Hi Everyone and welcome back to Geek Time, and welcome back to the studio again，Brad.

Hello.

So what are we going to talk about today?

You identify as a geek, don't you？

Geek and nerd.

You've heard of LARPing，haven't you？

Sadly, I have.

Good, good.

LARPing, you're talking about Life Action Role Playing.

Life Action Role Playing

Yeah, it's basically, if I may say so, it's one step further from cosplay. Cosplay is more like you dress up and then you get lots of professional pictures done, right? That's more of a cosplay, but these are you’re cosing a role, but you're also actually engaging in a story line.

People who LARP don't see it so much as cosplay, because it's more about the game than the cosplay, the costume is just part of the game. So they don't see it as so much like cosplay, but it is a step lower in the…like..

Geek culture.

Yes, when they say who is geekiest, right, LARPers are probably…

The geekiest of the geek.

I'm not sure I even know the Chinese translation of LARPing, so let me try to explain rather than translate, so Life Action Role Playing. Imagine you are playing a game like an RPG, role playing game, you will be a character, for example, you play a magician in the game, you play a healer in the game, but this is in life as in you would dress up as a healer, dress up as a magician, and you will interact with a bunch of people who are also playing that game, but in 3D real life.

Right, just go out to a forest…

Always the forest.

… and take all of your tools, your weapons, your costume and go play.

The first time I heard about this is when I was watching Supernatural the TV, and then there were people actually trying to LARP the main characters.

Yeah.

But if I think about it, earlier on, we talked about D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, it's a little bit like that, if you think about it.

It's almost exactly analogous to that, just live action versions of that. They really do have live action versions of just about all the different types of role-playing games, whether it's vampire and werewolf or D&D directly.

You do see sometimes kids do that, you know, with wider basically like LARPing, perhaps not to that extend, but kids do dress up and have these imaginary sort of story lines and fights.

LARPing is kind of like that, but with a very strict set of roles.

Game rules?

Yeah. It's because it basically is a game that's what you do when they meet, they'll have like a game, they'll have different types of games like capture the flag, whereas space is kind of like you go into the other person’s castle and steal their chanted item or something like that and you have to bring it back to your castle or something.

It does sound like people who really just enjoy the sort of fantasy world, so tell us about these rules.

So basically there they'll have like a guidebook and they'll have different classes in each class will have their own types of weapons and actions that they can do within the game. But then like the rules will be something like that. You have five lives, if you get hit in the arm by a weapon, you can't use that arm, if you get hit by a leg, you can't use that leg, if you lose two limbs, you die, if you get hit in the body, you die.

This actually sounds a little bit just like war game, or if it's like laser tag or war game, basically they have these rules as well. It doesn't sound too bad. But I thought LARPing, a large part of it is you actually have to dress up, you can’t just go in your casual jeans and all that, you have to dress as the character, so are there any dress rules？

So like if you're a healer, then you're going to wear something white, either a white shirt or they call it a tabard, something that goes over your shirt and as white as kind of like a sash, but a little bit wider, just something that shows that you're a healer. If you're a scout, kind of like a ranger or something like that, someone who's in the forest, they'll have like a green outfit.

Hang on a minute, all of these you're describing seems to be from similar games, because these seem to be sort of like medieval times. Don't you have modern or modern story lines, like…

There do in some cases have some more modern ones, but that's more for like airsoft shooting and people like that, when it comes to the airsoft guys, they don't really have so much of the role playing aspect. It's more of just going out and playing war games.

Um…It's so specific, isn't it？So it is the aim of the game, but it's not just simple as shooting or like war game. It’s a lot more acting you put into it. I'm curious about something, how do you meet other LARPers? Is it just online you have a community or what?

When I got into LARPing, I was 14, and back in those day, we didn't have the internet.

How did you…?

Everyone went to the local game shop and I was at the local game shop one day and I saw like a message board and I was just looking at a few of the things on the message board and I saw an AD for LARPing and I thought what is this?

And I was kind of confused, it was like I want to play D&D, and then it was like live action, well, it's just like I guess I could give it a shot.

And so I talked to one of the guys and he said yes, we're doing a camping trip this weekend and we gonna play a bunch of games. I was like, okay, I'll go.

So you basically made your next step onto a path that will lead you deeper into geekdom.

Yeah.

But you said fight, right? So their weapons.

Yeah, most of the weapons are things like just it basically kind of like plumbing pipe. It's just kind of something that's light and round and then you put foam on that, and you just kind of like tape it together and put a cover over it, and that way when you hit someone, it doesn't really hurt them, right?

But it's still heavy enough.

They can feel it, right. It's kind of like if you were to take a cardboard role and make it a little bit heavier and then hit someone with that right? You can feel it and it might sting a little bit if you get hit really hard.

But it’s not going to be dangerous

It's not going to break your arm.

Who's gonna be there to control like you're not supposed to bring any real heavy load.

There's usually someone in charge of each group and before you can use a weapon on the field, it has to be tested on you.

Oh…

So that's one of the rules, right? When you bring a new sort out to the field, they test on you first.

That's a good rule.你自己做的 weapon，自己做的武器，要先在你自己身上测试，如果测试通过不会有太大的损伤，and then you can use it. Usually how long does these game sessions last?

A game can be anywhere from like half an hour to like 2 hours. It just depends on how big of a field you have, how many people are there. I mean, if you have big enough field and you have a few healers, people can get brought back to life and so you have like your base. And if you go to your base, then you can get healed. But if you die, then healer could maybe resurrect you, and bring you back to life. And so if a healer stays at the base, then they can get their magic points back, heal up and keep doing this. It's really some games go for a long time and some games they're just over really quick, it really depends on the rules for that particular game, the number of people and like the point of the game, like if you're trying to kill everyone on the other team, they have a limited number of lives. And so I want everyone's dead, everyone’s dead.

Okay, all right, I think that's the basics. We will do an advanced episode, we'll get more into the characters and the all these magic healing potions and stuff, also to talk about people's view on this whole genre.

Definitely.

On that note, we'll see you next time.

See you, everyone.