Question for experienced LARPers
What would be the one thing you wished you knew before your first LARP?
Or
What is the best piece of advice you could give someone new to LARP?
Best bit of advice I can offer (and bear with, tone might be a bit wonky)
LARP is not like TTRPGs.
- You need to go out and look for your plot, it won’t be fed to you by handy NPCs. You have to find/make/poke it yourself
LARP is collaborative.
- The majority of people you interact with are other players, not crew. Ask questions and let people talk your ear off about the cool thing they’re chasing
LARP is categorically silly, even when super serious
- We’re largely adults, playing dress up, in a field. Embrace the absolute chaos and “feeling immature” that it comes with
You can’t ever be “perfectly prepared” for a LARP event
- Preparation is needed, but weather, other players, and the ground will change what plans you have for play
LARP bleed and LARP drop are real and they can suck
- You learn how to seperate “self” from “character self,” but there will be moments where that partition can get a bit wobbly. Everyone has different ways of combating it, but the first step is learning to realise it happens
Don’t ever be afraid of character death
- I have a whole IC sermon about this, but on the OC, character death can happen. It’s awful when it happens, but it’s also a massive chance for RP and to try something new
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Greatly appreciated. I know its my first one but I just really want to fit in, purely out of respect to other players.
As a Game Master. I am very comfortable improvising, making up plots and adapting to many scenarios.
The other piece of advice I will offer, bouncing off of the “wanting to fit in” line… there’s a lot of players in field
Like 3k many lots
There’s also 9 other Nations outside of Dawn, each with different ways of interacting with the world
Fitting in is a…loose and wobbly metric to have as a goal.
It may seem good, but it doesn’t make for A Character
(Basically, remember that Empire is a setting where the religion is non-theistic, there’s no concept of being damned to hell, that everyone can see ghosts, and…we are the 1% of the population if we attend Anvil)
These are the things I need to know. What actions could I do to make other characters want to interact with me and take notice?Obviously different archetypes will do different things but as questing knight, what could I do to make an impact and be noticed?
How I did it?
Asking questions
Eavesdropping
- Which is a 100% valid thing to do IC, shame on the other character/player for not having the Vigilance to have a question
Run towards the screaming
Have opinions and talk about them
- Yes, there’s characters who are absolutely assholes, but it’s the character, not the player.
There’s nothing wrong with briefly dropping OC and asking for clarification if not certain.
EDIT, ADDED BIT
In a very unhelpful sort of way, don’t go into the field expecting to immediately make an impact. It’s a bit more slow burn
The game is one where you need to put in effort/energy into making an impact
- Find an area of the game that particularly interests you and start chugging away at a goal within it
(So, as example, my previous character was a battlefield physick.
Their big thing was trying to make sure that their Nation went about doing combat physicking in a “joined up and integrated” manner and could link up with other Nation’s healerd…
…which took me a season to realise that’s what I wanted to play, another season to find who to best talk to, three seasons to start connecting up with Navarri and Dawnish healers, and they then died before they could see it properly in play.
I was playing them for nearly three full years and only really started “making an impact” a year and a half into playing them)
For me, I wish I’d known to take it a bit easier.
I came in with pre-conceived notions of what I wanted my game to look like, and when it didn’t really happen it got me down. Over time though I dropped some of the seriousness from the character, and started to learn what actually interested me. I stopped pretending I knew everything, and started asking questions. And I started to relax more, and focus more on MY niche and interests, rather than trying to chase everything that came anywhere near me 
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So basically it’s best to learn, find what your character should do and build up slowly.
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Thanks Triska, really useful. I’m just going to go to my first event (The First one I can make is mid July) With a completely open mind and just go with the flow!
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More what you want your character to do
Archetypes are springboards and plot velcro, rather than “you must behave like this and only interact with these things”
(My current character, who is arguably a mortician/“retired” skirmisher, might end up as an assistant to one of the Archmages if he isn’t careful and doesn’t stop nagging them about their lack of Prosperity around not taking time to enjoy the fruits of their labour.
He’s not super magical and has a pretty low opinion of Summer as a realm of magic)
If you find that something your thought would ignite a fire doesn’t, there’s nothing stopping you poking other bit
Or having multiple interests
Genuinely do recommend you read the Winds of War/Winds of Fortune before the event as they’re a wealth of things to have opinions on and often signpost people to go talk to about the thing
(Previous character was very interested in star stuff. They weren’t 100% a participant to the big ritual magic going on around it, but it meant I always kept eye on the Wiki for cool little “coffeeshop talk” bits)
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