Well, I'm gonna go LARP this weekend.

For all those games that happen to not be BrikWars

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IX_Legion
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Re:

Post by IX_Legion » Fri Jun 01, 2012 10:18 pm

Ross_Varn wrote:Bring back pictures. I'm really interested in LARP myself, and if I get this nerf game off the ground, I'll probably end up organizing something I'll call Gamesim. LARP itself is connected irrevocably to stupid stuff like...this... while the actual concept has massive potential. Heck, it attracts the wrong crowd because popular media thought thinks it's for the wrong crowd.

Also related for your viewing pleasure, 4chan /TG/'s rendition of a tale for the ages, and the story of a single man versus the world- or at least the idiotic gamemaster of his LARP. It may or may not be true, but it's bloody good in any case.

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII


The Sequel
Oh. My. God.

Someone needs to get this man (I'm assuming...) some LEGOs and a Brikwars rulebook. It would be epic.

I guess this is kinda like my civil war reenacting, just with all the extra role-playing stuff. We just line up and shoot blank powder charges at each other. You take a hit and die whenever you want to. There's WWI reenacting, too, which I haven't done but want to try. There's some trenchworks built somewhere in Pennsylvania and it's basically a 48 hour tactical. You can make night attacks, and if you're killed or captured in the enemy trenches "red cross ambulances" will take you back to your own lines so you can do it again.
This should be in the Rulebook somewhere:

"Any problem on earth can be solved with the careful application of high explosives"
-Valkyrie (the movie)

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Arkbrik
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Re: Well, I'm gonna go LARP this weekend.

Post by Arkbrik » Mon Aug 27, 2012 4:35 pm

Well, I went LARPing this weekend.

It was the second game of Lilla Lugnet (The Small Calm), set in a steampunk version of the 1890s, at the health resort Lilla Lugnet in the woods outside Norrköping, Sweden. My character was Gustaf Strömberg, a waiter at Lilla Lugnet.

A lot of awesome things happened at this LARP. But if I described all of them in detail it would turn this post into an (even more) epic TL;DR, so I will concentrate on the most important things and leave out all the bullet-repellant-gloves, union struggles, lake monsters, poker tournaments, ghostbusters, lecherous doctors, talent shows, fake noblewomen, Cthulhu-cult-fighting adventurers...

Anyway.

Gustaf was born and raised in Norrköping, the oldest child in a rather wealthy wholeseller family. He was expected to take over the family business, marry, have children, and so on, but was not interested at all in that kind of life. Gustaf had discovered himself to be homeschooled, and at sixteen he got a job as a dishwasher on the Norrköping - Gothenburg airship line. He continued to work on various passenger airship lines, soon advancing to waiter, and got to see quite a lot of the world. The year before he started working at Lilla Lugnet he was on the America airships between Gothenburg and New York. At 21 he was getting tired of the stressed airship work, and by chance saw that Lilla Lugnet were looking for waiters. He applied, and got the job.

The LARP took place during a weekend in August, when Gustaf had worked there since May. There were many interesting guests visiting, among them the famous British earl sir Vincent, a woman with a penchant for dressing in men's clothes, complete with moustache and beard (though occasionally she wore a dress, and no facial hair). Sir Vincent had visited Lilla Lugnet the year before as well, and liked it a lot.

One of Gustaf's coworkers at Lilla Lugnet was the health pedagogue miss Larsson, a nice but insecure and moralistic woman. Her main responsibility was to lead the wellwater-drinking ceremony three times a day. The guests gathered, and walked in a circle in time with calm music, while sipping the healthy water. The rest of the personnel always found this hilarious.

The guests spent most of their time conversing, bathing, and playing crocket, while Gustaf and the rest of the personnel worked hard with cooking, cleaning, serving and washing dishes, as was the natural order of things. The personnel found plenty of time to gossip, though. Gustaf learned that miss Larsson had gotten to know sir Vincent the year before, and they were good friends. Then one evening sir Vincent and miss Larsson danced on the bar floor. Most saw it as just another whim of the eccentric sir Vincent, but Gustaf thought it might be more than that.

The next day, he brought it up with miss Larsson, and she told him that she and sir Vincent had been corresponding since last year. She even let him read the letters from sir Vincent. They were perfectly innocent, mostly accounts of sir Vincent's various travels and adventures around the world.

But later, Gustaf was sitting next to miss Larsson as she wrote a letter to sir Vincent. He happened to glance at it, and saw the words "I cannot stop thinking about you". Then he knew what she really felt about sir Vincent.

The personnel had over the days half jokingly discussed who should fall in love with who. Some people thought Gustaf should pick one of the cleaning maids to court. He was reluctant, but that only made the others more insistent. As evening came this day, miss Larsson asked Gustaf if he had made his decision yet. He told her to please give up on that, he would never become interested in the cleaning maids.

"Would you ever become interested in any other woman working here then?"
"No."
"Would you ever become interested in one of the women visiting?"
"No."
"Would you ever become interested in sir Vincent?"
"No... not even sir Vincent."
"Then would you ever become interested in... someone else here?"
"...Possibly."

Gustaf felt he could confide his orientation to miss Larsson, since he knew about hers.

Later in the evening, Gustaf and some of the other personnel were hanging around with the farmhands, trying some of their "special brew". Incredibly strong stuff. Miss Larsson came by and asked what they were drinking, and they got her to down an entire glass of it. She became very inebriated. Someone had the bright idea that she should lead a wellwater-drinking ceremony, only with the farmhands' special instead of wellwater. So all the personnel walked, ran or stumbled in a circle to some not-very-calm music while drinking the brew. Miss Larsson was becoming increasingly unsteady, and she was led to the bar. The absinthe was sadly sold out, but some fine liquor became the finale for her. And then sir Vincent came into the bar.

