Oh god LARPing.

[Venetia]

A friend of mine is trying to get me to into LARPing.

Live Action Role Playing.

Oh god.

She does Vampire: The Masquerade and Werewolf: The Apocalypse. She's starting a new W:tA group at the university, and is itching for people to join. I'm trying to be Cool Friend Forever here but I am ... Ah, a bit nervous about the nerd levels. I like to consider myself a "cool nerd" who is "above" such things ... But, well, oh ... The humanity.

Have any of you LARP'd?

I've never done it before ... What should I expect here?

These aren't like pots-and-pans knights doing D&D magic in the forest. No one dresses up or brings props, afaik. It's like a pen-and-paper deal, except also acted out.

This is all I got:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werewolf:_The_Apocalypse

:I

Honestly I'm clueless and have a few weeks to figure out what I'm doing. Someone help me and explain more on this subject

(My friend is too excited about it and she's explained so much of the little details, that now i worry i will look like an asshole by going "wait, um. what is a larp, really, though"

and i don't want to walk in and they're all like growling at each other and throwing out slang or something and I'm like "o.O oh dear" and do an about-face and walk my happy ass out the door.)

 

[Perihelion]

I did LARP a couple times at MIT, and it was actually pretty cool. One time we were all mad scientists who had been quarantined in a mad scientist town to prevent us from wrecking the world, and another time we were all dinosaurs or some shit. Like normal tabletops, it REALLY depends on the people you do it with and how good the GM is. It also depends on how much you can suspend your disbelief, and suspension of disbelief is a lot harder in LARP than it is at the table. If you're gonna go into it with the mentality that this is dorky and embarrassing, you're probably not going to have fun. The ones I played in were lighthearted and a little silly and full of cool people and so weren't total dorkfests, but White Wolf games tend to be super grimdark, which greatly increases the chance of ridiculousness. I personally loathe Vampire, and I have a hard time seeing how Werewolf would work in LARP because werewolves are supposed to be badass pinnacles of the human physical condition, whereas your average LARPER is an out-of-shape nerd.

You really need to check out the group before you agree to join. Again, it really, really, really depends on the people you're with. I would suggest maybe showing up at the first session or two and see if the players are cool and if your friend can GM worth shit.

 

[Perihelion]

Also, oWoD mechanics are fucking horrible. You have to roll like four times to attack someone. nWoD mechanics are far simpler and and faster to play with and easier to learn.

Convince your friend to run a chronicle that doesn't suck and wouldn't be completely ridiculous in LARP, like uh.....um....nWoD Hunter? Hunter could actually be really fun in LARP if you have a GM who can do horror, but it's the kind of thing that would either be great or completely fall flat on its face.

 

[Dr. Funk]

I've never LARP'd before, as I've never had an opportunity. But I know that if I could find a secluded enough location and enough people, I would LARP my ass off. It sounds like it could be a lot of fun, if you're willing to get over the fact that other people might look at you like you're special.

 

[Ellie]

I'd do it if it was spontaneous and realistic without rulebooks and shit

Think paintballing / laserquest

 

[Venetia]

i'm not really going to get any say here on what's done. she's registered or something with the ... main ... canticle ... or whatever it's called. there's like a whole registry. well, like there is for D&D. she goes to their national get-togethers and holds a rank and such.

she's not like the "normal"(?) archetype for this sort of thing. wants to be in the military, makes decent money, is not antisocial. i don't know about the others in the group though.


well i mostly just want to know: what happens?

like you walk in and then ... the narrator says "it is a dark and spoooky night ..." and then 2 people walk up and interact ... improv-style? or .. is everyone talking at once ...?

actually i think i'd be more OK with straight improv! i used to do it on stage in high school :I

or is it exactly like a D&D game, where the DM sets everything up, and then you are in a party, and talk at the DM's "NPCs" ... Except you are like actually standing and moving and emoting?

But then when you want to do something you have to stop and roll some dice ...?

God I don't know how I will keep from laughing.

 

[Perihelion]

Well, when I did it, it was structured such that you were mainly going around interacting with other people and everyone had their own individual storyline to pursue, and there were a few GMs that would wander around making sure everything was going well. So basically everything was much more pre-written than you'd see in a normal tabletop game where one GM is improvising half of the game on the fly. But the way the group at MIT does it is different from how it's normally done afaik, so I don't know what yours will be like.