Hello, my name is Ryan, and I run larps.
I like to think I'm good at it... that's why I run games. I've been doing it for quite a while now, and like anything else, if you do something over and over, you get comfortable with it. I suppose if I had chosen a different way to spend my time, I could be a novelist right now. I could be published and have people who want me to write my name in their books. The problem is that I enjoy running games, and I don't really like writing.
I mean that exactly... it's kind of a problem. If I liked writing, I could be a writer. I suppose if I had enjoyed playing the trumpet when I was little, I could be a musician by now. But for me, those things would be work. Telling stories, however, is a labor of love, and if I tell them in the medium of live-action role-play, I end up enjoying myself while I tell them. And that means I practice telling stories this way, and get better at telling them this way, so then I tell more stories this way...
And all of a sudden I'm in my mid-thirties, and the only thing I can really say I'm good at and enjoy doing is running larps.
This isn't a bad thing. I'm doing something that makes me happy. But I had a realization a few years ago... this is my "art." This is what I do as an act of expression. I'm never going to write a novel. I'm never going to direct a play on Broadway, or paint a painting. I'm not going to do these things because that's not what I do. I spend my time doing other things. But still, what I do is creative, it's expressive, and because of that, I consider it art.
It's hard to say that without sounding pretentious. Art goes in museums or in libraries or goes up for awards. My games aren't like that. They are, as Oscar Wilde would call them, useless things, and "the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely." Or in this case enjoys it.
But I need to take it one step forward. It's not enough for me to just run games and enjoy them. I want to analyze them. I want to take good games apart and figure out what makes them tick. I want to figure out what other people think about them, and discuss their views.
So... that's why there's this blog. It's a place to talk about useless things... not to make them more useful, but so that maybe we can admire them just a little more.
I like to think I'm good at it... that's why I run games. I've been doing it for quite a while now, and like anything else, if you do something over and over, you get comfortable with it. I suppose if I had chosen a different way to spend my time, I could be a novelist right now. I could be published and have people who want me to write my name in their books. The problem is that I enjoy running games, and I don't really like writing.
I mean that exactly... it's kind of a problem. If I liked writing, I could be a writer. I suppose if I had enjoyed playing the trumpet when I was little, I could be a musician by now. But for me, those things would be work. Telling stories, however, is a labor of love, and if I tell them in the medium of live-action role-play, I end up enjoying myself while I tell them. And that means I practice telling stories this way, and get better at telling them this way, so then I tell more stories this way...
And all of a sudden I'm in my mid-thirties, and the only thing I can really say I'm good at and enjoy doing is running larps.
This isn't a bad thing. I'm doing something that makes me happy. But I had a realization a few years ago... this is my "art." This is what I do as an act of expression. I'm never going to write a novel. I'm never going to direct a play on Broadway, or paint a painting. I'm not going to do these things because that's not what I do. I spend my time doing other things. But still, what I do is creative, it's expressive, and because of that, I consider it art.
It's hard to say that without sounding pretentious. Art goes in museums or in libraries or goes up for awards. My games aren't like that. They are, as Oscar Wilde would call them, useless things, and "the only excuse for making a useless thing is that one admires it intensely." Or in this case enjoys it.
But I need to take it one step forward. It's not enough for me to just run games and enjoy them. I want to analyze them. I want to take good games apart and figure out what makes them tick. I want to figure out what other people think about them, and discuss their views.
So... that's why there's this blog. It's a place to talk about useless things... not to make them more useful, but so that maybe we can admire them just a little more.
