A story in the Georgetown University student newspaper about LARPing in the Maryland/DC/Virginia area featuring a bit about my (now inactive) game Archaea:
Knights in Shining Armor: Role Players Step Outside Reality
by Marco MocchettiKnights slaying goblins. Wizards casting vicious spells on all who attack. Orcs, thieves and dwarves terrorizing peasant farmers. Lethal assassins sneaking around in deadly silence. What may seem straight out of a book, movie or video game is anything but. This is just another day in a live action role-playing world.
Live Action Role Playing (LARP) started gaining popularity in the ’70s, and began to spread internationally in less than a decade, as many people caught on to the innovative gaming concept. Nowadays, there are thousands of games around the world, each with its own adventures, heroes, villains and rules. And, with the 2008 portrayal of LARPing in the movie Role Models, the fantasy role-playing world has gained a bit more attention.
In LARP, a form of role-playing in which members act out a character of choice, create their own adventures within a fictional world, all the while developing their character’s personality and gaining experience in order to acquire unique skills and abilities.
At each LARP event, there are Player Characters (PCs) and Non-Player Characters (NPCs). The PCs are actively engaged in the storyline, while the NPCs add depth and some extra twists to the adventure, acting as extras for the day. Participants create their own costumes and padded weapons, and after gaining considerable experience, can upgrade to advanced weaponry, armor and even spell casting.
No, this isn’t World of Warcraft. This is real life.
Full text: http://guide.thehoya.com/?q=node/574#
It’s fun to see that Archaea is still interesting. I missed it so much that I brought it to UW and teach it as a class. I have run a CHID 496 focus group (2-credits) on LARPs for the past two springs. I will run it again this coming Spring Quarter.