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and Minimeister
 
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What is LARP?
Live Adventure Role Play is easily understood but hard to define. Like the discovery of the marsupial it is an activity that has elements of familiar activities but is undeniably in a class of its own. Let's examine the individual terms and build up a picture of what it is you do.
Firstly I'll examine Role. A role is an easy thing to understand, actors have them and call them "characters". When method actors try to be a "character" they try and immerse themselves totally into portraying a personality that they have carefully thought about and constructed in their minds from information that they have been given. Remember, a "character" doesn't imply the existence of a script, most Live Adventure Role Play events don't include them.
Now let's look at Play. Everyone plays games, from Bridge to Yahtzee. In all games there is an element of conflict, you are trying to use rules to let people play and determine a winner. Some games are more complex than others. Snap and Football are both games but they have different levels of complexity. As a game, LARP is considerably more complex than Snap but considerably more fun. Unlike a game, the way you "win" is left open to an individual player and you can keep on "winning" in new and interesting ways whether or not someone else has "won". (I did say it was a complex game).
Live. This means that you're there in person portraying a character and playing a game. Everything around you is supposed to help you immerse into your character and enjoy yourself. This is to distinguish it from other forms of role play which don't require props or anything more than imagination.
Adventure. This is defined as an unusual or exciting experience.
So, when you do Live Adventure Role Play you're playing a game where you portray a character, without a script, in an environment designed to help you portray this character and it's an unusual and exciting experience. In practice, someone will have organized a LARP, you then organize the things you'll need. Often but not always this means you'll:
Design a character, this is done with reference to the "setting" which is the genre or type of game that the organizers wish to run. They will provide you with information about the sort of game they wish to run and then you use your imagination to create a character which you think will fit into this setting.
Organize a costume, this is what your character wears. They can be very simple or very elaborate and vary from jeans and a t-shirt to full plate armour to a futuristic space suit. The costume depends upon what character you'll be playing and the setting provided by the organizers.
Once you're familiar with the setting, the rules of the game and you have your character and costume you're ready to play! Good luck!
There is only overconfidence and terror.
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Overlord
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This an article youre going to submit Pete?
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Knight
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Small point, you define LARP as both Live Adventure Role Play and then Live Action Role Play. I don't know whether that’s intentional or not. LARP to me has always meant 'Live Action Role Play' being 'Live Role Play' with a contact element involving specialist hobby weapons. Is the use of 'Adventure' meant to refer to a specific style of LRP such as those that focus on linear missions?
I'm sorry Allen, what? Could you dumb that down please?LT - Runt S McEwan PD - Steven Mahr
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and Minimeister
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| Thanks, it was a typo because I've always used Live Action RP as the name because that's what I was introduced to it as. I think that an adventure is defined as an unusual or exciting experience. If the game isn't that, I don't want to play it. I also think I'm going to find it easier to explain what it is to people and get people interested if I use the word adventure. I don't like the term LRP because it makes me think of petrol and because I find the term "Live Role Playing" to be redundant. I don't know about you, but I've never sent a tape of me in to do table top...  Essentially I'm trying to offer alternative wordings because whilst I eventually came to understand what Live Action meant in it's cinematalogical (sp* word?) roots, it wasn't immediately clear what it is. I think that this way renders the term easier to break down and understand semantically and is therefore in my opinion more useful.
There is only overconfidence and terror.
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Squire
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Very Concise, I might just nick it and use it as a hand out, 
Cheers
Peter
PD: Elwould (Second best Ass in New World)
RL: What`s That?
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Heroic Knight
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I don't like the term LRP because it makes me think of petrol and because I find the term "Live Role Playing" to be redundant. I don't know about you, but I've never sent a tape of me in to do table top...
We used the term first , damned fuel companies nicking our acronym. 
I consider the 'live' part of the term to refer to the characters actions being acted out rather than described so have no particular problem with that part of the term. I do have a bit of the problem with the A standing for Action as it seems to place emphasis of the 'action' ie. combat part of the game. A for adventure is better, but adventure still makes me think of children's books and old movies.
In the end I have a slight preference for LRP, as it's the term I used first, but use both terms depending on whim.
The Great Larp Conspiracy
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