Live Roleplaying: Gaming or Shaming?

Jonny's Shameful Secret It was many years ago. I was young. My friends made me. Anyhow, it came to pass suicidally early one Saturday morning that a group of us set out on British Rail to travel to Chislehurst Caves in Kent - the home of Labyrinthe. (If we were doing it now we be travelling on South West Trains and then Connex South East, but let's face it, most of you guys are Yanks and don't give a shit about the rail privatisation policy of the previous government). I've always had a bit of a problem with standing out in a crowd, but now that I was sharing a train with a bunch of lunatics wearing mediaeval costume and having mock sword fights in the aisle, my mild inhibition was rapidly mutating into a full blown phobia. And this was my problem throughout the whole day. The site itself was quite impressive. It was - literally - a hole in the ground that led down to a network of caves filled with strange looking people (strange costumes, strange makeup, strange behaviour, just generally strange really...). Although half the group were experienced LRPers, they had - out of deference to newbies like me - booked us onto an introductory scenario, where you didn't have to have any costume or anything like that. Someone else decided on things like character class. I was informed that I was to be a Warrior Priest and was told my one spell ("Spirits aid me, I abjure thee, to staunch this wound"), given a poxy one handed mace, and then we set off. I don't really remember much except for a lot of darkness, a fair bit of screaming, and a rather confused combat where one monster just grabbed hold of the end of my mace - and didn't let go - whilst his mate rained blow after blow into my side. I supposed I should have let the adrenaline flow, pulled my weapon away and let rip, but that somehow seemed... rude. It was the old inhibition problem. I felt an urge to say something Hugh-Grant-like along the lines of: "Excuse me... that's my mace... could you be so good as to let go..." It just wasn't me, and that was the problem. When you roleplay you're supposed to be able to become someone else, but I hadn't. I was still the real me, just in a cave with two blokes I'd never met before invading my personal space in a manner that distressed me. I guess I just couldn't get into the spirit of things. Luckily all the monsters were imaginary (it was the first combat of an introductory scenario) so we were all still alive - except for the moron who, upon figuring he had taken enough hits to die, had decided to theatrically fall into what we had previously been told by the GM was a "pool of acid" (which, in game terms, was the only real thing in the room). But at times, as daft as I felt, it was a very intense experience. I have never experienced a darkness so dark as when we extinguished our "torches" and sat in a tunnel whilst the scouts entered the cave. And when they started screaming their heads off I nearly shat myself.

So I went back, one more time... Back...

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