[YouTube] When Dungeons and Dragons Ain't Good Enough

[kroh]

Well, for the live-combat people, much of the larping thing is about the physical sport. If you can understand people liking football, or fencing, or martial arts, you can understand that aspect of larp.

For the theatre-style people, it often largely about interacting with a much more broad range of characters, that are far better fleshed out than one GM can manage at a table and aren't all controlled by one mind that is largely omniscient.

OK...I have to say that that is the best way I have seen that explained. I stand corrected.

Great post Umbran... Thank you.
Regards,
Walt

 

[HandofMystra]

My son does a LARP. I have had great fun being an NPC during the summer camp, wandering along glow-stick marked trails at night in makeup, costume and foam sword and shield. Last year they had a dragon head the size of a small car at the climax. I have offered to be on thier board. I am also going to be running a table top game (AoW I think) for their top-level staff. They do a pick-up game of capture the flag every Saturday in the park down the street from me (using foam swords rather than tagging to decide if one is caught). A couple weeks ago there we about 80 kids! It was awesome.
One difference is that the players act out their wounds and dieing is on the honor system.

 

[Firebeetle]

I used to LARP with Amtgard years ago. I'm the one famous for writing the "fixed" bard, ironically. It was rejected when people could not accept the idea of a bard being powerful instead of useless. Somethings never change.

Amtgard comes from an SCA tradition, where limb hits mean you lose that limb. 2 limb hits or a torso hit mean you are out. Head shots don't count, crotch shots do (get protection.) You had a character class with ability and went up levels according to your attendance. Magic is handled by repeating phrases over a number of time for specified effect or buff, or throwing a "spellball" (fireball, lightning bolt, etc.) which did loads of damage.

The problem: Amtgard tries to run itself "in character", which means that a real organization has to deal with fictional character issues! It's ridiculous.