Why do you larp Veeky Forums

It's fun, it's a bit different from just roleplaying and you generally meet a lot of new people. It's fun to be able to roleplay in larger groups, to see others, unknown strangers, be creative for your enjoyment and to be able to influence each others experiences in a way participating in theater don't.

Now the community can be full of insufferable egotistical attention hogging.. People.

It can take a bit of work to find the right groups of people to enjoy your LARPing experiences with.

I might be lucky of being Swedish and having a lot of different LARPing experiences to chose from through out the years. I really like some of them and could have been with out some of them as well.

I usually prefer more focused experiences, less open sandbox fantasy with swords and boards and what not.

I know its oversimplifying it.
That's basically it tho from my experience.
Russians hit harder, get hit harder and take everything more to the extreme.
Europeans like their roleplaying and prefer fancy combat and fancier plots.
Americans treat it like sport with a general plot to it.
there are exceptions but that's it for the most part.

a quick google led me here larpwiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/LARP_in_Canada

I've never larped in any of these. bring friends or play with the group that you have the best chemistry with.

>larpwiki.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/LARP_in_Canada
>none in saskatchewan

Literally all of it, if you have time. Maybe just a more detailed overview of the differing LARP communities?

Russia is... different. They have a different approach but they have a whole lot of larps that close to regular ones, although I admit that they have a way different opinion on what counts as safe, but not to the level that most people like to think.
About Europe, the fancy combat and fancier plots happens in the UK and Germany mainly and in their neighborhood countries. Those two countries have the biggest larps in the world too, with thousands of players.
Scandinavia and Eastern Europe is a whole different animal, different approaches, etc.
Americans... well, they like to call everything a larp which has swords, so dagorhir, amtgard and the likes which are basically just boffertags called a larp too. But the actual larps there has this problem that first of all not many of them wants to get away from the roots which is mostly nero, and they set up like D&D IN REAL LIFE. By that I mean they made rules that resemble the tabletop ones without realizing larping is an entirely different medium and you need a different kind of ruleset for it.

never been to a Scandinavian larp.
what are the differences?

Well, here are a few things as a start.
UK and Germany is kind of similar, that if you want to be vague you can sort them under one hat.
Germany is mostly famous from the Mythodea/Conquest larp and Drachenest, these two are the biggest IIRC in the world, Mythodea/Conquest is usually go above 8k participants, Drachenfest is usually a little under of that.
There is Epic Empires there too but it isn't as international as the other two, and smaller, but still in the thousands.
The UK has the Empire as their big larp in the thousands, can't remember precise numbers, and they have a handful of other big larps, mostly those are in the hundreds, but sometimes go above a thousand.

Apart from those two countries, larps that have over a thousand participant is rare, or even exceptional.
Going over a hundred or few hundred is happening in other countries too, but the average all around the world is still below a hundred, somewhere around 50ish. That's mostly because there are a literal fuckon of larps out there.
Now, I never been on UK larps so far, but I've been talking to UK larpers, and went to a few german larps so here are what _I_ think are the differences: While both try to have fun, and willing to bend the rules for that, the germans are more likely to entirely drop the rules for the sake of having fun and great moments.
There is German idea that you only need two rules for a larp:
1. Never except anything specific to happen because of your actions
2. Always react in some way to other's actions
Also, the two biggest larps are in germany there are more international larpers there so more idea sharing happens. This makes those two larps more of a melting pot, while the UK larps doesn't have this in the same degree
BUT there are also a lot of purely german larps, and as far as I know the reen-larpment word comes from the germans too. When reenactor tier stuff is used for a story that is placed into real life history, and tries to be as authentic as possible

Well, about the Sandinavian scene.
While they have your regular fantasy larps it's not the most dominant thing there as far as I now (the swedish guy will correct me if I'm wrong)

The most numerous larps they have are the chamber larps, these are usually played in one room or building, have a short duration of time, characters usually pre written, so is the story and can be played again and again with different or even with the same people.

Also from scandinvia comes the term Nordic larp. There are several approaches to that too but it's basically "larp is an art, you aren't there to have fun" That means the story tries to tell you something or show you something. It can go from really artsy stuff, to pointing at problems of society, or Veeky Forums's favorite one the Gang-Rape larp, which tries to shed some light how these things happen, and what would the victims feel.

