Animosity between traditional gamers and LARPers?

[Umbran]

The Intercon's on the East coast of the US - in Boston and New Jersey - are a great place to be exposed to all of the options and varieties of games, styles, and rules.

Intercon C - in March, in Chelmsford Mass, is the next one. I don't have a handy link, but try a google search for it, it will pop up.

Actually, Zog, that's not quite correct.

The next Intercon is Intercon XVII. It's in the Baltimore area, October 4-6.

After that is Intercon C in Chelmsford, MA, Feb 28 to March 3, 2003.

Intercons labelled with a letter tend to be northerly. Intercons with a number tend to be southerly.

In general, for the curious, there's the LARP FAQ from rec.games.frp.live-action.

 

[Zog]

Danke Umbran.

I hoped that if I mentioned them, someone would post the correct info.

 

[Ruined]

But I helped run the LARP at Origins in '98 and '99. And besides that I've been in dozens of Convention LARPs (all based on White Wolf's World of Darkness).

Hey Cedric, which games did you run? My group and I were regulars at the Origins Larps, chances are we were there. Good games, from what I remember.

I helped run a Vampire Larp for two years. It was a lot fun and it was one tremendous headache. I never really found any animosity towards table-top games there, except for a few players who were apprehensive because they never played table-top. Most of them were like me, having come from the ranks of D&D and many other games. In fact, three of the best players I have now I met at the Larp.

I remember laughing at the Larpers when I didn't understand what they were doing. Of course at the time, I was playing games of Magic: the Gathering, so go figure...

 

[Tsyr]

i regularly buy sword and sorcery studios stuff but i hate white wolf stoeytellers players. odd.

You hate... the players? Ummm... That includes me, you know... I'm hated because I play a game? I mean, I could understand it if it was FATAL, or that strange white-surpremisist RPG that someone posted a link to a few months back, but...

 

[takyris]

One of my friends went to a LARP thingie -- Fantasy, not Vampire -- and came away with an interesting take on it.

He said that he didn't have fun, and the reason that he didn't have fun was that everyone was too cautious. In the campaigns, the not-one-shot stuff, everyone was so attached to their character and so into being dramatic and cool that the end result was a bunch of people standing around being guarded and saying things ominously and trying never to actually make a real choice.

We've got one LARPer in my PnP group. Frankly, this is the way he acts in our game, too. Never makes any committed choice. Never actually acts in any proactive manner -- I have to start every fight, because if I don't, he'll continue to say things like, "I glare at him meaningfully," and since he has a Charisma of 10 and no ranks in Intimidate, that ain't gonna cut it.

While the bad end of PnP people is munchkinism, the bad end of LARPers is the group in which everyone wants to be the brooding, ominous, impossible-to-read antihero without ever making any choice that might hurt their character or change the comfortable situation they're currently in.

The LARPer in our group also complains loudly when, as the DM, I have large-scale things happen to the world. He won't seek out adventure on his own, and he complains when I do things that foist adventure on him... real joy of a gamer. Apparently he'd rather be LARPing an episode of Friends, sitting around in the coffee shop saying ominous and guarded things with the others.

Does any of that hold water, or am I unfairly branding all LARPers based on what I've seen in one guy and heard from another guy? Are there LARPers who will voluntarily make a stupid choice -- who could actually say, "Well, if YOU think you disarmed the trap, that's good enough for me!" and trot on through the doorway without a second thought? Who would make choices that they the PERSON know will result in their character going down in flames?

-Tacky

 

[JacktheRabbit]

One thought comes to mind.

When the average person thinks of a psychotic gamer with no life who ends up getting himself killed over one stupid thing or another they don't think of a regular gamer.

They think of a LARP who dresses the role and actually acts it out.

 

[Tsyr]

One of my friends went to a LARP thingie -- Fantasy, not Vampire -- and came away with an interesting take on it.

He said that he didn't have fun, and the reason that he didn't have fun was that everyone was too cautious. In the campaigns, the not-one-shot stuff, everyone was so attached to their character and so into being dramatic and cool that the end result was a bunch of people standing around being guarded and saying things ominously and trying never to actually make a real choice.

Having participated in a good number of fantasy larps, I can explain this...

When you get bruises from fights, you tend to be less hack-happy. No matter how... safe... the rules seem, accidents happen, I assure you. And not all rules are really that safe... a foam covered fiberglass core can still hurt like hell.

 

[Tsyr]

One thought comes to mind.

When the average person thinks of a psychotic gamer with no life who ends up getting himself killed over one stupid thing or another they don't think of a regular gamer.

They think of a LARP who dresses the role and actually acts it out.

I'm confused. What, exactly, is the point of that thought? I assure you, in reality, LARPers are probably no more likely to actualy go on a killing spree than any other gamer. Or, if we are, we aren't THAT much more likely

Though, I would actualy disagree with your concept alltogether.

The "average person" who thinks of gamers in that fashion doesn't see or know a difference between the two types. Any gamer is every gamer, to them.

 

[pensiv]

Well, I started role-playing 10 years ago with table-top games. (Rifts, Shadowrun, D&D, WW)

A few years ago I got into a Vampire LARP and I played for 3 years. At one of the last games I played there I met my current wife who is pregnant with our first child.

The LARP was fun, when I was in the right mood for it. I had to ignore a lot of bull, but it's the normal bull that you get whenever you get a group of people together.

I've since gotten back into table-top gaming.

I can't say which I enjoy more. They're both fun social experiences. In either case you can get personalities that clash and strange rivalries. You also get a chance to meet good people and make good friends.

Most of the LARPers I played with also played table-top games and CCGs. I've noticed, however, that most of the people I've played D&D with (that I haven't LARPed with) were a lot less amiable toward Vampire LARPing than the LARPers were toward D&D (a few of the LARPers other than myself did both).

I'd say that it's more a matter of who you're playing with than what you're playing. Yes Vampire, naturally, attracts more gothic types that may be anti-D&D because they would be ashamed of role-playing if they weren't playing vampires. This is not the fault of the game, nor is it representative of the entire LARPing population, as already evidenced by previous posters.

If you want to LARP, just like D&D, be sure to play with people you like, or else it's just annoying.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

All I am saying is that LARP people are the epitomy of the bad gamer image people hold.

The guy so screwed up he doesnt know his reality from his fantasy and even dresses up in it.

Accurate or not that is the bad image.

I'm confused. What, exactly, is the point of that thought? I assure you, in reality, LARPers are probably no more likely to actualy go on a killing spree than any other gamer. Or, if we are, we aren't THAT much more likely

Though, I would actualy disagree with your concept alltogether.

The "average person" who thinks of gamers in that fashion doesn't see or know a difference between the two types. Any gamer is every gamer, to them.