On a lark I picked up the new Mind’s Eye Theatre. I always managed to avoid LARPs as a kid but for some reason the idea is appealing to me now - perhaps due to the fact that 90% of my friends in Ottawa have scattered to the four winds over the past two years and I could use to make some new local friends. ANYHOO… I gave it a quick browse last night and found the similarity to the tabletop whitewolf stuff to be welcoming to the extreme. Borderline enthusiastic, I set out today to investigate whether or not there were any local Camarilla chapters or, if not, some independent games that I could join.
Unless I’m totally off the mark, some kind of nuclear weapon has detonated in the LARP world or at the very least their online presence. Pretty much every LARP website I went to is either dead, either utterly (404s) or effectively. This includes the Canadian Camarilla franchise. Their webserver seems to have lost all content and is tossing back default Apache content for all requests. Hell, even White Wolfs official Camarilla website is seemingly dead - half of the links don’t work! I did manage to find an old World of Darkness LARP in Ottawa that seems to be at least remedially active but I’m not very enthusiastic about the oWOD - I’m one of the few people who though the reboot was the best thing they could have done. All the same, I may give them a looksy - given the state of the landscape I don’t think I can afford to be too choosy.
I’m not surprised the LARPs are suffering. World of Warcraft is a brutal foe who’s impact on tabletop gaming has been observed (although I’ll be damned if I can find my references for this one) for some time now. Additionally, I have to wonder if Second Life is eating into their participation at all. It seems to be an ideal medium for moving LARPs into the online world. Perhaps it’s worked too well…
2 responses so far ↓
1 zlanth // Dec 21, 2007 at 9:57 am
I have to agree with your sentiment regarding World of Warcraft. I think there’s a few underlying reasons.
For things like D&D you have to schedule with several other people. People can’t always make it and this can impact the flow of the game. Warcraft on the other hand? Username, password, instant gratification.
I’m sure we’ve all nerded-it-up and had arguments over rules, especially with a DM. With Warcraft you don’t have that issue. Mind you, its “Warcraft’s Way or the Highway.” But you know you won’t be wasting all kinds of time arguing over obscure rules :D.
How about trying to find a new crew to play with? Hmm, I can spend weeks hanging ads at a store like Fandom, or I can log into Warcraft and be in a party or raid within minutes.
I’m a WoW fan myself, but it really is too bad. With tabletop gaming you are only limited by imagination. And while WoW has a lot of advantages, its so faceless — unlike a group of friends hanging out.
2 Catherine // Jan 21, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Hi,
I was doing a little Larp research on google, and your site came up. Since I moved back to Ottawa, I have been looking for a bunch of people to larp with, but up to now research have been fruitless.
My boyfriend has been running Larps for years in England (good one to my opinion). Now that he moved here with me, and is hoping to run a new game but we haven’t found players and venue yet. I know this will look odd, and out of the blue, but it be nice to be in contact, if you and any other people you know would want to play. We are not setteled on a game yet, he was thinking of WOD demons hunters, or the classic vampires, but it can be adapted to whatever people want.
Just so you know, I’m not a psycho, I finished my degrees and have job in a local museum. I just love Larps and tabletops for the stories.
Anyway, feel free to contact me,
cath_emond@hotmail.com
Catherine
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