LARP: Crash Course Games #26
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- čas přidán 26. 07. 2024
- Today we’re going to talk about LARPs or live action role-playing games. Larping tends to conjure up the image of a bunch of nerds hitting each other with foam weapons but it’s much more than that. LARPs merge performance, community, and art in a way that allows players to experience different lives within the safe confines of a game. And it isn’t all just medieval battles either, there are LARPs for just about any kind of game scenario you could imagine, and even some that you might not - like those designed to help players better understand the real-world struggles of oppressed populations. And LARPs aren’t just some niche game, LARPs are played in over 80 countries, and are growing rapidly in participation all over the world.
Special thanks to Kam Abott of the Medieval Chaos Larp (www.medievalchaos.ca/) for providing many of these images. More of his imagery can be found here: www.flickr.com/photos/9653710...
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I really like Andre. I feel he's one of the best CrashCourse hosts that have really brought something to the team that really understand what they're talking about.
Sounds like a blast. I regret turning my nose up at LARPers that I've seen.
Pipe2DevNull Check out Dystopia Rising, it's Nation wide and has many locations. including Southern California, New Jersey, Texas, washington, Oregon, Florida, and Arkansas.
The only way to overcome regret is to overturn what created it.
If you're in a few locations, maybe VtM will appeal to you.
If role playing isn't your thing, but you want to experience the combat, check out Belegarth or Dagorhir.
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I'm so happy they decided to make a video on LARP :)
Also I'm in one of those photos: at 1:50 I'm the one playing the violin. It was freezing so I wasn't doing a very good job, but it's still one of my favourite LARP photos of me.
Never considered this, but you could perhaps file Model UN as a sub category of LARPing.
i208khonsu it absolutely is. many of the larger lrp events will often have something akin to a smaller version of the model UN setup somewhere in there.
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also military simulation training is very similar to LARPing
i208khonsu food for thought
i208khonsu I've never not seen it as LARPing.
Man that pic of me has got everywhere... Hi, I'm the saluting female Roman soldier near to the end :)
I would like to buy about 80 acres of land to build towns dedicated to role playing. I would make it a non profit business catering to those who just want an escape from the trappings of everyday life. All of this may be wishful thinking but it sounds like a great idea to me. I may be 18 years old but the kid in me still wants to be a knight, fighting for glory and honor in service to the kingdom.
You aren't the only one thinking about this; there are other projects trying to do the exact same thing. Yes, it is a great idea. Try to make it happen!
unholy child well get on that man
unholy child
I have the exact same ambition as you guys plus I'm only 18 as well and I've only been to one LARP but I know I love it and I want to have my own game.
don't worry I am not a troll ;)
WESTWORLD
If you have a passion for it, then work on it!
Do bear in mind though, that people have done this before and it's always failed for one reason or another. :(
i think this series has had enough episodes
Larping gives players the chance to experience a life they may never be able to live, and Nordic larping gives players the chance to experience and better understand the struggles of others. This seems like exactly the kind of content needed today. But rest assured, our season finale is in December and we've got lots of great new content in the pipeline! -brandon
I still don't understand what the point of this series is.
I think it's an interesting series, but it does feel as if the last few episodes were put in a random order.
+blownspeakersss It's about games. What is so hard to understand?
CrashCourse ,is commercial type of Milsim such as Milsim West and American Milsim LARPing to you? I feel that it deserves a place because it is role playing with very dedicated participants.
When you see your friends in the video xD
Wow, so many pictures used from our game. Medieval Chaos for the win!
Larpers have been something very much looked as a hobby and well should have respect. So whether you are playing civil war reanactments , throwing lightning bolts, or seeing what if sanders won we look to see an object , that as a film studies appreciates all LARPERS very much.
lol I met my hubby larping... it really was more nerds drinking mead lol!
A bit nitpicky, but LARP - Live Action Role-Play (no G), NPC - Non-Player Character.
Love the series, guys. Keep 'em coming!
This is so cool! I've never larped but I've always found it fascinating.
Long time LARPer here. i was a member on and off of the White Wolf Game inspired World of Darkness group called the Camarilla or now known as Mind's Eye Society. Helped create a local group that has come and gone, but has been fairly active the last 6 or 7 years. i met some great people through LARPing, and had lots of great time meeting people from around the World. I once had a very interesting conversation after a game session with a group from Vienna, Austria. Often even after the game, the social aspect and wind down time afterwards can be pretty amazing as well as the game itself.
