What is larp?

This is how Sleipner would present larp and larping to newbies and other interested people. This text has been lightly edited but works even today. The original text was written May 5th. 1998, but this is a revision dated March 11th. 2001

What is live-action role-playing?

Theatre without audience

Live-action role-playing (henceforth: larp) is a form of theatre, but an unusual form. In it all participants are actor, audience, author and stager all in one. While you play your character, you will also experience other characters from an 'audience' point of view, but you do more than look, you also take part in the action. For the duration of the game you are in a different reality, and you find yourself in an imaginary environment where things happen to you that you will not experience in your every day life.

Usually a group of organisers are the ones making it all happen. They co-ordinate and write most of the characters, and through these make up the plots and events that characters shall relate to. It's usually also the organisers that take care of practicalities, such as food, location, sleeping arrangements and so on. The organisers are also responsible for crating exciting events and 'happenings' that the players can react to. Once the game itself starts, most of the organisers' work is, however, finished. From then on it's the players through their actions that make it all go forward. The organisers usually spend their time outside the game-environment, stepping in from time to time in various characters.

Anyone wanting to take part in a larp must see to a number of things for themselves. The most important bit is having a costume that fits the milieu and the time. The costume should look as 'right' as possible, but can basically be made from any old garment, or from new and expensive material. No matter what you do, count on spending some hours sewing! It's the exterior of the costume, or -at least - what other players can see that, is important. Close to your body you can wear modern garments. One important, but sometimes difficult detail, is shoes/footwear, but there are acceptable solutions even to this. In addition to the costume, you may need a weapon (made according to certain rules) and various other kinds of requisites that go with your character. Players make (or buy) these themselves, and everything the character brings into the game is the players property, and the players own responsibility.

Once the game starts, you are no longer Mr. A. Verage from 116 West Piddling Road, but for instance the great wizard Xastorius from the Walled City of Khor, with an important agenda. You are the character for the duration of the game, even when you sleep. It is your own choice how active and offensive you want to be, but you will anyhow be pulled into the game by other players/characters. Every character will to a greater or lesser extent be part of large and small plots. Just how great a part you are is something you can help shape before the game starts. Once the game begins, however, the character is fixed in his background, his family relations and so on. The description of your character may contain a description of the character's persona, and as the presentation of your character to other character is based on all of this, it is very important to 'become' the character. The character MAY be given specific objectives for the game, this in order to give the player something concrete to relate to. The character may get killed during the game, in which case the player is given a new character totally different from the 'deceased' one.

The text above is a crude sketch of how larp works. There is a great number of variations, but by and large, most larps are based on the same foundation. Development in Trondheim has gradually led to ambience and experiences being view as the important 'aim' for a larp. Whether or not your character reaches his or her personal objectives may not be as important as whether you as a player has had wonderful experiences No matter if you achieve your goals, there is bound to be fun and exciting experiences to have! And it is the experience that is the objective for Sleipner in our larps. We want you as participant to have had an entertaining experience, a 'vacation from your own life'.

It is important to remember that while you should try to play out your character as good as possible, it is also important that you as a player are entertained by the actions of your own character. Thus it may be necessary to let the character do things that may be dangerous to him/her. No matter how this turns out, you as a player will emerge unharmed afterwards, even if the character may be beaten up pretty good. The reason of course being that all combat is conducted with padded weaponry that will cause no more harm than an occasional bruise. The degree of combat or violence your character sees is of course dependant upon the character, but there may be other things that are harmful to the character. All these things are simulated with usable but harmless replacements. Do you not understand what we mean? Join us in larping, it is the best way to understand what we're saying!

Hopefully this text has made it clear to you what larp is. But remember, this is just one of many texts out there explaining this phenomena. There ar many groups out there organising larps, and together these groups is your chance to experience something quite exceptional for a few hours or a few days, something stronger than radio, stronger than TV, stronger than computer games, stronger than theatre, stronger than daydreaming, simply because you experience it with your ENTIRE self!

Note 1 Since the publication of this text, there has appeared a number of texts describing larp, both nationally, on the Nordic scene and internationally. These can be found by searching for 'larp' in various search engines on the 'net.

Note 2 There are (at least) as many definitions for this term as there are larpers. If you can read norwegian, try visit this site (link below):