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Shuma WTF do you play, man? Did you just stumble onto Dakka one day and decide to take up the role of the Devil's actual Advocate?

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:Shuma WTF do you play, man? Did you just stumble onto Dakka one day and decide to take up the role of the Devil's actual Advocate?

I play space marines.

You just made my day.

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:You just made my day.

I do my best.

Funny thread is funny.

ShumaGorath wrote:

Marshal2Crusaders wrote:Shuma WTF do you play, man? Did you just stumble onto Dakka one day and decide to take up the role of the Devil's actual Advocate?

I play space marines.

This...explains...everything!

Shuma only has power if you give it to him; giving him the attention him the negative attention he craves only makes him stronger.

He feeds on darkness?

ShumaGorath wrote:In before people who spend hundreds to thousands of dollars on toy tanks that they play with in comic book stores or basements mock people who dress up like idiots and pretend to shoot lightning from their hands.

Inb4 wanna-be /b/tard self-righteously comes to the defense of LARPing due to personal self enjoyment and attempts to troll a Wargaming hobby website by comparing their hobby to dressing up like elves pretending to be people they aren't. O wait... I guess not before.

LARPers are funny, SCA at least have some nads, but sand-bag lightning bolts and fat-buggy horses are just hilarious.

Im going to hardcore LARP!

Go into a bunch of those guys with a real sledgehammer and smack them around. Then when they say im hitting to hard or its not real yell " DAMN CASUAL LARPERS, GO HARDCORE OR GO HOME!"

Haters are gonna hate, larping is fun. Atleast in sweden where the level is a bit more advanced.
Don't really know rolplaying wise but equipment is miles away

Bla_Ze wrote:Haters are gonna hate, larping is fun. Atleast in sweden where the level is a bit more advanced.
Don't really know rolplaying wise but equipment is miles away

If you could get a good group together and everything that actually wrote scenarios and stuff it looks like it could be a lot of fun.

However a lot of what i see is people with buckets on their heads, a bedsheet for a cape running around with wooden rods yelling and hitting gak.

I prefer just having a stroll through a forest...

Though they do bring a lot of amusement to castlefest.

Discussion I’ve had at least three or four times online in the last ten years…

First off, I am surprised and disappointed that no one has yet linked the Brunching Shuttlecocks’ Geek Hierarchy Chart, which officially documents which geeks look down on which other geeks.

http://www.brunching.com/images/geekchartbig.gif

Secondly, Shuma isn’t even trolling in this thread. He’s just right. Other folks are right too, in that a lot of LARP involves cheap costumes and looks absolutely ridiculous from the exterior.

I larped from around 1993 until about 2001.

Started off with Vampire: The Masquerade-type stuff, and did that off and on through most of the 90s. As Albatross pointed out, there is a significant chick factor in vamp larps, or at least there used to be. Overall the folks are a trifle pretentious and dramatic (though a bit less so than the main goth and fetish club/social scene), but there is a strong connection to improvisational theatre and to traditional roleplaying games. You do run into folks who take it too seriously, and folks who can’t take it seriously enough, and sabotage good scenes through bad acting or breaking character. IME good games are pretty rare, as the folks who are seriously good actors are more into actual Acting, but there are some good ones out there. I played at one hosted at Boston University in the 90s which had a big overlap with their medieval studies and drama departments, and some good events. The vampire-type larps usually use a combined numeric stat & rock/paper/scissors (believe it or not) conflict-resolution mechanic, though I’ve seen a couple of others, like dice or playing cards.

I first tried a couple of live combat (boffer weapon) larps in Seattle in 1991 or 1992, then got out of them for a while and after I moved back to the East coast started playing NERO in 1995, and played it until 2000 or 01. Also briefly tried out Amtgard and a Realms offshoot, Imperium. These are fun, though certainly look silly from the outside. Costume quality varies widely, with newer players often pretty minimal, and more experienced ones usually having fairly nice gear and armor. All the combat required physical skill and athletic ability. Spellcasting required both the recitation of a verbal incantation and striking the target with a thrown beanbag. The spell packet design was such that better arm strength and skill would give better accuracy; a friend of mine pitched baseball in high school and it definitely helped him play a better caster in NERO. When I was playing NERO I primarily played a fighter, as the combat was definitely a substantial part of the appeal. I knew a couple of “teams” or adventuring groups which specifically recruited jocks and athletes from their high schools or colleges as they made better fighters. It was actually kind of nice to have a hobby where athletes and gamer geeks crossed paths and shared interests more. NERO wasn’t as chick-heavy as the vamp larps, but still way ahead of wargaming or even tabletop RPGing. The costuming, semi-theatrical and social aspects definitely draw them.

LARP has its own charms and fun. The athletic aspect is certainly one of them. Getting out in the woods and camping. Running, climbing, fighting and sneaking around the woods in the day or the middle of the night. No 40k game yet has been as viscerally exciting as sneaking up on a group of 20+ “bad guy” NPCs in the middle of the night, trying to get to a captive or assassinate their leader. Or running pell-mell through the woods from a “death knight” with good prosthetics and LED glowing eyes, which (I found out later) projected enough light that they actually worked like little headlights and helped him see in the dark. I’m dead certain that if I was still doing LARP I wouldn’t have the incipient gut I’ve been growing the last few years. Eventually I didn’t want to commit the time (particularly weekends) or effort to it anymore, but that’s a reflection of my changing desires and commitments, rather than a failing of the games.

