Author: Steve D (---.edu.au)
Date: 12-21-2000 21:18
I'm not sure how to react to this column. I mean, Scott knows his mojo, clearly. But I also find myself thinking that this doesn't match my experience with LARPs at all. So who's wrong? Is this simply a case of a need for a definition cutting out the grey areas, or am I doing something wrong?
First off, the central narrative. I've played two LARPs, not including How to Host a Murders. Both of them had one central, linear narrative controlled by one GM. Just like a tabletop game. I'm sure that a great many LARPs don't do this, but to see it handed out as a definition, that it must occur? If this is true, what was I playing?
Second, in the two LARPs I played, my mind did not work any differently then it did in a tabletop game. My friends, despite costumes, look like my friends carrying silly swords. The Australian countryside (and this is a big, big problem with LARPs outside places that have the standard Tolkien weather pattern) has never ever looked like a dark fantasy forest. Hence I used my imagination, just like I do in tabletops. We had fun later comparing how different people saw things.
Sure, you've got a lot of stuff where you have to go on pure performance, not description. There was one point where I was supposed to be a prisoner screaming but the good guys thought I was their counterpart yelling the attack charge. That's a cool thing you don't get in tabletops. Course, there's a flipside, like when I was supposed to steal something and run away to set up the whole plot, but I tripped over and the GM had to "fudge" or the game would have been ruined. It's a lot easier to fudge when you're dealing with imagination. (this is why I don't really like LARPs, actually. Humans are far too fallible to tell decent stories outside their heads)
So yeah, it's different. But I didn't notice much of a difference in my thinking. Yes, when my friends charged at me I got a real physically buzz, I saw things very differently. But when we picked up tennis balls and threw them, I imagined myself shooting arrows. Dice - tennis balls - what's the difference?
So. One narrative. Wildly different perceptions. (and I quote: "Dude, I'm supposed to be a bear!" "Oh. I thought you were just yelling a lot") Fairly frequent GM narration to cover this problem. An experience rich with different sensory input, true, but pretty much exactly the same imagination modes as that of the tabletop. Definitely something different, but nowhere near as different as Scott makes out. Quite similar in fact. The only real difference, as I always say, is that we stood up for the LARP.
So have I been playing the wrong LARPs, or what? Maybe I've had the wrong end of the stick the whole time. Weird.
Cheers,
Steve
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