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!

I was immediately amazed at the liberties that the students have in this school. They crowd into a group meeting room which clearly does not have room for everyone to have a seat and laze across chairs and tables, sit on tables, walk across tables, sit on the floor, and cuddle with each other. In the hallways, they run and shout, ramming into each other, wrestle on the entryway floor. They go outside for a cigarette, after carrying it around in their hands (next year, there will be no smoking allowed). There is no dress code, and self-expression is encouraged. Everywhere, they swear in English. They are all on first-name basis with their teachers, and randomly come up to them to give them hugs.
The only thing they are admonished for is their volume during group instruction and discussion time. The students hold up both hands and flutter them for agreement and applause, or one finger to ask a question.

Yet despite all this, they love their school and are proud to show it off. Frequently another student comes up to introduce himself and offer assistance. They are engaged in the learning. Students are given an assignment, and when they gather together again, everyone has it done. They are excited about the next step and already have their minds going. As in any school, the quality varies from student to student, and higher-end kids excel in detail and confidence. Everything is done on computers, except a bit of graphing design on paper. There are student laptops everywhere, and lots of cubbies of computer lab areas. The computers are all networked, so the teachers can see what the students have completed.

Each student has a job, too. Teams of students take turns preparing, cooking, serving and cleaning up the meals. Some of the students have responsibilities with equipment rooms. When they have a meal job, they are excused from the lessons going on at that time.

They are excited about the evening RP (role-playing) games. Games are the love of the students here, and that is why they attend this school. There are a couple of different games each evening that are directed by the headmaster and teachers. Science Fiction and Fantasy are favorite topics, but there is a lot of history included as well. Boxes of games abound in every corner, and there are trophies in hallway glass cabinets from competitions. A special glass-fronted bookcase holds Dungeons & Dragons books, but a student tells me that game is boring to him—he prefers Vampires or Pirates RP games or Magic the Gathering. Students run RP games for other students: they set up the background story, develop the characters and then invite others to join in. They take on those characters and make them their own.

The staff is very kind, and it is interesting to sit with them as they go on auto-pilot and speak Danish with each other. One of the staff members is impressed that I was able to glean as much as I could from a conversation she was having with a group of drama students. I am gaining more vocabulary and hope to have a bit of conversational ability by the time we leave here three weeks from now. I met the German teacher today and talked with her about her teaching job here. This is her first year and she is struggling with her agenda for this weekend’s parent visit day. She has focused on conversation so far, and only sees them once every other week, so she doesn’t have any work samples to show the parents—it’s all been conversation so far. She feels successful, though—this is the first time she has taught German where the students tell her that they enjoy learning the language.

The teachers have one week on for teaching and one week off for planning, so they work directly in lessons with the students every other week. The electives are held on Monday mornings, with core lessons and projects in the afternoon and on other days. This week’s unit is on board games, so the students split in groups no larger than two and decided upon a theme for their game. Each game has to be either science fiction or history-based. The purpose is to encourage research into historical and/or science facts. Next week we will study the Middle Ages and students and staff will wear costumes from that time period all week.

Every afternoon, students write in logbook on their computers for an hour, describing what they did that day and what they learned. After that, they choose something from their day’s work to put into their electronic portfolio. All this goes onto the server and the student’s advisor check to make sure it’s there and complete. The server was down today, so the advisor went around individually, but normally they’re all on-line together, assumable giving feedback in real time.

School lessons begin at 9:00 a.m. and end at 4:30 pm, then there is a break until dinner time and evening activities begin after that. Silent time is at 10:30 pm; tomorrow we will get up at 7:00 to do morning exercises at 7:30 before breakfast. Today we ran and did pushups and crunches –tomorrow we’ll do something different!

The camaraderie is great and I haven’t seen any students upset at others yet. I will be meeting with the headmaster on Wednesday and will find out demographics. In the meantime, I do know that there are 84 boys, 12 girls, according to one staff member. They come from all over Denmark to attend this choice-based public school.