All's fair in LARP and war
This art not thy mother's game of Scrabble — slay hard or goest thou home.
By Travis Brown (Contact)
Thursday, May 1st, 2008
6-foot spider swats at me, striking my left arm. I am injured. I must fall back and re-assemble my armor. Fortunately, a dwarf, gypsy and fox are there to slay the mighty arachnid with spells, strategy and impeccable swordsmanship.
I am in the heart of Spider Wood in the central region of the continent of Avalon in the world of Tyrra. I am a young, jaded hobling named Elmore Hawkborne.
In reality, I am at a YMCA compound called Camp Hammond in Berryton, which is located almost directly between Lawrence and Topeka. I am three hours into my first live-action role-play (LARP) experience.
What the LARP?
LARP is gaming on steroids. Or maybe acid. Or maybe just good old imagination. LARPs come in all forms and sizes. Groups have organized science fiction LARPs, horror LARPs, military-based LARPs, fantasy LARPs. You name the literary genre, and there’s probably a LARP for it. Some LARPers fight dragons, and some zap aliens in a dystopian cyberpunk future world.
Almost everyone has LARPed at some point in his or her life. But most people stop once they hit puberty and find themselves incapable of playing make-believe—either because of creative restraints or social inhibitions.
The LARP I participated in is fantasy-based. It is a game called NERO. Find a cauldron; throw in improvisational theater, Dungeons and Dragons, a couple J.R.R. Tolkien novels and fake weapons; boil and stir and you will cook up a steaming crock of NERO.
NERO (New England Role-playing Organization) was founded in Boston in 1989. It is one of the oldest, most established LARP organizations in existence. Now NERO has about 50 chapters all across America. These chapters host gatherings, usually monthly, at which players come, dress up and play an extraordinarily convoluted game.
A character is born
After a 17-mile drive, I see the dilapidated “Camp Hammond” sign. I pass under the wooden threshold and know that there is no turning back now. I’m extremely nervous. After all, I haven’t fought with foam weapons since the days when NERF commercials ruled the Nickelodeon airwaves.
I continue on a gravel road until I come to a well-lit cabin. Inside the lodge, aquariums filled with reptiles line the walls. I see piles of Ranger Rick magazines and camping supplies scattered about. A man sits behind a desk with a laptop and a portable printer. It’s obvious he has set up a makeshift headquarters in this room. He introduces himself: Joe Bearden.
Bearden, Lawrence graduate student, is the mind behind the Kansas chapter of NERO, called NERO Central. He founded the chapter two years ago. Bearden has officially been LARPing for 17 years, but he says his first true LARP experience was playing “cowboys and Indians” when he was a child.
Bearden stands up to welcome me. He is tall, with a handlebar mustache and long, curly hair. His overall appearance and stature make him seem as if he would be just as comfortable in a fantastical archaic world as he is in this one.
I sign a liability waiver, and he sets me up with a character. We decide I will be a hobling because I fit the description well. According to the NERO Rule Book, “Hoblings are peaceful people and generally are smaller than average. They have furry feet and hands, as well as bushy sideburns and eyebrows.” Bearden decides I am from the Hawk tribe. This also seems to be an appropriate role because Hawks are known as storytellers.
Players usually come with their own outfits, but I am a special case. Bearden puts together a costume for me. He dresses me in layers of earth-tone tunics, vests, rope and feathers. He gives me a bone-shaped mace as my weapon. It’s made of PVC pipe, foam and duct tape, like all the other players’ weapons. These weapons, called “boffers,” are made for safe playing.
Bearden takes me outside and gives me a brief overview of combat technique and rules. We hold a mock battle and he teaches me the ways of combat.
Each of my strikes are worth two “normal” points. So every time I hit someone, I must shout “two normal” or the hit won’t count. The players deduct points each time I hit them. This seems like a simple enough idea, but it requires spontaneous calculations that my collegiate education has not prepared me for.
Nevertheless, I am ready for battle. At least, that’s what I tell Bearden. But I soon discover that fighting is only one component of this game.
All the camp’s a stage
I am directed to another cabin, and just as I enter, the game begins and the fear sets in.
The room is dark, only faintly lit by rope lights that encircle an urn in the corner. I see framed drawings on the walls that portray whimsical creatures and fictional, weathered maps. The table in the center of the room is covered in fake ivy, feathers, goblets and plastic bones that you might find at a head shop. People are wearing face paint and elf ears. Horns are protruding from foreheads.
I am so freaking out right now.
Suddenly I realize why there is a strict “no drug or alcohol” policy.
Bad Shark of the Deathcrafter tribe (Phil Layman) sits down in front of me and asks me if my people stand by the Deathcrafter or the Earth tribe.
I panic.
I’m going to ruin the story. Deathcrafter, Earth, Deathcrafter, Earth. Which do my people stand by?
He is a member of the Deathcrafters. He is scary, dressed in black from head-to-toe, and he is undead. I cave and tell him that my people support the Deathcrafters.
“Really? I was under the impression that the Hawks supported the Earth,” says Bad Shark, staring at me with cold, beady eyes.
Shit.
Then a gypsy pulls me aside. He realizes that I am young and impressionable. He introduces himself as Captain Alec Alberdeen (John Kildare). He wears a red and black outfit. He has a fake Russian accent and the showmanship of a used car salesman. He tries to convince me to join the Bloodguard—a group of adventurers who band together, saving others for a fee. He wants to recruit enough members to fight the undead of Numenando, a bewitched neighboring town. I tell him I am just passing through, but I will consider the offer.
