User Blog:
Playing Your Character's Stats Instead of Thier Persona

I believe that it is important to play a character at LARP that deviates from your normal personality. Of course there will be similarities between your personality and that of your character; they cannot be escaped.

However I have noticed a decline in participants, whether PC's or NPCs, that role-play a character beyond their normal characteristics. This has lead to some devastating effects to the LARP community.
I call this kind of role-playing "role-play lite." It occurs when someone plays a character that is extremely similar to them except that the participant adds one or two quirks to 'make them different.'

The problem is that the character's underlying motivation isn't different than that of the person playing them.

It would be like Brad Pitt playing "Chad Bitt," a character in his latest movie who is entirely Brad Pitt with a poor French accent. He still adopts kids with Angelina and still 'lives the life' in all other aspects.
How fun or challenging is that?

I don't believe that it is. That's why I think that most players who take this approach to LARP end up putting in a token effort and then justifying their characters actions to ensure that they coincide with their own desires.

And it's killing LARP.

Players who do not immerse themselves into the atmosphere as their characters, thereby taking on the perspective of the character in that moment, inevitably look behind the curtain. That is to say that they see the game for exactly what it is without mystery or romance. It becomes a series of encounters with foam boffer weapons instead of epic battles where your life hangs in the balance.

I submit that once you take away the mystery and romance of the game you kill the passion behind your character. All that is left is the Player in a tabard, swinging pool noodle at someone. And that's not what LARP is about.

There are plenty of live combat settings that do not claim to provide a role-playing experience. Members get together simply to hit each other with plumbing supplies and pool noodle. While I don’t see anything wrong with that and occasionally partake myself - it's not role playing.