LARP and Stigma: Fact or Fiction?

by Zoe

Dan Comstock, of nerology, posted a really interesting response to my post on LARP and journalism. In the interest of keeping the conversation between bloggers going, I wanted to discuss it. He brought up a thought-provoking point to which I wanted to respond:

"Moreover, I have to speak up against the characterization of LARPers are a “stigmatized culture”. I think that’s a tad melodramatic. It’s not like we’re trans-gendered or handicapped or systematically oppressed. We have an unusual hobby, which we do in private. Some people laugh at pictures of it on the net, but so what? People on the net laugh at everything. I certainly don’t feel stigmatized."


I disagree with this, but I wanted to open it up for discussion. Mostly because, personally, I've taken the stigma of LARPing somewhat for granted (that is, assuming it exists). I wanted to get other people's opinions.

Firstly, do I think LARPers are as stigmatized as those who are trans-gendered, handicapped, or systematically oppressed? No. Not at all. However, I do absolutely think they are stigmatized, and here are the different reasons why:

1) Anonymity within the LARP Community
Obviously, I'm fairly open about my LARPing hobby. However, there are many within the community who are not. Online, in their business lives, and among non-LARP community friends, they don't speak about their LARP hobby, and, in many cases, keep it a secret. I've asked the question "why?" to quite a few people, all of whom expressed a fear of one or more of the following: a) losing their job, b) losing the respect of clients, students, and/or colleagues, and c) social ridicule. It seems to me that, whether or not these fears are sensical and confirmed, they are the result of a larger social stigma.

2) A feeling of shame within the LARP community.
This is a more troubling issue to me. At some LARP events, I've noticed a particular embarrassment associated with the activity itself. This happens when, inevitably, over the course of a weekend, a truck pulls through a field fight, some joggers or bikers traverse through a module, or, as was the case at a recent event, a tour group wanders through the camp for a few hours. I've witnessed, that, during these occasions, LARPers turn away their faces, move out of spots of visibility, and break game to appear "normal" (though I've since tried to stop, I've done all of these things on different occasions). Where does this feeling come from? Why do we feel embarrassment because of our hobby? I can't help but think that it comes from a shame which originated in stigmatization of the larger community.

To me, the stigma surrounding LARPing absolutely exists; however, the stigma may or may not be felt by all players, or may be felt to different degrees. The question to me, however, is where does it come from? And to this, I have Dan's post to thank-- I had long assumed an outward-to-inward stigmatization of LARPers, starting in a normative, non-LARPing community. However, I think just as much of the stigma comes from the actual LARP community itself: there is a feeling of embarrassment, and even shame, within many of the LARP circles that I have encountered. Where is that coming from? How does it affect our community? What is the source, outward or inward? (To that end, Bill Tobin of LARPohio has some really interesting ideas and projects in the works on how to positively represent LARPing to a larger audience.)

So, those are some starting thoughts on LARP and stigma. I invite people to share their own experiences. Here are my two big guiding questions:
1) Is LARP a stigmatized hobby-- why/why not?
2) If it is stigmatized, where does that come from?

How I Learned to Stop Worrying & Love the Boffer (Out of Game)

Contributor: Amanda

Submission: The 1st in a series of IG and OoG written commentary from a "novice LARPer"
LARP System: Accelerant
Location: Boston, USA
PC Name: Istamira "Mira" Nascirus
Years LARPing: 0 years, 7 months
Website: Istamira's Quill

How I Learned To Stop Worrying & Love The Boffer (OOG)
by Amanda / "Istamira"


In and out of character commentary from a novice larper. Character names, places, and sometimes even plot specifics may be changed or altered to protect readers from horrible knowledge that could threaten the very fiber of the universe! ... or something like that.



It's been only 7 months since I started up this hobby, and it's already grown to occupy a great portion of my free time. It wasn't always so. I didn't even get started larping until I was 31. So naturally one might wonder, after all that time, what finally got me in? In summary, two words: peer pressure.

Ironically it’s normally peer pressure that can chase a person away from larping. Just by uttering the word, I received strong responses (and very often not positive). You’d think there would be a natural camaraderie among the roleplaying/number crunching/costume loving peoples of the world. To get funny looks from non-gamers was expected, but I was fairly surprised at how vehemently hostile my fellow gamers could be towards larpers. On more than one occasion I’ve been given an intricate breakdown of the geek food chain, always depicting larpers at the bottom one category above fetish furries. Repeatedly I’d hear the “why D&Ders and Larpers are natural enemies” rhetoric. Even among the few people I knew who participated, I was always given the “don’t tell anyone else that I do this” lecture.

I’ve never put much weight in that kind of social ridicule, which allowed me to glaze past the negativity and seeming shame that hung round the word ‘larp’ like an unwelcome fog. By that standard I probably shouldn’t have done theater, or D&D, or MMOs, or game conventions, or fiddling either – those are all things I love dearly regardless of what others said about them. So how bad could larping be honestly?

If anything, it was almost inevitable that I was going to get pulled into larping because I was already intrigued – you could say I was “larpcurious” ultimately. I had rolled the idea around in my head but without a lot of drive. Friends are a good driving force, but it took an attack from two completely opposite directions to finally push me over the edge and give it a shot.

