LARP’s Weird Identity Crisis: Community, Business, or Just Broke With Friends?

Here’s the thing about LARP that nobody really preps you for when you start: it’s not a fandom, it’s not a business, and it’s not a game in the traditional sense. It’s a social contract duct-taped to a stage play held together by borrowed tents, enthusiasm, and one working water spigot. And because of that, it ends up stuck between two worlds—community and commerce—and often benefits from the worst of both.

Let’s compare. If you’re into anime, you can binge episodes, argue on Discord, cosplay when you like, and still be 100% in the community fandom. You don’t need to attend conventions to prove your worth. Missing a con doesn’t revoke your fan card. You don’t have to help run panels or clean up after the rave to call yourself a fan of something. But with LARP? You aren’t part of the hobby unless you show up. That’s the deal. LARP isn’t something you passively consume—it’s something you have to physically do. It’s like if the only way to enjoy anime was to rent a convention center and run a all-day binge of Hazbin Hotelwith a bunch of your friends and hope no one gets sick.

And here’s where it gets messier. LARP has real costs: site rentals, insurance, props, gear, printing, food, travel, software, labor. But to keep it accessible, most monthly events run on shoestring budgets with ticket prices low enough to attract more than just the cosplay elite. That doesn’t make them cheap to run—it just means someone’s eating the difference. Unlike cons, there’s no vendor hall, no merch booths, no marketing sponsors slinging energy drinks. And unlike high-end blockbuster larps or immersive convention-style experiences, there’s no investor pipeline to use the experience as marketing or $800 ticket price to float your logistics. Most LARPs survive on goodwill, duct tape, and the fact that players are also invested as promoters, cast, and mutual support.

But here’s the catch: when you charge a ticket price, no matter how low, some people start thinking of LARP like a purchased product. They want to show up and be entertained. Which is a totally normal expectation—for a concert. Or a movie. Or a Ren Faire with a paid cast. But not for a shared creative endeavor that literally requires its participants to help carry the weight of the world they want to explore.

So you end up in this weird balancing act. Make it affordable and you need your players to pitch in or the whole thing breaks under its own weight. Raise prices to deliver a turnkey experience, and suddenly you’re out of reach for most of your community—and you’re still probably not making profit. Because again, no one’s selling $15 cocktails out of a tavern tent and taking vendor booth fees to cover site rental.

This is the heart of LARP’s identity crisis. It wants to be accessible and collaborative. It also needs money and logistics. And the people involved? They want meaningful experiences but are often exhausted, broke, and confused about whether they just attended a game, ran a show, or staffed a summer camp that left them emotionally shattered.

So, lets say that you’re part of a LARP that isn’t charging $800 a ticket, doesn’t have a paid cast, and isn’t secretly funded by someone’s crypto startup. Cool. That means you’re likely part of a community-focused game where the experience lives or dies based on how much the people involved care. And that includes you. Yeah—you. If you want the game to be awesome, grow, and not crumble into a puddle of “remember when it used to be good,” here are some best practices for being the kind of player who makes things better instead of silently wondering why things feel off.

So if your LARP is a community-focused game, here are some things you should consider trying to make that game stay around for more than a month or two.

1. Your Experience Is Your Responsibility (Mostly)

You’re not a passive audience member. This isn’t Netflix. LARP thrives when people build, ask, offer, and explore. If something feels a little flat, don’t ask “Why isn’t this more fun?” Ask “What can I do to make this more fun for me and the people around me?” Throw a scene. Make a deal. Start a rumor. Stop playing safe. Be weird in character. Run with it.

2. Make the Five Feet Around You Better

Whether you’re in a big scene or just sitting around the campfire, focus on the experience of the people closest to you. That’s your sphere of influence. Invite someone into your plot. Compliment a cool costume. Ask a new player about their character. The LARP gets better when you treat it like your job to be generous in-character and welcoming out-of-character.

3. Stop Hiding the Fact That You LARP

We get it. You don’t want your coworkers, your gym friends, or your Instagram followers to know you spend one weekend a month pretending to be a blood sorcerer who runs a moonshine cartel out of a tent made of PVC. But here’s the truth: your shame isn’t helping anyone. Every time someone hides the fact that they LARP, the hobby shrinks just a little bit. If you want your game to grow, talk about it. JUST DONT TALK ABOUT IT IN THE CREEPY OBSESSIVE WAY THAT MAKES PEOPLE NOT WANT TO LARP. Show people photos. Share your joy. You don’t need to give a TED Talk—you just need to be visibly excited about something you care about. People notice that energy. That’s how you get new players.

