David (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} kuranes) wrote,@ 2009-09-24 03:36:00 |
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DARKON and the future of LARPing
So, a week or so ago, I watched this documentary called Darkon about LARPers (live-action role-players), which, if you don't know, are people who go out into the woods, dress up as medieval fantasy characters and fight wars between their native imaginary countries. It's actually really entertaining, due to how it contrasts the real lives of the people involved with their escapist fantasy lives, and actually made me feel sympathetic to something I still see as probably the dorkiest thing in existence.
If you don't mind small ad interruptions, you can watch it here: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/da
I actually watched it right about the time I was finishing Little Brother, which is a young adult book (a genre I actually hate, and the book was pretty trite at points but the tech stuff in it compelled me to finish it) that got a lot of awards recently. LARPing is also mentioned in Little Brother, so I actually got to thinking about it, and after a while I realized that LARPing is actually the future. I'm almost positive that anyone who's into gaming at all, even casually, is going to be LARPing in ten years time or more. The unspoken variable here is the forthcoming (inevitable, I think) innovation of video games as locative art or some sort of visual reality-overlay. If you've read Rainbows End or Spook Country, you know what I mean. I think in the near future we're going to see some sort of glasses-interface that you can wear, probably attached to some clunky backpack thing at first, then look through, and see computer-modeled overlays over real environments and people. So, you'll put them on in a designated park or woodsy or open area and see lizard men walking around, or your friend will come by and he'll look like he's wearing really awesome armor, or a spaceship will fly by , or (the coolest idea, I think) you'll have the ability to "cast spells" and see fireballs or electricity come out of your hands that would do in-game damage to your friends and any monsters wandering around.
This is LARPing. It's exactly what these people do, except they use props and their imagination, which makes the idea of playing a game like that much lamer. However, in 10+ years, I really think we're all going to be using variants of LARPing rules to play our reality-overlay games, because, even to someone who has never played video games before, that idea just seems too awesome to pass up. And the LARPers are going to see the new guys as total n00bs and poseurs because the LARPers were "doing it before it was cool."
If this doesn't happen, then video game companies would be passing up a chance to make an insane amount of money and completely revolutionize the way people have fun.
So, a week or so ago, I watched this documentary called Darkon about LARPers (live-action role-players), which, if you don't know, are people who go out into the woods, dress up as medieval fantasy characters and fight wars between their native imaginary countries. It's actually really entertaining, due to how it contrasts the real lives of the people involved with their escapist fantasy lives, and actually made me feel sympathetic to something I still see as probably the dorkiest thing in existence.
If you don't mind small ad interruptions, you can watch it here: http://www.snagfilms.com/films/title/da
I actually watched it right about the time I was finishing Little Brother, which is a young adult book (a genre I actually hate, and the book was pretty trite at points but the tech stuff in it compelled me to finish it) that got a lot of awards recently. LARPing is also mentioned in Little Brother, so I actually got to thinking about it, and after a while I realized that LARPing is actually the future. I'm almost positive that anyone who's into gaming at all, even casually, is going to be LARPing in ten years time or more. The unspoken variable here is the forthcoming (inevitable, I think) innovation of video games as locative art or some sort of visual reality-overlay. If you've read Rainbows End or Spook Country, you know what I mean. I think in the near future we're going to see some sort of glasses-interface that you can wear, probably attached to some clunky backpack thing at first, then look through, and see computer-modeled overlays over real environments and people. So, you'll put them on in a designated park or woodsy or open area and see lizard men walking around, or your friend will come by and he'll look like he's wearing really awesome armor, or a spaceship will fly by , or (the coolest idea, I think) you'll have the ability to "cast spells" and see fireballs or electricity come out of your hands that would do in-game damage to your friends and any monsters wandering around.
This is LARPing. It's exactly what these people do, except they use props and their imagination, which makes the idea of playing a game like that much lamer. However, in 10+ years, I really think we're all going to be using variants of LARPing rules to play our reality-overlay games, because, even to someone who has never played video games before, that idea just seems too awesome to pass up. And the LARPers are going to see the new guys as total n00bs and poseurs because the LARPers were "doing it before it was cool."
If this doesn't happen, then video game companies would be passing up a chance to make an insane amount of money and completely revolutionize the way people have fun.
