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LARP: A Tale of Two Games
The following is a comparison between two experiences I had with two different LARPs, and an analysis of the small crucial differences between how the two games are run and feel when played.
At the end of 2005, I had been playing RPGs for nearly ten years, yet I still had not played a LARP, a Live Action Role Playing Game. This type of game was not nearly as popular in my area as the Table Top variant, and was in fact looked down upon by many gamers - those who played in LARPs were seen to be even more geeky and nerdy, to a level that was perceived as strange, if not scary. This idea was enforced by several of the more prominent LARPers in the area who happened to fit an archetype, that of the 28 year old man, paler than a corpse, living in his parent’s basement and working at a store soley for the employee discounts it would bring him on Magic cards, video games, and books. Despite the description, I would get to know several of these people years later, only to discover they were fairly normal.
In December of 2005, however, I was planning to attend PhilCon and saw on the program schedule that a game of Cthulhu Live (a LARP based on Call of Cthulhu) was going to be run on the second night. Unable to resist, I promptly signed up and filled out a questionaire about what kind of player I was and what kind of character I would be willing to play. The anticipation built for a month.
When I inquired for more details at the Convention itself, I discovered that the game was being run by representatives from Skirmisher Publishing, and would be using the third edition of the game, which had not yet been released. The game was to last four hours, with all the players using pre-generated characters. They explained the rules, which took less than five minutes and were very simple and sensible:
Everything but combat proceeded in real time, players could call a GM over at any time to ask questions or attempt something by using one of their characters skills. If combat was declared, time was slowed and players declared their actions using a tick-based initiative system. If you were proficient with a weapon which you had use of at the time and were within range of your target, you were assumed to hit and deal a set amount of damage unless your target had managed to shield themselves.
To put it mildly, I had never had more fun playing a game. To be fair, there were some problems with it, all of which were imposed by the fact that it was a four hour session for a one shot game at a convention. If you have ever played a Call of Cthulhu game, you’re probably well aware that it is impossible to complete in four hours, except by all the players dying.
In the two years following, I received several invitations to join a LARP game of Vampire: The Masquerade from friends and acquantainces I had gamed with in the past. Remembering the fun I had playing Cthulhu Live, I accepted the first offer I could schedule into my plans. Before the night of the game, I poured over several books for the game and designed a character with the help of one of the older players. Satisfied with the result, I eagerly waited for my first night in this new game.
The reality of the game shattered the polished look on the surface of the system and the enticing environment it provided to play in, both of which I had been so enamored with. Execution of the rules seemed to grind the game to a halt, which had the unfortunate side effect of shattering the immersion of the game - which for me, is the best part of playing a LARP.
Every time there was a conflict or someone had to use a skill, role playing would cease for a moment while players and Story Tellers stopped to play Rock-Paper-Scissors, often several games consecutively. This one aspect of the game literally stopped me from enjoying it, despite everything else that was great about the game, because it destroyed any sense of immersion that I had, it wrecked my Suspension of Disbelief.
This was the fundamental difference between my experiences with the two games. Vampire had a resolution system which interferred with immersion, while Cthulhu Live side-stepped the problem entirely by adopting a Diceless resolution system. Other LARP systems have adopted a different Diceless system, wherein combat is played out by the players, using a physical representation of combat instead of a symbolic one based on stats or a randomizer.
Has anyone else seen a game that was ruined by a relatively small part of the game, or found that a game’s system looked good on paper, but felt impossible to execute properly?
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Over here in Europe, LARP games are usually run with physical combat representation only. The most famous “system” doesn’t even use that much rules at all - instead players and NPCs are supposed to react spontaneously to each other’s actions giving any result they feel is appropriate at the time. While that sounds like a total free for all (an it is, in some sense) it also works amazingly well if you have enough “real” roleplayers around.
Of course the weakness of this complete reliance on roleplaying for conflict reeanactment is that having a few total douchebags around as players can ruin the experience for quite a few people…
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