Vampire LARP: Role Playing with a Bite

Role playing has long been a favorite gaming activity. In truth it is amateur acting when the game is played properly. It was inevitable that people would leave behind the table top and take to becoming their characters more completely, however. Currently one of the hottest LARP, live action role playing, experiences going is the concept of the vampire LARP.

How to start a Vampire LARP

There are many ways to start a live action role playing sessions with vampires as the central theme. One of the simplest methods is to use White Wolf's Vampire: The Masquerade gaming system which is an official ruling on how to LARP within that world setting. White Wolf is known as the first live action role playing system created by a major company and it utilizes all the standard concepts from the game such as experience points, equipment costs, and the powers of human, vampire, and ghoul.

There are other ways to do this however. You can create the gaming system from scratch, and half the fun of this is the actual game creation process itself. Design the world setting, create characters, choose whether you will perform decisions on who wins and looses based on the rock, paper, scissors method of the White Wolf system or if you will have an official dice roller who does not LARP but instead acts as both the master of the game and the "Hand of Fate".

Devise hand signs or grant special equipment that is supposed to represent specific powers that the characters themselves cannot mimic. Such concepts as becoming invisible, creating fog, and turning into a bat, will be determined based on the type of powers the characters are allowed to have in the world.

Once your troupe of people that enjoy the action of a good vampire LARP have gotten enough experience, both in the game and as an acting group, there can come more elaborate forms of interaction. Some people go all out with period costumes, for whatever period the game takes place in, and historical or fantasy replicas of items such as swords.

There are no limits beyond what the imagination and creativity of the LARPers involved can come up with. Some individuals go to great expense for costumes, equipment, and set design. Others come in reasonably interesting costumes and role play every aspect including the time of day if it is different than the time that is currently in existence in the real world.

The practice of LARPing is an entertaining way to spend time with your friends. It can really shake up gaming sessions that might have grown stale over the table top and allow people to truly embody the characters they love. In all seriousness this is definitely a concept that enterprising individuals should consider sinking their teeth into.

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