LARPing: in the boxes?

[M. J. Young]

Whoa. I miss a day, and look what happens.

I'm going to suggest that the core concepts of the three creative agendae central to the Edwards theory apply to all forms of role playing, and to most other forms of social interactive entertainment (e.g., games). I'm not a LARPer, and have only known a few, but I've read quite a bit about the experiences and seen a lot of similarities between it, traditional roleplaying, MUD/MUSH/MMORPG play, and other forms.

I'm going to oversimplify those three creative agendae, because to some degree having them too simple and then clarifying them is easier than starting too strict and broadening them. Understand that these simplifications may admit some errors in their application, but that they're close enough to give the flavor. Also, I always speak of creative agendae in terms of player motivations; Ron always speaks in terms of observed player conduct. We actually do agree on this subject, but it requires a rather careful delineation of exactly what "motive" means.

If you play the game in order to test your skill or show your ability to others, to meet the challenge or otherwise shine for your superior ability, you're playing gamist.

If you play the game to explore moral, ethical, religious, legal, or personal issues of the sort that would or could be the center of a great work of literature or a morality play, seeking to create a story about how people were impacted by their choices in these terms, you are probably playing narrativist.

If you are most interested in the experience of being here, of that great intellectual exercise of being someone somewhere, walking in someone else's shoes for a while, seeing things that don't exist or going places you can't go or imagining what it would be like if you or the world was different than it is, that's simulationism.

So the question is, why do people play LARPs?

The obvious answer, and the same answer that applies to all social games, is that we play these games as an excuse to get together and interact with each other--it gives us something to do while we socialize. However, this is an inadequate answer, because it leaves us with the question still in front of us: why do people play these games, as opposed to something else? We could as easily (or more easily) socialize in the bowling alley or at the card table or playing pinball or eating cake and ice cream or drinking cocktails. Why do we play these games? What is their appeal, beyond getting us together?

The answer almost always is one of those three things: we play because we want to show off, or examine moral issues, or experience another world (simplified, again).

If there is some other appeal to LARPs that isn't really essentially one of these, I haven't heard anyone identify it. Those mentioned here seem mostly to be gamist and simulationist; I have heard of one LARP in which there were strong narrativist influences (and I think I agree that sheer numbers make narrativist play more difficult, but small LARP groups could pull it off easily.

As an aside, I think there was a bit of a reaction from some of us old-time "real" rpg players against LARP when it first started to emerge. In the late seventies and early eighties one of the charges raised by critics of RPGs (particularly among conservative Christians in the US) was that players physically acted out what their characters did, notably in casting spells. The answer to this universally was that the critics were idiots because they had no idea of what actually happened at the table--players did not act out what their characters did, but merely described it. Suddenly there was a group of gamers out there who were making the charges true--they were physically acting out whatever their characters did, and making the job of defending RPGs against these charges tougher. Apart from the reaction of "why do you need that?" on our part, there was also this other aspect of, "you're going to get us all in trouble". The immediate reaction was to ghettoize LARP as something abberant that was not representative of "real" role playing, and thus to maintain the defense that the critics were just factually mistaken about this. I'm sure I said more than once that real roleplaying games did not involve acting out the parts; I apologize for any offense that may have caused to LARPers, who certainly are real role players.

I think the concept of Exploration has to be renamed Experience in the larp version. Larp is not about exploring a collectively imagined space, but about experiencing a shared physical illusion created by consensus. These are similar, but not identical, as exploration demands a much greater degree of activity on the part of the player.

I don't see this as a difference in kind, but only in degree.

In playing RPGs (I find the designation "tabletop" irksome, because whether or not there is a table present seems irrelevant) it is often the case that players will wear costumes, bring props, decorate the room, and otherwise contribute to the shared imaginary space by the inclusion of real images. In LARP, you are using far more in the way of real images and objects--but you are still imagining that they are something other than they are. You may have someone playing the dragon; you may have five people in a dragon costume--but you are still imagining that it's a dragon. The shared imaginary space still exists; it is now informed by much more than the words spoken by the group, but it still requires a fair amount of imagining.

