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View Full Version : RPG players vs confused law enforcement and general public.



Calthropstu
2021-07-02, 01:58 AM
Twice I have dealt with very confused law enforcement while gaming.

The first was when I was 17. A group of us, age range 12 to 18, got together in the library. I was dming. It was 2e AD&D.

The PCs were infighting, boasting about which character could win. I will stab you with my dagger" "My short sword will hurt more" etc.

Someone thought these were actual threats and a police officer showed up. Acted tough, demanded to know who was threatening who with knives and other weapins.

I explained we were playing a game, but he just didn't get it. So I did this:

"Ok, you guys are getting boisterous and a town guard shows up. He wants you guys to throw down your weapons. He's pointing some kind of wand at you"

They refuse, and attack. I handed a d20 to the officer and told him to throw it onto the table. Confused he does so. Rolls pretty high. Gets a hit on the clisest pc for half his hp.

Naturally, the following 5 attacks drop the hapless officer. The officer shakes his head, tells us to keep it down and walks off. The guys I was running for naturally burst out laughing.

The second time, I was running a larp session. NERO rules, so we had padded pvc pipes and were hitting each other. I was 23 at the time and was basically babysitting as most of the adults had left and I was watching over 5 kids, age 9 - 13. Naturally, they all ganged up on me. I used to be pretty good, and although I tried to go easy on them, I didn't want to make it too easy.

Anyways, apparently someone called the police on us saying we were fighting, and that some guy was hitting kids with sticks.

I didn't have any official status, I just offered to watch them because the organizer had to leave. Took some explaining, and when the officer took hold of my "weapons" he realized it couldn't hurt anyone.

Never did find out who called them.

So share some stories where your rpgs confused the police or the general public.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-02, 02:40 AM
The biggest example of confused law enforcement happened in the 90s, when some still bought into the satanic panic, lumped vampire LARPers together with devil worshippers and warned against LARPing and roleplaying games as if these were on par with drug use or being in a gang.

Granted, in retrospect, some involved people turned out to be exactly as bad as advertized... which just goes to show that when a hobby grows, the chance that some hobbyists will turn out to be weird and bad approaches one.

These days, confused law enforcement is rare enough that no major examples come to mind from the last decade. Confused public still happens, but that's unavoidable - any activity involving acting is ambiguous without inside knowledge. Confused hobbyist who don't know what they are legally allowed to do are almost as common: you are not, for example, allowed to carry realistic weapon replicas in public, precisely because of the unavoidable ambiguity. I occasionally serve as event security in conventions and the like, so often I am de facto law enforcement, telling them kids to heed rule of the law and rules of the event venue.

Chauncymancer
2021-07-02, 02:56 AM
So the confusion was on a totally different foot, but I once had a university game thrown out of a campus lounge because two new players, a couple, had somehow been convinced that this was an ERP campus group, and behaved... appropriately.
We were asked never to come back to that building, and we asked them to never come back also.

Lacco
2021-07-02, 03:26 AM
Never an issue with law enforcement - we usually play in sufficient privacy - but usually have to explain to the guy who rents the room/cottage/weekend house that we're not going to gamble. We usually bring a tabletop game or two for a weekend, so they get it easier.

But my introduction to RPGs was in a local clubhouse that was managed by three religious groups together. One of the players organized a game there because a) they served no alcohol, which was great b) they had these tasty treats and pastries for great prices c) big gaming table and gaming room (usually for tabletop games) d) friendly people and staff.

We were asked, after few games, to not play there. When we inquired at the staff why - they told us the management disliked the themes of our games.

We thought that maybe they disliked that we usually did not order too much. Or they were appaled by the violence, combat bloodier than in Tarantino's films. Or the descriptions of terrifying dungeons, undead, werewolves... but no. They were fine with it.

They were even fine with magic.

But they did not want us to have clerics in the game. *rolls eyes in disbelief*

...so we moved to other pastures. I miss their chocolate pudding.

