Unless it was set in Taiwan. It’s Taiwan that has the punch-ups in parliment, isn’t it?
That’s me! Portal was my first larp.
[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
But what about a larp set in a cabinet meeting ? Would it be plausible for someone playing, say, the prime minister to pull out a glock and shoot the finance minister ?[/quote]
If this happened I would actualy take an interest in politics 
Unless it was set in Taiwan. It’s Taiwan that has the punch-ups in parliment, isn’t it?[/quote]
Aussie too, from time to time 
Having just spent the weekend at a Green Party policy conference, where everything tries to be agreed by consensus - maybe that should be the inspiration for my next larp.
Then again, maybe I’ll set it in an imaginary online community where they can only verbally abuse each other instead of coming to blows.
What’s that about art imitating life… or has my penis just shrunk ?
That’s me! Portal was my first larp.[/quote]
Yeah, well some of you were more redeemable than others. How old were you?
Redeemable? Not at first I wasn’t. I found something dubious in the rules and played to win. But then, the rules encouraged you to find dubious bits and abuse them to win
I was 16 at the time.
In the same way, let us judge music by what is most popular in the music charts…
1 Lips Of An Angel
2 Smack That
3 Say It Right
4 Face Down
5 Welcome To The Black Parade
6 Dangerous
7 Famous Last Words
8 Chasing Cars
9 How To Save A Life
10 Fergalicious
Actually, I’ve never heard of any of it. But it must be the best possible music, because that’s what people purchase/play on radio.
Auckland is big. Lots of people live here. On any given DAY I have about 3-4 different groups doing things that I could attend. On weekends (and especially long weekends) the choice is even greater. It’s not like living on a farm where choice is limited to “the sheep, or my sister…” EVERY event we hold here clashes. Usually it clashes with more than one event.
That’s life in the big city.
Auckland is big. Lots of people live here. On any given DAY I have about 3-4 different groups doing things that I could attend. On weekends (and especially long weekends) the choice is even greater. It’s not like living on a farm where choice is limited to “the sheep, or my sister…” EVERY event we hold here clashes. Usually it clashes with more than one event.
That’s life in the big city.[/quote]
I totally agree.
For instance - the final game of Mordavia was on the same weekend as the SCA’s St Cath’s. I’d say we lost about 8-12 to that. Plus it was a more difficult loaction to get to than any other Mordavia weekend game was would have lost us a few.
I think its better to look at the number of LARPs running and attendance numbers across all of them. I’d estimate that we have about 80-110 regular LARPers in Auckland.
As an exercise lets say one regular LARPer per 10000. (based on Auck pop 1mil and 100 larpers)
Therefore Hamilton should have about 14 regular LARPers. Does that work?
Wellington should have about 40 regular LARPers.
By contrast when we where in Taupo we estimated that there should be about 2-3 LARPers but we couldn’t find them.
[quote=“Mike Curtis”]
I disagree with the assertion that combat/violence is a necessary component in a larp. Sure, as long as you have “character freedom”, it is entirely feasible that they could mount an attack on any other character at any time.
But what about a larp set in a cabinet meeting ? Would it be plausible for someone playing, say, the prime minister to pull out a glock and shoot the finance minister ? Or even punch them ? I think it would be totally out of character for the setting - and therefore an example of inappropriate roleplay.[/quote]
Two points. It was not that long ago that the crown prince of Nepal pulled out an AK47 and killed his mother, his father and his brothers. Fiji has coups where people rush in with guns. To quote Heinlen “Violence has solved more issues than anything else.”
Secondly, If our players wanted to do a contempary improvisational theatre of modern life they would join theatre sports. However the vast majority of them want to adventure in a fantasy campaign. So I will ask again, how do we do a fantasy Live Role Play without combat? Strip poker versus Sauron?
Heinlen wrote a lot of crap. He would have been a better author if he’d had an editor with a big black vivid marker cross out about 50% of what he wrote. Violence has caused more problems than it has ever solved.
Actually didn’t Heinlen also write “violence is the last refuge of the incompetent” as well?
