What makes a larp, a larp? A survey, of sorts

Community Larp discussion
#1

Hey folks,

Random question here. I’m angling towards something but don’t want to explicitly say what at this point (for fear of colouring the answers) - I’ll post what I was getting at after I’ve left this open for a bit. The answers may seem blindingly obvious, but I’d like to hear them nonetheless.

Question 1: What makes larp different from tabletop?

Question 2: What do larp and tabletop have in common?

Question 3: At what point does a tabletop game become a larp? (For bonus points, how would a larp become a tabletop game?)

Feel free to answer all or any of these as completely or incompletely as you’d like :slight_smile:

Cheers
Matt

#2

  1. Location/set dressing and costuming are the first big differences between a LARP and a tabletop that spring to my mind. I haven’t had much experience with tabletops but that’s one of the big differences I’m aware of.

  2. Storytelling and unfolding plot, GMs frantically herding cats and players bouncing concepts and ideas off each other, characters interacting and trying (or not) to get along.

  3. I think for a tabletop game currently being played as a tabletop to transition a LARP it is very crucial that story element is robust and deep enough for it to be able to make the transition. There has to be a critical mass point amongst the players too- enough of them for factions and groups to emerge or the scope to recruit fairly quickly and enough interest from them to turn it into a LARP.

For a pre-written tabletop but not yet being played as tabletop to be turned into a LARP I think requires some work on behalf of the GM or GM team to take the story already there and adapt it to a different style of gameplay. The tabletop itself needs to have a decent amount of base material for the GMs to have a decent sized sandbox to play in and the rules have to be adaptable to something other than rolling dice.

#3

The difference between a tabletop and a larp is the degree to which the player embodies the character, and how much the real venue embodies the fictional setting.

Larp is at “full scale” (or “Jeu de rôle grandeur nature” as the French say), using people to represent characters as opposed to figurines or just the imagination. The term “live action” in film means something similar: using real people to represent characters (although puppets also count as live action).

Broadly, a tabletop becomes a larp when people can move around a physical space to represent their characters’ physical movement in the fictional setting. Costume, set dressing etc. are a bonus.

Really though, there isn’t a clear divide. Like most things, it’s a continuum. In a tabletop you might speak as your character, and that aspect of it is larp-like. You might stand up and act out one scene or use props, and it becomes even more larp-like. So there’s a fuzzy line between tabletop and larp.

#4

Question 1: What makes larp different from tabletop?

The difference is in the embodiment of the character and also the embodiment of the environment. Going truly into your character, in larping you adopt every espect of the character as much as you can. The walk, the talk, the dress, this allows for a higher level of immersion but more importantly character sympathy. This is why I larp, to place myself into the shoes of someone I will never be, whether it is bad guys or good. Through larp you gain association because to get closer to true sympathy it is not enough to imagine but you need to breath the character.

Question 2: What do larp and tabletop have in common?

In both cases you try to place yourself into a character who is not you. This character may be close to, or based on you, but ultimately is an other. I may say this only in a couple of sentences but it is actually a huge point.

Question 3: At what point does a tabletop game become a larp? (For bonus points, how would a larp become a tabletop game?)

A tabletop becomes a larp when the threat to your character is physical as well as imaginary. Yes it is representative physicality and threat translates to conflict which every game has to one degree or another. Bottom line is, the roleplaying is both physical as well as vocal. A larp becomes a tabletop when the threat and conflict fades from the physical too much into the imaginary. Every game has to have a certain amount of suspension of disbelief but the main interaction within a larp is on the physiscal level and it is on a vocal level in tabletop.

#5

That’s a good point, that aspect never occurred to me.

