Why are LARPers considered to be the lamest of the geeks?

Cafe Society
21

I think the unashamedly public display of dorkdom is what makes them the most open to ridicule.

Most other dorks are basement dwellers, or anonymous via the internet. Being out in the open among typical park-dwellers like the dog-walkers and the joggers and the bike-riders, usually in pretty bad costumes, hacking at one another with padded sticks, grants the non-initiated a skewed view into the world and must invariably lead to a later conversation that starts out something along the lines of, “I was at the park walking Rover earlier and saw a bunch of adults with green face paint and fake swords running around like madmen and shouting ‘Fireball!’…”

The people I knew that LARP’d, that tried to get me involved, seemed to be more of the opinion that the entire thing was set up so that people could beat one another with sticks. Their costumes were pitiful, their weapons and armor laughable, and the rules (as I read them) seemed entirely biased towards spellcasters.

Essentially, what I gathered (and this was just this group, though they did belong to a nationwide organization who had a whole “book” of rules), was that anyone with a quick wrist and decent aim with a beanbag ruled all. After that, regardless of class or level, being better at handling a sword gave you a huge advantage to someone who wasn’t as good.

22

According to this site, LARPers are not the bottom of the geek barrel.

http://www.brunching.com/geekhierarchy.html

23

Skitty DOUBLESLAP!

Them’s fightin’ words.

24

I’m a pen-and-paper rolre player, and I must admit to some disdain for larpers. I think it’s partly because I’ve mainly been exposed to Vampire players, and the ones I knew were quite pretentious. Also, they appeared to be quite cliquish; I remember hearing of Vampire games at gaming conventions where the story would center around the “in” crowd, and everyone else playing was left to passively observe.

As for paintball, I’ve played some of that, and people weren’t “dressing up as soldiers,” they were simply wearing practical clothes. Give that we were playing in the woods, camouflage was very, very helpful. Se’d divide up the teams so there were an equal number of semi-auto guns on each side, so it wasn’t unfair. (I loved taking out the semi-auto guys who were blazing away; it just took stealth and good tactics) And we were hardly shooting “fake blood.” My preferred paintballs were bright yellow; it was easy to see where my shots were going that way.

Regardless of all that, I’d put the erotic furries at the bottom of the heap…except for people involved in erotic furry larps.

25

Yes, but they’re LARPing while they’re outside.

This makes them less cool than trainspotters. :smiley:

26

As a LARPer, I humbly submit that Garmok is fucking nuts and needs to talk to a decent therapist.

A decent group will ban players such as this (and I knew ST’s who did), as the first rule of the game is that it is only a game.

And actualy, I agree with Sengkelat that Vampire players are generally pretentious. You really have to find a good group which will get everyone involved, not just center on the ‘main players’.

The group I linked to up there was pretty good at that. Yeah, there were main players… but they made sure to get everyone involved. At the start of the chronicle when you came up with your background they would see where things meshed and then put them together. If you said you had made friends or enemies with someone, it was more than likely that that player over there was that enemy. And when you entered the game further into the chronicle they set you up with another character in game, so you weren’t sitting in a corner alone.

27

A good pal of mine used to LARP in the Orlando Vampire group.

He was not impressed. Moreover, he basically went around and organized everything because most of the players were so bloody stupid.

I think my favorite story, however, is when he went up to the gaggle of obnoxious females who swept about maoning about how much they hated being Vampires and how terrible it was, etc. etc.

He told them that he did, in fact, have a cure and could solve all their problems in a few hours. Then they’d be mortal again.

Apparently they looked at each other, moved off, completely ignored it, and went right back to moping.

…

He wasn’t kidding, either. He could remove the curse of vampirism. And moreover, he had an over-the top reputation for never lying and always delivering whatever anyone wanted.

28

I submit that most furries are more f*ed up, and hence lower on the social strata than most LARPers, the majority of whom acknowledge that it is just a hobby and they really aren’t Gor-el the Wise and Mighty.

