My LARP Has Imploded

[Kesnit]

My wife and I have been playing in an oWoD mixing pot LARP for over 6 years. The game has been going on for a lot longer than that. It hasn't always been a barrel of monkeys, but it was fun most of the time.

Then last night happened...

The ST had sent out a message on the group text chain asking who would be at game. Since this is Easter weekend and we had family in town, we said we would not be able to make it. Another player, Maxwell, said it was his birthday and his family wanted to celebrate, so he, his brother, and his roommate would not be at game. A third player, Otto, originally said he would be there. Then he sent a text Saturday afternoon saying he didn't feel well, thought he may have COVID, and would not be at game. This is where the blow-up starts...

The Assistant ST sent a text in the chat to Otto telling him he could go to game and wear a mask. This would be fine, except Otto has almost no self-esteem or self-confidence and could easily read that comment as "why aren't you coming to game? You can just wear a mask for crying out loud!" Then Maxwell said his family told him to go to game, then later sent a message saying his youngest child said she wanted him to stay home, so he would not be at game.

The ST sent another text asking everyone to confirm whether they would be at game. Then he sent a rather passive-aggressive text berating Otto and Maxwell for going back and forth on whether they would be at game and that he is annoyed with people changing their minds.

Maxwell sent back a very angry text, pointing out that a game is a game and that family is important. Apparently he was already frustrated with the ST because he went on to say that he was completely done with game and that he and his group (brother and roommate) would not be going back to game - ever.

This morning, my wife sent a text saying she was upset with the AST telling Otto to just wear a mask since several players (including me and my mother-in-law) are at high risk if we got COVID (due to preexisting conditions) and it's poor form to encourage players to show up when they are sick. (My father-in-law died of COVID complications January 2022.) This led to a text exchange between the ST and my wife where the ST jumped on my wife for (in his words) telling other people what to do and pointing out she is not their mother. (Those are the polite phrases used.) He also interpreted my wife's comment that she wasn't coming back to game (which is not what she said, nor what she intended). My wife and the AST (who is a close friend) also had a private text exchange where the AST berated my wife. I did not see those text exchanges until they were over because I was doing an online training.

This afternoon, my wife and I went to the local coffee shop/bookstore so she could get out of the house and clear her head. When we left, I was not sure if I wanted to go back to LARP or not. (I mostly enjoy the game, but there have been things going on that have frustrated me.) By the time we got home, we'd mostly decided that we are done with this LARP and are thinking about reaching out to Maxwell to see if he (and his crew) would be interested in a tabletop game - system TBD.

[MCerberus]

What relationships and the decision on whether or not trying to figure out if you can salvage the game is completely your decision, but from an outside perspective there's probably something going on with Assistant ST outside of the game that needs to be resolved outside of the game

[Wraith]

When I used to dress up and hit people with boffer swords - a pass time that I enjoyed for the better part of 15 years until life and my finances put other things in the way - we had two sayings that were generally considered universal to the entire community, be it fantasy, WoD, Airsoft/LARP, etc.

The first is a shameless theft from The Simpsons, usually regarding Scotsman; LARPers are their own natural enemies, like TTRPGers and LARPers, and CCGers and LARPers, and Ren Faire-ers adnd LARPers, and LARPers and LARPers. Damn LARPers; they ruined LARPing!

Which is to say, any sufficiently advanced LARP is indistinguishable from a drama-ridden soap opera of people having crazy misunderstandings and getting angry with each other over text, emails, forums and "chinese whispers" instead of having a normal conversation. Some of the time you can make up with people, which hopefully sounds like the other players who had legitimate reasons for doing something else even if it were not a holiday weekend; others are just in it for the drama and you're life will be better off with out them. The AST sounds like such a person, from your retelling.

The other saying was, "There are no winners in LARP, just a field full of losers". I don't know how that is relevant to this situation, but it seemed necessary to end the anecdote fully.

[The Glyphstone]

I was in a LARP troupe for a few years, and the best way I ever came up with to describe it was "all the cliques and drama of high school, but everyone is in their 30s and 40's".

[MCerberus]

I was in a LARP troupe for a few years, and the best way I ever came up with to describe it was "all the cliques and drama of high school, but everyone is in their 30s and 40's".

See doing the larp foam swords in college it was mostly twice a week nerdy workouts and twice a year camping trips which-
Is everyone familiar with the Warhammer universe enough to know who Slaneesh is?

[Rodin]

I was in a LARP troupe for a few years, and the best way I ever came up with to describe it was "all the cliques and drama of high school, but everyone is in their 30s and 40's".

Isn't that just "people"? I retired from a Call of Duty clan because I was sick of the drama and politics, and I've yet to be in an office environment where the intrigue between competing factions doesn't rival Game of Thrones (a lot less murder admittedly).

I'm convinced growing up is a myth.

[warty goblin]

See doing the larp foam swords in college it was mostly twice a week nerdy workouts and twice a year camping trips which-
Is everyone familiar with the Warhammer universe enough to know who Slaneesh is?

The foam sword group I hung with in college was great, just get together and smack each other, no RP required. The hard-core people who lived in the dedicated student house were definitely way too into it (and having been in the house, nowhere near enough into cleaning because oh my god) but as a Saturday pick up it was great. The group I ran with in grad school for a little bit was a bit too much even as a pickup thing. Show up once too often and they'd decide you needed a LARP name and it was downhill from there.

[Forum Explorer]

Isn't that just "people"? I retired from a Call of Duty clan because I was sick of the drama and politics, and I've yet to be in an office environment where the intrigue between competing factions doesn't rival Game of Thrones (a lot less murder admittedly).

I'm convinced growing up is a myth.

High school is just practice for the real world where there is even more cliques, popularity contests, and arbitrary tasks then ever before. :smalltongue:


The closest thing I did to LARP was this medieval fight club where instead of foam the weapons were made out of this piping material so they had a lot more heft. To the point where football/motorcycle helmets were required and I'd usually be bruised and limping by the time I left. There was no story or anything, you'd just grab whatever fake weapon suited you best and fought. Good times, but it died out when the person who made all the weapons moved away. Still it taught me a lot about real vs fake fighting. Like how dual wielding is garbage, shields are amazing, jumping is suicide, and two handed weapons can only really be blocked by a shield or redirected.


Though I admit my last D&D group went down in the flames of drama, so its hardly unique to LARP.

[Wraith]

Isn't that just "people"? I retired from a Call of Duty clan because I was sick of the drama and politics, and I've yet to be in an office environment where the intrigue between competing factions doesn't rival Game of Thrones (a lot less murder admittedly).

I'm convinced growing up is a myth.

LARP is especially prone to it as - in my experience, at least - it tends to attract a certain kind of person; they get heavily, heavily invested in the world/lore/plot/their special snowflake character and engage in a monumental power-trip that in the real world are usually kept in check by things like 'money' and 'your boss'.

When it's all made up and the only thing stopping them is the social contact as enforced by nice people who don't want to cause a fuss because it's 'technically within the rules', megalomania usually follows.

There's a movie called Role Models, which is to LARP what This Is Spinal Tap is to rock bands. It looks like a silly comedy, unless you've lived through it in which case its essentially a 1-to-1 documentary, right down to the in-character 'King' who thinks he can decide (RL) who can attend the event. :smalltongue:

[Easy e]

The real take-away:

All text is read defensively and text should never be the final form of communication. It escalates more than it de-escalates.