Player Resources
Imagine all the adventure, action, and intrigue of your favorite fantasy books, movies, and tabletop/video games.
While enjoying these classic stories, how often have you thought to yourself, "I wish I could do that"?
At a LARP event, you get the chance to live out these stories. You will pack your bags, travel to a private site, don your costume and weaponry, and join a group of incredible creative people in an event of fully immersive collaborative improvisational storytelling and play a game unlike any other.
LARP is Live-Action Role-Play, but that’s just an acronym.
Alliance LARP often incorporates three main aspects to gameplay:
Role Playing
Physical Skill
Social Interaction
In regards to the role-playing aspect, you portray a character. For Player Characters, you’ll stick with one character of your own creation throughout the course of an event. Your backstory and costuming are of your own design, and your skills are of your own choosing with Experience Points you gain for events you attend or cover. If you join the ranks of our hard-working Non Player Characters (NPCs), you could end up portraying anyone from a traveling merchant to a monstrous terror of the night.
LARP games are typically full immersion events, meaning all players and staff are typically acting in-character for the duration of the event, which can typically last from 1-5 days. This level of immersion results in a rich escapism experience unlike any other, and the more you, as a participant, are invested in your character and their journey through role playing with others, the better and more unforgettable your experience will be.
The live action aspect means that anything you choose to do, you are actually doing it, to a degree. Your success is not usually based on a button press or a dice roll, but on actual physical action. If you want to sneak your way past guards, tell a stirring story, fight epic battles, or decipher a secret message, you get the thrill of actually doing it yourself.
Combat is typically a significant part in Alliance LARP events. Players will often duel with each other or fight side by side in sprawling battles against NPCs. Much of the thrill of the event for players comes from a fight against an epic foe. The Alliance ruleset is classified as a "lightest touch" combat system, meaning that fights may occur with special weapons and small projectiles using a ruleset that ensures that action is both immersive and resonably safe for participants.
In Alliance LARP, there are some things that are represented by other actions or verbal calls within our rules when the real action would be impossible or unsafe to do in real life. For example, if any of our players have figured out how to evoke real flame bolts, they certainly haven’t shown the rest of us how to do it. Instead, we represent spells by speaking an incantation laid out in the rules and throwing a spell packet at the intended target. Weapons may at first appear real, but they all must meet safety guidelines before they are used to hit someone. Though the combat is physical, the safety of everyone involved is a top priority at Alliance.
The LARP community is a rich and vibrant one, full of people from nearly every walk of life. After all, the bonds forged in the wild and dangerous lands of Fortannis have a way of making their way into the real world as well. Many people find that when they join a game, they not only get to befriend the other characters they meet, but the people behind the characters as well.
Many local Alliance LARP chapters provide opportunities to socialize outside of game. LARP communities exist to support players and are often a new player's first stop to learn about the game and how to play. Check out your local chapter for online chats, social media presence, volunteer events, and social hangout events.