Some who identify as furry just really like and enjoy furry animals. But you go to a furcon, or look on a fursite - 99% of the people there really believe that they are a sexxi skunk lady with breasts the size of her head, or that their tr00 spirit is a nine-tailed hermtaur who lives on the astral plane.

Compare to some LARPers who identify with their character, as opposed to the majority who simply really enjoy acting for a few hours, and then get the hell over it when they get home. Some are a bit beardy, but most you can talk to without it devolving into a discussion of ‘spooge’ and ‘yiffing’.

In conclusion - The Furries win at sad.

29

I resent having my geekiness on the same org chart as furries. :frowning:

-rainy

30

Lower than Furries? I find that hard to believe as I believe that they are the lowest of the low so far a geekiness goes. I never thought of myself as a LARPer but I’ve played a few Murder Mystery games that required me to get into character and I used to participate in an ultra-lame fantasy/SCA ripoff called Amptgard back in the day. Of course I didn’t really care about character I just wanted to hit other people with foam covered pvc pipes. Recently I thought about joining the SCA until I figured out that I just didn’t want to go through the effort of getting a constume and creating a persona. Well, I did create a persona but I never joined. I’m not even good enough to join the SCA.

Marc

31

Arguably, that’s the way a Vampire society would work, so it’s spot on!

Keep in mind too that with your tabletop games, you’ve generally got five or so friends of yours that you spend a lot of time with. If you don’t like them, you get a new group. If you’re playing a LARP, you pretty much need many times that number of people and, since there are generally fewer games, you’re kind of stuck with whoever shows up.

Also, LARP is generally more demanding than tabletop games (i.e., you can’t really break character to make silly jokes as often without completely losing the mood), so a lot of tabletop guys can’t really make the transition.

LARPs do tend to gather all the worst elements of RPGers in one spot though. For some reason Werewolf players always seemed to be the worst - always nattering on about their Native American heritage and their going to be Navy SEALs and worrying about whether this or that will affect their chances of passing their Vision Quests, etc. Ugh.

Given that a) they are generally antisocial and b) there will be others with the same interest, you get a lot of these would-be alpha males in one spot, each not sure how to deal with finding others with strange hobbies/ideas of self worth as themselves. Suddenly, they’re not the unique screwed-up kid that everyone else is afraid of and they don’t know how to react to it.

Fortunately, those types tend to drop out young, but some hold on and it’s really sad to see guys in their 30s and 40s going on about that. Why they don’t bother the guys in the bar, I’ll never understand.

The other interesting thing is that, especially after MET/Masquerade came out, a whole lot of people who had never gamed before suddenly started showing up and LARPing. These people never would have thought to play the tabletop games and likely think them terribly silly. I think that a lot of tabletop types really think that these LARPers don’t “get” what RPGs are all about. These LARPers also think that the tabletop games are just silly, so there’s kind of an animosity between them on that level.

Can’t we all just get along?

Chairman Pow who thought he was too cool to spend Fridays pretending he was a vampire, but really isn’t.

32

I’m bemused at the comments about fairness in LARP. Fairness is neccessary in stuff like sports and boardgames, but both table-top RPGs and LARPs have much more in common with literature and theatre. It’s not fair that Sauron has no chance of getting his ring back, or that most of Paul Baumer’s friends die horribly. But noone would have heard of Tolkien if the Nazgül had caught Frodo before he left the Shire, and All Quiet on the Western Front would have been far less powerful if it had ended with a bunch of young men returning home after the war to pick up their old lives.

It wasn’t fair that the environment activist I played a few years ago was shot by Russian ex-soldiers working for a multinational farmaceutical company which she’d discovered was guilty of conducting dangerous, unethical and highly illegal research on the Kola Peninsula. It wasn’t fair that the city guard captain I played this summer found herself powerless to prosecute the knights from the Holy Church of the Mother for murder, when everybody knew they were behind the assasination of heretical priest. In a few weeks, I’ll participate in a Wodehouse-inspired LARP at Christmas 1937. My character’s main goal is to break up her niece’s engagement to an usuitable young gentleman. Of course, the logic of the Wodehouse universe demands that intolerant aunts are powerless against True Love. I fully expect my evil machinations to be foiled, probably by my character’s niece’s maid and her fiancee’s valet. The point isn’t to win, it’s to enjoy the story we create together.

