[UA] Immersive Larp

[Cassady Toles]

On Fri, 11 May 2001 14:33:29 -0700 (PDT), ua at lists.uchicago.edu wrote:

  
  --- Greg Stolze <holycrow at mindspring.com> wrote:
  > On one hand, I wouldn't mind seeing a LARP book come
  > out for UA, but I
  > couldn't write it because I don't LARP. I don't
  > think Tynes does either.
  
  And you're both better people for it.  Even Cassady
  Toles, who I now feel bad for dissing after his
  beautiful closing statement, seems to have enough
  sense to steer clear of LARPs (but enough decent
  gaming curiosity to have tried one or two.)
  
Actually, I used to be a regular at a couple of LARPS, and I've run two that
were both big successes (success in this instance being defined in terms of
players having fun and the fact that the games ended with a bang, not a
heart-lung machine.

The problem with LARPS is the same problem with movies and theatre, a huge
percentage of them are just bad games.  Most Larps tend to try to force
characters who shouldn't be in the same place at the same time and should be
doing radically different things to hang out together and co-operate, rather
than simply saying this game is about X you can play Y and Z, but A, B, and
C are all out of bounds.  Further, most LARPs only have the most limited
character screening process, i.e. they check for if your points add up and
if you're legally made for the correct game and that's about it.  They don't
stop to look at the character sheet and say, "Does this belong here?"

A UA one-shot larp (like the Fly to Heaven scenario discussed--alternitively
Jailbreak could work really well for this too if you could get ahold of an
old farmhouse) could work brilliantly, but in all seriousness, if you're
thinking of doing the sort of game people play in white wolf settings, I
give the CoNGers 37 seconds before the TNI characters start shooting at them
and vice versa.

So if you really want to write rules for UA Larps, please feel free, I'll
even look at them and tell you if they seem playable to me, but I don't see
pressing need for them.

Does that make sense?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am the messiah in the bottom of a bottle of Jack Daniel's.  Drink of me
and
no peace." -- Cobra Baghdad www.peoplehateme.com
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