Well, you've been playing too many LARPs recently and that sort of thing wears off on you. The problem with a LARP is that it is automatically player versus player, in order to create enough conflict to create an interesting scenario in a very limited time. Plus it's very hard to bring NPCs in to the game to be preyed on.
A good LARP will be set up so that everyone can get what they want if they work at it, sort of very much like the classic farce, and where there is a happy ending. Really good ones invoke the rules of poetic justice in doing so. [This is one of the reasons I think Fiasco is an excellent game, especially for developing this sort of thing at the tabletop.]
However most LARPS use the fact that there are limited resources to drive conflict, resulting in winners and losers. And because of the strong identification between the player and the character (remember all those rules to stop you acting fully as your character when you get carried away in the moment), if your character loses it often feels like you, the player, loses as well.
Additionally, when involved in a LARP campaign, you get the problem that your character becomes the measure of success in the game. This is true at the tabletop as well. Take away a character's gold and equipment and they may mutter about it, but they always know they can get some more. Kill a character, or even worse, drain their earned abilities, and you are directly attacking what they see as being successful. It's also why games where the PCs are "protected" for the sake of the storyline tend to be very uninteresting, as there is no risk to go with the reward. [This does not mean that the character should be gratuitously killed by a disease or someone dropping a chamber pot on their head (unintentionally, that is), but one shouldn't shy away from letting the character die when the system says they should die. Although it's good to make that clear from the outset.]
no subject
Well, you've been playing too many LARPs recently and that sort of thing wears off on you. The problem with a LARP is that it is automatically player versus player, in order to create enough conflict to create an interesting scenario in a very limited time. Plus it's very hard to bring NPCs in to the game to be preyed on.
A good LARP will be set up so that everyone can get what they want if they work at it, sort of very much like the classic farce, and where there is a happy ending. Really good ones invoke the rules of poetic justice in doing so. [This is one of the reasons I think Fiasco is an excellent game, especially for developing this sort of thing at the tabletop.]
However most LARPS use the fact that there are limited resources to drive conflict, resulting in winners and losers. And because of the strong identification between the player and the character (remember all those rules to stop you acting fully as your character when you get carried away in the moment), if your character loses it often feels like you, the player, loses as well.
Additionally, when involved in a LARP campaign, you get the problem that your character becomes the measure of success in the game. This is true at the tabletop as well. Take away a character's gold and equipment and they may mutter about it, but they always know they can get some more. Kill a character, or even worse, drain their earned abilities, and you are directly attacking what they see as being successful. It's also why games where the PCs are "protected" for the sake of the storyline tend to be very uninteresting, as there is no risk to go with the reward. [This does not mean that the character should be gratuitously killed by a disease or someone dropping a chamber pot on their head (unintentionally, that is), but one shouldn't shy away from letting the character die when the system says they should die. Although it's good to make that clear from the outset.]