Miss Larsson accidentally stumbled into her, accidentally lost her balance and fell into her arms, and kissed her. In front of everyone. Sir Vincent was very embarrassed, and left briskly. Miss Larsson was in tears.

But later, sir Vincent came back, and had a long private conversation with miss Larsson. When miss Larsson returned from it, she was happier than Gustaf had ever seen her. She told him in private that sir Vincent had offered her to have an affair. But she was unsure of what to answer. Gustaf told her that an opportunity like this only came once in a lifetime. He advised her to say yes.

And the next day, miss Larsson told him that she had accepted sir Vincent's offer. And everyone was very happy.

---

My post-LARP analysis of this concluded that Gustaf understood that if things had gone differently for him, he might have ended up like miss Larsson - insecure, unsatisfied, and repressed. And when he saw miss Larsson finally get together with the one she loved, he felt very happy for her. Also, he hoped that one day he might find someone to love that much. Gustaf had been in relationships before, but they had been short and not as emotional as miss Larsson's love for sir Vincent. Gustaf and, naturally, myself, were overcome with such intense feelings of joy when miss Larsson and sir Vincent came back from their private talk, and miss Larsson shone like a sun.

When you really get into a character at a LARP, you not only enter the consciousness of that person. You also create a subconscious for the character, and you might not always know what's going on in there.

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Re: Well, I'm gonna go LARP this weekend.

Post by KittywithLEGO » Tue Aug 28, 2012 3:00 am

Since my character, miss Larsson, was apparantely so inpostant for Arkbriks character, I wanted to tell my side of the story. However I'll just talk about this larp and only the important stuff.

So my character, miss Elisabeth Larsson had known sir Vincent for a year, they had been penpals, but hte most exiting thing that ever happened was that she and sir Vincent escorted eachother to their rooms and sir Vincent sent her flowers. She was very insecure about her self, extremely anti-feminist, thinking that every woman realy needed a man and that a woman who wasn't a mother wasn't realy a woman and she taught that homeschooling was a mental desiese. Miss Larsson was a farmers daughter and had worked herself up to the position of recrational thesnuggler (I think, don't have good translation it was all pseudo-science claiming water cured everything). She knew that she was supposed to get maried and have children and she wanted to, but then sir Vincent Ravenscroft came along andstuff got complicated.

During this whole time, miss Larsson has had many advisors, one of the most important being the Doctor, Mss Pick Lugn. She is a nice and capable woman, much more driven than miss Larsson, but, being the time it is, she is not so fond of her feelings for sir Vincent. When they talk it's about a problem that needs fixing, not how she could get otgether with the sir.

So the very first larp-day, miss Larsson overhears a conversation about a moviescript, people seem very upset and she politely asks about it. It turns out it's a script about a woman who falls in love with a another woman who is married, but her husband i ok with it. Miss Larsson and the author talk a lot about this, miss Larsson being very sceptic, the author isn't only pro LGBT, he is also a feminist. That night she confesses her love for sir Vincent to the author who tells her that she should tell sir Vincent how she feels.

The next day miss Larsson confesses her love and sir Vincent (the asshole) replies 'Is there anything I can do to make it less difficult for you?'. They talk for a bit and decide that they will travel to Stockholm and Gothenburg together to find miss Larsson a husband.
So one night sir Vincent shows up as a woman, in dress, and corsett and everything and she dances with miss Larsson. Before this, I kinda taught that it was just a coinsidence that sir Vincent was a woman, that miss Larsson was straight, but loved sir Vincent as a man, but I realice that she has no problems loving sir Vincent when she is wearing a dress either, I had no idea.

Ok, so last day, everything seems fine, miss Larssons confidense is good, she had talked some with Gustav and it felt great to not be alone and she had read the authors new book about two lesbians which was much to risqué for miss Larsson, she's such a prude^^ Everything was going great and then seh gets drunk and kisses sir Vincent. Sir Vincent is very stiff, uncomfortable and gently tries to push miss Larsson away, but she presses on and they kiss very awkwardly before sir Vincent kisses her back, Unfortunately they fall and everything gets realy complicated.

Miss Larsson is in tears, she is sick, she should be going to a mental institution, she sexually harassed a woman! Everything is awesomely dep in misery when a woman working there asks if sir Vincent can speak with her, she says it's ok. Sir Vincent doesn't listen to miss Larsson's appologies, instead they talk about her feelings and what hey can do now, appart from the offer of having an affair, she is also giving an awesome pep-talk where they talk about how amazing miss Larsson is and how she shoudk handle it if people are negative 'Tell them you kisses and Earl, what have they done?'. They walk out of the room hand in hand, dance, and then miss Larsson excorts sir Vincent to her room, her hand and forehead is kissed. She speaks a bit with Gustav who is very pro the affair idea, giving miss Larsson more confidense and has a great evening, she is still a bit drunk.

The day after, she speaks with the Doctor who is possitivt to miss Larsson getting happy for once and she agrees to having an affair with sir Vincent who from now on will call her Elisabeth. The larp ends.





The emotional rollercoaster this larp was realy got me, I felt almost all of the feelings miss Larsson did, wich was a bit weird as I'm straight, but neverdeless fun. i loved how my carachter developed, the last day she actually could ask people if they had seen sir Vincent, before she was to afraid that people would understand she was in love. I had so much awesome play and it was realy nice to be a happy miss Larsson for once, although I expected it to go horribly wrong and hte happy ending came completely out of nowhere. All in all it was one of my best larp-experiences ever.

Sorry for the long text, it's hard to limit myself^^'

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