Suggestion for Classification of games

nzLARPS
#1

i know some people have had issues with this, most i heard of were surrounding me infact so i thought id suggest the most responceable answer to it to avoid confusion in the future.

Game Classifications! - just like the movies

Rating Labels
There are different levels of ratings, including:

G LABEL
Suitable for a general public

PG LABEL
This means that there may be something in the larp, such as violence or sexual themes, which may be offensive to some people. It is advisable to read all the info on the larp before deciding whether you play.

M LABEL
Suitable (but not restricted to) mature audiences 16 years and over. This means the larp contains material, such as violence or sexual content, that could offend some people. It is advisable to read all the info on the larp before deciding whether you play.

Another idea, classifying according to age or purpose, to restrict a larp’s availability to particular people. The following classifications are common:

R13
Restricted to players of 13 years or over.
R15
Restricted to players of 15 years or over.
R16
Restricted to players of 16 years or over.
R18
Restricted to players of 18 years or over.
R
a special restriction on the larp. The restriction should be described in a descriptive note, for example, restricted to persons 16 years or over unless with permission from a parent or guardian, or R13 unless accompanyed by a parent/guardian

#2

Haven’t we been doing this informally already?

And who doesn’t read all the info before signing up?

#3

Zannii said[quote]restricted to persons 16 years or over unless with permission from a parent or guardian, or R13 unless accompanyed by a parent/guardian[/quote]

Am I wrong in thinking most larps fall in here somewhere anyways? As far as Quest goes this is usually the case: But not because of content but possiblity of injury & also because teen players have the most difficulty with HP’s, safe sword play and cheating or confusion.

Whats the case in other worlds?

Jared

#4

Although Mordavia was ‘R16’ by this classification, the decision seems to have been up to individual game organisers. Most action games will be R16, but not necessarily - look at Skirmish, for instance.

I think it is fair to assume 16+ for all games, unless explicitly informed differently. A game notice (ie, the ‘call for players’ thing) should ideally give a overview and player requirements, including age range.

#5

Skirmish is typically R14, unless a guardian is present. This is purely for OOC safety rather than content.

One of the GMs regularly brings his 12 year old son and his 8 year old half-brother, plus a couple of mates with no problems.

My kids are a bit younger, so they only play the Kids Skirmish game.

#6

Quest is generally R18. This is because boffer combat counts as a contact sport. Exceptions are made though.

When we did allow younger players with parental consent, a module ran overtime and half the players got grounded. We decided not to get into that situation ever again.

#7

Sounds like the game was run at night. If we did a night Skirmish, I’d probably go R18 as well.

#8

The game ran to dusk.

It was probably getting dark when they cycled home.

#9

i just thought that making it more strict and not ‘up to the gms opinion’ would cause less kuffiule in the future as players get iffy about the age of other players and most importantly younger players parents get angry (hypotheticaly, if they didn’t give concent).

#10

The GMs/organisers decide the rating of their larp in the first place. If they want to bend their own rule, who is to stop them?

Beside, there’s arse all we can do about determined underagers. While some people were nice enough to inform me that they were underage for Mordavia and so we went through a vetting process that involved chatting to their guardians and getting their assessment of whether they’d be okay with the material and the community, I suspect a number of underagers attended Mordavia weekend events under the radar. What are GMs supposed to do about that, ID people?

I think that, like pretty much all things, it should be up to the organisers of individual larps how they handle this. It’s totally worth being aware of, and R ratings (flexible or strict) are a decent approach, but I doubt there’s some sort of across-the-board ratings system that can be applied systematically by some external agency like it is for movies. The content of larps is just too fuzzy for that, being improvised and all.

#11

I think Ryan nailed my big problem with this idea - nobody knows what the content is going to be (that’s why it’s a larp). If I go to a vampire larp that’s “R13” and I swear more than once, I’ve gone and blown it for everyone. Nibelungen would be R18 but I don’t want to put “R18” on it because of the other connotations that come with such a label.

#12

As far as Ryans ‘what are we supposed to do, ID people’ comment goes, it may actually come to that.

There will not be many people who look under 21, and most of these will already be known to the GM. When it comes down to it, it is the GM’s responsibility that the players are all eligible - if you choose not to ID people and end up with an irate parent complaining that you allowed their diddums to play, then you have to deal with it.

If we put an official ‘R18’ cert on a game, then you will have to ID people who you dont know and look borderline. You have to be able to show that you took reasonable precautions. If a parent/guardian says OK to an underage player, and the GM is OK with it, then you’re OK and your posterior (and that of NZLARPS) is covered.

Also, if you state a game is PG13, and someone takes the content out of this region, the GM need to step in and take control. Not what you want to happen, but its the price of naming something PG13.

#13

I think a better idea is to not bring that responsibility upon ourselves by giving games classification ratings. If we do promise a “rating” then fail to adhere to it (and someone goes through the highly antisocial process of complaining to X authority) then we might get in trouble – but that’d be our fault for promising G rated entertainment in the first place!

Larping requires a lot of trust and responsibility among players. Whenever I run games I tell people that if something is too much for them that they can stop the game at any point, but to remember that there’s also plenty of time after the game to talk about the finer points.

I’d advise that to anyone worried about content or activity - that they’re free to drop character and stop participating if they want to… and that specific complaints should definitely (definitely definitely) be taken up with the other larpers later.