Returning to the World of LARP

How I'm slowly getting back into an old hobby

Photo by Wren Meinberg on Unsplash

During the week of Valentine's, I was invited to help cast at a Live Action Roleplaying game (LARP) event this past weekend. It had been years since I even thought about LARPing, a hobby which had captured by interest intensely during my teenage years but fell out of as college and other social pursuits filled my free time. After my brush with the past back in October—which you can read about in the post below—I caught an itch to return to the world of LARPing.

My first experience with LARPing was as a player at a summer camp in New England. I moved up to being a counselor in training, portraying various monsters and non-player characters (NPCs) and picking up skills similar to the tech side of theater (set building, prop-making, etc.). Eventually I got a staff position where I assisted in writing part of the plot for the summer and organizing counselors in training to execute said plot. Since I was spending so much time with this camp, I got an itch to try being a player again at another LARP when I was old enough. I went to one for a few events, but college and other obligations and conflicts piled up, so I decided to leave it alone for a while.

For this LARP, I attended it as a cast member, meaning I got to portray NPCs and monsters as well as help out with other behind the scenes logistics and maintenance. Being a “forever Dungeon Master”,¹ I actually enjoy writing and running adventures more than I do playing a single character. I feel the most rewarded when I run a game where everyone is happy by the end; I think it's just neat to see my players take something I wrote and make it their own, coming up with ideas I hadn't even considered. I told myself recently that if I were ever to get back into LARP then I'd come at it from the side of the cast to see if I could replicate a similar experience.

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Before I properly begin this post, I wanted to say that this is not a review of the game I participated in but a reflection of my experience rejoining this hobby. As such, I won’t be naming specific names of the game, people, or places—but I will say that everyone and everything at this event was just plain awesome.

I arrived at the site of the LARP an hour after I left work. The ground was slick from mud and ice with patches of snow everywhere. I went into the main tavern building where the owners of the LARP hosted an armored combat show before the start of the game—this one was special because they were using unorthodox weapons to fight like metal folding chairs and plungers and rubber chickens. I met with the head game master (GM) and got to setting up logistics (or the cast center, the “backstage” area where all the monsters and non-player characters [NPCs] are prepped). Sorting props and costumes in a chilly basement at once felt familiar and comfortable despite the game being entirely new to me. After logistics was set up, players and cast members for the LARP started trickling into the site (though many were already there for the armored combat show), and the first in-game encounter of the night was prepped to be sent out. I and several other cast threw on black robes and grabbed latex swords and daggers. The GM donned a black mask carved with spirals and took up a hammer—he was a smith in service to the gods of chaos and we were his cultist servants. We all went out to a module building beside the tavern—modules (or mods) are essentially like dungeons in D&D, or haunted houses where attendees get to fight back. The building interior was illuminated by red lights (signifying a place to be feared) and very cold, but we cultists huddled together behind the black tarp walls while we waited for the players to arrive and storm the dungeon. Once they did arrive and combat started, I was surprised with myself at how easily I slipped back into acting out boffer² combat, reacting to hits as if I was getting stuck by sword-blades and arrows or singed by spells, and laying pressure on the players. In the very first round of players, I must have reacted in such an exaggerated manner that the player who “killed” me asked if I was all right after I collapsed to the frigid concrete floor once my cultist’s hit points were spent.

Soon after all the players in attendance on the first night went through the module, the cultists and our leader returned to logistics and doffed our costumes and wiped any makeup off our faces, then it was off to bed. The next morning, when I walked downstairs from the cast sleeping quarters into logistics in the basement, I got a similar feeling as a kid would get when walking down the stairs on Christmas morning—it felt like something very special was going to happen that day and it did. Throughout the day, I got to play monsters and NPCs in various factions in the game, learning about the game world and lore, seeing different player characters’ motivations and personalities, getting to meet and play alongside great people, and generally enjoying my time outside—even in the cold, wet forest. I mostly filled out combat encounters, getting to play a rat-man, a “Frank Frazetta ‘Viking’”, a skeleton, a beast-man (who got to attack the tavern several times), and a goblin. Something I wished I had done more of when I was a monster camper was to get more invested even in the smaller roles I was playing (i.e. practicing being the creature or character rather than waiting for people to show up) and this event was the perfect opportunity to try that out, playing with fellow cast members in character as we navigated the site and planned encounters rather than simply communicating as our regular selves.

