Hi guys, so I’m still relatively new to the community, but I’m really keen to write a LARP myself, for sometime next year (also Zane’s idea of a Birthday LARP really appeals to me). I’m wondering though, if there’s any problem with doing a LARP based on a Television series, or already known story?
I want to base it in space, probably something like Joss Whedon’s “Firefly” but is it okay to used named characters from the show- like Malcolm Reynolds, Inara, Wash, Jayne, Shepard Book etc. What are your thoughts on this?
The use of copyrighted characters is something of a grey area, though we have had LARPs run that were/are based on Firefly and Stargate. Though I don’t think any of the actual characters there from were used. I’d say go for it, but it would probably be best to await the comment of someone who knows a bit more then I.
Generally larps based on things such as games or TV shows are set in the same world without using the same characters. As joe said, we have had Firefly and stargate larps in the past, set in the same world. My campaign, Chrono Continuum is based on the SNES game Chrono Trigger. There is overlap but generally I would advise against writing a larp where all of your character are actual characters from another source
I would actually like to do a Larp where the Multiverse was under huge threat from some great menace/s, and each TV show had to send 3 representatives from their crew… (Stargate and Star Trek only get 2 from each different Series )… I’d play Walter Bishop 
Been done. It’s called “Slash”.
Hmm, I’ve been mulling over an idea I had for a flagship larp with elements from Fringe.
It’s fine so long as you’re not making a profit.
Plenty of NZ larps have used real characters from various media. It’s a stylistic decision whether to use canon characters or your own.
I’d say that, aside from issues of legality and such, you also need to consider the fact that if you use well-known characters from any source material, you could get problems with the fact that people have differing views of those characters. You could end up with some people getting a bit rankled because one of their favourite characters isn’t being played at all the way that they see that character. I don’t think it’d lead to any sort of “XYZ wouldn’t do that!” type arguments, but it might lower the experience a bit nonetheless. Also, what if the person playing a character actually isn’t familiar with that character in the source material? Will that make problems (or be a good thing)?
This I believe is the main reason why larps tend to avoid well known characters
That, and the players “already know what should happen to those characters”. Like playing Luke from Star Wars - where do you get the free will while staying in the canon? The answer is that a larp can be an alternate version of the setting, where things turn out differently.
It’s notable that these concerns don’t apply so much to characters that have already been interpreted by different actors and writers already. Playing Sherlock Holmes, and may even James T Kirk, seems more approachable because there are already multiple interpretations so the canon is flexible.
But there’s no real reason that a larp can’t be the place that a character becomes public property and a setting gets re-interpreted in this way. Why should that re-interpretation only be possible for movies or TV to do? Larp is just as valid a medium for it. So fundamentally I see no reason not to do a Firefly larp with the original characters, for example. And I see a lot of appeal in it. In some ways, it’s more honest than making characters who are basically the original ones with slightly different names and backstories.
I quite like the idea of Fringe characters because of the alternative timelines, This also would work for Dr Who, Torchwood, Star Trek , Stargate or anything else that had Timey Wimey Multiverse stuff… Shows like Sanctuary and Warehouse 13 would also be good because you would not have to necessarily use the main characters because there have always been Warehouses both before and theoretically after Warehouse 13 , and because there are a number of Sanctuarys around the world, not just Helen Magnus’s… There is also a fairly good Larp waiting to happen from Mass Effect series and probably some other games (Assassin’s Creed/SKyrim etc) I’m fairly new to Larping still but am keen enough on Scifi to really be interested in anything like this and happy to help write any scifi related stuff… (As someone said earlier , a lot of this may have already been done before, but there are a lot of new members ) A lot do like scifi .
I do like this idea, a sort of “meeting of characters” from well known tv shows and/or video games and/or books. It could work well, the big thing is coming up with plot, the reason why they’re all together and also inter-personal plot
A good idea. I was thinking of doing something like this with characters from one show. But my concept is flexible enough to include a multiverse. Thanks for all your feedback. 
Having watched pretty much every episode of every Timey Wimey, multiverse show including every single episode of LOST (yeah , I have wasted many years of my life) I would love to help you on this if you ever did it.
@Timetraveller - what if a dark world power (elites/nwo/illuminati/shadow govt types) decided to pull every scifi TV show, Book, game, comicbook ever created from the shelves, internet, destroyed all hardcopies, (because their masters had bade them to for a really good reason ) They also were given the ability, (and a list) to go back through time to destroy the ancestors of Stan Lee, Gene Roddenberry, Bob Kane, Roland Emmerich, H.G Wells, Jules Verne , George Orwell and many others that influenced Scifi, science ,free thought and technology… The characters from all major shows, books, comics, have been asked to send a representative or 2 to a secret meeting (arranged by a shadowy unknown figure that just might or might not be a Timelord ) to discuss and create a plan for possible interception and retaliation against the world power, and the acquiring of the list before it is all too late.
sometimes too when you pick a tv show/movie that has a really niche and dedicated fan base it can be alienating for people who know it just passing