We’re going to be rebooting the Taipei Interactive Theatre Society for those interested in participating in live action roleplaying games.
If you are in Taipei - or live close enough to attend games every month or so - and have a desire to dress up as strange otherworldly characters in a living RPG style adventure, then drop me a line at phillips@nccu.edu.tw and let’s get this sucker up and running.
The games are run in English so be able to use the language with high competence - it is NOT and English class. Folks who are just looking for a free conversation class should give us a miss as we’re looking for folks interested in the games and the fun that comes with them. Since games are run in a private home in Taipei, the hosts have final say as to who stays with the group . . . you can understand that we prefer to play with people we feel friendly with . . . although we are certainly rather liberal and open about who we’re friendly with . . . if conflicts occur with other players, we have final say over who stays or goes. There is a charter online with some guidelines on how we run our activities (for instance, no smoking, no drinks, no drugs).
If you have experience with table top RPGs, then LARPing is the same thing only different. Instead of being GM-centered, they are player-centered. Instead of sitting around talking about your character, you dress up and become your character.
If you are not experienced with other forms of RPG, table top or computer, that’s perfectly fine . . . in the past, we’ve had folks with no roleplaying experience at all jump right into playing live games and having a ball. Really, all you have to think of it is as a version of “dress up and pretend” for adults or a costume roleplay party game (although costumes may range from elaborate to simple, depending upon player initiative and resources - if you can’t do a lot, at least give it a go and do something - see the past game galleries for examples). Everyone is given a character and then they pretend to be that person and try to solve whatever mystery is in the game or work with others to achieve their goals. It is a very social game.
We play “theatre style” LARPS or “interactive dramas” which focus on character interaction more than combat. Don’t get me wrong, your character may need to kill someone in-game or use magickal powers but combat is simulated (often with rock-scissors-paper or dice) rather than acted out the way boffer-style live combat games are played. We currently run stand-alone scenarios rather than campaigns as we like to get a chance to play many different characters in a wide variety of genres from science fiction to fantasy to horror to murder mystery whodunits . . . and, yes, I really did write my doctoral dissertation on this form of live role play gaming or interactive drama.
You can find out more about our group at the following websites:
Taipei Interactive Theatre Society main page - http://phillips.personal.nccu.edu.tw/tits/index.html(it’s a bit out of date but the basic idea of the group is there - the site will undergo a major overhaul with my other gaming sites soon)
Interactive Drama Online Photo Gallery - http://public.fotki.com/briandavidphillips/interactive_drama/ (while the main page has some photos of past events but the Fotki gallery is more complete and a lot more reliable - there are albums for our games as well as games I’ve done with students, all of which are clearly labeled)
Taipei-ITS Yahoo Group - http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Taipei-ITS/ (if you look at the other stuff and we haven’t frightened you away and you are still interested in being a part of the live role playing game group, then go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Taipei-ITS and subscribe to the email list so you can get updates on game dates and character assigments - when you sign up for the list, you will be asked to tell us a bit about yourself so we have an idea as to who we’re inviting into our home)
You will note from the webpages that the group fell into hiatus for some time but the coordinators are interested in getting things back up and running - we really miss the gaming - so we’d like to get a player list up and running within the next month or so. When we set things up before, we started small and then the group kind of just grew. I have scenarios for anywhere from fifteen to forty folks (albeit, we have found that twenty or so players to be a good upper number for large games as more than that starts getting unmanageable for a private home). When we’ve got enough folks to start with a small scenario, we’ll pick dates and start assigning characters.
If you have any questions, just contact me via email or post a question here.
- Brian