LARPers and D&D players
- Thread starter Li Shenron
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mhacdebhandia
Explorer
I've played in live-action freeforms with my university gaming group - three, actually, and playtested a third for a convention game (I don't go to conventions, but I was happy to help out.)
All three of the proper ongoing games that I played were original-system games in the Legend of the Five Rings setting. The first one was kind of disappointing - and filled with special-exception weirdness - so a friend of mine ran a pair of linked games over two semesters to show it could be done better.
These are the only LARP games I've ever played, and I doubt I would be interested in any game run on an open-ended basis - the strength of these games was that they took place over a limited number of sessions. Apart from the notorious social politics of World of Darkness LARP games, I don't think it would be a fun environment for me over the long term.
Addendum: I don't have any interest in a "boffer LARP". I can't think of anything more dull than trying to LARP combat.
All three of the proper ongoing games that I played were original-system games in the Legend of the Five Rings setting. The first one was kind of disappointing - and filled with special-exception weirdness - so a friend of mine ran a pair of linked games over two semesters to show it could be done better.
These are the only LARP games I've ever played, and I doubt I would be interested in any game run on an open-ended basis - the strength of these games was that they took place over a limited number of sessions. Apart from the notorious social politics of World of Darkness LARP games, I don't think it would be a fun environment for me over the long term.
Addendum: I don't have any interest in a "boffer LARP". I can't think of anything more dull than trying to LARP combat.
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Baron Opal
First Post
The IFGS
I have great fun with LARPing. I participate in the IFGS (www.ifgs.org), specificly the Pacific Northwest chapter. I spend about the same amount of time with the IFGS as I do with my ftf game, although that time is concentrated around three games I produce during a year. We average a game a month. I produce and referee about a third, NPC in about a third, and play the rest.
Two things that LARPs have impressed upon me are the concepts of strictly timed combat rounds and party cohesion. When you are ambushed by an equal group of people all shouting and yelling you have no time to come up with the most efficent plan. You act and adapt to your choices as you go. Sometimes you make bad decisions, and you can't just whine to the DM. Well, you can. But, if you wandered away from the party and the trolls got you, you can't really argue about how close you were to the rest of the party and whether or not they could have helped you. Secondly, if a party doesn't have a strong leader, someone's gonna get killed in a high risk game. I haven't seen the bickering in the IFGS that I have seen in other ftf games. The dynamic doesn't allow it. If the magician gets all pissed off and leaves to do his own thing, he's going to come across something that eats him.
For me, the IFGS was what the RPGA Living City was promised to be. You make a character, play him in a variety of different games, gain wealth and experience, and have a good time. There is a very strict structure of wealth accumulation, so people who write the games can make reasonable assumptions as to what people can do. Power ranges are clearly deliniated so that people don't run neophyte characters with the powerful, or vice versa. (This does happen from time to time, but those are special games where people barter their goods.) And I find there is much more time for role-playing, and the fighting can be intense.
Yes, we do have our share of goobers. They seem to weed themselves out, however. There is a lot of effort in producing a game. If you are a NPC, you are expected to come to the site early and help set up. Some of these sets can take a half-dozen people 3-4 hours to erect. The classic people who whine in game, who are jerks at the table, whom you have kicked out of your game and your house, they don't come back to IFGS. There is just too much work that is expected out of them and they find other hobbies.
I have had some negative experiences with IFGS, but it is outweighed by the fun I've had. If you are curious, and live in the Pacific Northwest, check out our website (www.pnw.ifgs.org). We are running a novice game the last weekend in July called The Tomb of the Goblin Slayer. You are welcome to play, NPC, or merely watch. I can't tell you about it since this is one of the times I get to play, and I'm making a new character for this game.
I have great fun with LARPing. I participate in the IFGS (www.ifgs.org), specificly the Pacific Northwest chapter. I spend about the same amount of time with the IFGS as I do with my ftf game, although that time is concentrated around three games I produce during a year. We average a game a month. I produce and referee about a third, NPC in about a third, and play the rest.
Two things that LARPs have impressed upon me are the concepts of strictly timed combat rounds and party cohesion. When you are ambushed by an equal group of people all shouting and yelling you have no time to come up with the most efficent plan. You act and adapt to your choices as you go. Sometimes you make bad decisions, and you can't just whine to the DM. Well, you can. But, if you wandered away from the party and the trolls got you, you can't really argue about how close you were to the rest of the party and whether or not they could have helped you. Secondly, if a party doesn't have a strong leader, someone's gonna get killed in a high risk game. I haven't seen the bickering in the IFGS that I have seen in other ftf games. The dynamic doesn't allow it. If the magician gets all pissed off and leaves to do his own thing, he's going to come across something that eats him.
