Fri 2 Dec 2011
Bookmarks and Larping
Posted by elektra under reading
[4] Comments
I collect bookmarks. Actually, I collect a lot of things (ask me about Whimsiclay ceramic figurines sometime. They’re like potato chips. Or crack). I’ve been hanging on to bookmarks for as long as I can remember–after all, without a bookmark, how do you keep track of where you are in the book/books you’re reading? And I’ve been a voracious reader forever. Aren’t you?
I have bookmarks from every bookstore that graciously tossed one into the bag when I bought books. I have cute, tasseled bookmarks from Barnes & Noble that I just couldn’t resist. I have one that has the One Ring hanging off of it. Most of them have been sequestered in a drawer in an architectural flat-file primarily used to store prints that we just haven’t gotten around to having matted and framed yet (one day, we will have all of our Samurai Cat prints matted and hung–but not today).
Of course, these days everyone with a book to promote has bookmarks with their cover art to hand out, so the collection is . . . excessive. But it still makes me smile. Many of those bookmarks live in my library inside the appropriate books.
When I read, of course, I grab whatever is handy to use as a bookmark: old business cards, vintage baseball cards, etc. And Hit Points.
I have a stock of Hit Points that I use as book marks. They are the size of business cards (approximately) and labeled “1 Hit Point” in various colors, with a number hand-written on the back. They date from the early-to-mid 1980s and the very first live-action role playing (LARPing) games. I participated in several, one at my dorm (Risley) at Cornell that was one of the very first games ever run (I think), one at a Boskone, a time-travel themed game at a Baltimore-area convention, a stand-alone game at a hotel, and “Twilight of the Gods” held at SILicon I.
As I continued to participate, I also shifted geographically: from Ithaca (Cornell) to Endicott & Endwell (for grad school at SUNY-Binghamton), then to the Boston area for gainful employment. Concurrently, the folks running the games, who were based primarily out of the Boston area (Harvard, MIT & friends) formed the Society for Interactive Literature. Although LARPing has continued to grow and evolve, much of its base was formed there and is basically the same. Who knew it would endure so long and become so popular?
Every time I pull out one of those colored cards and use it as a bookmark, I remember the fun from all those years ago. Great job guys!
Loved your post! It’s great to hear about some of the, if not the first, larping games. We’d love to hear about your experience and how the games have changed.
Research has turned up some further info: that first game at Risley was Rekon 1b, the second try of a game originally run at Boskone in 1983. I don’t remember if Rekon included any fighting–I remember it as more of a puzzle/scavanger hunt-type game.
In one of the later games (at a Boskone?), fighting between players was conducted via attacks and defenses listed on index cards, and the winner collected hit points from the loser. There was also some sort of provision for people with no hit points (ghosts) to continue participating. It became a blood bath, but a fun one.
The best part of all of the early games was the inventiveness of the gamemasters. When players took the game in unanticipated ways, the GMs were always there with some sort of solution to keep the game going. Even when the players “solved” the game a full day early–leading to some frantic writing.
I drifted away from LARPing (and cons in general) to spend my weekends showing cats, and, eventually, training to be a cat show judge. Now I’m back to attending cons, and I keep finding more and more things to participate in. Maybe it’s time to try LARPing again.
I was the 16 year old kid with the perforated copper foil covered glasses (psionic disc assasination protection) at Rekon at Risley. I still have my character packet somewhere. I got killed off in the last day and since my character (who’s packet read like a bad Luke Skywalker clone) had necessary info for the plot they made me a ghost which was kinda boring
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Ok wow, small world especially when you are on of about 80 people who were running around Risley Hall at Cornell during Springfest (1982?) carrying a Manila envelope (how we would recognize that someone else was playing, they would be carrying a character packet) most people did not have costumes or physical props although some of us would take the few hours between play and improvise something. The bulk of the props were index cards with what they were and how they were played. My character had a gun which was an index card that had the word “gun” written on it and 6 stickers that were bullets. My character was killed off by a sticker that Zaphod Bebelbrox had put on the bottom of the toaster oven in the snack concession with the word “plague” written on it. Everyone who had gotten a bagel toasted that morning died of plague around lunchtime when it was announced. My character was brought back as a ghost because of a plot critical piece of info only my character had. In the end Zaphod saved the world from being blown up by Arne Sakmussen (or maybe It was the other way around) the princess my character was looking for turned out to be an intergalactic hooker and I got a letter from Andy Massimilia and the Society for Interactive Literature that I had one game worth of player credit. After that paper D&D never appealed to me and since there were no more live action games I just got heavily into the SCA
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