Although the game leaned a bit towards the serious side (considering it is inspired by the grimdark world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer), things got a bit sillier after midnight. Most of the time, LARPs will run encounters until two o’clock in the morning, although some might be 24 hours depending on the intensity and player preferences. There was one group of players that had a special encounter set up for them and I was tasked to dress up as a courier and deliver a foreboding message, warning, “The himbos³ are coming...” I got in a tunic, pants, and a black hood then ran with my message around the site looking for the player group. I finally found them and they allowed me to approach but were incredibly suspicious. After they read the letter, the recipient told them to break of my legs and after some banter, they broke my left leg. As I was on the ground, wailing, one of them loomed over me and muttered, “I’m tired of turning over a new leaf” and slit my throat, leaving me to bleed out.⁴ I ran back to logistics moments afterwards, once the players were distracted by the aforementioned himbos. Once I got back the GM told me to go back out and deliver another message to the same group, and as I took a few steps out the door, I realized I was in the same exact costume as the first courier. I took a few seconds to think if I ought to have just gone down and give the Monty Python and the Holy Grail “I got better” excuse if the players asked how my character was still alive or stick with the ethos of the game and change my costume—I chose the latter, rushing back to logistics and grabbing a green hood. I went back to the players and delivered my second message, and as they were about to let me go, one them said, “Let’s not tell him about his brother.” Playing along, I replied, “What happened to my brother?” They promptly held me in place and broke my right leg. The same player who slit my throat, said the same exact thing about turning over a new leaf, and slit my throat again.

This all happened within the span of little more than five minutes.

I mentioned above that somewhere along the line I started to prefer game mastering over playing when it came to roleplaying games. Although I’m perfectly happy to participate as a player in my friends’ games, I get more enjoyment out of writing scenarios, running games, and seeing what kind of characters my players create. Being on the behind the scenes side also helps me focus more on the fun of gaming rather than the “meta aspects” such as levelling up, gathering treasure, or trying to “win” every encounter. A lesson that most successful game masters will learn is that no matter what happens in a game, it’s a hit as long as everyone has fun. Although I was not game mastering this LARP, getting to do things that made everyone’s weekend enjoyable was so rewarding.

Something I also had forgotten the feeling of that came back to me this weekend was just leaving the real world at the door. While casting, and socializing during downtime, I forgot about checking my phone every five minutes, planning out my work week, and even let go of worrying about the deadlines for Senchas Claideb. From Friday night to Sunday afternoon, I allowed myself to leave everything be and just live in the moment. The energy it gave me was astounding; I could wake up and (mostly) function before eight o’clock in the morning even if I had stayed up until nearly three running around in the snow without taking any naps during the day. At the end of the event, I felt legitimately refreshed and excited at the prospect of helping out at another event.

The chance to lose myself for a weekend and help other people have a good time really gave me a “hard reset” that I didn't know I needed and hadn't experienced in quite some time. It left me wanting more in the best of ways; my interactions with the game world inspired ideas for characters and plots I might like to contribute to future storylines, I learnt new lessons about roleplaying and logistics that I had yet to consider from my past experiences, and I got to be part of a community effort to just forget the world and reality for a few days and have fun in the company of like-minded humans, as all LARPs should strive to create a space for.

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1. This moniker refers to people who play tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons that are usually the de facto Dungeon Master or Game Master in the friend group when it comes to starting new adventures or campaigns.

2. Boffers are tools made out of PVC and foam and either covered in duct tape or fabric to simulate weapons in LARPs or other medieval-style games and combat sports.

3. From the Urban Dictionary definition of “himbo”:

A dumb or naive man, who, despite looking like [a stereotypical jock], is actually sweet, respectful, and kind. Typically large, beefy, and relatively handsome, but friendly. Gentle giants, if you will. Perhaps the best example of a himbo is Kronk, from The Emperor’s New Groove. He is large, strong, and stupid, but extremely kind and respectful to everyone. He is also incredibly innocent and unaware of many events happening around him, as most himbos are.

4. All of this is purely “in-game” (i.e. simply acted out as it would be in a stage play), I was never actually in any danger of having my limbs broken at the event unless I slipped on the ice.