To suggest otherwise would be to suggest that the inclusion of artwork, props, costumes, and other aids at the traditional game stops it from being a traditional role playing game. Table top referees frequently become active, physically shaking hands with players to involve them in the story when an NPC would be shaking hands with their characters, putting on voices and affectations to convey character identity and personality, sometimes including hats or other bits of costume to help create the image. There is a border between RPG and LARP, but it's fuzzy and can't be pressed too hard.

Thus I think that exploration still exists, and that what you're calling experience is one part exploration and one hint that the majority of your LARPs in particular are simulationist, explorations of what it's like to be these people/creatures in this situation/setting.

I could be mistaken, but I think it's worth considering. Anyway, if someone told me that the reason they played was to experience what it's like to be someone somewhere, I would say that sounded like simulationism to me.

Does this help?

--M. J. Young

[Erling Rognli]

I quite agree that larp and verbal roleplaying* are closely related, and that the lines are blurry. Still, there are differences that warrant modification of theory, to make it relevant for larp, at least in the form it exists in Norway. As I pointed out, the american larp-culture, or at least my impression of it, and the norwegian tradition are rather different. It seems to me that american larps very often are verbal roleplaying games made physical.

[digression]
Physical in the american sense, that is. In Norway we are quite amazed by the percieved timidness of american larp. Larp concepts such as "Minds Eye Theatre", and its use of paper/rock/scissors is used as sort of a joke among norwegian larpers, as is the to us ridiculous "NO touching!!!" rule and the use of cards to represent props.
[/digression]

The way I see it, american larp simply hasn't realized its potential and remains, as I claimed in my last post, very close to its verbal roots. This might make the GNS-model as described by mr. Edwards more directly applicable to this form of larp, but as written it doesn't quite describe the larp-reality I am working within.

I agree that experience and exploration are quite close. However, I still think a distinction is in order, because in my opinion the term experience better describes the activity and attraction of larping. The difference between the use of props, physical acting and such in verbal roleplaying and larping is its purpose. In a verbal roleplaying game the purpose of such elements is assisting the exploration of an imagined space, through evoking and stimulating the players (and the GMs) imagination. In a larp the physical representations is what is actually being explored, which in my opinion should be distingusihed from the form of exploration utilized in verbal roleplaying, by terming it experience. The use of imagination in larp is primarily the suspension of disbelief, not the conjuration of an imaginary space.

Further, I think the creative agendas of the different modes when applied to larp deviate slightly from their verbal roleplaying counterparts.

The answer almost always is one of those three things: we play because we want to show off, or examine moral issues, or experience another world (simplified, again).

Simplifications are useful. These do apply to larp also, I think. But they cannot be realized in the same form as in verbal roleplaying. For instance, in narrativistic larp, there is the problem of the protagonists. A story cannot have too many of those. I have noticed that many here find the notion of narrativistic larps difficult to imagine, which I mainly think is due to thinking in verbal roleplaying terms. I have for some time now been working on a method, a tool for creating narrativistic larps, called Narrative Function. An article detailing it will be published in the Solmukohta book in february next year.

In short it entails analyzing the vision, the idea of the larpwrights and breaking it down into its essential narrative elements. These are then turned into narrative functions, which are tasks for individual players to handle. The narrative functions point out what a specific player is responsible for contributing to the larp as a whole, as a story, and they are communicated openly to the player.

The point is that a narrativistic larp of some size can never examine themes and issues the way it is usually done, in verbal roleplaying and also in films and books, by using linear stories and a small number of protagonists confronted with choices. The attraction of narrativistic larp, as I see it, is the satisfaction arising from an experience of essential participation in a story that in hindsight has value as a story, containing truth and beauty. To me, this is not identical to exploration of theme, as in verbal roleplaying.