I enjoy table-top RPGs as well, especiall the <Russ Tolman> I’ve got a budget as big as my imagination </RT> aspects. However, you just don’t get moments like this in table-top.

Probably because we tend to launch into endless monologues about experiences in LARPs at the least provocation :slight_smile:

33

Yep! The character I was refering to that was killed in the lupine war, the whole reason she was in London was to find the guy who killed her sire and deal out justice. Didn’t work, she got one good slash in and he freaking smashed her. Made her choose between revenge and her life while holding her in a way she couldn’t do much (though in retrospect she could’ve tried to knee him in the nads and shove her claws in his heart… damn 20/20 vision. Might not have worked, but would’ve been better than hobbling back into Elysium all slashed up.) Wasn’t fair that she ended up not gaining justice for her sire, wasn’t fair that she died being killed by a lupine and ended up dying in her enemy’s arms. But I’ve had few others who died in such a way that it worked with their story (we’re talking some online games now… bloody power gamers).

Exactly! which is why I hated the rules lawyers, because they wanted to win the game, not tell the story.

Uhh shifty eyes Yeeeees. :stuck_out_tongue:

34

Hmm the rules lawyers comment was still supposed to be under fairness and the part about the Wodehouse inspired LARP was supposed to be a comment on how that sounded like it would be a LOT of fun to play.

I think I should go sleep now.

35

I think I can understand why some people will be uncomfortable with LARPing. Perhaps the depth of the role-playing required get to them, and I personally do think that going that far might take enjoyment out of the game. (That’s not a statement, just an opinion…)

Hmm, maybe I shall dig out that article on GNS theory, or maybe not. :wink:

I loving being a GM, and to protray different characters. I don’t have to be physically tough to pretend to be a fighter, nor inherently sneaky to be a thief. Hence, it seems that if I want to be a compotent fighter in a LARP, I really must know how to fight decently, which scrawnly me can’t do.

I do understand why LARP could be fun. But just not my cup of tea

(And I like dice)

36

I’d just like to add that, as geeky as they may be, some of the hottest women I’ve ever seen in my entire life were LARPs.

I don’t know if I’d really call furries geeks. I’m as tolerant as the next doper, but they have something seriously wrong in their head, and it isn’t geek-motivated.

37

I read the list and got stuck at Pokemon!

I switch between cartoon network and the cooking channel during the weekend and yes…when Pokemon comes on I watch it. But I’m always doing something while watching it, like cooking or cleaning*, I swear!

To address the O.P.:
I’ve not 'Larp’ed, nor have I done any pencil and paper type games aside from computer games…but as an outsider to 'Larp’ing I’d always viewed them as theator type people who like sci. fi. or fantasy.
(of course, now no one will listen to me - I’m apparently one step up from a furry on the geek scale!)

*cooking and cleaning may not involve any actual cooking or cleaning.

38

I’d just like to point out that LARPers have no right to look down on furries. Not as long as LARPs have room for anthropoid animal races, like NERO’s Sarr:
The Damning Evidence?:
Here , here , oh, especially here .

I have to admit, that first one is kinda hot…

39

Please. Everyone has room to look down on furries. The only people who really don’t have room to look down, per se (mainly because they’re on the same level, are Otakukin.

A LARPer playing an anthropoid animal is still not in the same league as a hermaphrodite kitsune/dragon halfbreed furry who is into cockvore, “unbirthing” and Doug Winger fetishism.

Also, LARPers don’t tend to use those ridiculous language constructs such as “Sie” and “Hir”.

40

The geeks don’t want no freaks.
The geeks don’t want no freaks
Don’t sniff around in costume
with yer growls and squeeks,
'Cause the geeks don’t want no freaks.