Earlier i made a bold claim that LARPs could be as story based as tabletops, and i promised to specify.
Basically we have like three types of LARP (please note that theese are personal terms used by me and my freinds, who also LARP):
The first and most common kind is hack 'n' slash. Theese are basically twatathons in silly outfits, poorly made outfits.
The second are what we call crack scenarios, theese are alot about the combat, but also about the characters and the story. The stories are often made, so that it is possible to have alot of laughs. Alot of them focus on stereotypes, since they are pretty easy to improvise. This kind of LARP are pretty common as well, but the age limit is usually higher than the hck n slash kind.
The last are what me and my mates call hardcore or deep larping. Theese are for the educated actors, where the players have to dig deep into their own personalities. The budgets for theese are usually extensive, involving workshops to create both character and costumes/other types of equipment
But all of theese use one of two story models.
The first is what we call the star or the cog. Theese use faction based stories, where each faction is point of the star, and story comes from the innteraction in between, hack n slash are all based on this model, and alot of the crack scenarios are as well. The only real story here, is the background story.
The second is the railroad, this one uses scripted events (the railroad) to tell a story, and then at each station, the players gets to interact with the story, perhaps change it. But bascially the scripted drives the story, BUT the palyers interact, and can change the story, the good railroad larp, has alot of scripted events, that are possible to use, if the player pushes the story in the either direction.
What i am trying to say is, that larps tend to differ alot in story telling, and story telling is just as possible in larping as in table topping. But alot of it, well all of it depends on the planning and modelling of the scenarios at hand. Yeah it can be a violent team sport, but it can storytelling as well.