Of course, I might be mistaken, being hung up in an understanding of narrativism in larp which predates my reading of Ron Edwards article on GNS. Still, I find this discussion highly rewarding, as it opens new perspectives on what larp is.

Best,

Erling Rognli

*I personally prefer the term "verbal roleplaying" over "tabletop", but it seemed like tabletop was the term used here - when in Rome, and so on...

[xiombarg]

I have extensive LARPing experience with boffer LARPs, Vampire LARPs, and ILF-style LARPS (closer to the Scandanavian model) in the United States, so I feel I can put my two cents in here...

In short, it's Incoherent Sim/Gam Writ Large, with no shared Creative Agenda and a very messy social contract, and it plays out about how you'd expect.  The theory applies beautifully, both to articulate why the parts that work well did indeed work, and also why the unsatisfying parts were unsatisfying.

This, by and large, summarizes my experiences in boffer LARPs and Vampire LARPs.

ILF-style LARPs tend to be more Sim with a slight drift toward Nar.

I see this as entirely a consequence due to size. It's tough to get everyone on the same page with only five people -- try doing it with 120.

This means the average LARP is going to have a few people whose play is largely Gamist, combined with a lot of hardcore Simulationist play. Narrativist play is next to impossible, as it's tough to get 120 people to agree on a story agenda, while "simulate the world" (i.e. very vanilla Sim) is very easy to agree on, even for Gamist-leaning players.

(This might, in fact, explain why Simulationism dominates in the RPG industry. If you consider the overall community of "everyone who plays the game" for a game that has more than five fans, it's very easy to use Simulationism as the "common ground". I think Jared's Beeg Horsehoe comes from mispercieving this situation -- it's not that Simulationism doesn't exist, but it's an easy "compromise" for largely Gamist and largely Narrativist players to reach if they don't realize what they're doing.)

The other reason for the tight, "balanced" rules is to try to dampen cheating. With 120 people, it's a lot tougher to be 100% sure you trust everyone. This is as misguided as it is with 5 people (social pressures will remove cheaters regardless of ruleset), but it's understandable where the idea comes from, as it happens in "tabletop" play as well.

I'd also like to say that Ron's "insight" is, indeed, an insight, at least for a lot of US LARPs, particularly Vampire LARPs. A lot of people attend LARPs with an agenda totally unrelated to roleplaying. Most notably, these people tend to default to Simulationist play when they do roleplay, creating a character that allows them to do what they actually want to do, i.e. socialize and/or get laid.

However, I do not see this as unique to LARPs -- it just becomes more obvious because, once again, of size. When you have 120 people, it's more likely you'll have some people who aren't in it for the game. But I've seen this happen with smaller groups as well. If you haven't encountered the gamer (usually female in a nearly-all-male group, but not always) whose main goal seems to sleep with everyone the group and/or use her social prowess to dominate a group of socially crippled gamers, then you've been lucky...

[Eero Tuovinen]

Now we are getting somewhere!

People seem to agree that the modes are relatively easily seen in larping. Even the narrativistic one - I've myself penned a game that was effectively a larp (or trivial to convert to one) and strongly narrativistic. This is quite clear both empirically and in theory - people still have essentially the same motivations when they go to the forest.

The aspect of the question I'm more interested in is how the other levels of the theory are affected by a larp. I myself suggested yesterday that there might be a difference on the level of exploration, in the sense that the things explored are irreducibly different in a way that affects all other levels. Our norwegian friends seem to agree, and this difference is what interests me in relation to the GSN theory.

I agree that experience and exploration are quite close. However, I still think a distinction is in order, because in my opinion the term experience better describes the activity and attraction of larping. The difference between the use of props, physical acting and such in verbal roleplaying and larping is its purpose. In a verbal roleplaying game the purpose of such elements is assisting the exploration of an imagined space, through evoking and stimulating the players (and the GMs) imagination. In a larp the physical representations is what is actually being explored, which in my opinion should be distingusihed from the form of exploration utilized in verbal roleplaying, by terming it experience. The use of imagination in larp is primarily the suspension of disbelief, not the conjuration of an imaginary space.

