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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ComradeGnull" data-source="post: 5963980" data-attributes="member: 6685694">well, I have one or two data point to supply:I clearly remember seeing people playing D&D with some LARP-ish elements at some event- I think an academic team or  model UN tourney- around 1984-85.  The kids involved were probably junior high age.  They played D&D with multiple physical locations in the school that players would move between in response to players breaking off on their own or joining a different party.  Some of the kids had some really basic weapon and costume elements made from art room-type supplies.  There was some in-character interaction, but it wasn't a major focus.That would have been contemporary, roughly, with the description that the author was writing.  I remember the 'D&D is Satanic' stuff coming along around the same time or slightly later, but it was still remote enough that kids from a rural county in the Bible Belt were openly running around with cardboard swords and dice at a school sponsored event without anyone blinking.I would imagine that an outsider observing that would have called it something like 'live action' D&D, given that people were sneaking off to the boiler room to 'explore the Caverns of Central Heating', or whatever, but there wasn't a lot of 'system' to it beyond regular D&D rules.  It wouldn't surprise me if, prior to the general parent/authority figure freak-out regarding RPGs, this kind of thing wasn't a little more common.Also worth noting that the late 70's was probably an early high-water mark for the campus culture of roof and tunnel hacking- security wasn't as complex, and schools weren't cracking down on the practice yet.  Geek-ish D&D players taking advantage of their access to unauthorized places to game in an unusual or atmospheric setting might easily be distorted by the campus grapevine into 'the D&D nerds sneak into the tunnels to play D&D for real'.As to TSR and live action- I think the Satanism scare frightened TSR away from anything that might involve 'props' because anything that might go with a medieval-theme game could also likely be described as 'occult' (candles, mock weapons, costumes, etc.).  They went to great lengths to make it clear you were just describing what a character was doing, rather than actually acting it out yourself.  To this day, people who think D&D is 'black magic' (I know a few) think that there are 'spells' in the books that people recite and actual instructions for rituals- TSR was bending over backwards to fight that perception, and creating LARP rules would have shot their efforts in the foot.</blockquote>

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