Originally published at: FBI's guide to LARPing and violent extremism | Boing Boing
…
10 Likes
Simple Question.
Where is the bottom italicized quote from? Agents Loring and Culpepper?
3 Likes
I just wrote it
17 Likes
I guess this is better than when the FBI confiscated the Cyberpunk RPG.
Jury’s still out on if they start busting Vampire the Masquerade games as possible terrorism cells.
15 Likes
Can they put the GQP in violent extremism column? The description fit.
6 Likes
The 501st Legion Star Wars costuming group has had several run-ins with law enforcement over the years that nearly ended badly because the prop blasters carried as part of the costume very often look like real weapons. There have been close calls where police demand someone wearing “armor” to “drop to the ground”, unaware that the “armor” is actually a delicate costume that cost thousands of dollars and countless hours to build.
This is another scary angle for such groups to consider when LARPing in public. A pity.
11 Likes
One of the sad things about this article is that the crossover has actually happened. There was an active Dagorhir participant from Michigan who was involved in Charlottesville, and made a point of trying to teach them how to use shields effectively.
It should be noted that a lot of the local groups had already banned him by that point. Still, the fact that the national organization was so slow to create and institute a way to kick people out (not just for him, but for rampant sexual assault issues) is one of the reasons so many local groups broke ties.
6 Likes
ha! that was certainly the first I ever saw; a couple of twenty-something dudes brought it to Nashville and started playing in Centennial park. a bunch of us teens and a few adults joined them every Sunday for a while there. I wore an old tunic from a Halloween costume and wore combat boots, the guys who organized it made it easy and brought a ton of foam weapons, so I never got deep enough in it to make any. the larp part was ok but the real draw for me andI think the rest of us, was the athletic combat, the action. I fenced in high school, too, but that’s almost completely different, but both emphasized from and scrimmages.
interesting to know it was the first, none of us had ever heard of such a thing before we joined Lord Darkpine and his friend.
edit: this would have been either 90 or 91
7 Likes
Write more, please. That sounds like an interesting story.
8 Likes
that is… wow. ( although the fact they don’t understand “lone wolves” seem to be radicalized via violent social groups is maybe even more wow )
4 Likes
And that, gentlepersons, was the starting point of Beschizza’s New York Times Best Seller series of L.A.R.P.D. books. 
18 Likes
“All characters are front line fighters or support personnel”
Uhhhhh the people who wrote this aren’t familiar with the classic four murder hobos and a healer (who is really a murder hobo with healing spells) party are they?
8 Likes
On a tangential note, IIRC people on 4chan who pretended to be government whistleblowers revealing conspiracies (like Q) were known as LARPers.
3 Likes
Did you use PiWrite? 
2 Likes
It is not comforting that FBI agents require special training and research to know the people using live weapons and ammo in targeted violence against the community are the problem
10 Likes
It depends on what you mean by “formal” and “LARP”. There were numerous medieval sport combat groups by 1977 that were primarily historical in focus, and several (not spectacularly formal) groups that were more explicitly fantasy oriented.
But I don’t think anyone involved would mind Aratar getting credit.
8 Likes
IIRC As mentioned in the article, that raid led to the formation of the EFF (or, as I recall, EFF-Austin)
Also, I believe Steve Jackson Games used that settlement money to start a local ISP in Austin, Illuminati Online (io.com which I used for a bit, ~25 years ago)
9 Likes
On the other side of the coin, I know a SCAdian/EMT who, just before the G20 came to this area, was teaching police to throw “wrap shots” with their riot batons. For the uninitiated, a wrap shot enables you to hit your victim in the back of their head when they are facing you.
2 Likes
The first big reenactment, of the First Battle of Bull Run, also known as First Manassas, took place on July 21-22, 1961
7 Likes
Well yeah, the screen used originals were often made from real weapons. I’ve been saying for awhile that you could make a nice caper film where a gang robbed a bank during an SF convention wearing stormtroop armor. One burst to show that the Sterling SMG was real, get the money, and then run off into the crowd.
Yeah, MUCH less sturdy than it appears.
I have fond memories of spending Saturdays at the Rockville Civic Center. In later years, I ended up more in the Markland-reenacting crowd, but I still remember my time in Dagorhir.
6 Likes
