Would you attend a LARP designed to push your comfort zone?
0 voters
I’ve been thinking about how far some people are willing to step outside of their comfort zone in order to get the full experience from a game. Assuming it was appropriate to the setting, would you willing tolerate a weekend of bad food and other such discomforts?
Different people have different comfort zones.
Bad food won’t worry me because I can happily not eat for two days and get by on water. However, some people’s sugar levels do strange things if they don’t eat regular meals and this would affect them more.
Things like no sleep, getting bruised and battered, yelled at, sleeping rough / wet and cold don’t phase me much (I was a boy scout, we lived for that kind of thing).
Being forced to swim in the open sea at night would freak me out, but I’d try to do it…
I have LRPed in a wet cave; I can LRP anywhere. Lack of food and or sleep would make it really easy to play, oh say, an ogre. 
I would guess you could double that effect for caffeine or nicotine addicts!
Mind you, I would not LRP say, basic training army style for the same reason I decided not to get the air-force to pay my Uni fees - I would hit someone for real. 
Theres such potential for a meaningful experience if the level of adversity is quite high. The harder and riskier and deadlier a larp game is, the more rewarding surviving it to the end is. (Cub) Scouts honour
Generally if you actually have to struggle to meet a goal and that goal is rewarding then it will be sweeter for it.
As Derek says this differs from person to person… Like school camp at age 13 and having my tent buddies wigging out over the sound possums make. I woke up in the morning (at the end of the tent against the zippers, tent was on a slope) having slept relatively well to discover they (the other 3) had continued to wig out till the wee early hours and were quite surly in the morning. Funny. Silly townies.
Jared
I don’t mind getting wet and cold for a few hours, as long as I know that there’s a shower and a warm bed at the end of it. What can I say, I’m not so tough as Derek. 
It kind of depends on which specific comfort zone we are talking about, for me. There are some things I can stand (sleeplessness, high levels of adrenaline, lack of food etc) but there are some that I react badly to (cold. I hate cold. I cannot stand being cold)
And, as Stephanie said, depends on the duration of the discomfort.
As I am not expected to rush or fight over hazardous terrain
Not roused if I choose to get a tiny bit of sleep during reasonable sleeping hours. And by this i dont mean “in bed at 7:30 up at 9am” (although some people choose that) I mean like between the hours of Midnight to like 7am, only events that dont disturb people that are sleeping are schedualed and that those that are awake can be involved in if they so choose and arn’t VITAL to the plot.
But I need that 2 hours sleep a night…particularly on the friday when I’m expected to run on full all day on the sat…just 2 hours on that first night (maybe 2 the sunday) and I should be able to make it through…2 hours and I’ll be brighter and chipper…its not much, I’ll still knackard by the middle of sunday but its enough to stop me eating someone’s face.
Besides that I’m fine…I have only complained about 1 game so far…and that was “EndGame” where I got no sleep as big loud events were planned for ridiculous hours and then I was rushed through dangerous terrain with no light…
But besides that I have - as an NPC and PC - trudged through ankle deep mud, wades through rivers, lay down on wet ground and puddles and had holy water doused on me in winter, set up tents in the rain, stood at the top of the dream tower in freezing wind and rain wearing only a flimsy silky tunic at midnight on a friday…all things I’m willing to do…Just leave me that “120 minutes sleep between midnight and 7”
But I know that each person is different, we all have particular sleep cycles
I’m in.
It doesn’t matter if it doesn’t get everyone out of their comfort zone, the idea is to make a LARP that is hard to play in. One that won’t be immediatly enjoyable. I would expect to have a few hours of complete brodom involved in this!
Darn, there goes the Hannible Lecter game I was thinking of . . .
Depends what - I’m willing to stand most kinds of physical discomfort as long as I’m not going to actually break my neck (cf Cameron and running through dangerous terrain in the middle of the night). A little sleep is also desirable.
However, I draw the line when it involves being in close physical proximity to other people (especially if I don’t know them very well). I prefer my larp violence to be symbolic - I would, for example, never play in a larp that involved simulations of rape. Or, in fact, anything that involved invading my personal space like that - I’m just not comfortable with being that ‘intimate’ with people. I would hesitate even to kiss someone in a larp, unless they were a very good friend of mine/had kissed me before/was dating me.
I’m pretty much up for anything, as long as limits are described at game start. I hate not knowing how far is too far. I like to be pushed, I like going to extremes because I find that the reward is equal to what I put in.
Unity would prove to be very uncomfortable for some. It is designed to be an oppressive, threatening, unreal, disorientating experience. There is no limits. What you see is what you get.