Larp while listening to power metal. It's awesome.
Are murder mysteries considered a form of L.A.R.P?
Sometimes! they fit in the parlor type of larp.
If you're playing a role, then yes :)
I had never grouped them together before now.. but as you mention it.. yeah I kinda think it is
Thanks everyone.
Matt Drummond I believe they could fit under the category of Nordic LARPs.
I really hope Crash Course games does Airsoft and Paintball. They're much like LARP if you play it with the same mindset, especially in Airsoft MilSims. Biggest one (imo) is in Russia, where the army pitches in with tanks, and with pyrotechnics.
That sounds terrifyingly awesome.
There are Larp systems that use Airsoft weapons.
and paintball and nerf guns and tanks, planes, pyrotechnics or whatever you want :) Confused? lol it come down to how the game rules are set up. To use popular computer games; playing a get the flag on a 'player team' vs 'player team' Halo deathmatch style game is not a role playing game. Allot of airsoft and paintball games fall into these rules. However take a game like 'Deus Ex' (the players are using guns as its a modern sic-fic setting)or 'Horizon Zero'.' with a whole back story (like a film) and where to make progress you have talk to characters you meet then it becomes a 'Role-Playing Game'. The way I tell what a LARP is; you are trying to make a 'Virtual Reality Game'. Instead of using computer graphics, you use real theatre sets, real places, props and real people as actors to do the same thing.
Very informative, I actually want to try this now.
I'm in the UK. There's a large amount of LARPers, and a substantially larger number of "historical re-enactors", that is, those people who do the historical exhibitions and similar, from bronze age to WW2. They tend to take it substantially more seriously. And would probably consider LARP a sub-set of re-enactment (non-historical?), instead of their hobby as the "Live Steel" category of LARP.
But that's a minor niggle. Thanks for making a reasonable and generally well balanced documentary about LARP. Especially happy to see all the photos of UK LARPs :)
This is great! I’m glad I found this video. I love the Crash Course approach to explaining things. The history section was super informative.
Really Great video. Showed me a lot about LARPing
Thanks for finally making a video on LARP! I also found it interesting that, as a LARPer, I have some different terminology than you do (Salon vs Parlor, and Post-LARP Depression vs Event Drop).
I used to LARP back in the 90s, and the presenter here isn't emphasizing how much it can be like a sport. Playing against the right people it can be just as physically taxing and exhilarating. At the same time, it's a social scene. There is a lot of down time, especially on overnight camping games. I'm too old to do it now, but I recommend it. It's a blast.
Since you touched on Nordic LARPing, I think it should be pointed out that the mentality of NL has actually spread out throughout all of LARPing in Scandinavia, which the basic idea of exploring novel/unique/alien life experiences being seen as the ultimate goal for an adult LARPer, with everything else being a benefit or bonus.
For example, when I played an event-type salon LARP within the Vampire the Masquerade universe, I played a character that was the exact opposite of me and with characters traits I'd find deplorable in a person. It taught me a lot about how such a person functions, what drives them, and - ultimately - how similar to anyone else they really are. ^_^
Not just Scandinavia. It's spreading throughout Europe.
Kudos for explaining LARP this well
Highly informative. Thanks
You missed the American Civil War Association and renaissance fairs. These are huge groups dedicated to taking on the lives of other people in ancient times and have been around for quite some time.
There's an enormous gap between re-enacting and LARPing standpoints. At least from the perspective of people who participate. The way re-enacting is like LARPing is that they dress in costumes and play out a role. The way it's not the same is the goals and means. Re-enactment doesn't have rules to govern acting, mostly just time periods. The goal is to portray a certain historical event or time, instead of creating a unique narrative for the sake of each other. Character development is also entirely different, if it exists at all in that particular re-enactment. If you portray historical events the outcome is entirely set and everyone has the same goal. There are no PCs, no NPCs and even the role of the organisers is vastly different.
What I'm trying to say: Yes, we both put on costumes and portray a role, but that's where the similarities end. Same can be said for movie actors, for example. So not so much forgotten, but not really related, in my opinion.
Your missing one thing though, historical reenactment often does have a set goal and rules. For instance: Pennsic (an SCA event) is a renaissance fair focused around large groups of people fighting in what the video described as live steel style. The fights have defined goals (take the castle) and their are referees (called marshals) who ensure fair combat.
