Joining any kind of event like a live action role play can be quite a daunting task. How do you play? What are events like? Who can I talk to? What can I do?
This is why we have created the New Player FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section. We constantly make changes to this section and if you have an idea of how to make this section better, please let us know!
LARP is an acronym for Live Action Role Playing. It refers to a type of interactive gaming in which the players assume game identities and act as a specific character for the duration of the game. The game may conform to a scenario written by the moderator or Game Master. Alternatively the LARP may be based on individual decisions made by the participants. While activities that fall under the broad definition of LARP have existed for at least a century, LARP gained in popularity during the seventies due to the popularity of table-top role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons. Many LARP games are medieval or fantasy themed, since many participants are Renaissance Faire or Dungeons & Dragons enthusiasts. Such LARP games may feature knights, castles, wizards, damsels, dragons, and of course, dungeons. LARPs are not limited to this format. A LARP may be set in a forties film-noir and follow the case of a tough-guy private eye, or be set in the distant future with robots, talking spaceships and aliens. LARPs are typically divided into two types, combat and theater, although the boundary between these is fairly permeable. In fact, while LARPers might disagree, Revolutionary and Civil War reenactors can be considered a specialty-type of live combat LARPers, while Murder Mystery weekends, for example, might qualify as theater-type LARPs. Many LARP games have long-running or ever-running plot arcs, in which each game is yet another episode in the story. Other games are designed to take place once, perhaps over a weekend, during which the players convene for that one game and then disperse. Some LARPs are goal-directed, such as quest scenarios, while some are played competitively with points scored for winning fights or tricking opponents. LARPs are enjoyed by players of all ages, genders and backgrounds, despite the common misconception that they are only for teenage boys. Many players grew up LARPing with their parents and met their spouses at a game or convention. LARPs can be considered an interactive form of literature, an audience participation type of theater, or just an engrossing game. To many players, the games are both a social activity and a way of life. via wisegeek.com The easiest way to try out the system is to attend a practice. We hold weekly or bi-weekly practices in Baraboo and Kenosha. Check out our Facebook Event Page for the most up-to-date information It’s a great chance to get to know some of the people as well as learning some of the rules regarding combat and garb. You can also find us on Facebook by clicking here or searching for Last Hope LARP. So you're ready to create a character for Last Hope! Let's check off a few boxes and then get down to the brass tacks. First off you'll need to make sure that you have played at least one Non-Player Character (NPC) role. All players are required to NPC at least once before they are allowed to create a personal Player Character (PC). This ensures that you have a chance to see how the game operates so you know how your new character will fit in. You are also welcome to NPC many times before making a character. NPCing allows for a unique experience of trying on many different hats that you may not have considered when writing your character. The greater your experience the more you can put into a new character. Secondly you'll want to make sure that you've read up on the lore as much as you can. Dive through the Wiki, especially the pages about Races and Notable Groups to get a baseline and never be afraid to ask questions. You can e-mail questions to lasthopelarp@gmail.com and staff will get back to you with answers as quickly as we can (we all have real jobs, it may be a little bit). Now you can get to creating the actual character! You'll want to write up a backstory for your character. These stories should have depth that explains the origins of your character, or at least explains how they ended up in the life that you will be portraying in game. If you have questions feel free to send a bullet point break down of your story to the Last Hope e-mail and our staff will look it over and give you pointers or directions based on the game lore. We have a Player Backstory Template that you should fill out with all the pertinent information and narrative backstory. You can find that here. Once that's filled out e-mail it in and our staff will go over the process of approving your bio. If everything looks good we will let you know and we will create your character in our registration system and post your bio to the website. If your bio needs a few tweaks here and there we will reach out to you with suggestions on how things could be changed to fit into the game lore. Once that's done we'll create the character and post your bio. Congrats! You have made your first PC! Get your garb and potential prosthetics ready and meet us on Mardrun! Fantasy wears many faces. Sometimes it is bright and colorful. Sometimes it is dark and shadowy. Some fantasy worlds feature flying machines and talking animals, others center on primitive people struggling to survive against predators and the elements. Sometimes, people try to classify these different types of stories as either “low fantasy” or “high fantasy”. The simplest and most seemingly obvious way to categorize fantasy would seem to be based on the overall feel. People try to put a given story or series on some sort of “fantastic-ness scale” to see how it rates. Flying cats with psychic powers living in a world with green skies would be, by that definition, the extreme end of high fantasy. It isn’t that simple, though. There is a lot more to high or low fantasy than just how weird or alien the setting is (despite what Wikipedia says with their over-generalized definition). When defining high or low fantasy, you