I don’t think anyone is suggesting not running generic “I whack 'em” fantasy larps. They’re the meat and three veg of larps after all.
They needn’t prohibit people running games without combat though.
[quote=“Derek”]
Auckland is big. Lots of people live here. On any given DAY I have about 3-4 different groups doing things that I could attend. On weekends (and especially long weekends) the choice is even greater. It’s not like living on a farm where choice is limited to “the sheep, or my sister…” EVERY event we hold here clashes. Usually it clashes with more than one event.
That’s life in the big city.[/quote]
And we don’t get this in Hamilton? It was only recently that we had four LARPS going in Hamilton. Throw in the SCA, Norse groups, Historical reenactment socities, paintball and Alfs we are always having clashes.
[quote=“Scotty”]
I think its better to look at the number of LARPs running and attendance numbers across all of them. I’d estimate that we have about 80-110 regular LARPers in Auckland.
As an exercise lets say one regular LARPer per 10000. (based on Auck pop 1mil and 100 larpers)
Therefore Hamilton should have about 14 regular LARPers. Does that work?
Wellington should have about 40 regular LARPers.
By contrast when we where in Taupo we estimated that there should be about 2-3 LARPers but we couldn’t find them. [/quote]
I must admit we are in rebuild stage in Hamilton. Quest itself only has about 20-25 regular players at the moment. Quest functions best with 35+regular players. We are getting close to critical mass again.
From personal experience we know that Hamilton can run with 3-5 dedicated Live Role Play clubs and have a regular player pool of 140-200 players age 18 or older, on a population base of 110,000. With support from local businesses it could be much higher. Using your formula that is 13-18 players per 10,000. We would therefore expect Auckland to have 1,300-1,800 regular players who play 3 or more modules a year. You say there is 80-110. I therefore say there is something wrong with the Auckland LRP scene and I haven’t figured it out yet.
I think part of it is we ask people to wear costumes…
And…? Most Live Role Play Clubs ask players to wear a costume.
Did you say this one just to annoy me?
Theatresports is an entirely different thing to larp. Theatre groups tend to get a script and try and understand it from the author’s perspective so they can practice it many times and put on a show. Improv usually has an audience and is usually meant to be funny… for the audience. When not in a show, theatre groups usually stop and start all the time, breaking character to talk to the director or each other about how they want things to be for “the show”. Really, the differences are countless!
I think there’s a sore lack of drama groups adults can join to live out another character for a while. Where they might exist, they’re not concerned about immersion. That’s the stuff I’m interested in.
I think the idea that fantasy is the meat-and-potatoes of larp is a fallacy. It may be that today most larps are fantasy but I don’t think there’s anything sacred about that and I don’t think it’s going to stay that way forever. If fantasy was some magically popular thing we’d have thousands of people turning up at fantasy events, even in NZ. We don’t have that despite fantasy larp being around since the 80’s.
Lots of table-top roleplayers like fantasy, and larp is still seen as an extension of that. There are lots of reasons larp is dominated by fantasy but I don’t think “because it’s the natural way” is one of them. In general larping communities have simply not demonstrated non-fantasy games in a way that is attractive to “non-roleplayers”.
I think it’s bizzare that I should even have to say “non-fantasy” like it’s some kind of exception to the rule (and even more bizzare that it IS an exception to the rule).
Alista, I have a report coming up detailing the current larp community crisis in Auckland. I agree that having had an incorporated society for a year and STILL not having unbelievable turnout demands explanation, so watch for that. It’s a constructive report about how we can grow and stay cool at the same time.
None of your examples took place in the setting I described - namely a cabinet meeting. Take Yes, Minister. How appropriate would it have been if Sir Humphrey had pulled out a shotgun at blown away James Hacker during one of their arguments ?
In fact, both your examples include characters who are heavily armed to begin with, which is a recipe for armed confrontation or violence - and hence you would need to include a mechanic for combat in your game system.
