I larp as often as I can, my girlfriend got me into it and convinced me to come earlier this year.
Believe me when I say I sounded exactly like the people in this thread, I thought it would be lame and pathetic, that the roleplay would be boring and excruciatingly embarrassing, and that mages would sound stupid.
But she chose a larp system without combat magic, which was good because theres not a single person with tennis balls or yelling silly things, that definitely made me feel better about it, I was also told theres literally no need to roleplay massively, I can just be a guardsman with a bow who gets paid to sit around and shoot players who play as bandits. Seemed fair to me.
I am an archer by hobby, and when I brought my actual competition bow down I was informed it was totally ok to larp with. This definitely scored some points with me since to be frank it looks (and kinda is) a powerhouse, sitting JUST below the power limit for bows at these larp events.
I was handed a butt load of arrows, given an arbitrary character name and shunted in with my girlfriends group before a big battle. A woman in full platemail just told me to shoot people holding banners or holding big shields and they left me to it. I basically got to stand there, while people battered eachother in full plate and with foam swords and shoot people with arrows from my 35 pound ish bow. EXTREMELY satisfying. Truly. Its monstrously easy with some archery experience to hit a slow dude in plate from a good 50 yards and watching someone drop to the ground after you nail them in the back is pretty satisfying.
I cant comment much on the melee combat or the very small amount of spell crafting but I honestly just go to larp to shoot people with my bow and some padded arrows. Its just stupidly fun that now I can practice shooting people legally with my bow. Honestly watching some people roleplay seems boring as shit, and when Im thrust into it sometimes I just stand back and nod. But hot damn I just get to shoot people, and my girlfriends family provide food and comfortable camping. Cant complain.
Theres some dude there with what must be 300 pounds of the most ornate plate mail I've ever seen in real life. He just walks around with an axe and wades into every melee and to be honest I feel like me and him are there for the same reason. Theres a bit of it that seems like a tonne of wankery but once you find the aspect of it thats fun as fuck it gets fun and you can utterly ignore the bullshit.
Also acting as a scout was awesome. Its a 1000 ish player event so I just leg it across fields and through woods with my bow to each camp to ask how stuff is going, I get given a couple of ciders from each one and end up walking back tipsy every time. People just up and give you things, REAL drinks, its great!
If you opt to play as the bad guys you go for free (With food costs if you wish) and dont have to do a single bit of roleplaying. I was cast as a bandit 8 times in a single event that cost me 20 quid for cooked food for a few days and I basically got to harass people in the woods with a bow and some arrows until the players got wise and sent some people to hunt down and kill me. Definitely recommend this for people who find it hard to get immersed in the story. They arm you, let you look like you paid to have a cool armor set, and let you go hit some people with zero thought to story or roleplay. If youre a zombie youre expected to shamble a little though which is fair game.
People were less cliche and stereotyped than I imagined too. Theres definitely a few of the archetypes you would expect but I met a doctor (Who actually had a medical degree) and we had a conversation about treating blunt trauma and breaks, which technically was still roleplay, and as a biomed student it was a great networking/interesting conversation opportunity.
LARP has a HUGE negative stigma (at least here in the UK it seems less bad) and i bought into it to, but my girlfriend does it and shes just a normal german student so I ignored them for a single opportunity to see if it sucked. Almost none of the tihngs I expected (and others in this thread say they expected) were true. The gender split was about 60/40 too which surprised me greatly.