In some of our late night Perkins conversations, my friends and I have discussed the spectrum of possibilities when it comes to LARPers. We see it as a triangle: gamers, actors, and roleplayers. You can be more of one than another, or fall somewhere in the middle. When we discuss it, we aren't looking at any of these aspects as being inherently positive and negative, they just are.

Gamers are most excited by and interested in the system and the rules. They like to turn it inside out, break it, build it up, etc. A gamer pays attention to how the game itself flows. How are characters built? How are challenges resolved? What works? What doesn't? Some people who fall heavily into this section of the triangle can be the twinks and the rules lawyers, but this section also includes the people who give games their backbone.

Actors are most excited by the good scene and the drama. They may not mind their character getting totally screwed, so long as it is done well. The actors bring the passion and the angst and do very well in staged scenes. They may even be willing to suspend logic and bend the rules a bit just because something would be particularly cool. At their best, they bring spice and flair to a game. At their worst they can hog attention and/or send a plot barrelling off the tracks.

Roleplayers are all about the character. They know how to walk the walk and talk the talk. They can tell you their character's backstory in intimate detail. They dress the part, they follow their goals, and stay true to the character's motivations. No matter how much a true roleplayer player may want to get in on the cool running gunfight, if his or her character is a pacifist with a phobia of loud noises and an allergy to gunpowder, s/he will get the character out of the way. Roleplayers are very important to LARPS, especially those with ongoing chronicles. However, taken too far, Roleplayers can get overly attached to their character and be crushed when negative things happen to the character, They may even see attacks on the character as attacks on themselves.

Very few people are all one thing. Personally, I'm probably about 5% Gamer, 35% Actor, and 60% Roleplayer.

I have a hard time learning rules and systems in games, and am not great at memorizing character stats. I generally learn one thing and stick with it as much as I can (like VtM, 2nd Ed.). I avoid combat scenes, not because they can't be cool, but because it is more reliant on system than most other aspects of LARP.

I love a good scene, especially one with appropriate ambiance, costuming, and props. One of my very favorite involved a character getting caught in the backlash of a spell gone out of control. She lost her concentration and it rebounded on her. I had prepared for the possibility by making a blood pack (out of dishsoap and food coloring) and taping it to my chest underneath a white shirt. The players/characters were gathered on a windy hilltop on a starry night. There were impassioned pleas and beseechings. When the time came for her to die, I grasped my chest in agony (and pierced the bloodpack with a concealed pin) and collapsed as a warm, red stain spread across the shirt. The player characters (PCs)surrounded her and one of them lifted her limp head into his lap. Overall, it was massively cool. I was also playing non-player character (NPC). Most of my great scenes have been as NPCs.

This is partly because I am so much more of a Roleplayer. With NPCs, I can get into their character enough to make the scene amazing, but I am not attached to them and I know they may well die. With my regular characters, I want things to go well for them, and don't want to throw them onto a sword, just for the drama of it. I'm not completely averse to conflict or setbacks, because why bother playing if there is no challenge to overcome? I don't take actions against my character personally (unless they are meant that way, but that's another story). I may be bummed if a character I like becomes unplayable for any reason. However, in a game where I had become a narrator, I ended up killing off two of my older PCs (whose story arcs I had finished) because it would make an interesting development for some of the other players.

One of the things that has made LARPing so neat for me has been the interplay of these three and interacting with people who are differently situated in the spectrum. My friend M (and my other friend M) is similar to me. My friend A seems to be mostly Actor and Gamer, with slightly less to the Roleplayer. My friend P is very much a Gamer, with Roleplayer and Actor and slightly lower levels (I'd say maybe 70/20/10 if I had to guess). My old friend R was Gamer and Roleplayer, with only a bit of Actor. I could go on and on, but I won't.

That's my take on the matter. I suppose these types also come into play in table-top gaming as well, I just don't have as much experience with that format. Any RPGers out there want to chime in?