Aye, there’s the rub.
Its best done by experiencing it, well, that’s the reason giving to explain the reticence of people having their games recorded. But to see it in action, that saves a thousand words. Would it be appropriate at Armageddon to have a 5 minute (or wahtever) except of a game, on repeat play, to help show what it is all about.
The difference of course being that larp is a constructive and creative social activity with a vibrant community and literary/artistic merit, and heroin is an addictive substance which ruins lives.
…Yeah, I could quite larp annnnnytime I want.
And it only ruins my bank account. And storage space. 
And it kinda damages the ability to be normal in Real Life =D. (But then again, normality is over rated)
Training in foam weapons useage would be a good thing for beginners too. Considering combat in larp does actually come down to personal skill, feeling you have none against some of the other guys out there, is also a turn off. [Yes, there are character concepts around this issue, and not all games use foam weapons, so its not a blanket statement about all larp, just another aspect for Ryan to consider.]
That’s a good one.
I guess parallel to that are the other skills that people might perceive as necessary for them to enjoy a game. Acting for example - a lot of people may feel underskilled at that. Or convincing people of things, that’s a skill too. Understanding complex rules, for that matter. There’s a whole physical/intellectual/social range of skills that are beneficial, depending on the larp and the character you play in it.
I guess in terms of mitigating this concern, the main point is that you don’t need these skills - they’re nice to have, but larp is an inclusive amatuer thing and you’re not expected to be great at acting/fighting/negotiating/solving puzzles/etc, whatever skill level you have is fine.
The next response is that you’ll get better at these things with practice, and larp provides you with practice. We can also offer training on things like fighting and improvised acting, but I wouldn’t want to give the impression you have to train before you can larp. That’s not how it should be, at least not when we’re talking about the kind of fun games we’re mostly into here.
FTFY 
Seriously, countries that have sane approaches to the health issues associated with substance use - such as the Netherlands, where you can get heroin on prescription, needle exchanges etc - have lower rates of death and, more importantly, use.
Larp, OTOH, has the capacity to create a great deal of heroines
Hmm, that could be interesting, once a week coming together to practice all sorts of things for LARP, from combat, to acting, to character creation, to costume making… It could be a seperate social event, which can be done at set intervals, but doesn’t burdon the GMs (which there are none, since there’s no story =D) by needing a new plot every time.
It’d be nice for many reasons, being social with LARPers out of character, you can sharpen your skills, you can check out new things (such as costume making, which is like a foreign planet for some(me =D)), and you’re not stuck with just having to do one thing every time. Also, you’d be sharing what you know with others =D.
Sorry for kinda going offtopic btw.o
Edit: I’ve NEVER heard of heroin being on prescription in the Netherlands… wait, let me check. Oh guess what, it’s true… interesting…
Long live the drug tollerant Netherlands, ey? =D. (Sidenote: I’m Dutch btw =3)
After this weekend and some good chats with more experienced LARPers one of the things I think would most help new players is help putting together a background.
If a character has a good background with lots of hooks it is easier for the GM’s to inject a bit of personal plot and in turn that helps them get involved in the game. In turn the more they are in the game, the less time they spend sitting around on the outside of things and the more likely they are to come back.
Personally I struggle with this every game but hopefully I am getting more aware of what is required. The recent witch-house was the first game where I was involved all game and that was more due to the story and the other PC’s rather than my pretty poor update.
I am hoping that my recent Teonn update is more what is required but this in turn highlights another issue. Backgrounds should be secret so you have some surprises and depth to the character, but this restricts the number of people yo can ask for help. You can only really share with other PC’s if you are building a shared story and GM’s are swamped prior to the game so they don’t have time to vet and critique.
So no point in raising a problem without a few possible solutions.
-
Try to buddy up new players with an experienced player and mingle the backgrounds.
Benefits - New players are involved immediately and get more enjoyment from the game.
Negatives - Experienced player may find themselves hampered a bit with their background being tied to an inexperienced player. -
Set up a group of people that new players can sent prospective backgrounds to for advice.
Benefits - New players should have better backgrounds and be able to get involved more.
- A group of experienced players may be able to take some of the work off the GM’s and involve new players as they will have some of the secret knowledge they can use to involve them.
Negatives - A group of potential players will know more than others about fellow players.
- There is a workload in helping new players that may turn out to be too onerous. -
Run some workshops to help people learn what makes a good background
Benefits - New players should have better backgrounds and be able to get involved more.
- New players get to socialise with more people before the game.
Negatives - Not all new players will be able to make set dates
- Lots of work to set-up and run.
Realistically a mixture of these solutions and others that I have not thought of is probably the solution but the important thing is to raise the awareness of this as I think it is a key factor in getting players to enjoy themselves and return to future games.