Is it LARP or LRP?
So again, eons later, the LARP/LRP argument has risen its ugly head. Firstly I have to ask do I care?
I used to care very much. I felt LRP was as much definitively English as “Norwegian LARP” is Norwegian. We invented our own version and culture with no reference to the wider world. I was there. Chiselling the stone. LARP was the American invention- with boffer weapons, bean bags, wuss combat (in fear of lawsuits) and all that I assumed that meant at the time. The difference was important.
To be honest, I think some individuals called it LARP in the UK and I know some clubs did. I remember having a discussion with some players from a Basingstoke club (Adventure Calls?) who were new to our LRP events. They ran combat intensive linears, and had come to a Boozy Hick production freeform for the first time under the Adventurers Guild banner.
A “freeform” or “bar room brawl” is an interactive scenario, but the refs basically set it up and apart from a few set pieces leave the players to it. Usually in an interactive scenario I would have multiple plot lines running concurrently. At least one per ten players (although the Venn diagram of players and plots would have many intersections), I would write individual plots based on the backgrounds of the players and their desires for the event and I would run them under a sensible production name. “Boozy Hick” was meant to indicate that this was a less than serious social event in character. It was a laid back opportunity to muck about in costume. However, during the cursed “Saturday Afternoon Lull” I heard one of the new players mutter (and I still don’t know who it was) - “The Adventurers Guild - taking the Action out of Live Action Roleplaying.”
Now how I reacted and why I believe that was not the case is a story for another day. But it does show that for some folks the terms back then (late 80s) were even then questionable, perhaps interchangeable, and even held different nuances of meaning. The written record will show it was LRP because the magazine of the hobby “The Adventurer” called it that. However, I was the founder and frequent editor of said magazine and I had a strong opinion on the matter, so it may well have been down to me. Or not.
On reflection, I don’t care about the LRP/LARP argument (not least because the recent adoption of the term LARP in the UK means calling it LRP is as aging as putting a double space after a full stop, or wearing your glasses on a string, so I am done with it.) However, I am very keen that English LARP/LRP is seen to stand alone as a game-form, not least for the contributions we early pioneers made when we were literally making it up as we went along. Neither the Americans, the Norwegians, or even the heavily armed Belgians (another story) had any influence on how we made and played our games. LRP is an English invention. Fight me.
