History of live action role-playing games
Encyclopedia
Technically, many childhood games are simple LARP
s (even though they don't bear that name), and so in that sense LARPs may have been around since the dawn of humanity. However, the invention of tabletop role-playing game
s in America in the 1970s, led to the development of recognisable organized LARPs played by adults.
LARP appears to have been "invented" almost from scratch several times, by different groups, relying on local ideas and expertise, although often inspired by reports of foreign LARPs. This has led to LARP practices and histories being extremely diverse. By the 1980s LARPs had spread to many countries, organizations, and different styles of play. In the 1990s Mind's Eye Theatre
was the first published LARP system to become popular.
Around this time, the hobby began to attract critical and academic analysis. The 2003 Knutepunkt
conference published As LARP Grows Up (subtitled Theory and Methods in LARP), to propose future directions for the hobby.
Live-action role-playing in the form of historical reenactment
has been practiced by adults for millennia as well. The ancient Romans, Han Chinese, and medieval Europeans all enjoyed occasionally organizing events in which everyone pretended to be from an earlier age, and entertainment appears to have been the primary purpose of these activities. It doesn't seem that historical re-enactment ever became a hobby
prior to the 20th century however.
Likewise, adults have used live-action role-playing as an educational or practice exercise for centuries, with mock combats being an important part of military training, and mock treatments and trials used to teach doctors and lawyers. It's unclear to what extent these have counted as "games." The Prussian term for live-action military training exercises is kriegspiel or "Wargames," a term that has entered English as well, although the contemporary military prefers to call them military exercise
s to distinguish them from games.
Another early stream of LARP tradition is the improvisational theatre
tradition. This goes back in some sense to the Commedia dell'arte
tradition of 16th century. Modern improvisational theatre began in the classroom with the "theatre games" of Viola Spolin
and Keith Johnstone
in the 1950s. Viola Spolin, who was one of the founder the famous comedy troupe The Second City
, insisted that her exercises were games, and that they involved role-playing as early as 1946, but thought of them as training actors and comics rather than as being primarily aimed at being fun in their own right.
G. K. Chesterton
's 1905 book The Club of Queer Trades includes a story describing a commercial organization which stages LARP-like adventures for the entertainment of its customers. It's possible that this may have helped to suggest later ideas for commercial LARPs.
In the 1920s Model League of Nation's clubs formed around the states, creating a style of Live-action role-playing that was not thought of as a game but was thought of as a recreational pastime. There is some evidence that Assassin
-style LARP games may have been played in New York city by adults, this early too. The 1920s also saw the beginning of live action role-playing used for psychotherapeutic purposes, often called psychodrama
. It was championed in the US by Jacob L. Moreno
It was not thought of as a game, but the psychodrama tradition probably influenced LARP games as they later developed.
The 1960s saw the creation of Fantasy LARPs (as distinct from pure historical re-enactments) probably originate with the founding of the Society for Creative Anachronism
in Berkeley, California
on May 1, 1966. A similar group, the Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia, began holding events on the University of Maryland, College Park
in 1969. These groups were largely dedicated to accurately recreating medieval history and culture, however, with only mild fantasy elements, and were probably mostly influenced by historical re-enactment.
In the 1970s, after the publication of the first tabletop role-playing game
(Dungeons & Dragons
) in 1974 Fantasy LARPs began springing up in many places somewhat independently.
Among the live-combat groups, Dagorhir Outdoor Improvisational Battle Games (Dagorhir
) was founded by Bryan Weise in the Washington, D.C.
area in 1977. The International Fantasy Gaming Society (IFGS), also live-combat but with a complex rules system more clearly influenced by Dungeons and Dragons, was started in 1981 in Boulder, Colorado
. (IFGS took its name from a fictional group in the novel Dream Park
by Larry Niven
and Steven Barnes
, which described highly realistic, futuristic LARPs.) At about the same time (but before 1981), the Assassins' Guild was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts
, to pursue "killer" or "assassin"
-style live-combat games with toy guns, but also to encourage creative design in LARPs. Assassination style LARPs spread to many other college campuses, even spawned two movies TAG: The Assassination Game in 1982, and Gotcha in 1985. Amtgard
(a spin off of Dagorhir) was founded in 1983 in El Paso, Texas
and has hundreds of active groups in the US and Canada. While NERO International
has over 50 chapters in the US and Canada, it was founded only in 1988.
Theatre Style LARP began in America at around the same time. In 1981, the Society for Interactive Literature (SIL) was founded by Walter Freitag, Mike Massamilla and Rick Dutton at Harvard University
. The club's first public event was in February 1983, at the Boskone science fiction convention
. A substantial part of the SIL membership broke off from that organization in 1991 and formed the Interactive Literature Foundation (ILF), which in 2000 changed its name to the Live Action Role-Players Association LARPA. The mid-Atlantic and northeastern US has been a center for Theatre Style events, especially the Intercon LARP conventions
.
The northeastern LARP scene, founding place of SIL, NERO, and the MIT Assassin's Guild, continues to have an active LARP scene, due to the large number of college campuses present. Other universities along the East Coast have been strong "incubation" sites for northeastern LARPs. Early (pre-internet) campus-based LARPs formed in isolation, developing their own style of games with little crossover with other styles or regions. The existence of larger regional organizations, of published LARPs, and of the internet has helped to create a field of "LARP theory" and deliberate experimentation with LARP forms.
The region also plays host to many, smaller, fantasy-based LARPs, such as Lione Rampant, Quest Interactive Productions, Legends Roleplaying, Mythical Journeys and Chimera Entertainment's nTeraction (now Accelerant), all formed in the 1980s and 1990s by fantasy enthusiasts with a love for character roleplay and adventure, but without large player bases or complex rule systems. Quest is the oldest of these groups, dating back to 1986. Some of the other LARPs were formed as splinter groups of larger, more franchised LARPs, such as NERO. Such LARP groups tend to run in the spring and autumn, utilizing summer camp facilities (such as 4H and group campgrounds) in their off-seasons.
The Southeast is also home to a very large LARP community. The various Fantasy-based games are also splinters off NERO as well as one another, forming a relatively extensive list: SOLAR (the Southern Organization for Live Action Reenactments), Red Button Productions, and the experimental fantasy LARP Forest of Doors, among others. Many of these LARPs are run out of State Parks like in other areas, most often Hard Labor Creek State Park
in Rutledge, Georgia
or Indian Springs State Park
. Several World of Darkness
-based games are also run out of Atlanta, as well as a Science Fiction Stargate
-genre LARP, Stargate Atlanta FTX. The Neighboring state of Tennessee has chapters of Heroic Interactive Theatre, including a new Steampunk game, World of Hashonen. Amtgard and NERO also run games in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee.
