During week 4 the class had the opportunity of experiencing a LARP together. While I’ve only participated in one or two LARPs before, this limited exposure helped me get in the mindset as soon as I understood what we were doing. I noticed this wasn’t the case for everyone in the room – many peers seemed a little confused, and while I understand personal hangups were partially to blame for a lack of engagement, I was bummed that there wasn’t a better introduction to the type of experience we were exposed to. Another problem I noticed was a lack of consistency in rules and their enforcement, which seemed due to the lack of preparation on the part of the group facilitators (who we later learned only knew about the rules a few minutes before the participants). Specifically, our group missed some of the main beats of the LARP. Maybe if there was more an opportunity for the group facilitators to understand the goals of the experience, then the execution would have been a little smoother. Overall, however, I’m still glad we did this as a class and I’d love to see more hands-on lessons because I think the potential to engage is much stronger than a semester of lessons.