As a follow-up to this, the divide between reenactors (particularly in terms of the Faire circuit) is a lot closer to LARPing than one would imagine. While it would definitely could more towards the Salon style than actual combat, the cooperative nature of perfoming at Faire along with the rest of a cast is very much like being in a LARP that can somehow afford hundreds of NPCs a day.
Also, 4 of the combat LARPs that started in the area were started by cast from Faire and anyone who's participated in those LARPs is quick to admit that such skills are really useful for Faire. Heck, I've been involved in a weekly Starwars event LARP for the past 6 years that was started by someone from a Renn Faire.
Historical re-enactment is close to larp, but not quite the same. The biggest difference in my mind is passive audience: both are geared towards someone watching, but not having an active role in it. But they are close, and should be just outside the Venn of live action role playing. Same with trad theater.
I can understand some theoretical differences but in practice reenactments are vary hard to differentiate from LARP. There are people in charge who dictate the period and rules of player conduct, there are mock battles which go on for hours and have a huge set of rules, and you take on an identity different than your own in a place and time very different than your own. In practice I am not seeing much of a difference.
I used to monster at Labyrinthe, nearly 30 years ago, the fact that this video knows about the place I'm really rather impressed about.
Great job!
Larp often gets a bad rep from close-minded people or sensation-driven media outlets, so I'm glad to finally have a respectful and semi-comprehensive vid to show people who earnestly go "Larp? What's that?".
Dagorhir player here. it's fun! The boffers are very strictly 'safe' to not leave bruises or sting for more than 10 seconds, while still being swung as hard as you want, mostly. Find a group near you and try it!
This is a great overview and very well done. Thanks. It doesn't touch on LARP for kids as much, which I run in the SF Bay Area, but I love that you mentioned the educational aspects. I have been using it as a teacher in my Montessori elementary and high school classes for years and we have done everything from historical reenactment to recreations of early humans. I currently run LARP for kids all over the SF Bay Area I can attest to the educational quality, immersive learning, and the potential for transforming kids through play. Thanks for this!
I study to be an actor and we have used something called a "Blackbox" larp (or lajv in swedish) to study our characters!
I would love to see an episode on interactive storytelling or walking simulators and their status as games and the different things they're doing!
I was wondering if you would cover LARP and I'm happy you have!
I had hoped the comments section would have the sort of open-mindedness that one expects from education channels, but it's great to see people who are open to seeing LARP differently or who are supporters. Different gaming appeals to different folks and there is room for all types.
Good job you really gave us a relatable explanation outstanding work my friend..
i wrote a paper about LARP last semester. if this video had been up at that time i would have saved myself a whole lot of research time. i still really enjoied this video and to hear all that stuff again and i apparently don't have any major errors in my paper :D
This makes me want to try it. I play an MMORPG now and this could be a fun thing to do.
Must agree with everyone. I have always made fun of people that LARP. I must say you guys have opened my mind to at least looking into this.
I never would have guessed that Dag started out like that. Nowadays it's full of stick-jocks that are more interested in beating the snot out of you rather than roleplay.
That's...pretty cool :)
thumbs up for recognising larps from outside the US [although you could have also mentioned Germanys Drachenfest [one of the biggest larp biggest events in Europe] and Cannada's biccoline [which has a MASSIVE permenant Site with player owned and built buildings].
Dr. Bowman?
In an episode about LARPing?
She's living the dream!
Awww yisss, first time in an international video for me. Banes pose from The Dark Knight Rises never gets old.
I went to the world's only larp school back in 2012 😊
I spotted the Dane! ;)
LARPing was my elementary school years with my friends.
Next week, THUMB WRESTLING!
nice vid !
This is actually really nice, the series going way beyond video game history. LARP is a really interesting thing.
Also, hi from Russia!
LIGHTNING BOLT!
As one who has played as an NPC in one of these events... it is a hell of a lot of fun.
Cool to see friends of mine in a Crash Course video.
I have once looked at a bottle cap on the road on the way home.
I was about to pick it up, while i wondered whether it was genuine or just a worthless counterfeit.
Then I remembered that I haven't been able to use bottle caps as payment in 3 days.
When you were literally baptized into the church of broccoli in Moot of Darkon, went to Dagorhir and Triumph at about 7, had your first real LARP at 12 with Honors Arcana, was able to convince Dystopia Rising to let you come, and is now one of the longest characters at several LARPS
I did LARP today it was super fun
I love Whose Line is it Anyway and think it's quite different from other types of role playing. Interesting that the use of LARP for reenacting historical battles wasn't mentioned.
the picture of the guy with the Red mo-hock is from medieval chaos or "the deep". I'v been there a couple times. Really fun.
