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Knight
 
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Knight
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| Feedback would be welcome, even if it's only "that was good/bad/obvious/poorly considered/whatever".
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I do talk a good fight
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Nice work, Ryan. The subject's something I've considered before, but I've not seen such a comprehensive article -- it's almost a battle plan!
http://www.hyboriantales.com
PD: Ghostdance ("The most irritating curse I've ever encountered" -- NPC played by H.)
Riftworld: Rossar Kuug ("Clearly mad, because he thinks he's a Com-Trow Skirmisher" - Aela)
Hyborian Tales: Crew, cook, dogsbody, general labourer, toilet cleaner ("Dangerously overoptimistic ref" -- Tom Nowell)
Otherwise usually crew ("Quite spry & fit, & willing to wear a big costume & run around a lot" -- various event organisers)
"My other oversized foam weapon is THE LORD" -- Questionable Content
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Knight
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| Thanks Ian. I made it a step-by-step guide because I didn't want it to be fluffy and vague. I'd be interested in hearing whether it accords with other peoples' experiences with the media, and in hearing the results from anyone who follows the advice in the article.
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Initiate
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Ryan Paddy (11/6/2006)
I'd be interested in hearing whether it accords with other peoples' experiences with the media
Things are quite alike here in Russia.
Such guide-articles started appearing in our LARP-society two or three years ago, usually written by prof journalists (who are LAPRers).
We use some more spins like
"LRP is a respective and expensive hobby" (pointing some examples of top managers assaulting a fortress, explaining that they get outstanding relax from everyday stress. OK, this hobby implies a bit of extreme but less than bunjee jumps),
"LRP can help people learn more" (discussing studying of historical Norman or Greece texts is search of social structure or dressing descriptions),
"LRP is practiced wolrdwide" (brinning out examples of european commercial LRP-games, commoners here tend to think that whatever is done in Europe or America is OK),
"LRP does good to your health" (discussing staying outdoors for 2-5 days and doing much of what is pretty like physical exercises).
Another difference is that we never use "a funny commmunity spin". I can't really say why. Mayde we are just too proud? 
Giving journalists some pre-written text as a "draft" is recommonded (they can also be a bit lazy and there is a chance that you will later see that the article is 90% made of your text). Don't be afraid - you will not abuse them with it. Give them some good photo or video from previous events (you can even photoshop out some indesireble details from photos). If properly chosen such photos will have a good chances of geting printed instead of journalist's "attemps to use his new Codak".
Some good video as background for an average-quality interview will make it look better on TV.
We also try not to use "say No" method because all our events are not official and anyone may write whatever he wants about them without our permission (maybe we have different Media laws). So we consider that scince a journalist has come to a game he will surely write smth about the event. Our goal is to alter this material. I know that discarded journalist may describe us as "psychos", "sect" or anything like that.
Pleese ixcuse my poar inglish
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Squire
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| Good article, Agree with all your points. Having done Local News, MTV, Print and Radio for lrp I can honestly say that you need to weigh up the benefits seriously, before agreeing to let the media anywhere near your lrp and participants. I've been a PR professional for many years and during that time, lrp is the trickiest 'story' I ever had to deal with. It's the marginalised hobby element, that does it, in my opinion. We have had pretty positive press all round but little up-take of new people from any of the articles. If you really want to be involved with the media, read and re-read something like Paddy's article and make sure you and everyone involved are fully aware of what is happening. People spend years having/doing media training and still end up saying/making awful mistakes. Just think about MP's, they have years of training and still sound/look like that. If in doubt get in touch with someone you trust and ask their advice (I'm sure Paddy would help as would I). Good luck!
www.thefallenlrp.com - lrp www.iipr.co.uk - real life (I also organise lrp insurance).
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Knight
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| Some good ideas for other spins there Xing. I imagine which approaches will work would depend on the local culture, and that's somewhat different between Russia and New Zealand. Our larps are typically on private property, I'm fairly sure that if our participants asked to not be shown then there wouldn't be much of a story. So saying no is definitely an option here. NZ media outlets would only come after us aggressively if there was a real news story in it, not just to cover a hobby. I've said no to at least one media group (a Swedish comedy TV show or something, dunno why they wanted footage from NZ), and while they were slightly grumpy it wasn't a big deal. I can understand if things are different in Russia though, I get the impression that privacy rights are probably less well protected there. A US journalist and roleplayer on rpg.net pointed out to me asking journalists up front about the typical bad press may not be a good idea, it makes it more likely that they will mention it in their article. His suggestion was to just focus relentlessly on the positive nature of the hobby and not bring up previous negative coverage. I respect that as an approach, but it doesn't help with discovering whether a journalist has some negative ideas in mind before starting the article. We agreed that it might pay to ask the journalist some open-ended and friendly questions about what they know about larp already, and just try to gauge their attitude from that rather than asking them outright about negative spins. Ryan
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Knight
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Good article!
One of the LARPs I do will be playing host to a tv crew in April after the organiser of it was approached by a representative of a production company. They aim is to put the presenter though some pre game meets, where he or she'll be taught how to play, get costumed, go through the backgrounds, roll a character and then play for a day.
We've been host to a couple of teams before and been poorly portrayed in the process. So with this one we're very much on our guard and want to put across a positive view of the hobby as a whole and the game in particular. The production company seem to want to put it across in a neutral light, but the feeling amongst the players is that we'll get dicked on.
The presenter is gonna be a comedian (instant "oh god what have we let ourselves in for") but the players and refs who're going to be doing it want to put a "LARP is fun and social" spin on it.
Does anyone have any suggestions as towards this?
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Skullduggery: Lenwë Fëfalas (Malkon Nation ref and plot writer)
DH: Capt. Alphus Calae
PD: Afwan, Child of the Garden
Dumnonni: (TBD)
RL: Dan Lagrue
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Overlord
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