I had to write this paper and it ended up being about LARPing. So, here it is. Discuss. Do you LARP? Where? How'd you get into it?
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[i]My eyes, unaccustomed to the dark, struggled to see through the forest brush. It couldn’t have been a moment earlier than half past three bells when Raziel – a man who had been introduced to us as an agent of the incarnation of Death – led us miles down a narrow path to the peninsula. Flames from a fire across the lake stood as a beacon of light; illuminating the area around it, the distant sound of laughter traveled over the water adding some sort of comfort to our silent trudge through the woods. There were six of us blindly following Raziel into the darkness. We were given no explanation except for that our attendance was mandatory and only those he named were allowed to come. There was myself, Keladry (a wood elf – fantastic with a bow and arrow), Osirus (a vampire – gifted with the ability to control the minds of those around him), Neveah (An assassin by profession), Llewelyn (a talented toxicologist), and Scindo (a retired ghost pirate).
As a newcomer, I was unable to identify any correlation between the six of us. Although I had only stumbled upon the town of so-called heroes no more than five bells ago, I had seen enough to know that the group I was included in didn’t necessarily have any reason to be lumped together and the lack of conversation hinted a bit of either complacency or tension. I hadn’t decided which.
After crossing a small, shaky, wooden bridge, we arrived at the peninsula. It was an absolutely beautiful sight – A circle of trees lit with lanterns traced the perimeter of the landmass surrounding a large bonfire. A perfect crescent moon served as a centerpiece to the opening in the trees and the stars were brighter than I had ever seen. As I stood, taking it all in, I nearly missed the hooded man that was perched upon a large boulder on the far side of the opening.
“Took you long enough.” The annoyed tone in his voice carried and his hood dropped. A chorus of gasps left my companions. It was clear that they recognized the hooded man. I, however, stood cluelessly – waiting for some sort of explanation. I would come to find out that this man was Tonerius Cypress – a beloved townsman who befell an untimely death. Later, I would learn that in life he was caring, kind, devoted, and above all, a hero. One by one, Tonerius berated us. He yelled and ranted about the infidelity and disappointment each of us had committed since his death.
Keladry was his widow. He scolded her for moving on and not doing more to carry on his name. He told her that it was the fault of her infertile womb that his line would cease to exist. Osirus had been his best friend; they were inseparable and grew up together. Tonerius verbally abused Osirus about how he would never amount to more than the young farm boy he once was – how his descent into vampirism was simply a display of his weakness and irresponsibility. Neveah was next – she too had been one of his closest friends. He tore into her profession – she would never be as great of an assassin as her mentor. In fact, she should hang up the daggers, put on a bustier, and serve drinks at the town’s tavern. Llewelyn had caught onto the pattern. He knew what to expect. As he stood there silently, Tonerius let out a maniacal laugh. Llewelyn’s fatal flaw was in his negligence. It was his fault that inevitable caused Tonerius’s death. This was personal – he ripped into the fact that he was a disappointment to his mother; when he could have saved her; he was too busy with his potions and poisons.
“How does it feel to know that everything you touch withers to nothing?” His voice was cold and emotionless – nothing like the man that would later be described to me. Scindo just chuckled as Tonerius ripped into him. He said something about his retirement and if he was so weak and soft he ought to drop the strong and dependable façade.
“Is that all you’ve got for me, old friend?” he spoke smoothly with one eyebrow cocked.
Tonerius turned his attention toward me. I had never met him nor wronged him. It had become clear as to why everyone else in the troop was called here, but what could my relevance possibly be? He stood, his eyes piercing into my soul. I could feel my palms start to sweat as I tried to avert my eyes. Looking away wasn’t an option.
“And you,” he began, condescendingly. “What a coward, running from your problems. I promise they’ll follow you here tenfold. This town isn’t a place for cowards, and it certainly isn’t a place for you. You’re a disgrace to our family name – you don’t deserve to carry it. But then again, I suppose that’s not really something I have to worry about. You won’t last. The nature of this town will bury you just as quickly as you came upon it. Why don’t you go home to our mother and your arranged marriage? Oh, that’s right – because it was your birth that brought her demise…” Our family? Our Mother? How could he possibly know about me running away from the altar? My mind was in disarray and as he continued to rip into me, I couldn’t think straight.
