Gaming/hobby scares outside America

[Starfox]

That reminds me of an incident that happened here in late 90's. A group of LARPers were playing in a forest near a military base, and stumbled upon a lone military police...

One of my early sins was staging a massive Killer game in Stockholm's Old Town back in the early 80s. Effectively this was a LARP before I had ever heard the term. Seems the police got involved (I never met them). Somebody had reported suspicious people sneaking around, so a few of us got stopped and questioned. Apparently to no effect whatsoever - the game was not broken up despite being 20-something 20-year olds running around in the center of the city stalking each other with toy guns. I only heard the story afterwards.

I wonder if you'd get away with that today, even in Sweden.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

One of my early sins was staging a massive Killer game in Stockholm's Old Town back in the early 80s. Effectively this was a LARP before I had ever heard the term.

Heh, I' hadn't thought about the potential problems with LARPing. Whether it's playing James Bond or cowboys-and-Indians, there could be problems with law enforcement, especially today.

"Killer" sounds like T.A.G., "The Assassination Game", which (iirc) was the name of a film about college kids running around mock killing each other-- effectively a LARP. We did this in highschool for a while in the mid-to-late 80s with plastic guns (we used Laser tag pistols off campus), and by dropping notes in lockers, with labels like "BOOM: you've been blown to pieces!" The administration didn't like it when they caught on, so the game was short lived.

Nowadays? I think you're right: it wouldn't get very. Here, the FBI would be called in and some of the kids involved would probably end up on a "watchlist" of some sort. I suspect it would be the same most places, sadly.

 

[Jan van Leyden]

"Killer" sounds like T.A.G., "The Assassination Game", which (iirc) was the name of a film about college kids running around mock killing each other-- effectively a LARP. We did this in highschool for a while in the mid-to-late 80s with plastic guns (we used Laser tag pistols off campus), and by dropping notes in lockers, with labels like "BOOM: you've been blown to pieces!" The administration didn't like it when they caught on, so the game was short lived.

"Killer" is the name of a proto-LARP published by Steve Jackson Games some 30 years ago, isn't it?

Every player got some information about his target and had to find a way to "kill" it. Creativity was king and it was absolutely forbidden to use anything dangerous or even dangerous looking. You could use a banana as a weapon if you wrote something like "FBI property" on it (poor style), place an air balloon under your target's car as a bomb (much better) or find a way to poison the water supply of his shower with food colouring (way cool!).

If you succeeded, you "inherited" your target's target. Oh, you only knew the details of your target and the game master. Otherwise you didn't have an idea of the other players. 24/7 paranoia!

 

[jonesy]

"Killer" is the name of a proto-LARP published by Steve Jackson Games some 30 years ago, isn't it?

Found here: Killer - The Assassination Game

"Bitten by rubber snakes!
Poisoned with peanuts!
Electrocuted by ropes!
Bombed with pillows!
Shot with a banana!
Hosed & sprinkled, squirted and boffed . . . even ping-ponged!"

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Cool, that all sounds familiar. We got envelopes with info and instructions, blah, blah. Sounds like we were playing a variation of "Killer" and didn't know it.

Hehe, I bet that one the other player's big brother owned it or something and we were making it up as we went along.