An experienced historical re-enactor (or 'Living History' as it is more fashionably known these days), I attended a LARP event earlier this year to get a taste of something a little more latex-oriented. Here are my thoughts on how LARP and Living History compare.

Those of you who LARP in Europe may be surprised to read that most American LARPs (the ones I've been to, anyway) do not use realistic-looking sculpted latex weapons. Here in the US, we tend to use 3/4" PVC pipe covered in insulation foam, the whole thing covered in duct tape. Why on earth would anybody do this? It's easy to make a sword, and boy, is it cheap! Plus, the large surface area of the 'point' of the sword makes thrusting reasonably safe. The downside, though, is that at the end of the day, you're still swinging a length of padded pipe.

Magic is one of the staples of fantasy role play. On the table top, all manner of wondrous effects are possible; all you need is a good imagination (and perhaps a pencil and a number of measuring devices) and you can create objects, throw fireballs, summon various critters, turn things into other things, and fly. It's not so easy in a LARP.

The watchwords of LARP should be Simplicity, Playability, Believability, Consistency, Continuity, and Consequences. I've mentioned this before. I'd like to lay out the groundwork for some future columns by taking a look at each of these terms and establishing a working definition for them.

As a LARPer, I often find myself having to explain my hobby to people who don't LARP. After I've gone through the basics, the first thing many people ask is, "So where do the monsters come from?" This is a much more important question than one might think.

A word about reenacting and LARPing: They are not the same. Reenacting is an attempt to recreate an actual era in history. Authenticity is important in reenacting, since if you do something not in keeping with the era you're trying to portray, (wearing sneakers with your toga, for example) you're not doing a very good job. LARPing is not, and shouldn't be, held to the same standards of authenticity for the simple reason that LARPing is trying to create a fantasy atmosphere, not a historical one.

So who hasn't, after a particularly rewarding game of Truncheons and Flagons, sat with their gaming buddies and fantasized about how cool it would be to slay dragons "for real?" Many of us get over these fantasies about our fantasies, or else they remain compound fantasies that we'd never actually do anything about. But for some, the lure of getting dressed up in silly clothes and whacking each other with sticks is too overpowering to resist, and thus was the LARP (Live Action Role Playing) phenomenon born.