#6

For me, the biggest difference is the way that information flows through the game. For a ‘pure’ tabletop game, all information is provided synchronously to all players unless you make an effort not to (ie passing notes or rolling dice in secret.) In a ‘pure’ larp, all information is asynchronous unless you make an effort not to - things happen to people in separate small clusters and information moves with a real Chinese whispers effect unless you’ve got someone making big public announcements (which tends to reduce player agency.) It really affects how I go about designing games - the more larp like and distributed the game is, the more it pays to make the subsystems of the game (plots, rules, props etc) self running; the more tabletop like and focused the game is, the more you can act as a single focal point to provide information and adapt to what the players do in real time, and the more they’re able to create a shared imagined space on the fly. But it’s a lot more about a continuum and tendencies than a hard and fast binary.

#7

Question 1: What makes larp different from tabletop?
The most evident difference I notice is that tabletop lacks the live action aspect present in larp. In larp you act out what your character is doing, but in tabletop you describe what your character is doing in words without actions. This main aspect has a number of roll on effects. In a larp it is more difficult, expensive, and time consuming to achieve such things as a believable dragon, or a sprawling crypt, or anything that doesn’t already exist in the real world. There’s a lot more freedom to travel, and to be whatever you want to be in tabletop, but at the same time it’s a lot less intense than larp. In larp you are your character for the duration of the game; in tabletop you are merely the narrator for your character.

Question 2: What do larp and tabletop have in common?
They are both methods of collaborative storytelling.

Question 3: At what point does a tabletop game become a larp?
It begins with maybe one or two people in the tabletop standing up to act out their interactions. This usually becomes infectious and then everyone is standing and acting the parts of their characters. It’s happened to a few tabletops I’ve been in or been in close proximity to (e.g. at Kapcon).

For bonus points, how would a larp become a tabletop game?
This usually happens when the rules of the larp are so ambiguous, or complex, or the game involves so many rules lawyers, that the people have to sit down with a GM to sort out exactly what has happened. Then everyone has to talk about what their characters did and the live action part of larp evaporates. Actually any situations where the players are uncertain about some aspect of character interaction will usually become an OOC discussion about what their character is doing, or attempting to do, with another player.

In some situations it can happen when the players are unenthusiastic about the larp, and so will sit out and simply describe what their characters do instead of taking part in the acting.

#8

This is a really important characteristic of larp vs. tabletop. I wonder if it’s a side-effect of embodiment, rather than a more central part of the definition of larp?

If you have a roleplaying game sitting at a table, where your physical actions are representative of your characters’ (e.g. a boardroom situation), and everyone can hear each other, I would say that’s a larp. But the information flow is more like a tabletop game.

Possibly what distinguishes information flow in a tabletop game is the usual role of the game master, who is like a conduit and arbiter for most information in the game. That’s not usually the case in larp. I think that might be definitional for larp vs. tabletop.

Real time play is another characteristic of larp. The flow of time in the setting is represented by the flow of time in the real world. In tabletop, real time and “game time” are largely divorced, typically only syncing when people are talking in character (in a larp-like manner). In larp it’s the opposite, events usually happen in real time except for exceptions like time freezes and “time bubbles” when abstract combat rules takes a long time to resolve (in a tabletop-like manner).

I think the different ways time flows also spring from the role of the GM as constant facilitator in tabletop. Take away the GM as the intermediary for all actions in the setting, and it frees up the players to play their characters in real time. Especially as freedom from the GM allows players to physically roam and form a distributed network of interaction.

So larp is, in a way, freedom from being managed moment-to-moment by a GM, along with embodiment. These things together have important implications for information flow and time flow that are critical to the practical way a larp functions.

#9

Question 1: What makes larp different from tabletop?

The method of interaction, Live action allows for easier interaction and representation, Tabletop for example allows you to fly.

Question 2: What do larp and tabletop have in common?

Both allow you Roleplay a situation or event.

Question 3: At what point does a tabletop game become a larp? (For bonus points, how would a larp become a tabletop game?)

When you start physically interacting with the other players and the enviroment in a way that affects the game.

#10

Dice, or the lack thereof.

#11

And the importance or lack thereof of the Game Master telling the party what is happening. .