jhkimrpg (jhkimrpg) wrote,

Birthday Larp Report

So as I had previewed in a recent post -- "LARP Help!" -- I just finished running that larp.
  • bandits and heroines and kidnapping
  • renaissance sort of costumes
  • almost all 7th graders but possibly some range on the ages (downwards)
  • lots of combat
  • in the woods somewhere
  • E. and her friend have made swords already for everyone (foam ones)
In addition, from later logistics, I knew we had to get done with dinner, the game, and cake in about two and a half hours. The short form is that it was great fun, and you can see pictures from it here:

Flickr Set

EDIT: cf. also Liz's report for details on the preparations and the puzzles.

The results were very chaotic, with lots of swordplay, lots of role-playing, and lots of fun. For a solid hour and a half, the woods rang with a lot of calls of "milady!" along with clashing arms.

Long report under the cutCollapse )
Tags: actual play, larp

eldfast

May 13 2009, 08:09:03 UTC 4 years ago

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I've been to larps with unpadded weapons too; only people who had practised "choreography" with them were allowed to use them (those were metal, but still).
In my experience sticks, plastic/wooden swords and such ... hurt. And they are narrow enough to get at eyes or other parts that you might really want to keep.
With two or so people fighting (as in "normal" playing around) you're hopefully able to see everyone involved and stay in control of sorts, and not get hurt too badly, but with a whole bunch of people in a more battle-like situation, probably high on larp-adrenalin ... Not a brilliant idea, I'd say. (Sticks are so much fun, and I've sometimes tried to let kids at preschool fight with them, since they manage so well when there are just two or so of them, but as soon as you add a certain number to the chaos equation it all turns from addition to multiplication somehow.)
I was about to say that grown-ups also have better judgement, but that might not be true. However they are better at understanding abstract ideas like "You can get hurt even if you haven't experienced it yourself yet", "Others might have worse judgement than you", "Your judgement might not be as good as you think when you're high on adrenalin", "You could slip or be pushed and end up hurting someone even if you're cautious and aren't planning on it" and so on.
See also "Don't give the sharp axe/car keys to the man with a beer bottle in his hand even if he claims to be sober." ;-)

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