Kardwill
2021-07-02, 03:33 AM
I have a surreal memory from the 90s' when the local law enforcement (understand : the Game warden / glorified mall cop combo of our village) entered our club with his drinking buddies, (we had a heated argument with the local ne'er-do-well-teens that loved to hang out under our window, and the parents of said ne'er-do-well were among the guy's pals), and drunkenly told us that he heard about our satanic stuff.

Our calm explanations about how inoccuous the hobby was went pretty well, until one of my friends decided the best example he could talk about was Werewolf. More precisely the Wyrm mythology. Illustrated by showing the nice "edgier than you" pictures of the typical White Wolf rulebook.

Vahnavoi
2021-07-02, 03:45 AM
So the confusion was on a totally different foot, but I once had a university game thrown out of a campus lounge because two new players, a couple, had somehow been convinced that this was an ERP campus group, and behaved... appropriately.
We were asked never to come back to that building, and we asked them to never come back also.

Hah, what did they actually do that's worse than other recreational things university students do? Or was it just a case of strict rules for public spaces?

Glorthindel
2021-07-02, 05:22 AM
The car I was in was once stopped by police on the way back from a LARP event (our fault - late a night, a little lost, meaning the driver did a bit of a last-minute lane-switch, so they thought we were drunk-driving). Having realised we were just lost, the officer then saw the pile of swords, knives, and a two-handed axe on the parcel shelf, and understandably wanted to have a look. He thought it was hilarious, and spent a few minutes testing out the various weapons. His partner was less enthusiastic, spending the entire time leaning against their car, giving the first officer death-glares.

The second time was a major LARP event in the UK. The alcohol licensing laws had been changed that year, specifically to prevent the laws being circumvented by "selling" alcohol for money-equivalent. This particularly affected us, because a few people had previously brewed their own beer, then sold it for in-character currency at the event, which meant they could previously ignore licensing laws, but the law change stopped this. We were told at the start of the event that the local police would be in heavy attendance (this being the first summer after the law change, the police were attending all large-scale gatherings; us, music festivals, etc, to ensure the law was being followed), and to just involve them as much as possible. The general attitude was to treat them like town guard / watchmen / barons tax collectors, etc, and a lot of them (once they understood what was going on) played into the role, and acted the part throughout the weekend.

SpyOne
2021-07-09, 03:53 AM
My brother skillfully averted such problems, decades ago.
See, he and some friends (all college age) liked to play sort of honor-based laser tag with toy guns, stalking each other. And one of the buildings for the Music Department at the local University was perfect for that: dark, unlocked, little individual rooms with lots of soundproofing.
So befor they'd start, he'd call the campus police. He'd explain that he and some friends were going to be playing a game with toy guns in the music building. He'd emphasize "I know that you can't give up permission to do that, I am just letting you know that we are doing it in case you get called to the building for any reason. I'm trying to avoid tragic mistakes."

One of his friends was not so careful, and wound up having to explain to three cars full of officers that he hadn't actually kidnapped anyone at gunpoint, he'd just thrown some improv theater, a commando sweater and beret, an Uzi squirtgun, and a passing resemblance to Che Guevara together to liven up visting a friend's dorm room and inviting him over for dinner.

Cicciograna
2021-07-13, 11:34 AM
Note, this didn't happen to me, and no police was involved, but it's interesting nonetheless.

This happened to my DM, in the early 2000 in Southern Italy, where people - especially elders - are still pretty devout and superstitious. One time my friend was on the bus reading the Monster Manual, when one old lady started screaming at him and calling him "satanist". Apparently she'd seen some of the pictures from the book and thought my friend was part of a cult. My friend tried to explain, but the old crone actually managed to turn the rest of the passengers against him: to avoid the heckling, he had to leave the bus well before his stop.

Flallen
2021-07-13, 01:51 PM
Worst I saw up here was that a poor larper back in 2010 was arrested at the main train station in Toronto and all his larp kit was seized by police and paraded before media as chainmail and flaming arrows to attack police at the upcoming G20 summit. It was laughably bull**** but was a part of the propaganda they used to justify the mass arrests later that weekend which at the time was the worst in Canadian history.