Personally, I never got into the art of LARP, even though TTRPGs took me hostage in the '90s, the first time around when I took hold of a box of Cyberpunk 2020, and the Stockholm syndrome never faded, because designing, running, and playing long-form campaigns is one happy sanctuary. That branched out to computer games, but let's not digress.
We had Vampire LARPS in Finland from way back in the early 2000's and possibly earlier than that, but i only played in the tabletop with some people who on the side were keen on boffering battles and the political campaigning pertaining to the World of Darkness.
> Is there any similar view on sword and sorcery larp scene? One of my projects wants to drink from that, but I have little real knowledge about it and wouldn't like to disrespect larping.
If you can elaborate on this, i could maybe give more substantial advice, but personally, i’ve seen most fantasy LARPers take it to the streets and wilderness, and even our backyard, although it was rare that i would run into a group when taking the dog out or out hiking. Only the most bohemian of gatekeepers would take offense at your approach to the hobby.
One of the projects I have on my endless things to do is to create a computer RPG (maybe dabbling in the action RPG genre) in where the characters are dressed up and playing in a LARP.
Weapons are foam weapons. Confetti or water balloons for area effect spells, serpentine or other similar effects for line attacks, ... . NPCs are also people dressed, and maybe some cardboard cutouts for goblins, kids, and other things that could be big in numbers or shouldn't take part in a larp.
I don't know what things go in the back, such as, should some NPCs just be GMs doing the rolls and acting on the scenery? It probably would be easier to make it straight, but it would be less "fun".
You could make it a dating sim. Less drama than in the "Wild Hunt" movie, please.
Generally speaking, we have all kind of LARPs in the sword-and-sorcery scene
- battle LARPS - no story, just hit the participants belonging to the other faction, preferably in formations. This ranges from smug reenactment-quality groups, like Warhammer Fantasy fans in Europe, to groups that retain fantasy-themed clothing the way sports such as tennis have a specific proper attire, like Belegarth society in USA.
- (story-rich) LARPS - these originated with to "let's play D&D but in real life" and some of them even kept the trappings of the original, such as "levels" or "character classes"; some of them drop most of the gamey aspects, becoming more or less like those "chamber" LARPs mentioned by the OP (only in a fantasy setting; though, a Dune LARP could be a thinly-veiled middle-east, for all I know)
The logistics in the designs surrounding games of any substantial proportions must be hellish to coordinate with the playmaking's unpredictability.
More construction companies should take it upon themselves to start looking into erecting things like what those Warhammer dudes were enacting in one video i mulled over. Establish some crude barracks, keeps, bastions, and whatever else a play site could sustain. Gather a crew with cameras, editors, and a designer or two, then put some attendees on the grounds, and you’ve got yourselves the trappings of an amateur production going in no time.
Cool, that has a nice ring to it. Also, please don't sell your work short in the opening sentence :-P.
So, maybe i'll take a prod at that myself if you take a crack at it somewhere down the line, to tell how serious you are about executing on each piece in that project.
Also some of the best parts of Last Saints Row were the Boss presented LARP weapons and running around a LARP with them. (More than one LARP, even, with the DLC, clearly the developers had fun with it.) None of the GTA-style shooter mechanics were actually changed but a "wink-nudge" was added that the LARP players were very good at death acting. Also you could carry the LARP weapons the rest of the game and get silly nerf dart sound and visual effects everywhere else, which was silly fun in its own way.
ETA: Also not directly a LARP but a similar premise is the pair of Costume Quest games of kids running around doing Action RPG things to save the town in Halloween costumes playing well with that boundary space of what is real for them and what is heightened fantasy.
First things first, let's take a glance back at Weird Tales, the pulp magazine that featured the works of Robert E. Howard and H.P. Lovecraft. This magazine eventually laid the groundwork for the cultural exchange that influenced their respective tabletop games. While their concurrent publishing surely pitted them against each other to varying degrees, it also contributed to the reciprocal public reception of their novel depictions of the human condition, psyche, and the surreal, metaphysical underbelly of reality.
One could conclude that the Cthulhu Mythos and the subsequent Neo-noir, Art Deco and Gothic subcultures were erected upon the very site of the largely forgotten ruins of what Lovecraft and his contemporaries authored or cinematized all those years ago, alongside their fashion and architectural underpinnings. The brewing resurgence closely coincided with WW2 coming to a close and leaving its wake a hankering for cultural reawakening. Lovecraft, having passed on with his work still largely unknown to most, but the work preserved by some stubbornly dedicated enthusiasts, and most notably one by the name of August Derleth, who took it upon himself to promote Lovecraft's work, with most of his efforts concentrated in the immediate closing of the theater of war, through a collection of anthologies and continued post-war efforts.
