Funny you should post this Michael. A member of the Puerto Rico Role Players group posted it to the group a few days ago, and people seemed to think it was a poor representation of LARPers. I personally have never played Live Action Role Playing games, but I understood why some who do are reluctant how a movie like this will portray them. Too often people think what they see in movies is real… I called it Mazes and Monsters for the LARP crowd. I hope I’m wrong. Wonder if anyone who has seen it can chime in with their thoughts. Thanks!

While this looks both interesting and well done, I have to say I think this is exactly the sort of publicity we do NOT need for our hobby.

I live in Canada, and role playing has a fairly benign reputation here, but even in a cosmopolitan city like Vancouver, you find plenty of people who think it is corrupting people into immoral acts.

We may find Jack Chick's "Dark Dungeons" (http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0046/0046_01.asp) humorous, but everywhere around the world (and especially just south of me in the United States) there are MANY people who beleive just what he is selling.

There are good and reasonable people everywhere who know that role playing is just fun and imagination. But there are plenty who will seize on this film and use it as propaganda against our hobby…

Yeah, this might just be the kind of PR "we" do not need. But I gotta be honest with you…I don't care.

Really. With or without movies like this or the aforementioned "Dark Dungeons", people who want to be narrow-minded and see role-playing games as something evil, twisted and dangerous will see it as just that. Even if you show 'em all the good of our hobby, they will still point out what they consider "bad". You won't be able to prevent that.

Sure, it might not be so tactical to use an already "stigmatized" hobby as the backdrop for a thriller movie, but on the other hand it's one clever move. You can play with the stereotypes people already have when thinking of LARPs, and you have a chance to break a few of those. But in the end, it's all just a movie, with hopefully everything that defines a good one.

So don't worry about too much, and just enjoy the movie once it hits the screens. It might inspire your next thriller RPG. Come to think of it….a P&P campaign based on a thriller movie based on a LARP…that sounds wicked!
.-= Markus´s last blog ..Lazy Friday Video Post: The Wild Hunt =-.