I’m an actor playing a LARPer in a role coming up believe it or not. This video was excellent! 😂 thank you 🙏🙏🙏
Looks interesting.
Ngl, I havent got into anything too deep so far, but I feel the 'post-larp blues' at least, everytime.
Nordic LARPing sounds pretty fun
Is there going to be an esports episode? Love this series and thanks for the great episodes so far!
Of Dice and Men is an awesome book, BTW.
I was in Nordic horror larp. Holly shit, I have never scared for my life that much.
When every person near you acts like everything happening is real your brain adjusts to that and it's like mass hypnosis or hysteria.
Nice video wish some had asked me about using my likeness
now that I think about it Civil War reenactors is really a version of LARPing
nordic larping seems really interesting as a concept
I just imagine a bunch of dwight shrutes swinging swords around
The G is not silent the G does not exist, because not all larps are games. LARPing is any live action role playing activity whether it is one for fun, simply an art piece, or a way of life.
Fascinating. This seems to me to be an adult version of the pretend games children often play, though obviously this is much more complex. I can remember using a lot of these elements, including developing detailed characters that we would keep from game to game and inventing plots and so on.
I tried LARPing once, even enthusiastically since I've a theater background and love tabletop gaming. Sadly, the group I found had too few GMs to handle all the players, so those of us who weren't needed for the story tended to just sit around and do nothing but RP with each other for weeks on end. Not very thrilling when the only reaction from a GM to anything we came up with was "That sounds great. Now, I gotta take care of these guys, if you'll excuse me..." before running off.
Add to that the fact that the group seemed to be suffering from elitism from the "core" players - week after week for two months, the same players were used for all the stories whereas the rest just sat around watching or had minor bit roles, at best - and it wasn't long before I got bored and left, feeling like I'd wasted my time (no post-game stuff as described in the video, either; might have helped a lot if there was a way to hang out and become friends afterward, but alas).
Lightning bolt, lightning bolt
Fire....FIRE!
I love larp
I really wanna try LARPing at some point in my life.
you can probably find a VTM game somewhere near-by.
Rosalie Kitchen Maybe, idk if there's any going on in Michigan.
Worth a quick search
I know that there is a lot of huge larp groups up in MI, I personally play Dagorhir and I know Darkon and Amptgard both have presences up there ( I think)
Where do you live? There are larps all over.
People should also not forget about the Harry potter *inspired* (because HP is super trademarked) larp based in Poland, "College of Wizardry".
There is also one that started up in the US, called "New World Magischola".
There is also a German official offshoot: "Nibelungen" in Poland, and similar "Wizard School" LARPs in Belgium, the UK and Israel.
HP might be super trademarked, but Warner Bros. doesn't actually have a problem with HP LARPs - our local game of ~100 players has official permission to use their IP.
The difference: CoW is *making money* with this. Trust me, that LARP doesn't cost the 600€ per person to produce...
There's two kinds of LARP mainly far as I know.
Hard and Soft.
Hard is where you run around the forest in costumes and beat one another up with boffers. Soft LARP takes dice or Rock/Paper/Scissors or something else to decided who wins.
that's so incredibly limited. What bout... litterally every other form of larp?
Hard= you hit one another abd make contact
Soft= you don't hit and sometimes avoid touching depending in the level of soft.
There is almost contact but not quite LARP?
I mean, a whoooole lotta larp isn't about or doesn't involve fighting, so...?
That would then be soft. You are not hitting anyone.
And there are also plenty of combat-based larp that involve neither dice or any other randomization and where combat it preplanned and coreographed. All in all, it's such a strange and wierdly limiting classification that only talks about one small part of the entirety of the larp
Lightning bold!
We need VR LARPing
Maybe they should have mentioned that great 2008 comedy, 'Role Models,' which heavily featured LARP-ing?
We have Europa(It's better known as Camp Refugee among most folks here tho), sorta going on here in Norway as a humanist alternative for confirmation. Basically the 'rite of passage' to maturity.
even the geekest computer nerds look at larping and roll their eyes
Europa sounds great
In Norway we have something to called a confirmation. It's basically a traditional Christian ceremony where 9th grades are asked questions about the bible and if it's correct the are considered an adult, this isn't a mandatory practice nowadays, but it's more done out of tradition.
