Early tabletop roleplaying versus early LARP

[robertsconley]

Here how I found all the accounts of the genesis of tabletop roleplaying familiar.

Back in the early 1990s I got involved in Live Action Roleplaying in a major way. Basically D&D in the woods using foam weapons and soft beanbags for magic spells. If you want the details of the rules, the rulebook can be gotten for free from here (http://nerolarp.com/page.php?12)

There been other attempts at live action roleplaying prior to NERO in the United States but they invariably had something missing or too many compromises to truly be a free-form D&D in the woods that NERO was. The closest was Dagorhir and the International Fantasy Games Society.

The problem with Dagorhir was it was the Society of Creative Anarchonism (a major medieval reenactment group) with fantasy and foam weapons. A chilled out version of what the SCA tries to do.

IFGS does do live action roleplaying but it is esstentially a guided curated experience. You show up in costume, you have to have a guide and the adventure (they call it a line-course) is a linear series of scenes and/or encounter. Very stilted for the most part.

Then at the tail end of the 80s, Ford Ivey, a Massachusetts game store owner, took a little bit of Dagorhir, a little bit of IFGS, and his own imagination and came up what became NERO. NERO was a free form fantasy LARP that was designed so that a player can check into an event and basically have the run of the site doing whatever they want as their character. There was an event staff that ran the NPCs and other stuff that was happening in the background that generated adventures and encounters.

Ford Ivey's method became a template that spread thoughout the US in the 1990s. And some of that fed back into Dagorhir and IFGS as well. Although there still bitter debates over who originated what in LARP.

Having firsthand experienced SCA, Dagorhir, IFGS, and finally NERO, there was something very different and liberating in the combination methods the Ford Ivey pioneered. Despite that nearly all of the elements were used prior to his first event. But his combination allow people to run this sprawling live action in the time and budget one has for a hobby. It not quite as low overhead as a tabletop roleplaying campaign but if people are interested it was very doable.

I get the same sense from reading over the early days of the hobbies as I do from my firsthand experience with LARPS. A lot folks trying and experimenting with different things, most of which are fun to play. But then one guy (Ivey, Arneson) figures out a new combination and add some things in of their own creation and a "AHA!" moment arrives and people start to go. "You know now I see how it can be done.". And a new fun hobby starts developing.

[tkdco2]

I was curious about LARP for a while, but I never tried it. The closest I got was renting a costume at a Renaissance Faire and talking "in character" with my friends.

[Finarvyn]

My sister was part of the SCA for a while and went to quite a few of their events. Sort of like role playing, but without an actual plot.

[robertsconley]

Dec 18, 2018 14:52:34 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

My sister was part of the SCA for a while and went to quite a few of their events. Sort of like role playing, but without an actual plot.

Stuff happening i.e. plot was one thing that set NERO apart from the SCA.

[xerxez]

My wife and her brother and sisters and their extended group were heavily involved in IFGS in her college days during the 90s.

They played for a few years near a wooded lake in a rural county and were very into it. I never got to try it in my day.


While I don’t have the time and probably energy to LARP now I would love a set up where friends met on private land with a small keep and village with a tavern, I can see you paying up front for some coins and you could spend these in the tavern and just kind of have a big party and maybe some combats and scenarios. It’s always been a fantasy!

[asaki]

When I was a kid in the early 90s (starting sometime around the Summer of 92), me and my best friend would take little breaks from Dragon Warrior III and go outside and LARP...except we didn't call it that, because we had no idea that it existed.

We didn't really have any rules or anything, we just came up with our own storylines and characters, and fought imaginary monsters in the woods with fake swords, or fought each other when it came time for the boss battles.

[howandwhy99]

Live action gaming made tabletop adventuring into a sport rather than purely a mental strategy game. Simulated physical tests were no longer rolled, but actually carried out bodily by the players. For example, jumping across the ground to cross a pit, searching a room to find hidden items, or your basic swordplay.

Magical powers were like shortcuts or bonuses. You could charm a person and make them talk to you, or be declared invisible.

I didn't really LARP in the late 80s when I found out about it, but I met others who did. I know they were all excited about advancing their characters as much as enjoying dressing up and hitting stuff for real. At the time LARPs still carried a negative reputation and many people didn't exactly share their involvement with others. I mean, not even with other D&D players, at least in the communities I was connected to.