For me, the IFGS was what the RPGA Living City was promised to be. You make a character, play him in a variety of different games, gain wealth and experience, and have a good time. There is a very strict structure of wealth accumulation, so people who write the games can make reasonable assumptions as to what people can do. Power ranges are clearly deliniated so that people don't run neophyte characters with the powerful, or vice versa. (This does happen from time to time, but those are special games where people barter their goods.) And I find there is much more time for role-playing, and the fighting can be intense.
Yes, we do have our share of goobers. They seem to weed themselves out, however. There is a lot of effort in producing a game. If you are a NPC, you are expected to come to the site early and help set up. Some of these sets can take a half-dozen people 3-4 hours to erect. The classic people who whine in game, who are jerks at the table, whom you have kicked out of your game and your house, they don't come back to IFGS. There is just too much work that is expected out of them and they find other hobbies.
I have had some negative experiences with IFGS, but it is outweighed by the fun I've had. If you are curious, and live in the Pacific Northwest, check out our website (www.pnw.ifgs.org). We are running a novice game the last weekend in July called The Tomb of the Goblin Slayer. You are welcome to play, NPC, or merely watch. I can't tell you about it since this is one of the times I get to play, and I'm making a new character for this game.
Baron Opal
First Post
mhacdebhandia said:
You should watch an IFGS fight. "Dull" is about the last thing that comes to my mind. You are moving as fast as you can with as much control as you can trying to land a solid blow. I find it exciting and agreeable excecise to boot.
Although it is a pain in the ass when the main villian takes off down the path and you have to chase him. And he's 50 pounds lighter and 15 years younger than you. You hope you have a wizard to fireball him.
Turanil
First Post
I did LARP once. This could have been a great experience, for we had a true Renaissance castle and its surrounding for the game (a full wekend). However it was overall a disappoiting experience for several reasons:
-- 30% of players had no garb at all, most garbs were just crap, less than 10 players had really cool garbs. My own garb was just okay, no more. Going back home I surfed the Internet, found great online shops for stuff, and made my ideal garb: 1000$, so I am not going to buy that soon.
-- Playing rules were badly done, most characters died pretty quickly, so game was stopped prematurely for many people, and thus was no fun at all for them.
-- Most players weren't into the game really, especialy at lunch and night.
As a result of all of this, I am not tempted to go again to a LARP any time soon.
Me defending the tower against a bunch of orcs. The friend's behind, who is wounded (in-game), was a good exemple of bad garb (see the boots?), while mine tried to be medieval but was porly done anyway.
:\
-- 30% of players had no garb at all, most garbs were just crap, less than 10 players had really cool garbs. My own garb was just okay, no more. Going back home I surfed the Internet, found great online shops for stuff, and made my ideal garb: 1000$, so I am not going to buy that soon.
-- Playing rules were badly done, most characters died pretty quickly, so game was stopped prematurely for many people, and thus was no fun at all for them.
-- Most players weren't into the game really, especialy at lunch and night.
As a result of all of this, I am not tempted to go again to a LARP any time soon.
Me defending the tower against a bunch of orcs. The friend's behind, who is wounded (in-game), was a good exemple of bad garb (see the boots?), while mine tried to be medieval but was porly done anyway.
:\
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Baron Opal
First Post
Turanil said:
Tell you what, Turanil. If you ever find yourself in the Portland, Oregon area I'll set you up with a place to stay and I'll do my best to get you into a game. I also have a few contacts in Atlanta, Denver, and LA. If you make it to the states, I can probable arrange a game for you given enough lead time.
We are about as close to professionals as they come.
EDIT: $1000??? Holy Christmas, that's as much as a budget for a major game. One of mine, anyway. Then again, we don't have castles to rent.
I'll have to dig up the CD with the photos from our last game and figure out how to post them here.
