First of all, I don't disagree with any of your larger points (LARPs can be art, content doesn't define form, etc.) But enough friendly agreement - on to the quibbling around the edges!
I think it is useful to continue using a word that encompasses both boffer-fests and "Fat Man Down" because words like "literature" encompasses both Fifty Shades of Gray and The Great Gatsby. Or words like "music" encompasses Beethoven's 9th, Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" and "My Humps".
Sure. But if I ask you "What do you like to listen to?", then "music" is not a useful answer. I didn't say that LARP couldn't be an all-encompassing word, just that when it becomes that broad I'm not sure it serves as a useful indicator of what you are actually interested in. And, it may be even less useful when the ever-broadening definition of LARP starts to overlap with other fields, as in...
larp has a form that's different than acting exercises and long form improv
Always? The "Gang Rape" and "Fat Man Down" LARPs read to me (again, from a very brief summary, so there could be points I'm missing) like acting exercises. Aside from the extreme content (and we've already agreed that content doesn't define form) I can easily see these being performed in an acting class. So what attributes distinguish them as LARP?
One of the most common is Salen and Zimmerman's, from The Rules of Play: "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome."
By that definition, why is The Final Girl NOT a game?
Simple - there's no conflict (nor quantifiable outcome, for that matter.)
There's a pretense of conflict, in that the characters in the game presumably wish to live while the killer wishes them to die. But no player has goals that differ from those from another player - you don't have a particular character you want to preserve, or a particular outcome you want to make happen. You're just telling a story. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, but it's not a "game", any more than it would be a "game" if you sat down with a collaborator to write a movie script. It's just storytelling.
(Since you bring up Viola Spolin: obviously words can have more than one meaning, especially in different contexts, and improvisers use the word "game" to mean something else entirely. Most improv games are what I would term "exercises", were I to be pedantic. Like "Final Girl" or "Fat Man Down", there may be rules, but the players all have the same goals.)
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2012-05-29 05:42 pm (UTC)I think it is useful to continue using a word that encompasses both boffer-fests and "Fat Man Down" because words like "literature" encompasses both Fifty Shades of Gray and The Great Gatsby. Or words like "music" encompasses Beethoven's 9th, Jimi Hendrix's "Star-Spangled Banner" and "My Humps".
Sure. But if I ask you "What do you like to listen to?", then "music" is not a useful answer. I didn't say that LARP couldn't be an all-encompassing word, just that when it becomes that broad I'm not sure it serves as a useful indicator of what you are actually interested in. And, it may be even less useful when the ever-broadening definition of LARP starts to overlap with other fields, as in...
larp has a form that's different than acting exercises and long form improv
Always? The "Gang Rape" and "Fat Man Down" LARPs read to me (again, from a very brief summary, so there could be points I'm missing) like acting exercises. Aside from the extreme content (and we've already agreed that content doesn't define form) I can easily see these being performed in an acting class. So what attributes distinguish them as LARP?
One of the most common is Salen and Zimmerman's, from The Rules of Play: "A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules, that results in a quantifiable outcome."
By that definition, why is The Final Girl NOT a game?
Simple - there's no conflict (nor quantifiable outcome, for that matter.)
There's a pretense of conflict, in that the characters in the game presumably wish to live while the killer wishes them to die. But no player has goals that differ from those from another player - you don't have a particular character you want to preserve, or a particular outcome you want to make happen. You're just telling a story. And there's nothing wrong with that at all, but it's not a "game", any more than it would be a "game" if you sat down with a collaborator to write a movie script. It's just storytelling.
(Since you bring up Viola Spolin: obviously words can have more than one meaning, especially in different contexts, and improvisers use the word "game" to mean something else entirely. Most improv games are what I would term "exercises", were I to be pedantic. Like "Final Girl" or "Fat Man Down", there may be rules, but the players all have the same goals.)