Edu-larps also come from there, which is instead or being artsy, is try to be educational. there are whole schools that use this method.
Basically it tries to teaches you stuff, be it historical, or other (it's good for mostly teaching soft skills, but hard skills like math can be motivated by it too)

Then there are such stuff as misery-larps which has the goal to make you feel as miserable as possibly while having a story to it too. Like you are a bunch of refugees and have to survive on some abandoned farm, and you stuff like food or blankets are in game resources (you can't bring them into the game on your own)
Scandinavian larps usually really attentive to the details, you can see that in the costumes too. They have a lot of high quality hand crafted stuff apart from some shop bought ones.
You can usually tell apart by that UK-German larpers and scandinavians by that. UK-German larpers have WAAAAY more store bought stuff in general.

Also let's not forget that nowdays the SJW movement is kind of strong in the scandinavian larping scene so that influences some of there larps strongly.

I will never because I can't justify the cost (to do it properly), and because north american larps are mostly, "Grab your trashcan lid and pool noodle boys! Charge!"

sounds like something to avoid whole sale.
room larps and prewritten ones sound cool but the rest of what you mentioned sounds horrible.

Now about eastern Europe... It's a clusterfuck. I mean it.

Basically nearly every country has a different approach to it, and all of them is influenced by something.

Poland for example HEAVILY influenced by the nordic larps and the scandinavian ways. They have a literal fuckton of nordic chamber larps there, chamber larps the way they go, although they have regular fantasy larps and the Harry Potter larp and the Whicher larp are also made by them (although the Harry Potter larp tries to do a game in the US too afaik) Which are in actual castles, very good costuming, pyrotechnic and various other movie effects used. Also the most expensive larps out there. From the ticket price of the Harry Potter larp I can cover the ticket AND the travel costs for Drachenfest.
But that's what you have to pay for quality.
SJW's also happen to be in that country.

Then there are the Checz Republic. they are big on chamber larps too but not to the degree as Poland, AND they have a very important scene in fatnasy larping. Namely they are mostly famous from the Middle Earth larps they have and there ou can see that they are also have a very distinct kind of costumes. Nearly everything is hand made and looks great, although their weapons look like shit most of the time. Probably wouldn't pass a safety inspection in Western Europe.
There are various other great larps there, all of them unique in some way, like "Legion: Siberian Story" but they have an online database for it.

Well, consider this: the Monitor Celestia larp also came from Scandinavia. Then there is a Dragonbane from Denmark which had a budget of 1 million euros.
It may sound strange to you and obviously these kind of games aren't for everyone but don't be so fast to judge them

I dunno man. I've larped quite a bit in Sweden and I've never heard of any of that.

> First of all russian larps are over-mysticismed because US people can't make a difference between HMB and larp. Or anything with swords and a larp for that matter.
> Russia is... different. They have a different approach but they have a whole lot of larps that close to regular ones, although I admit that they have a way different opinion on what counts as safe, but not to the level that most people like to think.
IIRC, some sort of reenactors started civil war in Ukraine by taking over a few cities in Donbass and fighting against regular army for months. Not sure if they were larping, but I withhold my judgement for the moment.

about which part?

continuing the eastern european clusterfuck.

There are the bulgarian scene, which is mostly evolved from the boffertags, now it's mostly about different clans having larps or fighting each other but with added roleplay. A more refined dagorhir/amtgard that you can actually call a larp. I personally think their weapon standards are shit but that's my own opinion. They also started a Stalker larp which allegedly not bad, but it isn't famous yet.

Then there is Croatia. Croatia is strange because most of it's larp culture started from Amtgard. They seen amtgard through the net, started a few chapters there and called it a day for a few years. Obviously it evolved as people wanted more and more roleplay but the core stayed the same. Then 4 or 5 years ago they started to change it, or to be more precise one guy started to make different kinds of larps and while at first it met a fuckton of resistance now it's kind of accepted. I mean the different larps, not the guy. They don't have anything exceptional on the fantasy front, although they made a great pervarsive urban fantasy larp where one event goes for several weeks or even for a month and you play it constantly next to your real life. It's called Izgon.
They also try to reform their WoD larp scene but that's true for everyone.

