Code Words in LARP

[bakeneko]

This is some idle theory garble about LARPing, so feel free to move along if it doesn't interest you. I've tried to make it intelligible to non-larping folk.

Just so you won't feel like you've wasted your time, here's a picture of a cow I made.

Comments

[silway]

The phobia example is a really good one in particular. I remember one revel years ago in NERO Mass where they decorated the interior of every room with fake spiders and cobwebs, except the staff knew about my phobia and thus my room was clean of it. If I walk onto a mod today and certain reps are there in certain ways that trigger me, I will likely have to walk right out. If there is an IG barrier or guards or flaming death ninjas between me and the door it might be nice to have a way to explain why I really need to leave right now without having to essentially call a hold.

"My platypus is acting up," or whatever, and now the staff knows everything they need to know, something is wrong OOG, to let me escape the situation. The details don't matter, they can find that out later, what matters is I need to step out *now*.

So yeah, I can see it having value in the rare circumstance where you a) need to leave and b) you need to do so on a sufficiently fast timetable where you don't want to have to spend the time explaining why to a staff member off to the side first OOG. And in the example like the orcs and slave thing, maybe having to explain why is only going to make it worse, so you invoke the platypus and then deal with the whys later on better terms.

*Note, it should not involve invoking the platypus.

[bakeneko]

"My platypus is acting up," or whatever, and now the staff knows everything they need to know, something is wrong OOG, to let me escape the situation. The details don't matter, they can find that out later, what matters is I need to step out *now*.

Yes, this is exactly the sort of thing I was thinking.