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Ambrus
Explorer
I don't understand the animosity many gamers here seem to have against LARPers in general. To me it's just another facet of the gamer lifestyle. If you're willing to drive hundreds of miles and pay money to attend a gaming convention then, in my book, you're a more extreme gamer than most LARPers. I've roleplayed in LARPs for ten years in a handful of cities. I've intermittently played angsty Vampire LARPS for six years or so as well as professional D&D style LARPs out in wooded areas for just as long. On occasion I've also played Changeling LARPs as well as Werewolf LARPs and have played at at least one convention LARP. I still have several costumes hanging in my closet and boxes of props from those games. I've LARPed in a camping ground for about 40 straight hours once a month during the summer months for several years in the D&D style LARP. I've LARPed Vampires in reserved bars, public establishments, private homes, on a university campus, on the street and in public Parks often while in full costume. Although wandering around in costume in public might seem a little odd to you, in Montreal no one bats an eyelash and it has never been a problem for me. On the contrary, I once was mistaken for a street performer by tourists and was asked to pose with them for pictures, which I did happily.
After all my experience playing LARPs I'd have to say that, all in all, I still prefer playing tabletop games to LARPing however. I'm not currently playing in any LARPs but it's not because I've been turned off to LARPs but rather because none of the ones I'm aware of in my area currently appeal to me. After years of it, I would have to say that Vampire doesn't appeal to me much anymore. It's a very negative game in the sense that the players are, by default, pitted against each other. I'd rather play something where teamwork and camaraderie are the norm. Still, even the best of LARPs often have some inherent flaws that make them more difficult to enjoy. Crazy or obnoxious players aren't one of them though. In my experience, such players are just as likely to join a tabletop game as they are a LARP. The difference is that, in a LARP, they are generally easier to ignore than they are at a table of six people. Just as in tabletop, such players usually leave the game on their own or are encouraged to do so by the GM.
What distinguishes tabletop from LARP in general, IMHO, is personal attention. In a tabletop game there are usually only a half dozen people playing together in a room with few distractions. You're pretty much assured that the plot is going to involve you and that you'll have someone to role-play with. In a LARP however, the number of players can easily overwhelm the number of GMs meaning that your character may not be involved in the plot and you can easily end up bored with nothing to do. Without exception, I'd have to say that the most enjoyable LARPs I've ever played had the fewest number of players, usually as few as fifteen. Unfortunately when a LARP is successful and begins becoming popular more players join and, in my experience, reduce my enjoyment of the game.
There are of course other issues with LARPs. With so many players it's hard to keep everyone on the same page. Some people have a wildly different idea of what the LARP should be like. Some people want to play in depth political mind games while others just want to go out and kill the bad guys. Some people play lighthearted or silly characters and other players are forced to ignore them to try and keep their character's world-view intact.
Another problem is consistency. Most LARPs have multiple GMs so oftentimes the NPCs and the game environment aren't consistently played by the various GMs. Rules are interpreted differently, some GMs don't inform the other GMs of plot changes or player actions so often the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. One GM creates a side-plot that distracts players from another GM's plot and tempers start to heat up. One GM's ad-hoc rule interpretation can often mean disaster for a PC, NPC or another GM's plot. LARPs can easily become mismanaged and so require an extraordinary amount of communication and teamwork amongst GMs who are often used to doing whatever they want in their own tabletop games.
The other big thing that distinguished LARPs from tabletop games, IMHO, is the PC to NPC ratio. In a tabletop game the PCs are extraordinary or heroic and are easily in a class apart from the majority of NPCs in the world. Common NPCs admire and/or fear the PCs. In a LARP however the majority of people your character will meet will be other PCs. It becomes nearly impossible to stand out as extraordinary in a society made up entirely of heroes just like yourself. Suddenly it is the common NPC that becomes a rarity because there simply are never enough GMs to play them all. The sense of a larger fictional game world is quickly lost as all the PCs and a handful of NPCs become a strange little insular group of characters.
These are the issues that have generally turned me off to LARPing over the years. Still, I seem to be among the minority amongst my gaming friends. Most continue to enjoy LARPing overall. LARPing also remains, in my mind at least, the best way to to quickly meet other gamers. When I first moved to Montreal from a small town, I went to a local LARP and, within a few weeks, knew fifty or so like-minded people who all enjoyed the same things I did (sci-fi, fantasy, RPGs, ect.) and who immediately understood me when I spoke or joked about something. It was a godsend to a lonely guy new to the city. I even met my hot gamer-SO of ten years at a Werewolf LARP. Seeing a cute 5' 4" woman chasing a 6' 6" 250 lb guy while growling was hilarious and I was immediately smitten. I had finally found a place where I belonged. When I moved to another city years later, the first thing I did was to find a local LARP and sign up. So I'd suggest to anyone to not knock LARP until they've tried it, and even then why knock it if you didn't enjoy it? It's still a role-playing game filled with gamers. It's a part of our joint gamer sub-culture. We should all try to support each other whenever possible. Lord knows few others ever do.
