Live action roleplay

Live action roleplay is roleplaying with your body instead of a character sheet. You have a character, you wear their clothes, and for the duration of an event you are them — talking to other people who are also their characters, inside a fiction everybody has agreed to maintain. There is no audience. That is the single most important difference from theatre and the one that takes newcomers longest to believe: nobody is watching, because everybody is in it.

The reason it is hard to find out about is structural rather than secretive. Everything written about LARP is written by a system, for players of that system — rulebooks, event pages, world lore, kit standards. There is very little that explains the hobby from outside, because the people who could write it have no reason to and the people who need it have not arrived yet. That gap is what this page is for.

The other thing worth establishing immediately: it is not one hobby. A weekend fest event with two thousand people in a field, a twelve-person murder mystery in a hotel, and a Nordic-tradition piece about grief with no combat at all are all called LARP and share almost nothing except the word. Working out which one you are looking at is the first useful skill.

What you are doing

Being a character, not playing one

Who is watching

Nobody. Everyone is in it

What varies most

Which kind — they barely resemble each other

What a first event costs

£15–£150, and kit can be £20

There is no such thing as the rules of LARP. Every system has its own, they are genuinely different in structure rather than in detail, and a general summary would be wrong at every specific event somebody attended.

What is worth knowing is the shape most systems share. There is a way of resolving whether an attack worked, usually a call and a number rather than a dice roll. There is a way of representing skills your character has and you do not, usually a card, a card-and-call, or a physical token. There is a way of representing things that cannot happen physically — magic, poison, disease, locks — usually a phrase spoken aloud that everybody has agreed to obey. And there is a distinction between what your character knows and what you know, which every system takes seriously and which is the hardest discipline for a new player.

Learning a specific system takes an evening with its rulebook and one event of getting it wrong. Nobody expects a newcomer to have it right, and getting it wrong is not the faux pas — pretending you have not is.

1. 1

   Step 1: Find one event, near you, that is running in the next three months

   Not a system to commit to — one event. Most systems list events publicly and most have an obvious "new players" page. Geography matters more than genre at this stage, because the thing that stops people is travel rather than interest.

   You will know it worked when: A specific date rather than a vague intention.

2. 2

   Step 2: Go as a monster or crew for the first one, if the system offers it

   Most fest and campaign systems let you play the opposition — creatures, NPCs, the other side — for a much reduced fee or free. You get costume provided, you are told exactly what to do, you see the whole event from inside, and you owe nobody a character. It is by a distance the best first experience available and it is chronically under-advertised.

   You will know it worked when: A whole event experienced, for almost nothing.

3. 3

   Step 3: Email the organisers and say you are new

   This hobby is unusually good at this. Most systems have somebody whose actual job is new players, and saying "I have never done this, what do I need" reliably produces a helpful answer, often including an offer to lend you things.

   You will know it worked when: A person expecting you.

4. 4

   Step 4: Assemble the cheapest kit that meets the standard

   Charity shops and your own wardrobe. Plain linen-look shirt, plain trousers or a plain skirt, boots, a belt, no visible modern logos. Nearly every system publishes a minimum standard and it is deliberately low for newcomers.

   You will know it worked when: £20–£60, and you look like you belong.

5. 5

   Step 5: Write the simplest possible character

   One motivation, one thing you are good at, one reason to talk to strangers. Elaborate backstories are the classic beginner mistake — nobody else will ever learn it, and a complicated character is harder to play, not easier.

   You will know it worked when: Somebody you can actually be for a weekend.

6. 6

   Step 6: Arrive early and find the new player briefing

   Every system runs one and it covers exactly the things this page cannot: the safety calls, the specific etiquette, where the out-of-character area is, and what to do if something goes wrong.

   You will know it worked when: The local rules, from the people who own them.

• In character and out of character are real states — There is a way of signalling each — a hand gesture, a headband, a designated area — and the boundary is respected absolutely. A player who is out of character is not there, and is not spoken to as their character.
• What your character knows is not what you know — You will overhear plots, you will see people die and come back, you will know who the traitor is. Acting on that is the single worst thing you can do in this hobby, and everybody is watching for it much less than you fear.
• Losing is content — The largest adjustment from tabletop and from video games. Being defeated, robbed, deceived or killed is not a failure — it is the story working, and a player who cannot lose gracefully has a bad time and gives one.
• Play to lift, not to win — A widely-held principle: your job is to make the people around you have a good time, and theirs is to do the same for you. It is why an obviously unwinnable scene is often the best one of a weekend.
• Nobody cares how good your kit is — Everybody worries about this and nobody else is looking. The player in a charity-shop shirt who talks to people has a far better weekend than the one in £600 of leather who stands at the edge.
• Talk to strangers, because that is the game — A LARP where you stay with the people you arrived with is a camping trip. The whole mechanism depends on characters meeting characters, and the awkwardness of the first approach is universal and lasts about an hour.
• Volunteers run all of it — The people organising, refereeing, cooking and monstering are almost always unpaid players. Thanking them, and crewing an event yourself eventually, is the economy the hobby runs on.

Almost every bad first experience in this hobby is somebody turning up to the wrong kind. These are the distinctions that actually change the day.

