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If you’re wondering why the Magic Missile Girl finds Joel saying ‘Lightning Bolt’ absolutely hilarious, it’s because she’s clearly seen this video:
Oh, Lightning Bolt kid. You are what most people think of when they think ‘LARPers’. *shakes head sadly*
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Rifts Says:
Dear lord, They ran into… GAIA FAGS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
May God have mercy on their souls.
Bobcat Says:
Yeah, there’s generally two breeds of LARPer. You get the Boffer Larper on the one hand, and the ‘alternate conflict resolution mechanism’ Larper on the other.
Unfortunately, most Mundanes see them as either ‘Lightning Bolt!’ or ‘People pretending to be vampires and playing Rock, Paper, Scissors’, and often assume that one or the other encompasses the entire genre.
Lascal Says:
Hey, but that Magic missile guy about three videos to the right is quite good
I have never been on a LARP, unfortunately. Although I have been invited to a one. It’s generally a Boffer, but there are also some political games, and quests to be done. And there is only one battle spell, which can be used only occasionally.
P-Noid Says:
Luckily, in Germany you have to speak 10 Words per each Rank of Spell your Casting, which means that kid would only have fired 1 rank1 Lightning Bolt…
Ever Seen a german Magus doing a Rank10 Airblast? Its DAMN Impressive!
Trabant Says:
Do I sense a “hipsters ruin everything” theme?
Derek Burrow Says:
…we were just talking about this on the car ride to a Mage: The Awakening LARP last night. Well, the talk was on one of the local boffer LARPs, NERO, which two of the folks in the car are really big on.
Funny how it keeps showing up.
Zile Says:
Lol, Alina, you’re the reason I took up LARPing in the 1st place and the one I ended up joining was the LARP this video is from.
BobisOnlyBob Says:
I play both indoorsy World of Darkness LARP – using either card-draw or R/P/S to do conflict resolution – and outdoorsy Maelstrom and Errin LARP. Maelstrom’s low-spellcasting, low-combat festival format with only a few OC words uttered for damage calls and everything else done by IC vocals and laminated cards. Errin is high-vocal, where spellcasting requires a three-second In-Character vocal, the name of the spell cast, and then the damage call (By the powers of fire within my blood, I send forth a FIREBALL! Mass Magic Five!” And no, we don’t have to throw objects to hit with spells. Line-of-sight with guess distances. It’s based on an older system called Treasure Trap.
LARP is pretty good, but I wish I had a clue what system the infernal “Lightning Bolt” video was using.
d Says:
1!!!1111!!!!1one!
Rozon Says:
I can safely say this video was my first introduction to the idea of LARPing back when I was in high school. Since then I have LARPed a couple of times and had a decent time, but I’ll always prefer table-top with some good roleplayers over getting into costume and doing interpretations of most things.
geekflip Says:
I’m not sure which is sadder: that the “lightning bolt kid” seems to be about my age (i.e. about a decade past being a kid), that he wears about the same garb I do in the summer, or that I use roughly the same tactics when I find myself hard-up enough to boffer LARP to get my “hitting stuff with sticks” fix.
SulphurTea Says:
Reason to lose faith in humanity #1052
Vorsaga Says:
Ah, yes…. I actually larp with this guy. (Not at that event, but at subsequent games.) We’re about ][ close to contacting the TV show Tosh.0 on Comedy Central for their “web redemption” segment.
Woggy Says:
hehe it is funny hearing a 15 year old american kid shout lightning bolt
Vorsaga Says:
@ BobisOnlyBob – The system is an independent LARP based in New England, so it isn’t based on World of Darkness or other nationally published books. That particular larp is at http://www.legendsroleplaying.com – and is one of the oldest, other than NERO, in the area. (And fwiw – the “phys reps” (physical representations) of the casting is a small birdseed packet.)
Vorsaga Says:
@Woggy – Oh he’s much older than 15…
Bobcat Says:
Derek: I’ve done NERO, and was one of the playtesters for the Mage Larp rules (you should have seen the rules we first were given!)
Currently working on a Science Fiction boffer larp with Nerf guns.. should confuse the mundanes.
Jaezel Says:
Urge…. to kills living netspeak…. rising…..>.>
COld Iron Says:
I do SOLARE out of kings mountain. Personally I find those types of overly hyper geeks to be a pain. We got a few at my larp some playing faeries that have made we think about inventing the fay-swatter.
Llewellian Says:
Yeah… the old thing… there is Larp and Larp.
You can see the difference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzwdHlWeHWs
xavhorse Says:
Honestly, there’s so much more to LRP than “Boffer” style and Mind’s Eye Theatre! Why anyone would choose giant foam cotton buds over proper larp safe foam latex weaponry is beyond me, nor do I think that playing paper scissors stone is a suitable combat alternative. Get your pagga on!
Check out http://www.legionofdreams.com for some quality larp in beautiful scenery, deep in the forests of England.
BobisOnlyBob: Maelstrom FTW! I’m with The Novak Carnival 8 )
Rainel Says:
Ah, lightning bolt kid. The reason I never get past the sentence “And once A month I go to LARP” when people ask me what I do with my free time. I think most anyone and everyone has seen this video, and thinks that this is what LARPers do. Of course I’m fairly certain that if anyone who made fun of LARP actually went to one they would either A) actually enjoy it or B) get their butts stomped into the ground.
I know many people who play NERO and say that it’s fun, though I have yet to actually go. The LARP I go to is a fairly tight knit group of people who all know eachother and hang out after game is done. It’s a great game with great story line and awesome people. I’ve also been to the local LARP vs LARP event that happens once a year, The Blood Games, which is simple but tons of fun as well.
