers trying out civil war style LARP and no doubt making it be cringe.

Not to derail too much, but I do have one funny anecdote about American Civil War reenactors. During the filming of the critically acclaimed 1993 epic "Gettysburg", in lieu of hiring extras to flesh out the massive battle scenes, the producers had the clever idea of simply putting out some flyers for Civil War reenactors. Literally overnight, thousands of hobbyists showed up in droves, willing to volunteer their services for free and bringing along their own uniforms, guns, and props. At first the producers of the film were ecstatic at having found such an authentic and cost-saving alternative to extras and costume department, but they quickly found out that the majority of the volunteer reenactors were too visibly overweight to be used in anything other than brief long distance shots.

The ADF-Lite tranny brings Chris to mind.

Yeah his hair is closer to Chris's in appearance.

 

[Butta Face Lopez]

My dad and grandpa do the Civil War reenacting. They wanted me to do it but I am genuinely concerned that I am not cool enough to offset doing such things.

Also:

Spoiler

 

[the Borg]

I have a fun story about LARPing, TLDR at the bottom.

LARPing is always something I wanted to try. When I was 20, I attended my first LARP session with a few friends that did it. Some medieval fantasy thing, where a faction of Rebels was plotting to kill the King and take the throne, there was a literal book written in a word document about the world we were playing in. It was 327 fucking pages. I found this obsessive and weird, I read some, skimmed a bit, and then put it to rest.

It was pretty cool, since I was the new guy, the "King" crowned me as a knight and I swore fealty or whatever, since I had 11 years of D&D behind me at that point, I was pretty good at making a character on the spot. The first few months went alright, I took fencing in college so I had some idea of swordplay and that gave me a slight advantage. After every session, we went out to get food, it was like the scene of a movie that I'm forgetting (Role Models?).

Then, a "rebel" came up to me when I was shopping and slipped me a note, in character, in a Walbaums, in a completely different town that I knew he didn't live anywhere near. I chalked it up as coincidence and he probably had that note handy for any knight that was in the area. Anyway, the note basically said that I should join the Rebels and all of the other chess pieces were in place, they just needed a Knight on the inside. Of course, I agreed, why not make the game a little more interesting, the knight life was getting boring.

Funny things happen when people get obsessed with LARP. At the next session, the King seemed on edge around me, he kept his talk around me short, as did all of the knights and wizards (fuck i just typed that, didn't i?). The rebel was a double agent and ratted me out. The King didn't even invite me to get food afterwards, the whole group left without me. A few sessions of this, and I got fed up. I went up to the Arch-Wizard (fuck i just typed that) and asked him what was going on. He called me a traitor and told me that if I read such and such page of the 327 page document about the world, I would know that I was not following the knight guidelines for role playing or some shit.

I stopped attending. A few weeks went by with no incident. While at my grandmothers house, 40 miles away and in a completely different county, I saw a few guys walk past her window. Once, twice, they kept walking by, I was considering calling the cops but they left. I bumped into people at the supermarket a few times, one of them "accidentally" dropped a glass jar right in front of me. They left notes in my mailbox, they left foam knives on my doorstep, and one dude put a green napkin on a table next to me at a McDonalds (green napkins meant that the food or drink was poisoned in the LARP group).

Instead, I got a real job instead of working in a CostCo and I moved.

Teal Deer: I didn't read the geekonomicon of this LARP world, got stalked when I stopped attending.

 

[Surtur]

I have a fun story about LARPing, TLDR at the bottom.

LARPing is always something I wanted to try. When I was 20, I attended my first LARP session with a few friends that did it. Some medieval fantasy thing, where a faction of Rebels was plotting to kill the King and take the throne, there was a literal book written in a word document about the world we were playing in. It was 327 fucking pages. I found this obsessive and weird, I read some, skimmed a bit, and then put it to rest.

It was pretty cool, since I was the new guy, the "King" crowned me as a knight and I swore fealty or whatever, since I had 11 years of D&D behind me at that point, I was pretty good at making a character on the spot. The first few months went alright, I took fencing in college so I had some idea of swordplay and that gave me a slight advantage. After every session, we went out to get food, it was like the scene of a movie that I'm forgetting (Role Models?).

Then, a "rebel" came up to me when I was shopping and slipped me a note, in character, in a Walbaums, in a completely different town that I knew he didn't live anywhere near. I chalked it up as coincidence and he probably had that note handy for any knight that was in the area. Anyway, the note basically said that I should join the Rebels and all of the other chess pieces were in place, they just needed a Knight on the inside. Of course, I agreed, why not make the game a little more interesting, the knight life was getting boring.

Funny things happen when people get obsessed with LARP. At the next session, the King seemed on edge around me, he kept his talk around me short, as did all of the knights and wizards (fuck i just typed that, didn't i?). The rebel was a double agent and ratted me out. The King didn't even invite me to get food afterwards, the whole group left without me. A few sessions of this, and I got fed up. I went up to the Arch-Wizard (fuck i just typed that) and asked him what was going on. He called me a traitor and told me that if I read such and such page of the 327 page document about the world, I would know that I was not following the knight guidelines for role playing or some shit.

I stopped attending. A few weeks went by with no incident. While at my grandmothers house, 40 miles away and in a completely different county, I saw a few guys walk past her window. Once, twice, they kept walking by, I was considering calling the cops but they left. I bumped into people at the supermarket a few times, one of them "accidentally" dropped a glass jar right in front of me. They left notes in my mailbox, they left foam knives on my doorstep, and one dude put a green napkin on a table next to me at a McDonalds (green napkins meant that the food or drink was poisoned in the LARP group).

Instead, I got a real job instead of working in a CostCo and I moved.

Teal Deer: I didn't read the geekonomicon of this LARP world, got stalked when I stopped attending.

...wtf?

 

[Watcher]

I never liked the idea of LARPing. The whole thing comes across as too awkward for my liking.

At least with Dungeons and Dragons you do it in a dude's house and you play it at a table. Instead of making a fool of yourself in public.