Since 1999, the mid-Atlantic US has been a center for a number of crossover Theatre Style/Adventure Style events or "campaigns," which fall outside the medieval fantasy genre which tends to characterize a majority of Live Combat LARPs. An initial impetus for this was the attempt of various fantasy groups to adapt the Call of Cthulhu
as a LARP genre, however the genre has expanded to substantially wider horizons. The progenitor LARP in this genre was Mike Young
's Dark Summonings Campaign, followed by transitional LARPs including the Mersienne Medieval Fantasy Campaign (medieval fantasy), Outpost Chi (science fiction), 1948: Signals, 1936: Horror, as well as the heavily Call of Cthulhu
based Altered Realities Campaign and the Victorian "steampunk" Brassy's Men Campaign. Together this network of current and previous events make up a substantial and innovative body of work which characterizes a vibrant mid-Atlantic US LARP Community. The rise of many campaigns all drawing from the same community has tended to preempt growth of non-campaign games, though, and to some degree push out the 'less dedicated' gamers due to the higher commitment needed.
, formed in 1982 at Peckforton Castle
in Cheshire, is recognised as the first LARP game in the UK. It featured rubber-weapon combat, heroic adventures and fantasy
monsters. Over its three-year history, it garnered moderate attention from the press (even being featured on Blue Peter
) and established a large, enthusiastic player-base. When it closed, numerous systems sprang up around the country to replace it.
Many of these systems copied most of the format, rules and setting of the original Treasure Trap. Few of them could match the evocative setting of Peckforton Castle, although Labyrinthe secured the use of Chislehurst Caves
.
Most of these games were independent of each other; despite their shared heritage, there was no shared world. Fools and Heroes
was an exception: many branches of the same game were opened in different areas of the country.
Many games were established by university societies, and organised around the modest budgets of students. (Many of these fell to the declining student grant
s of the 1990s.) Some systems tried to do things bigger and better - for example Heroquest has continued to successfully run adventures lasting from 5 to 11 days and still regularly runs two events per month across the UK.
LARP weapon design advanced considerably after the innovation in 1986 of latex-coated weapons by Second skin (larp). This allowed a much greater level of detail and artistry in weapon design than the prior gaffer tape
models. Over the next decade, home-made gaffer weapons were largely supplanted by professionally-made latex ones.
In the early 1990s, Summerfest, originally a meeting of the various Fools and Heroes
branches, had gained an attendance of over a thousand players. This led to a style of LARP known as 'fest' LRP: unlike small games (often less than 50 players) fests often centre around warring factions and huge battles. The Lorien Trust
, formed in 1992, epitomised this principle with its flagship annual event The Gathering, which features battles with over a thousand players on each side, as well as complex politics, an SFX-driven magic ritual circle, a licensed
tavern, and a large marketplace for the out-of-character sale of costumes, prosthetics, weapons, props and accessories.
The early 1990s also saw the introduction of White Wolf
's Mind's Eye Theatre
LARP, which introduced a largely new set of players to live roleplaying. Unlike most UK LARPs, it was based on indoor social interaction with minimal costuming requirements, and a combat/magic/interaction system based on rock-paper-scissors
. There was some antipathy between Vampire and Fantasy LARPers, although some groups discarded the MET rules and used conventional LARP ideas (such as rubber weapons) instead.
Roleplaying conventions such as Gen Con
UK, Dragonmeet and Continuum have also become a venue for LARPs, usually 'Freeforms
' with little emphasis on either combat or character development, but more on plot development, and player interaction.
The evident size of the UK LARP player-base suggested that there might be a market for LARP-related periodicals, and so professionally-produced magazines such as The Scribe and The Adventurer were printed, including reviews, advice, photos and humour. These helped to expose players to the wide variety of games out there.
However, none of these magazines got sufficient sales to survive, and the UK LRP community took advantage of emerging internet communities. Initially, these groups concentrated on specific local games until Pagga.com was formed in 2000 in an attempt to form a wider online LRP community, which was superceeded by rule7.co.uk in 2006.
While the majority of LARPS were either 'medieval fantasy' or Vampire, a growing number of new games were experimenting with other genres, from science fiction
to wild west to Celts to pirates. Some, such as Shards, deliberately crossed genres and worlds. Some games, including Lorien Trust, would allow players to introduce virtually any concept to the game, in a style known as 'Open World'.
The Lorien Trust was subject to numerous arguments and fall-outs, and some of these led to new systems. In 1995, a large group broke away from LT to create Curious Pastimes
, initially a spin-off of the LT's Erdreja campaign. Its principal event, Renewal, runs on the same weekend as The Gathering and is similarly themed, although the battles are mostly PvM rather than PvP
. Renewal typically has around 700 players.
A later breakaway in from the LT in 1998 was the Omega LRP team. Their Phoenix campaign, however, was completely different to the LT, being 'Closed World', with an emphasis on community-building and trade, and a professed intention of 'Player-led plot', bucking the current trend of powerful NPCs controlling everything. The campaign ran for 5 years, until a group of PCs effectively destroyed the world. It had about 400 players.
Some of the Omega staff and players went on to create the Maelstrom
campaign for Profound Decisions Ltd in 2004. This colonialism
fantasy game strives to set new standards in player empowerment, and explicitly limits the power of NPCs and plotwriters. It supports a high degree of political, economic, sociological, technological and magical complexity, and inspires a great deal of enthusiasm and creativity in its players. Maelstrom usually has around 800 players.
New LARPs are continually in development; currently (2006) favoured themes are horror
(with or without zombie
s) and sci-fi, with airsoft
starting to come into play.
since at least the 1980s
. The Russian word for LARP translates simply as "role-playing", since tabletop RPGs were unknown in Russia at the time LARP was invented or introduced there. Russian live role-playing is often practised under the banner of "Tolkienism
" or Tolkien fandom
, though it is definitely no longer confined to Tolkien or fantasy
only. Regional traditions vary greatly in their history and practice, though the now defunct Soviet
"Young Pioneers
" organisation and the networks between former members seems to have played some role in spreading and coordinating the idea of live role-playing. Much more involvement is usually attributed to SF fandom clubs, which flourished in Russia in that period.
Earliest documented mentions of LARP-like activities in Russia relate to the yearly memorial reenactment of the Battle of Borodino
, where military history clubs, not satisfied with reenacting this battle only, tried various other takes on the subject—the first recorded one, in 1988, being the people dressing up as soldiers of Red Army
. According to witness reports, in 1989 Tolkien
fans came to the Borodino reenactment in fantasy costumes, which jumpstarted the movement and led to the first recorded large-scale LARP in Russia, the National Hobbit Games, which ran in August 1990 near river Mana in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk
. Since then, such events occur yearly and the tradition became very widely developed.
