Why do you play...?

So as a Larper of pretty much 20 years I think I seen it come and go, the developments of the weapons and costumes and even rules.

I wanted to hear it from all of you.

What brought you here, the Larp world, and why did you choose your race, class, and archetype?

I would love to hear or rather read it. Go!

I was brought to this LARP in particular by a couple friends from college who went regularly. I saw them sparring at the Student Center, then ran into one in my 3d drawing class. She talked me into going back in 2002.

I NPCed for a few years while deciding on my main character, had a couple one or two event characters, then started Rayven in 2004. Initially I was going to pay an elf warrior, but I forgot the ears at home. Ran into "The Ardrum crew", they talked me into playing a barbarian instead.

Started the new character this year after paying an NPC for James that I straight up loved. The interaction I had with people as that NPC, particularly Alisandria, made me want to turn it into a PC.

I keep coming back, because no matter the problems you may have at game, in or out of game, there's always someone watching your back. Plus I get to beat up on Cooper.

I've been involved with TT gaming in one form or another for about 20 years. I first heard of LARP from the GM of a D&D2e campaign I played in when I was about 19, and had some interest in the concept since. Most of what turned up for LARP in my area were small, local OWBN groups that just didn't grab my interest. It was from a player in the D&D2e campaign I'm currently running that I learned of this organization. I started making my character in time for my first event - Witl '13.

My decision on character concept was fairly typical for a new-to-system player. I decided on a character like enough to me for comfort, and dissimilar to me enough to make it a little challenging.

I keep coming back for the people. Between the high standard of rp interaction that has more frequently than any other venue I play through provided vividly immersed gameplay, and the sense of community in and out of game, I'll stick around.

I was a table top and magic player and my friends talked about LARPing and going out into the woods and meeting people sounded fun so I decided to try it out.

I learned about KR years before I got to play (my first game would have been the New Gaaldron Summit but my dad did not want me driving in a car with a teenager driving) and was led to believe Wild Mages were DnD Sorcerers which pretty much sounded amazing to me (and man, the learning process of how wrong that was ended up being a bit funny)

I only played a Kormyrian because that was the only race that could be wild mages at the time. I was going to be the offense for my barbarian non-combat dad and my acrobat kiterian sister. They both decided they didn't want to go in the end though.

My parents would not let me go on my own until I was 18 (I even went to one or two awards banquets before I got to play, being that stranger girl that only knew a handful of people)

By the time I got to actually play Ilana, everyone I planned on knowing was no longer around, so I had to start from scratch.
The first three months were miserable for me, but I decided to keep trying because I know I'm terrible at meeting people on my own and eventually I found a niche.

Full RP led up to how Ilana is today and I try and enjoy it.

I learned of KR from the group of people I played MTG with in college. Before then I had been no stranger to tabletop and forum roleplay. (Is forum roleplay still relevant? ) That was 3ish years ago.

I will admit I was never good at making characters at first. Originally when I brought Ava in she was an Archer who turned into a mage the second game. More or less Ava's personality became what it was as my roleplaying skills progressed since I more or less played her to my best of my abilities. Eventually after lots of in game stuff she became a chaos warrior and that's really where I think she needed to be.

She was a Kormyrian because as a new player it was easier to not have to worry about detriments and it had access to every list. Everything else is less about flavor and mechanics (though those obviously play into it) and are more about what this character does for me.

I'm not the first and certainly not the last person whose character is a catharsis for them in some way. When I describe my character to my family who have no idea what LARPing is I say "She is everything crappy about me multiplied by 100" and of course their reactions are like "oh...." and they never ask again. I play the archetype I play merely because it's helpful to me as a person. It gives me a way to deal and explore all those unsavory feelings I get from everyday life. I obviously also enjoy the Archtype as Ava is. I just have fun. It's just the same as to why I created my alt Ciel, she is my reminder that I am a good person. This way when I need to get out negative emotions and feelings I play Ava. When I feel like I'm a piece of crap I can play Ciel who goes out of her way to help people.

I've been playing tabletop since I was 6 and running games since I was 10. I've been running a (plus or minus) weekly table top game consistently since 1996. I played every system I could, and in 2001 published my own tabletop game.

I've been larping since 1992, though since 2000 it's been mostly convention based anime themed rps convention larps. I've been running those larps once a year since 2002,and together with ree and my friends wrote a system for those kinds of larps, for which I maintain the character database.

We were drawn to KR because ree thought Sean Moulson looked cool at nycc at the KR booth.

I picked barbarian in part because I thought it would be the race easiest to get away with not knowing anything about the world,and Inn part because it went well with Ree's Dryad. I went Druid because of the desire to be woodsy and simple and because my favorite d&d character of all times was a Druid. I had debated healer, but am really glad I went the way I did.