4. Yes, You Might Have to Befriend the Next Generation

LARP doesn’t exist unless new players show up. And if you’ve been LARPing for a while, you might realize that most of your friends at LARP are the ones you brought with you. That’s not a coincidence. It’s a consequence of people not being invited, not being welcomed, or feeling like they’re crashing someone else's reunion. You don’t have to adopt every college kid that shows up. But you should say hi. Ask them about their character. Tell them where the bathrooms are. Make them feel like they belong. Because one day, that 19-year-old might be the reason your game still exists five years from now. When you are at other events where you think people might enjoy larp? Have some larp specific business cards in your pocket and share them. You aren’t promoting for a company… you are trying to bring more friends into a hobby you love and meet new people.

5. If You Want a Cool Story, Help Make It

Community LARP is collaborative storytelling. If you’re waiting around for the staff to hand-deliver a story to your tent like a room service tray, you’re going to be hungry. Instead, bring plot hooks, character goals, conflicts, and consequences. Ask yourself: what happens next? Then make it happen. Loop other people in. The best storylines aren’t assigned—they’re entangled. You don’t have to show up in Oscar-worthy costuming with a Shakespearean monologue memorized and method act from the moment you put your boots on until you collapse in a heap of emotional catharsis three days later. But—and this is a gentle but firm but—you do have to try.

Once a almost-wise man said, “LARP requires costume.” I’ll go a step further: LARP requires effort. Not perfection. Not competition. Just honest, visible effort to help build the world with everyone else. That might mean wearing garb that looks like it belongs, staying in character when it matters, showing up prepared for your role, making your camp space genred, or just being emotionally present and game to play. You can’t ask the game to do everything for you while doing nothing in return. If everyone did the bare minimum, there would be no magic. You don’t have to be perfect. Just be someone who adds to the table instead of waiting to be served.

6. Share the Good Stuff

Post photos (with permission). Tell stories from the event. Brag about the moment your character got absolutely wrecked emotionally. Share out-of-character praise for staff or other players. These things build momentum and make people want to come back—or come for the first time. Social media algorithms don’t care about your humility. Hype your game group like it deserves to live.

7. Don’t Be That Cynical Veteran

You know the one. They sit around sighing about how things used to be better, used to be more fun, used to have “real plot.” That attitude is poison. If the best days of your LARP are behind you, either help create new ones or politely step aside so others can. Nostalgia is not a personality.

8. Invite One Person a Month. Just One.

Seriously. Just invite one person to check out the game. They don’t have to come immediately. They might never come. But just talk to someone in your life about what LARP is and why you love it. Plant the seed. That’s how community grows. Not from billboards or TikTok influencers. From people who care enough to say, “Hey, I think you’d have a blast doing this.”

9. Stop Playing the System and Play the Game.

This one’s for the rules lawyers, min-maxers, and mid-scene mechanics debaters out there: you are not enhancing the experience when you drop out of a moment to start arguing about how a rule works. You are dragging everyone else out of the story, out of their characters, and into a void of spreadsheet logic and misplaced priorities. That amazing, tense, emotional, or dramatic moment that was just happening? It’s gone now—buried under a pile of “well actually” and a four-minute rules debate that nobody but you wanted . You are not just disrupting the scene. You are actively sucking the fun out of LARP for everyone around you and killing the experience of the hobby for others.

Yes, mechanics matter. Yes, clarity and consistency are important. But they exist to support the story—not override it in real time. If a call feels wrong, handle it later. Bring it up respectfully. Ask questions. Offer your thoughts. But do it in a way that doesn’t derail the whole damn experience for ten people who were just trying to have a cool scene until you showed up to drop a deuce in their cereal bowl. YOUR NECESSITY FOR THINGS TO BE RIGHT ISN’T MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE SHARED EXPERIENCE.

There it is. Its simple but maybe its a message that has been lost in the modern day. If a LARP is primarily collaborative story, everyone needs to collaborate to not only make the experience better but to make your section of the hobby better. It requires some effort, some communication, some planning, and to not come to the table empty handed. Come with excitement, a desire to bring other people into the hobby, an earnest desire to have fun and make new experiences, and a willingness to put in effort. Because if you rely on others to put in the effort for you, one day they are going to stop doing it.