It wasn’t until Keladry broke the line that we had created that I regained coherence. She lunged towards Tonerius and attempted to embrace him. As her fingertips brushed his skin, he disappeared into a cloud of black smoke. Simultaneously, we could hear screams from across the lake. I looked around at my disheveled companions – It was evident that this encounter had taken a large emotional toll on the five of them. We all embraced each other and took a moment to regain our composure. This group of people who had been seemingly unrelated bonded in our vulnerability.
More screams echoed through the woods as we quickly made it back to the center of town. Outside the tavern, there were people swinging swords and slinging spell packets. Some were bleeding and writhing and others were running in the opposite direction. I ran around doing what I could to help – which wasn’t much considering the fact that the world of magic and violence was so very new to me. Our opposition was a series of memory shades - we later found out that the apparition of Tonerius on the peninsula was also one of these creatures. Essentially, a memory shade is the negative manifestation of your memories. The field in front of the tavern was swarming with ghosts from everybody’s past – It was a childhood nightmare made reality.
I was tying up a gash on a girl’s leg near the tree line when I was stabbed from behind. I tried to stand up and fight back, drawing my sword from its holster. Before I could do anything, I was stabbed again – once in the chest and another time in the ribs. I looked up at my attacker; it was the Tonerius imposter again.
“Sorry!” Anthony – the kid that played Tonerius whispered with a smile and a wink. It was out of game, but it said something along the lines of “No hard feelings, newbie.” I chuckled as I fell dramatically to the ground. Because I was a new player, I didn’t have many hit points. After three fatal blows, it was time for me to go down. When you run out of hit points in the game, you go unconscious and fall to the ground. If after thirty minutes you aren’t revived by another player, you’re considered dead. So, I laid on the ground proverbially twiddling my thumbs. It was dark and I was tucked into the tree line, so the probability of anyone finding my body was slim to none. So, after a few minutes of waiting around, I put my hand in a fist on the top of my head (In the game, this signifies being out of game. Even though other players can actually still see me, I don’t exist in game.). Walking up to the mod building I couldn’t help but laugh – at myself, at the game, at the people around me, and above all – the misplaced judgments I had made.
***
A few weeks earlier, I had been sitting in a cooking class when Nate – who I had recently become friends with because he seemed to be in all of my classes that semester – said something about the camping trip he was going on at the end of the month. I wasn’t listening all that intently until he mentioned something about “Live Action Role Play” and being a nerd. I gave him a sideways glance and he continued nervously –
“It’s not really something I tell people about, and I just started bu-“
“Wait, like the movie ‘Role Models’?” I cut him off.
“Well, kind of… but it’s a lot cooler, everything’s a lot more realistic.”
“People actually do that?!” I laughed obnoxiously. I could see the look of nervousness on his face turn to something closer to annoyance. “I just mean, I’ve never really thought of it as a real thing. It sounds really interesting. I’d even like to try it.” I amended.
Before I knew it, I was reading a three hundred page rule book and creating a character that I would be playing for the entire weekend. I didn’t take it all that seriously and my character history was brief and cliché – A higher up forced into an arranged marriage with a man she hardly knew decided to run away and start a new life for herself. I named her “Holly Cypress”. I couldn’t shake the idea that this weekend adventure was going to be an absolute joke. I had every intention of laughing my way through it. I had all of these preconceived notions about the game and the people that would be there.
On the Friday of the game, I met Nate at his house after school. He had given me a long list of things to pack and after my costuming, food, and bedding I felt like I was going away for an entire month. The three hour drive to Chesterfield, Massachusetts lasted forever. Nate’s mother had offered to drive us if my parents picked us up afterwards. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that she spent the entire time on business calls forcing us to be absolutely silent. I sat quietly in the back seat, flipping through the rulebook and reviewing the things Nate had marked as important for me to memorize. It was daunting – there was no way I could remember everything. It was okay though, I reminded myself, this was all a big joke anyway.
We arrived at the camp at around six in the evening and the opening meeting wasn’t until about nine. In this time, we settled into our cabin and Nate took me to explore some of the trails I would have to navigate throughout the weekend. The camp was a lot bigger than I had imagine. There were miles and miles of land in the middle of the Massachusetts woods that the game would take place on. It was mind boggling, really. In the movie “Role Models,” it was essentially a field with a pop-up castle that served as home base. This was an entire campground equipped with lakes, streams, trails, and cabins. Nate brought me to various locations in the game – he showed me the tavern and the manor house, the gambling hall and the tourney field. There was just so much to remember, it was overwhelming.
