Animosity between traditional gamers and LARPers?

[Ziggy]

Boffer Larps rule!

Tho, I understand in England and Europe, they use Latex foam weapons that look really sweet, but are much less soft than our US pvc pipe+foam versions. They're also much better at pulling their blows, I understand.

We do, and they do actually look fairly similar to swords (or a mace or whatever weapon you have made). Of course the weight is still off, but balance and workmanship is still pretty important. They'll hurt a bit if you hit a forbidden area, or if they are improperly made, but there is very strict testing of weapons in all LARP's I've been attending.

The weapons are usually made with a glassfiber or bamboo core, with wraps of tape and foam, with latex as the outside finish. The only disadvantage is that too much direct sun will make the latex beak down, ruining the weapon.

We also use arrows with padded points, making it impossible to hit anything further away than 10 meters Presonally I've never used sword in combat (trained a bit though), but have bought a bow and started training as an archer.

I also notice that we play *very* different regarding system, stats, expreience and death. We don't have any system (except for magic), and neither players have stats or cards. We focus a lot on the role you are playing, usually every players will have several pages of background and plot. The actual playing is very plot oriented, focusing on the interaction between different roles. Combat s not uncommon, but death is final (barring divine intervention). People killed can usually come back as a seperate role, or as an NPC (depening on how far into the session we are). While some groups play linked sessions, we don't "level" or gain experience, just contacts and political, magical or mercantile power between sessions

.Ziggy

 

[Old One]

Which System...

We do, and they do actually look fairly similar to swords (or a mace or whatever weapon you have made). Of course the weight is still off, but balance and workmanship is still pretty important. They'll hurt a bit if you hit a forbidden area, or if they are improperly made, but there is very strict testing of weapons in all LARP's I've been attending.

The weapons are usually made with a glassfiber or bamboo core, with wraps of tape and foam, with latex as the outside finish. The only disadvantage is that too much direct sun will make the latex beak down, ruining the weapon.

We also use arrows with padded points, making it impossible to hit anything further away than 10 meters Presonally I've never used sword in combat (trained a bit though), but have bought a bow and started training as an archer.

I also notice that we play *very* different regarding system, stats, expreience and death. We don't have any system (except for magic), and neither players have stats or cards. We focus a lot on the role you are playing, usually every players will have several pages of background and plot. The actual playing is very plot oriented, focusing on the interaction between different roles. Combat s not uncommon, but death is final (barring divine intervention). People killed can usually come back as a seperate role, or as an NPC (depening on how far into the session we are). While some groups play linked sessions, we don't "level" or gain experience, just contacts and political, magical or mercantile power between sessions

.Ziggy

.Ziggy,

Which system do you use?

~ Old One

 

[Ziggy]

Re: Which System...

.Ziggy,

Which system do you use?

~ Old One

Errrr, none ?

To be serious, we have sort of a common system for combat, with very simple rules. It focuses on safety rules, but also includes simple rules for HP (1-4), damage (1-2) and armor (negates the first X points of damage). Most combat is supervised, and the GM will usually tell you if you died without noticing it (and vice versa)

On top of that most have homegrown systems for magic, usually with a lot of world-specific flavor (types of magic, power levels etc.) Usually magic is very uncommon, and the caster of a spell will shout out its effects on the targets. In addition there are usually lot of background on the world (politics, clothing style, mercantile, religion a.s.o), but usually not formulated as "rules".

There are also rules for "out-of-game" stuff, including commands that the GM can use to freeze time if something serious happens.

Gaming is very plot driven, focusing on interaction. Social skills are not regulated by rules, but depend on social and political standing combined with personal charisma. Transgressions are handled in-game (excet for dangerous play), and most authority figures will have soldiers or servants to back up their commands.

.Ziggy

 

[The It's Man]

Really, do you think people would keep comming back if they were getting the snot pounded out of them at every session by bullies? Well, I mean, maybe some people would, but...

The It's Man signs up for a LARP event

 

[eXodus]

LARPers hold a special place in my heart...

before i moved to pdx i spent a few years living in santa cruz, california.

in sc there is a large and strong vampire following. is it becauce the lost boys was filmed there? who knows.

but regardless. the streets of downtown sc crawl with junior lestats every single friday night. it is scary. too many times i would be disturbed from my dinner, drinks, or coffee at a streetside cafe to have some black-clad youth drooling around his fake fangs ask me what clan i was in.

because i dress in black they assumed i was part of the game. one evening i was overly drunken and heading home on foot and a group of five of them 'attacked' me with a violent game of rock-paper-scissors claiming that i was invading clan territory. i never laughed so hard.

even better is when they would come up to people and try to get them to buy them some booze. one girl begged me to go to a nearby store and buy her some red wine. what vampire is worth a spit without red wine? so she gave me her $10 and i went inside. it was her lucky day! i was able to buy her a nice multi-liter box of cheap red wine. i am guessing the mood of the game was broken a little as everyone else had a bottle of wine and she had a box.

ah, i miss junior lestat...

 

[Umbran]

Re: LARPers hold a special place in my heart...

too many times i would be disturbed from my dinner, drinks, or coffee at a streetside cafe to have some black-clad youth drooling around his fake fangs ask me what clan i was in.

because i dress in black they assumed i was part of the game.

I always loved that. Here we have a creature who's continued immortality depends on blending in, and yet they insist on dressing in a manner that makes them easily identifiable.