After a decades-long lasting lull that surrounded Lovecraft's yet to take place fandom it became apparent that no other horror carried in it the essence of the ominous sanity stretching terror that our human psyche very much invokes in us regarding the things beyond our senses and as such the monsters and their makeups began losing their footing in the battlegrounds of the mad brains - as Lovecraft's necromantically reconjured body of work congrued within us yet again.
Moving to the modern era of Sandy Petersen's lineage of Mythos, the game designer of Call of Cthulhu who most certainly understood the principles behind the source material and had the design sensibilities to instill these ideas into carryable game plans that bore fruit in communicating these rather novel ideas through the medium of socially unconventional means of self-expression that only such theatrical mode of eloquence as tabletop roleplaying games could hope to summon forth—especially during its formative years, around that era of cooperative gaming in 1981, as Call of Cthulhu's newly found pages were revealed for the new era of fans in the form of its Basic Role-Playing manual[0], published by the house of Chaosium.
The book not only revived H.P. Lovecraft’s work but also placed it under the looking glass of rigorous scrutiny in studying cultural malleability and the maddening hunt in uncovering the sensical faculties of the forgotten one's works. Petersen’s game revitalized the role-playing genre with its way to powerfully evoke imagery that conjures and warps our very subrealities, revealing the hidden: that even in our most orderly and structured boasts, the cosmos remains inscrutable as it coasts.
> spooks and sociopaths with blood on their hands. That's just how America works.
Even in certain unnamed European countries, they proliferate more freely than you'd think, staying unnoticed as long as they’re deniably placating their wrongdoings within the civilian sector. Certain ones are known to become increasingly bold as they encroach on organized crime and PMC breeding grounds, both in close proximity, as of recently. It happens in seemingly ordinary situations, and you'd be surprised at how insidious certain individuals can become.
Trammie Surprise, as he was formerly known, also runs the SQZD clan, who are often spotted in the wilds and around their homes, PvPing, thieving, and whatnot. They're one portal for easing into the local communities in Outlands.
Easing into the mechanics, minutiae, and overall obscurity of the game is a different beast entirely, but a lot of things in there, while worn out over time, have a handworn feel like none other, which itch just the right niche.
>Easing into the mechanics, minutiae, and overall obscurity of the game is a different beast entirely, but a lot of things in there [...] have a handworn feel like none other
Oh, yes. A greenfield game can just decide on mechanics, but UO is of course a continuous title with evolving technology and capabilities over decades! I never played the classic OSI (Official) server in the 90's or early 2000's and was introduced to freeshards directly nearly 15 years after the original launch. It feels a bit like digital archeology or anthropology from that perspective.
I was interesting in the scriptable clients, and endlessly tunable character development, as well as the idea of risk vs reward gameplay. To my great surprise, there seemed to be a vibrant and thriving social community in this thing that I and everyone else would have pointed to as a Dead World. Recommended.
For sure. Significant strides to be had with Razor, the accompanying script utility.
> as well as the idea of risk vs reward gameplay.
Be wary of the old heads that happen to stick with their solo thieves and PKs. For all intents and purposes, see where the biggest clans are raiding.
> To my great surprise, there seemed to be a vibrant and thriving social community in this thing that I and everyone else would have pointed to as a Dead World. Recommended
Many a legend even poured over from back in the day, with guys like Funeral, a player killer. Though, deco people are less notorious.
Great way to test the waters. Don't underestimate the cool and see what kind of posts and habits it could pave the way for, should it lead down some rabbit holes. Lots could be said for establishing even some crude habitations and running with it.
> Many of the bad things on the internet are a layer 8 issue and collective human behaviour isn't an easy problem to solve.
Sure, clever analogy. The internet barely facilitates many best practices for congregating on a communal basis, barring a user's self-sovereign strive to cultivate, recognize and then compensate for its failings with whatever sort of information, interactions and dealings one happens to seek.
20+ years ago, i just settled for lurking whatever boards popped out of the ether and playing EverQuest, RuneScape and Habbo Hotel, to soak in its novelty. Such persistent asymmetricity should never be lost.
We had Vampire LARPS in Finland from way back in the early 2000's and possibly earlier than that, but i only played in the tabletop with some people who on the side were keen on boffering battles and the political campaigning pertaining to the World of Darkness.
> Is there any similar view on sword and sorcery larp scene? One of my projects wants to drink from that, but I have little real knowledge about it and wouldn't like to disrespect larping.
If you can elaborate on this, i could maybe give more substantial advice, but personally, i’ve seen most fantasy LARPers take it to the streets and wilderness, and even our backyard, although it was rare that i would run into a group when taking the dog out or out hiking. Only the most bohemian of gatekeepers would take offense at your approach to the hobby.