People may want to bear in mind, also, that there are a significantly wider variation in LARP events than just the couple I’ve described above. A lot of the European ones I’ve read about and seen pictures of have higher standards for costuming and props, and look really impressive. There’s also a big sub-set of games which are played at Sci-Fi & F conventions, at hotels, and which are often more mystery & clue-gathering games, with no real physical component and minimal (if any) costuming. There are others which are more like a “How to Host a Murder” party mysteries. I read about a really neat one which was held at a hotel and set on the Titanic, with period costuming and the climax held in the pool area, so they could have water effects and even lifeboats.

Anyway, as noted, it’s just another geeky hobby. And it is one which does tend to involve more females and a greater level of social interaction than others. We can certainly laugh at it, just as we laugh at our own hobby. That Reno 911 scene is some funny stuff. But pretending to social superiority or meanspirited mockery is silly and counterproductive.

Modquisition on:

Gentlemen, and I use that term loosely, politeness is still required. Please post in a non-insulting fashion to or about other posters. Thank you.

That was way to much for this little trifle of a thread. I dare not read it all for fear of giving it some validation.

As for Shuma, I didn't say he was trolling. I am saying he is the energy creature from Star Trek (ToS) that feeds off negative emotions.

That geek chart is absolute win!

ShivanAngel wrote:That geek chart is absolute win!

But incomplete

Soladrin wrote:

ShivanAngel wrote:That geek chart is absolute win!

But incomplete

Yeah, wargamers werent on there, nor are CCG players...

Yea, and videogamers lacked the Retro gamers sub type

ShivanAngel wrote:

Bla_Ze wrote:Haters are gonna hate, larping is fun. Atleast in sweden where the level is a bit more advanced.
Don't really know rolplaying wise but equipment is miles away

If you could get a good group together and everything that actually wrote scenarios and stuff it looks like it could be a lot of fun.

However a lot of what i see is people with buckets on their heads, a bedsheet for a cape running around with wooden rods yelling and hitting gak.

How can you larp without what you just mentioned? In sweden atleast its standard even for the "beginners larps".

The chart is great, albeit incomplete. It's eight years old, at this point.

http://www.brunching.com/archive.html

Shuma was just attempting to diffuse some of the ridiculous amounts of nerdrage elitism. If anything, the people mocking something they refuse to even try and understand who continually attempt to belittle stuff based on what the "cool kids" are doing are the trolls. This community really gets on my nerves sometimes. Why can't people just be nice and get that others have "weird" hobbies. there's a difference between joking about something and dismissing it and anyone who participates in it.

Cannerus_The_Unbearable wrote:Shuma was just attempting to diffuse some of the ridiculous amounts of nerdrage elitism. If anything, the people mocking something they refuse to even try and understand who continually attempt to belittle stuff based on what the "cool kids" are doing are the trolls. This community really gets on my nerves sometimes. Why can't people just be nice and get that others have "weird" hobbies. there's a difference between joking about something and dismissing it and anyone who participates in it.

Well said mate

when I was about 15 I used to have a bunch of older mates who were really into there histoical re-enactment, many a weekend was spent camping in different parts of the country and hitting each other with blunted weapons, it was a great laugh, if sometimes a little painful. For me I see little diiference between re-enactment, LARPing, Paintball and Air soft et all. The bottom line is that it all involves running around the woods with fake weapons pretending to kill each other. Its a good way for people to let off steam without any huge risks of getting seriously hurt.

I am sure that we all take the pee out of others hobbies and interests, even certain types of people who share the same ones we do, but it should always be done in a friendly way, otherwise you just come across as a complete tool.

Are US Civil War reenactments not LARPing? If so, that seems pretty mainstream in the south. Sort of a double-standard then, no?

Here in BC we have a number of old Gold Rush towns that have been turned into... well, for lack of a better term, Museums. They employ a wide variety of people to work in the shops and pretend to live in the various houses. These people dress up and act like it's the 19th century. No one considers it LARP, but isn't that what it is?

metallifan wrote:Are US Civil War reenactments not LARPing? If so, that seems pretty mainstream in the south. Sort of a double-standard then, no?

It's a bit of a fine line.

The Civil War reenactments are usually done by professionals or military personnel who studied the history of the battle and they set it up as more of an entertaining spectacle for the people viewing it. They generally strive to make it 100% as historically accurate as possible(based on the accounts they have to work from), and don't(generally) really hit each other.

Well, they're roleplaying a Civil War battle aren't they? And it's in Live Action. To me, that's Historical LARP.

So actors in a historical film are LARPing too?

Yeah, actors or re-enactors, while they may be Playing a Role, are generally not Roleplaying in the manner of D&D or a live action roleplaying game.

Kanluwen wrote:So actors in a historical film are LARPing too?

You might say that, yes. Isn't LARPing just acting something out? Cameras and a Script don't really change things. I would say that yes - films and plays are a form of LARPing. There's just no wierdo with a wizard hat running around yelling out 'spells'.