And of course there is Hungary, I'm from here so I have to mention it but honestly, we are kind of insignificant. Larpers here are pretty much decentralized, no real community, but we had a few great games and I could say that we have one game with really great costuming. Currently we are experimenting with various kinds of larps to se what works for us.

There are other countries too, like Romania, Serbia, etc but these are either have too few larpers or closed off, or just doesn't have anything exceptional.

There are also France, Italy, Greece, Spain, and the like.
They either have just a few larpers, or they didn't do anything BIG yet. Mostly the later one.
Anyway no real stereotypes about them so far, Although the Italians are coming up fast.

And then there is the US.
My own opinion is that the US is a big shithole when it comes to larps. you guys would have an easier time if burned everything and start from zero then repairing what you have now. But even then I'm not sure it's possible. It's just so many cultural and other problems there, one could write several books about the problems of US larps because you can't point at only one thing and say, yeah that's the cause. There are several problems that strengthen each other.

I will never larp because I HAVE larped.

I spent months searching different larps and making my costumes and weaponry and studying forums and attending them.

In more than 10 groups I never found a single person I wouldn't consider a loser.

Winning IS fun.

yeah but larping in general aren't a competitive game, or simply lacks win conditions, other than the ones you make for yourself

>why will you never larp /tg
Because I'd want to do it properly, and doing it properly takes a lot of time and a well managed group.
I don't know if there's any LARP stuff in my town, or even how I would check into that.

google is the go to solution for this, but where are you living?

What do you think of the SCA if anything? It seems like a cross between LARP and re-enactors.

How come you and clownbro never start LARP threads here anymore?

I have mixed feelings about the SCA. It isn't a thing around here so I only see them through the internet and most of the time when someone comes and proclaims that yes he is from the SCA he is also an asshole/retard that tries to prove how manly he is.
Probably it's just a vocal minority but still...
Other than that, it's not my style. I'm in reenactment and larping, so I doesn't really need another stuff that is between those two.

About the larp threads: I still start larpthreads here. It's you guys that doesn't reply to it and 404 fairly quickly.

If anyone of you is interested in traveling to germany for the biggest larps in the world I could send you contacts oft people who organize this. International players are always welcome and a lot of people speak good english too

Do you mean the grand expedition guys?

Also I always organize travel myself. Did it the previous three times for drachenfest, will do it this year too.

>reservists are LARPers

It all makes sense now

Just started LARPing in the past year in America. My LARP might be a little more Euro-influenced compared to other American LARPs because it is extremely roleplay heavy, to the point that unless the town I being rolled by hostile NPCs that you'd never even need to pick up a boffer. I've continued to do it because it's fun, it felt like a natural progression going from tabletops to LARPing and the community I'm in is mostly without drama.

Yes. Nice which camp are you in? Im in silver 4th time now.

Landsknecht camp this year and previous one. Before that Blue camp for two years

How international are Landsknechte?

No, a combination of self-consciousness, and self-respect.

Hiw heavy is the movie and TV influence in Charakter backgrounds? In germany its still mostly adapted from tabletop and pen &paper

very. There are North Germans there, South Germans, Austrian Germans, Swiss Germans, Italian Germans, French Germans. Every kind of Germans you can think of.
Sadly not that big on english but whatever. Last year there were a group from Estionia too but they won't come this year

Anyone trying to or running a euro-style game in Virginia? Im in Richmond.

Kek

Not at all, the only player character I've recognized as influenced from anything semi-modern is a relatively new character loosely influenced by Doctor Frankenstein.

After pirates of the caribian we had a flood of Jack sparrow look alikes. That shit was anoying

My experience is still super limited since I only started in November, but other than references to Shakespearean-Era fiction and the occasional Victorian-Era reference, everything is largely original-ish.

Thats Gropey's turf. Ask him.

Bump

I doubt I'll ever LARP again since I'm in the US, and LARP here is trash due to overbearing safety regulations or the LARP event actually being just a boffertag tournament.(which attract the self-important megachodes, who sometimes go to LARPs just to beat casual people at their bastardized sport.)

I'd rather do cosplay or costume/renesonse festivals with LARP elements at this point.

>renesonse

I meant "renaissance"

Hands ur drunk go home

I want to LARP, but its a nightmare where I live
I'm going to be moving to Oregon soon, any tips Veeky Forums?

see But you can be a beacon in the dark if you roleplay well.
Go BIG HAM and chew the shit out of the scenery.

