Old Larp Advice Essay

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I've been going through my zines from old issues Alarums and Excursions, and I found a piece I wrote on larping. I think it still holds up. This is from 2000, just after we went to the Intercon in Timmonium.

ENJOYING AND SURVIVING LARPS

I talked with Josh about what I could have done in two of the games to have had a better time -- I enjoyed them, but could have enjoyed them more -- and what I could have done to survive two of them. He came up with the following two sets of rules. Sometimes they overlap; sometimes they contradict each other.

Enjoying a larp:

1. If you have a chance to make a scene, do it.

2. If you have a chance to help someone else make a scene, do it.

3. Make friends. (*)

4. Make enemies. (*)

(*) These are corollaries of rule one. Both will help.

5. Pay attention

If you are about to do something you don't really want to do, but you feel is in character, if you pay attention, you can usually find an in character reason not to do it.

Pay attention to what's on people's badges, to what they -are- at the moment. This is particularly true in games where badges have coded information on them.

6. If you're going to go down, go down gloriously.

7. If you're not going down, it may still be advantageous to go down gloriously.

8. If you have a choice between going down gloriously and succeeding without doing something, go down gloriously.

Surviving larps and succeeding at your goals:

1. Subtlety is useful.

This is a contrast to the rules for enjoying larps. For enjoying larps, subtlety is good in extreme moderation. Another way of putting it: Subtlety is only good if someone else knows about it.

2. Make friends.

3. Be useful--or seem so.

Old Larp Advice Essay

[drcpunk.livejournal.com]

I've been going through my zines from old issues Alarums and Excursions, and I found a piece I wrote on larping. I think it still holds up. This is from 2000, just after we went to the Intercon in Timmonium.

ENJOYING AND SURVIVING LARPS

I talked with Josh about what I could have done in two of the games to have had a better time -- I enjoyed them, but could have enjoyed them more -- and what I could have done to survive two of them. He came up with the following two sets of rules. Sometimes they overlap; sometimes they contradict each other.

Enjoying a larp:

1. If you have a chance to make a scene, do it.

2. If you have a chance to help someone else make a scene, do it.

3. Make friends. (*)

4. Make enemies. (*)

(*) These are corollaries of rule one. Both will help.

5. Pay attention

If you are about to do something you don't really want to do, but you feel is in character, if you pay attention, you can usually find an in character reason not to do it.

Pay attention to what's on people's badges, to what they -are- at the moment. This is particularly true in games where badges have coded information on them.

6. If you're going to go down, go down gloriously.

7. If you're not going down, it may still be advantageous to go down gloriously.

8. If you have a choice between going down gloriously and succeeding without doing something, go down gloriously.

Surviving larps and succeeding at your goals:

1. Subtlety is useful.

This is a contrast to the rules for enjoying larps. For enjoying larps, subtlety is good in extreme moderation. Another way of putting it: Subtlety is only good if someone else knows about it.

2. Make friends.

3. Be useful--or seem so.