(no subject)

[kamianya]

So it's official. Come next semester, I'll be writing two LARPs, and running them multiple times. Playing in one means playing in the other, but both are only going to be 1-2 hours, 4-6 players. If you play, you'll basically be playing the same character in both. If you play, you'll also be acknowledging the fact that the game will be videotaped, and I'll be using the data I collect in order to hopefully make some very interesting discoveries in the field of linguistic anthropology. I will need a minimum of 32 players, (probable)maximum of 60, depending on number of players I choose, and number of runs I do. I'll be running mostly in the Troy area, I believe, but at some point I'll be scheduling a number of weekends to come to the Brandeis area to run. Meaning I'll need places to run.

So, all of this is way in the planning stages, more info to come later, but I am uber excited. I get to use something I love to study my passion, and hopefully get to interact with great friends.

So, I hope I've whetted your appetites. This should be awesome.

Comments

[ravenalegria13.livejournal.com]

So I am going England next semester or I would totally enjoy this.

*sad face*

[kamianya.livejournal.com]

well, if this works, I'll be doing something extremely similar for my dissertation. you can be part of that!

[ravenalegria13.livejournal.com]

That would be awesome, cannot wait!

[kamianya.livejournal.com]

Yeah, either this will be an epic failure or epic success. Let's hope the latter, and I look forward to having you!

[mllelaurel.livejournal.com]

Let me know when you're running in the Brandeis area - I would love to play!

[kamianya.livejournal.com]

I totally will. I'll probably end up sending things to LJ, the BSCF LARP list, friends, etc. You'll hear ^^

[twilighttremolo.livejournal.com]

I'd like to play!

[ninja-report.livejournal.com]

Mostly because I'm curious:

4-6 players is pretty small, which can lead to some interesting dynamics. Not sure if it'll matter, but do you plan on exploring the variables of newer vs. experienced LARPers, interactions in which the players know each other outside of the LARP vs. not, players playing characters similar or different to themselves, etc.

I'm not sure exactly what you're studying, so I don't know if any of the variables will actually come relevantly into play, but I'd find it interesting if any such things did matter.

[kamianya.livejournal.com]

4-6 players was chosen for a few reasons: First of all, I need to be able to actually record, follow, transcribe, and analyze all of the speech in the LARPs. Anything more than 6 would be ridiculous. Secondly, I need to be able to do multiple runs, possibly as many as 8-10. Trying to get enough players with more would be very hard. Finally, it's because of how I'm engineering what I'm examining.

While I find all those questions really interesting, I'm not actually studying LARPing. I'm using LARPing as my experiment. If I engineer it properly, those dynamics should not actually affect what it is that I am examining. I'd say more on that, but for the validity of my data, I can't actually say yet what that thing is. Suffice it to say it has to do with performing identity through linguistic and metalinguistic means.

[ninja-report.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know you're doing something linguistical, but I figured that you couldn't say precisely what, or people would be conscious of what they were doing. I was more curious as to whether or not the questions would matter--if the conversation between two characters could potentially be affected by how well they knew each other outside of the LARP, or other such things. And if said conversations could be affected by such things, how you planned to control for such factors if they were.

As I said, I don't know what you're studying, but the highly interactive nature of LARPing made me curious as to what variables could affect things.

They'd probably play more of a role in a sociological study than a linguistic one.

[darkoni]

Sounds cool. I hope it works well for what you are studying. I will certainly play in one of the (more local to my area) runs.