History of live action role-playing games
Likewise, the Han Chinese and medieval Europeans occasionally enjoyed organizing events in which participants pretended to be from an earlier age.
Viola Spolin, who was one of the founders of the famous comedy troupe The Second City, insisted that her exercises were games, and that they involved role-playing as early as 1946, but thought of them as training actors and comics rather than as being primarily aimed at being fun in their own right.
G. K. Chesterton's 1905 book The Club of Queer Trades includes a story describing a commercial organization which stages LARP-like adventures for the entertainment of its customers.
The 1960s saw the creation of fantasy LARPs (as distinct from pure historical re-enactments), which probably originate with the founding of the Society for Creative Anachronism in Berkeley, California, on May 1, 1966.
A similar group, the Markland Medieval Mercenary Militia, began holding events on the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1969.
These groups were largely dedicated to accurately recreating medieval history and culture with only mild fantasy elements, and were probably influenced by historical re-enactment.
In the 1970s, after the publication of the early tabletop role-playing game (Dungeons & Dragons) in 1974, Fantasy LARPs began springing up in many places somewhat independently.
The International Fantasy Gaming Society (IFGS), also live-combat but with a complex rules system more clearly influenced by Dungeons and Dragons, was started in 1981 in Boulder, Colorado.
(IFGS took its name from a fictional group in the novel Dream Park by Larry Niven and Steven Barnes, which described highly realistic, futuristic LARPs.)
In 1981, the Society for Interactive Literature (SIL) was founded by Walter Freitag, Mike Massimilla and Rick Dutton at Harvard University.
A substantial part of the SIL membership broke off from that organization in 1991 and formed the Interactive Literature Foundation (ILF), which in 2000 changed its name to the Live Action Role-Players Association LARPA.
The various Fantasy-based games are also splinters off NERO as well as one another, forming a relatively extensive list: SOLAR (the Southern Organization for Live Action Reenactments), Red Button Productions, and the experimental fantasy LARP Forest of Doors Archived 2018-01-29 at the Wayback Machine, among others.
Since 1999, the mid-Atlantic US has been a center for a number of crossover Theatre Style/Adventure Style events or "campaigns," which fall outside the medieval fantasy genre which tends to characterize a majority of Live Combat LARPs.
Together this network of current and previous events make up a substantial and innovative body of work which characterizes a vibrant mid-Atlantic US LARP Community.
The rise of many campaigns all drawing from the same community has tended to preempt growth of non-campaign games, though, and to some degree push out the 'less dedicated' gamers due to the higher commitment needed.
Over its three-year history, it garnered moderate attention from the press (even being featured on Blue Peter) and established a large, enthusiastic player-base.
[6] This led to a style of LARP known as 'fest' LRP: unlike small games (often less than 50 players) fests often centre around warring factions and huge battles.
The Lorien Trust, formed in 1992, epitomised this principle with its flagship annual event The Gathering, which features battles with over a thousand players on each side, as well as complex politics, an SFX-driven magic ritual circle, a licensed tavern, and a large marketplace for the out-of-character sale of costumes, prosthetics, weapons, props and accessories.
The early 1990s also saw the introduction of White Wolf Publishing's Mind's Eye Theatre LARP, which introduced a largely new set of players to live roleplaying.
There was some antipathy between Vampire and Fantasy LARPers, although some groups discarded the MET rules and used conventional LARP ideas (such as rubber weapons) instead.
The evident size of the UK LARP player-base suggested that there might be a market for LARP-related periodicals, and so professionally produced magazines such as The Scribe and The Adventurer were printed, including reviews, advice, photos and humour.
Their Phoenix campaign, however, was completely different from the LT, being 'Closed World', with an emphasis on community-building and trade, and a professed intention of 'Player-led plot', bucking the current trend of powerful NPCs controlling everything.
This colonialism fantasy game sought to set new standards in player empowerment, and explicitly limited the power of NPCs and plotwriters.
Profound Decisions continued UK LARP development and community growth with Empire LRP which as of 2019 has over 2,000 players at each of its four annual events.
Regional traditions vary greatly in their history and practice, though the now defunct Soviet "Young Pioneers" organisation and the networks between former members seems to have played some role in spreading and coordinating the idea of live role-playing.
According to witness reports, in 1989 Tolkien fans came to the Borodino reenactment in fantasy costumes, which jumpstarted the movement and led to the first recorded large-scale LARP in Russia, the National Hobbit Games, which ran in August 1990 near river Mana in the vicinity of Krasnoyarsk.
A live-roleplaying avant-garde movement, which pursues radical experimentation and the recognition of role-playing as a form of art, has been connected to the Knutepunkt conferences.
At NatCon 84 in Nelson, a game based around the ruling council of the city of New Pavis in Glorantha dealing with the approaching Lunar Army was run.
In a few one-off LARPS, significant special effects have been produced, often with the help of local professionals, such as Weta Workshop, and lighting and sound are often used to assist mood.
These typically run both indoor theatre-style and outdoor live-combat games, with a large "flagship" event on the Saturday night to provide a unifying experience for all participants.
