Nick from the medieval shop once told me of a Larp in europe that was held IN an actual WW2 concentration camp, that was so realistic people were actually flipping out, some needed councilling afterwards, I think that would be my limit, where the line between this is a game and this is real gets blurry.
Agreed carl 
but I still think if people are interested in putting them self through psychological trauma to see how far their own rabbit hole goes then it’s up to them and maybe they will choose to do it in a LARP
Well, perhaps when the specifics of a LARP are being posted, they could add the difficulties that are likely to crop up in the larp so people are warned beforehand as to whether or not they want to play?
Example larp:
Explantion of larp concept blahblahblah.
Players may be subjected to some lack of sleep and food.
Scenes of Horror and other psychological strain may also be present.
etc.
that way if the difficulty is one of those you find beyond your tolerance limit, you have already been warned it may be in said larp…?
larping out-of-comfort zone muddy-whatever coldness would be wicked no problems there.
scenes like pushing concentration camp prisonor roles, rape or violent murder could be, as what people said in the europeans meeting maoris larp idea, concidered disrecpectful to the real victims so you would have to watch how you portray things, which is hard in improv context.
furhter, im appuled a larp was even allowed in a concentration camp.
When I was designing Nibelungen I intentionally created an environment that could go in any direction, so I realised that there was a risk that people would find themselves in situations that were not ok. In terms of “what’s not ok?” I think that can only be answered by the people involved, and only at that time - so in the end all I did was made it really clear that you could stop play at any time, then made sure everyone knew this before “going in”.
I love having my boundaries tested in larp - something I’ve experienced in Couples, May Day, Tryst, Mordavia… Usually I feel afterwards that I have grown my acceptance and understanding of the situation I had found myself in.
But thinking about it (although it was hard at first) I’m thinking of plenty of situations I would personally not be ok with, and I would call the safe-word to stop. Stuff like “I’m playing me and there is a rape in my past” and “If I stuff up this difficult and dangerous stunt I will effect the lives of people that are not playing this game.”
To an extent I agree with Ian - that it is a players’ responsibility to steer out of situations that they will not agree with. This works both ways - that you shouldn’t put people in a situation they won’t be ok with either.
But it doesn’t usually take long to figure out what people are comfortable with. When I met Vanya we were in IC conflict and he went to paper-rock-scissors me. I took one look at him and said “You wanna just fight?” So we pushed each other around and I ended up in a headlock. Great! While you should pull out if things are not ok, you should also dive in when things are.
[quote=“Zannii”]furhter, im appuled a larp was even allowed in a concentration camp.[/quote]That might be a reference to Europa a Larp set in a refugee camp. In play, one of the players got so depressed that she ran into the sea in the middle of winter.
Yep thats the one
Europa was not held in a concentration camp, nor was it about one.
It was about a refugee transfer station, a place where refugees from other countries are held until their status is figured out. They did make it slightly futuristic and Orwellian, but refugee stations are real things today. I’m not sure what the venue was, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t any kind of historical camp. It was very cold though, being in Norway in winter I think.
Find out for yourselves, the Europa website archive is here:
It does sound like it was a very dark and depressing larp. But it was about a real-life dark and depressing matter, and the players were up for it. I thought it sounded crazy when I first heard about it too, but since then I’ve stopped thinking of larp as something you only do for fun. Europa is like a more extreme example of those Kiwis who recently paid to spend the night in a new jail. Not entertainment, but a way of getting a feeling for some of the hard institutions of “social machinary” that a great many people spend time in. Educational larp, perhaps.
it was a while ago when nick told me about it and i may have got the story blown out of proportion over time, sorry my bad, but it did sound like a pretty intense game.