have to look at not only the world and the people, but how those people live in that world. A story is nothing without characters to drive it. Think, for a moment, about what made “The Princess Bride” so memorable. So where does “Last Hope” fall within the spectrum and how do you make a character that will fit into this world? First, “Last Hope” is lower fantasy. It is about a struggle for survival. This isn’t the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, where there are a handful of people destined to carry all the burdens of mankind to defeat a great evil and trigger the dawning of a new age. Nor is it one of the Greek classics, with petty gods and unbelievable feats of legendary prowess on expansive battlefields. Last Hope is very different from those stories. Whereas the heroes in those tales are basically big fish in small ponds, slaughtering dozens of orcs without breaking a sweat, or regularly defeating mythical beasts with their bare hands, the characters in “Last Hope” are SMALL fish in a BIG pond. That may seem backwards in a figurative sense, when you compare how vast Middle Earth is compared to Mardrun, but remember, we are not talking about acreage. We are talking about how characters interact with their world. The world of Middle Earth is a dangerous place, indeed. But the characters of the Fellowship are more than equipped to deal with it. If Legolas and Gimli are surrounded by twenty orcs and two trolls, we really don’t have to worry much about whether or not they will win, and instead immediately find ourselves questioning who will kill more of the bad guys and who will be buying drinks that night. Last Hope is very different. If Raskolf, Sir William, and Captain Aradael are surrounded by half a dozen Mordok, the three veteran warriors very well may die. Yes, the three characters are all faction leaders, and yes, the players portraying them are good fighters, but two-to-one odds are never good in real life, and therefore they are not in Last Hope either. Welcome to lower-fantasy. It can be harsh. So where does this come into play when creating your LH character? Well, as stated before, it is all about HOW your character interacts with the world around them. Sometimes, the more ordinary a character may seem, the more extraordinary it seems when they manage to do something heroic. The Humans and Syndar of Mardrun are just trying to survive on a strange new frontier, while the Ulven try to cope with the invasion of these strangers from across the sea and a bitter civil war in the face of political fall out. Even as these disparate people come together they are still dealing with the realities of a world where monsters and bandits can attack and politics must be deftly maneuvered. Last Hope is not a world populated by ninja-like assassins raised from childhood by shadowy organizations. It is not a world of prodigy teenage magic-users. It is a world where a turnip farmer can become a soldier, and eventually a politician. It is a world where a curious scholar can become an explorer and cartographer. Picture a world where a blood spattered and shoe-less child, pressed into militia service in desperate times, undergoes her rite of passage as her parent dies in her arms in the smoldering aftermath of a terrible and costly battle, fought with pitchforks, pick-axes and scythes, in ankle-deep snow against Mordok raiders. We missed the fight, apparently, so what happened? The high fantasy version of that character went berserk and killed half the raiders herself. Cue Final Fantasy victory music, right? Now to go get revenge by slaying the goddess of the Mordok. Shouldn’t be a problem. This kid is probably some sort of “chosen one” or something anyway. Clearly, the gods have laid out a path for her to be their instrument. Better start walking. Just follow the railroad tracks. The low fantasy version of that character is more interesting. The low-fantasy version may have killed one or two Mordok in an act of panicked desperation, and now suffers emotional trauma from the experience of watching her friends get killed in battle. She will be haunted by her personal demons and post-traumatic-stress-disorder for the rest of her life. Maybe she’ll get a job working in a tavern. Maybe she’ll join the Army. Who knows. She is an ordinary person, coping with extraordinary circumstances, and her life is an open book. That is the difference between low fantasy and high fantasy. Keep these things in mind when you are crafting your LARP character for Last Hope. Many RPGs have two types of characters: NPCs who don’t matter, and Big Damn Heroes whom the world revolves around. Last Hope has neither. Last Hope just has people. Sometimes those people take up the sword to defend the village from monsters and maybe drag a wounded comrade to the healer. Sometimes they spend a morning sewing the sole back on their daughter’s boot with leather lacing. Now, go forth and make well rounded characters. Be one of those people. In Last Hope, characters can pick between the following three races to play; Ulven, Syndar and Humans. Also, in Last Hope, you character can choose to be a Warrior, a Rogue, a Mage, or a Cleric. An important thing to remember is that these are guidelines to help play your character. A Warrior may choose to be quick and nimble, favoring a bow over a sword for instance. Or a Mage may choose to train in plate armor. A Rogue may be an upstanding public figure with a penchant for books and learning. If you have any questions whether or not something is allowed, check with Staff. Once you’ve got your character’s race and class down, it’s time to figure out something about your character. Where did they come from? Why are they here? Do they have any unusual habits or traits? Etc. There is a fantastic template for character backstories on the Character Bios page. There are many places to find garb. A lot of us use thrift stores to find basic pieces for our kits. If you keep an eye out, it’s not too hard to find cheap and useful clothing. For those of us who are crafty, there are many patterns available online and in stores for making various kinds of garb. This is a cheaper route to go, but it requires