Russia probably has the biggest and most varied LARP-scene in the world, with a wide range of genres and playstyles. By now, the number of players is estimated to be somewhere between 50000 and 100000. The biggest plays number more than 1000 players, but many smaller plays (50-200 participants) are also common.
LARP group Gyllene Hjorten http://www.larp.com/hjorten/ started a LARP campaign that is still going strong. This is probably the first LARP event in the Nordic countries
. LARP in Finland
started in 1985 and Norway
was initiated in 1989, more or less simultaneously by groups in Oslo
and Trondheim
. The first Danish games were also played in the late 80's.
The Nordic LARP traditions, though usually invented independently of each other, have developed striking similarities and are also notably different from English language
and German language
LARPs. These differences are most obvious in the Nordic LARPs' skepticism towards game mechanic
s, a tendency to limit combat and magic - seeing these as "spice" rather than a necessary ingredient in LARP - and an emphasis on immersive environments where anachronism
s and out of play elements (off-elements, such as visible cars or paved roads in a historical or fantasy setting) are avoided. The setting and roles may be given to the participants by the organizers, or suggested by the player to organizers, in either case usually based on a dialogue between the player and organizer. "character sheet
s", in the manner of tabletop RPGs, are for the most part not used.
When the game starts it lives its own life, wholly directed by the players (some predetermined events are often scheduled). A typical Swedish or Norwegian game lasts 2–5 days and has anywhere from fifty to hundreds of participants. A typical Danish
or Finnish
game lasts between four hours and a few days. Rules are designed for combat injury simulation and normally emphasize roleplaying of damage rather than abstract hitpoints (though this was not always so), featuring either padded weapons or blunt steel weapons. Each gaming organization uses custom rules, but simplicity and similarities make this less cumbersome than it would at first seem.
The annual Knutepunkt
conference, first held in 1997, has been a vital institution in establishing a Nordic live role-playing identity, and in establishing the concept of "Nordic LARP" as a unique approach. A live-roleplaying avant-garde
movement, which pursues radical experimentation and the recognition of role-playing as a form of art
, has been connected to the Knutepunkt conferences. The scope of the Knutepunkt conference has expanded rather rapidly over the last few years with participants showing up from numerous non-Scandinavian countries. The last 2 or 3 years has seen participants from USA, Germany, France
, Italy
and Russia
as well as from the main Scandinavian countries.
The German
LARP history is most easily found, by going to the German Larp calendar at Larp Kalender
The First LARP that has been catalogued is Samhain's Quest II on April 14, 1995, although Draccon 1 in 1991 is generally held to be the first event of significance. LarpWiki.de has a page on history.
The largest LARP events in Germany currently are the annual events "Conquest of Mythodea" and the "Drachenfest", with around 7000 and 5000 participants respectively.
.
There is a heavy emphasis on roleplaying. In the single evening events this means that there is little use of non player characters, costumes are the norm, and simple game mechanics are used. The standard conflict-resolution systems are symbolic, usually involving dice and very simplified character proficiency statistics. Special abilities are generally handled using cards that the player using the ability shows to those affected by it. Players are usually given detailed character sheets, sometimes of up to eight pages. These included background, goals and knowledge of other characters.
Cape Town
is reputed to be the LARPing capital of South Africa, and there is a large archive of LARPs written by Capetonian designers (see under External Links). In recent years, there has been an increase in LARP activity in other communities, such as Johannesburg
.
Large LARP events around Johannesburg known as MEAD happen every 3 months involving hundreds of players.
The Meadal Universe is based on the SOLAR system in America and is growing, having past the 150 player mark recently. The LARP started in 2008, and is the longest-running LARP in South Africa.
In July 2011 a second boffer larp setting was created, Tales of Teana which also runs in Johannesburg, Guateng. Tales of Teana is affiliated with MEAD, however the larp has a completely separate organization team and runs under the NERO International
system in a world called Teana. Game-play takes place in the human kingdom of Arnhelm with the rest of the world largely inhabited by non-human races. The first Teana game was scheduled for April 2012.
An assassin-style LARP was run by KAOS in 1981, and other LARPs have been run in New Zealand since at least the mid 1980s, though at the time the term "wide game" or "council game" was generally used because the term LARP had not been introduced. At NatCon 86 in Nelson, a game based around the ruling council of the city of New Pavis in Glorantha
dealing with the approaching Lunar Army was run.
Several major events were held during the 1990s, the largest probably being the Aliens Apocalypse event run in 1999 as the culmination of a series of games based around the Aliens movies.
Several long-term campaigns have been and are currently running. Typical genres include vampire, medieval fantasy, science fiction (including popular single-evening events of live Paranoia
and post-apocalyptic settings), horror, and 1920s/1930s gangsters.
Emphasis in long-term campaigns varies depends on the setting. For example, Mordavia is a medieval dark fantasy which emphasises roleplaying very strongly, where Skirmish is more combat-based, and games such as Vampire: The Requiem are strongly political.
Most games are non-contact using Mind's Eye Theatre
or similar systems, whilst a few encourage live combat with foam weapons. Magical and other special effects are usually narrated, but are sometimes symbolised by reading of scrolls, throwing of spell packets, and circles outlined in rope for traps and magical portals. In a few one-off LARPS, significant special effects have been produced, often with the help of local professionals, such as Weta Workshop
, and lighting and sound are often used to assist mood.
Level of costume varies. Large one-off games usually see a lot of work put in by players with appropriate skills, or professional costumes are hired or borrowed. In long-term campaigns, great care is often taken on player character costumes, as the character (personality, abilities, and background) will most often be invented by the player themselves. Non-player character costume is sometimes less detailed, but favourite monsters or villains may reappear frequently as they become well-loved by the players.
There are LARP communities in all the major cities, especially Auckland
and Wellington
.
The New Zealand Live Action Role Playing Society
is an umbrella organisation created to promote and support LARP throughout New Zealand. It is a parent organisation of Mordavia, and is affiliated with other groups such as Skirmish.
A large scale LARP is usually run each year as part of New Zealand's largest roleplaying convention, Kapcon.
Live action role-playing game
A live action role-playing game is a form of role-playing game where the participants physically act out their characters' actions. The players pursue goals within a fictional setting represented by the real world, while interacting with each other in character. The outcome of player actions may...
s (even though they don't bear that name), and so in that sense LARPs may have been around since the dawn of humanity. However, the invention of tabletop role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
s in America in the 1970s, led to the development of recognisable organized LARPs played by adults.