 

[Zappo]

eXodus: I recall reading on these boards many months ago (prolly more than a year), about a D&D player in exactly the same situation (being asked at a café what clan he was), and the poster said he made a very astonished face, pulled out a D&D PHB and a big plastic symbol of Pelor and shouted "UNDEAD MONSTER! IN THE HOLY NAME OF PELOR, I TURN YOU!!!" while hitting the vampire wannabe with the book. The whole scene is so symbolic that it still makes me laugh.

As for my opinion, well I've played (Vampire) LARPs a couple of times and found them exceedingly boring. A heap of elitist snobs who arrogantly boasted how deep and original their characters were, and then in the actual game all turned to exactly the same character (a very shallow megalomaniac power-hungry manipulator type - kinda like your average munchkin, except he wants status instead of to-hit bonuses). My character, as a new vampire, had no big interest in politics, which meant that I had absolutely nothing to do or even to chat about. I joined hoping to find the cream of roleplaying, and had to leave in disappointment after a couple sessions.

Maybe - probably - I've just been unlucky, but that's been enough for my LARPing career.

 

[dr jekyll]

Re: WLS Rules!

* All the experience you earn must be "in-game": In many other LARPs, you can buy experience in-between games, resulting in fairly quick PC advancement. With only in-game experience + 3-5 events per year, character advancement is fairly slow. In 2.5 seasons (11 events attended), my PC just made 4th level. This means that new players are not horrible outclassed by veterans and the Campaign Committee can really control the power level of the game. In many NERO chapters, the PCs that have been around the longest are gazillioneth level, making it tough for newcomers.

Yeah, this is huge. I've walked on the field as the only first-level character in a game where everyone else was 10th level or higher, and really, it's not a lot of fun. I also like that Wildlands tends to let their first level characters be a little more powerful than NERO standard, so that the slower level-progression isn't annoying.


Combine that with your smaller player base and excellent player/NPC ratio, and new people can get the attention and help they sometimes need to get involved. That's way cool.

* Ability to directly impact the campaign: Most of the PCs belong to a Clan or House. Each House has different attitudes and skill lists. We have built House Argellan (a trading house) into a campaign powerhouse! We typically field the largest number of players (from 8-15) of any house per event. We also provide most of the much needed weapon/armorsmithing skills in the campaign and have forged alliances with virtually every other house. As a result, almost nothing goes on in town that we are not aware of!

House Argellain! That's hilarious. All my friends who played Wildlands in MA (and who also introduced me to Larping) belonged to House Argellain. Good choice.

PS - Tell your buddy "Thanks" for NPCing...we love our NPCs!

Will do. NPC's are often under-appreciated. They're always getting beat up by cruel hordes of relentless PC's shouting for their deaths.

dr jekyll

 

[dr jekyll]

We do, and they do actually look fairly similar to swords (or a mace or whatever weapon you have made). Of course the weight is still off, but balance and workmanship is still pretty important. They'll hurt a bit if you hit a forbidden area, or if they are improperly made, but there is very strict testing of weapons in all LARP's I've been attending.

I've seen pictures of the latex weapons, from various web sites. They really look very nice. Much much cooler than our round foam weapons. I've also seen some nice looking pvc pipe weapons, but there are questions as to weapon safety.

The game I've looked at near Seattle has a lot of Amtgaard players, and they use a very small-diameter kite-pole wrapped with shipping foam and covered with cloth instead of duct tape.

The cloth covering can be cool, but I find they really go for the super-light-weight weapons, and the machine-gunning is excessive, in my not-so-humble opinion. I prefer a slower, more cinematic feel, with perhaps a little time for threats and oaths and battlecries.

The biggest problem with US-style weapons is rain. Duct tape isn't completely water-proof, and on a rainy weekend, they can get heavy.

We also use arrows with padded points, making it impossible to hit anything further away than 10 meters Presonally I've never used sword in combat (trained a bit though), but have bought a bow and started training as an archer.

I like being in the thick of the battle, and sword and board or a Greatsword is really what I like. For arrows, the best I've seen here is either the Nerf variety, or a cool variant using packets. If you heat PVC pipe, you can curve it. Then pad it out like a weapon, so it looks like, well, a bow. No string. Then tie a tail to your arrow packets. When you 'shoot' you make a bow-drawing motion and then toss the packet. It's safe, it's effective, and it looks pretty cool.

I also notice that we play *very* different regarding system, stats, expreience and death. We don't have any system (except for magic), and neither players have stats or cards.
...
Combat s not uncommon, but death is final (barring divine intervention). People killed can usually come back as a seperate role, or as an NPC (depening on how far into the session we are).

I've never played a statless boffer larp game. Tho really the only stats you need are hit-points and magic-points. I have noticed that in most of the Euro games I've looked at death is final. This whole concept of multiple resurrections and "taking a death" really seems to be a US thing.

There are US Larps that don't have a linked plot, I try to avoid them. Part of the appeal of the Larp for me is role-playing through the campaign, seeing the character develop and affect and be changed by the story-line over a multi-year period. That said, some of the newer games have a 5-year plan (like Babylon 5) that they stick to and once it's done it's over. It's a feel that I think I like.

I saw guy take his 'final death' on the second day of the very last event of a campaign. And he created a new character on the spot and played him for the remaining hours that were left. Pretty cool.

dr jekyll

 

[Geoff Watson]

I've played in several one-off freeforms, and they were quite good.

The continuing games, where players continue the same characters and storylines weren't very good. I suppose they could be fun if you were one of the in-crowd who started at the beginning and therefore have interesting plotlines and more powerful characters. New players joining would feel left out or be openly snubbed by the cliques of older players.

Geoff.