Darlene Quayle: European Schools Research and Explorations

What is a LARP?

A LARP is Live Action Role-Play. Larps can be based on history, science-fiction, post-apocalyptic theory, real-life, or fantasy. They might have a lot of magic or none at all. A larp is not just a recreation of an historical event, (although re-enactments have their place in larping), but instead it relies heavily upon the improvisational acting abilities of each player. Many larps are based upon science-fiction or fantasy books that have been written (HP Lovecraft, Robert Jordan, JRR Tolkien, etc.) or movies that have been produced (primarily science-fiction and post-apocalyptic), while others are completely new creations, pulled from the imagination of the gamemaster.

A gamemaster (GM) creates a scenario, characters, chooses a setting and then runs the game with anywhere from two people to well over 100 people. While most of the players have specific characters, there are also NPCs, or Non-Player Characters: generally, people who are used for target practice. No, not really—well only sometimes. NPCs can help characters rally support for his or her activities, they can run errands, make connections and all without being a defined character with a specific goal. One of the most fun parts of larping is the battle. Larpers in Europe make weapons (swords, battle axes, knives, etc.) using thin fiberglass rods, foam and covered with thick liquid latex and paint.

The more complicated part of the larp is keeping track of your own rank points and life points. There is no paper to keep notes during a battle. Each player has abilities, and depending on the kind of larp, magical powers or fighting invincibility, which are all kept track of through the character’s actions and memory. Of course, keeping track of 3 healing spells is far easier than keeping track of 30 bonus points on a particular kind of strike. There are many rules and the rules are different for each type of larp, but once you learn them, they tend not to change.

Walk-In

Before this conference, we were able to participate in the Mittelpunkt “Walk-In,” which was geared for early-arriving guests to visit with locals and see some beautiful areas of the Rhine River valley. We have been fortunate to stay with a high school teacher and a university master’s degree student in beautiful Ingelheim. We visited the Marksburg castle above the town of Braubach for a very cold tour, and saw Marc Chagall’s stained glass work in St Stephen’s cathedral in Mainz. We tasted quite a bit of local food and beverage; the Germans are certainly well known for their sausage and beer, and the Rhine Valley is known for its white wines. The people here are very friendly and we were also we able to visit with the Latvian women who arrived early and were nice enough to cook up a Latvian meal for the group of us (they love their sour cream!).

My initial reason for attending Mittelpunkt was because my connection to Østerskov Efterskole in Denmark asked me to be on his panel at the convention. I was more than glad to share about my experience at the larping school and to see a couple of my colleagues again from there. Larping and thematic education go extremely well together, as evidenced by the large number of teachers at the conference.

In addition, since I was the token guest from the U.S., I was asked to hold a discussion about Larping in the U.S., about which I have very little knowledge. I know a bit about the “larping outside of larping,” as one person put it. That is, I am familiar with Renaissance Faires, the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism), re-enactments, Japanese cosplay, and murder mysteries. So I told about them, researched a few US larping sites on-line, and found a couple of other people who could tell about their experiences larping in the US and called it good. It actually turned out fairly well, and the larpers were quite surprised at the number of Japanese cosplayers that there are on the West Coast of the United States. (We have 15,000 at the Seattle conventions, and the convention in Los Angeles has 45,000 attendees! This conference had about 135 people).

photo courtesy Jansfotos.de

Mittelpunkt was a conference for people from all over Germany, plus several people from Denmark, Finland, Latvia, the UK, and Russia—and us. While there were mainly people in the late 20’s and 30’s, there were a couple in their late teens, and few in their 40’s. It was very interesting to go to workshop sessions about how to make latex swords, how larping is used with young people in school or therapy settings, and to find out about the kinds of larps that are run in Latvia and Germany. Most importantly, it was an opportunity to meet other creative thinkers from a different part of the world and make new connections.

There was another wonderful side benefit from this convention: I was able to meet and talk with teachers and make arrangements for short visits to three more schools/programs in Germany!