When we were done exploring, Nate took me to the mod building – this is where all of the administrators set up plots and really get the game going. He introduced me to the game makers and brought me in to meet a bunch of the players who had arrived early to help set up the game. Much to my surprise, all of the people I met were very cool, down to earth, socially capable people. They introduced themselves by both their real names and their character’s names. As people started to change into their costumes, it was as though I stepped from 2009 to a fanciful renaissance era. Although they were out of character, people began to speak in accents and refer to each other as their character names to acclimate themselves for when the administrators called “game on”.
Everyone gathered for the opening meeting – there had to be at least 80 people gathered. All of the player characters (players who design and live out the weekend as one character; they have no knowledge of coming events or plot) were dressed in their individual and unique costumes while the non-player characters (the supporting roles – they play all monster, extra townspeople, and plot-driving characters. Their job is to make the storylines in game move forward.) were dressed in all black from head to toe. We sat around in a large semi-circle and listened as the game administrators brushed up on rules changes and issues that they may have had during the previous game. They announced that “game on” would be in about an hour and that everyone should go back into the game play area and get ready for the weekend. New players, however, were asked to stay behind to undergo a “new player mod” where we were briefed on the general rules of the game and given a scenario explaining how we came to be in Elmerton – the town where most of the game takes place.
For myself and two other new players, our caravan was attacked just outside of town. Mark; an NPC sat in the caravan poised as one of us to help send us in the correct direction. We heard loud noises, a brief fight, and then a scream. Mark suggested that we get out and check it out. We reluctantly filed out one by one and found our driver dead on the ground. A group of NPCs dressed as wood trolls emerged from the tree line. I froze as my companions ran up and began to fight. They were easy targets and went down after a few good hits. They were really just there for us to get a good idea of fighting with fake swords. Mark told us that we should try to find a nearby town to stay for the night so that we could wait to travel in the safety of daylight. We followed him down a narrow path that led to the tavern.
As we entered, the sound of laughter and music filled the air. At the base of the fireplace sat a few maestros playing guitars and singing at the top of their lungs. Some people sang along and stood at the bar, waiting to be served their favorite dark ale (coke-a-cola) or elven mead (mountain dew). Others sat huddled around candles discussing various pressing matters. Nate swooped over and introduced himself as “Alucien Goldmeddow”. He asked me to dance and before I could answer he pulled me over to a group of people who had been jumping, dancing, and singing. It was in that loud candlelit moment that I fell deeply into character. It was in that moment that all inhibitions and judgments I had placed on LARPing dissipated. Above all, it was in that moment that Allison Powders ceased to exist and Holly Cypress became a reality.
A booming voice broke through the threshold of the tavern, demanding silence. The music stopped along with any laughter and conversation.
“Keladry Frosthill! Osirus Mesmirum! Neveah Pheonix! Llewellyn Mousecarver! Scindo Mathias! Holly Cypress! You’re coming with me!”
***
“I hope you don’t mind waiting a minute,” Angela, a game administrators told me when I arrived at the mod building. “Scott is down in game running a side plot.” In order for me to go back into game, I would need to have a meeting with “Vorkarian” – traditionally known as “Death” or “The Grim Reaper”. Vorkarian was played by Scott. Because he wasn’t currently available, Angela had me sit in the costume room with her and wait for his return. NPCs scrambled around me changing and preparing for their next parts.
“I hope Anthony wasn’t too tough on you!” she said excitedly. “We decided to really play on the fact that you just so happened to choose the same last name as his.”
“I was so taken aback, but it was absolutely awesome. It was actually him that killed me!” she shook her head in joking disapproval. “So wait, his character is actually my brother?”
“I guess you’ll have to come back to find out, won’t you?” she replied in a matter of fact manor.
***
So, that’s exactly what I did – I came back. In fact, I’ve been coming back again and again for the past five years and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. What started out as a joke turned into such a big part of my life. I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars and hours on gas, costuming, events, and preparation. More importantly, many of the people I LARP with I now consider to be family. They’ve become my friends not only in the game, but in real life too. This past summer I was even asked to be in the wedding of one of my fellow players. To this day, the preconceived notions that I had about the game and the people in it still baffle me. I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would be like today if it weren’t for the game.