After all my experience playing LARPs I'd have to say that, all in all, I still prefer playing tabletop games to LARPing however. I'm not currently playing in any LARPs but it's not because I've been turned off to LARPs but rather because none of the ones I'm aware of in my area currently appeal to me. After years of it, I would have to say that Vampire doesn't appeal to me much anymore. It's a very negative game in the sense that the players are, by default, pitted against each other. I'd rather play something where teamwork and camaraderie are the norm. Still, even the best of LARPs often have some inherent flaws that make them more difficult to enjoy. Crazy or obnoxious players aren't one of them though. In my experience, such players are just as likely to join a tabletop game as they are a LARP. The difference is that, in a LARP, they are generally easier to ignore than they are at a table of six people. Just as in tabletop, such players usually leave the game on their own or are encouraged to do so by the GM.
What distinguishes tabletop from LARP in general, IMHO, is personal attention. In a tabletop game there are usually only a half dozen people playing together in a room with few distractions. You're pretty much assured that the plot is going to involve you and that you'll have someone to role-play with. In a LARP however, the number of players can easily overwhelm the number of GMs meaning that your character may not be involved in the plot and you can easily end up bored with nothing to do. Without exception, I'd have to say that the most enjoyable LARPs I've ever played had the fewest number of players, usually as few as fifteen. Unfortunately when a LARP is successful and begins becoming popular more players join and, in my experience, reduce my enjoyment of the game.
There are of course other issues with LARPs. With so many players it's hard to keep everyone on the same page. Some people have a wildly different idea of what the LARP should be like. Some people want to play in depth political mind games while others just want to go out and kill the bad guys. Some people play lighthearted or silly characters and other players are forced to ignore them to try and keep their character's world-view intact.
Another problem is consistency. Most LARPs have multiple GMs so oftentimes the NPCs and the game environment aren't consistently played by the various GMs. Rules are interpreted differently, some GMs don't inform the other GMs of plot changes or player actions so often the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. One GM creates a side-plot that distracts players from another GM's plot and tempers start to heat up. One GM's ad-hoc rule interpretation can often mean disaster for a PC, NPC or another GM's plot. LARPs can easily become mismanaged and so require an extraordinary amount of communication and teamwork amongst GMs who are often used to doing whatever they want in their own tabletop games.
The other big thing that distinguished LARPs from tabletop games, IMHO, is the PC to NPC ratio. In a tabletop game the PCs are extraordinary or heroic and are easily in a class apart from the majority of NPCs in the world. Common NPCs admire and/or fear the PCs. In a LARP however the majority of people your character will meet will be other PCs. It becomes nearly impossible to stand out as extraordinary in a society made up entirely of heroes just like yourself. Suddenly it is the common NPC that becomes a rarity because there simply are never enough GMs to play them all. The sense of a larger fictional game world is quickly lost as all the PCs and a handful of NPCs become a strange little insular group of characters.
These are the issues that have generally turned me off to LARPing over the years. Still, I seem to be among the minority amongst my gaming friends. Most continue to enjoy LARPing overall. LARPing also remains, in my mind at least, the best way to to quickly meet other gamers. When I first moved to Montreal from a small town, I went to a local LARP and, within a few weeks, knew fifty or so like-minded people who all enjoyed the same things I did (sci-fi, fantasy, RPGs, ect.) and who immediately understood me when I spoke or joked about something. It was a godsend to a lonely guy new to the city. I even met my hot gamer-SO of ten years at a Werewolf LARP. Seeing a cute 5' 4" woman chasing a 6' 6" 250 lb guy while growling was hilarious and I was immediately smitten. I had finally found a place where I belonged. When I moved to another city years later, the first thing I did was to find a local LARP and sign up. So I'd suggest to anyone to not knock LARP until they've tried it, and even then why knock it if you didn't enjoy it? It's still a role-playing game filled with gamers. It's a part of our joint gamer sub-culture. We should all try to support each other whenever possible. Lord knows few others ever do.
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