LARP appears to have been "invented" almost from scratch several times, by different groups, relying on local ideas and expertise, although often inspired by reports of foreign LARPs. This has led to LARP practices and histories being extremely diverse. By the 1980s LARPs had spread to many countries, organizations, and different styles of play. In the 1990s Mind's Eye Theatre
Mind's Eye Theatre
Mind's Eye Theatre is a live action role-playing game based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe, sharing a theme and setting originally with the table-top role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and now with its revision, Vampire: The Requiem...
was the first published LARP system to become popular.
Around this time, the hobby began to attract critical and academic analysis. The 2003 Knutepunkt
Knutepunkt
The annual Knutepunkt conference, first held in 1997, has been a vital institution in establishing a Nordic role-playing identity, and in establishing the concept of "Nordic larp" as a unique approach. Though the conference started out strictly as a Live action role-playing event, it has since...
conference published As LARP Grows Up (subtitled Theory and Methods in LARP), to propose future directions for the hobby.
Early history
Childhood LARP games probably go far back into pre-history, with "cowboys and Indians," "house," and "doctor" all having earlier historical and pre-historical equivalents in many cultures, like "Athenians and Spartans," "hunting deer," etc. Childhood LARPs tend to be very simple on rules, and to reflect the culture around them.Live-action role-playing in the form of historical reenactment
Historical reenactment
Historical reenactment is an educational activity in which participants attempt torecreate some aspects of a historical event or period. This may be as narrow as a specific moment from a battle, such as the reenactment of Pickett's Charge at the Great Reunion of 1913, or as broad as an entire...
has been practiced by adults for millennia as well. The ancient Romans, Han Chinese, and medieval Europeans all enjoyed occasionally organizing events in which everyone pretended to be from an earlier age, and entertainment appears to have been the primary purpose of these activities. It doesn't seem that historical re-enactment ever became a hobby
Hobby
A hobby is a regular activity or interest that is undertaken for pleasure, typically done during one's leisure time.- Etymology :A hobby horse is a wooden or wickerwork toy made to be ridden just like a real horse...
prior to the 20th century however.
Likewise, adults have used live-action role-playing as an educational or practice exercise for centuries, with mock combats being an important part of military training, and mock treatments and trials used to teach doctors and lawyers. It's unclear to what extent these have counted as "games." The Prussian term for live-action military training exercises is kriegspiel or "Wargames," a term that has entered English as well, although the contemporary military prefers to call them military exercise
Military exercise
A military exercise is the employment of military resources in training for military operations, either exploring the effects of warfare or testing strategies without actual combat...
s to distinguish them from games.
Another early stream of LARP tradition is the improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre
Improvisational theatre takes many forms. It is best known as improv or impro, which is often comedic, and sometimes poignant or dramatic. In this popular, often topical art form improvisational actors/improvisers use improvisational acting techniques to perform spontaneously...
tradition. This goes back in some sense to the Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'arte
Commedia dell'arte is a form of theatre characterized by masked "types" which began in Italy in the 16th century, and was responsible for the advent of the actress and improvised performances based on sketches or scenarios. The closest translation of the name is "comedy of craft"; it is shortened...
tradition of 16th century. Modern improvisational theatre began in the classroom with the "theatre games" of Viola Spolin
Viola Spolin
Viola Spolin was an important innovator of the American theater in the 20th century. She created directorial techniques to help actors to be focused in the present moment and to find choices improvisationally, as if in real life...
and Keith Johnstone
Keith Johnstone
Keith Johnstone is a drama instructor whose teachings and books have focused on improvisational theatre and have had a major influence on the art of improvisation.-Education:...
in the 1950s. Viola Spolin, who was one of the founder the famous comedy troupe The Second City
The Second City
The Second City is a improvisational comedy enterprise which originated in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood.The Second City Theatre opened on December 16, 1959 and has since expanded its presence to several other cities, including Toronto and Los Angeles...
, insisted that her exercises were games, and that they involved role-playing as early as 1946, but thought of them as training actors and comics rather than as being primarily aimed at being fun in their own right.
G. K. Chesterton
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction....
's 1905 book The Club of Queer Trades includes a story describing a commercial organization which stages LARP-like adventures for the entertainment of its customers. It's possible that this may have helped to suggest later ideas for commercial LARPs.
In the 1920s Model League of Nation's clubs formed around the states, creating a style of Live-action role-playing that was not thought of as a game but was thought of as a recreational pastime. There is some evidence that Assassin
Assassination
To carry out an assassination is "to murder by a sudden and/or secret attack, often for political reasons." Alternatively, assassination may be defined as "the act of deliberately killing someone, especially a public figure, usually for hire or for political reasons."An assassination may be...
-style LARP games may have been played in New York city by adults, this early too. The 1920s also saw the beginning of live action role-playing used for psychotherapeutic purposes, often called psychodrama
Psychodrama
Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy in which clients utilize spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno, M.D. psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage where...
. It was championed in the US by Jacob L. Moreno
Jacob L. Moreno
Jacob Levy Moreno was a Jewish Romanian-born Austrian-American leading psychiatrist and psychosociologist, thinker and educator, the founder of psychodrama, and the foremost pioneer of group psychotherapy...
It was not thought of as a game, but the psychodrama tradition probably influenced LARP games as they later developed.
The 1960s saw the creation of Fantasy LARPs (as distinct from pure historical re-enactments) probably originate with the founding of the Society for Creative Anachronism
Society for Creative Anachronism
The Society for Creative Anachronism is an international living history group with the aim of studying and recreating mainly Medieval European cultures and their histories before the 17th century...
in Berkeley, California
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
on May 1, 1966. A similar group, the Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia, began holding events on the University of Maryland, College Park
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
in 1969. These groups were largely dedicated to accurately recreating medieval history and culture, however, with only mild fantasy elements, and were probably mostly influenced by historical re-enactment.
In the 1970s, after the publication of the first tabletop role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
(Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...
) in 1974 Fantasy LARPs began springing up in many places somewhat independently.
American history
American LARPs have no single point of origin, although many of the groups still in operation can claim a lengthy history.Among the live-combat groups, Dagorhir Outdoor Improvisational Battle Games (Dagorhir
Dagorhir
Dagorhir Battle Games is a battle game with thousands of members spread throughout the US, Canada and England.Founded in Washington, DC, USA in 1977, it has since spread to scores of locations...
) was founded by Bryan Weise in the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
area in 1977. The International Fantasy Gaming Society (IFGS), also live-combat but with a complex rules system more clearly influenced by Dungeons and Dragons, was started in 1981 in Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
. (IFGS took its name from a fictional group in the novel Dream Park
Dream Park
Dream Park was originally a novel set in a sort of futuristic amusement park of the same name.The books describe a futuristic form of live action role-playing games , although the term was not in use when the original novel was published. The novels inspired many LARP groups, notably the...
by Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
and Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes
Steven Barnes is an African American science fiction writer, lecturer, creative consultant, and human performance technician....
