My descent into geek world Jan 5, 2002

Not that I wasn't already an uber-geek, mind you. But last night I signed up for my first LARP ever.

LARPs are something I'd been dimly aware of before coming to Brandeis, but I'd never actually known anyone who was involved with one before. LARP stands for Live Action Role-Playing, and is somewhat similar to traditional paper-and-pencil Role-Playing Games (or RPGs for short), in that each player is assigned a character in a predefined scenario with a set of rules for things such as combat, puzzle-solving, and so forth. But LARPing, or at least, this particular LARP, seems to place a much greater emphasis on the role-playing (read: acting) part and less on the game part.

I haven't had much involvement with multiplayer RPGs of any stripe in the past, whether that be Ultima Online/Everquest/Asheron/whatever, D&D/Vampire/etc., or LARPs, but I seem to be diving head first into it right now. In addition to this LARP, I might also be getting involved in a Vampire game next semester.

Actually, my previous RPG experience is somewhat debatable. I've played through several Final Fantasies, Chrono Trigger, Lufia 2, Ultima 8 and some of 7, both Krondor games, and a whole bunch of other stuff I don't remember. I'm currently working through Tales of Phantasia on a laptop. But I find single-player RPGs to be generally unsatisfying, especially the console ones, which generally seem to boil down to one fight after another. Who needs that? Much more engrossing, at least for me, is a game with a strong plotline and characters you can believe and relate to, like Gabriel Knight or Gage Blackwood. Hopefully, LARPing and Vampiring will be heavier on the story part and less so on the hack-and-slash. From what I've read and seen so far, it looks that way.

[begin flamebait] With regard to my previous RPG experience… I tend to be a "broad definer" in this case, so I would like to think of any game where players are given particular parts to play, goals to try to carry out, and a set of strict rules to play by as an RPG. By this definition, doesn't a model UN scenario count? I've been involved with WestMUNC since 7th grade. In 11th and 12th grade, I was on the Crisis Staff, which (in some cases) comes damn close to a fantasy RPG. Example: we put together a crisis last year in which the Earth is accidentally engulfed in a flammable gas and will burst into flame next Winter Solstice, when it nears the Sun. We even came in and represented groups such as the National Academy of Science or whomever. I think that is pretty close to a Live Action Role-Playing game, don't you? [end flamebait]

Well, whatever.