Live action role-playing game
[9][10] Arrangers called gamemasters (GMs) determine the rules and setting of a LARP, and may also influence an event and act as referees while it is taking place.
[11][12][13] The GMs may also do the logistical work, or there may be other arrangers who handle details such as advertising the event, booking a venue, and financial management.
[25] In 1982, the Society for Interactive Literature, a predecessor of the Live Action Roleplayers Association (LARPA), formed as the first recorded theatre-style LARP group in the US.
Games with thousands of participants are run by for-profit companies, and a small industry exists to sell costume, armour and foam weapons intended primarily for LARP.
Jubensha is far more commercially successful and influential than anything we have seen before even in Nordic countries – and there is a good chance it might change our perception of what live-action roleplaying games are capable of in the future".
Enjoyable aspects can include the collaborative creation of a story, the attempt to overcome challenges in pursuit of a character's objectives, and a sense of immersion in a fictional setting.
[42][43] Because LARP involves a controlled artificial environment within which people interact, it has sometimes been used as a research tool to test theories in social fields such as economics or law.
[47] In a LARP, it is usually assumed that players are speaking and acting in character unless otherwise noted, which is the opposite of normal practice in tabletop role-playing games.
Bystanders who are unaware that a game is taking place may be treated as part of the fictional setting, and in-character materials may be incorporated into the real world.
[55] The alternative to using simulated weapons is to pause role-play and determine the outcome of an action symbolically, for example by rolling dice, playing rock paper scissors or comparing character attributes.
[56] There are also LARPs that do without rules, instead relying on players to use their common sense or feel for dramatic appropriateness to cooperatively decide what the outcome of their actions will be.
Simple distinctions can be made regarding the genre used, the presence of simulated weapons or abstract rules, and whether players create their own characters or have them assigned by gamemasters.
There are only a few fests in the world, all based in Europe and Canada; however, their size means that they have a significant influence on local LARP culture and design.
[66] Nordic larp emphasises a collaborative "play to lose" strategy, keeping rules unobtrusive, and often explores emotionally complex issues.
To work out issues of how to keep players safe and push the limits of the form, the community gathers at Knutepunkt, an annual meeting that is as much hardcore game jam as academic conference".
[76] In comparison to the mainstream video-game industry, which is highly commercialized and often marketed towards a male audience, LARP is less commoditized, and women actively contribute as authors and participants.
This may be due to intolerance of the resemblance to childhood games of pretend, a perceived risk of over-identification with the characters, and the absence of mass marketing.
[87] The broader academic community has recently begun to study LARP as well, both to compare it to other media and other varieties of interactive gaming, and also to evaluate it in its own right.
[49][88] In 2010, William Bainbridge speculated that LARP may one day evolve into a major industry in the form of location-based games using ubiquitous computing.
[89] In Denmark, Østerskov Efterskole uses LARP as an educational method of teaching subjects to high school boarding students through interactivity and simulation.
[90] LARP groups are also using simulations of current and historical events and topics like refugees and the AIDS crisis to roleplay and explore these subjects.
The New York Times reported that in 2021 "the number of scripted murder enterprises registered in China totaled about 6,500, a more than 60 percent increase from the prior year, according to state-run media".
[70] The Agence France-Presse reported that "the live action murder mystery market appears to have captured the imagination of China's urban youth before the Covid-19 pandemic emerged".
[35] Dicebreaker reported that following the easing of pandemic restrictions in China, "more than 45,000 [jubensha] shops" opened with "nearly 10 million active players.
[71][72][93] In September 2020, the Agence France-Presse commented that "a report on China National Radio last month voiced fears that too many of the scripts relied on murders, violent plots and sexual content, but others see the games as a way to get young people off their smartphones and back interacting with each other in real life".
Since the Covid-19 case that brought 'script-killing' to national attention, the game has been getting mainstream traction, inviting official concerns and possible future regulations".
A story published Wednesday indicates that municipal and provincial authorities have now begun regulating content and demanding that some retailers remove certain materials from sale.
[93] The draft regulations state that "the contents of such games must not smear the traditional Chinese culture or contain inappropriate materials involving obscenity, gambling, drugs, and other elements that could go against moral standards".
[93] The regulations also include additional rules for minors such as not allowing "underage customers on school days" and that "children under the age of 14 must be accompanied by their parents or other guardians".