As for your quote from Heinlein, this would only be true if you:
a) ignore any of the consequences of the violence
b) define “issue” to exclude anything that results in peaceful transactions (i.e. the vast majority of daily human encounters)
Are you saying that larp can only be fantasy-based ? How does that position relate to [quote]6.) Live Role Play can be inspired by any source. This includes books, films, television, table top role play, card games…[/quote]
It seems to me that if your vow can’t include non-fantasy larp then it’s focus would be too narrow for many game writers.
That was the character Salvor Hardin in Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
Theatre sports is basically “Whose line is it anyway”. Improvisational theatre is when a person takes on the role of a character and then is put into a situation and then the situation is allowed to develop. I have done a little bit of improv. It is exactly, and I mean exactly the same as what the dogma 99 group is advocationg. Often improv is done in front of small or no audiences as not many people are willing to pay to see it.
[quote=“Exquire”]
I think the idea that fantasy is the meat-and-potatoes of larp is a fallacy. It may be that today most larps are fantasy but I don’t think there’s anything sacred about that and I don’t think it’s going to stay that way forever. If fantasy was some magically popular thing we’d have thousands of people turning up at fantasy events, even in NZ. We don’t have that despite fantasy larp being around since the 80’s.
Lots of table-top roleplayers like fantasy, and larp is still seen as an extension of that. There are lots of reasons larp is dominated by fantasy but I don’t think “because it’s the natural way” is one of them. In general larping communities have simply not demonstrated non-fantasy games in a way that is attractive to “non-roleplayers”.
.[/quote]
There is the major division between LARPS. Whilst many are fantasy there is a very strong Masqerade group. There is a very good reason why most Larps are fantasy and most players want to play a little bit of fantasy. It might not be that way forever, but I wouldn’t bet against fantasy in the near term.
I am saying the vast majority of the players that I am dealing with want to play in a fantasy campaign. If they want another campaign there is Masquerade. If they have other thoughts I am happy to send them to Auckland. There is a variety of Boutique games up there, so they get a good choice.
I think that having some big larps would be nifty. But I’m not all angsty about it or anything. I don’t think the Auckland larp scene is failing in any way, I think it’s flourishing. The main reason there aren’t really big larps is that no-one has tried to run them. At least, not since an event called The Gathering that ran years back. That attempted to get 200 people, but ended up with 80ish.
The reason that lots of people don’t turn up to larps here is that most people have never heard of larp, and our advertising so far has been low-key. The way to get lots of people is advertising, whether word-of-mouth, via articles in the media, or using more active recruitment strategies.
The problem is, once you get those masses of people a lot of them will be neophytes. If you were wanting to just have a big battle or something then that’s not a problem, but if you want character roleplaying then it’s tricky. The quality of a roleplaying event comes down to the players, and the cooperative common culture of play between them. If half your players want to get seriously into character and develop their character’s relationships, and the other half want to get powerful and make out of character jokes then neither side of the player divide is going to be impressed. You need to encourage a common culture, and it’s hard to do that when you’ve got more new players than old.
With Mordavia we tried to avoid having massive influxes of new players. We let them drip in, growing from 20 participants to roughly 60-80 participants and then sitting there. The steady size ensured that new players were always surrounded by lots of experienced people that they could learn from. We could have grown more (by doing more advertising), but we held back a bit. The campaign was ending, and we wanted to integrate the existing material and characters more than introduce a whole slew of new ones. We were more interested in the quality of the play than the size of it.
If there were some really huge fantasy larps in Auckland but they were on the crap side, I can’t say that I’d be massively excited about it. It would be nice to grow the scene and maintain the quality of play at the same time. I reckon something like No Man’s Land might provide a good framework for events that steadily grow while maintaining quality. The more people you have the better a player-led larp like that works. I’d be happy to see that get massive, but I think steady growth would be a better formula than a massive influx.
As for genres, they’re all good in my book. I have a soft spot for fantasy, but I like variety too. I reckon the big variety of larp genres in Auckland at the moment is a real triumph.
And I like variety in larp forms too. I’m happy that there are some very gamey larps out there (like Skirmish and probably Quest from what I gather) and also some more deconstructed and dramatic approaches like Nibelungen or Couples. Something for everyone. It’s all playing pretend in the end.