• Fest LARP — Hundreds to thousands of players camping in a field for a long weekend, in a persistent world with factions, politics and battles. The image most people have of LARP. Enormously social, physically demanding in the ordinary camping sense, and the version where kit standards are most visible.
• Campaign or chapter LARP — The same characters meeting regularly at a smaller scale — a weekend every couple of months, tens rather than thousands of players. Deeper relationships, easier to keep up with, and much the easiest thing to start with.
• One-shot and freeform — A single self-contained event with characters written for it, often indoors and often in a day. No commitment, no world lore to learn, and the best possible first taste. If you are not sure whether you like this at all, this is the answer.
• Nordic-tradition LARP — A distinct movement, largely Scandinavian in origin, more interested in emotional and thematic experience than in winning or in combat. Frequently has no rules system at all in the usual sense. Some of it is closer to participatory art than to a game, and people arriving expecting swords are startled.
• Combat-heavy against combat-light — A dimension rather than a category, and the one to check first. Some systems are built around large battles; others have players who have never fought once in five years. Both are normal and the event listing usually says.
• Boffer, latex and airsoft-adjacent — How the fighting works, where there is fighting. Most UK fantasy LARP uses latex-over-foam weapons with a strike-and-pull convention; some systems use different technologies entirely. This affects safety standards and what you may bring.
• Genre — Fantasy dominates, and post-apocalyptic, historical, science-fiction, horror and modern-day systems all exist and are all healthy. Genre matters far less to your enjoyment than scale and combat level do, which is the opposite of what newcomers assume.

• A second event with the same system — The step that decides whether this becomes a hobby. The first event is disorienting for everybody; the second is when the world and the people start being familiar and it clicks.
• A character with connections rather than a backstory — The real progression in play. A character who owes somebody something, wants something from somebody, and belongs to a group has stories arriving; one with a beautifully written past has none.
• Making or commissioning kit — Where a large share of players end up, and where LARP overlaps with half this catalogue: leatherwork, sewing, prop making, mould making, costume. Many people arrive as players and leave as makers.
• Crewing and monstering — Playing the other side, on purpose, for the fun of it. Experienced players do this regularly and it is where a great deal of the hobby’s goodwill comes from.
• Refereeing and organising — Running events, writing plot, handling the logistics. Unpaid, substantial, and the reason the hobby exists.
• Writing and running your own — A one-shot for twelve friends in a hall is an achievable first attempt and a completely different craft from playing — closer to game mastering and to theatre production than to acting.
• Travelling to other traditions — UK fest players going to Nordic events and vice versa, which is usually a considerable shock and frequently changes what somebody wants from the hobby.

LARP looks more dangerous than it is. The risk level in practice sits well below most outdoor sports in this catalogue, and that is not luck — it is the product of a strong and explicit safety culture that newcomers meet in the first ten minutes.

The rest of the safety culture, which is worth knowing before you arrive:

• Safety calls stop everything, immediately — Every system has words that pause the fiction — commonly one for a real emergency and one for stepping out of an interaction you are not comfortable in. They are not negotiable, nobody asks why, and using one carries no social cost. Learn your system’s at the briefing; they differ.
• Combat is pulled, and this page does not teach it — LARP fighting is delivered at a fraction of real force, judged continuously against the person in front of you, and the skill is restraint rather than power. That is a continuously modulated physical judgement made against somebody who is also playing, and it is taught in person at the event, in a briefing, by people who then watch you do it.
• Head, neck, groin and hands are off — Universal, and among the first things any briefing covers. The specific target rules vary by system and the exclusions do not.
• The field is a field — The commonest injuries at fest LARP are not combat at all — they are trips in the dark on uneven ground, guy ropes, tent pegs and cold. A head torch with a red filter, sensible boots and knowing where your tent is are the actual precautions.
• Consent tools exist and are used — Beyond the safety calls, many systems use explicit mechanisms for negotiating intense content in advance — what your character can be subjected to, what you would rather avoid. Using them is normal and experienced players use them most.
• Alcohol and the fiction — Policies vary sharply between systems and some are strict about it. Worth reading rather than assuming, particularly at camping events.

• Clothing that reads as the setting — Plain, unbranded, natural-looking. Charity shops are the standard source and nobody minds. £20–£60 covers a first event comfortably.
• Boots you can stand up in for twelve hours — More important than anything else on this list. Fest LARP is a walking activity that occasionally involves a sword, and blisters end a weekend faster than anything.
• A weapon, if the system uses them — bought or borrowed — £60–£150 from an established maker, or borrowed for a first event, which most systems will arrange. Never homemade for a first event.
• Camping kit, for fest events — The hidden cost, and the one that decides whether the weekend is good. A tent, a proper mat and a sleeping bag rated for a British field in April: £100–£250 if you do not already camp.
• A head torch with a red filter — Cheap, and the difference between navigating a field at night and falling over a guy rope. Red because white light destroys everybody’s night vision and the atmosphere at once.
• Water, food and something warm — People consistently underestimate all three. LARP is more physically demanding than it looks and British weather does what it does.
• Armour, later or never — Leather and metal armour is £150–£600, heavy, and entirely optional. Plenty of long-standing players never own any.