Where Are My Generic Quests?!

Ok, so I haven’t been LARPing for too long, and I must say that for my few events that I have attended I have been quite timid in my playing of them. But the thing that pleased me most was how many of my joyous geeky expectations were met and many totally surpassed.
But there was one thing that shocked me. It wasn’t the Drow lady running round barely clothed in the freezing rain in the middle of April, or the Orc horde drinking pints quite politely at the tavern. It was the lack of basic questing.
Being a veteran, quite proudly might I add, of many computer RPG’s, I began to noticing the pattern years ago of the standard “Oh no my half elf husband stole my favourite pair of leaf slippers and tossed them into yonder lake, could you, fair squire perchance retrieve said footwear and battle a small band of conveniently placed goblins to bring them safely back to me?” mission. The kind that got you a little XP and a small bag of gold in return for a little of your game time, mainly in order to get you into the game, get a feel for your characters and do a little exploring.
The first hour of my LARPing experience I expected to be sent on a few of these kinds of things to help me get to know places, people and what is that large group of white tents over there that half of the entire attendance are all heading towards…
Given the title of this wondering, I’m sure you guessed that my first hour was filled with sadness. Although slightly bored of the mindless “My cat is up a tree” quests that appear in RPG games these days, I was at least hoping for one or two at my LARP for posterity at least!
Now I don’t know if this is due to fiddling little quests being a big burden on plot teams, or whether people are just not interested in these types of things at a live roleplay, but wouldn’t only serve to enrich the experience. Help those new to the game get a sense of what is going on around them? Feel like part of the world they have paid probably £30 plus to be a part of? I’m not saying that the guy who’s the champion of your faction being sent out to quell a vicious uprising of rats in the tavern cellar, but for the newbie’s a little plot that doesn’t take a years attendance at the events to understand would surely be nice.
I think what I’m trying to say is “PLOT TEAMS! ASK ME TO DO MORE MUNDANE TASKS PLEASE!!!

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.