The Other Final: The LARPers

Armor, check; sword, check; cape, check. This isn’t the typical checklist for a Sunday picnic, but for a splinter group of the Oshkosh Gaming Society it’s the standard start to a great afternoon.

That’s because they are Live Action Role Playing gamers or LARPers. These brave men and women dress up in costumes to pursue their passion of role-playing games like Dungeons & Dragons.

While this pastime has made them targets for ridicule by their peers, LARPing is actually a big part of childhood development and was the foundation of the first role-playing games (RPGs). Many boys and girls, when they are young, partake in games like Cowboy’s & Indians or Cops & Robbers, which is essentially the same thing that the LARPs are doing.

“It is an escape,” said college sophomore Rob Mavshall, who has been gaming since he was 14-years-old, “from the mundane reality of life. It’s a chance to be someone who you would otherwise never be.”

Besides their age, another difference between the LARPers and millions of boys and girls across the nation is that they have better toys. They bring their homemade swords and shields, axes and armor to their gatherings and they use them.

These weapons are created from PVC piping covered in foam rubber and electrical tape, which holds the pieces together.

RPGs were developed into a finer form in the mid-1970’s by a company called TSR, who created Dungeons & Dragons. At first many people were apprehensive about letting their children take on the roles of sorcerers and monks to fight make-believe devils and in some cases angels. In fact many of the first RPGs were banned by religious action groups, driving those who played them underground.

Many contemporary child-development psychologists believe that role-playing games are safe, saying that they teach children and teens about real world consequences in a safe setting.

“I think it teaches kids creativity and problem solving skills,” said Junior UW-O student Justin Fowler, who has role-played for the past year-and-a-half. “It may even help with public speaking since players have to get up and speak to their peers.”
Despite the fact that there are research studies in favor of role-playing games, many groups still believe that dressing up in a costume and pretending to fight each other with foam rubber swords, is a path straight to hell.

“A fantasy role-playing game which uses demonology, witchcraft, voodoo, murder, rape, blasphemy, suicide, assassination, insanity, sex perversion, homosexuality, prostitution, satanic type rituals, gambling, barbarism, cannibalism, sadism, desecration, demon summoning, necromantics, divination and other teachings,“ the Reverend Fred Nile once said of Dungeons & Dragons.

Reverend Nile’s opinion was common of people in the mid-1980’s, but despite the popularity of this movement to ban gaming, RPG’s have seen huge success.

After the RPG revolution, a three-year period in the mid-1990’s where more than 20 new games were introduced on a monthly basis, a game was introduced which would create a whole new world of possibilities for LARPers: Vampire the Masquerade. This game offered people a chance to step into a world one-step removed from their own and take part in a game of politics, war and blood.

Despite the opposition to these games, LARPing is likely to be around in future years.
The shall continue to fight their cardboard cut out monsters, with their fake swords, helmets and shields. “When will I stop gaming?” Said Mavshall, “Probably when I die. There will be breaks in there, but I’ll never completely stop.”