I think LARPing is a gigantic pile of action fodder. Where else can you hit someone else with a sword in this day and age. Huh? Where?

I think the problem with LARPing is that it has such a horrible social stigma associated with it. Pencil and Paper role-playing games sort of start with this bad reputation that says only geeks with no lives play them. So when you take that and make it even more extreme, people tend to think that only more extreme geeks partake in it. I can understand that to an extent. It’s like, does anyone who LARPs ever as “why?” Couldn’t you be using that creative energy to write a book or something else of the like. Do you really want to be spending all your time playing pretend. Then again que sera sera I suppose, its not like they are hurting me. I just think I’d feel too awkward and goofy to do something like this.

Thats total BS man. Total BS. Ok look at around 4 Minutes. That guy strings a bow, a non official very rueimentary bow and hits the guy dead on in the shield. Thats some robin hood shit right there, thats ACTUAL SKILL. This isn’t like an olympic sport bow, this is just a stick and a string and he hits the guy dead on! All of these skills are real fighting skills and people are going to tell me this is just a geek pasttime. People need to get their head out of their ass and stop being jackholes about this whole stupid thing. LARPing is fuyn and you should try it out, or at least not knock it til you try it out

Hell I was just thinking that guys wolf mask was kind of awesome.

I’ve seen people larping in the park and they looked really geeky but they were definitely having fun. I think the it’s no fun watching people who just aren’t that good at it. They looked really silly because it wasn’t like they’d trained to fight or anything. They should sign up for a stunt-fighting class or something, get in shape, then go out and fight.

Someone once said, good fighting doesn’t look pretty, and its true. I’ve spent several years studying martial arts and most useful fighting maneuvers are down dirty gritty and not at all nice to look at. Most of the movie stuff is stylized and wouldn’t be useful at all. In fact LARPing is a lot like being trained on an actual field of battle. You experience real people actually attempting to hit you and you learn very practical methods of defense.

For the record, I also studied Martial Arts, and most of these LARPing guys are just flailing wildly, and there’s not that much practicality in that. However, I do agree that good fighting doesn’t look anything like it does in the movies. If you really want to have some fun, send an actual Martial Artist to a LARP and watch them clean up.

Isn’t the point that it’s not about watching it but how fun it is to do? I think it looks really fun (i’d much rather get hit but a styrafoam sword than a real one) plus — it’s outdoors! Not RPGing in a dark room like the WOWers I know. I say go for it geeks!

Naaaaa…. i feel that the geeks are in their own world. It’s nice they like to get out and try things out BUT hmmm…. I believe that they’re not really learning actual defense. I’d bet that if they ever got into a street fight in public, they probably wouldn’t be able to fight back at all!

Geeks can surprise you dude. All it takes is a couple basic self defense classes and you learn to duck the first punch in a bar fight and its all over from there. Martial Arts are a science and an art form and who is better at science and art but geeks!

I am a re-enactor and I know some larpers and have a mixed opinion. I am slightly irritated and by bemused clashes in this video… :S

I have never done this, but i figured hey, it might JUST be fun to go beat the crap out of some guy with a sword. What annoys me is how SLOW every one moves. If you are actually fighting, I’m pretty sure that you would be rushing into it, not swinging a three foot sword from six feet away. As a younger kid I would fight my cousin with sticks and yes, even toy lightsabers and we would really beat each other, and we moved WAY faster than that, and we were eight.