Hello guys and gals of the other side of the world 
Iāam a 19 year old LARPer from Sweden (in northern Europe, that I guess most of you are aware of, but some people keep thinking Iāam talking about Switzerland, which is something entirely differentā¦).
Actually, I just wanted to say hello, but maybe it also would be a nice opportunity to see if LARP in Sweden and New Zeeland are in some ways similiar, or if they are entirely different things 
I could start by telling you some of the basics in the Swedish LARP-culture:
First of all, in Sweden we donāt call it LARP, we call it āLajvā (pronounced as āliveā). Thats a little bit of a joke with the english word āliveā and the fact that it is ālive role playingā. Well, you have to understand the finer part of the Swedish language to get the fun in it I guess, better donāt try to bring that up here and nowā¦ ).
We uses the expressions āOFF-lajvā and āIN-lajvā. When you are OFF, you are not in the game, you are yourself. When you are IN, you are in the game, you are your charakter. One most Swedish LARP are you supposed to be IN-lajv from the start of the LARP to the end of it. Most people sleeps OFF-lajv, in a nowmal sleeping bag or so, but your tent have to look quite IN-lajv from the outside. Like, if you have a normal, say [color=violet]pink[/color] (;)), tent, you have to cover it very well with some neutral-looking cotton-fabric or something similiar, so it at least reasembles the look of a medieval tent.
Outside the tent, nothing should look OFF-lajv, that is considered quite disrespectful against all the other LARPers because, for an example, some red plasticbag would certainly destroy the illusion of being in a medieval kind of world.
A typical LARP in Sweden is set in some fantasy-medievalinspired world, evolutioned by the LARPās arrangers/organizers. Its quite normal with 100 -300 participants, but twice a year the LARP society āThe Unicornā (Enhƶrningen) arranges a bigger LARP in their Eleria-campaign, wich normally has ~1000-1200 participants.
Most LARPās last from friday evening to sunday around noon, but the big Unicorn-larps last from thursdag to sunday. In the summer itās not very uncommon to have larps that last up to 7 days.
Normally the players apply to the LARP like one month before it begins. They have to send in their OFF-lajv information, like their names, their e-mail adress and so on, so the arrangers may contact them. They also have to send in information of wich role/character they are thinking about playing on the LARP. That would be a name of the character, a background story of the character and some description of how the character is as person (like does he have any special behaviour, do he fear something special, is he clumsy when it comes to women or what ever).
Normally you can play several different kinds of characters on the LARPs, like humans, wood elfās, drow elfās, dark elfās, orchās and so on. The arrangers decides if the different races exists in their LARP-world, some arranges even makes up their own races. Normal is also that the arrangers explain their view of the different races on their website so the players knows how to play their character in the game.
A common problem, expecially after the moveiversions of LotR, is that people thinks that āWow, canāt we go to a LARP like orchās, and kill like everything, like real LotR-orchās?ā. The problem is that this doesnāt really work in the game, how fun is it with a race who just want to kill everything. LARP-orchās have to be something a bit different, otherwise the whole LARP will be just a matter of ākillingā lots of people for the pure sake of ākillingā.
When we are on the subject: The battle isnāt a very big part of the Swedish LARPās. Itās normally cosidered very childish to just run around and have fightās, and thats also uncommon that people does. If your character is ready to risk his/her life for something, itās gotta be VERY important, you donāt go off and fight someone for the sake of fun, thats simply not tolerated. In Sweden we have a word for that kind of battle, ā[color=red]Boffer[/color]ā (wich comes from the āboffingā sound of these old weapons made with silvertape, which no one uses in Sweden these days. Novadays all weapons are made with a glassfibrestaff as frame, some plastic material and then painted with latex mixed with some silvercolor). To be a āboffrerā itās not something anyone wants to be, to express it mildlyā¦
Now I have mostly played human roles (and orch twice), but what does then a common human do in a little village on a LARP?
I will make an example from a quite small LARP (100 participants) me and some friends attended two weeks ago.
We werent very prepared in our roles or anything, but we made up this little story that we were four young men working on two farms in the district, Gote (me) and Tryggve from the Backbo farm and Enok and Eke from the Gunnebo farm. The relations between these farms were a bitā¦ Straind, if you say so 
We didnāt hate each other, but both the farms were in argument with the fact that THEIR farm were the best farm in the district, and these lazy crofters of the other farm werenāt much to have, no no!
In short, we spent the larp singing, drinking cider (alcohol free, most Swedish larps were minors may participate have an alcohol free police) and miscredited the guys from the other farm. "Hey, you know what the girls says about the boys on the Gunnebo Farm? āIt wasnāt long, but is was THIN!ā " was a very common saying from the Backbo Farm-side, aimed at the fact that the Gunnebo boys according to us had the rumor around them of having smallā¦ Equipmentā¦ 
.
We had som nice āfist-fightsā (we didnāt hurt each other OFF-lajvā¦ ) with those Gunnebo bastards, making it very clear for anyone to see that Backbo was the biggest, best and beautifulest farm in the whole country 8) A real farm-helpers fight if you say so.
Talking about singing, thats something I did a lot of one the last LARPS Iāve attended. Nothing is like sitting on the lokal āinnā, drinking lots of beer and cider (alcohol free, but it doesnt matter, if you may āplayā that you are a man from the medieval, you can ceratinly altso āplayā that you are drunk 8)) and singing lots of funny medieval-inspired songs. Then you actually gets the feeling of āmedieval livingā, the farmers sitting on the taverna in the night, having a good time and refuses to accept that they have to get up and work tomorrowā¦
Now I consider myself as a bit conservative when it come to this, but when I go to a LARP, I want to create an illusion of being in another world, in another time. I finds it hard to keep that illusion up if there are OFF-lajv things laying around. I donāt want to see material like plastic, and I definitively donāt want to hear someone talking OFF-lajv (like talking about cellphones, cars and everything else that belongs to the modern world).
For my part, I want to be IN-lajv 24 hour/day. Me and my friends have sewn a big medeieval looking pavilion (click to see picture)and also a smaller tent (click to see picture), so we sleep IN-lajv (with wool blankets and sheep furās), cooks food IN-lajv (a small campfire, a cauldron, some meat and vegetables and itās fixed!) and well, simply ARE IN-lajv 24h 8) Great fun I have to say, much more feeling than if you, for an example, are being OFF-lajv inside the tent and so on.
Just think that you are sitting in the sunset, cooking some food and smooking a pipe, all around you can see the thin smokepillars from peoples campfires. There are some special feeling in the village when the day are about to turn into night, people are sitting and eating, there are som ācalm before the stormā, my favourite time of day on a LARP I have to say 
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[size=150]Now, which is the differences compared to New Zeeland larps?[/size][/color]
Well, now I have babbled for eternity, hope anyone have the energy to read it allā¦ 
At last I just want to share some of my LARP-pictures taken after some LARPās Iāve attended the last two years (have taken hundreds of LARP pictures, if you want more, just add me on MSN, martin.arleskar@telia.com ) The pictures --> http://album.fotolabo.net/altiapp/amp/amp.fcg?GSTLOGIN=&ALBUMID=IcG4wOJxgN&PASSWD=IcGJnS3DAM&LANG=se
Greetings!
Martin ArleskƤr, Sweden
