After seeing LARP (Live Action Role Playing) in the movie Role Models, I think I’d like to give it a try. It’s where you dress up in medieval costumes and stage battles with foam weapons out in the woods somewhere…sounds dorky, I know. But it looks like fun. Has anyone ever participated in one of these?
I’ve looked at a few organizations’ websites, but I haven’t found any in Ohio yet. Does anyone know of one around here? Thanks.
I don’t indulge, myself, because of physical limitations.
Before you try to get involved in it, you should know that even stereotypical D&D geeks tend to look down on LARPers as being just too dorky for words. But the LARPers don’t care, because they’re having so much fun.
Try a local gaming shop. And by gaming, I do not mean gambling, I mean a shop that sells stuff for people who play RPGs. This shop will have an assortment of polyhedral dice displayed. It will have game system rulebooks for sale. Probably it sells Magic: The Gathering in both full decks and booster packs, as well as other collectible card games. This shop will sell board games that are not like Candyland or Clue or Chutes And Ladders in any way, other than the fact that they have game boards, playing pieces, and randomizing devices. More than likely it will sell comic books/graphic novels. And it will have a huge looseleaf binder, with pages and pages of gamers looking for groups, and groups looking for a few more gamers. If this binder doesn’t have a listing for LARPers, ask the clerk (who will be male approximately 75% of the time, female about 20% of the time, and undeterminable gender about 5% of the time) about any groups that might not be listed, or listed in another binder.
Or you can go to one of the various Renaissance Fairs, some of the folks who attend and work there do LARP as well. Check for an SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism) branch in your area, too.
Moving thread from IMHO to The Game Room.
LARP isn’t restricted to people dressing up medieval costumes and using foam weapons.
LARP is any live-action role-playing system with or without costumes. White Wolf’s World of Darkness products lend themselves to LARP very well (particularly Vampire). Usually, WoD larpers dress up, but not always.
D&D as a system doesn’t work for LARP very well because there is no good way to simplify the combat system to support LARP rules. However, as a former member of the RPGA’s Living Greyhawk campaign, occasionally there would be LARP interactives, where the emphasis was almost exclusively on role-playing (and an occasional die roll to test a skill), rather than combat.
As far as geek factor, tabletoppers and LARPers based on converted tabletop systems (e.g. the previously mentioned WoD) pretty much are a wash. LARPers tend to be more social overall, but a serious LARPer puts a lot more effort into the hobby than a tabletopper does. In other words, you rarely get casual gamers in LARP, but at the same time, you rarely get the truly socially awkward ones either.
The SCA’s main website.
This site is for the SCA kingdom that includes Ohio.
S^G
What part of LARP-ing interests you? Two different groups may focus on different aspects. Some are more into the live action part, others are more RP-related, not to get started with the amount of “fantasy”-type involvement. (Some games are closer to a D&D level of fantasy, others are more purely “I’m hitting you with a foam/rattan/whatever sword.”)
Also, where in Ohio are you? I know there are some Ohio LARP groups (beyond the SCA, which Sattelite^Guy linked above), I just don’t know which parts of Ohio – but I’d be happy to look into it.
Costumes depend on the games.
Two games I played didn’t rely so much on costumes, Werewolf for example was more of a summer game… we’d go to the river valley, stake out a fire pit and spend the whole day running around the paths and noshing as we played and had very little, if any costuming. Might scare the mundanes if someone popped out of the woods in a costume…
Vampire on the other hand, one was minimal props and set current times but the Dark Ages game. Wow, the costumes. We had a Roman centurion (complete with costume), a few priests and a nun and one delightful lady who played a blind seer and who brought in a pigs heart (in a sour cream tub full of corn syrup dyed red) and proceeded to read entrails in the middle of the gathering.
If you get a really good group together, under a good storyteller it can be wonderful fun (and I miss that group horribly). The opposite… well I spent a lot of time out of character chatting with people as the rules lawyers dug out the obscure books and argued with the storyteller about what he could or could not do.
If you do find a group, go check it out and enjoy it for what it is. It was a wonderful way to meet people, and a way to kill a few hours (or a whole day and night!) in a fun way using your imagination.
I guess the part that interests me most is the live action battling. It reminds me of when I used to play paintball with my friends in the woods, which was a lot of fun. I like the idea of dressing up like wizards and knights and vikings and things also. And I just like the whole element of escapism. I don’t care too much about die rolls and complicated rules being involved, but some would be fine, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the fun.
I’m in south central Ohio, in Chillicothe. There are a couple gaming shops not too far from here, so I can check those for some groups, and I’ll look into the links too.
Dagorhir (these guys) will be in Cambridge in June.
From the sound of it, you might consider looking into Amtgard. That’s the LARP I’m most familiar with. (I don’t really play anymore, but I was one of the first players in my area.) It also looks like there’s a – fairly large – group in Columbus, as well as a groups in Cincinatti and Dayton (although I’m not sure if they’re still active).
I’m trying to find the Columbus group’s website, but I don’t know if they have one. I could probably try and find someone from the area to contact, and they also might be able to help identify other groups in the area.
As far as other games, I know of (but have never played) Daghorir and Belgarth but I don’t really know a lot about them, details-wise.