EDIT:
Come to think of it. Early LARPing was probably more akin to True Dungeon or what you see in Mazes & Monsters than anything in LARPs today (or come to think of it anything labelled an RPG today). Today's LARPs are not really about gaming so much as plot following. My experience originally was LARPing was just like D&D, they were games about level advancement through successful play. You could die, fail, head in many alternate directions, accomplish goals, and score points to advance your character.

[chicagowiz]

I played in a LARP from 1992 to 1994 in Indianapolis called MYTH (Make Yourself The Hero). I don't remember much about the rules, but it was a full-on foam weapons and magic system, with a GM running the game and half the group as "monsters" and half as heros. It took place in a park near Indy, as well as some sessions downstate at Morgan-Monroe State Forest. We even had a session in a cave, which was so much fun (and we learned about light the hard way!) it was ridiculous!

MYTH wasn't based on NERO. I did play briefly in a NERO game in the southwest burbs of Chicago, they seemed to have a small, persistent area. I don't remember much about the game or campaign.

[Deleted]

If you consider the account by greg svenson about his first dungeon game in Dave Arneson's blackmoor, then LARP is originally done within Blackmoor. (xmas break 1971)

I played in the first LARP adventure with the IFGS. (1981?) I was a thief named Black Finger. As part of the game system every player wore a different color outfit. This way a spell caster could call out "fire ball green, 4 points!" and the green player knew he was the target. As the thief I chose black as my color, and used RIT dye to color my tunic. In the process it turned my fingers black, and that is how I chose my name. I played in several others as well. I was never very good at it.

ifgs.org/socwp/about-ifgs/

The original game was played with real foils and weapons. Thieves and M.u. class characters were not involved in combat. If a fighter waved his sword within 3 feet of one it was a hit. the story revolved around discovering the true nature of a certain count Iblis (I think)

i played a thief. At one point we found a scroll warning us about something purple. Not long after as we came up a trail, we were moving through some brush and I spotted some purple flowers. Hidden in the brush was one of those pull string fire crackers like you find in those Poppers only bigger. I warned everyone not to walk through it.

I got 3rd place for role playing in the trueing, and 3rd place in another adventure.

If I recall correctly, here is my list of encounters:

1. briefing before we leave

2. The scroll ( Maybe a person gave it to us? )

3. The flower trap

4. Vague thought we ran into something, but maybe not

5. A non combat NPC encounter. I think it was a woman. And I think our cleric (Tracy Harms) healed her.

6. A bandit ambush. This sucked because it was on a steep mountain trail and there was nowhere to run to.

7. We confront iblis and kill him.


While at this event, I was told that the quests began as something being done within the fencing community in Boulder Colorado. Hence the live swords. the second game had padded swords, but not really padded enough. Lots of painful head shots.

Over the next few years the adventures would expand. there were several over night camping adventures. During these overnight games, the party would get attacked in the dark. It was pretty wild and out of control.

They also ran some spy games in Boulder. Those were very free form. But at the same time a bit guided and railroaded. I was never partial to the railroad style of the IFGS adventures.

Somewhere I have a picture of myself dressed up as Black Finger during one of the games. 

[darien]

I used to do the White Wolf Vampire LARP's here in Roanoke back when I was in my junior and senior years of high school and for a few years after that, from 2010 to 2012, I was an extensive World of Darkness LARP'er.

Prior to that, when I was a kid living in the hills and hollers of Dickenson County, I would LARP with my brothers and my uncle and Dad serving as referees. I was about 12 years old so this would have been in 2005 or so.

We'd dress up in crude tactical costumes comprised mostly of woodland camo clothing and whatever cheap knock-off gear we could buy at the local military surplus stores. We used toy weapons like those cheapo spring-loaded airsoft guns and plastic swords and rubber knives often bought at the dollar store, and we'd go out and LARP (though we didn't call it that) and make up storylines while fighting imaginary enemies.

Those backyard LARP's often had a more modern edge to it, often liberally ripping off anime and video games, and sometimes movies as well.

We'd often incorporate characters, settings, and plotlines from Resident Evil, Black Hawk Dawn, Hellsing, Grand Theft Auto, Time Crisis, Ghost In The Shell, InuYasha, and The Punisher comics among other things.