We also have a humanitarian alternative where we learn about general ethics and moral questions. As part of the course they will have to LARP for 24 hours as a Syrian refugee. To me that was one of the most intense experiences of my life and I couldn't finish it due to major stress amongst other things. The whole experience gave me a lot of perspective when it came to how refugees are treated.
10/10 would never in my life do it again
Whatever your definition of a refugee is, but it's not the definition we went by.
ive been thinking of larping for awhile.. well not thinking but wanting.. but i never knew where to go to larp
Watching this is going to make me have a whole new view of protests... I would now have in the back of my mind the thought "Are these people maybe LARP-ing in a dystopian present setting, but forgot to tell the authorities?"... I mean, sure, I would quickly throw out that thought out, but... it would be a thing.
I think board games were not covered enough. You could talk a bit about Spiel Essen, modern games and some of the most influencing modern titles and authors. Also, you could cover the phenomenon of the cooperative board games, which has been quite popular lately.
Not all larps have GM's (I have rarely heard this term, acutally), they are also called Organizers, admin, managers and etc. They usually have marshals, referees and helpers to help players follow the rules, guidelines and games. Most larps will have insurance, to protect those who have built it and the players from injury/suing.
A rose by any other name. Storytellers, organisers, referees, game leaders, story leaders, etc. etc. etc.
In the end, most, if not all, larps have a group of people who write the main storyline and manage the NPCs to implement hints to further said storyline, or react to player-initiated story elements.
Sounds like a Renaissance Faire
It is in some ways. I consider SCA and Ren Faire (both of which started in California in the late 60's) as larp precursors. The difference is that Ren Faire gets more into the theatrical aspect of having a passive audience; which is part of the barrier between stage theater and larp.
4:06
Feels like a scene out of *Whose Line is It Anyway?*
For me, it will always be LRP; the A is redundant. Also, I think Treasure Trap ran for more than two years. I worked there.
Whoa imagine a horror LARP game at night in the woods.
I've played a couple; they're amazing if done right. Prokekt: Ragnarok (a wwII horror LARP) did it excellently (though I never played that one; many of my friends did).
It's like a video game only it hurts.
So where does something like war re-enactment fit into this? Or those dinner & a murder mystery type of things?
For those of you wondering:
Belegarth is not a larp. It is a medieval combat sport.
It has no role playing or magic. It's solely about the combat. Yes, you have to dress up... But you can just cut off the ankle elastic from sweat pants and wear a plain t-shirt that has nothing printed on it. Super cheap.
Anyway... In Belegarth, you can shield bash or shield kick. You can also grapple, to a certain degree.
And then there's Dagorhir. As far as I know, there is no shield kicking, etc, allowed.
And then there's Amtgard. But that's heavy on the role playing and really close to actual larp..
But Bel is less nerds throwing lightning bolts at people... And more beating each other with padded swords, spears, axes, etc. It's truly just a pure combat thing.
And then you have actual larps. Stuff like The Last Hope in Wisconsin. They spend months role playing as a certain character. They tell intricate stories. I've never been... But they use stuff from Calamacil. Which sells realistic looking foam weapons.
Otherwise, Bel is just slap some blue camp pad on a PVC and wrap it in cloth.
LARPing sounds sweet man lol
Event tomorrow for 9 and up in Palo Alto. Sunday in SF the adult league will be meeting. Come check it out if your interested.
You missed one, guys. Clearly medieval jousting is an ancestor of LARP, it's just that the players (knights and ladies) were playing the fictional versions of themselves (or members of their own social class) at first. By the Renaissance, it was very comparable to LARP, with gunpowder-age nobles playing sword-and-lance-age nobles.
Umm....that's quite a bit of a stretch. Jousting was not a jolly fun time for everyone, it was a sort of still very dangerous "practice run" for the European "warrior caste" to hone their skills.
I obviously need to get a life. What fun!
are war reenactments larping?
If they have a passive audience, no. If they don't, yes. (IMHO)
Be prepared to duck and cover if you say that to an authentic reenactor. They'll have your head.
Depends.
Are there set of rules, or is it just a theatrical event? Are reenactees portraiing specific characters?
Typically - no.
I'm kind of surprised that the SCA, Society of Creative Anachronism, wasn't brought up. Though some may not consider it a game in a single-session sense, I think the argument could be made. Kind of an open ended, massively-multiplayer, years long kingdom building simulation/strategy game.