Author: Tim Clancy (---.bellsouth.net)
Date: 03-26-2005 17:38
Great article! I actually am a split personality, several years helping run boffer-LARPs and over a dozen on salon style LARPs. One of the key values I've brought from my boffer-LARP experience into salon-style LARPing is the phys-rep rule: if it's something introduced by plot and characters can hold it, touch it, turn the pages - do your damndedst to make something real they can actually hold and touch and make it look as close as possible to what the item really is.
In the Gnostica MMLARP games here in Atlanta (salon-style) play takes place in an antebellum manor of a recently deceased elderly gentleman. We've taken old antique pictures, printed them with an inkjet, picked up some old frames from the local Goodwill and placed them around the gamesite so players can walk around and physically pick up the pictures. Total cost was maybe $8-10 - but it adds a great deal of realism to help the characters get into play and enjoy that immersion which I think is one of the big draws of LARPs. When the PC's quested for a journal of the gentlemen we did the same thing, rather than handing them a 3"x5" card that says "journal" we went out and bought a 50cent girly journal, wrapped it in green fabric and hand painted the NPC's name on it. It only cost $2-3 in materials but looks like a $20 prop.
The key is creativity on a budget. Running LARP's to cover overhead,let alone make a profit, is a very difficult endeavour to begin with and getting prop-happy can suck the life right out of your budget. I would challenge any prop that cost more than $5 in raw materials - there's probably a cheaper way to create the same effect through different means.
That being said always always always phys-rep. That's my 2cents advice. Look forward to more articles - I just now realized you were writing them!
Tim C.
www.gnostica.biz
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