Are there any Non-speaking roles in LARP?

[DAPorter]

I am so used to it now that I sometimes forget that I have trouble speaking aloud. (comes from only having about 45% of my tongue left)
I can make myself understood, but it takes a lot of concentration.

[Silverharp]

It depends on the LARP.
In a boffer LARP you need to be able to make your calls, spells and various effects heard clearly.
In a LARP such as Vampire or other WoD games you can make do, but I would suggest having a pen and paper handy in case things get hairy

Hope this helps!

[Crazeyal]

Actually, there's a Geebas strip where the Jennie got conned by a fellow LARPer who's character was mute. Most long running LARPs will make special provisions for people with disabilities. Just give them plenty of notice, so they don't have to make decisions on the field.

[roadgypsy]

many larps also focus on the combat only when in public exhibition, the one i mentioned earlier in the other thread didn't want to confuse the mundanes, tho not sure how many mundanes really attend a ren faire in the first place

[freiman]

I play with a couple of LARPs here in Europe, and there are tons and tons of non speaking roles, primarily those of monsters, but also interactable NPC's.

Of course, this is probably different than the way they are played in the states.

It's cool when our story tellers (game masters) work differing languages into a game system. With TalonLarp (my home larp after the SCA), English is the language of the fierce and haughty desert barbarians. We only drift out of our beloved desert occasionally, but when we do, only a small subset of players can speak our native tongue.

To me, it really adds something. I have been told that I will lose points if I speak any language besides English at a TalonLarp game.

Of course, one of "The People" would never sully their tongue to speak the language of the wetlanders anyway.

(I really hope that everybody gets the role play part of that)

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[sableagle]

English = Aiel?

[freiman]

English = Aiel?

That works in a way.

The Storytellers are a little more original that that though.

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[DAPorter]

Good advice all!
This does help ease my mind considerably.
I'll still likely make a fool of myself the first couple of times, but maybe not as much of one now.

[Evandril]

Or, if you're like the rest of us...You'll just be doing it deliberatly, rather than accidentally ;)

[Silverharp]

Good advice all!
This does help ease my mind considerably.
I'll still likely make a fool of myself the first couple of times, but maybe not as much of one now.

Honestly, if people try to make you feel shitty for halving part of your damn tongue gone? I'd say "screw you" and leave.
Part of LARPing is everyone having fun, not just whoever is the biggest jackass

[Crazeyal]

I'd say "screw you" and leave.
Part of LARPing is everyone having fun, not just whoever is the biggest jackass
Actually..

That sounds a bit defeatist to me.

There are ALWAYS jerks.

People can be impatient, uncaring, selfish, and downright PURPOSEFULLY WRONG. But not everyone chooses to do so. If you have something that makes issues for you, leaving at the first sign of trouble is the LAST thing you want to do.

Letting the LARP know there is a problem, actively trying to set up a soloution beforehand, and thickening one's skin (to give the morons who feed on strife a bedtime without supper) is the better approach.

[Silverharp]

I should clarify: What I'm talking about is if those playing and running the game see such behavior as acceptable.
If I'm running a game, and I see a player giving crap to someone for a disability or a physical difference that is beyond their control, then I'm coming down on them like the every pissed off god you can imagine.
If it's just one jackass, I'd say deal with it through channels (They're usually smacked around by their friends for being a jackass) on the people running the LARP and keep having fun

[Sabertooth Kitten]

Dad lost part of his tongue when some punk shot him in the jaw while trying to carjack him.
He can still speak a little but it takes practice to understand him unless he really concentrates hard..
I know he's determined to go to a LARP and have fun while he's there. I have no doubt that he'll have a ball.
He's used to people dissing him on account of his looks. He's been a Biker for 30 years and looks the part. The pic in his profile is from about a year before I was born during his "look respectable" phase. He's a bit shy about having his pic taken since he was shot due to the scarring but in person he just ignores the looks and comments. His philosophy is "They don't sign my paycheck, so why should I give a damn?"

[freiman]

Actually, this is a tough one.

I am pretty sure that if I were disabled, I wouldn't want somebody putting "Don't pick on me" rules into place. That seems like almost an admission of defeat. If the person being picked on is a child, or otherwise unable to handle a little teasing (or a lot of it) then that would be a different story.

But for an adult, I wouldn't be too stressed by it.

