Live Action Role Playing

Remove all ads!

Anyone ever play live action role playing? Instead of pen and paper or on the computer, you take the role of the character.
When I lived back home, my friends and I tried this. It was actually kind of fun. We made up a storyline and everything. We used the whole neighborhood, park, backyards for the story. We made up our characters, stats, etc. And then we played. Once we really got into it and dressed for the part, complete with toy swords and everything.
We went camping to a forest preserve and played almost the whole weekend as sort of a commando, G.I. Joe type roleplaying game.
And yes, I was a young adult at the time. Kinda paintball with a twist!

 

right, how, um, weird. While doing this do you use dice or just play it out how it goes?

 

Hmm. Interesting, I've tried it before but my friend wasn't really interested so it was just boring

 

We used dice. Remember those games that had two dice in a dome, you pushed on top of the dome to make the dice roll? We used those. Since they were only 6 sided, we had to roll several rolls at times.

 

I really, really, really want to do this but all the people I know who LARP live a two-day drive away. Anyone available to start a group in Southern Ontario?

I might just have to found a LARP'ing resort. Do you think it would take off? (only partly kidding...)

 

all very nice ideas, as long as it doesn't turn out like this:

http://foenixactual.com/ogre-battle.large.mpeg

 

Lol what was that guy throwing and calling a "lightning bolt" ?

And that "ogre" sounded so menacing. Grrrrr.

[ November 02, 2002, 23:24: Message edited by: Big B ]

 

Don't ever do it! You could become like Tom Hanks in Mazes and Monsters, unable to tell the difference between fantasy and reality and eventually get lost in a big cavern and go crazy!

 

Personally I find that it becomes weird after a while, here you are attacking another person ,then woops have to role the dice to see if I hit you. Breaks the whole reality part of it. But if you acted, not "rolled" play it, that could become cool.

 

We did actually get tired of rolling the dice. So we devised another way to score hits and stuff. WE based it on laser tag and paintball.
Here's what you do:
If you want to do it as a modern combat with guns, use squirt guns. But load them with paint diluted in water. Its cheaper, much cheaper, than paintball guns. Have a small zip-loc type bag with diluted paint and tennis balls in a back pack. Dip the ball in the bag and throw it as a grenade, or better yet, use water balloons.
If you are going more for the D&D type game, then you use toy swords (they don't hurt as bad as metal ones. You simply tape a marker on the end of the sword. For offensive spells you can again use a water balloon or tennis ball (hmm fireball?) Defensive type spells or ones that spawn monsters and stuff are a little more difficult.
You just have to be creative.
Now, how to score without dice.
Since paint and markers are involved, you have to use light color clothing.
Before you start, you develop your character like you normally would in the pen and paper or CPRG game. You take your "hit points" "AC" etc, this determines how much paint you can get on you. With using squirt guns, each "landed squirt" counts as a hit. One marker mark counts as a hit. You can agree ahead of time how many hits for a landed water balloon and all that.
It takes some planning, but it can really be fun. You need enough people to play. Some people have to be monsters, villians, etc. They get to be more than one monster too!
Its been awhile since I played this way. So I am going from memory, we had a whole bunch of guidelines written down. Maybe sometime I'll get something and offer it up if anyone wants it.

 

That sounds really weird (although good!), but why dont you just go around doing the paintballing thing necause you might get away with not being too sad (no offence intended)

 

Well for one, paintball guns are more expensive. You also have to pay to play in a paintball field, or whatever its called.

 

Anyone ever heard of Sarbreenar. Thats soughta live action roleplaying ... well half the time you sit dow ad play p&p and the other half, 80 odd of us go into this hall or building and just talk and play in character... its amazing! Hell i even went to a Sarbreenar party at 2am just so my character could get a job ad meet this halfing called Petal It would also be a massive social event and an opportuity to meet each other

 

hey guys. And girls.

Give body parts hit points. If you get hit on the arm then you loose HP from the arm, When it reaches Zero you can't use the arm any more. Do it with legs, body and head too.
Agree on weapons damage according to size.
And Spell damage If you dare use spells...

Then hack and slash your way to fortune.
Once you are into this. Design your character background with weapons and such. and find a suitable forrest. Then just make one team the city with defences. And one group the attacker. Take prisoners to get your own casulaties out. Heck of a fun. Drop the roleplaying aspects at first. Else it will be equally surreal as the mpeg video above

Later add magic if you like. But be carefull. Watch that mr. Frenzy lightning bolt video in terror. Geez. Where is the fun in that.

PS. Drop the dice. Seriously. As Thorin says. Don't "roll play". Role play. And make some respawn/regenerate/cleric system. As long as it is fair for both teams.

All this is based on my experiences as chairman of a roleplaying club 7 years ago.(I was only chairman because I was 18 at the time. Hence our club could have some legal advantages). We had lots of fun with this simple system. Kinda like medivial fighting. Add a story if you like. Escorting scenarios. Treasure hunting. Conquering enemy flag. Assasinate leader. Etc. The possibilities are endless.

[ November 06, 2002, 19:42: Message edited by: Nobleman ]

 

Hmm, we have a perfect forest - well, two actually! There is Moors Valley (sp) and another on in Colehill, I think it's the plantation but I can't remember

We played this gambling game once where in the rules you bet a bodypart, if you lost several times on a single bodypart you had to auction it on the internet, we had to stop that though, because apparently it's unfair on the bidder

 

I would love to do this but alas, I don't have enough good friends to make it worthwhile, and none of them are really into the whole RPG thing. Well, one is, more than me, hell, he introduced me to them on his SNES seven years ago, but he's strictly computer/console. I don't think he's tried the computer versions of PNP, like the infinity engine games, mostly Final Fantasy and the like. Hey, you know what would be the most awesome experience known to man? A huge live action game, everyone from SP invited! Sigh. I have no life. And no friends. I am a hermit. (Oh, yeah! I'm a pessimist too. )

 

No offense to anyone, but this is the stupidest thing i've EVER heard.

 

How so? Do you think actors are stupid for acting in movies? Well it just seems the same to me except that there is no script

 

Actors do it in front of/to audience, not for them selves.Actors dont run in a middle of forrest alone yelling "lighting bolt", they have filming crew, cameras and special effects.Actors have a script what to follow and most of all they get paid for what they do!

 

Commenting on SP live roleplaying - we can't do it in RL because we are in different places over the world - but what about the chat rooms?