History of Live Action Role-playing Games - South African History

South African History

LARP in South Africa is mostly single evening events of fewer than four hours in length, with 8 to 20 players. Larger, longer-term campaigns are occasionally run, most using World of Darkness: Vampire.

There is a heavy emphasis on roleplaying. In the single evening events this means that there is little use of non player characters, costumes are the norm, and simple game mechanics are used. The standard conflict-resolution systems are symbolic, usually involving dice and very simplified character proficiency statistics. Special abilities are generally handled using cards that the player using the ability shows to those affected by it. Players are usually given detailed character sheets, sometimes of up to eight pages. These included background, goals and knowledge of other characters.

Cape Town is reputed to be the LARPing capital of South Africa, and there is a large archive of LARPs written by Capetonian designers (see under External Links). In recent years, there has been an increase in LARP activity in other communities, such as Johannesburg.

Large LARP events around Johannesburg known as MEAD happen every 3 months involving hundreds of players.

The Meadal Universe is based on the SOLAR system in America and is growing, having passed the 150 player mark recently. The LARP started in 2008, and is the longest-running LARP in South Africa.

In July 2011 a second boffer larp setting was created, Tales of Teana which also runs in Johannesburg, Gauteng. Tales of Teana is affiliated with MEAD, however the larp has a completely separate organization team and runs under the NERO International system in a world called Teana. Game-play takes place in the human kingdom of Arnhelm with the rest of the world largely inhabited by non-human races. The first Teana game was scheduled for April 2012.