The Joys of LARP
I used to LARP quite a bit.
The culture of Live Action Role Playing used to be pretty big in Australia, but I haven't seen much of it in recent years. A few freeform games at conventions,a couple of groups clinging on to the heyday of White Wolf's "World of Darkness", a couple of weapon re-enactment groups...bit nothing that really made e want to get thoroughly into the immersive world of live action play like I used to.
Leah (my wife) and I met during a LARP, and recently we've spoken about starting up something new. We've enticed the entire class at college with our stories of drama, action and dressing up. We've found a few table top gamers who are a bit intimidated by the idea of live play (but who are willing to check it out to see what it's all about). I've even spoken to cosplayers at comic and pop-culture conventions who would be willing to push their costuming antics to a new level.
Thanks to Joel Shempert, I've been alerted to an article about LARPing in Denmark and Scandinavia. It's a great read.
Once I finish a few more of my current projects, I might get back into designing a good rule set for LARPing. If you get the chance to participate in one, I thoroughly recommend it as an eye opening experience.
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There are long running games in Seattle, WA and Mountain View and San Francisco, CA that aren't boffer LARPs. Depending on who is running, they either pass the hat, charge a small fee of $5 or do it for free.
When my husband and I ran the one in Mountain View for a while, we passed the hat - if you could pay, great, if not, as the GM I sucked up the cost of updating character sheets and making in-game stuff/props.
In fact the boffer style of LARP is quite rare here in Australia. We developed the freeform LARP during the early 1980s and have been playing this style of LARP for 30 years (I'm a friend of one of the early developers). This style of "no-stats, minimal combat" LARP is the most common LARPing style found in Sydney, with a half-dozen (or more) running at each of the three major annual conventions.
I was addressing shortymonster who I assumed (and probably incorrectly) was talking about acquiring a longsword, which isn't required for the games I typically play in. There are some long running Boffer LARPS out here in Seattle (two major groups run them), but the longest running is a World of Darkenss Vampire Mind's Eye Theater game that plays in Seattle's Red Square (in the parking garage if it's cold/wet/snowy). I am, sadly, not college age anymore, so I tend to not go to the Red Square game, but I do fly down to CA for the game conventions there with my LARP troupe and run single shot, non-boffer LARPs, usually in a 6-8 hour period.
For example, I'm running "A Good Old Fashioned Seance" at Pacificon in September.
Personally I'm incredibly keen for an investigative Call of Cthulhu style of game.