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[i]My eyes, unaccustomed to the dark, struggled to see through the forest brush. It couldn’t have been a moment earlier than half past three bells when Raziel – a man who had been introduced to us as an agent of the incarnation of Death – led us miles down a narrow path to the peninsula. Flames from a fire across the lake stood as a beacon of light; illuminating the area around it, the distant sound of laughter traveled over the water adding some sort of comfort to our silent trudge through the woods. There were six of us blindly following Raziel into the darkness. We were given no explanation except for that our attendance was mandatory and only those he named were allowed to come. There was myself, Keladry (a wood elf – fantastic with a bow and arrow), Osirus (a vampire – gifted with the ability to control the minds of those around him), Neveah (An assassin by profession), Llewelyn (a talented toxicologist), and Scindo (a retired ghost pirate).
As a newcomer, I was unable to identify any correlation between the six of us. Although I had only stumbled upon the town of so-called heroes no more than five bells ago, I had seen enough to know that the group I was included in didn’t necessarily have any reason to be lumped together and the lack of conversation hinted a bit of either complacency or tension. I hadn’t decided which.
After crossing a small, shaky, wooden bridge, we arrived at the peninsula. It was an absolutely beautiful sight – A circle of trees lit with lanterns traced the perimeter of the landmass surrounding a large bonfire. A perfect crescent moon served as a centerpiece to the opening in the trees and the stars were brighter than I had ever seen. As I stood, taking it all in, I nearly missed the hooded man that was perched upon a large boulder on the far side of the opening.
“Took you long enough.” The annoyed tone in his voice carried and his hood dropped. A chorus of gasps left my companions. It was clear that they recognized the hooded man. I, however, stood cluelessly – waiting for some sort of explanation. I would come to find out that this man was Tonerius Cypress – a beloved townsman who befell an untimely death. Later, I would learn that in life he was caring, kind, devoted, and above all, a hero. One by one, Tonerius berated us. He yelled and ranted about the infidelity and disappointment each of us had committed since his death.
Keladry was his widow. He scolded her for moving on and not doing more to carry on his name. He told her that it was the fault of her infertile womb that his line would cease to exist. Osirus had been his best friend; they were inseparable and grew up together. Tonerius verbally abused Osirus about how he would never amount to more than the young farm boy he once was – how his descent into vampirism was simply a display of his weakness and irresponsibility. Neveah was next – she too had been one of his closest friends. He tore into her profession – she would never be as great of an assassin as her mentor. In fact, she should hang up the daggers, put on a bustier, and serve drinks at the town’s tavern. Llewelyn had caught onto the pattern. He knew what to expect. As he stood there silently, Tonerius let out a maniacal laugh. Llewelyn’s fatal flaw was in his negligence. It was his fault that inevitable caused Tonerius’s death. This was personal – he ripped into the fact that he was a disappointment to his mother; when he could have saved her; he was too busy with his potions and poisons.
“How does it feel to know that everything you touch withers to nothing?” His voice was cold and emotionless – nothing like the man that would later be described to me. Scindo just chuckled as Tonerius ripped into him. He said something about his retirement and if he was so weak and soft he ought to drop the strong and dependable façade.
“Is that all you’ve got for me, old friend?” he spoke smoothly with one eyebrow cocked.
Tonerius turned his attention toward me. I had never met him nor wronged him. It had become clear as to why everyone else in the troop was called here, but what could my relevance possibly be? He stood, his eyes piercing into my soul. I could feel my palms start to sweat as I tried to avert my eyes. Looking away wasn’t an option.
“And you,” he began, condescendingly. “What a coward, running from your problems. I promise they’ll follow you here tenfold. This town isn’t a place for cowards, and it certainly isn’t a place for you. You’re a disgrace to our family name – you don’t deserve to carry it. But then again, I suppose that’s not really something I have to worry about. You won’t last. The nature of this town will bury you just as quickly as you came upon it. Why don’t you go home to our mother and your arranged marriage? Oh, that’s right – because it was your birth that brought her demise…” Our family? Our Mother? How could he possibly know about me running away from the altar? My mind was in disarray and as he continued to rip into me, I couldn’t think straight.