Now if only we could get all of the people who watch this video to actually go to a LARP…
geekflip Says:
@xavhorse Because I don’t want to pull my swings or touch other players very lightly… which is why I prefer Belegarth or Dagorhir (i.e. Medieval Combat Sports) to Amtgard, and have trouble with NERO (LARP). The only reason I use throwies is when I play Amtgard and I need to deal with someone playing a casting class. Also, my swords aren’t giant foam cotton buds, and I am not a fan of how the latex weapons swing. Really, I just need to get back into SCA heavy fighting, but it doesn’t allow for much shieldwork ;; I suppose there’s always live steel…
I am not a well person, am I.
samantha Says:
don’t forget ‘magic missile’ from fear of girls.
BobisOnlyBob Says:
@Vorsaga: Good to finally know the source of it! Errin’s an independant system too, but our magic is physrep-free, and our combat is heavy and brutal. You come out with bruises, and our weapons are still safety-checked to Maelstrom standards.
@xavhorse: Legion of Dreams gets mentioned down here in Norfolk (UEA Games Society) a fair bit, but the local system and Maelstrom are the two big ones for the boffer-LARPers. We also run 5 concurrent World of Darkness indoor games here, including the last remaining active game of the ever-running UK:Masquerade Chronicle. We also run a Nerfgun-based Zombie LARP! Check it out: http://zombielarp.co.uk/
Sen Says:
We got a few of these to actually come to a NERO event that my friends run (San Francisco chapter) and they loved it. And yes, Rainel, we stoped their butts into the ground first, just to show them how its done.
Oh, sorry, its not NERO, it’s Alliance heheh whatever
Mouse Says:
Why all the hate against lightning bolt guy? Personally I think he has pretty great enunciation, I think it’d be easy to stay in character playing with him. True, I haven’t LARPed like that since I was 10-years-old, but I see no reason why I wouldn’t have as much fun playing like this even as an adult.
Toaster Says:
Err, Bob. It’s not the last active UKM game. Yet.
But there is a very active LARP community around the Uni here in Norwich. Something I’m glad off.
xavhorse Says:
@geekflip I don’t know what kind of larps you’ve been going to but here in the UK, we like a bit of a ruck 8 ) It’s not full contact but we’re not touching each other up either! If you’re stateside, check out Calimacil for beautiful, well balanced larp swords. Apparently, the Canucks like it full on 8D
@Bob I think you know my girlfriend Nicole Younie 8 ) She sent me the link to zombielarp last week, looks like fun and I have a ton of nerf guns, I’ll try and make it out there sometime. You may be interested in the 40k larp running at Stockwood next March.
MPL Says:
I watched this video, and then did some math homework where most of the problems were solved the same way. All I could imagine is the same dude going “Dominated Convergence! Dominated Convergence! …”.
Aaaand I just managed to make Larp even geekier. Oops.
geekflip Says:
@xavhorse I was just going by the rules for the Legion of Dreams site you linked, but I’m guessing the EU version is a bit more rough and tumble. My preferred ones allow grappling (as long as you’re not in armor). The Canadians do play pretty hard and fast, based on what I participated in on my last few trips to Montreal (that’s where I first actually got to handle latex weapons actually), but I like the heft of the ones I make myself. I’ll have to look at Calimacil, though (I’m mid-western US…). Pretty toys are pretty toys after all.
Brock Says:
I went as this kid for Halloween once, not so many people got it, but those that did almost peed themselves.
Nyren Says:
This video is allegedly the cause of quite a bit of trouble for the Theatre-style LARP community that I’m a part of. We run games pretty exclusively at local colleges, and we appear to be having unexpected trouble recruiting new players these days. That makes getting game space hard, since why would a college club reserve space for us alumni if the current students don’t LARP?
When we ask people who would find Theatre-style LARPing interesting why they won’t join any games, they say they think running around shouting “Lightning bolt” is retarded. *headdesk* We should go back to calling it by the old pretentious name “Interactive Literature” like we used to a couple decades ago and leave the incredibly misunderstood term of “LARP” to the boffer LARPers
Magnight Says:
I’ve thrown Break Limb and Pain spells at Lightning Bolt Guy before at a LARP around here.
Goooood tiiiiiiimes.
Legends Says:
This dude was about 25 when this video was made.
RbSnedd Says:
How old is this video?
It kind of reminds me of how UK LARP (they called it LRP back then) was back in in the early `Treasure Trap` days around 1983.
Quinn Says:
The funny thing is this actually happened, we were sitting in Denny’s and had a new server who herd we were the LARPer group. She said “Magic Missile” I was dumbfounded since at the time I had never heard anything about Boffer and was completely confused.
Chuck Ogreking Says:
I’m in this video.
I was an owner of the game when this unedited first attempt at a promotional clip was first leaked, and we all got a lot of grief over it.
THIS makes me happy, though.
http://attractiveeightieswomen.com/institches/03lightning.mp3
gnrrrg Says:
Razorleaf! Oops, wrong game.
Rbsnedd Says:
With what you call `Boffers` you have your “I`m Urg, 10th level Barbarian and Mercenary” types and your ” I was at the Gathering in 902 with the Bears Faction (Caledonians) when we made a deal with the Dragons (Erin) to pass through each others battlelines and attack the Tarantulas (drow) in a perfect flanking maneuver” types.
Blue Says:
By the way… “The Big Bang Theory” is NOT the only show about our people. Find “The IT Crowd” – it’s a British show, it’s on Netflix’s Watch Instantly, and I will bet you a BAJILLION DOLLARS that it is WAY funnier than Big Bang. BAJILLION!
Rbsnedd Says:
On the subject of humerous LARP videos, have you seen this one? [url]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5nl_Z3kcSw[/url]