This is, to my mind, an avid summary of the most important difference (to which I myself alluded to, too) and points to how other such could be perceived. The "kicks" of the gaming styles come from so different sources that it's not at all clear how this might affect the agenda or modes.

The issue of the more specific techniques, stances and ephemerae is much easier, both because they are easier to perceive and because the differentiate much between tabletop games as well. OK, so larps usually use karma mechanics, sometimes drama - not especially surprising and cogent.

As I said above, I'd be surprised if the three modes didn't show up - if larping allows them, and it does, then why not? This doesn't however guarantee that these are the only modes, or that there aren't any other changes at that level. I suggested earlier a mode of Experience (not to be confused with mr. Rognli's social agenda of the same name). Why not, when this (multilateral information flow, that is) is unique to larping? There might be others, or this Experience thingy might not really be a mode (or not at least a significantly common one - I haven't heard of anybody confessing lately that they go where the action is when larping), but the point is that this needs some pondering.

Even more ephemeral is the situation with the social agenda and exploration, largely because of my limited understanding. How is mr. Rognli's idea, that exploration in a larp is centered on exploring actually the concrete situation and not imaginary reality through any kind of symbolism? I happen to disagree, but the point is that these things might affect the application of theory fundamentally if the primal stage of the activity is different enough.

Another possibility apart from mister Rognli's is the one I fumbled for in my first post - that there is actually something "wrong" with larps from an aristotelian viewpoint, and therefore the resemblance to tabletop games is almost coincidental. This idea flows from that most important difference I see: players being socially competent (meaning inhibitions don't stop play a tabletop would allow), the greatest difference is in the almost warranted multilinearity. Indeed, my only larp to date, the abovementioned narrativistic game, is interchangeably a tabletop game, as all action happens in one place. Remove this unity of place and plot and you have something a tabletop game cannot hope to do in the same character-driven sense a larp does (and don't start with those temp fixes - it isn't multilinearity if you have to skip back and forth all the time). From an aristotelian viewpoint this is all utterly wrong, and indeed larps aren't usually very story-driven - or rather there are many small stories, none necessarily with any great form as a story, constantly intermingling. Does this mean that whatever it is that is explored through a larp for sure isn't the thing a tabletop game does - a sequence of events, Characters embroiled in a Situation, constrained by a Setting? Hope this makes my frothing about masculine and feminine structures easier to understand.

Anyway, these are the kind of questions I'd be interested in, if you please. Or are these even real problems, am I seeing something that isn't there?

Narrativism in larping, some detail: I'll have to point out to mr Rognli that there is a substantial difference between how he uses the word narrativism from how it's used in the GSN theory (as I think he indicated might be the case). In GSN narrativism implies that there is abstract creation of symbolics going on during the game. Or as mr. Edwards puts it, there is a premise players actively address, perhaps creating a theme (which in an aristotelian work is simply consistency in premises and their manipulation).

Apart from that, what mr. Rognli (by the by, it is true that there are cultural differences in writing; I, like Tomas, find it more natural to speak of people in the third person on a forum. In a way it denotes that we are speaking to an audience) describes about his method, innovative as it is (I've great admiration for the nordic larpwrights who have lately started building structures rivaling the grand achievements of tabletop writers), it sounds to be a type of story simulation or even participationism (I'll just add this aside to maximize difficulty of reading), as far as GSN goes.

This terminological problem is for some reason especially prevalent in Finland, possibly other nordic countries. I frequently encounter larp intellectuals here who just aren't interested in learning how GSN uses these words; they assume that they know it already. Not implying that this is the case here, rather pointing out that it's good to get it out of the way.

