What is LARP?
LARP or live action roleplay is a spare time activity that has been enjoying growing popularity for more than 40 years. It all started in the US. Side by side with the emerging Roleplaying board games in small groups, some wanted more than just imagine how their heroes participated in adventures. That gave birth to the idea to make it the best possible reality. Armed with self-constructed foam weapons, self-sewn clothing and other props they journeyed on to give their imagination shape. At the end of the 1980s LARP reached Europe. Over the years the hobby has spread far and wide, in the 1990s with barely a couple of hundred people in the community; today it consists of tens of thousands and keeps on growing.
What do you do at LARP?
Playing a fictional character, either self-devised from your own imagination or as a role thought of and designed by the organizer. The possibilities are nearly endless; the only limits are our own imagination and the technical feasibility. With our character we experience her story, act as she would, communicate and face challenges. This is a vacation from our own self, leaving everyday chores behind, for hours or even days, and look through the eyes of an alternate ego.
How we profit from LARP?
LARP as a concept is a lot older, since the 1920s it has been known under the label „Psycho Drama“ in psychotherapy, and can be found in school education since the 1950s, although not as LARP but as „Business play“ or simulation. So LARP is not only a spare time activity but also a method for psychotherapy and education. LARP helps us to realize more about our own self, others and society.
The ability to invent a fictional character. Enables us to experience different social environments, perspectives, and gives us the opportunity to try different approaches with different consequences. The fictional environment resembles or contradicts our real world but here, also, unique or recognizable societal problem occur which are asking to be solved. And as in the real world the question is: How?
But generally contrary to real life, in LARP every decision counts, any action matters. It gives us the opportunity to act out in safety, as we can always halt everything with a „STOP! “ if it goes too far for us, and we will be heard.