It wasn’t until Keladry broke the line that we had created that I regained coherence. She lunged towards Tonerius and attempted to embrace him. As her fingertips brushed his skin, he disappeared into a cloud of black smoke. Simultaneously, we could hear screams from across the lake. I looked around at my disheveled companions – It was evident that this encounter had taken a large emotional toll on the five of them. We all embraced each other and took a moment to regain our composure. This group of people who had been seemingly unrelated bonded in our vulnerability.
More screams echoed through the woods as we quickly made it back to the center of town. Outside the tavern, there were people swinging swords and slinging spell packets. Some were bleeding and writhing and others were running in the opposite direction. I ran around doing what I could to help – which wasn’t much considering the fact that the world of magic and violence was so very new to me. Our opposition was a series of memory shades - we later found out that the apparition of Tonerius on the peninsula was also one of these creatures. Essentially, a memory shade is the negative manifestation of your memories. The field in front of the tavern was swarming with ghosts from everybody’s past – It was a childhood nightmare made reality.
I was tying up a gash on a girl’s leg near the tree line when I was stabbed from behind. I tried to stand up and fight back, drawing my sword from its holster. Before I could do anything, I was stabbed again – once in the chest and another time in the ribs. I looked up at my attacker; it was the Tonerius imposter again.
“Sorry!” Anthony – the kid that played Tonerius whispered with a smile and a wink. It was out of game, but it said something along the lines of “No hard feelings, newbie.” I chuckled as I fell dramatically to the ground. Because I was a new player, I didn’t have many hit points. After three fatal blows, it was time for me to go down. When you run out of hit points in the game, you go unconscious and fall to the ground. If after thirty minutes you aren’t revived by another player, you’re considered dead. So, I laid on the ground proverbially twiddling my thumbs. It was dark and I was tucked into the tree line, so the probability of anyone finding my body was slim to none. So, after a few minutes of waiting around, I put my hand in a fist on the top of my head (In the game, this signifies being out of game. Even though other players can actually still see me, I don’t exist in game.). Walking up to the mod building I couldn’t help but laugh – at myself, at the game, at the people around me, and above all – the misplaced judgments I had made.
***
A few weeks earlier, I had been sitting in a cooking class when Nate – who I had recently become friends with because he seemed to be in all of my classes that semester – said something about the camping trip he was going on at the end of the month. I wasn’t listening all that intently until he mentioned something about “Live Action Role Play” and being a nerd. I gave him a sideways glance and he continued nervously –
“It’s not really something I tell people about, and I just started bu-“
“Wait, like the movie ‘Role Models’?” I cut him off.
“Well, kind of… but it’s a lot cooler, everything’s a lot more realistic.”
“People actually do that?!” I laughed obnoxiously. I could see the look of nervousness on his face turn to something closer to annoyance. “I just mean, I’ve never really thought of it as a real thing. It sounds really interesting. I’d even like to try it.” I amended.
Before I knew it, I was reading a three hundred page rule book and creating a character that I would be playing for the entire weekend. I didn’t take it all that seriously and my character history was brief and cliché – A higher up forced into an arranged marriage with a man she hardly knew decided to run away and start a new life for herself. I named her “Holly Cypress”. I couldn’t shake the idea that this weekend adventure was going to be an absolute joke. I had every intention of laughing my way through it. I had all of these preconceived notions about the game and the people that would be there.
On the Friday of the game, I met Nate at his house after school. He had given me a long list of things to pack and after my costuming, food, and bedding I felt like I was going away for an entire month. The three hour drive to Chesterfield, Massachusetts lasted forever. Nate’s mother had offered to drive us if my parents picked us up afterwards. This wouldn’t have been a problem except for the fact that she spent the entire time on business calls forcing us to be absolutely silent. I sat quietly in the back seat, flipping through the rulebook and reviewing the things Nate had marked as important for me to memorize. It was daunting – there was no way I could remember everything. It was okay though, I reminded myself, this was all a big joke anyway.
We arrived at the camp at around six in the evening and the opening meeting wasn’t until about nine. In this time, we settled into our cabin and Nate took me to explore some of the trails I would have to navigate throughout the weekend. The camp was a lot bigger than I had imagine. There were miles and miles of land in the middle of the Massachusetts woods that the game would take place on. It was mind boggling, really. In the movie “Role Models,” it was essentially a field with a pop-up castle that served as home base. This was an entire campground equipped with lakes, streams, trails, and cabins. Nate brought me to various locations in the game – he showed me the tavern and the manor house, the gambling hall and the tourney field. There was just so much to remember, it was overwhelming.
