Live-Action Role-Playing Game Allows Players to Step Into Mystical Realms

By Mark Hoerrner

Lynn Taylor is not someone you'd expect to run into wearing a full set of armor and face paint, talking about tracking down mythical beasts. At her day job, she's a guest programs specialist at a large aquarium, interpreting information about animal species and keeping aquarium visitors entertained. By the weekend, she's donning a different hat, both physically and metaphorically.

Taylor is one of the co-owners of NERO South Georgia (www.nerosga.com), one chapter of a nationwide live-action role-playing (LARP) organization. Along with principals David Cali and Vincent Munro, she organizes monthly events at local state parks for attendees who leave their workaday lives behind and transform into a host of races, ranging from elves and dwarves to exotics like the cat-like Sarr and bird-man Biata.

"It's a fantastic outlet for release from the pressures of real life," Taylor says. "Some people play tennis. Some people collect stamps. We like to role-play on the weekends because it's a great combination of the cerebral and physical realms coming together."

NERO South Georgia is just one of more than 45 chapters across North America where people are getting away from life to spend time in a fantasy realm. It's a profitable business. The Live Adventures Company (www.nerolarp.com), the current holding company for NERO International, coordinates the franchises and receives an annual membership fee of $25 from each participant. Most events range from $50-75 per weekend and include lodging at the local play facility, generally a state park site. More than 225 of these events are held annually.

"Event Actors lead each storyline while interacting with the players," says Joseph Valenti, president of Live Adventures,"giving them hints and clues to the mysteries. Players create a fantasy character based on LARP game rules, dress up in medieval clothing, and interact with other players and the Event Actors. They take it upon themselves to complete the quests and tasks presented by putting the hints and clues together, thus getting a chance to become the hero or heroine for the weekend."

Valenti bought the company in 1998 from founders Maureen and Ford Ivey. The Iveys started the first chapter in New England in 1988 and the concept spread rapidly in the following decades, including spawning several LARP organizations such as SOLAR, the Southeastern Organization of Live Action Role-players, which have withdrawn from the original NERO franchise by altering subtle aspects of the game to keep their version legal. The popularity of the original game system also encouraged others to create games of their own, and now hundreds of LARP organizations operate internationally.

Fantasy live-action role-playing is an extension of a long history of fantasy games, perhaps chief among them being the well-known Dungeons and Dragons, a tabletop pen-and-paper role-playing game.

"A lot of us have played other tabletop games and kind of come from that background," Taylor says, "but it's not necessary to have done so. For those of us who grew up that route, this is just the next generation of gaming. Here, even more than with a character in a tabletop campaign, you can really get into the aspects of politics, combat, acting and more. Plus, whole families can join and participate together. We encourage a well-imagined but largely wholesome environment."