Boffer LARP: My Love, My Hate

For those who don't know what boffer LARPs are, go watch Role Models- easier to see then explain. Still, for the quick explanation, it's just like tabletop roleplaying, only you wear costumes to dress as your character and use boffer swords (some kind of soft foam around some kind of stick, varies from game to game) to decide the outcome of combat. Combat can range from the highly realistic to fantastic MMO style fluff.

Anyhow, I've played three of them by now, two of them over several months, one just twice, but I had my fun at them. I also have my hate.

I'll explain the good first.

The good thing about LARPs is the increased sense of immersion into a world. Rolling some dice in a horror or fantasy game to flee danger or fell monsters is one thing, but live action brings a real sense of danger and the rush of combat fully to the front. When a big monster pops up out of the darkness and you run for your life, there are no rolls- you run and pray your faster than the thing chasing you. When you get into a combat, you don't roll dice back and forth in a yawnfest- you actually swing, actually dodge, and while stats can mitigate things, you have some responsibility for how things come out. I'd never liked D&D until the Lord of the Rings movies came out and I started LARPing- it pushed past the limits of my imagination and gave me both the FEEL and the VISUAL. I could know what its like to be a man with a sword fighting for his life, pitting your wits against ancient enemies, and how dangerous everything really is.

Now for the bad things, the source of my hate. LARPs are kind of old as far as game design decisions go. They're often mired in AD&D style mechanics. They have levels. And there is no end in sight. They have a life span to some degree, and without proper maintenance, many shamble on like decrepit undead beasts, clawing for life.

I'll give an example of how a LARPs life tends to go. First, there is the Groundwork Period. LARPs often bud off other LARPs as they grow older, people becoming disatisfied with them for X or Y reasons. So a handful of experience LARPers cobble together a new system, which is often just a slight tweak of the old system. Then they start to attract people, often old friends, but if they're ambitious they will have a website and reach out through conventions, renaissance fairs, word of mouth, and whatever other means they care to use. So the population will grow with time, and depending on a myriad of factors, tend to peak at some point.

By the time of peak growth, a few 'stars' emerge on the scene- the really good roleplayers, fighters, etc. who got in on the ground floor will now be the most powerful characters in the game, with good ties into the setting. They will often have old, powerful magic items that make them nigh unassailable to the average PC or NPC on the field, with abilities heads and shoulders above other characters. I think I'd call this phase the Settled Period. We now see plots catering more and more to these 'main' characters. Getting into the game and enjoying it may be hard as the existing social structure may ostracize you, preventing any kind of advancement or achievement- for example, you may make a wizard and be shunned by the Mages Guild, making it impossible to learn new spells. If you are someone with 'star' potential, bringing something to the table, you may manage to impress the right people to be ingratiated into the existing system.

The Final Stage comes after the 'main' characters are so vastly powerful that a new character might as well just come in as a peasant, because you'll probably feel like one in a short time. Bigger nastier baddies are fielded to challenge the higher level characters, turning the lowbies into fodder. Because people get bored, there is a high potential for people to have their characters 'go evil' if only to give them something new to do. There is also more concentrated efforts to break the system- low level characters can't win by the rules they are given, and so search for loopholes to make it by. The rules are probably now showing some age, more players drifting off because theres little reason to join. The population takes a hit, and the entire game may now be in trouble.

I've played for a while, and I've seen it happen. Almost every LARP has a story of someone who succeeded at playing a big evil character and wiped out most of the game- even a game I played that claimed 'that couldn't happen in our system' ( http://www.finalhavenlarp.com ). Apparently, mid battle some spellcaster turned around and blew away half the field- of course, many of the afore-mentioned main characters survived or were resurrected.

I think, ultimately, that most of these problems could be prevented through the use of a limited scope of plot. Many LARPs run with the presumed intent of never ending. While I love comic book superheroes, as a comic book fan, I know that stupid things happen when you run something for a long time with no end. Characters do things they shouldn't do, silly events happen because of a new writer, good stories may retcon to replace bad and vice versa- without an end, the story gets crazy. Worse, in a comic, you know things will be fine because fictional characters can just keep going without an ending- they're not real. But we are.

When I run a roleplaying game at the table, I plan a campaign with the idea of some end point. Something that will make everyone feel satisfied when its all over. The same thing goes for most fantasy novels. There are few unending fantasy serials, things that were meant to stretch until the end of time. A good campaign tends to be one that makes sure people have a good time- LARPs have a tendency to forget that as the population reaches unwieldy levels.

So, my argument is that a LARP should end some time in the second stage. There are problems with this, but I'll discuss those in my next post.