finally...

[gm_avie]

yo, koipond  ! I promised you philosophical waxing about the social value of LARP.

I'm making good.

Here's the thing - there's something about the quality of roleplay I see from my regular players that transcends "roleplaying".  It becomes personally cathartic, it becomes Sacred, it becomes creativity and joy and trust and humanity manifest.  Like a

Comments

[flaviarassen]

We can do things we'd never do in real life

Yep - this is one of the 2big reasons I will never
ever do live-combat games: no special abilities.

(We now return you to your regularly scheduled
higher-plane discussion)

[gm_avie]

I've done live-combat game(s). Not counting the high-impact hide-and-seek, cops-and-robbers, knights-and-ladies, wagon-train games of my childhood, I hated the experience.

And came out of it with a LOATHING for air-soft guns. I LARP to be part of the magic, not to end up with a fat lip. hatehatehate airsoft. and dislike actual combat almost as much.

[drooling_ferret]

Yeah... much better to apply a little bit more imagination than try to look cool at the risk of being dragged off into a back room somewhere and threatened by burly fellows who are playing very different games.

[gm_avie]

well, yes. then there's also that.

I'm not a big fan of burly fellows with an eye towards very different games.

[garrun]

I need to rebut this as a live combat player, because it's not entirely true. Depending on the game, it's plenty easy to have special abilities. I have a gypsy (See above pic) that is capable of dodging strikes far more deftly than I am, killing targets in a single shot, stopping heroic blows with his sword that I cannot, and vanishing into thin air like a ninja out of legend. I also have a mage that, well.. is a mage. He casts spells. And did I mention the anthropomorphic panther that can jump 30' in a single bound?

Now, granted, there's other factors as well. Someone who is a skilled fencer OOG will almost always whup someone who is a physical schlub, regardless of what is on their cards. Reality does have more of a hold than normal in a live combat LARP.

I fully accept that some people just don't like live combat - that's cool, and I respect that. Avie's reasons are PERFECTLY valid. But to say there are no special abilities is not always true.

(spelling corrected)

[flaviarassen]

Well, I'm glad to hear there are special abilities, because, as I told the GM who kept trying to get me to play such a game, "If I'm going to be me for the weekend, I might as well save my money & stay home." But, your point about "real world abilities always topping" rather tends to support my premise anyway.