When we were done exploring, Nate took me to the mod building – this is where all of the administrators set up plots and really get the game going. He introduced me to the game makers and brought me in to meet a bunch of the players who had arrived early to help set up the game. Much to my surprise, all of the people I met were very cool, down to earth, socially capable people. They introduced themselves by both their real names and their character’s names. As people started to change into their costumes, it was as though I stepped from 2009 to a fanciful renaissance era. Although they were out of character, people began to speak in accents and refer to each other as their character names to acclimate themselves for when the administrators called “game on”.
Everyone gathered for the opening meeting – there had to be at least 80 people gathered. All of the player characters (players who design and live out the weekend as one character; they have no knowledge of coming events or plot) were dressed in their individual and unique costumes while the non-player characters (the supporting roles – they play all monster, extra townspeople, and plot-driving characters. Their job is to make the storylines in game move forward.) were dressed in all black from head to toe. We sat around in a large semi-circle and listened as the game administrators brushed up on rules changes and issues that they may have had during the previous game. They announced that “game on” would be in about an hour and that everyone should go back into the game play area and get ready for the weekend. New players, however, were asked to stay behind to undergo a “new player mod” where we were briefed on the general rules of the game and given a scenario explaining how we came to be in Elmerton – the town where most of the game takes place.
For myself and two other new players, our caravan was attacked just outside of town. Mark; an NPC sat in the caravan poised as one of us to help send us in the correct direction. We heard loud noises, a brief fight, and then a scream. Mark suggested that we get out and check it out. We reluctantly filed out one by one and found our driver dead on the ground. A group of NPCs dressed as wood trolls emerged from the tree line. I froze as my companions ran up and began to fight. They were easy targets and went down after a few good hits. They were really just there for us to get a good idea of fighting with fake swords. Mark told us that we should try to find a nearby town to stay for the night so that we could wait to travel in the safety of daylight. We followed him down a narrow path that led to the tavern.
As we entered, the sound of laughter and music filled the air. At the base of the fireplace sat a few maestros playing guitars and singing at the top of their lungs. Some people sang along and stood at the bar, waiting to be served their favorite dark ale (coke-a-cola) or elven mead (mountain dew). Others sat huddled around candles discussing various pressing matters. Nate swooped over and introduced himself as “Alucien Goldmeddow”. He asked me to dance and before I could answer he pulled me over to a group of people who had been jumping, dancing, and singing. It was in that loud candlelit moment that I fell deeply into character. It was in that moment that all inhibitions and judgments I had placed on LARPing dissipated. Above all, it was in that moment that Allison Powders ceased to exist and Holly Cypress became a reality.
A booming voice broke through the threshold of the tavern, demanding silence. The music stopped along with any laughter and conversation.
“Keladry Frosthill! Osirus Mesmirum! Neveah Pheonix! Llewellyn Mousecarver! Scindo Mathias! Holly Cypress! You’re coming with me!”
***
“I hope you don’t mind waiting a minute,” Angela, a game administrators told me when I arrived at the mod building. “Scott is down in game running a side plot.” In order for me to go back into game, I would need to have a meeting with “Vorkarian” – traditionally known as “Death” or “The Grim Reaper”. Vorkarian was played by Scott. Because he wasn’t currently available, Angela had me sit in the costume room with her and wait for his return. NPCs scrambled around me changing and preparing for their next parts.
“I hope Anthony wasn’t too tough on you!” she said excitedly. “We decided to really play on the fact that you just so happened to choose the same last name as his.”
“I was so taken aback, but it was absolutely awesome. It was actually him that killed me!” she shook her head in joking disapproval. “So wait, his character is actually my brother?”
“I guess you’ll have to come back to find out, won’t you?” she replied in a matter of fact manor.
***
So, that’s exactly what I did – I came back. In fact, I’ve been coming back again and again for the past five years and I don’t plan on stopping any time soon. What started out as a joke turned into such a big part of my life. I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars and hours on gas, costuming, events, and preparation. More importantly, many of the people I LARP with I now consider to be family. They’ve become my friends not only in the game, but in real life too. This past summer I was even asked to be in the wedding of one of my fellow players. To this day, the preconceived notions that I had about the game and the people in it still baffle me. I can’t even begin to imagine what my life would be like today if it weren’t for the game.
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