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[ank]

I'm helping to start a LARP group with some friends from school. I'm looking for some systems, and wanted to see what Bay12 likes.

So, any recommendations for a group of five to seven with the preference of a high fantasy setting?

Ok, let me be more serious this time:

What you want is as few rules as possible, and you don't people standing around, thinking about the metaphysical rules of the game, or even worse, arguing about them, when they should be focused on playing.
It's very much like how health bars ruin immersion in game.

I've had a lot of experience with LARP, and feel this might be a good time to flash my gear:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

High Fantasy is tricky, because it involves a lot of rules. So my advice is use the part of fantasy that works without rules: Mainly fantasy races that can be convincing with the level of make-up and costume you have at hand. Orcs are great for this.
But leave out the fireballs, and the stuff that simply cannot be made real.
Leave the spectacular to Pen and Paper, and focus on human relations, a thing that's very hard to do in PnP because all but 3-5 characters in the game is controlled by one person.

To restate: make you High Fatasy as low as possible.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

Good advice.

My parents and I did SCA when I was a kid, and I recall a couple LARP events. But SCA combat was a bit more brutal. You had to get certified to use a weapon, which was a rattan club of the right length covered in duct tape. Your armor had to be inspected and certified as effective enough to be ok when beaten by someone's club.

Mom and Dad wore a quilt gambeson, under 1/2" boiled leather cuirass, under mail shirt. Steel helmet with grille visor. Limbs covered by the same leather with metal joints and flanges. Articulated metal gauntlets. Big heavy boots.

Other people wore some crazy stuff. One guy wore some really nice plate armor. Another made scale armor using thin leather with 1/2" pickle-barrel plastic plates riveted to it - multiple layers of it. Dude would seriously not notice when someone hit him.

And then there were people classified as "lights" who wore little to no armor and used bows or thrown weapons. A "heavy" didn't strike a "light", he just had to walk up and point with his weapon, and shout "light, you're dead!" and the "light" was supposed to shrug and wander off for a drink.

Even a "heavy" could have a throwing weapon though. Usually a javelin made from PVC pipe, or an axe made from a "9" shape of garden hose wrapped in duct tape so the circle was covered across.

Any decent hit was supposed to count, and if you got hit in a leg you'd go down to your knees, if hit on an arm you had to not use it. But some people ignored hits, which was frowned upon and called "rhino-hiding".

You could get hurt despite the armor. One time a guy really whacked my mom and she had this huge bruise across her shoulder / upper arm across a bit of her back. Coulda broken something.

Also I recall a story about a guy who, during a war event where two lines charged each other, his martial arts training kicked in automatically and he front-kicked a guy instead of hitting with his "sword". That's not allowed, I guess mainly because otherwise it would turn into Thine Platemail MMA.

Generally mobility was good, standing up wasn't really a problem, but you would get REALLY hot and dehydrated after a few minute's heavy fighting / running in a Washington summer. And you couldn't do it when it rained because the mud would make it an impossible slog.

//

Sorry if that's off-topic, nowhere else to put it.

//

Related to LARP, have you seen Unicorn City and Role Models? Hilarious stuff.

[ank]

Talking about injuries now?
Alright, I'll raise ya:
Once at a LARP I was at, somebody hit a shield with an arrow at close range, and it bounced back, with the back end hitting his eye... He lost the eye...

[UristMcDwarf]

Talking about injuries now?
Alright, I'll raise ya:
Once at a LARP I was at, somebody hit a shield with an arrow at close range, and it bounced back, with the back end hitting his eye... He lost the eye...

Are you serious? That's so sad!

[ank]

Yes, very sad.
It was due to a type of commercial arrows that had a very springy head, the type was quickly banned by all LARPs but was still sold for, I think about a year, before they changed the heads to a more spongy type.

[UristMcDwarf]

Does he wear an eyepatch now? I'd totally wear an eyepatch.

[ank]

I am not sure, understandably he did not return to LARP.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

It's sad. And sure, who wants to wear eye protection to a LARP? But that's the sort of thing that actually happens. Like you're working on a lathe and a splinter of hot metal flies up into your eyeball. That's why you don't disable the safety guard and you wear appropriately-rated eye protection, even though it's uncomfortable.

Fencers wear those masks.

Now I feel sick about all those years sparring unarmed without eye protection! Sure everyone takes off jewelry etc. but what if your opponent's footgear has slipped off, slick with sweat, and his gnarly old toenail catches you in the eye? Stuff happens 

One time these two guys were sparring and one backpedaled into the dojo mirrors, crashed into 'em, and a huge shard separated and fell as he did. It landed right behind him. He got lucky!

Have also seen people do some stupid stuff that nobody in their right mind would do with a sparring partner who they do not want to kill. Srsly, a little common sense plz.

[UristMcDwarf]

ITT: Bad things that could happen.