Are there things that resemble
To try activities like archery, fencing or improvisational acting outside of LARPs can be just as fun. Besides, it’ll make you a better LARPer too.
Role-playing isn’t a part of all of these activities. However, many of these activities are a part of LARP. If you don’t mind the lack of roleplaying of it I’m sure you’ll find something that’s appealing to you.
Reenactments
The Society of Creative Anachronism is an organisation that focuses heavily on re-creating life as it was during the Middle Ages in Europe. The society focuses on the parts of the medieval culture that attracts us.
The organization holds several events where they practice
- Armored combat
- Fencing
- Archery
- Medieval dance
- Medieval arts
- Medieval sciences
Lastly, local groups may gather for war practice occasionally. War practice is about preparing soldiers for larger battle events like Pennsic War, which takes place towards the end of summer every year. It attracts over 10.000 people and lasts for 17 days.
Much like LARPs, the SCA’s events involve quite a bit of role-playing and fighting.
Cosplay
Costume Play is about re-creating a character’s look. In cosplay, role-playing isn’t as important as the accuracy of your representation. Fanatics gather at conventions to display their costumes and meet new friends. These conventions have grown rapidly over the last couple of years.
From the outside, LARP and cosplay may resemble each other. However, that’s a pretty shallow observation. The differences between them are many.
With that said, to love one of these doesn’t mean you can’t love the other.
Paintball
Paintball is, as you might know, an action packed activity where players arm themselves with guns that fire paint-filled balls that explode upon hit, leaving a stain (and a bruise) on the opponents uniform.
Paintball is often played in teams and can be conquest/capture the flag/deatchmatch-type games.
There are paintball centers that have indoor arenas built to resemble actual war zones. Others stage battlefield-like scenery in the woods.
Just like LARPs, a setting is created for the player’s immersion. Role-playing a character isn’t very common in paintball. However, out there on the battlefield, you get sucked into it more than you think, resulting in a very roleplay-like atmosphere
Archery
Archery can be seen in LARPs all over the world. To adapt to the event’s safety standards, bows and arrows are customized and restricted to certain limits. By limiting the force of the bow, organizers can prevent people from injuring each other.
Regular archery doesn’t have these restrictions. However, in regular archery, humans aren’t targets. To master the regular bow is pure entertainment, to bring those archery skills to your LARPs is even more amusing.
Fencing
Good fencing skills can catapult your character to the top of the hill. In LARP, there’s a lot of melee fighting where skills like fencing will come in handy. The weapons you use for fencing are not like boffer weapons at all, because of that, the larper has to adapt his fencing style.
Someone who fences would probably agree that the natural movements and techniques you develop in fencing can be quite hard to execute with boffer weapons. Nevertheless, to have an above average sense of timing and distance can be lethal in LARPs.
Going up against someone who fences well is challenging and to be honest, scary.
Improvisational acting
Roleplaying is essentially acting, in LARP it’s about adapting to your character and acting out that character’s actions. However, once you’re familiar with your character you’ll start improvising more and more.
Improvisation is a big part of acting, it stimulates the imagination and acts upon spontaneous impulses. In our time, many actors have gone outside their script and made history because of it. Improvising can really stretch the performance if the acting hits the spot.
In
Most conversations are then improvised by the roleplayer and his companions. People who LARP may not be fully aware of how much they improvise and act – because it comes naturally to some. That’s why I think so many would enjoy improv – they are better at it than they think.
Other than that, improvisational acting is a great way of getting out of your box.
There are two ways of doing this. 1) Join a local improv group and go to their weekly/monthly sessions or 2) Start your own group with friends, those you roleplay with might be interested.
Military Simulations
Military simulations or “MilSim” are War-like games where civilians engage in armed battle using these non-lethal weapons:
- Airsoft Guns
- Paintball Guns
- Replica Toy Guns
Most games are high-immersion simulations. However, unlike LARPs, you won’t find the same kind of role-played scenarios at MilSim games.
These war games are often split up into two categories
- Reenactments
- These games focus on a certain historic event and aim to replicate the event and its outcomes.
- Simulations
- Simulations focus on presenting a time period
Tabletop RPGs
Live action role-playing games were inspired by tabletop role-playing games back in the 1970s. Tabletop or Pen And Paper RPGs are similar to LARPs, the main difference being the way they are played out.
Tabletop RPGs are played around a table and depend on the designated story-teller (Dungeon Master) to
- Present the environment
- Challenge the group
- Advance the story
Instead of fighting with boffer weapons, a character’s actions are described by the player. The outcome of a situation can be determined by rolling dice. The game may last for several hours up to days of total playtime.
Characters are created by the players who sometimes, are expected to provide a background story for their character. The rules and the fictional setting is then provided by the Dungeon Master, who seeks to lure the party further into the dungeons.
Much like LARPs, characters have attributes and can capitalize on their strengths when the situation calls for it.
The famous and successful game Dungeon & Dragons is a Tabletop RPG.
Combat Archery
Archery Tag/Combat Archery is all about action (and safety – archery tag uses the same kind of foam-tipped arrows that are used in LARPs).
Players are left in the arena, either as a part of a team or alone. Armed with a bow and arrows, their objective is to eliminate the opposing team.
Players wear face masks and use weaker bows to prevent injuries. Combat Archery is extremely fun. If you’ve tried dodgeball and liked it, chances are you’ll love Combat Archery.
Airsoft Games
“Airsofts” are guns that shoot bean-like bullets made of plastic. Airsoft Games are competitive games consisting of two (or more) teams combating with said guns. To create an immersive setting, the events are often held in forests or warehouses decorated with war-like objectives.
There’s a huge variety of guns and they come in all models, including hand grenades and rocket launchers. However, in contrast to Paintball, airsoft guns don’t leave a mark on the target. If the target is showing exposed skin, the plastic pellet may hurt a little bit.
I’ve come across LARPs that allow the use of airsoft guns, mostly post-apocalyptic ones. Ballistic glasses or other safe eyewear seems to be the go-to protection when using
Here’s an example of a LARP that uses Airsoft Guns. Visit Wasteland-LARP.
Horse Jousting
Riding a horse can be a bit like LARPing. I’m not talking about everyday riding in a stable, I’m talking about jousting. While jousting is an old medieval sport, it’s still extremely badass.
On a serious note, jousting is quite rare so if you don’t have access to jousting grounds nearby, I recommend riding a horse as modern people do. It’s definitely a good way to break out of your daily persona and become someone else for a brief moment of time.
If you dig even deeper, especially at the larger events, you’ll see a million different things you can master in order to become a better