an ability to sew, and the time to invest. For those of use that do not have the time, money, or ability, there are many stores online you can buy them from. The resources page has many links to online vendors that sell costuming. If you want to support your local community, there are some of us in the game available for commissions! This page contains many outside links to the popular websites to purchase weaponry! For a more complete run-down of some of the available weapons, take a look at LARP Weapons Last Hope holds a game once per month. We're proud to be one of the few story driven LARPs that manages to consistently have a monthly game for our players! For information on upcoming events check out our Facebook Page! We strive to get out a schedule of events that lists our dates for the entire year so players can plan accordingly. We also occasionally host an event called Old World. The Old World event is a bit different than the other monthly events. Instead of taking place in the Colonial timeline, this event takes place in the Old World timeline, before the continent fell to the plague. Players have a chance to write history, and take part of a more military style campaign. Most events cost from $20 to $50 (the average being $30 per player), depending on how long the game is. In 2018 Last Hope switched from a "Cost of Entry" model to a Membership model. The different membership levels are listed below: Membership Subscriptions for Last Hope LARP The membership fees listed below are for record keeping, management, communications, equipment upkeep, insurance, site maintenance, and outside larp services (Such as exp tracking, character updates, etc) and are NOT required to participate in Last Hope LARP but are required to participate in certain ways/in certain roles. If you purchase a membership subscription and decide that you want a refund, simply email us at lasthopelarp@gmail.com. SPECTATOR/HELPER DEDICATED MONSTER BASIC MEMBERSHIP STANDARD MEMBERSHIP PREMIUM MEMBERSHIP One of the unique thing about Last Hope is that the player base is deeply involved in building and shaping the world we play in. There is quite a collection of player written lore and stories available on this wiki. If you would like to contribute check in with the staff with your story idea. If your ideas are approved then you are free to write up an in-character story and e-mail it in at Lasthopelarp@gmail.com and we'll post it to the wiki. Additionally check out the section of our Rulebook about the "Resources" skill! The easiest way to try out the system is to attend a practice. We hold weekly or bi-weekly practices in Baraboo and Kenosha. Check out our Facebook Event Page for the most up-to-date information If you want to try out the larp, but you are hesitant to spend money and resources on weapons and garb, there are options! Ask the heralds about the event you wish to attend, we have many options for people to play NPCs. We will have extra garb and weapons for NPCs to borrow, and you will be handed a basic role to play, so you don’t have to worry about creating a character right away. Regular town NPCs get a reduced price for their entry fee. If you chose to monster, entry is free! Monstering is a very physically demanding and RP heavy role, but it can also be extremely rewarding. We typically use latex and injected foam weapons. These weapons are safe to use in our system, and their looks are up to par for the standards we have in our larp. It’s hard to make your own weapons that are both safe and look the part. We do not outright reject the idea, but every weapon will need to be looked over, tested, and approved before going into play. A full immersion larp aims to create a setting in which you can feel like you are really there in a scene, it means the feeling you get when roleplay flows naturally and you really, truly feel like your character. In a full immersion larp, you are in character for all of the game. You eat, hang out, get bored, and talk all in character. Many larps frequently go in and out of character with handsignals — often a closed fist atop the head. But in a full immersion larp, going out of game for minor clarifications is frowned on. If you don’t know the answer, just make it up. If needed though, there is an off-game area where players can go when they need a break, before stepping back into the action. The game scenography strives for realism, something called 360 illusion. So a bouquet of flowers is represented by a bouquet of flowers, and not a card with “flowers” written on it, and so on. Part of the idea is that pretending a card is really a bouquet of flowers on it takes one out of the game world and inhibits immersion. A player contract is a document that is supposed to signify an understanding between the heralds and their players. The player contract details what can be expected of players, storytellers, and of the game itself. Last Hope strives to stand apart from it’s counter parts in american culture, and as such, sometimes it can be hard to know what games will be like, or what a player will need to do. When you sign a player contract, a herald will sit down with you and discuss any questions you might have about the game, and what the rules mean. Without telling our players how they are expected to act, how can we hope for you to act how we expect? A player contract is a two way agreement. We as heralds are committed to crafting a certain kind of story and setting for you to play in, and we expect that players treat this with respect. When you finish a contract, you will know what kind of game you are playing in-it’s themes and settings, what is appropriate conduct and appearance, as well as what you can expect to treated like. A player contract is not meant to exclude anyone, but to merely make sure that everyone is on the same page before playing. If you have any questions of concerns, please feel free to address them to any of the herald staff!
There are free or low cost options at all events; simply contact us at lasthopelarp@gmail.com to learn more!
The deadline for membership refunds is the current month's event date as we are updating our membership records after that.
