Only 10 students showed up to the Saturday callout meeting for the live action role-play Camarilla Student Group, reflecting a decline in LARP-ing groups nationwide.
LARP is similar to Dungeons and Dragons, a game in which players move through quests as their own personal characters to play out storylines. However, instead of moving around a player-created board, players physically interact in character, and occasionally in costume, while acting out storylines facilitated by an appointed storyteller.
Stories for the group take place in the World of Darkness, which John Scott, a Ph.D. student and LARP storyteller, said is a world full of dark and evil forces that will never be defeated.
“LARP gets theater mixed with the gamer,” Scott said. “We’re about the drama, the narrative and the character development.”
The club, which has been around for more than 20 years, is having more and more difficulty bringing in new members. Scott said that in 2005, the club regularly had 40 players at every game.
At the Saturday callout meeting, the majority of people were not IU students, and all were returning members.
Scott points to the rise of online gaming as a key factor in the decline of the popularity of LARP.
“Back in the '90s, we didn’t have computer games,” Scott said.
However, the popularity of massive online multiplayer role-playing games, which are similar to LARP games, is also declining. Statista, a database which includes media and advertising statistics, estimates that the number of MMORPG subscribers at Blizzard Entertainment, one of the largest gaming companies, has gone from 10.5 million in 2008 to 5.08 million in 2016.
Blizzard is responsible for titles such as World of Warcraft, StarCraft and, more recently, Overwatch.
LARP is nowhere near as popular. Jaleen Wallen, the domain coordinator for the nearby Terre Haute chapter, estimates that there are about 4,000 nationwide members of the Mind's Eye Society, an organization that provides storylines and oversees the Camarilla Student Group.
The club has attempted to bring in more students, but flyers around campus, advertising on its beINvolved page and attempts to work with IU Late Nite haven’t been enough.
“We’re trying to make it accessible,” Scott said. “Our best hook is people who already know a bit about gaming.”
Online games may be easier for newcomers to break into and can require less commitment, while LARP has more detailed storylines.
“Computer games like World of Warcraft are a lot thinner,” Scott said.
The World of Darkness is complex, Scott said. He estimated 500 books have been published in the classic World of Darkness series.
Scott also said it is common for people with Asperger’s syndrome and others on the autism spectrum to use the events as a way to practice socialization.
LARP allows players just a bit more time to figure out how they should react to a situation, making social interactions a bit less daunting. Dallas Ames, who has high-functioning autism and has been playing since 2005, said that her doctor encouraged her to go to events like these for the socialization.
For other players, the sense of community provided by LARP is what keeps them coming back. Wallen said she remembered going to a LARP convention at which her car broke down. Luckily, for her, many players at the convention immediately chipped in to help fix her car.
“There’s a whole community here,” Wallen said.
Raising money for charity is another huge part of the Mind’s Eye Society LARP community, according to the society's website.
Conventions will regularly hold charity auctions where players can bid on fictional items for the game. Several of the players said they remembered one auction at which someone bought a brute character with a costume that was to be designed for the winner and a foam weapon as a prop for between $3,000 and $4,000. All the proceeds went to charity.
Various local chapters of the Mind’s Eye Society frequently put on coat drives, toy drives, food drives and even blood drives. Scott said the irony of a blood drive put on by a group of people who frequently role play as vampires far from lost on them.
LARP may not be as popular as online gaming, but players do not seem too concerned. The tight-knit community, socialization and extensive lore sets the activity apart from online gaming.
“The World of Darkness is not about winning,” Scott said. “It’s about losing in style.”