Anyway, a narrativistic (in GSN sense) larp would be one that gave players sanction in choosing their actions based on their premise (whether prewritten or individually chosen; the latter is unlikely in a larp). Tools, significant premise and support are also in order for the larp to be narrativistic, instead of there just being narrativistic play in there. I imagine the latter is more common than some think: surely larpers recognize a plot when they see one, and strive to finish it satisfactorily?

I myself believe that a narrativistic larp of any scale is quite possible (assuming narrativism in a tabletop-similar form exists; see above). If I weren't so busy and outside the insider circles of larping, I'd write a smallish one for our norwegian friends, who, I presume, are coming to Solmukohta next year :) Mr. Rognli seems to have a good understanding of the differences between larp and tabletop storytelling, as proven by his characterisation of tabletop stories being linear and protagonist-driven. I just don't believe that a lack of these signifies an impossibility in narrativism (although it makes genre simulation almost impossible, and this is what I assume he means with the use of the word 'narrativism'), just that one needs inspired techniques.

To make this as clear as possible: genre simulation is when the game is structured to emulate a given type of story and storytelling. Narrativism doesn't necessarily consern itself with story at all; it's just that (the most important fact of literary theory) human minds see these things called stories where there is a premise addressed. A premise is a (moral; I disagree, but not the topic) question, a theme is a premise + it's answer, and a story is a theme put to anecdotic form. Mr. Edwards has chosen the terminology he has to differentiate strongly between where a premise has been answered preplay (genre simulation) and where the point of play is to answer the premise (narrativism).

I'll yack some about my narrativistic larp, to illustrate what narrativism is. It also shows clearly how, regardless of theory, larping and tabletop can be merged by a continuum of half-forms; indeed, this is a strong argument for the forms being just differing techniques.

A tabletop/larp for fifteen players, run under a guise of tabletop in the last Ropecon. The game was called "The Temple" (from the Lovecraft story) and it was strongly narrativistic. It was meant to be run in a full room, but due to space considerations was done around a big table. I should have billed it as a larp, those get more room in Ropecon, but that's life. To make it a full-blown larp one would just have to put in some props and designate the game area (a submarine).

The characters (prewritten) were submarine crew of Kriegsmarine in the WWII. The paradigm of the game was as follows: characters could do anything they wished inside the submarine, but it was explicitly guaranteed that they would fail in any efforts to affect the outer world or change the course of the ship. At the start GM promised that all characters would die in a hopeless situation, and asked the players to consentrate on choosing how to die. The premise "Will you die as a man or as a dog", reinforced through a number of techniques too lenghty to detail here. The actual system was GM fiat (with simple outlines), with the GM deciding case-by-case if characters succeed or fail in their actions. GM ruled simulationally in all cases, preserving a sense of reality in all description.

Now, this of course is by the story. At the start the submarine breaks, and hardly anything happens, apart from it drifting slowly and inexorably to the depths, there to discover a lost, inhuman underwater ruin. The story details the experiences of a prussian officer and how he is tempted by the Temple.

No doubt you all can fill in the gaps; the point is that this is an extreme example of narrativism in action, and in a larp-like game. Admittedly it lacked the most important larp facet, the simultaneous action in multiple locations without GM overview, but everything else was there. I wouldn't think it impossible to construct and execute a coherent narrativistic larp for a bigger player population. Hope this illustrated the term, at least.

Now, let's finish with a short comment about the out-of-game conserns in larps. Xiombarg interpreted mr. Edwards' insight as referring to the social outgrowths of larp scene. Much as we all might hate condescending, self-important larpers (that's a joke), one should remember that whatever negative behaviour can be seen, it is not relevant to a theoretical discussion if it doesn't spring out of the form itself. Otherwise players who aren't interested in the game and just want to hang out are a problem of the scene, not the form.

[xiombarg]

Now, let's finish with a short comment about the out-of-game conserns in larps. Xiombarg interpreted mr. Edwards' insight as referring to the social outgrowths of larp scene. Much as we all might hate condescending, self-important larpers (that's a joke), one should remember that whatever negative behaviour can be seen, it is not relevant to a theoretical discussion if it doesn't spring out of the form itself. Otherwise players who aren't interested in the game and just want to hang out are a problem of the scene, not the form.