, which described highly realistic, futuristic LARPs.) At about the same time (but before 1981), the Assassins' Guild was created at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...
(MIT) in Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, to pursue "killer" or "assassin"
Assassin (game)
Assassin is a live-action game...
-style live-combat games with toy guns, but also to encourage creative design in LARPs. Assassination style LARPs spread to many other college campuses, even spawned two movies TAG: The Assassination Game in 1982, and Gotcha in 1985. Amtgard
Amtgard
Amtgard is a battle gaming and live-action fantasy roleplaying and boffer combat game primarily based in the United States as well as other countries .- History :...
(a spin off of Dagorhir) was founded in 1983 in El Paso, Texas
El Paso, Texas
El Paso, is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States, and lies in far West Texas. In the 2010 census, the city had a population of 649,121. It is the sixth largest city in Texas and the 19th largest city in the United States...
and has hundreds of active groups in the US and Canada. While NERO International
NERO International
-Overview:NERO International is a live action role-playing game played in the United States and Canada. The NERO name originally was an acronym for "New England Role playing Organization", but the game has expanded well beyond its original New England roots and thus simply adopted the acronym as...
has over 50 chapters in the US and Canada, it was founded only in 1988.
Theatre Style LARP began in America at around the same time. In 1981, the Society for Interactive Literature (SIL) was founded by Walter Freitag, Mike Massamilla and Rick Dutton at Harvard University
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
. The club's first public event was in February 1983, at the Boskone science fiction convention
Science fiction convention
Science fiction conventions are gatherings of fans of various forms of speculative fiction including science fiction and fantasy. Historically, science fiction conventions had focused primarily on literature, but the purview of many extends to such other avenues of expression as movies and...
. A substantial part of the SIL membership broke off from that organization in 1991 and formed the Interactive Literature Foundation (ILF), which in 2000 changed its name to the Live Action Role-Players Association LARPA. The mid-Atlantic and northeastern US has been a center for Theatre Style events, especially the Intercon LARP conventions
Intercon LARP conventions
The Intercon LARP conventions are a series of live action role-playing conventions licensed by LARPA and produced by independent groups. The conventions began with the Silicon LARP convention, organized in 1986...
.
The northeastern LARP scene, founding place of SIL, NERO, and the MIT Assassin's Guild, continues to have an active LARP scene, due to the large number of college campuses present. Other universities along the East Coast have been strong "incubation" sites for northeastern LARPs. Early (pre-internet) campus-based LARPs formed in isolation, developing their own style of games with little crossover with other styles or regions. The existence of larger regional organizations, of published LARPs, and of the internet has helped to create a field of "LARP theory" and deliberate experimentation with LARP forms.
The region also plays host to many, smaller, fantasy-based LARPs, such as Lione Rampant, Quest Interactive Productions, Legends Roleplaying, Mythical Journeys and Chimera Entertainment's nTeraction (now Accelerant), all formed in the 1980s and 1990s by fantasy enthusiasts with a love for character roleplay and adventure, but without large player bases or complex rule systems. Quest is the oldest of these groups, dating back to 1986. Some of the other LARPs were formed as splinter groups of larger, more franchised LARPs, such as NERO. Such LARP groups tend to run in the spring and autumn, utilizing summer camp facilities (such as 4H and group campgrounds) in their off-seasons.
The Southeast is also home to a very large LARP community. The various Fantasy-based games are also splinters off NERO as well as one another, forming a relatively extensive list: SOLAR (the Southern Organization for Live Action Reenactments), Red Button Productions, and the experimental fantasy LARP Forest of Doors, among others. Many of these LARPs are run out of State Parks like in other areas, most often Hard Labor Creek State Park
Hard Labor Creek State Park
Hard Labor Creek State Park is a 5,804 acre Georgia state park located between Fairplay and Rutledge. The park is named after Hard Labor Creek, a small stream that cuts through the park. The creek's name comes either from slaves who once tilled the summer fields, or from Native Americans who...
in Rutledge, Georgia
Rutledge, Georgia
Rutledge is a city in Morgan County, Georgia, United States. The population was 707 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Rutledge is located at ....
or Indian Springs State Park
Indian Springs State Park
Indian Springs State Park is a 528 acre Georgia state park located near Jackson and Flovilla. The park is named for its several springs, which the Creek Indians used for centuries to heal the sick. Indian Springs is thought to be the oldest state park in the nation...
. Several World of Darkness
World of Darkness
"World of Darkness" is the name given to three related but distinct fictional universes created as settings for supernatural horror themed role-playing games. It is also the name of roleplaying games in the second and third settings...
-based games are also run out of Atlanta, as well as a Science Fiction Stargate
Stargate
Stargate is a adventure military science fiction franchise, initially conceived by Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. The first film in the franchise was simply titled Stargate. It was originally released on October 28, 1994, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Carolco, and became a hit, grossing nearly...
-genre LARP, Stargate Atlanta FTX. The Neighboring state of Tennessee has chapters of Heroic Interactive Theatre, including a new Steampunk game, World of Hashonen. Amtgard and NERO also run games in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee.
Since 1999, the mid-Atlantic US has been a center for a number of crossover Theatre Style/Adventure Style events or "campaigns," which fall outside the medieval fantasy genre which tends to characterize a majority of Live Combat LARPs. An initial impetus for this was the attempt of various fantasy groups to adapt the Call of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)
Call of Cthulhu is a horror fiction role-playing game based on H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same name and the associated Cthulhu Mythos.The game, often abbreviated as CoC, is published by Chaosium.-Setting:...
as a LARP genre, however the genre has expanded to substantially wider horizons. The progenitor LARP in this genre was Mike Young
Mike Young (game designer)
Mike Young is a game designer, author, and founder of the firstindependent professional LARP publishing house, "Interactivities Ink".- Works :...
's Dark Summonings Campaign, followed by transitional LARPs including the Mersienne Medieval Fantasy Campaign (medieval fantasy), Outpost Chi (science fiction), 1948: Signals, 1936: Horror, as well as the heavily Call of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu (role-playing game)
Call of Cthulhu is a horror fiction role-playing game based on H. P. Lovecraft's story of the same name and the associated Cthulhu Mythos.The game, often abbreviated as CoC, is published by Chaosium.-Setting:...
based Altered Realities Campaign and the Victorian "steampunk" Brassy's Men Campaign. Together this network of current and previous events make up a substantial and innovative body of work which characterizes a vibrant mid-Atlantic US LARP Community. The rise of many campaigns all drawing from the same community has tended to preempt growth of non-campaign games, though, and to some degree push out the 'less dedicated' gamers due to the higher commitment needed.
