Back in spring, we made a survey, sent it to a number of larp groups across the internet and got some pretty interesting results from around 100-ish people. As this isn’t a food recipe, let’s skip the long intros and look at some numbers!
As you can see, the survey propagated across the world, but, as expected, most larpers are from Europe and USA. But are they really larpers?
It’s no big secret, we’re making a classic fantasy larp in the woods that includes camping, drinking and ruining the story by arguing over rules. But that’s old school. It seems that the new majority of larpers (at least those active on the internet) is about a trippy indoor experience.
Now let’s get to the juicy bit – delicious drama.
Only 10% encounter drama all the time? That used to be the norm. Right now the trend seems to die off. At least with people who answered this survey. But enough about you, let’s talk about us!
Interestingly enough, people are somewhat picky about the genre. Either that or everyone’s afraid of this game being a construction vehicle simulator. Let’s see some stuff in detail.
This was a head scratcher to us. Looks like we might need to have difficulty levels. But as our combat system is still in a prototyping phase, things could go in many directions. At least we know what people want or don’t want. Or do we?
As people who know us from our previous games could tell you, we’re not the ideal developers for a deeply serious narrative. Luckily, potential players are on the right track. While our current stories will touch on some slightly more serious subjects, you can still expect an Eastern European larp comedy. More on that later. Right now, let’s see how people feel about role playing a role player.
Yes, we’re making a character maker with A LOT of hairstyles, beards, noses, civilian clothes, larp costumes and whatever else we add. Right now it’s a sad and colorless ordeal, but it’s gonna get better
But enough about us, let’s talk about the story!
Some people seem to be cautiously optimistic about it, which is fair. Larp issues can cause more than a ruined weekend. It can be a source of grievance, even trauma. So, of course over half of the people would prefer a slightly less toxic experience, even in a comedy video game.
Next is a big list of subjects that required everyone to power through, but it did create a lot of lovely data.
What subjects would you like to see covered in a story about larping?
🔵1 = Please avoid talking about this in your story.
🔴2 = I don’t mind but I also don’t care.
🟠3 = I like it, please talk about that in the story.
To no one’s surprise, it turns out that the biggest news outlet for larpers is still Facebook. I do not know how to feel about that, but I’ve seen many attempts of making unified larping channels and nothing seems to work as well as Facebook, which is a weird thing to say in 2024, but here we are.
And that’s the survey. If you found this interesting or, god forbid, fun, you can always fill it in yourself or send it to your fellow players. There were A LOT of very enlightening custom comments below each survey page, but this text is long enough as it is, so let’s just be happy with numbers and graphs for now.
