Branching Out
Apr. 10th, 2016 08:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyspriteI need to admit something here.
After 20+ years of being a purist when it comes to LARP - sticking exclusively to theater-style games, wanting nothing at all to do with live combat - I finally have to admit that there's fun to be found in boffer games.
I still have zero interest in actually participating in combat; my abuse history makes it so I just have a massive mental block against hitting people, even in pretend. And I'll probably never actually be an actual, formal player in any of the campaigns; despite most of the assertions that one can be fully involved in the game while never engaging in combat, it seems that that still means 'you can play the healer.' I get enough of that in my day job, thank you.
But I've lucked into a couple of groups out here that are willing to work around my anti-hitting-things policy to let me play as an NPC - picking up a handful of semi-scripted roles over the course of the weekend, to help drive the story. While I can't hit people, they're slowly learning that I can be their go-to girl for emotional gut-punches, driving plot, and providing color. And it's turned out to be a lot more fun than I anticipated.
Usually I like playing deep, complex, extended parts, but there's something kind of liberating about only needing to be in a given role for a couple of hours. And knowing that I'm going out for a specific purpose gets around a lot of my worries and anxiety about having my character be useful, or feeling like I'm pushing my way into a space where I'm unwelcome. Plus, it means I get to try a lot of roles that I normally wouldn't think of myself.
If anything, I feel a bit like I'm being catered to by the GM's, and I'm not sure why they put up with me. I'm an utter princess - I won't fight, I won't play scenes past 2am, I won't camp or stay onsite, I won't write my own scenes or characters, I do my best to avoid anything that would have me interacting with rules in any way. And yet they invite me back, and save the juiciest parts of the story for me (immortal Atlantean exile? scion of an alternate-reality Roman ruling family? literal nightmare fodder? Go for it!).
Whatever the reasons they indulge my whims and reward my unreasonable demands with more and shinier parts, I'll take it. (In fairness, this also means that I take parts that involve me standing in the biting cold near midnight, in a game with Actual Real Ghosts, playing a character with a sheet over my head like a Charlie Brown Halloween special, shouting 'BoooooOOOOooooo!' in an attempt to convince the players that I, too, am a fearsome spirit.)
Okay, that last bit was actually ridiculously awesome too. Sometimes the one true way to be cool is to embrace the dorkitude of a situation, and make everyone else wonder why they're not cool enough to have sheets on their head.
Anyway. Boffer larps. Not as bad, or as shallow, as I thought. Still not PC'ing, but I'm glad I got talked into at least joining in some way....
After 20+ years of being a purist when it comes to LARP - sticking exclusively to theater-style games, wanting nothing at all to do with live combat - I finally have to admit that there's fun to be found in boffer games.
I still have zero interest in actually participating in combat; my abuse history makes it so I just have a massive mental block against hitting people, even in pretend. And I'll probably never actually be an actual, formal player in any of the campaigns; despite most of the assertions that one can be fully involved in the game while never engaging in combat, it seems that that still means 'you can play the healer.' I get enough of that in my day job, thank you.
But I've lucked into a couple of groups out here that are willing to work around my anti-hitting-things policy to let me play as an NPC - picking up a handful of semi-scripted roles over the course of the weekend, to help drive the story. While I can't hit people, they're slowly learning that I can be their go-to girl for emotional gut-punches, driving plot, and providing color. And it's turned out to be a lot more fun than I anticipated.
Usually I like playing deep, complex, extended parts, but there's something kind of liberating about only needing to be in a given role for a couple of hours. And knowing that I'm going out for a specific purpose gets around a lot of my worries and anxiety about having my character be useful, or feeling like I'm pushing my way into a space where I'm unwelcome. Plus, it means I get to try a lot of roles that I normally wouldn't think of myself.
If anything, I feel a bit like I'm being catered to by the GM's, and I'm not sure why they put up with me. I'm an utter princess - I won't fight, I won't play scenes past 2am, I won't camp or stay onsite, I won't write my own scenes or characters, I do my best to avoid anything that would have me interacting with rules in any way. And yet they invite me back, and save the juiciest parts of the story for me (immortal Atlantean exile? scion of an alternate-reality Roman ruling family? literal nightmare fodder? Go for it!).
Whatever the reasons they indulge my whims and reward my unreasonable demands with more and shinier parts, I'll take it. (In fairness, this also means that I take parts that involve me standing in the biting cold near midnight, in a game with Actual Real Ghosts, playing a character with a sheet over my head like a Charlie Brown Halloween special, shouting 'BoooooOOOOooooo!' in an attempt to convince the players that I, too, am a fearsome spirit.)
Okay, that last bit was actually ridiculously awesome too. Sometimes the one true way to be cool is to embrace the dorkitude of a situation, and make everyone else wonder why they're not cool enough to have sheets on their head.
Anyway. Boffer larps. Not as bad, or as shallow, as I thought. Still not PC'ing, but I'm glad I got talked into at least joining in some way....
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no subject
Date: 2016-04-11 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-12 09:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-04-28 05:40 am (UTC)Maybe you're bringing your theater-style LARP experience to the game, making the NPCs you play better than they have been.
Maybe the more versatile cast members do more, but you do this one thing better.
Maybe they're giving you more and shinier parts because you're making the parts work.
Maybe your standard for unreasonable demands is different from theirs.