I never claimed otherwise. In fact, I mentioned the issues Ron refers to happen in "tabletop" games as well. Hell, it arguably happens in all hobby-based gatherings -- just to a greater or lesser extent depending on how much opportunity there is to "subvert" the situation.

[Matt Machell]

The problem with LARP is large scale social contract. It's easy to get a group of five agreeing on what they are trying to do (even if not overtly stated), but thirty or seventy is a whole different matter.

As others have said, agreeing that everybody is playing with vaguely Sim goals is an easy default. Since LARP tends to be attractive to people who want an "immersive" experience (the costumes and tendency to stay in character as much as possible encourage this), most people tend to drift towards Sim by general agreement.

In many LARPS I've seen frustrated gamist goals(power advancement conflicting with "realism") and frustrated narativist goals (characters created with obvious thematic goals in mind dying because of arbitrary "realism" being a common one). This leads to furstrated players complaining that LARPing is boring, or not proper roleplaying, because their normal aims are not being met by the way LARP tends to work. Such players often leave, meaning the situation perpetuates itself.

Gamist play happens quite regularly in LARP, from old school style Dungeon bash games in Fantasy Boffer LARPs to the more political games of Minds Eye and Freeform scenarios ("Rules-less" games which rely on GM fiat)

Narativist play is certainly possible, and it's more common with small groups where the players have an understanding that they're all aiming for a particular goal. This is most successful when the Storyteller/Ref/whatever states upfront that there's a thematic question and uses GM fiat to help enforce it. There's little rules support for it though (I think the Nobilis LARP comes close, but it's a while since I read the rules)

From my experience then, the only difference between LARP and tabletop roleplaying is that the players are in costume and move around. And even these are optional. In general, it has the same mess of conflicting assumptions that tabletop does. So it fits nicely into the model really...

-Matt

[Eero Tuovinen]

The problem with LARP is large scale social contract. It's easy to get a group of five agreeing on what they are trying to do (even if not overtly stated), but thirty or seventy is a whole different matter.

To lighten the mood, let's take a look at this idea. It's certainly safer for most people's self-esteem, I think. You see, this problem is already solved, by restructuring play expectation to be such that players are educated for the larp in question. I have much good to say about scandinavian larp culture, for a change.

From what I've read, this "group inertia" is a thing that is quite easily controlled in modern scandinavian larps. I read a couple of days ago about the extremely fascinating swedish larp Mellan Himmel och Hav (Between Heaven and Sea) in which there is a massive infodump before the game to accomodate the alien world of the scenario. Here's a link to the review by Jaakko Stenros. Due to the frames one has to navigate there by clicking on the "Magazine" tab in the upper area of the page.

Point is, if you can teach people to simulate sex meaningfully by neck massages and reconstruct sexual and social roles for the game, you can have workshops about such relatively trivial things as common goals for the game. And this isn't any exception we are talking about here: as I understand it, it is an accepted part of a bigger larp today to start, if necessary, with an extented preparatory phase. It's not just that you come with your boffer to the assigned place at the right time, it's a much more integral project to make a good, artistic larp. Our norwegian friends can probably tell us more about this whole culture (I don't know either of you, but I got the impression that you are in this scene)? The thing I'm most impressed with in this new larp scene they do here in Scandinavia are these actual games, which rival Forge designs in innovation and intelligence. Now we'll have to just teach them to speak about it in a non-flammatory, non-insular manner, and we'll all be wiser for it. Larpers learning about scene framing and abstraction, tabletop players learning about real large scale vision and sophisticated scenario work ;) And it wouldn't hurt to start constructing some kind of commercial (in the lack of better word; I mean a system for disseminating these games; a culture of writing them down for free pdf-distribution would do it) basis for the form, but that is a subject for another thread.