These things are not outside my comfort zone. Most of the above replys have all been in peoples comfort zone. I have scummed through narrow fissures full of water, I have had to dive into running water while in full kit to save people. I have played with live fire and set people alight. I have leapt from high places onto crash pads. I have done belly flops into hard water from 4 metres plus. This is all comfort zone. Things like intentional torture of unwilling participaints etc, these by definition are outside the comfort zone and I would not approve.
That is what being outside the comfort zone is all about. If you know what the limits are you stay inside you comfort zone.
I don’t think any of the above replies on this thread asserts that they are really willing to step outside their comfort zone.
If you really, really. really want to step out of your comfort zone, then I’ll write a module for you, but I will want presigned wavers that any actions that do not result in death or permanent injury were consentual. What genre do you want?
[quote]That is what being outside the comfort zone is all about. If you know what the limits are you stay inside you comfort zone.
I don’t think any of the above replies on this thread asserts that they are really willing to step outside their comfort zone. [/quote]
Well, simply put, no. I am talking about things like knowing whether I can kiss a fellow player on the lips. That IS something that needs to be made clear before the game. This is not about unwillingness to step out of my comfort zone, its about knowing that the player besides me is ready for this and will not kick me in the balls for OOC reasons of being inappropriate. If players know this before the game starts then it frees them to go as far as their character would go.
If one did not want OOC to be kissed on the lips then you could simply not role play yourself into a position where you would be doing this.
Extreme discomfort = not fun
Extreme discomfort with an extreme reward at the end = awesome fun challenging larp.
But then what’s the point of having a character that’s any different from yourself? What if you want to play a character who’s a prostitute, but not actually have to sleep with people?
In larp things like this are usually represented symbolically. Instead of fighting with real swords, we use foam ones. Instead of actually going off for some bedroom gymnastics, we OOC agree that that’s what we’re doing and maybe disappear IC for a period of time. It’s about people’s comfort with the level of symbolic representation - how close it gets to being realistic and in what ways.
I mean, there’s trugging through mud in the middle of the night, and then there’s a concentration camp style larp complete with middle of the night arrest, transport in cattle trucks, being stripped naked, head shaved, disinfected, forced to do hard labour with npc camp guards shouting and beating people.
The first is almost outside my comfort zone, it’s certainly something I’d rather not do. The second, however, I would flat out refuse to be in - and I wouldn’t want it sprung on me as a surprise. I’d want to know beforehand what the limits were so I could choose not to play. It matters how far you’ll push people out of their comfort zone, and they’ll want to know beforehand what to expect.
I would expect a LARP that pushed your comfort zone to push the areas I don’t like being in. for instance everyone saying " I can’t do without sleep" I would expect it to keep you awake for 3 days straight until you gave up and packed your bags and left or signed on as crew.
THAT is what I would expect of a a LARP that pushes comfort.
I would expect the LARP to also assign a “safe word” so if anyone at any time has had enough they can choose to be let off the hook. that owuld mean , no one is keeping you there the only thing keeping you there is you and your will.
I for one would not want to leave the zone. For me, LARP is about having fun, and if you’re no longer within your zone of happiness, then you’re no longer having fun. If you want people to leave saying ‘I enjoyed that game’, then you need to keep them within the limits of their tolerance for discomfort. Otherwise, their primary goal will be for the game to end rather than to ‘win’.
There is a difference between physical and psychological discomfort. The level of each you can cope with before becoming unhappy is a personal thing - for instance, I’d put up with cold weather (physical) or a rollercoaster (psychological), but I’d not want to go as far as (eg) army SAS training or rape scenes. Some people enjoy getting scared (else why would anyone watch horror films?) but I don’t think anyone enjoys getting into real fear.
When it comes down to it, in LARP, you can always call ‘Time out’ if you’re not happy with the psychological or physical aspects of where you are, and all other players and the GM should respect this. If you get some advance warning of what to expect. then you can generally ensure that you never reach this position.
thats all very well and good yes, but then every LARP dosn’t have to be for every person(an example would be your self steve perhaps this wouldn’t be the kind of LARP for you). I
don’t imagine discomfort is something a person seeks in everyday life let alone a LARP based on discomfort.
therefore only those that wish to experience a LARP where they will experiance stress on their comfort boundries should want to go. or people who are interested.
this is why something like a safe word would be important. if someone can’t take it anymore they can take them selves out of it.
I know that some people would be interested in playing a discomfort LARP for the joy of experiencing how far they are willing to push their comfort zones.