I would like to think of it as somehow being a built in Asshole detector. If the person you are talking to is an asshole, they will let you know.

Now, if a group of LARPers are all assholes, then going to play someplace else seems like a good plan.

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[Silverharp]

A late friend of mine was scarred over about 60% of his body from burns when he was a child.
Somehow he managed to charm nearly every woman around him into bed or at least "compromising situations".
The point? If ANYONE had given him crap about his scars (Hell, he even integrated them into his Vampire character's history) he would have blown them off and the rest of us would have taken the offender out back and explained the error of the ways (Seriously, I mean this in a non violent way). They would then have been invited to come back if they could behave, or hit the road.
I guess part of my reaction comes from those memories of Mark Gillmore (Currently hitting on Mary and downing a brew with Saint Peter) and the fact that there have been times that, in various LARPs, we've ignored the vocal asshole, and everyone suffered for it.

[Silverharp]

But for an adult, I wouldn't be too stressed by it.
I would like to think of it as somehow being a built in Asshole detector. If the person you are talking to is an asshole, they will let you know.

Now, if a group of LARPers are all assholes, then going to play someplace else seems like a good plan.

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I see what you're saying there...Part of what gets me going on this is how many kids I've worked with and needed to be shown that not everything is like junior high.
All in all, most LARPers are an accepting bunch, and pretty fucking awesome to party with on a social level outside of game (Hell, a good buddy of mine here plays an annoying hyperactive halfling and also is a head guard at the State Prison).

[freiman]

I see what you're saying there...Part of what gets me going on this is how many kids I've worked with and needed to be shown that not everything is like junior high.
All in all, most LARPers are an accepting bunch, and pretty fucking awesome to party with on a social level outside of game (Hell, a good buddy of mine here plays an annoying hyperactive halfling and also is a head guard at the State Prison).

That's a pretty scary thought.

I remember when I met my first six foot something dwarf.

She role played hard, but it was still hard to think of her as anything other than a cross dressing viking if she wasn't sitting down.

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[Sabertooth Kitten]

That's a pretty scary thought.

I remember when I met my first six foot something dwarf.

She role played hard, but it was still hard to think of her as anything other than a cross dressing viking if she wasn't sitting down.

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Aw, don't you remember Corporal Carrot of the Ankh-Mopork City Watch? He was a six foot dwarf too. (by adoption)

[Evandril]

Aw, don't you remember Corporal Carrot of the Ankh-Mopork City Watch? He was a six foot dwarf too. (by adoption)

Yes, but even the dwarves he hadn't grown up with had a hard time accepting him! ;)

[freiman]

Yes, but even the dwarves he hadn't grown up with had a hard time accepting him! ;)

Actually, they normally didn't. As soon as Carrot opened his mouth to speak Dwarfish (Prachett doesn't use the word "Dwarves" but rather "Dwarfs") they knew him as a dwarf. It was a little odd that they were talking to a six foot dwarf, but not bad enough to deny his dwarfhood.

There's an exchange in Thud that goes

Angua: "And what was that you said to him in dwarfish -- 'You know I am a dwarf in the brotherhood of all dwarfs'?"
Sally: "Erm, 'With emphatic certainty you know me. I observe the rites of the dwarf. What/who am I? I am the Brothers united'."
Carrot: "Well done, lance-constable! That was an excellent translation!"

While it helps to be born to Dwarfs, in the Discword, Dwarf is something you are because of what you do. If you observe the proper rites, you are a dwarf. If you don't, you aren't. It doesn't matter how tall you are, or who your parents were.

Only certain Grags had a problem accepting Carrot as a Dwarf, but they were the sort that didn't accept Dwarfs from certain mines and being Dwarfs, or sometimes dwarfs from their own mines as dwarfs if those dwarfs had seen sunlight in their lives. It was a not so subtle dig at religious extremism.

It's interesting the way that Pratchett can use the dwarfs as a foil to point out things he finds absurd with almost anything, from Religious extremism to Urban Ghetto Culture.

I love Pratchett.

Sorry to geek out like that.

The odd thing for me was to see a six foot tall, blonde German girl sitting around the fire with a fake beard on, wearing chainmail, and trying really hard to speak German with a Scottish accent (Why are dwarves Scottish?) and absolutley failing to make her Saurland accent go away. She was really pretty too. It was one of the more surreal moments of my life.

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