UK history
Treasure TrapTreasure Trap
Treasure Trap was a live action role-playing game established at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire in April 1982. Various splinter groups broke from the original system, some retaining the Treasure Trap name, and helped to shape the later British LARP scene....
, formed in 1982 at Peckforton Castle
Peckforton Castle
Peckforton Castle is a country house built in the style of a medieval castle. It stands in woodland at the north end of Peckforton Hills northwest of the village of Peckforton, Cheshire, England. It has been designated by English Heritage as a Grade I listed building...
in Cheshire, is recognised as the first LARP game in the UK. It featured rubber-weapon combat, heroic adventures and fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
monsters. Over its three-year history, it garnered moderate attention from the press (even being featured on Blue Peter
Blue Peter
Blue Peter is the world's longest-running children's television show, having first aired in 1958. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC channel. During its history there have been many presenters, often consisting of two women and two men at a time...
) and established a large, enthusiastic player-base. When it closed, numerous systems sprang up around the country to replace it.
Many of these systems copied most of the format, rules and setting of the original Treasure Trap. Few of them could match the evocative setting of Peckforton Castle, although Labyrinthe secured the use of Chislehurst Caves
Chislehurst Caves
Chislehurst Caves are a long series of tunnels in Chislehurst, in the south eastern suburbs of Greater London. Although called caves, they are chalk and flint mines and entirely man-made....
.
Most of these games were independent of each other; despite their shared heritage, there was no shared world. Fools and Heroes
Fools and Heroes
Fools and Heroes is a non-profit fantasy live-action role-playing game which was started in the autumn of 1985 by John Naylor, who placed a small advertisement looking for players in TableTop Games, Daybrook Nottingham...
was an exception: many branches of the same game were opened in different areas of the country.
Many games were established by university societies, and organised around the modest budgets of students. (Many of these fell to the declining student grant
Student Grant
Student Grant is a cartoon strip in the British comic Viz. It first appeared in 1992 and featured regularly for the rest of the 1990s. The strip, created by Simon Thorp, features a University student named Grant Wankshaft, a student at the fictional Spunkbridge University. Grant does little or no...
s of the 1990s.) Some systems tried to do things bigger and better - for example Heroquest has continued to successfully run adventures lasting from 5 to 11 days and still regularly runs two events per month across the UK.
LARP weapon design advanced considerably after the innovation in 1986 of latex-coated weapons by Second skin (larp). This allowed a much greater level of detail and artistry in weapon design than the prior gaffer tape
Gaffer tape
Gaffer tape, gaffer's tape, gaff tape or gaffa tape is a strong, tough, cotton cloth pressure sensitive tape with strong adhesive properties. It is used in theater, film and television productions as well as during live performances and any other kind of stage work...
models. Over the next decade, home-made gaffer weapons were largely supplanted by professionally-made latex ones.
In the early 1990s, Summerfest, originally a meeting of the various Fools and Heroes
Fools and Heroes
Fools and Heroes is a non-profit fantasy live-action role-playing game which was started in the autumn of 1985 by John Naylor, who placed a small advertisement looking for players in TableTop Games, Daybrook Nottingham...
branches, had gained an attendance of over a thousand players. This led to a style of LARP known as 'fest' LRP: unlike small games (often less than 50 players) fests often centre around warring factions and huge battles. The Lorien Trust
Lorien Trust
Lorien Trust is the trading name of Merlinroute ltd., a live action role-play organisation that runs LARP events in Locko Park, Derby, UK. It runs Britain's largest Live Roleplay events, attracting around 4,000 people to the larger events...
, formed in 1992, epitomised this principle with its flagship annual event The Gathering, which features battles with over a thousand players on each side, as well as complex politics, an SFX-driven magic ritual circle, a licensed
Licensing laws of the United Kingdom
Licensing laws of the United Kingdom regulate the sale and consumption of alcohol, with separate legislation for England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland being passed, as necessary, by the UK parliament, the Northern Ireland Assembly, and the Scottish Parliament respectively.Throughout the...
tavern, and a large marketplace for the out-of-character sale of costumes, prosthetics, weapons, props and accessories.
The early 1990s also saw the introduction of White Wolf
White Wolf
White Wolf is a publisher of role-playing games, notably the World of Darkness.White Wolf may also refer to:*White Wolf , a location in Yosemite National Park*White Wolf , a Canadian heavy metal band...
's Mind's Eye Theatre
Mind's Eye Theatre
Mind's Eye Theatre is a live action role-playing game based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe, sharing a theme and setting originally with the table-top role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and now with its revision, Vampire: The Requiem...
LARP, which introduced a largely new set of players to live roleplaying. Unlike most UK LARPs, it was based on indoor social interaction with minimal costuming requirements, and a combat/magic/interaction system based on rock-paper-scissors
Rock-paper-scissors
Rock-paper-scissors is a hand game played by two people. The game is also known as roshambo, or another ordering of the three items ....
. There was some antipathy between Vampire and Fantasy LARPers, although some groups discarded the MET rules and used conventional LARP ideas (such as rubber weapons) instead.
Roleplaying conventions such as Gen Con
Gen Con
Gen Con is one of the largest and most prominent annual gaming conventions in North America. It features traditional pen-and-paper, board, and card-style games, including role-playing games, miniatures wargames, board games, live action role-playing games, collectible card games, non-collectible...
UK, Dragonmeet and Continuum have also become a venue for LARPs, usually 'Freeforms
Freeform role-playing game
Freeform role-playing games, also called freeforms, are a type of role-playing game which employ minimal or no rules. Instead, actions are adjudicated on the spot by the referee. There are also several variations, some of which lack a referee....
' with little emphasis on either combat or character development, but more on plot development, and player interaction.
The evident size of the UK LARP player-base suggested that there might be a market for LARP-related periodicals, and so professionally-produced magazines such as The Scribe and The Adventurer were printed, including reviews, advice, photos and humour. These helped to expose players to the wide variety of games out there.
However, none of these magazines got sufficient sales to survive, and the UK LRP community took advantage of emerging internet communities. Initially, these groups concentrated on specific local games until Pagga.com was formed in 2000 in an attempt to form a wider online LRP community, which was superceeded by rule7.co.uk in 2006.
While the majority of LARPS were either 'medieval fantasy' or Vampire, a growing number of new games were experimenting with other genres, from science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
to wild west to Celts to pirates. Some, such as Shards, deliberately crossed genres and worlds. Some games, including Lorien Trust, would allow players to introduce virtually any concept to the game, in a style known as 'Open World'.
The Lorien Trust was subject to numerous arguments and fall-outs, and some of these led to new systems. In 1995, a large group broke away from LT to create Curious Pastimes
Curious Pastimes
Curious Pastimes is an organisation that runs one of the best known Live Roleplaying campaigns in the UK. CP is a private, profit-making company head-quartered in Moreton in the Wirral in Northern England...