At this point, I realize that NERO is not just a game where people dress up in costumes and play with fake swords. This is a theatrical event that involves strategy and politics.
I am thoroughly entranced, observing these relationships develop. Suddenly, Bearmark of the Earth tribe (Larisa Hines) enters the cabin, beating on a bongo drum. She announces the commencement of the Birth of the Year Festival.
“We’d like to thank our ancestors, who are full of life,” Bearmark says.
Beats drum.
“They guide us, they teach us, they help us.
We must welcome the elders.
Rain. Wind. Earth. Fire.”
Lights match.
“Welcome, nature spirits.
Nature. Land. Basin. Home.
Feed from it.
Stewardship—not ownership.
Walk with—not walk over.
Celebrating spirit.”
We feast on meatballs, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Little Debbie oatmeal cream pies and animal crackers.
A gypsy prince named Buxtehude (Dale Gilliante) offers me an “intoxicant.” I say no at first, but he seems offended.
“You don’t want intoxicant?” Buxtehude asks sternly.
I grab a clear plastic Solo cup from a nearby pile, and he pours me a glass of green tea from his bottle. He tells me he has traveled here from another land, searching for a white Gryphon who saved his family.
I realize it is after midnight and I have yet to see a lick of battle. Watching the spectacle of character interaction is fascinating, but I know too little and have too few powers to participate in the power trading and political conversing.
I look around and realize that I have been sitting in a dark room for more than two hours with people who have not once broken character. To my left sits a 15-year-old boy with horns. To my right sits a middle-aged man dressed as a gypsy prince. As soon as the two begin trading powers, I hear a cry for help outside of the cabin.
Everyone runs outside into the rain, weapons in hand. We go forth to slaughter an eight-legged monster that had attacked one of our companions. This was the first of many battles to come.
Be all that you can’t be
Excluding me, 15 players participated in the weekend activities. In more favorable weather, NERO Central usually has around 30 participants. But some LARP events draw in thousands of players.
The LARP community has spawned an “annual” LARPy Awards Show (even though there have only been two and they were more than a year apart), LARP magazine, and a LARP museum. All these are testaments to the LARP following.
Many LARPers are just looking to escape from the routine normality of everyday life. This is summed up in NERO’s motto: “Be all that you can’t be.”
“If you’re stuck in a cubicle all week, on the weekend you get to be the knight in shining armor that slays the dragon and gets the girl, and you don’t have to worry about the cover sheet on your TPS report,” Hines says. In addition to playing the character of Bearmark, Hines is a NERO Central staff member and host for www.larppodcast.com.
However, it’s not always easy to balance one’s LARP life with real life. LARPing may sound unusual to people who have never heard of the activity. Hines says that since her boss started asking her to work on Saturdays, she has to choose her wording carefully when explaining why she can’t work some weekends. “I told him that I volunteer at a camp to teach creative problem solving, team-building skills and conflict resolution,” Hines says.
Hines is not alone. LARP is far from accepted in mainstream culture, forcing LARPers to keep their hobby inside the cave.
“If you go to a public place and you see people in the woods with long red capes, brandishing PVC swords, throwing bean bags at each other and yelling ‘lightning bolt,’ you have reason to be afraid of it because you don’t know what it is,” says Dr. J. Patrick Williams, sociologist and editor of Gaming as Culture: Essays in Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games. Williams has extensively researched gaming cultures and fantasy gaming, and says LARPing provokes an unnecessary negative bias.
“Look at the people that paint their faces, or paint letters on their chest and go topless at sports events,” Williams says. “From a certain perspective, that’s pretty freaky, but since they’re fans of mainstream sports, they’re not seen as troubled or deviant.”
Flight of the Kobolds
It’s 3 p.m. Saturday—the second day of NERO. Last night’s activities didn’t wind down until around 6 a.m., so the group has gotten a late start. We are on our second adventure of the day, searching for a cave filled with Kobolds—evil, menacing, reptilian goblinoids.
A flock of Kobolds flies out from the woods, quickly approaching us from behind. The mob of crimson-dressed figures is especially alarming when they emerge from the washed-out colors of a winter-struck forest.
I see them first and shout to the rest of my bloodthirsty comrades.
“Look. Running. Red. Things,” I yelp heroically.
The men, draped in red cloth, flap their arms and make high-pitched “skwa” sounds, taunting us, encouraging us to attack.
My crew slaughters the Kobolds. We move on, triumphant.
No more than two minutes later, we meet another onslaught of demon birds. I decide to step forward and prove myself. I come upon an especially large one. I swing to the right, but my mace is blocked by a red saber. I swing to the left. Blocked again. The bastard creature strikes and hits me. Fortunately, I am wearing strong armor. I lunge forward, thrusting my mace against the beast’s shoulder, knocking off its arm and leaving it to drown in a puddle of its own blood.
Or at least that’s how I’d like to think it went.
All of these assaults are actually brought on by the same group of men. Each time we attack them, they wait awhile, then move farther down the path to attack us again. I find this more frustrating than entertaining. The pests just won’t die. The rest of the clan does not seem to mind. We lose a couple of good men to a laughing spell that renders them giddy and useless. One war-torn fighter must be carried back to camp.
Bearmark, who had stayed at camp to prepare lunch, warmly welcomes me back. “How was your adventure?” she asks.
And I try to think of the last time that I was outside and wasn’t walking to campus, cursing the weather. I try to think of the last time I experienced the unparalleled stress relief of beating the shit out of something. I try and think of the last time I even attempted to grease the rusty wheels of my imagination.
“It really wasn’t such a bad adventure,” I reply.
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