I always wanted to try it out, I just have no idea where to even start. After reading this thread living in america is really going to make it hard. It seems like a lot of fun though.

It is

it hasit's ups and downs. But with the US it's mostly downs. Especially the players.

I'm coming to Drachenfest with a group from the Netherlands, which is close enough to travel by car rather than by plane. Still, if you have a "foreigner's guide to Drachenfest" or something, I'd be interested.

On the topic of Drachenfest: how strict are they with correct-looking encampments? We've got ourselves a few tents like pic related, are those acceptable? Furthermore, are people going to complain if you have OOC stuff in your tent if you keep it closed?

very strict as far as i know. just drape some natural cloth over it and it will look good

Those tents are totally okay, most people use similar stuff. Plastic tents als oacceptable but those are put up in the back rows. Also you should talk with the leader of the camp beforehand so you get a tent place secured.
About OOC stuff, you can keep it in the tent, no problem there

is this the same guy?
where is the left photo from?

It's funny, because I view people like you with the same exact revulsion you probably view me with.

I'd much prefer boffertag tournaments, and am forced to endure the theatrics of bad actors combined with rule systems to let them feel important.

It seems so creepy and awkward.

I hear lots of stories about girls being touched lewdly :S

unfortunately some men are disgusting pigs in that regard and I can only vouch for myself in that regard.

these stories are too common

Another Swefag here, I haven't heard about that either. mostly it seems to be victorian, postapocalypic or low-fantasy settings. People tend to do ALOT of prepwork so in that sense it might be more complex.

However most groups are about 80% aspergers. seriously, social skills are rarer than Bismuth.

>Also you should talk with the leader of the camp beforehand so you get a tent place secured.
Is that really necessary, and if so, how should I go about doing that? Use the Drachenfest forums? Or is there something else for individual camps? Gray camp, should it matter.

ask your group lead.
if you are your group's captain ask your camp commander or event coordinator.
email, private massage on facebook, etc.

Left: Finnish actor in the role of Tuttiritari (tl. "Pacifier Knight") in a Finnish children's show.
Right: That one guy playing what's-his-face in Game of Thrones.

again, which part of it you didn't heard about? The nordic larps?

>why will you never larp /tg
Because I don't know anything about larping and I have no friends to larp with.

Was invited to and attended a VtM LARP once.

VtM?

Vampire the Masquerade.
One of the many WoD larps.

> Join an RP larp
Everyone sits around and strokes their peen for six hours.

> Join a "simulation" larp
It's boffer-tag

I am done with larping.

Who the fuck even larps these days.

The 4 times I went to a vampire larp it was FILLED with full-blown sociopathic wackjobs the likes of which I hope never again to meet.

>vampire larp
there is your problem

>UKfag
>Be getting swole due to no job but alot of money
>Want to get into LARPing because Historical and fantasy combat is one of my biggest hobbies
>Have no idea how to get a decent setup
>Get legit worried I may hit someone too hard

there is only one way to find out if your worry is legit or not. Meet up with some UK larpers and try out yourself

Mate, depending on where you live you could look at the Lorien Trust group which I LARP with, events are damn good fun and reasonably cheap (especially if you pre-book) as for gear; Ebay is your friend, drop somewhere between £30-£50 on a LARP safe weapon you like, costume is relatively cheap and most events have a huge variety of stalls to buy cool stuff from (often open before in character time). As regards character generation that's really up to you, I could waffle on for hours but just hit their website and have a gander

>be newfag
>"i want to larp lawl"
>find some group, Amtguard, or some shit
>there are classes, you bring a foam weapon, kind of dress like your class
>in middle of nowhere
>lots of people surprisingly
>team captains start picking from pool of people
>picked last
>you walk with your team I guess until you meet the opposing side where you wail on eachother with foam weapons
>it's super boring
>embarrass myself no less than 3 times

Was that even LARP? it was more like...wanna be fake...battle?
it was terrible

nope, amtgard is a glorified boffertag or battle game.
Little to no role playing, but it has swords so US people call it a larp.

it really depends on the crowd, I have never done it myself but I used to live with a guy who did. If you do it with a group of people that aren't pussies and are down to get a little rowdy I can see it being really fun, but if its with people that have a bunch of gay rules and everyone is afraid of getting hurt then It would probably suck ass.