, initially a spin-off of the LT's Erdreja campaign. Its principal event, Renewal, runs on the same weekend as The Gathering and is similarly themed, although the battles are mostly PvM rather than PvP
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...
. Renewal typically has around 700 players.
A later breakaway in from the LT in 1998 was the Omega LRP team. Their Phoenix campaign, however, was completely different to the LT, being 'Closed World', with an emphasis on community-building and trade, and a professed intention of 'Player-led plot', bucking the current trend of powerful NPCs controlling everything. The campaign ran for 5 years, until a group of PCs effectively destroyed the world. It had about 400 players.
Some of the Omega staff and players went on to create the Maelstrom
Maelstrom (live role playing game)
Maelstrom is a live action role-playing game campaign run in the United Kingdom by Profound Decisions Ltd. The campaign consists of four events held each year at weekends during the British summer at a variety of locations...
campaign for Profound Decisions Ltd in 2004. This colonialism
Colonialism
Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory. It is a process whereby the metropole claims sovereignty over the colony and the social structure, government, and economics of the colony are changed by...
fantasy game strives to set new standards in player empowerment, and explicitly limits the power of NPCs and plotwriters. It supports a high degree of political, economic, sociological, technological and magical complexity, and inspires a great deal of enthusiasm and creativity in its players. Maelstrom usually has around 800 players.
New LARPs are continually in development; currently (2006) favoured themes are horror
Horror fiction
Horror fiction also Horror fantasy is a philosophy of literature, which is intended to, or has the capacity to frighten its readers, inducing feelings of horror and terror. It creates an eerie atmosphere. Horror can be either supernatural or non-supernatural...
(with or without zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s) and sci-fi, with airsoft
Airsoft
Airsoft is a sport in which participants shoot round non-metallic pellets launched via replica firearms.Gameplay varies in style and composition but often range from short-term skirmishes, organized scenarios, military simulations, historical reenactments, to competition target shooting events...
starting to come into play.
Russian history
LARP has been played in RussiaRussia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
since at least the 1980s
1980s
File:1980s decade montage.png|thumb|400px|From left, clockwise: The first Space Shuttle, Columbia, lifted off in 1981; American President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev eased tensions between the two superpowers, leading to the end of the Cold War; The Fall of the Berlin Wall in...
. The Russian word for LARP translates simply as "role-playing", since tabletop RPGs were unknown in Russia at the time LARP was invented or introduced there. Russian live role-playing is often practised under the banner of "Tolkienism
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
" or Tolkien fandom
Tolkien fandom
Tolkien fandom is an international, informal community of fans of the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, especially of the Middle-earth legendarium which includes The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion...
, though it is definitely no longer confined to Tolkien or fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
only. Regional traditions vary greatly in their history and practice, though the now defunct Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
"Young Pioneers
Pioneer movement
A pioneer movement is an organization for children operated by a communist party. Typically children enter into the organization in elementary school and continue until adolescence. The adolescents then typically joined the Young Communist League...
" organisation and the networks between former members seems to have played some role in spreading and coordinating the idea of live role-playing. Much more involvement is usually attributed to SF fandom clubs, which flourished in Russia in that period.
Earliest documented mentions of LARP-like activities in Russia relate to the yearly memorial reenactment of the Battle of Borodino
Battle of Borodino
The Battle of Borodino , fought on September 7, 1812, was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the French invasion of Russia and all Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 troops and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties...
, where military history clubs, not satisfied with reenacting this battle only, tried various other takes on the subject—the first recorded one, in 1988, being the people dressing up as soldiers of Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...
. According to witness reports, in 1989 Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
fans came to the Borodino reenactment in fantasy costumes, which jumpstarted the movement and led to the first recorded large-scale LARP in Russia, the National Hobbit Games, which ran in August 1990 near river Mana in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk
Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...
. Since then, such events occur yearly and the tradition became very widely developed.
Russia probably has the biggest and most varied LARP-scene in the world, with a wide range of genres and playstyles. By now, the number of players is estimated to be somewhere between 50000 and 100000. The biggest plays number more than 1000 players, but many smaller plays (50-200 participants) are also common.
Nordic history
In the early 1980s, the SwedishSweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
LARP group Gyllene Hjorten http://www.larp.com/hjorten/ started a LARP campaign that is still going strong. This is probably the first LARP event in the Nordic countries
Nordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
. LARP in Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
started in 1985 and Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
was initiated in 1989, more or less simultaneously by groups in Oslo
Oslo
Oslo is a municipality, as well as the capital and most populous city in Norway. As a municipality , it was established on 1 January 1838. Founded around 1048 by King Harald III of Norway, the city was largely destroyed by fire in 1624. The city was moved under the reign of Denmark–Norway's King...
and Trondheim
Trondheim
Trondheim , historically, Nidaros and Trondhjem, is a city and municipality in Sør-Trøndelag county, Norway. With a population of 173,486, it is the third most populous municipality and city in the country, although the fourth largest metropolitan area. It is the administrative centre of...
. The first Danish games were also played in the late 80's.
The Nordic LARP traditions, though usually invented independently of each other, have developed striking similarities and are also notably different from English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and German language
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
LARPs. These differences are most obvious in the Nordic LARPs' skepticism towards game mechanic
Game mechanic
Game mechanics are constructs of rules intended to produce an enjoyable game or gameplay. All games use mechanics; however, theories and styles differ as to their ultimate importance to the game...
s, a tendency to limit combat and magic - seeing these as "spice" rather than a necessary ingredient in LARP - and an emphasis on immersive environments where anachronism
Anachronism
An anachronism—from the Greek ανά and χρόνος — is an inconsistency in some chronological arrangement, especially a chronological misplacing of persons, events, objects, or customs in regard to each other...
s and out of play elements (off-elements, such as visible cars or paved roads in a historical or fantasy setting) are avoided. The setting and roles may be given to the participants by the organizers, or suggested by the player to organizers, in either case usually based on a dialogue between the player and organizer. "character sheet
Character sheet
A character sheet is a record of a player character in a role-playing game, including whatever details, notes, game statistics, and background information a player would need during a play session. Character sheets can be found in use in both traditional and action role-playing games...
s", in the manner of tabletop RPGs, are for the most part not used.
When the game starts it lives its own life, wholly directed by the players (some predetermined events are often scheduled). A typical Swedish or Norwegian game lasts 2–5 days and has anywhere from fifty to hundreds of participants. A typical Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
or Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
game lasts between four hours and a few days. Rules are designed for combat injury simulation and normally emphasize roleplaying of damage rather than abstract hitpoints (though this was not always so), featuring either padded weapons or blunt steel weapons. Each gaming organization uses custom rules, but simplicity and similarities make this less cumbersome than it would at first seem.
