Larp in Fiction

Community Larp discussion
#1

Not too long ago there was a thread about movies that were larpable.

I thought it would be interesting to sorta go the other way, and see how many times roleplaying was an integral part of a book, or at least got a significant mention.

Off the top of my head there are the Dream Park books by Larry Niven and … Steven Barnes? (feel free to correct). Larp with bells and whistles, and murder mysteries winding through.

Gwyneth Jones wrote an alien occupation trilogy. The first, White Queen, had, as one of the threads, a gaming group (of the same name) running a wide-scale ‘What If’ game - what if there had been a very quiet landing by aliens, what would be the signs and possible effects? Much to their surprise, they found the signs and turned into a resistance group instead. The third in the trilogy also had a gaming club, and one of the games they were running turned out to be very, very important as an exercise in entrainment too… I haven’t read the second, but I think it also had a gaming presence.

Can anyone think of others?

#2

Does the Holodeck count?

#3

Yes it does, thanks. Had totally slipped my mind.

#4

The Danger Room from X-Men!

#5

Sam and Frodo dressed up as orcs?

#6

No - that was basic espionage/sabotage.

#7

The Dark Lord of Derkholm by Diana Wynne Jones.

#8

The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III

True story and it’s stranger than fiction.

#9

The 1982 tom hanks made-for-TV movie “Mazes and Monsters”…It is to RPG what “Refer Madness” was to weed

A after school special about roleplaying…But what they do is closer to LARP than real the pen and paper RPGs that they were trying to slam (you know how the roleplaying hate propaganda of the 1980’s got it all wrong)

Watch the freak out in all its glory…

spookylibrarians.com/wussout.rm
spookylibrarians.com/meltdown1.rm
spookylibrarians.com/meltdown2.rm

I’ve been trying rather hard to get my hands on a copy of this to show at battlecry or america’s cup…If someone can download this film for me (as I’m on dail up) and pop it on a CD for me…I will love you for ever…and EVER…and we could maybe even show it at the mordavia afterlarp

#10

[quote=“Derek”]The Dungeon Master: The Disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III

True story and it’s stranger than fiction.[/quote]

Take this with a HUGE grain of salt…i have read it and even though this is a so called “factual account” (as is as close to the truth as you will probably get) some of the “facts” about roleplaying are still wrong…and the facts of this case are often blown out of proportion in other places and as the book came out on the end of the “RPG Hate Propaganda” wave of the 1980’s (which this case stoked to its full flaming fury) it draws a few of its facts from slightly bias bases writen in the 80’s

#11

If you count this also add to the list “13th floor”

#12

Also notable mentions in many tv shows…off the top of my head…

*Buffy (They acidently do research in a D&D monster manual and there is a moment at the end of the last series)
*True Faith (The morge manager frequently mentions his roleplaying days)
*Reno 911 (There is a re-occuring LARP that the cops keep getting called too)
*Felicity (The “Assassins” game from MIT is featured in this and can be counted as a subgenre of LARP)
*At least 2 episodes of CSI (the one where they act out the computer game and the one with the vamps)
*Still standing (a character takes up a card gaming game…where they also dress up and become the persona of the wizard fighting the battle…kinda a mix of larp and CCG)

Oh and another movie:

*Big Trouble (the “Assassins” game is also featured in this)

And Im not sure if they count as they are BASED on RPGs:

*D&D the movie and its sequel.
*D&D the animated series from the 1980’s (well duh)
*The Vampire the Masquerade: The TV Series (cant remember the exact title but it was WhiteWolf sanctioned)

#13

Ta-ness.

Not in this thread - only fiction that is based on or involves gaming as an activity, not a genre or setting.

I think it was called Kindred. A bit shabby around the edges, but I liked it.

Would Running Man (the movie version) count? They did dress up and have funny names, but it was more of a gameshow thing.

#14

What about the movie “eXistenZ”?

A kind of Virtual reality LARP movie

#15

Yeah, that fits in. Oh dear - I think Tron might be a borderline case, too.

#16

[quote=“theamazingcatherine”]
I thought it would be interesting to sorta go the other way, and see how many times roleplaying was an integral part of a book, or at least got a significant mention.[/quote]

In E.T. (the book espescially) the group of young guys get together to play a thinly veiled version of D&D quite avidly.

#17

Well i think of it being defined as the “acticvity of playing another persona removed from your self in a simulated enviroment”

So wouldn’t count…

Tron (he was still himself)
Running man (it was not simulated)

Its why i didn’t inclued one of my all time fav movies:

The Game (as he’s not playing another persona)

Yeah thats also in the movie…

OH Plus I’m assuming were going with just mainstream media…because other wise:

The Gamers (A Great movie about a group of pen and paper gamers and the adventures of their characters as told natarted by the players)
Fear of Girls (A mockunetary about roleplayers and relationships)
Almost there and back again (A mockumentary about LARPers traveling the length of NZ in full LOTR costume)
Knights of the Round Dinner Table (A comic about a group of roleplayers)
DorkTower (A comic about roleplaying)
Nodwink (Another comic about roleplaying)
Zogonia (Same)

And the Doctor Demento radio skit that “takes you inside the dark hobby of Roleplaying”

#18

Dork Tower and Knights of the Round Dinner Table yes. Not Nodwick or Zogonia - they’re inside the game, not outside.

Oh my! I just remembered one of G K Chesterton’s Club of Unusual Trades stories. A Major Something-or-Other accidentally blunders into some bizarre happenings, the which are eventually explained as a package adventure for something else. He ends up marrying the main actress, and I remember one of the last lines - on being asked by her actor friends why she married a stodgy military man, she said that she’d met many dashing and handsome young people, but only one who would venture into a cellar when he really thought there was a murderer down there.

On the same level as The Game movie, I suppose, but still worth a mention.

#19

I think you can play a fictional version of yourself in a larp.

#20

A dark horse entry: The Edge by Dick Francis (the guy who writes detective stories about racing.) It’s set on a train journey in Canada where the organisers included a ‘Murder Mystery’ for the entertainment of the passengers, and the detective gets chummy with the actors involved.