Anyway, the point was there, albeit in my convoluted style. Of course if this workshopping seems impossible, as well as other ways of preparing players (e-mail seminar, anyone?), then one just has to acquiesce to substandard larps. With sufficient preplay communication you could probably even counter the curse I named earlier for fantasy larps: if you work enough with it, players would slowly start accepting innovation and you wouldn't have to limit yourself to adolescent fantasies like Myrskyn Aika. But note this: some larpwrights are already there, effortlessly restructuring social codes of gaming and everything else from scenario to scenario. It's a small thing to teach narrative play compared to some of these, like that Hamlet scenario; if players can memorize a shakespearean play just for the larp, I find it hard to believe they cannot learn to push in the same direction as conserns premise.

[kwill]

this began as a brief note to say although I haven't had enough time to
contribute, I have been eagerly reading, but typing on (and on) I'm now
thinking we may be ready to move into new and divergent threads...

we seem to agree that LARPing can be discussed within the boxes, but that the influence of the LARP technique filters both up and down - I'm not sure that we need new terminology, but each keyword certainly needs to be considered in the context of physical space and independent agents

(I don't want to brush over anyone's remaining concerns here, but we do seem to be at a point where we can discuss, frex, Simulationism as it relates to LARPing as opposed to whether or not it does relate)

eero's put in words where my difficulty was in analysing LARP in the box model: "multilateral information flow" (ie, the product of independent agents) - even in the case of a highly Illusionist LARP (ie, with strong but "invisible" GM guidance) or a LARP with a GM per player, information flow is very different from the shared-verbal-space(*) experience

(*) ha!

...I think this is a product of play that permeates the boxes, but doesn't invalidate them in discussing LARPing

I've definitely decided that the ease of Simulationist play in LARPing,
particularly with Drama ("freeform") mechanics is something that is not
neccesarily inherent to the LARP technique itself - my LARP-in-production is probably not Gamist at all (on reflection it just uses a in-LARP game as the social/temporal structure), but with this and the suggestion (or my reading) of a more abstract LARP experience in the sorcerer larping thread I'm considering less naturalistic options for future designs

for example, I have seen on the 'net a LARP outline where the player
characters where the ids, egos and superegos of three or four game-people (each game-person had his or her full quota of id, ego and superego) - the game consisted of intra- and inter-game-person dialogue where the shared physical space was presumably abstracted - I'm not sure how physical interaction between players or game-people was handled, but it's easy to see there are a range of options available where abstract does not equal "effectively tabletop"

to riff on one of the ideas mentioned in the http://www.indie-rpgs.com/viewtopic.php?p=93271">sorcerer larping thread,
imagine a physical space where the structure is a more active constraint on interaction - certain game-actions can only be made in certain areas, there are rules to movement between areas, physical considerations such as line of sight can be brought into play (hmmm... the Turing Machine LARP?)

finally, very briefly because it's practically dogma, I am certain that
System Does Matter in LARPing and the difficulties with, for example,
Narrativist play in LARPing, may be because GM-fiat or "consensus" Drama mechanics are not the ideal support for Narrativist play in any form of roleplaying

(I should briefly note, subject to correction, that a LARP that produces a good story on reflection/after the fact is not Narrativist; a Narrativist LARP should reinforce each player-character as a protagonist all the way through - is this even feasible? I have some ideas, but this is a subject for another thread)

boffer LARP, especially as described in Nero play, definitely adds a new resolution method to the DFK trio, "I hit him because I bloody well hit him" - I think it's sufficiently distinguishable from Fortune (I've been to the Nero website before, it sounds like a blast)

if you also see avenues for more specific discussion, get threading in the relevant forums - I don't think we need to agree on the fine details of using the box model in the context of LARPing, these can only be developed in real discussion, I think, not discussion-of-discussion

my contributions may be minimal for the while, but I'll certainly be reading and promise to discuss some concrete design ideas when I get my hands stuck in next year (larpwright, what a cool term!)