The annual Knutepunkt
Knutepunkt
The annual Knutepunkt conference, first held in 1997, has been a vital institution in establishing a Nordic role-playing identity, and in establishing the concept of "Nordic larp" as a unique approach. Though the conference started out strictly as a Live action role-playing event, it has since...
conference, first held in 1997, has been a vital institution in establishing a Nordic live role-playing identity, and in establishing the concept of "Nordic LARP" as a unique approach. A live-roleplaying avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
movement, which pursues radical experimentation and the recognition of role-playing as a form of art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, has been connected to the Knutepunkt conferences. The scope of the Knutepunkt conference has expanded rather rapidly over the last few years with participants showing up from numerous non-Scandinavian countries. The last 2 or 3 years has seen participants from USA, Germany, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
as well as from the main Scandinavian countries.
German history
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
LARP history is most easily found, by going to the German Larp calendar at Larp Kalender
The First LARP that has been catalogued is Samhain's Quest II on April 14, 1995, although Draccon 1 in 1991 is generally held to be the first event of significance. LarpWiki.de has a page on history.
The largest LARP events in Germany currently are the annual events "Conquest of Mythodea" and the "Drachenfest", with around 7000 and 5000 participants respectively.
South African history
LARP in South Africa is mostly single evening events of fewer than four hours in length, with 8 to 20 players. Larger, longer-term campaigns are occasionally run, most using World of Darkness: VampireVampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
.
There is a heavy emphasis on roleplaying. In the single evening events this means that there is little use of non player characters, costumes are the norm, and simple game mechanics are used. The standard conflict-resolution systems are symbolic, usually involving dice and very simplified character proficiency statistics. Special abilities are generally handled using cards that the player using the ability shows to those affected by it. Players are usually given detailed character sheets, sometimes of up to eight pages. These included background, goals and knowledge of other characters.
Cape Town
Cape Town
Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...
is reputed to be the LARPing capital of South Africa, and there is a large archive of LARPs written by Capetonian designers (see under External Links). In recent years, there has been an increase in LARP activity in other communities, such as Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
.
Large LARP events around Johannesburg known as MEAD happen every 3 months involving hundreds of players.
The Meadal Universe is based on the SOLAR system in America and is growing, having past the 150 player mark recently. The LARP started in 2008, and is the longest-running LARP in South Africa.
In July 2011 a second boffer larp setting was created, Tales of Teana which also runs in Johannesburg, Guateng. Tales of Teana is affiliated with MEAD, however the larp has a completely separate organization team and runs under the NERO International
NERO International
-Overview:NERO International is a live action role-playing game played in the United States and Canada. The NERO name originally was an acronym for "New England Role playing Organization", but the game has expanded well beyond its original New England roots and thus simply adopted the acronym as...
system in a world called Teana. Game-play takes place in the human kingdom of Arnhelm with the rest of the world largely inhabited by non-human races. The first Teana game was scheduled for April 2012.
New Zealand history
New Zealand has an established and growing community of LARPers.An assassin-style LARP was run by KAOS in 1981, and other LARPs have been run in New Zealand since at least the mid 1980s, though at the time the term "wide game" or "council game" was generally used because the term LARP had not been introduced. At NatCon 86 in Nelson, a game based around the ruling council of the city of New Pavis in Glorantha
Glorantha
Glorantha is the Fantasy world created by Greg Stafford and since used as the background for several role-playing games, including RuneQuest , Hero Wars and HeroQuest , as well as several works of fiction and the computer strategy game King of Dragon Pass...
dealing with the approaching Lunar Army was run.
Several major events were held during the 1990s, the largest probably being the Aliens Apocalypse event run in 1999 as the culmination of a series of games based around the Aliens movies.
Several long-term campaigns have been and are currently running. Typical genres include vampire, medieval fantasy, science fiction (including popular single-evening events of live Paranoia
Paranoia (role-playing game)
Paranoia is a dystopian science-fiction tabletop role-playing game originally designed and written by Greg Costikyan, Dan Gelber, and Eric Goldberg, and first published in 1984 by West End Games. Since 2004 the game has been published under licence by Mongoose Publishing...
and post-apocalyptic settings), horror, and 1920s/1930s gangsters.
Emphasis in long-term campaigns varies depends on the setting. For example, Mordavia is a medieval dark fantasy which emphasises roleplaying very strongly, where Skirmish is more combat-based, and games such as Vampire: The Requiem are strongly political.
Most games are non-contact using Mind's Eye Theatre
Mind's Eye Theatre
Mind's Eye Theatre is a live action role-playing game based on the White Wolf World of Darkness universe, sharing a theme and setting originally with the table-top role-playing game Vampire: The Masquerade and now with its revision, Vampire: The Requiem...
or similar systems, whilst a few encourage live combat with foam weapons. Magical and other special effects are usually narrated, but are sometimes symbolised by reading of scrolls, throwing of spell packets, and circles outlined in rope for traps and magical portals. In a few one-off LARPS, significant special effects have been produced, often with the help of local professionals, such as Weta Workshop
Weta Workshop
Weta Workshop is a special effects and prop company based in Miramar, New Zealand, producing effects for television and film.Founded in 1987 by Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger as RT Effects, Weta Workshop has produced creatures and makeup effects for the TV series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys...
, and lighting and sound are often used to assist mood.
Level of costume varies. Large one-off games usually see a lot of work put in by players with appropriate skills, or professional costumes are hired or borrowed. In long-term campaigns, great care is often taken on player character costumes, as the character (personality, abilities, and background) will most often be invented by the player themselves. Non-player character costume is sometimes less detailed, but favourite monsters or villains may reappear frequently as they become well-loved by the players.
There are LARP communities in all the major cities, especially Auckland
Auckland
The Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
and Wellington
Wellington
Wellington is the capital city and third most populous urban area of New Zealand, although it is likely to have surpassed Christchurch due to the exodus following the Canterbury Earthquake. It is at the southwestern tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Rimutaka Range...
.
The New Zealand Live Action Role Playing Society
New Zealand Live Action Role Playing Society
The New Zealand Live Action Role Playing Society, Inc. is a not for profit organization that supports live action role-playing games in New Zealand. Formed by a collection of LARPer's in Auckland, nzLARPS has grown to encompass around 60 - 70 members, and numerous unpaid associates...
is an umbrella organisation created to promote and support LARP throughout New Zealand. It is a parent organisation of Mordavia, and is affiliated with other groups such as Skirmish.
A large scale LARP is usually run each year as part of New Zealand's largest roleplaying convention, Kapcon.