#lrp

This is why safety rules matter!

Don’t forget if you like my videos and want to see me test more stuff, I’m looking to commission a set of historically accurate fitted armour for testing!

You can pitch in here if that’s something you’d like to see:

(I'll get around to updating and rerecording this advice one day. Or maybe not)

Larpers of the events of 2017:

Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the event, sunscreen would be it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your character. Or never mind. You may not understand how much game you provided until they’ve faded, but trust me, in 20 years when the game’s over you’ll see from froth posts you can’t grasp now about how much people saw what you were doing, and how great your costume really looked. You are not as ignored as you imagine.

Don’t worry about your next character. Or worry, but know that until you gen them up you won’t know which members of your prospective group happen to be dead at the same time.

The real troubles for your character are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind. The kind that blindside you at ten to time-out on some idle Sunday.

Do one thing every event that risks character death.

Sing.

Be reckless with your ballgowning, but check in with your targets. Don’t put up with people who are causing you OOC distress.

Pull your blows.

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind. The race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive; forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old lammies.

Stretch yourself.

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your character. If you’re having fun playing them, keep doing so. If you’re not, retire them. You are not obliged to keep going to things that aren’t fun, even if it will make group infrastructure harder, your group will understand.

Get plenty of water.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll ballgown, maybe you won’t.

Maybe you’ll battle, maybe you won’t.

Maybe you’ll die at your first event.

Maybe you’ll see the final time out when the system ends.

Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance; so are everybody else’s.

Enjoy your hard skills. Use them every way you can. Don’t be afraid of them, or what other people think of them.

Play, even if your own system consumes much of your weekends.

Read the rules. Follow them.

Do not read feedback threads for your own events until two weeks have past.

Get to know your group’s characters; you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your event crew; they are your best link to great event drama and the people most likely to stick it to you in the future.

Understand that props come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.

Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and larp-style, because the larp that is far away. or the larp that may not be entirely your jam, may provide you with the best stories in years to come.

Go to major fest larp once, but leave before it makes you resent everybody who got the plot.

Go to intense parlour larp once, but leave before you forget how to hit things properly.

Vary character archetypes.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Players will dislike each other, Campaign plot will fudge things. and when you do, you’ll fantasize that when you were young everyone was reasonable, Campaign plot was consistent, and people pulled their blows.

Pull your damn blows.

Don’t expect everyone else to automatically follow your perfect arc.

Maybe you have a plot-line, maybe you have a writer fan, but you never know when either might get derailed.

Don’t mess too much with snaz, or when you get as far as time in, all your friends will have been murdered.

Be careful whose weapons you buy, but be patient with those who you hit with it.

Tales about past larps are a form of nostalgia. Dispensing them is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

Mix up out of character and in character names.

Forget their stats.

Forget the rules.

Forget their own character name.

Mispronounce fictional names.

Forget key character costume and props.

Have to go to bed early due to fatigue.

Trip over themselves when making a big speech.

Get out of character worried when doing an antagonistic action.

Forget to eat.

Oversleep.

Get overstimulated.

Get character bleed.

Literally say “Jesus Christ” in games where that man is not a concept, and similar.

Literally fall over during combat.

The BIRD (Mask)

Final concept and the final product! Disabled LARPer. So wanted to make something that I couldn't usually safely wear to make up for non-com (until my spine is fixed). With help, I put together the mask for my sci-fi birb. Wheelchair bound but still kicking butt x

Anyway, there's a special bonus short story up on my Patreon about my LARP character, Sparrow. It's free to all members, all you need to do is subscribe.

This is Sparrow (in the middle) reconsidering their life choices the next day:

And this is the (really fucking HEAVY) rock that I dragged 400 metres in midday sun ON MY OWN for my feat of strength:

It's a faux-rock, so thankfully it's made of nice light things like polystyrene, chicken wire, and 2 bags of cement mix -_-

Linen shift (direly in need of ironing which it is not going to get) & partlet. First set of pockets - money, backup-backup-handkerchief, deck of cards, compass for some reason. Wedding rings belonging to - oh gods it's complicated - former lovers, one of whom is so far beyond dead she can never be reborn (and must never be spoken about) and the other is... technically alive but due to alternate reality shenanigans, not the same person, and she doesn't actually know if they were even married in this reality and can't ask. (Wait, that's still unclear: they were married to each other, not to her.)

Backup backup backup backup dagger. Unless I've miscounted. Nothing bad has ever happened to her to cause her to need this many security daggers. If I could make boot-knives work with my boots, I would.

Linen petticoat (also in need of ironing). Red for folk-song related reasons.

Bodice (which does not fit on the dummy no matter what you do with the dials, because the dummy has no squidge) with pocket watch, alchemical oil & tinderbox (just in case anything needs to be set on fire), handkerchief, and uh, elf recreational drugs which are very bad for humans, apparently.

Pockets - money, comb, vial of preserved goo from the corpse of a former enemy which she is basically holding so that her friend isn't tempted to do anything unwise with it, sewing kit, dress pins, another handkerchief because trauma is well known to leak from the eyes. Should have pen, ink and gloves in there. These pockets can also hold things like 'can of pop' '500ml water bottle' 'packed lunch' etc etc. Very useful.

Green wool (flannel) petticoat. Slightly fire-marked due to using it as an oven glove in an emergency.

Betgwn, sans sleeves because I basically never wear them, often not actually worn because it's too warm, and also interferes with getting stuff out of the bodice pockets.

Belt with two daggers, pouch for out of character stuff, loops for axe (where the hell is my axe?) and tankard (where the hell is my tankard?) book-pouch (where the hell is her diary?) character-card holder, bottle opener, random trinket from a fair last year, bag of iron nails to ward off the gaze of the undead. Random bit of cord for I don't know what.

Tweed coat/dress with the world's most enormous skirt (yes that is fits over all that gubbins), which despite being utterly windproof and extremely warm in winter, is very breathable in mild weather. Pocket-slits I am still quite proud of.

(by this point I had given up trying to keep the dummy from collapsing down its pole; both of these have hems at more or less mid-calf)

Raincoat, which I did not make and which is now old enough that the child P. was pregnant with when she made it is an adult. (I did, however, add the half-lining and extra panels for a wider skirt so that it, you know, actually closes around the nonsense above.

And bling. For mildly disturbing reforged-from reasons.

Armour not photographed because I'm still working on it. (AKA embroidering a target on her back, lol).

Green linen kirtle-type dress not photographed because I haven't worn it in ages and forgot about it. (Mostly because it's side-laced and therefore a pain to get into.)

Grey tweed burgundian-gown type dress also not photographed because I'm 95% sure the belt and - placard? thing, I forgot the name of it - are in a box underneath a 5 metre bell tent, and there's nowhere currently to move the tent to to check. Also, on reflection, that is almost certainly where my axe is. The tankard might be on the shelves above the freezer but I would need to get a stepladder out from behind half the stuff in storage before I could check that.

- an abandoned location

- with environmental dangers

- unseen dangers in the dark

- a player-accessible comms system

- and your own comrades turning on you