I used to spar with the larp guy that I lived with, he would try to teach me how to sword fight and shit because he actually has 8 years of medieval combat training (french people man).

it was pretty fun sparring with him ill be honest, we would bash the shit out of each other and we were both ok with using our hands and shoulders to block/check each other. was kind of like playing a contact sport with weapons.

Who? Full disclosure: I am a disgusting newfag to Veeky Forums. That name makes me a little suspect.

Britfag here but I've done some stuff kinda similar to this and it was awesome
>find out college history lecturer also does historical re-enactments in his spare time
>dude already looks like a viking
>inquire whether I could try it
>sure
>let's me come to a training session
>middle of fucking nowhere in the woods
>tents in the clearing with campfire
>busty qt maidens baking bread and roasting joints of meat
>meet the guys
>mostly cool, one aspie edgy archer (actually really skilled with a bow and arrow though)
>no experience or equipment aside from playing with sticks as a kid
>hands me blunt sword, buckler and some armor (leather jerkin, footwraps, chainmail and some other authentic shit)
>rules are: don't aim to injure
>no headshots
>only horizontal swings when attacking with anything hard
>no sneak attacks
>then go to other team and walk into woods
>set up camp, drink mead, have chill banter
>evening and still no combat even slightly
>leader says we should surprise the enemy team
>slow crouch walk through forest with a fucking sword
>get to other camp
>edgy archer goes round to other side of the camp and starts climbing a tree
>our plan is set
>they're all in the largest of the tents which had a dining table in
>wait for them to come out
>largest guy in group, sprints down the hill with a warcry holding a zweihander
>intense combat begins
>fighting a guy who has axe
>start getting pretty rekt cause first time and he's not taking chances
>he gets hit with a rubber ended arrow from our stealth archer

I've got lots of great memories of those guys, even the autismo but looking back on it, one of us could have gotten injured or died so, so easily.

Do you have more stories? This sounds awesome

>only "larp" is a small SCA group run by reservists
>can't do Cool Airsoft Shit because it's functionally illegal
>can't pretend to do Cool Airsoft Shit with paintball because it's nothing but tryhards competing to see how many injuries they can cause before the ref makes them re-chrono their markers

That's fine, I don't want to go outside anyway.

LARP my friend got me into is pretty fun. We cast so we don't pay for anything, everyone is so nice. It's endearing seeing all the people from different backgrounds coming to together to have fun. A lot of more old guys than I expected, the only person who seems to be a bitch is the girl who cosplays and want's my friend's dong. I have a pic of me if you anons are interested

Only if it's hecka sweet.

I would really enjoy larp more if the whole thing didn't have such a negative connotation. I tell people I larp in my free time, and they instantly assume I'm weird. I mean, I am weird, but not because of the larping. That's just a hobby, like murdering homeless people with a ball-pien hammer.

I'm the black one [spoiler/]

Because it costs time and money i don't have with my 60 hour work week.

Two of my friends have tried larping.
One of them wanted to do it because he read that community's rules for you how you make your weapon and he was able to get away with having a 5 foot block of foam with a handle on it
The other loved it a lot and was driving out to places like 3 hours away just to larp

Spilled my cerreal 10/10 post.

well, everyone needs a hobby. And in every group there is a would be psychopath. That's why I thrown Bob off the bridge last week, he seemed like that kind of guy. Couldn't take the chances.

Why is that adorable child crying?

She paid for that model kit.
But not with money.

I can't find anyone who wants to go with me anymore. None of my friends are really into it, and I'm not good enough at making friends quickly to have a good time going alone.

I think the Swedes had a really fucking cool Battlestar Galactica LARP where they did it all on a museum ship below decks. The concept sounded really cool though.

Pick related, they rented out TV correct uniforms and everything.

At least in Finland, most LARPs are nothing like that. Almost all LARPS I know of are either fantasy, scifi or modern fiction, with stuff like a Reservoir Dogs-inspired game where there are only two rules: if someone pulls a gun, everyone has to pull a gun, and if someone fires, everyone has to fire.

Beyond that, there's nothing like the edularps or misery larps you mentioned, at least that I know of.