Attack 1: Agony By Ambush

I started trying to expand my social circle and joined a few new D&D games. Sitting around the table telling stories, eating, laughing… it’s a great way to make new friends. I joined a game where the only person I knew was the GM, figuring it would be good to meet new people. I realized quickly that I was outnumbered. Every person at the table larped – apparently in the same games no less – except me. They were all very awesome people and it was great getting to know them, but I started to get that familiar third-wheel sensation … you know, the one where people are talking about a game system that you vaguely understand so you sit there quietly and politely listening while it zooms over your head? I felt that same feeling the first time I started hanging out with friends who played Magic, or who played D&D, or who played EverQuest. At some point they can’t help but go on about their hobby and you’re left in the dust… until they try to suck you in.

I was standing around quietly absorbing a discussion about how excited they all were for an upcoming “event.” Out of left field (or maybe sensing that I hadn’t run screaming for the hills when all the larp chatter started) my GM friend says “the question isn’t how excited you are for MJ, the question is when is Amanda going to start playing with us?” and shoots a sly look over at me. Instantly more eyes fell on me, lighting up with the same look as a kid who’s heard the ice cream truck jingle. I felt kind of bad because it blind sided me, so my first reaction was to shrink down and recoil from the attention stammering wordlessly, which may have accidentally come off as a “don’t make me” posture.  They didn’t press too hard on the topic, and while I was amicable towards the idea, nothing further came of it.

Over time, in my quest to branch out friendships, I realized my list of friends was rapidly shifting to include a lot of larpers. I started getting invitations to “come try” a few different games, always met with a polite nod and a “we’ll see” on my part.

Attack 2: Disarm

Of all my friends, it was a non-larper that delivered the last shove I needed. It was a discussion with some of my non-gamer girl pals (spouses of gaming friends mostly). To my vast surprise, one of them mentioned that she wanted to try larping some time. This I had to see. To her “gaming” was playing Settlers of Catan, and she had no interest in our D&D games. I just couldn’t fathom her playing in a larp. I explained what little I knew, and that I knew people who could hook us up if she was serious. So the next day, I picked the brains of the most larpiest larpers I knew to report back to her.

When you show the slightest direct interest in playing, it’s like a feeding frenzy of advice. You’ll get more information in 20 minutes than you could remember in a lifetime, and about thirty different variations of “all you need to do is ____”. I think the enthusiasm is what sells it though. When you hear well adjusted, friendly people describing how much they love something, it makes you think “well there must be something to it, or they wouldn’t be so jazzed”. Armed with information and links, I sent my findings back to my friend.

She backed out after I explained it. “Oh? I thought it was more like a one-night mystery dinner show or something.” I can’t say I was too surprised considering she hadn’t even rolled a d20 before, but rather than being discouraged, I found myself digging deeper for information. Could I do this? I could totally do this. After all, I had pledged that this year would be my “year of trying new things.” This was a new thing, right? I could do this. 

Maybe.

Finish Her

The rest of the night was spent digging up videos and links to various larp resources trying to understand just how it worked. The rules had a lot that I agreed with roleplaying wise - I'd always been more story focused in my RP circles anyway. I wasn't crowd skittish (public speaking and performance knock the shy right off you). That and I'm no stranger to making a fool of myself in public for the amusement of others. The costuming seemed fun, and was already something I dabbled in for parties and tradeshows. There was only one obstacle left to tackle before I could agree to go through with it: boffing.The very concept made my skin crawl in the worst way…

I’d seen it in action a few times at social functions. I’d obviously seen the infamous “lightening bolt” video. I'd heard my friends describe it, and had a few other visual references. It just looked so odd and awkward to me… in my line of work people often speak of the “nerf bat” metaphorically, but for me boffing was like the very incarnation of someone flailing a nerf bat. Watching two people going at each other in a duel made me feel embarrassed for them, like an episode of Peep Show where it’s so terribly awkward but you just can’t look away, so you keep cringing harder hoping for their sake that it ends so they can salvage whatever dignity is left.

It’s amazing how a little education goes a long way to beat a stigma. I stumbled on some very nice "tutorial" videos by keyword searching specifically for combat advice, rather than just "larping" or "boffing" alone (which generally pulled up out-of-context footage from people's games). In these videos, boffing was laid out with the same kind of tact as someone explaining martial arts. One of my all time favorites was WillGray42, whose teaching style focused on treating boffing as a fun hobby to share with friends, good way to be active, and something not take too seriously. 

"It's sword 'play' not sword 'fighting' we're not out here to hurt each other." - WillGray42, Lesson 5 Rules & Code

Suddenly it made waaaay more sense, and all the perceived awkwardness washed away. I realized that combat wasn’t just people randomly flailing at each other pretending to take hits….

• It was like fencing, with forms and offensive/defensive strategies that yielded specific results.
• It was like tag football, where your objective is just to “tag” the other person in certain legal areas.
• It was like a friendly sport, where accepted rules of play and equipment were somewhat standardized for the fun and safety of everyone.
• Most importantly: It was like something I could see myself getting into.

Friends or no friends, ridicule or no ridicule, experience or inexperience… I was going to try this. Thus a question that had been asked long ago was answered. When was Amanda going to start playing? Now.

***