I could just say that larpers are misunderstood and leave it at that. Because it’s true. So very true.
But this rant has more of a point to it.
Over the past few years, I’ve watched the few and far between media articles done about role playing games and theatre style larping. And they never go over well.
And after watching a 70 minute Star Wars: Phantom Menace review, I think I realized why the media never quite ‘gets’ us. And never quite will.
The media is, by and large, filled with mundane people. Mundane people are not like ‘us’. We are much more elitist than I think we even acknowledge.
You see, there is something about the ‘gamer’ that leaps a boundary and just accepts worlds, settings and plots that are too bizarre or foreign to the mundane. In fact, it is so ingrained in us to cross their boundary, we no longer even see it.
You see, the typical story, as you might know, requires a protagonist. The protagonist is, and I’m quoting wikipedia here: the main character (the central or primary personal figure) of a literary, theatrical, cinematic, video game, or musical narrative, around whom the events of the narrative's plot revolve and with whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy.
Okay, that’s a bit (lot) more highbrow than I care to be. But there is a critical point there. The main character of a story is the person whom the audience is intended to share the most empathy.
Ahh, there we have it. The boundary that gamers completely ignore. For something to appeal to a large audience (the masses as it were) the audience needs to identify with and care for the main character. Because normal people are, well, normal, the easiest path to that is to have your main character share ‘normal’ traits.
Let’s take Luke Skywalker for a moment. At his start, he is an extremely normal boy. Stuck on a ranch, with dreams of adventure but being held back for whatever reason. The audience can identify with him immediately. Whether you loved or hated Luke, it’s still possible for your average person to identify with him. Hopefully through the course of the story, you can empathize with him. When his aunt and uncle die, he is torn up and so should the audience be, simply because all of us have had family members die. We understand the loss causes, thus we empathize.
Now then, the other goal of the main character is to lead the audience through the story. Because we identify with Luke, we can accept that there are these Jedi and wookies and while that’s all weird, we built a connection with the mundane character who is Luke and thus are willing to accept his wild ride into the world of Star Wars.
So I say again, there we have it. It’s that boundary that gamers forget. We do not require a mundane main character. We most often ignore it and opt to play fantastical characters in a fantastical setting and just go with it. And what’s ‘worse’ is that often you’ll have 20+ players who are all ‘out there’. In fact, the more fantastic the characters/setting the more you require a mundane protagonist.
Certainly to us, we have traits which we identify with which are aspects, often mundane, that we like to explore. But when a mundane person comes in and tries to grasp the setting, they are immediately thrown off. There is no connection that they can find. It often doesn’t matter if it’s Kingdom Come or World of Darkness (in a world like ours but just a bit different). The mundane person fails to identify with anything and thus will never ‘get it’.
To give you a very good example, take Neil Gaimon’s Neverwhere. I am not a fan of Neil Gaimon’s fiction, but for the reason that I often dislike his main characters. However, I realize that he’s recognized the critical importance of having a main character who is the guide to the mundane person who moves through the story. To me, I criticize the main character for effectively sleep-walking through the story and barely making any decisions (except finally doing something of interest near the end). But to the average reader, the main character is probably required to be very normal, as the setting is “so bizarre”.
Thus my hypothesis/epiphany of why the media always portrays us in an confusing if not offensive view. They cannot ‘get it’ so how can they explain it to others.
